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Apple will never satisfy my lust for cheap, powerful hardware

Limit: 500

#1

strawman

strawman

My phone and iPad are now two years old. I can't justify getting a new phone, this one is obviously slowing down with each new iOS upgrade (iPhone 5), but I will be buying a new iPad. Microsoft's surface 3 isn't going to meet my needs, and I still have an AT&T unlimited ipad data plan ($30/mo) that I can transfer to the new iPad (on LTE, even).

I haven't heard anything about the new features of the iPad that should be coming out this fall, though.

The iPhone 6 should have a larger size version available, and a few minor upgrades, but I haven't heard anything that really makes me sad that I will have to wait for the next version.

Are there very powerful, cheap phones out there that can compete with the iPhone? I never reboot it, and it does everything I need it to, but I still have yet to meet a high-power android user that doesn't have to reboot their phone weekly.


#2

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
I haven't heard anything about the new features of the iPad that should be coming out this fall, though.
Click to expand...
Beyond the announcement of the new operating systems (MacOS 10.10 and iOS 8.0), I haven't heard anything yet, either.
I tell you what, though, I can't wait for that feature of iOS 8 that'll up and tell you which apps are the ones burning all your battery. No more guessing, no more resetting to factory settings because you don't want to split-half search 135 apps on and off your phone to find out which one(s) kill battery.

--Patrick


#3

fade

fade

I've been eyeing the android world myself lately, and I am (was) an apple fan. It becoming evident that apple was a one man company and with that man gone it has no rudder. All the inventive and design elements are there, but there's no direction.


#4

MindDetective

MindDetective

I loved my iPhone but my programming "expertise" is in Java, so it seemed a natural fit to own (and code for) Android devices in my lab. Then I gave up the iPhone and picked up an Android for my pocket too. My wife's iPhone 4 seems...I don't know, quaint is the wrong word but close. It is still a remarkable device but there are some things it can't do (like widgets) that I would miss terribly.


#5

fade

fade

Yeah I think objective c was one of the worst calls apple made in the post system 9 years.


#6

Dave

Dave

Don't have a phone but I love my iPad. It's pretty new and not exactly next gen, but I can run from the monster in the temple and Skype with my son so it's all good.


#7

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
This is something they should have given developers access to long ago.
Click to expand...
The developer kit has always been able to track CPU usage, dunno about other counters.

--Patrick


#8

Zappit

Zappit

I'm quite happy with my iPad3. Got Retina. Got a solid Wi-Fi signal.

Got the ability to manufacture comic strips on it.

Yeah, I'm good. I don't need the new health functions to come along and tell me I might still be a little overweight. Don't need Retina for that when I got two of my own that are already doing that job.


#9

Frank

Frank

I use a Galaxy S3. I've no complaints. I do reboot it more than once a week, but that's mainly because I forget about it in my pants and it dies overnight after being left on for a couple of days.


#10

bhamv3

bhamv3

Frank said:
I use a Galaxy S3. I've no complaints. I do reboot it more than once a week, but that's mainly because I forget about it in my pants and it dies overnight after being left on for a couple of days.
Click to expand...
I'm still using an S2. No complaints here either. Thinking of replacing it soon though, since it's starting to break down a bit from wear and tear. Pondering getting one of the Galaxy Note series, I like the idea of a bigger screen.


#11

Frank

Frank

bhamv3 said:
I'm still using an S2. No complaints here either. Thinking of replacing it soon though, since it's starting to break down a bit from wear and tear. Pondering getting one of the Galaxy Note series, I like the idea of a bigger screen.
Click to expand...
My buddy has a Note. I like big phones, but I don't need a tablet in my pocket. He also has a third party extended battery on his. It's....ridiculous.


#12

PatrThom

PatrThom

My experience is a bit limited, since I didn't get my first REAL (digital not analog) cell phone until Nov'09, and even then, it was just a pay-as-you-go flip phone with no camera. I acquired an iPhone 5 in Oct of last year, and its capabilities as a portable device are a huuuuuuuuge step up from what I've ever been able to do previously. Calls? Yep. Camera? GPS? Covered. Music? Games? Movies? Educational widget? Decent Web browsing? PDA? Texting? E-reader? All of that, and more. When our home Internet went out for a couple days, I even activated tethering and shared it to the entire home network so we weren't stranded (and now you know my secret, @jwhouk ). It may be a 2012 model smartphone, but I've come to rely on it for so many things. So yes, I would say I'm happy with it.

--Patrick


#13

Eriol

Eriol

When in the last 15 (20? More?) years has Apple ever been known for being Cheap in the slightest? Their PC hardware is usually at LEAST 50% more expensive than the SAME components, and has been that way since they moved to x86 processors. And even in the mobile space, it's been the same, about 50% (at least) more expensive for having an Apple-branded device.

If people love the experience, and whatever else, fine, but hardware? Ya right.


#14

fade

fade

I pay the same co pay for my apple phone that I would for an android. I don't think Id ever pay full price for either.


#15

GasBandit

GasBandit

Still standing strong with my Droid 1! Though that's probably because my nexus 7 tablet supplements it nicely. As I said in another thread though, I'm thinking about getting the Nexus 5 phone.


#16

Eriol

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Still standing strong with my Droid 1! Though that's probably because my nexus 7 tablet supplements it nicely. As I said in another thread though, I'm thinking about getting the Nexus 5 phone.
Click to expand...
If you can wait until November, that's the most likely date for the Nexus 6 to come out. Even if you go with the 5, there'll be a price cut then on it with the new one released.


#17

drawn_inward

drawn_inward

I am quite happy with my iPad3 (got it as a graduation gift). I've used it tons (still use it). We rarely use our laptop anymore. I have tapered off buying apps. I don't do much more than Netflix/quick games/internet. So, I don't really see the need to upgrade for a long while. I also can't justify getting a new PC of any sort b/c of the lack of use.

Phone-wise: I have coveted the iPhones and have never owned one. I went for an LG G2 (32gig - first "smart phone") after having a flip phone for all of grad school. I couldn't bring myself to pay $$ for the iPhone5, and the specs comparison made me jump for the G2. It's pretty rad.


#18

HCGLNS

HCGLNS

I've never had to reboot my Pickett N200T since I started using it. $200 well spent.


#19

Covar

Covar

My reaction to the thread title:

Xli3jmR.gif




I'm probably going to switch from the nexus 5 to the iPhone 6. I've had the nexus 5 since it came out, and it's already having battery issues, a scratch on the screen, and the lettering on the back has pealed off leaving a nice place for dirt to gather. iOS 8 looks great, I love the idea of touch id, and I've yet to use an android camera that can compete with the iPhone's OOB. My 4S on average takes better pictures than my nexus 5. It's pathetic really.


#20

GasBandit

GasBandit

I finally broke down and got a new phone. It's quite a step up going from a Droid 1 to an LG G3. The camera in it is 13mp and looks amazing. The difference between 128 megs of ram and 3 gigs is also understandably awesome.


#21

fade

fade

Wouldn't that break it?


#22

GasBandit

GasBandit

Heh, and I didn't even know about the Quad HD display til I got it home and was getting it how I wanted it. Just shows-ta-go-ya that it's probably utterly wasted on a handheld device. But heck, I'm only out $100 out of pocket, and ironically my monthly bill is going to go down by about $20 a month.


#23

GasBandit

GasBandit

I don't even own any media above 1080p.


#24

Covar

Covar

Netflix has House of Cards available in 4k,but it's restricted to specific TV sets iirc.


#25

Dei

Dei

My iphone 5 has had the worst battery issues since I got it, and now it is to the point that it dies 20 minutes after I unplug it. Totally switching to Android when my contract is up. I still like iPads though. :p


#26

GasBandit

GasBandit

Oh, and just to clarify, the G3 doesn't have a 4k display, it has "Quad HD," which is 4 times 720, or 2560x1440, not 4 times 1080 (which would be 4k)


#27

MindDetective

MindDetective

Dei said:
My iphone 5 has had the worst battery issues since I got it, and now it is to the point that it dies 20 minutes after I unplug it. Totally switching to Android when my contract is up. I still like iPads though. :p
Click to expand...
Just appeared on Lifehacker: http://gizmodo.com/iphone-5-battery-letting-you-down-apple-might-replace-1625777526


#28

PatrThom

PatrThom

Dei said:
My iphone 5 has had the worst battery issues since I got it, and now it is to the point that it dies 20 minutes after I unplug it. Totally switching to Android when my contract is up. I still like iPads though. :p
Click to expand...
If you go in, they can tell you whether or not the battery needs to be replaced. Free if in warranty/gizmodo program, about $80 otherwise.

I am so looking forward to iOS 8's better battery monitoring. Some serious app reining/corralling/deleting may go on if I discover that, say, Facebook takes up 30% of my daily battery use*.

--Patrick
*I don't actually use the Facebook/Messenger apps, I just needed an example everyone could relate to.


#29

Dei

Dei

Of course, I also have fucked speakers and my power button doesn't work, so that will probably void my chances. :p[DOUBLEPOST=1408751339,1408751198][/DOUBLEPOST]My phone is indeed eligible. Might try it regardless and see if they'll still fix it.[DOUBLEPOST=1408751393][/DOUBLEPOST]AH HA, it's only applies to things that affect battery replacement. SCORE![DOUBLEPOST=1408751507][/DOUBLEPOST]Will go do this on Monday, I need my phone number available because my daughter is away at camp.


#30

PatrThom

PatrThom

Dei said:
AH HA, it's only applies to things that affect battery replacement. SCORE!
Click to expand...
Yeah. A busted display will probably fragment during removal, and that gets expensive quickly.
Dei said:
Will go do this on Monday, I need my phone number available because my daughter is away at camp.
Click to expand...
Start the backup now! Those things can take forever if you haven't been doing them all along, and they can only be done on WiFi (unless you are saving it to your computer).

--Patrick


#31

GasBandit

GasBandit

Well, the G3 seems to drain its (more powerful) battery faster than my droid 1... but I don't know if that's because I fiddle with it more, being new, or if because now I actually have a reason to keep its wifi antenna on and connected, since it has the brainpower to deal with background apps and a 2gb data limit.


#32

Dei

Dei

I'd save it to my PC, and I'm pretty sure I last did it pretty recently.


#33

GasBandit

GasBandit

Heh, to move all my stuff from my droid 1 to my G3, all I had to do was pop out the SDcard and put it in the new phone. Voila. All my contacts and e-mail naturally came across with my google accounts.


#34

fade

fade

My iPhone 5 lasts a couple of days, and it's 2 years old.


#35

PatrThom

PatrThom

It's mainly about demand. Do a lot, drain a lot.
I've had a full charge last about 4hrs (as a GPS), and I've had a full charge last about 4-1/2 days. All depends on what you're doing with it.
Sooooo looking forward to iOS 8.

--Patrick


#36

fade

fade

Well sure. I wasn't even counting when the GPS antenna comes on because it burns through the battery so ridiculously fast.


#37

Shakey

Shakey

GasBandit said:
Well, the G3 seems to drain its (more powerful) battery faster than my droid 1... but I don't know if that's because I fiddle with it more, being new, or if because now I actually have a reason to keep its wifi antenna on and connected, since it has the brainpower to deal with background apps and a 2gb data limit.
Click to expand...
Using the big high res screen of the G3 really drains it, which you're probably using a lot of since it's new and you're playing with it. It should last about the same if not longer than the D1 when you manage it better.

I looked long and hard at the G3, but went with the HTC One M8.


#38

GasBandit

GasBandit

I'm a bit disappointed that chrome insists on treating the G3's display as if it is 598x360. I'd rather have at least 720p and then use pinch to zoom.


#39

Eriol

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Well, the G3 seems to drain its (more powerful) battery faster than my droid 1... but I don't know if that's because I fiddle with it more, being new, or if because now I actually have a reason to keep its wifi antenna on and connected, since it has the brainpower to deal with background apps and a 2gb data limit.
Click to expand...
I would be betting on your screen. If you go into the dropdown menu and touch the upper right, then touch the battery icon, it will give you a breakdown of what is draining your battery. The biggest battery hog is very often the screen.


#40

GasBandit

GasBandit

"Google Play Services," so far, today... but I've not been playing with it as much, either, so the screen's been off.

But fuckin Google Play Services. It's a known issue in the community.


#41

PatrThom

PatrThom

http://lifehacker.com/disable-animations-on-android-to-improve-performance-1583554900

--Patrick


#42

GasBandit

GasBandit

So 11 hours on battery under standard conditions with zero use and connected to the house Wifi drains the battery 20% (to 80%). About 2% an hour. That's not horrible, I suppose.

So now I've tried turning off Wifi. I've had it off the charger for 2 hours and it's still 100%. We'll see what it's like after a day of normal use. The old Droid 1 could go a 24 hour period of normal use and be down to about 60% (I would charge it up on the PC's USB while I get ready for work in the morning, then not put it back on the charger until the next morning).


#43

Dei

Dei

I am bringing in my phone to get a new battery tomorrow yay!


#44

fade

fade

You know what would be an awesome feature for my iPhone? Setting alert style by time of day. I want irritating buzzes during the day, but I don't want them at night. I know there's a similar feature in the form of Do Not Disturb, but that's a little too severe.


#45

GasBandit

GasBandit

Alarm woke me up this morning. So nearly 24 hours off the charger, and really it was a somewhat higher-than-average day of use yesterday, the G3 sits at 65% battery power. Not too bad.

Gonna try it again today leaving wifi on all the time to see if it makes the huge difference I think it does.


#46

GasBandit

GasBandit

Jeezus. 2 hours later and it's only up to 95% Guess I'm going to have to start charging it overnight. The USB charger is apparently hella-slow. Maybe I should try the wall charger.


#47

Eriol

Eriol

GasBandit said:
Jeezus. 2 hours later and it's only up to 95% Guess I'm going to have to start charging it overnight. The USB charger is apparently hella-slow. Maybe I should try the wall charger.
Click to expand...
That's usually how it works. The old USB standard amount of power is less than a wall charger can pump out.


#48

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
The old USB standard amount of power is less than a wall charger can pump out.
Click to expand...
USB 1/2 = 500ma (2.5W) max (I think, not sure about USB 1.x)
USB 3 = 900ma (4.5W)
Many phone chargers put out 1000-2000ma (5-10W) or more, but even a 2.1 amp charger is still going to take 6hrs to 0-100 charge the 40+ Watt-hour battery (11,000+ mah) you find in a modern iPad. This is why battery technologies are in the news so much lately...we haven't found an economical battery that lasts a long time but charges quickly (without exploding or having an extremely short lifetime, that is).

--Patrick


#49

PatrThom

PatrThom

Also, any intelligent charging circuitry will slow down to a trickle charge as the battery gets closer to 100%.
Keeps down the rupture/explosion potential.

--Patrick


#50

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Thank you for your time and attention.
Click to expand...
"Thermal events," they call 'em.
Hey I was happy enough that our figures matched.

--Patrick


#51

fade

fade

Is that like how Marines don't retreat, they just advance to the rear?


#52

Dei

Dei

So I brought my phone in to get a new battery, and I also had a known issue with the sleep/wake button no longer working. They kept making me unplug my phone to move around the store, even though every time they made me do it it made my phone die and refuse to boot up until it was plugged in for 5 - 10 minutes. After *90* minutes of waiting and this bullshit they finally decide that they are just going to replace the battery and then run the diagnostic to send it in to get the power button replaced. This will take up to 3 hours because there is a queue of phones waiting in the battery area, and they can't process my loaner phone until they can run a diagnostic. I scream and rage inside, then just assign this task to my husband, since he can just stop by after work and pick up my loaner phone since I have to talk to my son's teachers tonight. So he gets a call at 5:15 that the phone is ready and he can come in. He goes in and the guy there has no idea what he is talking about and that takes 30 minutes to straighten out. Then it turns out that after they got around to replacing my battery, they don't *have* a loaner phone to give me so that they can send in my phone to replace the power button. So apparently they are just going to replace the whole phone for free? My brain hurts. But I have my own phone back, new battery but broken power button until my replacement shows up.

Also I think my husband's return trip was something like another 90 min to 2 hours. Fucking Apple Store.


#53

GasBandit

GasBandit

Okay, I tried the wall charger and it was like night and day. The wifi on plus me playing a game or two meant I was down to 60 by the time I got home today. But after only an hour on the wall charger it was back up to full. Also you were right about it slowing down its charging as it neared 100, it was easy to see on the graph.


#54

PatrThom

PatrThom

Dei said:
Fucking Apple Store.
Click to expand...
Yeah, Apple's getting absolutely crushed with those battery replacements right now.

--Patrick


#55

Dei

Dei

The 5 apparently has a very long list of known issues, of which I turned out to have 3, and didn't just break it after all. ;)

(Actually I probably did break it, but I wasn't going to SAY that if it matched up to a known issue :p)


#56

PatrThom

PatrThom

I have a 5, and mine has none of them (though it is eligible for the button one).
I don't know whether I just got lucky, or whether I'm just not as hard on my phone as others are to theirs.
Whatever. Upgrade availability is coming soon, we'll see where it leads.

--Patrick


#57

Dei

Dei

Well, I apparently bought mine too early, which is where the battery issue comes from. :p Beyond that I have no idea.


#58

drifter

drifter

stienman said:
Latest iPhone 6 leak. Not sure I'm loving it, looks like i'll definitely hold onto my 5 for another year...

Click to expand...
I didn't know @Necronic was moonlighting as a tech reporter.


#59

Terrik

Terrik

Got a Samsung Galaxy 5s. No complaints here.


#60

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
So basically what you two are telling me is that I should damage my iphone 5 before the applecare runs out because it's most likely going to eventually fail given that I got it on release day?
Click to expand...
You'd have to pay the replacement fee and probably want to make sure nothing was on it, but I'd advise making SURE you are covered before something unexpected "happens" to it.

--Patrick


#61

fade

fade

I'm more inclined to believe it's because of the rumors of a smart watch and a phablet, both of which interest me so little.


#62

PatrThom

PatrThom

I'm still hoping the AppleTV and Mac Mini got together and had a baby.
And you use an iPad as the display (when it's not hooked to your TV).

--Patrick


#63

GasBandit

GasBandit

The commercials for the amazon phone are out. I've never wanted to punch children so much in my life.



#64

Eriol

Eriol

stienman said:
But I'm not a marketing guru.
Click to expand...
So you're a Crapulet (Ep 28) then? ;)


#65

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
The commercials for the amazon phone are out. I've never wanted to punch children so much in my life.
Click to expand...
It appears plenty of Internet denizens echo your sentiment.
As for Apple, of course security is a huuuuge concern (not just due to The Fappening, but also with control over their own announcements/ecosphere). I'm still waiting to see whether the effort is going to be spent revamping the Mini, beefing up the Apple TV, or ... perhaps combining both of them into one single unit that occupies both niches.

--Patrick


#66

fade

fade

Only if it stays $99. I like my Apple TV, but I don't really want an HTPC. If it becomes one, I'll probably jump to a Roku or Chromecast.


#67

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
Only if it stays $99. I like my Apple TV, but I don't really want an HTPC. If it becomes one, I'll probably jump to a Roku or Chromecast.
Click to expand...
If it becomes one, it could signal a move away from the x86 ISA. Hello, Swift.
680x0 was 10 years, PPC was 12, it's been x86 for 8 now.

--Patrick


#68

fade

fade

Apple's been prepping for fluidity in CPU for a while now, what with adopting LLVM and Clang. It'd be interesting to see. Maybe Clang will finally support OpenMP. Nevermind, looks like OpenMP finally made it in late last year. Shows how much I keep up with apple scientific computing lately.


#69

fade

fade

Maybe this happened a while ago, but I just used Siri and her voice is way more natural.


#70

fade

fade

I don't use it much and I know Siri is served. I thought the phonemes were stored locally though. However several tests on my phone all reveal a much more realistic voice. Is this for tomorrow's release or did I just miss it earlier?


#71

Covar

Covar

I know it improved a lot from 6 to 7. If you gave up on in back in iOS 6 you probably just missed it.


#72

Covar

Covar

I tuned into the TWiT Live feed as they're setting up for their coverage. It's fun watching the behind the scenes as they get setup, and making fun of the over-analyzing that gets done before the announcement.


#73

fade

fade

http://live.gizmodo.com/our-new-iphone-liveblog-starts-right-here-on-9-9-at-1pm-1629704968


#74

fade

fade

The big announcement is that they are activating the mind control wave in every iDevice. Jobs's consciousness will be uploaded to all users a la Agent Smith.


#75

fade

fade

Seriously, though, all the leaks were pretty much dead on as usual. Curved front, thinner, two sizes. The bigger one is called the 6 plus. Faster processor than 99% of users will never take advantage of.


#76

fade

fade

As anticipated, there's a watch, and it's quite nice. That being said, I just don't see the place for it when I've got something that does the same and more sitting in my pocket.


#77

Covar

Covar

People probably said the exact same thing when wrist watches were developed. I much prefer my watch to my phone when it comes to checking the time. I think Apple ties Motorola for nicest looking smart watch. They were also smart enough to make it two different sizes.


#78

Shakey

Shakey

fade said:
As anticipated, there's a watch, and it's quite nice. That being said, I just don't see the place for it when I've got something that does the same and more sitting in my pocket.
Click to expand...
I haven't followed the reveal real close. Does the watch come with GPS? It would be nice to leave the phone behind on a run or bike ride and have the watch store your activity until you get back and can sync it.


#79

Covar

Covar

Shakey said:
I haven't followed the reveal real close. Does the watch come with GPS? It would be nice to leave the phone behind on a run or bike ride and have the watch store your activity until you get back and can sync it.
Click to expand...
I don't think so? I'm watching the stream, and the guy running the demo is showing off the map app and hasn't mentioned the GPS.


#80

Shakey

Shakey

Covar said:
I don't think so? I'm watching the stream, and the guy running the demo is showing off the map app and hasn't mentioned the GPS.
Click to expand...
Booooo.


#81

Covar

Covar

accelerometer to measure movement, heartrate tracker, but it uses the phone's GPS.


#82

fade

fade

I was warming up to the watch the more they showed. Then they showed the price. $349


#83

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
I was warming up to the watch the more they showed. Then they showed the price. $349
Click to expand...
It's Apple. People will pay it.


#84

Covar

Covar

GasBandit said:
It's Apple. People will pay it.
Click to expand...
It's a watch, that price isn't nuts.


#85

GasBandit

GasBandit

Covar said:
It's a watch, that price isn't nuts.
Click to expand...
Also true. I have friends who've paid $300 for watches that do way less.


#86

Covar

Covar

if it has the build quality of a similar watch of that price it will be a great value. As far as smart watches go you don't have much options, either get a new phone or a pebble.


#87

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Also true. I have friends who've paid $300 for watches that do way less.
Click to expand...
I've had coworkers who've paid $600 for a watch, if you can believe it.
And then they show it off to anyone within arm's reach.

Also, store webpage is still down.

--Patrick


#88

Shakey

Shakey

Except those watches will still function normally if you decide to switch your phone manufacturer. :-p


#89

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

The bigger phone would require me to re-tailor the pockets of most of my pants. And possibly get finger-extenders (I have short fingers for my palm size).


#90

PatrThom

PatrThom

I don't wear a watch now, why would I want to start? I suppose it's a handy "tethered" sensor for software that wants to be on your skin and in your pocket simultaneously, much like a TNG tricorder. I'm more interested in the fact that the 6's screen resolutions are 720 and 1080, and the fact that 32GB was dropped as an option.

--Patrick


#91

GasBandit

GasBandit

Personally, I'm not interested in a watch I have to recharge constantly, as opposed to just buying a cheap battery every couple years.


#92

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
Personally, I'm not interested in a watch I have to recharge constantly, as opposed to just buying a cheap battery every couple years.
Click to expand...
I can't even stand that, my watch is solar powered.


#93

GasBandit

GasBandit

[DOUBLEPOST=1410303046,1410302951][/DOUBLEPOST]On the other hand...



#94

fade

fade

Well it doesn't hurt that about half of those were iPhone features for years.


#95

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Also, Google and Windows should be thanking Apple.

By forcing carriers to accept secure-NFC connections as a payment system (which Verizon and AT&T blocked when Google & Windows tried it in order to promote their own NFC system with separate accounts and carrier-only transactions), Apple has opened the way to them possibly being able to use theirs to the full functionality they wanted before.


#96

GasBandit

GasBandit



#97

PatrThom

PatrThom

I wonder how much of the one-handedability is a function of the UI, not the dimensions.

--Patrick


#98

Covar

Covar

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
Yeah the Verge has a bias rivaled only by a Gawker site. You should read their Windows Phone reviews, "The hardware is great, the OS is great, there's apps for everything I do, 6/10."


#99

Covar

Covar

PatrThom said:
I wonder how much of the one-handedability is a function of the UI, not the dimensions.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Things like the curved edges can also make a big difference.

I'm still debating whether to get the 6 or the 6 plus. Right now I'm leaning toward the 6 Plus for optical image stabilization in the camera lens.


#100

fade

fade

Every time iOS absorbs a feature into the core OS, the Android fanboys seem to mistake that for meaning that you were never able to do that thing on an iPhone before. Which is funny, because usually the same 3rd party app they point out that they were using on their phones was also on iPhone the whole time. I don't really care which phone someone uses, personally, but I do dislike smug, unfounded superiority from either camp.


#101

Covar

Covar

stienman if you're on a two year contract plan, it's in your best financial interest to upgrade your phone every two years.


#102

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
we are moving twice in the next three months
Click to expand...
Twice?

--Patrick


#103

GasBandit

GasBandit



#104

PatrThom

PatrThom

Ooo, not me.

Now, get two watches and mount them into a wearable Oculesque sort of display, and you might be onto something.

--Patrick


#105

GasBandit

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Ooo, not me.

Now, get two watches and mount them into a wearable Oculesque sort of display, and you might be onto something.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
HA HA HA HA...

Can't you imagine? People walking around with their wrists smushed over their eyes, their hands jammed together back-to-back, curled out in front, elbows to the sides, blindly staggering about to move in-game, flicking and flexing their fingers to control "clicks?" Stumbling into traffic and bumping into walls


#106

PatrThom

PatrThom

It's the drive-while-doing-it crowd I'm more worried about. Buncha Dick Tracy wannabes.

--Patrick


#107

GasBandit

GasBandit



#108

Covar

Covar

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
[DOUBLEPOST=1410390080,1410390046][/DOUBLEPOST]


#109

ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

I'd probably be interested or excited in these new phones if I ever previously owned any Apple product. Which I haven't.


#110

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Can't you imagine? People walking around with their wrists smushed over their eyes, their hands jammed together back-to-back, curled out in front, elbows to the sides, blindly staggering about to move in-game, flicking and flexing their fingers to control "clicks?" Stumbling into traffic and bumping into walls
Click to expand...
Don't we already have this with the Google Glass folks?

--Patrick


#111

GasBandit

GasBandit



#112

PatrThom

PatrThom

I know talent when I see it, and that lady has talent.

--Patrick


#113

Shakey

Shakey

ArsTechnica has a nice little write up on the UI differences in the Apple watch, and Google wear watches. I think the following quote really sums up what makes me wonder about the direction of Apple without Jobs.
Google seems content with only a few lines of text OR one button per screen, while Apple seems to want to pack as much into a single screen as it can. It's almost the complete opposite of what you would expect from the two companies: Google built an airy, picture-heavy OS, while Apple built a more powerful, denser OS with an all-black motif.
Click to expand...


#114

Covar

Covar

Pre-ordered the 64GB 6 Plus from T-Mobile this morning. I'm excited. Especially to have a great camera on my phone again.


#115

GasBandit

GasBandit

The onion does a comparison -



#116

Eriol

Eriol

Interesting then-and-now for publications and reviewers of "phablets" http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/phablet-reviews-iphone-6-plus-and-before/

I particularly liked this quote:
Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.
– Lauren Goode
Click to expand...
Yes, you (and many others) are stuck in Apple's reality-distortion field.


#117

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I'm disappointed that no one is taking my view.

"I wish they had stuck with a 4-in screen because I like only needing one hand to use my phone when on the subway. But if that's not an option and I won't be able to do that, then fuck it, let's go with the big phone and the big battery"


#118

fade

fade

I have no desire for a big phone. Someone asked me the other day how I would watch movies on it. My answer was, "IT'S A PHONE."


#119

PatrThom

PatrThom

SpecialKO said:
I'm disappointed that no one is taking my view.
Click to expand...
This will be our new forum meme "Hey, is this where all the old people come in to complain about stuff?"
In my opinion, a phablet's entire raison d'être is for the unwashed masses who can't afford both a separate phone and tablet. Peasants.

Also, it's telling when old people start wanting a phone to be smaller.

--Patrick


#120

Covar

Covar

PatrThom said:
This will be our new forum meme "Hey, is this where all the old people come in to complain about stuff?"
In my opinion, a phablet's entire raison d'être is for the unwashed masses who can't afford both a separate phone and tablet. Peasants.

Also, it's telling when old people start wanting a phone to be smaller.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Large screen phones sell best in places like China and India, where a persons primary (and sometimes only) computing device is likely their phone.


#121

GasBandit

GasBandit

I can't even fathom the kind of tard that tries to keep a 5.5" phone in a pants pocket.



#122

Covar

Covar

I keep mine in my front pocket. You know what I can't do then? sit on it.


#123

fade

fade

Covar said:
I keep mine in my front pocket. You know what I can't do then? sit on it.
Click to expand...
The two accounts everyone is citing actually are in the front pocket.


#124

GasBandit

GasBandit

Covar said:
I keep mine in my front pocket. You know what I can't do then? sit on it.
Click to expand...
Actually these are people who do keep theirs in their front pocket.

Still pretty stupid, especially if you're wearing stupidly tight hipster jeans.


#125

fade

fade

pbakhezz0hgdcd0xt5rb.png


#126

Zappit

Zappit

Put it in your back pocket? Wouldn't the average American derrière just bend it more that way?


#127

GasBandit

GasBandit

Zappit said:
Put it in your back pocket? Wouldn't the average American derrière just bend it more that way?
Click to expand...
No pants pockets at all, unless it's like the big loose front pockets of shorts or something. Even then I'd be iffy as all hell. I keep my phone in my shirt pocket.

And I thought everybody but me got super-indestructo bulletproof cases for their phones the instant they were out of the box?


#128

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Funnily, I met a guy who works for Xiaomi in China, and he told me the "in" thing among the tech crowd there is to get your slacks/khakis/short re-tailored to have extra large pockets in loose-fitting pants legs.


#129

Zappit

Zappit

This will be the end of skinny jeans. Crushing your organs? That didn't do it. Restricting blood flow? Nope. Wedgies that cannot be Un-wedged? Nah.

But if the iPhone gets bent 3 degrees, then fuck those pants!


#130

fade

fade

To be fair, there aren't too many reports of this. Hell, most of the news outlets are going on the two main reports that keep getting cited. Also, similar reports from Samsung and other phones previously.

More of a shock to me was the roll out and rapid recall of iOS 8.0.1 today.


#131

Zappit

Zappit

IOS 8.:thumbsdown:.1


#132

Covar

Covar

Apple responds to bent iPhone 6 complaints, all nine of them


#133

fade

fade

Yeah, this thing is crazy. Nearly every story reports the same cases: the guy who does it intentionally on YouTube, and the guy who drove 18 hours with it in his front pocket. And the comments are filled with idiots bashing Apple. Look, Apple has problems, but not as many as internet commenters.


#134

GasBandit

GasBandit

I didn't see the phone bending as a problem with the phone, I saw it as a problem with people who put their phones in tight pants pockets.


#135

GasBandit

GasBandit

Further thought - I mean, I'm pretty sure that if I pop the plastic back cover off this LG G3, I'd be able to bend it in my pocket too. That's just a bad place for phones.

And I'm still trying to figure out how all of a sudden nobody's using the once-ubiquitous otterboxes any more.


#136

MindDetective

MindDetective

Love the commuter Otterbox.


#137

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I'm still trying to figure out how all of a sudden nobody's using the once-ubiquitous otterboxes any more.
Click to expand...
Because then the iPhone becomes even bigger than bigger than bigger.

--Patrick


#138

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Apparently, there are no otterbox cases for the 6 plus yet.


#139

GasBandit

GasBandit

Herp derp ah put muh macbook in muh pocket n'lookit now.



#140

PatrThom

PatrThom

That looks like some sort of "got stuck in a pinch point" situation. This would be a good time to remind everyone that the airlines are liable for anywhere from about $1200-3500 depending on the flight, so make sure you document everything.

Also, it looks like there's a chance the HDD could've survived. If so, that's one lucky break.

--Patrick


#141

Dave

Dave

GasBandit said:
I can't even fathom the kind of tard that tries to keep a 5.5" phone in a pants pocket.

Click to expand...
Jesus fucking christ. This dude is a self-proclaimed "Graduate Product Designer (and injured cyclist) currently freelancing." (Emphasis mine.)

Graduate, huh? Then fucking learn the difference between "their" and "there", you fucking moron!


#142

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Hmm. Apple sells 10 million phones, receives nine complaints of bent phones. Internet goes crazy, not because there's a problem, but because it's the only problem they can possibly come up with to point and laugh at a company that makes over 170 billion dollars each year.
Click to expand...
Don't forget the rumors that the CEO of said company might be GAAAAAAAYYY...

--Patrick


#143

fade

fade

stienman said:
Hmm. Apple sells 10 million phones, receives nine complaints of bent phones.

Internet goes crazy, not because there's a problem, but because it's the only problem they can possibly come up with to point and laugh at a company that makes over 170 billion dollars each year.
Click to expand...
No kidding. Good luck getting a 0.00009% failure rate on your product.


#144

PatrThom

PatrThom

OH IT'S ON NOW
iOS 8 makes it easier to access desktop websites in Safari
YEAH YOU HEARD ME INTERNET
NO MORE HIDING BEHIND "OPTIMIZED" MOBILE PAGES

Seriously, this is my second-favorite feature behind the ability to see what's been using my battery.

--Patrick


#145

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

Hasn't every other mobile browser for at least the past 5 years been able to identify as a desktop browser in order to avoid that shit?


#146

fade

fade

I mean, you could always just download an alternate browser. On the other hand, Safari is usually way ahead of the curve on CSS support and memory consumption.


#147

Covar

Covar

Chrome is not yet scaled for the iPhone 6 or 6+. I wouldn't care except the browser viewport gets blown up along with the UI. Until they fix it I've been using Safari. Having not used it since iOS 6 I've got to say it's a big improvement from before.


#148

PatrThom

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
Hasn't every other mobile browser for at least the past 5 years been able to identify as a desktop browser in order to avoid that shit?
Click to expand...
Not all of them, no. Certainly not the ones I enjoy using the most.

--Patrick


#149

PatrThom

PatrThom

Welp, waiting for confirmation that the newest models do indeed have 2GB RAM.

--Patrick


#150

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
The 5k retina iMac is only 220dpi. They'll call anything retina these days.
Click to expand...
Well, the iMacR vertical resolution is the same as the horizontal resolution of the MBPr15 (2800 pixels). In fact, it's almost the same as stacking 3 of the MBPr displays sideways. (5120 v. 5400). That's a lot of pixels.
I'm not exactly sure what I would do with that many pixels, but it's sure a lot more pixels than that doofus Bill has in accounting. You hear that, Bill?

--Patrick


#151

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Yeah, they had to fiddle around with the video driver and chipset and I'm sure they're running it funky.
Click to expand...
They're running the Radeon line, so I assume it's probably based off some derivation of AMD's current Eyefinity capability.
desktop-productivity3-620.jpg


--Patrick


#152

Covar

Covar

stienman said:
The 5k retina iMac is only 220dpi. They'll call anything retina these days. Still a very nice display, but I'm not shelling out $2,500 for it.

All the ipads just dropped in price by $100, though, so I will finally replace my stolen ipad and transfer my at&t unlimited data plan to it.
Click to expand...
[DOUBLEPOST=1413493796,1413493412][/DOUBLEPOST]
stienman said:
The 5k retina iMac is only 220dpi. They'll call anything retina these days.
Click to expand...
the dpi and the marketing definition of retina apple uses means my 1080p TV is retina. Can't distinguish individual pixels from the standard viewing distance.​


#153

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

stienman said:
But I know people who are perfectly happy with 720p, so as far as I'm concerned, this is a Steak Discussion™
Click to expand...
I thought you were saying that it was entirely up to personal preference and no one was right or wrong, but now I'm confused on your analogy. :confused:


#154

PatrThom

PatrThom

SpecialKO said:
I thought you were saying that it was entirely up to personal preference and no one was right or wrong, but now I'm confused on your analogy. :confused:
Click to expand...
He was saying that people who are content with 720p should be rare.

--Patrick


#155

Covar

Covar

PatrThom said:
He was saying that people who are content with 720p should be rare.

--Patrick
Click to expand...

Well done, PatrThom. Well done.


#156

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hmm.

More than anything else, I think the most interesting takeaway from this most recent rollout is this new SIM thing.
A preinstalled data-only SIM card has been inserted into the [device], and allows users to change carriers at the tap of a finger.
Click to expand...
--Patrick


#157

PatrThom

PatrThom

^^^

Oh, wait:
When you choose AT&T on iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, AT&T [permanently locks] Apple SIM to their network only.
Click to expand...
BOOOOO...

--Patrick


#158

GasBandit

GasBandit

The new macbook only has one (USB-C) port. Yes, one port only - and you have to charge the macbook through that port, too. But they'll sell you an adapter for 80 bucks.









#159

fade

fade

"Can we please get rid of all these ports and the obsolete drives?"

"Okay, we did that."

"THESE ASSHOLES GOT RID OF ALL THE EXTRA PORTS AND DRIVES!"


#160

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
"Can we please get rid of all these ports and the obsolete drives?"

"Okay, we did that."

"THESE ASSHOLES GOT RID OF ALL THE EXTRA PORTS AND DRIVES!"
Click to expand...
Who the heck asked for less ports?

Obsolete drives? The last few years have proven to most how utterly not-ready-for-prime-time the "cloud" is. The only reason I don't use USB sticks more is I use FTP for most of my transfers :p


#161

Bowielee

Bowielee

I could do without my internal DVD rom drive. I never use that thing. But ports? yeah, who would ever want fewer ports?


#162

GasBandit

GasBandit

Ehhhhh I dunno... the long experience of having to reinstall windows every 3 or 4 years makes me queasy at the thought of giving up a bootable optical drive, even though I know perfectly well bootable USB drives are a thing, and have used them on numerous occasions myself.


#163

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Who the heck asked for less ports?
Obsolete drives? The last few years have proven to most how utterly not-ready-for-prime-time the "cloud" is. The only reason I don't use USB sticks [because] I use FTP for most of my transfers :p
Click to expand...
...you just did?

--Patrick


#164

GasBandit

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
...you just did?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
I want the option, though. I didn't ask for less ports.



#165

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
I want the option, though. I didn't ask for less ports.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, I don't really think you (or I) are the target audience. I'm sure it's more for people who either want the increase in portability (due to its weight loss) or for those folks who could fit all their personal belongings in a 10x10 storage unit.

--Patrick


#166

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
For what it's worth, I don't really think you (or I) are the target audience. I'm sure it's more for people who either want the increase in portability (due to its weight loss) or for those folks who could fit all their personal belongings in a 10x10 storage unit.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
So, people that buy macbooks :troll:


#167

PatrThom

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
So, people that buy macbooks :troll:
Click to expand...
Yup. And since the last one was discontinued in 2010 (well, early 2011 really), I guess this is its attempt at resurgence.

--Patrick


#168

Bubble181

Bubble181

My Facebook feed is sadly congested with people raving about the New and Improved and Revolutionary new MacBook. When I said it was basically an iPad with a keyboard they got mad and insisted it was a valid computer. That you can't actually work at or play any games on, or play a cd on, or do anything on except, you know, media-y stuff you could also do on an iPad, I guess?
*shrug*
I'm not the target audience, that much is for sure :p


#169

PatrThom

PatrThom

I expect that, much like how the original MacBook Air with its single USB port and flip-down door eventually got refined into something much better (2x USB ports, SSD, better display output, longer battery life), this new model will get similarly fleshed out once Apple perfects the brand new keyboard & new interface and once Intel finally gets their Skylake act together in the second half of this year. It took 'em two years with the Air before the platform was solidified, we'll see what happens to this one...if they don't get too distracted by the whole Watch thing, that is.

--Patrick


#170

fade

fade

I am a heavy computer user. I program in about 10 languages (often for fun). I browse, I play games, I watch movies. I use Adobe movie and still picture products like crazy (for the webcomic among others). I present technical talks and short courses for work. All that being said, I in all serious honesty cannot remember the last time I needed more than a single USB port, and even that is rare. I plug in a keyboard and mouse to my PC, but that's it. Other than backing up stuff, I haven't used an optical drive in ages. Almost everything is downloaded now.

Now that being said, I'm not 100% behind this change--I just wanted to make the joke. I think it's a step too far. It could've done with a separate power port. And the built-in SD reader. But it's hardly the first laptop to drop an optical drive.

People have been asking for fewer ports for years! Firs serial ports and parallel ports. Then modems. Ethernet makes sense, because I have used the Ethernet port maybe once on my current Macbook Pro. I think for the mainstream user, this isn't that odd.


#171

Bubble181

Bubble181

1 for my keyboard. 1 for my mouse. 1 for my external HD. 1 for my card reader. 1 to plug in my camera to charge it. 1 as a power port. 1 for an external optical drive, given it doesn't have one. 1 for diverse - hand warmer, miniature christmas tree, coffee cup holder, what have you. Plenty of uses for a USB port. Yes, making things smaller. But the book wouldn't be any thicker or lumpier with 2 or 3 USB ports next to one another, now would it?


#172

Shakey

Shakey

What people have mostly been asking for is fewer different types of ports, not necessarily fewer over all. USB has pretty much done that, but only having one that is shared with your power cord? Silly. Getting rid of the optical port and even ethernet is fine, many laptops already do that.


#173

fade

fade

Bubble181 said:
1 for my keyboard. 1 for my mouse. 1 for my external HD. 1 for my card reader. 1 to plug in my camera to charge it. 1 as a power port. 1 for an external optical drive, given it doesn't have one. 1 for diverse - hand warmer, miniature christmas tree, coffee cup holder, what have you. Plenty of uses for a USB port. Yes, making things smaller. But the book wouldn't be any thicker or lumpier with 2 or 3 USB ports next to one another, now would it?
Click to expand...
Probably, yes. Not for the data bus, but for the power bus. 5V at what, ~2A capacity each? That's fairly beefy, and the power requirements shoot way up, meaning bigger power infrastructure, too.


#174

tegid

tegid

Well, ok, only 1 USB then. But ZERO, and pay extra if you want one? Come on, it's bulshit.

This reminds me of something that happened the other day at a meeting. A colleague wanted to hook her macbook to a projector to present her latest paper and whatnot, and it wasn't working. So I got a netbook and we transferred her presentation in pdf (via usb, heh), and when I was about to connect the netbook to the projector she asked: do you have the proper adapter for that*? And I was like, what, I don't need an adapter, this is a standard connection... And her reaction was: 'Wow!! That's so cool!' She was SURPRISED :facepalm:

*I guess she meant the adapter for my model, because, you know, even if I had a mac I probably couldn't use her adapter unless it was from the same generation or whatnot


#175

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
The posts on this page, and maybe a few from the last page, should probably be moved to the last big apple thread, or a new thread.

https://www.halforums.com/xenforo/t...fy-my-lust-for-cheap-powerful-hardware.30717/
Click to expand...
I was gonna post there here, but then there was so much here there, so I posted here there instead. That could change. I wouldn't mind.

--Patrick


#176

PatrThom

PatrThom

Welp, looks like they'll have to come out with a new one of these for the new USB standard.

UHD.gif


--Patrick


#177

Bubble181

Bubble181

Bubble181 said:
1 for my keyboard. 1 for my mouse. 1 for my external HD. 1 for my card reader. 1 to plug in my camera to charge it. 1 as a power port. 1 for an external optical drive, given it doesn't have one. 1 for diverse - hand warmer, miniature christmas tree, coffee cup holder, what have you. Plenty of uses for a USB port. Yes, making things smaller. But the book wouldn't be any thicker or lumpier with 2 or 3 USB ports next to one another, now would it?
Click to expand...
PatrThom said:
Welp, looks like they'll have to come out with a new one of these for the new USB standard.

View attachment 17729

--Patrick
Click to expand...
...and 1 for this.


#178

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Most Apple services have been down all morning. So no iTunes Radio on the way home from work. :p


#179

GasBandit

GasBandit

Aw geez here we go again



#180

Frank

Frank

Also, it floats like a leaf on the wind.


#181

PatrThom

PatrThom

Aaugh! That font! I can't help but read it in Jony Ive's voice because of that font!

--Patrick


#182

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I'm a huge Apple fanboy, and this one looks more like Apple can't quite figure out where they want to take the Air in the future, and so they're splitting the difference.

The Macbook has a (debatably much) worse processor, worse on-board graphics, worse webcam, only one port besides the headphone jack, and will cost notably more, but has a better screen, more RAM, more storage, and loses a pound in weight (def not nothing from a portability, perspective).

I would consider the one port a real negative, but that's more because a one-port approach to a computer would be extremely unhelpful to me, not necessarily other folks.

A lot of this will probably come down to how capable the Core M is in practice (I've heard not much, but we'll see once the public really gets its hands on it).


#183

Shakey

Shakey

Google just released a new chrome book pixel with usb-c as well. They were smart enough to put in 2 of them though, one on each side. Which means you can plug in the power cord on either side. Genius! :p


#184

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Actually, the loss of Magsafe actually seems like a big issue, now that I'm thinking clearly.

I've lost count of the number of times I've accidentally yanked out of the power chord of a laptop I've owned by walking into the chord.

The two Windows laptops got pulled to the floor, though fortunately neither broke. The various Macbooks have all popped out easy as you please. Hmmm.


#185

GasBandit

GasBandit

SpecialKO said:
Actually, the loss of Magsafe actually seems like a big issue, now that I'm thinking clearly.

I've lost count of the number of times I've accidentally yanked out of the power chord of a laptop I've owned by walking into the chord.

The two Windows laptops got pulled to the floor, though fortunately neither broke. The various Macbooks have all popped out easy as you please. Hmmm.
Click to expand...
Hmmm indeed. With a superlight device such as the macbook air, that cord trip could very well smash the darn thing against a wall like a ballista bolt.


#186

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I've always thought the title for this thread was really weird. Many things come to mind when I think of apple hardware, none of them are 'cheap'


#187

Dei

Dei

Maybe the title literally means that they can't do it for you! I mean, that's how I choose to think of it. ;)


#188

GasBandit

GasBandit



I love this meme


#189

PatrThom

PatrThom

You could own one as early as tomorrow!


--Patrick


#190

PatrThom

PatrThom

New Apple TV.
Well it's about time.

--Patrick


#191

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

My TL;DR reaction to the announcements

Apple Watch - cute, still don't care for that price or that battery
AppleTV - impressive, but pricey for what improvements it realistically delivers over AppleTV 3. Easy upgrade choice if you have AppleTV 2 or earlier.
iPad Pro - very impressive on a capabilities level, but really, it needed to be an Apple Surface Pro, not an inflated iPad.
iPhone 6s - nice solid update, 3D Touch looks like it could open a huge door to other interface types, Apple's carrier-free annual upgrade plan is actually pretty darn aggressive because fuck Verizon. I have a 5s, so I'm feeling like this will be a good upgrade for me.


#192

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

SpecialKO said:
AppleTV - impressive, but pricey for what improvements it realistically delivers over AppleTV 3. Easy upgrade choice if you have AppleTV 2 or earlier.
Click to expand...
We have a 2, but just being able to search multiple sources at once (and the voice command rather than typing it in) would get me to upgrade from a 3.


#193

MindDetective

MindDetective

Sara_2814 said:
We have a 2, but just being able to search multiple sources at once (and the voice command rather than typing it in) would get me to upgrade from a 3.
Click to expand...
Roku already does this.


#194

PatrThom

PatrThom

SpecialKO said:
AppleTV - impressive, but pricey for what improvements it realistically delivers over AppleTV 3. Easy upgrade choice if you have AppleTV 2 or earlier.
Click to expand...
Or if, like in my case, you have no set-top device and no cable/satellite television and are still using unreliable OTA HDTV because you were waiting on them to finally update the darned thing from what has been more or less unchanged since 2010.

--Patrick


#195

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Sara_2814 said:
We have a 2, but just being able to search multiple sources at once (and the voice command rather than typing it in) would get me to upgrade from a 3.
Click to expand...
It's a great feature, but $150 min is a bit rich for my blood to solve a problem that a quick Google search sufficed for in the past. I'm a console guy, I don't need to be able to play smartphone games on my TV, I've never been interested in shopping from my TV, and the promise of "apps" isn't really enough for me. My ATV 3 will live just fine until they drop the price.


#196

blotsfan

blotsfan

I'm not going to do the leasing upgrade plan because I'm happy with my current contract and am willing to roll the dice on my phone lasting two years (I've had my current one for 3 and its still working fine). 3d touch looks like a major upgrade that will actually make a big difference for the better. I'm glad I waited for this phone rather than get the 6.


#197

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

SpecialKO said:
It's a great feature, but $150 min is a bit rich for my blood to solve a problem that a quick Google search sufficed for in the past. I'm a console guy, I don't need to be able to play smartphone games on my TV, I've never been interested in shopping from my TV, and the promise of "apps" isn't really enough for me. My ATV 3 will live just fine until they drop the price.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the apps aren't a big draw for me. We had already decided to upgrade the 2 anyway, no matter what features this one had. But who knows, maybe the app developers will come up with something amazing that I didn't realize I wanted on my AppleTV. They did it with apps on my phone ("Who would want applications on a phone? I just want to make calls." -- me when the iPhone rumors started circulating). :D


#198

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
I'm glad I waited for this phone rather than get the 6.
Click to expand...
Same. I've been toughing it out with my 5 (not 5s, just 5) figuring whatever was coming next was going to be worth it (and have 2GB RAM...still not sure about this one yet).

--Patrick


#199

blotsfan

blotsfan

PatrThom said:
Same. I've been toughing it out with my 5 (not 5s, just 5) figuring whatever was coming next was going to be worth it (and have 2GB RAM...still not sure about this one yet).

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Im using my 4s still. Though, I'd prefer that over the 5. I feel bad that you're still using that.


#200

PatrThom

PatrThom

I've heard a lot of people hating on the 5. I don't get it. I've never had any trouble that wasn't an apparent one-off. It's the best 32-bit phone Apple has ever made (yes, even better than the 5c IMO). I just wish I could've afforded the 32GB model. Mine is only the 16GB, so I have to manage the amount of music/podcasts/pictures/apps I keep on it.

--Patrick


#201

blotsfan

blotsfan

Eh, the person I know with a 5 had to get it replaced multiple times after it crapped out, as well as its replacements.


#202

Covar

Covar

App Store on the Apple TV is important because it means that video providers no longer need to be approached by Apple to get on the platform which will be much better for smaller operations.


#203

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

My 5s is still chugging along just fine, but both it and my iPad 3 are starting to be a bit long in tooth for games (and in the case of my 16 GB 5S, a lack of storage space), and I would like to maybe split the difference and get a 6s, and then cross my fingers on a family member or 4 pitching in to get me a Mini 4 or Air 2 to replace the iPad for Xmas.[DOUBLEPOST=1441852465,1441852434][/DOUBLEPOST]
Covar said:
App Store on the Apple TV is important because it means that video providers no longer need to be approached by Apple to get on the platform which will be much better for smaller operations.
Click to expand...
That's a good point.


#204

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
Eh, the person I know with a 5 had to get it replaced multiple times after it crapped out, as well as its replacements.
Click to expand...
Well, now you know someone from the other end of the spectrum, too. :)
Covar said:
video providers no longer need to be approached by Apple to get on the platform
Click to expand...
"Channels" might as well be "Streaming websites" anyway. That's a finalization that can't happen soon enough. Maybe if the cable companies lose the ability to compete on bundled content, they'll finally start to compete on price.

--Patrick


#205

fade

fade

Yeah, my wife, son, and I have had 5's (not 5s) for several years with no issues whatsoever.


#206

jwhouk

jwhouk

Apple Pencil.

Apple Pencil.

What is this I don't even.


#207

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

The Verge has a nice breakdown of the Apple Update Program for iPhone.

Basically, if you value being free from carrier contracts of any kind, like having AppleCare instead of carrier insurance, and want the option of a new iPhone every year, it's actually pretty aggressive.

If you don't want all three of those things, it might not be the best option for your wallet.


#208

Dei

Dei

I think I have mentioned my woes with the 5 many times. Now I have a Droid. [emoji14]


#209

Covar

Covar

SpecialKO said:
The Verge has a nice breakdown of the Apple Update Program for iPhone.

Basically, if you value being free from carrier contracts of any kind, like having AppleCare instead of carrier insurance, and want the option of a new iPhone every year, it's actually pretty aggressive.

If you don't want all three of those things, it might not be the best option for your wallet.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I'm really tempted to pay off the remainder on my T-Mobile plan and switch to it. I probably should just wait a year and then do it.


#210

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

jwhouk said:
Apple Pencil.

Apple Pencil.

What is this I don't even.
Click to expand...
Wacom's high end styluses

If Apple and Wacom push each other to make better styluses, then it's a win.


#211

PatrThom

PatrThom

jwhouk said:
Apple Pencil.
Apple Pencil.
What is this I don't even.
Click to expand...
It avoids the potential landmine of having to describe what an Apple Pen is.

--Patrick


#212

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

Covar said:
App Store on the Apple TV is important because it means that video providers no longer need to be approached by Apple to get on the platform which will be much better for smaller operations.
Click to expand...
It would be awesome if indie podcasts like Smarter Every Day, Vintage Space, and Brady Haran's plethora of shows (Objectivity, Periodic Video, etc.) could have their own actual app channels easily accessible in the AppleTV menu. Especially since Discovery/History Channels no longer seem to carry any science and history (Reality TV needs to die in a fire).

Netflix and Hulu combined with awesome indie video podcasts make me not miss having cable at all.


#213

GasBandit

GasBandit





#214

fade

fade

Yes. It does look familiar:



#215

PatrThom

PatrThom

Sara_2814 said:
Discovery/History Channels no longer seem to carry any science and history
Click to expand...
And National Geographic was just sold* to Fox.

--Patrick
*Well, not sold, but certainly "had controlling interest given."


#216

Covar

Covar

Sara_2814 said:
It would be awesome if indie podcasts like Smarter Every Day, Vintage Space, and Brady Haran's plethora of shows (Objectivity, Periodic Video, etc.) could have their own actual app channels easily accessible in the AppleTV menu. Especially since Discovery/History Channels no longer seem to carry any science and history (Reality TV needs to die in a fire).

Netflix and Hulu combined with awesome indie video podcasts make me not miss having cable at all.
Click to expand...
It just got a lot easier for them. Expect a TWiT app on the Apple TV by the end of the year.


#217

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

PatrThom said:
And National Geographic was just sold* to Fox.

--Patrick
*Well, not sold, but certainly "had controlling interest given."
Click to expand...
<DarthVader>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DO NOT WANT!</DarthVader>

And it includes the Society itself (and magazine). Given what they've already done to NatGeo Channel, I can just imagine it. "In this month's issue: Rupert Murdoch explains why climate scientists are all stupid poopie heads! Amazon Rain Forest: Six Tourists Try To Last Six Weeks in Isolated Village!"

I've been reading that magazine since I was six-years-old. It fueled my interest in science and history.

Dammit. :(


#218

Denbrought

Denbrought

So... Looks like Apple is now getting their R&D from teenage Youtubers:







#219

PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
And National Geographic was just sold* to Fox.
*Well, not sold, but certainly "had controlling interest given."
Click to expand...
Sara_2814 said:
I've been reading that magazine since I was six-years-old. It fueled my interest in science and history.
Dammit. :(
Click to expand...
Rupert Murdoch marks first day of National Geographic ownership by firing 200 employees
“Looking ahead, I am confident National Geographic’s mission will be fulfilled in powerful, new and impactful ways, as we continue to change the world through science, exploration, education and storytelling.”
Click to expand...
I imagine the proportion of "storytelling" will rise an unfortunate amount.

--Patrick


#220

strawman

strawman

And in other news, Apple's music subscription service will obliterate your music library on your hard drive, by design:

https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/

...When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple’s database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple’s database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted.
Click to expand...
So if you have a respectable digital music collection, don't use Apple's music subscription service, or make sure you have a backup.


#221

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
make sure you have a backup.
Click to expand...
I know the idea is to make all your music available on every device without taking up gigs of room, but making regular backups of your stuff (especially self-authored content!) would be thunderously good advice in any case.
Also, the Music service is supposed to undergo a huge overhaul shortly, so who knows what's coming next?

--Patrick


#222

CynicismKills

CynicismKills

I still can't seem to find a music player I hate less than iTunes, especially when it comes to organization and fetching song info for old rips/downloads.


#223

fade

fade

I still don't understand the hate the internet has for iTunes. It has a list of songs, a play button, a search box, and skip buttons. What else do you need? I guess if you liked organizing music a lot it might stink, but I have no desire to do that. Usually I'm looking for a specific song or artist and it does that just peachy. I mean, I'm not writing fan mail for it, but I never hated it either.


#224

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
I still don't understand the hate the internet has for iTunes. It has a list of songs, a play button, a search box, and skip buttons. What else do you need? I guess if you liked organizing music a lot it might stink, but I have no desire to do that. Usually I'm looking for a specific song or artist and it does that just peachy. I mean, I'm not writing fan mail for it, but I never hated it either.
Click to expand...
No DRM. If it was push-button-get-MP3-be-done, that'd be great. But it's not, and it sucks.


#225

Frank

Frank

iTunes has an irritating history of messing with my podcast subscriptions every time it updates. Drove me nuts.


#226

strawman

strawman

GasBandit said:
No DRM. If it was push-button-get-MP3-be-done, that'd be great. But it's not, and it sucks.
Click to expand...
I've used iTunes to rip to MP3 for years. You just set it up so it uses MP3 and when you insert a disc it does it all for you including album art, tags, etc.


#227

GasBandit

GasBandit

stienman said:
I've used iTunes to rip to MP3 for years. You just set it up so it uses MP3 and when you insert a disc it does it all for you including album art, tags, etc.
Click to expand...
I'm not talking ripping a disk you already have, I mean buying a track from online.


#228

Covar

Covar

I don't believe there's been any drm from the iTunes store for music. I recall that being a thing many years ago (the stripping of the DRM), I could be wrong though.


#229

CynicismKills

CynicismKills

I think there was a time that it, like every Apple product, had its own proprietary nonsense in a different file format? I can't remember.

Really my only issue with the program at this point is it sometimes seems to be a memory hog, but to be fair I haven't had that issue since upgrading my desktop machine.


#230

PatrThom

PatrThom

Isn't it push-button-get-AAC-be-done now? I believe the songs are watermarked, but didn't they get rid of DRM (for music at least) in 2009?

--Patrick


#231

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

fade said:
I still don't understand the hate the internet has for iTunes. It has a list of songs, a play button, a search box, and skip buttons. What else do you need? I guess if you liked organizing music a lot it might stink, but I have no desire to do that. Usually I'm looking for a specific song or artist and it does that just peachy. I mean, I'm not writing fan mail for it, but I never hated it either.
Click to expand...
For me, it's because iTunes (like most Apple products) is designed to try to lock you into a specific ecosystem. For people who already exist in an all apple ecosystem, that's fine, but I don't, and so I don't want to use iTunes.


#232

PatrThom

PatrThom

To be fair, it also works outside of an all-Apple ecosystem, but that does require the user put in more effort.
You could keep your entire music collection manually organized by folders and play 'em all through WMP, but that's much more "hands-on" than most people (run-of-the-mill "consumers") want to do.

--Patrick


#233

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

stienman said:
And in other news, Apple's music subscription service will obliterate your music library on your hard drive, by design:

https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/



So if you have a respectable digital music collection, don't use Apple's music subscription service, or make sure you have a backup.
Click to expand...
I've used iTunes Match for years, and never saw this behavior. I used iTunes Radio for years, and never saw this behavior. Once Apple decided I had to use the paid Apple Music service to continue using what once was iTunes Radio, I declined that offer and continued to use iTunes as before.

Any tracks that were not recognized by iTunes Match were uploaded to the cloud, but at no time were any of my local files deleted without my consent. I would delete the local files if I got a match, because most of the time the Apple copy was the higher bitrate version.

One caveat: I haven't used *any* music service since the Aerio died last June. The other car still has it's original 1998 era radio. I'll replace it once I get other more pressing work done


#234

PatrThom

PatrThom

Only tangentially related, but since Tekserve has decided to close after almost 30 years of service, this means a large number of artifacts are coming up for sale at auction, and not all of them Apple-related.

So if you want, say, some vintage Coke ads, a statue of the robot from Metropolis, maybe the ultimate portable cassette deck, or even an assembled display of 35 historic Apple computers*, you might want to register. They even have an Aibo!

--Patrick
*that's a dozen or so more than me!


#235

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh, hey. Apple hasn't updated any of their laptops*/minis in a very long time...close to 2 years in some cases.
Oh, hey. Intel has finally taken the wraps off their next generation of processors, codename Kaby Lake., which was under NDA until 8/30**.
Oh, hey. Apple has a media event coming up on Sept 7th, just one week after the above moratorium.
Hmmm.
HMMMMMMMM...

--Patrick
*except the new 12in MacBook
**according to the note at the bottom of the released slides.


#236

fade

fade

Kaby Lake's big aim seems to be 4K video processing. But overall a nice step forward.


#237

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
Kaby Lake's big aim seems to be 4K video processing. But overall a nice step forward.
Click to expand...
Real-time 4k video processing.
Also VP9 decode in hardware, so Google should be happy (and the H.265 people probably won't be).
If they have to keep adding a new module onto the die for every new codec that comes out, they'd better keep shrinking the process in order to fit 'em all.

--Patrick


#238

blotsfan

blotsfan

I like my iPhone. It's the third one I've owned.

It is also the last one I will ever own.


#239

PatrThom

PatrThom

Not feeling the love for the AirPods yet. They'll have to become more amazing before I think about tryin' 'em.

--Patrick


#240

Gared

Gared

blotsfan said:
I like my iPhone. It's the third one I've owned.

It is also the last one I will ever own.
Click to expand...
Same. I'm really hoping Samsung gets the Exploding Note issue corrected and gets the supply chain ramped back up soon.


#241

blotsfan

blotsfan

Mine is less than a year old, so I'll still be using it for a while. I'm just so pissed that they actually removed the headphone jack. They've done a lot of money grabs before, but this is beyond shameless. I know its unlikely, but I really hope this comes back to bite them.


#242

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

I was never an Apple user, just not my thing, but I understood the appeal and why people liked them. But it seems like they've been directionless ever since Steve Jobs died.


#243

GasBandit

GasBandit

I envy the UI response time of iphones, but I much prefer android's.... well, everything else.


#244



BErt

blotsfan said:
Mine is less than a year old, so I'll still be using it for a while. I'm just so pissed that they actually removed the headphone jack. They've done a lot of money grabs before, but this is beyond shameless. I know its unlikely, but I really hope this comes back to bite them.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I hated it too when I heard they were doing it, but at least they're including the adapter with the phone. History has proven they could have easily gotten away with selling it seperately for $20-$30


#245

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
I envy the UI response time of iphones, but I much prefer android's.... well, everything else.
Click to expand...
While I agree that the default android UI response time feels sluggish, you can enable developer options and manually speed up the process. I have transition animations set to 3x speed and it feels very snappy now.


#246

GasBandit

GasBandit

Ravenpoe said:
While I agree that the default android UI response time feels sluggish, you can enable developer options and manually speed up the process. I have transition animations set to 3x speed and it feels very snappy now.
Click to expand...
Huh. Neat. That is faster.

Well, never mind then :D


#247



BErt

I did have a lot of fun playing around on xda developers and such...but 1) having to administer 60+ devices and 2) Not having to pay a phone bill anymore made me a big fan of iOS


#248

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

GasBandit said:
Huh. Neat. That is faster.

Well, never mind then :D
Click to expand...
Also, I stand corrected. Having now looked in the options, it's 0.5x transition time, aka twice as fast. But it sounds like you already figured that out.


#249

jwhouk

jwhouk

...Someone needs to clue me in on how exactly to do this on my Nextbook.

EDIT: NM, found out. Think I got it...


#250

GasBandit

GasBandit

Ravenpoe said:
Also, I stand corrected. Having now looked in the options, it's 0.5x transition time, aka twice as fast. But it sounds like you already figured that out.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's what I did.


#251

PatrThom

PatrThom

1998 - No more floppy
2003 - No more native pre-OSX support
2006 - No more "Classic" (OS9) environment
2009 - No more removable battery
2011 - No more PowerPC compatibility
2012 - No more optical drive

2016 - No more headphone port
...it's not the first time they've decided to axe some portion of a device. Can't say there isn't prior history of the behavior.
Time will tell whether it's remembered as an attempt to push people towards the future or mere hubris.

--Patrick


#252

blotsfan

blotsfan

I do admit, Apple has a history of having foresight with removing then-popular features that are about to be obsolete (first iPhone was killed for not having a stylus) but I just don't think this one is the same. I don't want to have to charge my headphones, or carry around an adapter. Not to mention my earbud replacements should be relatively cheap, not $160.


#253

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
my earbud replacements should be relatively cheap, not $160.
Click to expand...
We can't even tell how much more the "ordinary" Lightning buds will cost.
(checks online store)
...oh, I guess we can (they're just not available yet for purchase).
Regular (1/8" minijack) EarPods = $19
Lightning EarPods = $29
Well, they're compatible with any Lightning-equipped model, even iPads.
No word on sample rate conversion, impact on battery life, etc. Guess we'll hear about that later.

--Patrick


#254

PatrThom

PatrThom

On the other hand, it looks like the gold "Edition" watch has been discontinued (and replaced with a ceramic model), so I will never be able to purchase a US$17,000.00 model.

Oh, darn.

--Patrick


#255

strawman

strawman

I guess I should go check out what apple said yesterday.

I don't think I'm upgrading this year, so it's probably a moot point.

As far as earphonegate, I use it daily but I don't disagree with getting rid of it particularly since it appears there's an adaptor. Now I just plug in one cable in the car and it charges and plays my music.

I think it'll be a non issue this time next year, relegated to the heap of non removable battery and no ad card slot. Some people will care religiously, and others who thought they would care find that they are fine with the new arrangement.


#256

Bubble181

Bubble181

Well, I deliberately chose an S5 instead of S6 because of the removable battery and SD card slot. And the S7 has both, again, so I'm guessing the backlash was sufficient.


#257

strawman

strawman

Bubble181 said:
Well, I deliberately chose an S5 instead of S6 because of the removable battery and SD card slot. And the S7 has both, again, so I'm guessing the backlash was sufficient.
Click to expand...
What size card do you have in the SD slot, and what is the maximum it supports?
How often do you swap batteries?


#258

Dei

Dei

I wish I could put SD cards in my phone. I use up data storage space like nothing.


#259

Bubble181

Bubble181

stienman said:
What size card do you have in the SD slot, and what is the maximum it supports?
How often do you swap batteries?
Click to expand...
My GF has 128 GB in there and is using a large part of it on photos and music - I don't actually have one in there right now, though I've used it to transfer photo's from my camera to the net before. A phone with 16GB memory and a 128GB card is far, far cheaper, and more versatile, than buying a phone with 128GB memory.

Battery wise, though, yes, I've switched a bunch of times - using hers to access my phone when my battery's (almost) dead, charging the other one (we bought one SIM card while trekking in New Zealand, for example, and I used both batteries in that phone, and hers only for Wifi and charging battery). Also, I've had a few crashes where the phone didn't respond to the power button and only removing the battery got it to turn back on.


#260

fade

fade

I have never run out of space on my phone. I don't store anything there but music. That's the least relevant issue for me. In the 6 years I've owned iPhones, I've run out of battery life completely maybe 3 times.


#261

strawman

strawman

Bubble181 said:
My GF has 128 GB in there and is using a large part of it on photos and music - I don't actually have one in there right now, though I've used it to transfer photo's from my camera to the net before. A phone with 16GB memory and a 128GB card is far, far cheaper, and more versatile, than buying a phone with 128GB memory.

Battery wise, though, yes, I've switched a bunch of times - using hers to access my phone when my battery's (almost) dead, charging the other one (we bought one SIM card while trekking in New Zealand, for example, and I used both batteries in that phone, and hers only for Wifi and charging battery). Also, I've had a few crashes where the phone didn't respond to the power button and only removing the battery got it to turn back on.
Click to expand...
Well, sounds like you would be disappointed with the iPhone then.

The reset thing is a mystery, though. Why would the hardware designers make it so you couldn't force a reset without removing the battery? I understand there's generally a reset capability, but why would they design it so sometimes that didn't work? I wonder if that's the real reason they added the removable battery back to the S line of phones. The fact that an android phone can get into such a state where it cannot be used until you remove the battery sounds ridiculous, but I've heard this isn't uncommon for androids and the community simply accepts it.

As far as switching batteries, sounds like your usage requirements are more challenging than mine. If I know I'm going to visit an area with limited service (ie, cell phone power consumption increases, or all day GPS use) then I'll put a short cable and tiny USB battery in my pocket. That's very rare, though, because I almost always have my car with me. I'm sure it would be different if I used public transportation. Most of the time I only plug my phone in at night, it never gets below 80%, and I only use it for 2-3 hours a day total use, with maybe 300 alerts a day.


#262

Denbrought

Denbrought

Let's not forget that Apple is not alone in this design choice: The Moto Z has no headphone jack


#263

GasBandit

GasBandit



#264

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Denbrought said:
Let's not forget that Apple is not alone in this design choice: The Moto Z has no headphone jack
Click to expand...
Honestly, I think they would have shown a lot more "courage", if they had gone one-port with USB-C instead of lightning.

I have no particular issues with lightning, and yes, you'd be asking apple fans to switch ports for charging again, but at least you'd be pushing people to get headphones that are usable on (some) non-Apple devices and will be the likely global standard in the very near future anyway.


#265

Bubble181

Bubble181

SpecialKO said:
Honestly, I think they would have shown a lot more "courage", if they had gone one-port with USB-C instead of lightning.

I have no particular issues with lightning, and yes, you'd be asking apple fans to switch ports for charging again, but at least you'd be pushing people to get headphones that are usable on (some) non-Apple devices and will be the likely global standard in the very near future anyway.
Click to expand...
Apple has always refused to play nice with other people's standards. That they can continue to sell Betamax in a VHS world shows how good their marketing has done their job, I guess.


#266

strawman

strawman

USB C exists because the lightning connector had several significant advantages over existing connectors, and without the impetus of the lightning connector USB C likely wouldn't exist.

Will Apple transition to USB C for their mobile devices later? I doubt it. Apple wants consumers to understand their mobile devices aren't computers and use them as such. Further they want the mobile devices to be mobile and they are instead pushing wireless connectivity (air display, air print, HD wireless audio, cellular internet, etc) for those devices much harder than for their PC platforms.


#267

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

They're one of the ones pushing USB-C, though. The only data port on the 12-inch Macbook is a USB-C port, and the new Pro refresh line is credibly thought to have two USB-C ports (and some of the crazier rumors think they'll have 4 USB-C ports and no others).

EDIT: Granted, they have investment in the notion that their mobile devices are separate from their PC line, but with them pushing cloud services on both their laptops and mobile devices, it would make sense to easily allow them invested users of the Apple ecosystem to have cable standard parity across those devices.


#268

PatrThom

PatrThom

PatrThom said:
We can't even tell how much more the "ordinary" Lightning buds will cost.
(checks online store)
...oh, I guess we can (they're just not available yet for purchase).
Regular (1/8" minijack) EarPods = $19
Lightning EarPods = $29
Click to expand...
Whoops, my bad. It's the USB<->Lightning connector that's only $19*, the analog EarPods are $29, same price as the Lightning ones.
Bubble181 said:
That they can continue to sell Betamax in a VHS world shows how good their marketing has done their job, I guess.
Click to expand...
Sony did announce they were ceasing all Betamax production as of this past March.

I'm with @SpecialKO on this, though. USB-C 3.1 is a port that can do the majority of what people want. Power? HD Video? Data xfer? All possible.

--Patrick
*...except for the 2m ones, which are $29.


#269

fade

fade

Gizmodo's take.


#270

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

Apple will HAVE to use USB for the iPhone next year. If they want to sell them in Europe.


#271

PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
Apple will HAVE to use USB for the iPhone next year. If they want to sell them in Europe.
Click to expand...
Wait, as charging? Or as audio?

--Patrick


#272

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

PatrThom said:
Wait, as charging? Or as audio?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
in place of of the lightning port.


#273

PatrThom

PatrThom

sixpackshaker said:
in place of of the lightning port.
Click to expand...
Wasn't that why they came out with the µUSB -> Lighting adapter?

--Patrick


#274

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

sixpackshaker said:
Apple will HAVE to use USB for the iPhone next year. If they want to sell them in Europe.
Click to expand...
I hadn't seen that ruling before! In that case, I really don't know why they didn't go with USB-C. It would have brought them in line with EU regulations by using a cable standard they themselves have been aggressively pushing for their other devices.


#275

GasBandit

GasBandit

Because the motto is "Apple: We are the ones calling the shot here, not you, you fuckers." ™


#276

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

GasBandit said:
Because the motto is "Apple: We are the ones calling the shot here, not you, you fuckers." ™
Click to expand...
I like that you threw in the (tm) there.


#277

fade

fade

If it follows the usual pattern, all the Android platforms will implement it within a couple of years, and then everyone will be making fun of how dated Apple's implementation of the Jack-free phone is.


#278

PatrThom

PatrThom

SpecialKO said:
I hadn't seen that ruling before!
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's been coming since at least 2015. If I recall, the chip inside the Lightning cable is there because it enables ... stuff? ..., but as you say, I don't know why everyone doesn't just go USB-C purely for convenience's sake.

--Patrick


#279

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
Wasn't that why they came out with the µUSB -> Lighting adapter?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Yep. iOS devices shipped to the EU include the adapter in the box to comply with the regulations.

I hadn't heard they changed the standard to USB-c, nor that they disallowed use of adapters to meet the requirement, so I'd say [citation needed] for those aspects of the law.

It's funny, though, because the existing micro usb regulation isn't that old, so changing it to another standard only a few years after the first standard will not reduce charger e-waste, and a host of other benefits the original regulation was meant to fulfill. Still, only having two standards vs each manufacturer having their own standard is better than nothing.


#280

Zappit

Zappit

Eh, just bought a 6s. That magnificent little fucker needs to last for years.


#281

PatrThom

PatrThom

Zappit said:
Eh, just bought a 6s. That magnificent little fucker needs to last for years.
Click to expand...
2-3 years of relevance, if history is to be believed.

--Patrick


#282

PatrThom

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
Since I'm on the S cycle instead of the initial iPhone X, here's hoping they come to their senses and restore the headphone jack next year. :p
Click to expand...
I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.
Also I'm still on the (original non-S) iPhone 5, figured I'd get a 6s when the 7 finally came out. Now I find myself interested in the 7, mainly because it shoots RAW, has a wider aperture, optical stabilization, and of course the "quad-core" A10.

--Patrick


#283

bhamv3

bhamv3



#284

Denbrought

Denbrought



#285

GasBandit

GasBandit



#286

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
I think that image may be Photoshopped.

--Patrick


#287

Gruebeard

Gruebeard

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
Sweet. Its getting real close to Star Trek communicator size.


(Next Generation, obviously)


#288

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

The future is to be port-free, fully-sealed, fully-wireless, pretty much leaving iPhone users at the mercy of the cloud and Apple stores.

A move to Android is somewhere in my future. Not trusting all my shit to Apple's servers, and not assuming wireless is going to just work, especially with my PC. They want to cater to people who have Apple everything and I'm just not going there. I don't even like their touch screen iPods; I keep buying the old clickwheel versions, but those are degrading and eventually I'm going to have to move up to the iPhone Jr current iPod.


#289

ncts_dodge_man

ncts_dodge_man

I personally dislike the idea of taking out the headphone jack and having to use another connection to just allow it again. I have hearing aids (got them before I turned 35, genetics suck sometimes) and cannot use ANY standard BlueTooth headset because I already have something in my ears. I have a headset that (wirelessly) connects up to my hearing aids that also has a microphone on it that uses a standard headset jack connection that I plug into my phone.

Now, granted, Apple dropping it doesn't affect me personally as I have an Android phone and don't ever plan on going to Apple, but there are others in this world with the same hearing issues I have or those who are deaf and use a microphone jack to do speech-to-text conversion. Is Apple going to guarantee that any headset with a microphone jack will connect up and "just work" with this new Lightning connector adaptor?

As an aside, yes there is a BlueTooth connector for my hearing aids, but it is a very large, unwieldy box that hangs from your neck and apparently has somewhat of a delay in it at the moment. The company that makes my hearing aids are working on a better one, but it's not out yet (the last I knew at least) and is I believe another $400 on top of a phone and hearing aid purchase (my headset is only like $200).


#290

blotsfan

blotsfan

I know I've complained many times about the same thing, but on friday I was listening to podcasts at work and my battery went low. I should not have to spend $40 on extra equipment to rectify that situation while still listening to my podcasts. It is beyond absurd.


#291

PatrThom

PatrThom

Hmm, I hadn't thought what that'd mean to Square readers and the like.

--Patrick


#292

fade

fade

Completely port free and sealed against the environment is a good thing in my opinion. It doesn't have to be locked to a specific server to make this happen.


#293

GasBandit

GasBandit



#294

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

Though I found that funny, in all fairness, I really want true wireless ear buds, but none of the ones on the market I've looked at warrant the price.

Bragi - high-end one fits well, nice battery, nice list of features, BT signal not as good as advertised, horrible software integration; cheap one integrates better, has very few features, $$ for what it is
Samsung - only works on the latest Samsung phones (I'm an iPhone guy, and if I switched, I would probably want a Nexus more), bad battery, but decent audio and features
Bose - great for sports/gym, good audio, and media playback and battery, bad for phone calls, but no other fitness integration or other useful features
Apple - Awesome phone integration, bad, bad sound for price, based on Earpods so they'll fall out of my ears

We'll maybe get there someday, and that's the day I'll happily get a jackless phone.


#295

fade

fade

As much as I like the idea of a jackless phone (GASP), have they done something about the compression problems inherent to bluetooth audio? That's outside of the quality of the headphones themselves. I haven't kept up with it, but hopefully it's gotten better.


#296

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Click to expand...
Oh, Conan.

fade said:
As much as I like the idea of a jackless phone (GASP), have they done something about the compression problems inherent to bluetooth audio? That's outside of the quality of the headphones themselves. I haven't kept up with it, but hopefully it's gotten better.
Click to expand...
Apple's new W1 chip is supposed to do something special, but since there aren't any in stores yet to try, and since the link on the store is dead, I don't know when we'll all get to find out what's so W1derful about them.

--Patrick


#297

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

PatrThom said:
Apple's new W1 chip is supposed to do something special, but since there aren't any in stores yet to try, and since the link on the store is dead, I don't know when we'll all get to find out what's so W1derful about them.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
According to the Ars Technica review of the phone, the W1 does in fact improve on both the pairing and compression quality of the datastream, and since it is based in the headphones alone, will work in both of those ways with any up-to-date Apple device that uses Bluetooth back to the 4 year-old iPhone 5. Which is pretty cool.

Naturally, they're going to try licensing the chip out and make money from there, but improvements in pairing standards and signal fidelity are a big need in the wireless headphone side, so good for them?


#298

fade

fade

Seems like there are rumors the G8 will drop the headphone jack, too, in favor of USB-C.


#299

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
Seems like there are rumors the G8 will drop the headphone jack, too, in favor of USB-C.
Click to expand...
I'm kinda waiting for the other shoe to drop, and by that I mean ... every future iPad, iPod, MacBook, MacBookPro, etc. I mean, does anyone really think it's going to be confined to "just" the iPhone?

--Patrick


#300

figmentPez

figmentPez

Anyone remember how the first Android phone, the HTC Dream, lacked a headphone port, and had to use a dongle? Yeah, that didn't work out very well.


#301

PatrThom

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
Anyone remember how the first Android phone, the HTC Dream, lacked a headphone port, and had to use a dongle? Yeah, that didn't work out very well.
Click to expand...
I remember how much of a success the Newton was(n't), too...but then about 15 years later it was all iPhone/iPad. Was 8yrs enough time to wait before trying to axe the headphone port again? We'll see.

--Patrick


#302

Bubble181

Bubble181

I was just thinking that I've hardly - if - ever - seen BT a selfie stick. All the ones I know plug into the audio jack....


#303

PatrThom

PatrThom

Bubble181 said:
I was just thinking that I've hardly - if - ever - seen BT a selfie stick. All the ones I know plug into the audio jack....
Click to expand...
Thats because you can already do that with the watch.

--Patrick


#304

fade

fade

Bubble181 said:
I was just thinking that I've hardly - if - ever - seen BT a selfie stick. All the ones I know plug into the audio jack....
Click to expand...
Really? My daughter has a cheap $5 one, and it uses bluetooth.


#305

GasBandit

GasBandit

figmentPez said:
Anyone remember how the first Android phone, the HTC Dream, lacked a headphone port, and had to use a dongle? Yeah, that didn't work out very well.
Click to expand...
I thought the first android phone was the Tmobile G1

(clicks link)

Oh. Potayto, potahto. Yep, never mind, carry on.


#306

strawman

strawman

fade said:
Really? My daughter has a cheap $5 one, and it uses bluetooth.
Click to expand...
All I see now are the bluetooth ones it seems. But then I don't really go looking for them, so maybe the headphone ones are more common elsewhere.

Oh, and keep in mind that bluetooth outside the US might be more expensive for a variety of reasons, so the headphone jacks might be more common in Bubble181's country than in the US.


#307

sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

The first Apple iTunes phone did not have a jack either. I had an iTunes Moto-Razr. And I lost the USB dongle for the headphones with in days.



#308

GasBandit

GasBandit

Saw an interesting take on the debate, in a comic today.

Galaxy Note 7s exploding comes from negligence. It is accidental, and addressable. But getting rid of the headphone jack was intentional malice.


#309

blotsfan

blotsfan

GasBandit said:
Saw an interesting take on the debate, in a comic today.

Galaxy Note 7s exploding comes from negligence. It is accidental, and addressable. But getting rid of the headphone jack was courageous.
Click to expand...
FTFY


#310

PatrThom

PatrThom

Fortunately it's fixable.



--Patrick


#311

N

Nebulous

PatrThom said:
Fortunately it's fixable.



--Patrick
Click to expand...


#312

Covar

Covar

PatrThom said:
Fortunately it's fixable.



--Patrick
Click to expand...
I'll give this a try right after my phone finishes charging in the microwave.


#313

Gared

Gared

After finally being completely fed up with all of the Apple iOS crap - like the fact that I either have to email photos and videos to myself or use iCloud (which is soooooo secure), etc. - that I ordered two Samsung Galaxy S7s for my wife and myself. I think Apple knows. So far today I've had to unlock my account due to security reasons, reset my password twice, re-unlock my account, confirm my payment information, re-unlock my account, agree to new terms and conditions twice, and change my password again - but the device transfer is underway.


#314

PatrThom

PatrThom

Gared said:
I either have to email photos and videos to myself or use iCloud (which is soooooo secure), etc.
Click to expand...
AirDrop isn't working for you?
I'm surprised, though. iPhones usually at least show up as "I are a camera!" if you just plug them into USB (much like any smartphone), allowing you to import photos through whatever camera software is installed.

--Patrick


#315

strawman

strawman

That's how I transfer more than a few pictures. The USB cable works fine and fast.


#316

fade

fade

Yeah, I have to concur--I've never had any issue transferring photos or videos.


#317

Gared

Gared

It stopped working for me via USB about a year ago, and nothing would restore it (I suspect that it's more of a Windows issue than an Apple issue), but whatever it was, it was the last straw, and now the transfer is done and I can say goodbye to Apple forever.


#318

PatrThom

PatrThom

Gared said:
(I suspect that it's more of a Windows issue than an Apple issue)
Click to expand...
Yeah, usually the driver gets broken during an iTunes or Windows upgrade, and then you have to update/reinstall it or else go through a bunch of steps to get it working again.
But hey, whatever it takes to get your data back. I get to watch enough people break down when all their stuff goes away because they never backed it up anywhere. Don't be that guy!

--Patrick


#319

N

Nebulous

40406146.jpg


#320

PatrThom

PatrThom

Aww, still only a single-core.

--Patrick


#321

PatrThom

PatrThom

USB standards organization has new press release: "We've actually been considering ditching the headphone jack for a long time now, yes we have."

--Patrick


#322

blotsfan

blotsfan

Wonderful. Break literally decades of technology for no real benefit.


#323

Bubble181

Bubble181

blotsfan said:
Wonderful. Break literally decades of technology for no real benefit. short term profit
Click to expand...


#324

fade

fade

Knocking Apple aside, it is kind a dated connector that is prone to wear and poor connections. The newer ones are better, but I can name quite a few 3.5mm jacks I've owned that have lost their grip. Right now the aux port in my car is dead due to normal use, because the spring clips inside are fatigued.


#325

Eriol

Eriol

fade said:
Knocking Apple aside, it is kind a dated connector that is prone to wear and poor connections. The newer ones are better, but I can name quite a few 3.5mm jacks I've owned that have lost their grip. Right now the aux port in my car is dead due to normal use, because the spring clips inside are fatigued.
Click to expand...
ANY standard can be implemented poorly, but that doesn't make the standard itself bad.

Let's just be glad that it appears (for now) that Bluetooth is easy to build a receiver for. Worry about them plugging the "analog hole" in DRM. That would suck a lot more. Or can they do that already with Bluetooth? I honestly don't know.


#326

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
can they do that already with Bluetooth? I honestly don't know.
Click to expand...
Well, they could conceivably include something that says "disable Bluetooth output" whenever DRM is enabled, the question is how to signal the toggle.
Given its pervasiveness, though, I'd assume that anyone who tries to remove the ability to use Bluetooth will find themselves on a short trip to nobody-would-want-to-buy-it land.

--Patrick


#327

strawman

strawman

Bluetooth is fairly low fidelity, which is why Apple went to the trouble of making the wireless audio chip they're touting as a better than Bluetooth replacement. Nobody is going to bother turning off the Bluetooth audio profile A2DP.


#328

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

iOS 10, fucking hell. All this widget bullshit and lockscreen changes. I only updated my phone because the update was eating a huge chunk of space. Now it's stuck this way and apparently my phone is too old to take advantage of features that would change it back.

I'm even finding out about new features I don't even have on my 5c because it's outdated and that sound awful. Like the home screen bringing up stuff just by picking the phone up? Fuck you, Apple, what if I'm trying to be discreet?

Not sure I'm getting another iPhone when I have the money to cover what an upgrade won't.


#329

PatrThom

PatrThom

I miss slide-to-unlock. Mainly because I don't use widgets.
I want to know what sort of person thinks "OMG Widgets! Squeeeee!" is really like.

--Patrick


#330

strawman

strawman

I have mixed feelings so far. I was annoyed at first how I had to press the home button twice to turn on the phone, but then realized how often I was previously annoyed when I just wanted to look at the notifications, but touch ID was quick enough that it recognized my thumb. Wish my phone had raise to wake, but it's a 6+, and the raise to wake is only available on phones from 2015 and onward, and I'm skipping the 6s and 7. So the double press is actually a benefit so far.

I'm getting used to the swipeable interface. I'm still swiping up to get the camera from the lock screen, but then I have to press a button, whereas I should instead simply swipe left to get right to the camera. Swiping at the home screen has a few useful features. It's just another thing to get used to I suppose.


#331

Covar

Covar

stienman said:
I have mixed feelings so far. I was annoyed at first how I had to press the home button twice to turn on the phone, but then realized how often I was previously annoyed when I just wanted to look at the notifications, but touch ID was quick enough that it recognized my thumb. Wish my phone had raise to wake, but it's a 6+, and the raise to wake is only available on phones from 2015 and onward, and I'm skipping the 6s and 7. So the double press is actually a benefit so far.

I'm getting used to the swipeable interface. I'm still swiping up to get the camera from the lock screen, but then I have to press a button, whereas I should instead simply swipe left to get right to the camera. Swiping at the home screen has a few useful features. It's just another thing to get used to I suppose.
Click to expand...
You would have found yourself going crazy with the 6S. Touch ID is so fast on it before iOS10 I rarely ever even saw a glimpse of it. Even now, it's a one press to unlock.

Zero Esc said:
Fuck you, Apple, what if I'm trying to be discreet?
Click to expand...
Press the power button? Turn off the feature?

get a watch :troll:


#332

fade

fade

Yeah I'm not loving the push to unlock thing so far. Swipe to unlock has been so trained now. I'm still on a 5 (no bloody A, B, C or S). I keep thinking about buying a new phone, but the 5 still does everything just fine.


#333

strawman

strawman

fade said:
Yeah I'm not loving the push to unlock thing so far. Swipe to unlock has been so trained now. I'm still on a 5 (no bloody A, B, C or S). I keep thinking about buying a new phone, but the 5 still does everything just fine.
Click to expand...
I still very much regret turning in my iphone 5 when I upgraded. It was "up to $250 for iPhone 5" and I had a verizon version with 128GB.

They gave me $90. An absolute scam because you had to turn in the phone before they would "evaluate it" and there was no recourse once delivered.

On the other hand, I switched from Verizon with limited data to Sprint unlimited everything for $50/mo so I'm waaaay out ahead financially, but if I could buy back my old 5 for that $90 I'd do it in a heartbeat.


#334

Covar

Covar

fade said:
Yeah I'm not loving the push to unlock thing so far. Swipe to unlock has been so trained now. I'm still on a 5 (no bloody A, B, C or S). I keep thinking about buying a new phone, but the 5 still does everything just fine.
Click to expand...
I can see the frustration if you don't have Touch ID.


#335

Bubble181

Bubble181

stienman said:
I still very much regret turning in my iphone 5 when I upgraded. It was "up to $250 for iPhone 5" and I had a verizon version with 128GB.

They gave me $90. An absolute scam because you had to turn in the phone before they would "evaluate it" and there was no recourse once delivered.

On the other hand, I switched from Verizon with limited data to Sprint unlimited everything for $50/mo so I'm waaaay out ahead financially, but if I could buy back my old 5 for that $90 I'd do it in a heartbeat.
Click to expand...
An iPhone 5 128GB second hand still sells for more than $90 on eBay; you were clearly ripped off.


#336

fade

fade

Well. That's odd. My phone just started buzzing like crazy, froze up, and then shut down. Now it won't turn on. It's like I cursed it by saying it was still fine.


#337

strawman

strawman

Guess Apple really thinks you should upgrade.


#338

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
Well. That's odd. My phone just started buzzing like crazy, froze up, and then shut down. Now it won't turn on. It's like I cursed it by saying it was still fine.
Click to expand...
I hope that's not liquid exposure, cuz that's what you describe usually means.
Either that, or someone called you while your battery was really, really low, and the extra battery drain caused it to think "empty."
My 5 is still going strong. I've had it in a case since day 1. It's a black model, but being in the case has slightly discolored the black finish into a sort of deep blue gunmetal. It looks really, really sweet.

--Patrick


#339

fade

fade

I managed to reset it. It's fine now. It went nuts when a Skype for Business call came in. We have had no end of trouble from Skype for Business.


#340

Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

Covar said:
Press the power button? Turn off the feature?
Click to expand...
I don't have a model that can do those things yet; I just don't want to reach that point. It feels like added conveniences cause additional inconvenience. Windows 10 came loaded with piles of garbage, but at least I could get in and turn that shit off. Apple's philosophy is to like it their way or get fucked.


#341

N

Nebulous

I have some new earpods that have a lightning connector on the end & they sound pretty good, better than my last pair (which were the standard 3.5 mm jack ones).


#342

PatrThom

PatrThom

The touchbar looks kinda neat.
It'll be the Nintendo DS of laptops.

--Patrick


#343

strawman

strawman

Glad I didn't realize it until after it was over. Reading the live blogs was much faster than watching it would have been.

Thinner, lighter, reasonably powerful, costing twice as much as anything else with similar computing power, but no one else has as good a display. The touchbar is neat, and the trackpad is huge. Time will tell if these prove to be valuable enough to justify the price increase.

Glad they've finally come back to making darker laptops.

Still can't justify the cost, and I really wish they'd add a 4k display model, or a 17" 4k model.


#344

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Still can't justify the cost, and I really wish they'd add a 4k display model, or a 17" 4k model.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure Apple is ever going to make another 17" model.
As for a 15in 4k display, that would be really cool...but I hesitate to think what the replacement cost would be. Ouch.
(I know replacement 4k displays for other models can be had for ~$120, but I doubt they're the same gamut/brightness/etc)

--Patrick


#345

Covar

Covar

stienman said:
Glad I didn't realize it until after it was over. Reading the live blogs was much faster than watching it would have been.

Thinner, lighter, reasonably powerful, costing twice as much as anything else with similar computing power, but no one else has as good a display. The touchbar is neat, and the trackpad is huge. Time will tell if these prove to be valuable enough to justify the price increase.

Glad they've finally come back to making darker laptops.

Still can't justify the cost, and I really wish they'd add a 4k display model, or a 17" 4k model.
Click to expand...
I couldn't see myself buying one anytime soon, but I would certainly put a maxed out 15" on my wish list next time my manager asks if I need a new laptop.

The large trackpad is interesting to me. I like the large one on my current 15" MBP (the first one with the force touch), and it's frustrating to go to someone's thinkpad where the trackpad is a lot smaller (and they turned of trackpoint for some reason :rage:).


#346

blotsfan

blotsfan

I finally upgraded to iOS10. I really wish I did the research to know they got rid of sliding to unlock the phone. That's about 7 years of muscle memory that I have to undo now for no good reason. What is the benefit of completely removing this?


#347

blotsfan

blotsfan

Oh and music is no longer in the central control panel. Glad they made room for night shift. That's used way more. Thanks apple for confirming that I never should buy one of your products again.


#348

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
What is the benefit of completely removing this?
Click to expand...
Supposedly it was so they could make swipe left for camera (don't miss that important shot!), and swipe right for widgets (get your most important info without unlocking your phone!). I was the same as you, but now whenever I use my kid's older iPod, it takes a moment or two for me to figure out why pressing the home button doesn't give me the passcode screen.
blotsfan said:
Oh and music is no longer in the central control panel. Glad they made room for night shift.
Click to expand...
My phone (5) doesn't support night shift. :(
What I miss is a way to have my phone only show me the music that's on my phone, no online music, no U2, nothing else. Yes I know I can go a couple levels deep and only show "Downloaded Music" but it's not the same.

--Patrick


#349

blotsfan

blotsfan

And they completely ruined the gif keyboard. Go fuck yourself apple.


#350

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
And they completely ruined the gif keyboard. Go fuck yourself apple.
Click to expand...
...here's your pitchfork.

Me, I'm still waiting to see if they finally do another quad-core SFF machine (which they haven't done since October 2012).
EDIT: Yes, I know I can probably build my own, but generally not with as high-end hardware, and certainly not at < 40W.

--Patrick


#351

fade

fade

I had the same feeling. Then I switched to android. Honestly I miss the consistency and timeliness of Apple. I realize this depends on the vendor with Android, but considering I'm with supposedly the top one, that argument doesn't help.


#352

jwhouk

jwhouk

See the whine thread.


#353

PatrThom

PatrThom

Posted a couple of different examples in the Overwatch thread, but some of these are really cool.


...and will no doubt impact world productivity.

...and possibly world reproductivity.

--Patrick


#354

fade

fade

Aw, someone should make a fake ghost detector app with this.[DOUBLEPOST=1497461050,1497460979][/DOUBLEPOST]Also that Japanese stiff, formulaic pop dancing always bugs me.


#355

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
Also that Japanese stiff, formulaic pop dancing always bugs me.
Click to expand...
Aww, some mocap team probably worked really hard on that.


#356

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
Aw, someone should make a fake ghost detector app with this.
Click to expand...
I know the tech demos above are more about world-building/video games and potentially also how it can be used for porn (because "how can I use this for porn?" is a question that all new technology is subjected to), but I also see this (coupled with body tracking and VR headset) as a revolutionary way in the privacy of your own home to learn dancing, martial arts, to exercise "with others" (similar to the Peloton bike), etc.
GasBandit said:
Aww, some mocap team probably worked really hard on that.
Click to expand...
Heh. "Team."
Whenever I see something like that, I imagine someone either painstakingly rotoscoping it from actual concert footage, or else I imagine them doing the moves themselves, S1m0ne*-style.

--Patrick
*A movie I still haven't seen, but want to.


#357

fade

fade

GasBandit said:
Aww, some mocap team probably worked really hard on that.
Click to expand...
I meant in general. This demo, anime, live action. Always has that "middle school play" feel about it.


#358

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
I meant in general. This demo, anime, live action. Always has that "middle school play" feel about it.
Click to expand...
TBH, that's kind of how I feel about all dances-as-performance.


#359

PatrThom

PatrThom

fade said:
I meant in general. This demo, anime, live action. Always has that "middle school play" feel about it.
Click to expand...
I know enough about stage choreography and computer programming to view every performance like this as just "<subroutine> <subroutine> <subroutine>" because it's rare for anyone in the age group that generally performs this stuff to have actually grasped the idea of flowing/blending one segment into the next.

--Patrick


#360

Bubble181

Bubble181

Well, that's difference between good dance and just a studied routine you're replicating.


#361

strawman

strawman



#362

fade

fade

Then Samsung will do exactly the same thing, and exactly the same people who derided Apple will praise Samsung.


#363

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Click to expand...
I thought XKCD's "faults" one was really funny.

--Patrick


#364

blotsfan

blotsfan

fade said:
Then Samsung will do exactly the same thing, and exactly the same people who derided Apple will praise Samsung.
Click to expand...
Did Samsung remove headphone jacks? I really hope they didn't.


#365

GasBandit

GasBandit

fade said:
Then Samsung will do exactly the same thing, and exactly the same people who derided Apple will praise Samsung.
Click to expand...
Actually, like all Innovations Apple, Android did away with Hardware home buttons years and years ago :p


#366

PatrThom

PatrThom

blotsfan said:
Did Samsung remove headphone jacks? I really hope they didn't.
Click to expand...
Practically the very next month after the iPhone 7 came out, yes.

--Patrick


#367

blotsfan

blotsfan

PatrThom said:
Practically the very next month after the iPhone 7 came out, yes.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Huh. So much for giving up iPhones when I need a new one.


#368

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

The S8 very clearly has a headphone jack, and it seems very likely the Note 8 will as well.

I'm an iPhone guy, but I'm a big believer in people just buying the phone that works best for them, not the best phone on theoretical paper. Despite every phone looking the same, there is a reasonable amount of differentiation as to which OS/hardware is best for what task.


#369

Far

Far

What? Which phone did Samsung not have a headphone jack on? People were talking about it happening with the S8 but they ultimately left it.


#370

fade

fade

GasBandit said:
Actually, like all Innovations Apple, Android did away with Hardware home buttons years and years ago :p
Click to expand...
I'm typing this on a Samsung Galaxy S7 and I'm looking right at a hardware home button.


#371

strawman

strawman

Samsung stole a lot of things from apple, but not the removal of the headphone jack. The S8 has it, and the S9 is reported to have it was well.

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+has+samsung+copied+from+apple


#372

Denbrought

Denbrought

fade said:
I'm typing this on a Samsung Galaxy S7 and I'm looking right at a hardware home button.
Click to expand...
Can Android phones be said to have or lack any feature unless 100% of Android phones in circulation have that characteristic?


#373

fade

fade

This is one of those "things" though...removing a hardware button is trivial. It's probably easier for Apple to remove it than keep it. I'm assuming they've got research-based reasons for keeping it. Because as much as one may hate Apple, the one thing they do drop loads of cash on is research-based UX development.


#374

GasBandit

GasBandit

SpecialKO said:
I'm an iPhone guy, but I'm a big believer in people just buying the phone that works best for them, not the best phone on theoretical paper. Despite every phone looking the same, there is a reasonable amount of differentiation on paper as to which OS/hardware is best for what task.
Click to expand...
I will definitely say I wish the OS/GUI response times on Androids were as snappy as they are on iPhones. I've read the articles which explains why this will never be the case, but it still always makes me grind my teeth every time I see a swipe lag behind my finger, or a button press registers a full second after I've tapped it.


#375

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

GasBandit said:
I will definitely say I wish the OS/GUI response times on Androids were as snappy as they are on iPhones. I've read the articles which explains why this will never be the case, but it still always makes me grind my teeth every time I see a swipe lag behind my finger, or a button press registers a full second after I've tapped it.
Click to expand...
It is especially noticeable on Android tablets. I have an Nvidia Shield K-1, and it's pretty great, especially for the cost, but it has *never* been as snappy as an iPad from the same era, let alone the later ones, and it's generally considered to be the most powerful Android tablet.

I think the phones do better in this respect. The relative sluggishness vs. iOS is something I've definitely noticed, but the last couple of S-class Samsung seem to have closed this gap for sure, and I didn't notice it at all when I was playing with a friend's Pixel.


#376

fade

fade

I definitely notice it on my S7. It's nowhere near as responsive as the 5 year old iPhone 5 it replaced.


#377

strawman

strawman

GasBandit said:
I will definitely say I wish the OS/GUI response times on Androids were as snappy as they are on iPhones. I've read the articles which explains why this will never be the case, but it still always makes me grind my teeth every time I see a swipe lag behind my finger, or a button press registers a full second after I've tapped it.
Click to expand...
This is probably what you read:

https://www.cultofmac.com/133624/why-android-will-always-be-laggier-than-ios/

In addition to that, Android doesn't work as hard to stop background processes, so there's a lot more CPU work being done in an android device than an iOS, which exacerbates this issue. And on top of that the app review process for the google play store isn't nearly as thorough as Apple's, leading to a lot of apps that are inefficient and simply don't render quickly or use accelerated capabilities as much as they could.

Google doesn't force app developers or users to upgrade their software and OS as aggressively as apple does. Apple's now ubiquitous message "This app may slow down your iphone" in iOS 10.1 and up really forces developers to upgrade their apps to use the latest framework features, and users to move away from apps that aren't being actively updated.

It's a forced march, but at least the app transitions are snappy.


#378

PatrThom

PatrThom

Far said:
What? Which phone did Samsung not have a headphone jack on? People were talking about it happening with the S8 but they ultimately left it.
Click to expand...
Far is correct, @blotsfan. Looks like they were thinking of it in December, but by January they had decided to leave it in. There must've been an outcry.

--Patrick


#379

jwhouk

jwhouk

I'd have to think that any iPhone/iPad without a home button would be like a Nike shoe without the "swoosh".


#380

strawman

strawman

Yeah, it's an integral feature of the UI, and without it there'd be no way to exit apps, among other things.

However, they have implemented force touch sensing, so they could still have one on the screen, just make it so you have to press hard.


#381

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
they could still have one on the screen, just make it so you have to press hard.
Click to expand...
Assistive Touch already does something similar to this, really handy if your home (or other) button stops working for some reason.

--Patrick


#382

strawman

strawman

So the rumors and leaks pretty much nailed the biggest features and lineup.

The iPhone 8 and 8+ are the yearly bump phones, and the iPhone X (pronounced "ten") is the "one more thing".

They've reduced the variety down to a 64GB and 256GB phone in each one, and they've kept the iPhone 7, 6s, and the iPhone SE, so they've got one at every price point from $349 through $1,099.

Removing the touch ID they've implemented face ID, using two front facing cameras, an infrared lamp, and an infrared dot projector. It recognizes if you're looking at the display and doesn't come on until it has your attention. The bump phones still have Touch ID.

The home button is replaced with a swipe-from-the-bottom gesture. So you lift the phone, and as long as your eyes are pointing towards the display you can swipe from the bottom to go to the home screen if it recognizes you, or it'll present a number pad for your pin if it does not.

They spent a great deal of time focusing on the augmented reality features. We will see how developers use that over time.

Wireless charging uses the QI standard, so thankfully it's not proprietary to apple. It's slower at 7.5W rather than the normal 10W fast charge.

The watch has cellular built in, starting at $399 (ie, more expensive than the iphone SE). They've integrated it with the phone such that you can use them separately but only use one number to reach or call from either whether they are close by or not. They also offer the watch 3 without cellular, but the one with cellular has double the flash memory, so even if you don't want cellular you may decide to buy it based on the memory available. No word on what plans would look like, but my expectation is that they'll offer a simple $10/mo increase since it's a single user system and you're going to use the same amount of phone and data, just on a separate device.

The apple TV now supports 4k and HDR.

The phones do have some neat newer features having to do with processing power and the camera.

The bump phones are available this month, the iPhone X next month.

Now I have to decide what I want. I have to admit I like using cases and display covers, but swiping up from the bottom is really annoying with either situation. It's not a huge deal since screens can be replaced, but with the oled display that's going to be a lot more expensive particularly this year during introduction.


#383

Dave

Dave

I want...to not spend money on something that I already have a device for.


#384

Covar

Covar

I liked that they stated that faceID wouldn't get fooled by a photo.

I'll probably wait and pre-order the X. I'm on a 6s Plus right now, but it's the first iPhone in a while where I didn't feel left behind when they announced the next two. The X seems like enough changes to me that I'm really interested.

I like my series 1 watch, and have considered upgrading, but it's really hard to justify the price.

I don't have an 4K HDR tv, so I don't have any reason to get a new appleTV. I remember a lot of criticism out there towards Apple for being the last to the table with 4K, but I always wonder how many people outside the tech bubble were crying out for a 4K HDR device for their set top. Also would it have killed them to put out a new remote that you can identify what direction's what without looking at it?


#385

strawman

strawman

Internally there is a six core processor, two big processors and four small ones, plus a neural engine, plus the graphics processor.

The accelerometer and gyro have been upgraded to be more accurate with motion sensing, making AR more responsive.

Face ID is not available on the 8.

Both rear cameras on the X are stabilized, only one on the 8.

The neural engine was designed for face recognition, and its capable of discerning between photos and statues/models. They worked with Hollywood effects artists to create 3D faces identical to people and the neural engine does not unlock. My guess is that the infrared camera has some ability to determine if it's looking at skin. Since you can see blood flow in infrared (it's how pulse oximeters work) I wonder if you could measure pulse rate with the front facing camera. So eventually this will be demonstrat d as breakable, but it won't be by a cheap process like a 3D printer.

They did admit that close family members may reduce the detection rate from 1:1,000,000 to something much more likely, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when the rubber hits the road.

I'm interested to see what the benchmarks show when it arrives.

They claim 2 more hours of battery life than the iPhone 7. Don't know how that compares to the 7+.


#386

GasBandit

GasBandit

Dave said:
I want...to not spend money on something that I already have a device for.
Click to expand...


#387

mikerc

mikerc

stienman said:
The iPhone 8 and 8+ are the yearly bump phones, and the iPhone X (pronounced "ten") is the "one more thing".
Click to expand...
Sheesh. First Windows skipped form 8 to 10 & now Apple are doing the same. What's wrong with the number 9?


#388

GasBandit

GasBandit

mikerc said:
Sheesh. First Windows skipped form 8 to 10 & now Apple are doing the same. What's wrong with the number 9?
Click to expand...
Well, everything that Apple ever does is copied from either MS or Android, after all.


#389

Sara_2814

Sara_2814

I'm still on an iPhone 6. I don't really have a reason to upgrade to the 8. TouchID and ApplePay were my big reasons for upgrading to the 6, and they still work fine. The X is nifty. I like the new camera features and the facial recognition looks interesting, but not enough to upgrade at this point. Maybe when the next version comes out.

Definitely getting a Watch, though, specifically for the health & fitness stuff. It would be nice to get the cellular version, but that's going to depend on how much AT&T is going to charge for an extra plan.


#390

Covar

Covar

stienman said:
They did admit that close family members may reduce the detection rate from 1:1,000,000 to something much more likely, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when the rubber hits the road.
Click to expand...
I thought the line was amusing, but then saddened when I realized that if they didn't mention twins after talking about the detection rate there would have been a whole lot of shitty articles from blogs bringing it up as criticism as if its some kind of gapping non-obvious security flaw.


#391

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Well, everything that Apple ever does is copied from either MS or Android, after all.
Click to expand...
Or Xerox, or Star Trek...
It's not like everyone isn't falling over themselves to copy everyone else. Smartphones are so cutthroat these days, but Apple's the only one selling their flagships in the millions rather than the thousands.
Sara_2814 said:
Definitely getting a Watch, though, specifically for the health & fitness stuff. It would be nice to get the cellular version, but that's going to depend on how much AT&T is going to charge for an extra plan.
Click to expand...
No idea what method the carriers are going to use to squeeze extra money out of you just because you have a watch, but I'm sure they'll think of something.

A bit of info for people who might've missed it in the fine print: Using the Gen3 watch requires iOS 11, which means at least a 5s or better...BUT using the LTE version of the watch will require an iPhone 6 or newer. No 5s' allowed.

Personally, my biggest disappointment is no new Mac Mini. I really want to replace my 2009 Mini server with something more current, but I want it to have 4 cores, not 2, and I'm not going to pay the premium being demanded by the people who still have the 4-core 2012 machines (they're actually more expensive now than they were when they were new!).

--Patrick


#392

Eriol

Eriol

I think the name of the thread is funny in light of the announced prices.


#393

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
I think the name of the thread is funny in light of the announced prices.
Click to expand...
Yeah, everything seems to have increased in price by $50.

--Patrick


#394

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

In other Apple news, the App Store has been removed from iTunes 12.7. Instead, Apple wants iTunes to concentrate on music, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks.


#395

PatrThom

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
In other Apple news, the App Store has been removed from iTunes 12.7. Instead, Apple wants iTunes to concentrate on music, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks.
Click to expand...
I guess this is part of the iOS 11="64-bit only" release. The people this is going to hurt the most is people with older equipment. If you have an older iOS device and go to download an app that's too new for that device, you will get a message that you can't do that. The workaround was to go to your computer and buy the app there instead, then when you go into the previous purchases section on the iOS device and try to download it there, it would tell you it was unsupported, but then allow you the option to download an older, compatible version. So unless there is a new method, the only way to download an app to an older device now is going to be to first have a newer device to buy it.

--Patrick


#396

Ravenpoe

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
I guess this is part of the iOS 11="64-bit only" release. The people this is going to hurt the most is people with older equipment. If you have an older iOS device and go to download an app that's too new for that device, you will get a message that you can't do that. The workaround was to go to your computer and buy the app there instead, then when you go into the previous purchases section on the iOS device and try to download it there, it would tell you it was unsupported, but then allow you the option to download an older, compatible version. So unless there is a new method, the only way to download an app to an older device now is going to be to first have a newer device to buy it.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Everything you just said is why I hate Apple. I realize that there are tons of people who aren't affected by this and love their Apple products and that's perfectly fine, but that type of scenario just rubs me entirely the wrong way.


#397

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Ravenpoe said:
Everything you just said is why I hate Apple. I realize that there are tons of people who aren't affected by this and love their Apple products and that's perfectly fine, but that type of scenario just rubs me entirely the wrong way.
Click to expand...
They're certainly not the first nor the only ones who remove functionality in order to move people onto their preferred path. But it does have the unintended side effect of this. People going "screw you, I'm out," when they go too far. GNOME was that for me. The early 2.x version was a well-deserved classic. But then the dev teams started dropping features and options that people had come to rely on. They insisted it was in the name of usability, but for many of its fans, it was gradually becoming crippleware. Eventually I had enough and just quit GNOME entirely.


#398

PatrThom

PatrThom

The parodies have begun!



Ravenpoe said:
Everything you just said is why I hate Apple. I realize that there are tons of people who aren't affected by this and love their Apple products and that's perfectly fine, but that type of scenario just rubs me entirely the wrong way.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I know. But it looks like Microsoft is adopting the same policy. Your computer is still running Win7/Win8.x? Too bad, you must move to WinX. At this point, you either take your pick of macOS or WinX and suck up the stuff you don't like, or else you wade into the morass of *nix variants and get used to doing all the tech support yourself (which is fine if you know how, but not a realistic option for Mr./Mrs. Consumer).

--Patrick


#399

Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
Yeah, I know. But it looks like Microsoft is adopting the same policy. Your computer is still running Win7/Win8.x? Too bad, you must move to WinX. At this point, you either take your pick of macOS or WinX and suck up the stuff you don't like, or else you wade into the morass of *nix variants and get used to doing all the tech support yourself (which is fine if you know how, but not a realistic option for Mr./Mrs. Consumer).

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Given that the link you gave is about NEW processors, I don't think that's the same as "still running win7." You've swapped out the cpu, mobo, and RAM at a minimum (which non-techies don't do, they just buy a computer that's complete). That's hardly the same situation as "your computer was 100% fine and you changed nothing... but now you have to move to Win10" like you're implying.


#400

fade

fade

Ravenpoe said:
Everything you just said is why I hate Apple. I realize that there are tons of people who aren't affected by this and love their Apple products and that's perfectly fine, but that type of scenario just rubs me entirely the wrong way.
Click to expand...
As opposed to my Android, where they solve the problem by just never updating the OS.


#401

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

fade said:
As opposed to my Android, where they solve the problem by just never updating the OS.
Click to expand...
Which particular they in your case? I hated having to wait on first HTC and then Sprint to give their blessing to the Gingerbread update on my Evo. By the time they finally did, Honeycomb was already out (albeit for tablets only), and Ice Cream Sandwich was imminent. I ended up just rooting and running Cyanogenmod instead.


#402

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Given that the link you gave is about NEW processors, I don't think that's the same as "still running win7." You've swapped out the cpu, mobo, and RAM at a minimum (which non-techies don't do, they just buy a computer that's complete). That's hardly the same situation as "your computer was 100% fine and you changed nothing... but now you have to move to Win10" like you're implying.
Click to expand...
It's not about the CPU being new, it's about the configuration previously being supported. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are people who bought a Skylake system running Win8 or Win7 because that was their preferred version of OS, the one they were perhaps most familiar with, or that their peripherals were most compatible with, and which was fully supported on the platform at the time, with the promise of support for many years to come. Then Microsoft unexpectedly said to these people, "If you want to continue to run those older operating systems, then you should've bought an older (i.e., slower) computer. Your fault for buying something new. We are discontinuing 7/8 support for your machines BUT we will continue to support people with older 7/8 hardware than yours because we have decided that supporting all the originally compatible hardware is too hard."

Apple's app situation is one of, "You may want to buy ChickenAndEggApp, but the current shipping version of C&E is v3.0, which will not work with your device. The last supported version of C&E for your device was v2.6, which we would happily download to your device in its place except that we can't because you haven't purchased any version of C&E yet. Please try again once you sign into hardware which supports v3.0 so that you can purchase v3.0 so that its purchase appears on your record, and then we will allow you to download v2.6 for your older device even though you just had to replace it with a newer one in order to buy v3.0 in the first place."

--Patrick


#403

PatrThom

PatrThom

mikerc said:
What's wrong with the number 9?
Click to expand...
The Beatles have it locked up under copyright.

--Patrick


#404

Bubble181

Bubble181

Most expensive X in the USA: $1149
With current market, that's €960
Announced European price: €1329

Well, thanks a bunch, Apple!

(not that I'd ever buy it anyway)


#405

LittleSin

LittleSin

Without reading the rest of the thread: WTF APPLE???


#406

Eriol

Eriol

PatrThom said:
It's not about the CPU being new, it's about the configuration previously being supported. I know this may be hard for you to believe, but there are people who bought a Skylake system running Win8 or Win7 because that was their preferred version of OS, the one they were perhaps most familiar with, or that their peripherals were most compatible with, and which was fully supported on the platform at the time, with the promise of support for many years to come. Then Microsoft unexpectedly said to these people, "If you want to continue to run those older operating systems, then you should've bought an older (i.e., slower) computer. Your fault for buying something new. We are discontinuing 7/8 support for your machines BUT we will continue to support people with older 7/8 hardware than yours because we have decided that supporting all the originally compatible hardware is too hard."
Click to expand...
Patrick, IMO you explained it poorly, and my memory of the incident was also faulty. My original understanding is that this was ONLY an upgrade scenario, where somebody had 7 or 8, upgraded, and got the blocked update notification. That is QUITE different than what the article you linked explains, which shows how they changed mid-stream, which is not OK.

So ya, I'm with you. MS was shitty there. I'm OK with them saying "new processor, we only support 10 (or whatever) and up, and your upgrade means you can't still run your old OS." I'm not OK with what they did, where people were FULLY SUPPORTED and still within the support period, and are not receiving updates.


#407

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

A $1K phone isn't completely out the question - when I switched to paying for my iPhone 6S via Apple's update program, which had 0% interest (which I believe is still the case?), and kicked my carrier-subsidized plan to the curb in exchange for a pre-pay with the same basic features, I went from paying $300+$150 AppleCare for my previous phone and $95/mo for my 2-year plan ($2730 over 2 years) to paying $912 (includes AppleCare) for my 6S and 45/mo for my plan ($1,992 over 2 years). So paying $300 more dollars for a base IPX+AppleCare still amounts to less than I was paying for years with my combined 5S, 4S, or even 3G subsidized phone plans.

The question seems to be more, is $1K for a phone, whether we're talking an IPX or a Note 8 really worth it in a world with an iPhone 8, Galaxy S8, or a OnePlus 5 exist. All 3 of those have the same processors as their more $$ brethren. They probably have less RAM, fewer extra features, and if the color thing claim by Apple is accurate (it may be) then the IPX and Note8 have literally "the best screens" in existence, but none of the other phones are even remotely slouch-like in their performance (assuming the iPhone 8 has the typical new iPhone performance)


#408

drawn_inward

drawn_inward

DarkAudit said:
Which particular they in your case? I hated having to wait on first HTC and then Sprint to give their blessing to the Gingerbread update on my Evo. By the time they finally did, Honeycomb was already out (albeit for tablets only), and Ice Cream Sandwich was imminent. I ended up just rooting and running Cyanogenmod instead.
Click to expand...
I must not be a super-user b/c I have never cared if my phone updated the OS. I don't even know what the OS is called. The older I get the more of a luddite I am becoming I guess. What are you guys doing that makes these updates so necessary?


#409

Bubble181

Bubble181

drawn_inward said:
What are you guys doing that makes these updates so necessary?
Click to expand...
...How do you run the latest version of the Voigt-Kampff test on an obsolete OS? Using an older version is dangerous and likely to lead you to trust....the wrong people.


#410

fade

fade

drawn_inward said:
I must not be a super-user b/c I have never cared if my phone updated the OS. I don't even know what the OS is called. The older I get the more of a luddite I am becoming I guess. What are you guys doing that makes these updates so necessary?
Click to expand...
The security updates are necessary. What makes your car necessary when your horse and buggy work just fine there, grandpa? :p


#411

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Patrick, IMO you explained it poorly
Click to expand...
It's a habit I seem to have.
drawn_inward said:
What are you guys doing that makes these updates so necessary?
Click to expand...
fade said:
The security updates are necessary.
Click to expand...
As but one example...

SpecialKO said:
The question seems to be more, is $1K for a phone, whether we're talking an IPX or a Note 8 really worth it in a world with an iPhone 8, Galaxy S8, or a OnePlus 5 exist.
Click to expand...
My guess is that the iPX was really positioned as "The 10yr Anniversary Edition" instead of it being part of the usual lineup, much like the gold Apple Watch Edition (only offered once so rich people could yell "First!" on their wrist) or the 20th Anniversary Macintosh.

--Patrick


#412

strawman

strawman

If you're paying $50 a month for the service, and upgrade your phone every three years, even the most expensive iPhone is 1/3 the total cost of your communications device, and it still has significant value at the end of those three years.

Whether it's worth it is an entirely different and much more subjective question, but keep in mind that you're already paying a lot for your cellular service, the phone is just a fraction of it, and if the more expensive phone helps you better utilize the cellular service, then it's probably worth a little extra.

That said, the X is $200 more than the 8+, and for that you get:

HDR display
OLED display (better contrast)
Higher resolution (458pixels/inch vs 401, over 400 more pixels horizontally)
Bigger display (5.8" vs 5.5")
Smaller device (1/2" smaller vertical, 1/4" smaller horizontal)
Both rear cameras are stabilized (vs only one)
Portrait mode/portrait lighting/animoji/face ID

I'm torn, I'm not sure it's worth it. The additional stabilized camera would be nice, and the display looks spectacular, but the thing that might push me over the edge is that the display is larger while the phone is smaller than my current 6+. Is that worth $200? I'm not convinced, but it's an item that occupies one of my pants pockets 16 hours a day, 365 days a year, and I'm going to be holding onto it for 3 years. In hand and in a pants pocket that's not a small difference.

The kicker is that I've never been completely happy with touch ID, and I've had to have the home button replaced on my device as well as my wife's, so I'd prefer moving away from mechanical parts that fail.

I doubt face ID will be the end-all be-all panacea, but it's unlikely to be worse than touch ID, and I can always fall back to the pin as I have to a few times a day already.

On top of that, when I switched to this phone, I gave up my ipad thinking that the bigger display would be good enough. It isn't, but I haven't needed to carry the ipad around, I've just lived without the additional utility it provided. Going with a slightly bigger screen won't necessarily change that much, but since I've been able to live without it, I wonder if I shouldn't simply move to the 8, and thus compare the 8 to the X, suggesting a cost differential of $300, rather than $200.

The watch with LTE is making me rethink my digital strategy altogether as well. I've seen nothing, however, that suggests you can use the watch for apple pay without the phone, though. Sure, it can contact servers, but it doesn't have touch ID or face ID, so I'm guessing they won't allow you to go for a run with the watch, buy something during the run, then return home without the phone. Not that I've used apple pay at all yet, but I'd really like to stop carrying my cards.

While I'm wishing, it would also be nice if my phone and watch could serve as my driver's license, eliminating the need for a wallet phone case altogether.


#413

Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Eriol said:
I think the name of the thread is funny in light of the announced prices.
Click to expand...
I thought that was the point of the title right from the get go.


#414

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
I'm torn, I'm not sure [the iPhone X is] worth it. The additional stabilized camera would be nice, and the display looks spectacular, but the thing that might push me over the edge is that the display is larger while the phone is smaller than my current 6+.
Click to expand...
And that display is 2k, which is an upgrade from the 1080 on the Plus phones. The dual-stabilization and (to a lesser extent) the longer battery life are the only things really making me pause from auto-locking an 8, as well.
stienman said:
The kicker is that I've never been completely happy with touch ID, and I've had to have the home button replaced on my device as well as my wife's, so I'd prefer moving away from mechanical parts that fail.
Click to expand...
Starting with the 7-series, the home button is no longer a separate mechanical part. It functions similarly to the 6s' display Force Touch, where it uses some sort of strain gauge to determine whether or not you are "pressing" the button, and then gives haptic feedback to let you know that you've pressed it. This also means there is no gap around the button for infiltration to occur.
stienman said:
Going with a slightly bigger screen won't necessarily change that much, but since I've been able to live without it, I wonder if I shouldn't simply move to the 8, and thus compare the 8 to the X, suggesting a cost differential of $300, rather than $200.
Click to expand...
Since I am stepping up from a 5 (and am kinda being forced, since iOS 11 will not run on my 32-bit 5), my dilemma is the same. Do I go with an 8 or with an X? As a possible 3rd choice, do I go with a 7 or 7 Plus now that they have dropped in price?

Incidentally, it appears the $50 price increases are due to the current flash memory shortage having more of an impact on the industry than originally projected.
stienman said:
The watch with LTE is making me rethink my digital strategy altogether as well. I've seen nothing, however, that suggests you can use the watch for apple pay without the phone, though. Sure, it can contact servers, but it doesn't have touch ID or face ID, so I'm guessing they won't allow you to go for a run with the watch, buy something during the run, then return home without the phone. Not that I've used apple pay at all yet, but I'd really like to stop carrying my cards.
Click to expand...
The watch has always functioned with Apple Pay, even for phones that don't have a built-in secure element (e.g., the iPhone 5), and you have never had to have the phone present or even be online during payment, only during setup. Since the watch has pulse sensors, etc. on it, it knows when it is removed from your wrist, so as long as you don't take it off after you have unlocked it, you can continue to use it for contactless payments.

As for using it for identification purposes, I doubt that's going to happen. Apple and the various governments are already at odds about how much default access a government should have into Apple devices.

...

Also on a note completely unrelated to phones, I am looking forward to the Apple TV 4k. Even though I don't have a 4k television, our current 4th gen sometimes feels like it could benefit from a little more grunt.

--Patrick


#415

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
And that display is 2k, which is an upgrade from the 1080 on the Plus phones.
Click to expand...
You're comparing the wrong axis:
Long axis:
X: 2436
8+: 1920 (79% of the X)
8: 1334 (55% of the X)

Short axis:
X: 1125
8+: 1080 (96% of the X)
8: 750 (67% of the X)

Pixels:
X: 2.74M
8+: 2.07M (76% of the X)
8: 1.00M (37% of the X)

Now that I look at it, though, I don't think I could stand going to the smaller one. I'm surprised it's that big a difference, I hadn't actually crunched the numbers before. Fitting two of the 8 into the 8+ screen, and three of the 8 into the X screen really puts this in perspective. I don't see myself getting an 8 now, and the additional space on the X along with the other camera features might tip me over.

PatrThom said:
Incidentally, it appears the $50 price increases are due to the current flash memory shortage having more of an impact on the industry than originally projected.
Click to expand...
Honestly I'm just glad they've stopped charging an additional $100 for each of a zillion small memory bumps. Remember when you'd pay $100 more to go from 8GB 3GS to 16GB 3GS, then another $100 to go from there to 32GB? It was ridiculous.

Going to two models, one 64GB (which is actually pretty reasonable in terms of what you can do with it) and a $150 bump to add nearly 200GB more is expensive, but much more reasonable than they used to be.

PatrThom said:
The watch has always functioned with Apple Pay, even for phones that don't have a built-in secure element (e.g., the iPhone 5), and you have never had to have the phone present or even be online during payment, only during setup. Since the watch has pulse sensors, etc. on it, it knows when it is removed from your wrist, so as long as you don't take it off after you have unlocked it, you can continue to use it for contactless payments.
Click to expand...
TIL. I have a real hard time loaning my phone to my kids, but the watch really fills a need here, because I can answer the phone, get messages, and do a lot with it even if I've given my phone to a kid. HAving to carry around a bluetooth headset is the only downside, but the times I'd be loaning my phone out I'd probably be able to make ure I have a headset with me without having to make it part of my everyday carry.

As sexy as the earpods are (functionally - I don't care about the looks) I don't think I'd use them enough to justify the cost.

PatrThom said:
As for using it for identification purposes, I doubt that's going to happen. Apple and the various governments are already at odds about how much default access a government should have into Apple devices.
Click to expand...
There are companies working on it for the last several years, and they've done testing in limited areas (Maryland is one that tried it out).

The issue of privacy is, as you guessed, at the fore. Agents (police, etc) of the government are used to being able to take the ID with them, deal with it, then return it. Users shouldn't have to let go of their phone, however, and if they do can they lock the phone so it displays the ID but doesn't allow further access, nor show alerts or otherwise divulge private information or access? No, the phone has to stay int he user's hand, which means it has to display the license and a barcode or use NFC to work with a handheld reader the agent would be using - probably their own phone.

This is further complicated by the new federal ID requirements for flying and international travel, where a lot of different agencies would have to work together to get plastic ones that meet everyone's needs - this becomes a much bigger problem when its digital.

As such, even though there are several companies working on it, I suspect it's going to have to come down to Apple choosing to do it, and wrangling the various agencies, or it's going to have to come from the government with a list of requirements, digital interfaces, etc so multiple companies can implement it.

It's very non trivial. It would have been better if a state had implemented it prior to the new federal guidelines, then forced the federal government to fit into their system, but now there's way too many fingers in the pie.

If Apple worked it out, though, can you imagine the coup? Even if designed in an open fashion it would still take samsung and google a year or more to catch up. I doubt it would work this way, though, the government would demand a system/program/bid that worked across 90% of the smart phones in the US.

Anyway, fun to think about, but I doubt the plastic ID card is going away anytime soon. I'd be happy if I could just get rid of the credit cards, and store just my ID in the back of my phone.


#416

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

PatrThom said:
It's a habit I seem to have.


As but one example...


My guess is that the iPX was really positioned as "The 10yr Anniversary Edition" instead of it being part of the usual lineup, much like the gold Apple Watch Edition (only offered once so rich people could yell "First!" on their wrist) or the 20th Anniversary Macintosh.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
I get that, but they're still $1000 phones that are competing on their internals, versus the gold Apple Watch edition that was, well, covered in gold.


#417

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
You're comparing the wrong axis:
Click to expand...
Ah, you're right. I'm just so used to seeing "2xxx" in a dimension these days as an automatic 2k.
stienman said:
the watch really fills a need here, because I can answer the phone, get messages, and do a lot with it even if I've given my phone to a kid. HAving to carry around a bluetooth headset is the only downside, but the times I'd be loaning my phone out I'd probably be able to make ure I have a headset with me without having to make it part of my everyday carry.
Click to expand...
You don't need a headset, the watch has a built-in mic and speaker. Always has. It's just not the best way to have a private conversation.
Battery life for phone calls when flying solo is projected to only be about an hour, though.
If I get one, it's going to be for the heart monitoring. Stupid suspected branching defect.
stienman said:
If Apple worked [the ID situation] out, though, can you imagine the coup?
Click to expand...
Truthfully, it's probably going to take someone doing something similar in order to get everyone on board. Government agencies will bureaucracy it to death every time the idea is brought up, so it's probably not going to happen until someone like Apple or Samsung (someone with enough control over the installed hardware base, that is) develops some ad-hoc standard that the government is forced to acknowledge simply because so many people are using it, kinda like cryptocurrency.

--Patrick


#418

Covar

Covar

For anyone concerned there's a "cop button" in iOS 11 that will disable touchID (and I presume FaceID as well since they share so much). That should be good at least until Judges start deciding that a password isn't protected by the 5th amendment. https://9to5mac.com/2017/08/18/cop-button-ios-11-beta-6-medical-id-unconscious/

How your cellular carrier is handling the Apple Watch Series 3. Looks like you can expect an extra $10 a month for the watch.


#419

PatrThom

PatrThom

Covar said:
How your cellular carrier is handling the Apple Watch Series 3. Looks like you can expect an extra $10 a month for the watch.
Click to expand...
Great. $5 for a tablet, but $10 for a watch. And you MUST have an iPhone with them in order to add a watch. Any excuse to add more fees, I guess.

--Patrick


#420

strawman

strawman

I've never seen $5 for a tablet add on, only $10. Sounds like you've got a good plan.


#421

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
I've never seen $5 for a tablet add on, only $10. Sounds like you've got a good plan.
Click to expand...
The limitation is that it has to be on the same bill as the phone (i.e., not the independent tablet month-to-month cell plan), but it's not like we weren't already going to do that.

--Patrick


#422

fade

fade

$10 in addition to a plan and a sim card, or instead of? If it's the former, that...sounds like a decent deal. If it's the latter, why not just get the sim card and put it in the tablet without telling them it's a tablet?


#423

Covar

Covar

fade said:
$10 in addition to a plan and a sim card, or instead of? If it's the former, that...sounds like a decent deal. If it's the latter, why not just get the sim card and put it in the tablet without telling them it's a tablet?
Click to expand...
Instead of. It's an extension to your existing plan and uses the same number as your phone. The sim in the watch is built in, to save space.


#424

strawman

strawman

Covar said:
Instead of. It's an extension to your existing plan and uses the same number as your phone. The sim in the watch is built in, to save space.
Click to expand...
And in fact they use an embedded sim card following a new standard that removes the need for sim cards altogether. So eventually you won't be able to swap sim cards out, you'll just pass phone ID info to the carrier and they'll configure the embedded sim remotely, similar to how CDMA has always worked.


#425

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
And in fact they use an embedded sim card following a new standard that removes the need for sim cards altogether. So eventually you won't be able to swap sim cards out, you'll just pass phone ID info to the carrier and they'll configure the embedded sim remotely, similar to how CDMA has always worked.
Click to expand...
Do we know if AT&T is still going to be an ass about this with the watch?

--Patrick


#426

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
Do we know if AT&T is still going to be an ass about this with the watch?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Who knows. I've never had an issue moving a device from ATT to another carrier (as long as the device itself is compatible with the new carrier's network, which hasn't been an issue for LTE devices for awhile now.)

Given that the watch pairs with the phone and then the service is ordered through the phone, my guess is that they wouldn't lock it down any more than they lock the phone dow.


#427

PatrThom

PatrThom

My concern is because the watch has an embedded SIM (they even point it out during the announcement), so if AT&T decides to squat in it, you can't just switch it out like you can a standard SIM.

--Patrick


#428

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
My concern is because the watch has an embedded SIM (they even point it out during the announcement), so if AT&T decides to squat in it, you can't just switch it out like you can a standard SIM.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Early reports seem to suggest that the watch is tied to the phone in a way that means if your phone service changes from one carrier to another, the watch just goes along for the ride. This means that carriers can't lock the watch to their service, but they could lock the phone sim, which is still replaceable, to their service.

Some reports suggest that the iPad pro with its esim was also being locked to ATT permanently, but apple and ATT simply said that all you had to do was install a real sim in the available sim slot and it would work with another carrier.

So long as there's a way out, it looks like ATT will lock sims to their network, but my guess is that they won't do that with the watch because there's no work around if someone wants to change carriers.

Further the law requires them to unlock devices, so there will have to be a method of way to do so if they do choose to lock them.


#429

PatrThom

PatrThom

Considered putting a link to this reddit conversation in the misanthropy thread, but it was too entertaining to squirrel away like that.

When the [desire] for a new iPhone is too great, you get fired.

My favorite comment: "She did all this to get an iPhone X? What was her plan for the month+ before the iPhone X actually ships?" :rolleyes:
And now I suppose her lust will never be satisfied.
Also, by the sound of things, maybe @Squidleybits has worked with this person at some point? The attitude sounds similar to some of the people we've heard about.

--Patrick


#430

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

PatrThom said:
[story about a crazy person]
Click to expand...
...holy shit.


#431

strawman

strawman

:eek:

Your company gives you free $800 phones every other year, pays for their service (another $1,000 per year or more), and it's not enough. She could have sat down, enjoyed her one year old phone until it was two years old, then gotten the Xs or whatever they call it when it comes out next year.

This is the kind of situation where I hope the company gives the evidence to the police and has them prosecute her for malicious damage of property. Over $250 in value in many places is a felony, and she'd have to report it to all future employers - they'd need to know to avoid putting her in control of property she might be willing to damage.

If you think that's going too far, well let's just say I've learned what happens when you gain an employee who's willing to damage equipment for their personal gain.


#432

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

stienman said:
let's just say I've learned what happens when you gain an employee who's willing to damage equipment for their personal gain.
Click to expand...
...hello, "Executive".


#433

GasBandit

GasBandit

Guess we know where she'll end up.



#434

Eriol

Eriol

  1. This thread should REALLY be in the tech forum.
  2. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-open-battery-problems-charging-a7975406.html
Some iPhone 8+ phones are bursting when charging due to battery swell. So I wonder if this is a hoax, a very small production problem, or NOT a hoax like the Samsung Note stuff was last year. At first it was claimed to be a very small number from Samsung too.


#435

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Went and swapped my 6s for an 8. Other than~$100 for taxes and a new case, my bill will actually go DOWN. The monthly payment on the device goes from $25 to $23 and change. :)


#436

PatrThom

PatrThom

Eriol said:
Some iPhone 8+ phones are bursting when charging due to battery swell. So I wonder if this is a hoax, a very small production problem, or NOT a hoax like the Samsung Note stuff was last year.
Click to expand...
So far I've seen stories about a total of 5 units. But as Jack Palance once said, "...it's early, yet."
DarkAudit said:
Went and swapped my 6s for an 8. Other than~$100 for taxes and a new case, my bill will actually go DOWN. The monthly payment on the device goes from $25 to $23 and change. :)
Click to expand...
Yes, but how much of a difference do you notice on how it performs?

Also, a some folks at Futuremark decided to directly investigate the rumor that Apple deliberately reduces the speed of older phones through updates in an attempt to get people to upgrade to newer equipment. Their findings? These slowdowns are completely subjective.

--Patrick


#437

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Yes, but how much of a difference do you notice on how it performs?
Click to expand...
I've barely got it home. That will have to wait.


#438

strawman

strawman

Preorders for X started 4 hours ago and shipping time is now listed as 5-6 weeks on apple's site.

So now I'm getting the x next friday (woke up in the middle of the night), and I'm getting a cellular iwatch this monday (ordered weeks ago).

So I have to wonder if I should list them together on ebay. Some are already listing the iphone x 256 for $3k, more than twice the cost. I've got applecare with mine (and the watch) so together I've spent over $2k. Would someone spend $4k for a bundle? Can I do it without getting scammed? List it on facebook marketplace instead?

Something for me to think about this weekend I guess - whether I can essentially get someone else to pay for my expensive tastes, and simply delay my own gratification in exchange...


#439

Covar

Covar

I tried ordering one this morning at 3am, but the t-mobile site was having trouble with the load. This morning I still couldn’t pre-order online because it was showing nothing but the 8 and 7. So I called customer support and placed an order, it ships between the 3rd and the 11th, with a $300 credit for my 6s plus.


#440

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Something for me to think about this weekend I guess - whether I can essentially get someone else to pay for my expensive tastes, and simply delay my own gratification in exchange...
Click to expand...
You know, it's people like you...

...who tend to have more money than me.

--Patrick


#441

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
You know, it's people like you...

...who tend to have more money than me.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
The reality is that I shouldn't be spending this money this way. But I've been saving $50 a month for a very long time (and why I'm trading up only every three years rather than every two now), and I need it for the app development I'm doing anyway. Or at least that's how I justify it in my head. I need one of each form factor of iOS device, and so this is filling out the stable.

Plus my wife is very, very, very understanding, patient, and long-suffering*. The stuff she puts up with, having me as a husband - she's a saint.

*having or showing patience in spite of troubles, especially those caused by other people.


#442

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
I need it for the app development I'm doing anyway.
Click to expand...
How much longer do you plan to develop for 32-bit iOS?

--Patrick


#443

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
How much longer do you plan to develop for 32-bit iOS?

--Patrick
Click to expand...
So far no one has said 64 only so everything I’m doing includes both, but, particularly for large apps, eventually they’ll stop including the 32 bit slice for space reasons.

Given that they just obsoleted the iPhone 5, the last phone that did 32 bits, I suspect most developers will switch to 64 only in a year or two, and I expect Xcode will stop supporting 32 bit fairly soon.


#444

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
So far no one has said 64 only so everything I’m doing includes both, but, particularly for large apps, eventually they’ll stop including the 32 bit slice for space reasons.

Given that they just obsoleted the iPhone 5, the last phone that did 32 bits, I suspect most developers will switch to 64 only in a year or two, and I expect Xcode will stop supporting 32 bit fairly soon.
Click to expand...
Actually, the last 32-bit phone was the 5c, which was just a 5 with a plastic case and updated LTE hardware, if I remember. The 5c's aren't supposed to go out of service until Q3 2018, if Apple keeps to their usual "5 years discontinued and done" schedule.

Mainly I was asking because I know Apple mandated 64-bit support be included with all apps submitted since H1 2015, and they have started culling all apps that haven't had updates since then, but I haven't heard anything yet about a final 32-bit sunset.

--Patrick


#445

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

PatrThom said:
Mainly I was asking because I know Apple mandated 64-bit support be included with all apps submitted since H1 2015, and they have started culling all apps that haven't had updates since then, but I haven't heard anything yet about a final 32-bit sunset.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
I guess that explains why a few of my games and certain other apps went away with the iOS 11 update.

What bugs me more than them going away is the silence from devs when asked if the apps are dead or not.


#446

PatrThom

PatrThom

DarkAudit said:
What bugs me more than them going away is the silence from devs when asked if the apps are dead or not.
Click to expand...
On the one hand, I'm not going to miss the several dozen Flappy Bird clones and Baby's First Fart Apps. On the other hand, there are some sentimental favorites I am going to miss, such as Allied Star Police. Maybe I can someday play them in some 32-bit offshoot of iPhone Simulator? D'ya think MAME will some day get an A6 emulator?

--Patrick


#447

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
Actually, the last 32-bit phone was the 5c, which was just a 5 with a plastic case and updated LTE hardware, if I remember. The 5c's aren't supposed to go out of service until Q3 2018, if Apple keeps to their usual "5 years discontinued and done" schedule.

Mainly I was asking because I know Apple mandated 64-bit support be included with all apps submitted since H1 2015, and they have started culling all apps that haven't had updates since then, but I haven't heard anything yet about a final 32-bit sunset.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
They haven’t said anything about a 32 bit sunset, but it’s coming.


#448

Bubble181

Bubble181



#449

PatrThom

PatrThom

Yeah, chargers are only what, $20?

--Patrick


#450

PatrThom

PatrThom

Retailers worry that expensive iPhone X will slurp up money that could have been spent on other (i.e., their) products.
Yes, you heard it here first. Wall Street says the iPhone X is going to destroy Xmas.

Meanwhile Best Buy was channeling car dealerships for a while there, telling their customers that anyone who wanted an iPhone 8/X needed to give 110%. Seriously, they were tacking an extra $100 onto the cost to allow for the "flexibility" of being able to purchase a device "the way you want." They've since backed down on this...by deciding to no longer sell full-price phones at all.
When a customer purchases an iPhone via a carrier installment plan, Best Buy receives a payment from the carrier in question, but that payment is not received for iPhones at full price, which seems to be why Best Buy was charging an additional $100. No other retailer charges an additional $100 for the iPhone, though.
Click to expand...
They're still selling previous model phones with the full-price option...for only an extra $50, that is.

--Patrick


#451

Eriol

Eriol

This is fascinating: Watch a 10-Year-Old's Face Unlock His Mom's iPhone X
Attaullah Malik and Sana Sherwani made that discovery earlier this month, when their fifth-grade son, Ammar Malik, walked into the bedroom of their Staten Island home to admire their new pair of iPhone Xs just after they’d set up Face ID. “There’s no way you’re getting access to this phone,” the older Malik remembers his wife telling her son, in a half-joking show of strictness.

Malik offered to let Ammar look at his phone instead, but the boy picked up his mother's, not knowing which was which. And a split second after he looked at it, the phone unlocked.

The parents were shocked. Ten-year-old Ammar thought it was hilarious.
Click to expand...
There is additional information in the article about how the initial "calibration" of FaceID was done in a "not perfect" lighting environment, and when they re-did it under "better" conditions he was properly locked out. But thinking ahead, they even re-did it "badly" deliberately, and the son could again unlock it.

So FYI: if you have this feature, be sure you're in good lighting conditions for the initial check, otherwise your results may vary a lot!


#452

Covar

Covar

Here’s a handy guide I just made for parents on how to deal with this non story.

4FAA471F-ECBD-42F8-9ACC-272B0765659D.jpeg


#453

PatrThom

PatrThom

There were also plenty of stories where the kids would sneak into the parents’ bedroom and press sleeping mommy’s/daddy’s finger against the phone so they didn’t have to wait another three hours to keep playing their game.

—Patrick


#454

PatrThom

PatrThom

If you haven't heard, there was a rather critical security flaw announced yesterday.
That flaw was patched this morning. If you use 10.13.1 (and maybe also 10.13.0?), then go get it.

--Patrick


#455

PatrThom

PatrThom

iMac Pro finally available, hitting its 2017 target with just 2 weeks to spare.
For the price, it's actually extremely competitive for what you get inside the chassis.
...but you won't be able to upgrade the internals after the fact (without jumping through potentially warranty-voiding hoops to do so), so unless Apple decides to implement price drops as time goes on, it won't stay competitive as hardware progresses.
However, if you want to build a system around a 5k display, it is the best value right now, with the 10-core model being the best one for gaming/streaming/etc due to the 10-core model having the highest clock speeds (if that's your thing).

--Patrick


#456

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
For the price, it's actually extremely competitive for what you get inside the chassis.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? It seems like the same money could buy an equivalent, if not better spec, PC and still have some left over...


#457

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Are you sure? It seems like the same money could buy an equivalent, if not better spec, PC and still have some left over...
Click to expand...
Attempts to replicate the interior hardware in a BYO come up competitive or slightly north of $5k.
Granted, right now the biggest chunk is the price of the 5k display itself AND the obstacle of somehow being able to find an equivalent Vega card selling at or near it's actual MSRP. Stupid cryptominers.
[DOUBLEPOST=1513273259,1513272897][/DOUBLEPOST]...that's only one of many, many BYO comparisons floating out there right now, btw. There are plenty.

--Patrick


#458

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
Attempts to replicate the interior hardware in a BYO come up competitive or slightly north of $5k.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the "If we have to get exactly the same hardware" then yes it's competitive.

So if you want exactly that hardware and configuration, then you're going to spend a lot.

If you want something that is competitive, however, you don't have to spend this much. A $650 motherboard and a $1,200 monitor may be equivalent to what's in the imac pro, but you can get the same effective performance with slightly less expensive parts - albeit with some tradeoffs - since 5k monitors have definitely dropped recently, and if you can make do with a PCIE 10Gb ethernet card and a few other small differences you should be able to cut the cost by several hundred dollars.

Honestly, though, might as well get two 4k monitors rather than one 5k. Even cheaper. And who's going to use the iMac pro without secondary monitors anyway? So you should include the cost of additional apple displays. ;)

At any rate, on the price/performance curve, I'd still strongly suggest that this isn't way up the expensive side of the curve, and still more expensive than a properly designed budget performance machine that has similar computing and graphics power, but slightly different choices for hardware.


#459

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
If you want something that is competitive, however, you don't have to spend this much.
Click to expand...
And if you're getting it for gaming or general work, you shouldn't. They call this a workstation for a reason. It's server-grade, with ECC RAM and the whole deal.
stienman said:
you should include the cost of additional apple displays. ;)
Click to expand...
There aren't any. ;)

--Patrick


#460

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
There aren't any. ;)
Click to expand...
No, it doesn't come with them, but I'd be surprised if a significant portion of the buyers for this unit will only use the included display and no others.


#461

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
No, it doesn't come with them, but I'd be surprised if a significant portion of the buyers for this unit will only use the included display and no others.
Click to expand...
No, I meant that Apple does not make any displays. They got out of the display business, and now they only resell displays from LG.

--Patrick


#462

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
No, I meant that Apple does not make any displays. They got out of the display business, and now they only resell displays from LG.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Ah, I hadn't noticed. So they only sell displays when there are computers permanently affixed.

When they came out I did lust after the thunderbolt displays.


#463

fade

fade

I have to say, the latest tv spot is actually pretty. It's a shame it's just a commercial. Oh well. Some director got Apple's money to make a nice little film.



#464

PatrThom

PatrThom

It’s pretty, yes.
It’s also very silly and makes me say PHYSICS DOESNT WORK LIKE THAT.
But that sort of thing will always break immersion for me.

—Patrick


#465

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Ah yes, the "If we have to get exactly the same hardware" then yes it's competitive.
So if you want exactly that hardware and configuration, then you're going to spend a lot.
If you want something that is competitive, however, you don't have to spend this much. A $650 motherboard and a $1,200 monitor may be equivalent to what's in the imac pro, but you can get the same effective performance with slightly less expensive parts - albeit with some tradeoffs - since 5k monitors have definitely dropped recently, and if you can make do with a PCIE 10Gb ethernet card and a few other small differences you should be able to cut the cost by several hundred dollars.
Click to expand...
For grins (and because science!), I decided to put together a "functionally equivalent" 8-core system to go against the $5k base model. Trade-offs were generously accepted and considered if they were Close Enough even if they weren't exactly equivalent. In each case I tried to pick the lowest-priced part that wasn't down in the "nobody has ever heard of this vendor" part of the list.
Code: 
CPU -  300 - AMD Ryzen 7 1700
MLB -  250 - MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium
RAM -  600 - 32GB (4x8GB) Samsung DDR4-2400 ECC
HDD -  650 - 1TB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 NVME
PSU -  110 - Seasonic Prime Ultra 650W
CAS -  100 - Decent ATX case (70-100)
MON - 1250 - Dell Ultra HD 5K monitor (REFURBISHED)
GPU -  500 - GeForce GTX 1070
WLS -   60 - WiFi ac (50 - internal PCIe) + USB BT4.0 (10 - USB dongle)
HID -  110 - Mechanical kbd and laser mouse (both wired)
SPK -   50 - Adequate 2.1 speaker system
CAM -   80 - 1080p 60fps webcam w/ microphone
RDR -   25 - Multi-format card reader (bay-mounted)
 OS -  150 - Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
==========
TOT - 4235
All prices sourced from NewEgg on 12/19, I did not include rebates, YMMV, yadda, etc.
NOTES:
-Ryzen platform was chosen because nothing else can deliver 8 cores of performance at that price point while supporting ECC.
-I was NOT able to confirm whether or not the specified MSI board does/doesn't support ECC. If not, a different MLB would need to be subbed.
-Does NOT include 10G NIC, adding one would add $250 to the price and would cut the GPU bandwidth from the full x16 down to only x8.
-GTX 1070 was chosen because it is the lowest-priced GPU that is on par with Vega 56.
-I was able to find a 5k display refurbished, non-refurb price was $350 more.
-External expansion is more limited (no Thunderbolt, etc) but the assumption is that needing ALL the iMac's ports would be rare.

...so $4235 to get into the same territory, and just over $4800 if you need 10Gb Enet and have to buy your monitor at full price.

--Patrick


#466

PatrThom

PatrThom

Oh, and I forgot to mention above that:

-The Xeon W-2145 in the iMac Pro is estimated* to be around 10% faster per core than the Ryzen 1700.
-The RAM in the iMac Pro runs about 10% faster (2666 v. 2400).
-You could shave about $200 off the price of the Ryzen system by replacing the M.2 SSD with a 4-way RAID0 of 256GB SATA drives but that seemed...risky.
-The Ryzen build assumes you would be running WinX. If not, there's another $150 you could save by running Clear Linux or Debian 9**.

SO ... is the $4999 iMac Pro "competitive" with a comparable BYO system? In no uncertain terms, the answer is "yes." If you BYO you can cut 15-ish% off the price (or more depending on how many sacrifices you want to make) to get a system that is a little more than 10% slower, and if you need an extra $500 in your pocket more than you need to crank out your jobs 10% faster then there is a viable alternative. Otherwise the iMP is extremely attractive. If you're an Ethereum miner, the iMP will even mine Ethereum almost 20% faster than the Ryzen system (Vega56 v. 1070)...which could theoretically even make up for the price difference within a year's time.

--Patrick
*passmark.com doesn't have benchmark figures for the W-2145 yet, so I extrapolated using the W-2125 and W-2133.
**These were the two best-performing distros over at Phoronix on modern server hardware.


#467

strawman

strawman

It still pains me to buy an Apple laptop where the equivalent pc laptop is so much cheaper.

Can’t complain, it’s the cost of entry into a lucrative market, and the hardware is rock solid, with battery life that’s amazing. I’ve easily made 20x the cost of my old laptop on consulting jobs I wouldn’t have gotten without it.

Still a pain in the pocketbook though.

And oh man, the dongles. Dongles everywhere, for everything, all the time and forever. Spent $200 just on cables and dongles so I could do what I’m already doing with the machine that broke. Would have saved a chunk if I could wait for amazon, but the deadline doesn’t change just because a 6 year old piece of hwardware dies.


#468

PatrThom

PatrThom

Well, that answers for me whether you got the "low-end" 2015 model or the current 2017 with all its USB-C goodness. Let us know how the keyboard feels for you, that's the biggest change people report. Oh, and treat that keyboard reeeeeal nice, it's quite common to lose a grain of salt off a pretzel or something down the gap around a key and jam that key as a result.

--Patrick


#469

strawman

strawman

The keyboard is distinctly different, with a notably shorter throw. It's not bad, though, and I'll get used to it. I doubt it's going to be an issue, but thanks for the jamming info, I'll have to be more diligent about covering the keyboard when I eat.

I would have gone for the 2015 model if they carried the ones with discrete graphics, but Apple segments the market very well, and even if Apple still sold them new, they probably wouldn't have been in stock in the store. Getting a used one on short notice might have been possible, but getting applecare with it is a bit harder. I'd have to look for someone that bought a high end model with apple care just before the new models came out.

The 2015 model can also be upgraded (HD and RAM) if I understand correctly, but the graphics card, which can't be upgraded in either case, was the clincher for me. Integrated graphics is a huge performance hit, and this computer needs to be my everything (windows & OSX development, gaming, etc) for the next several years. I'm already bummed about the 1TB hard drive limitation.

That's apple, though, pay to play.


#470

fade

fade

One of the biggest things that sells an Apple laptop to me is the toughness. It's a laptop, so that's important. In the PC world you just about have to go to a Toughbook to get the equivalent, and then the prices are the same.


#471

strawman

strawman

I don't know about that. I suspect if you subjected any apple laptop to the testing conditions of a toughbook, it'd fail a lot of them.


#472

fade

fade

Well sure. I was trying to say there's little in the PC world between creaky plastic and a Toughbook.


#473

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Integrated graphics is a huge performance hit, and this computer needs to be my everything (windows & OSX development, gaming, etc) for the next several years. I'm already bummed about the 1TB hard drive limitation.

That's apple, though, pay to play.
Click to expand...
Well there's the external graphics option, of course, but you'd be limited by the Thunderbolt 2 interface (equivalent to PCIe v2.0 x4). Your option is more expensive, but much faster.

--Patrick


#474

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
Well there's the external graphics option, of course, but you'd be limited by the Thunderbolt 2 interface (equivalent to PCIe v2.0 x4). Your option is more expensive, but much faster.

--Patrick
Click to expand...
An external graphics card significantly reduces the portability of the whole solution, but for those who need a portable computer that can also game at one location that wouldn't be a bad way to go.


#475

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
An external graphics card significantly reduces the portability of the whole solution, but for those who need a portable computer that can also game at one location that wouldn't be a bad way to go.
Click to expand...
Also for people who need a laptop and need CUDA some days BUT Vulkan on others.

--Patrick


#476

strawman

strawman

Ack. Maybe I spoke too soon regarding the keyboard.

This will take some getting used to.


#477

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
Ack. Maybe I spoke too soon regarding the keyboard.

This will take some getting used to.
Click to expand...
...they're so FAST! "Nope, you touched it. I'm typing it. You thought about that one pretty hard, typing it, too."

--Patrick


#478

strawman

strawman

PatrThom said:
...they're so FAST! "Nope, you touched it. I'm typing it. You thought about that one pretty hard, typing it, too."

--Patrick
Click to expand...
Yeah, I feel like I'm slamming my fingers into them - probably because I am.


#479

GasBandit

GasBandit

Apple faces lawsuits after saying it intentionally slows down aging iPhones (ostensibly to compensate for "poor battery performance," *cough*bullshit*cough*plannedobsolescencerunamok*cough*)


#480

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Apple faces lawsuits after saying it intentionally slows down aging iPhones (ostensibly to compensate for "poor battery performance," *cough*bullshit*cough*plannedobsolescencerunamok*cough*)
Click to expand...
Yes, Gas, we know you hate Apple*. I keep hearing this, and I want to see how the case shakes out. My prediction:

Lawyers: "So you slow down old phones to get people to buy new equipment."
Apple: "No, we slow them down so they don't shut off unexpectedly when the batteries age."
Lawyers: "But you admit you expect people with aged batteries to just buy new phones."
Apple: "No, we expect them to buy new batteries like any other phone."
50 GOTO 10

I really don't see how any of the lawyers have a case. Old phones running new iOS with new batteries perform exactly the same as at launch. There's empirical proof across all models. The suits allege the slowdowns are to drive sales. Apple alleges the slowdowns are to avoid shutdowns, and even the plaintiff's own testing shows phones speed back up with new batteries installed. If the lawyers (somehow?) win their case and force Apple to remove any throttling code, who exactly is going to be happy about having a phone that now constantly shuts off at 30-40% battery instead of just being 10% (or whatever) slower? Are the lawyers just trying to get Apple to somehow settle? To what end? Just to smear Apple's reputation? To get free replacement batteries for everyone for the life of their iPhones? Are people actually being injured somehow** due to their phone(s) being slower? All phones do this as the battery ages (the early shutdown thing, not the slowdown thing). And so do all shavers, all drills, all leaf blowers, and everything else that uses Li-ion technology. What's the actual point of the suit?

The best guess I've heard bandied about the Internet is that the lawyers are hoping that, during the discovery phase, some email/memo/whatever will be discovered wherein some executive-level employee says, "...well I guess they'll have to buy new phones won't they?" so they can latch onto that to be all, "Aha! See, we told you it was always about driving new sales!" And then they'll get that sweet class-action money they're hoping for.

--Patrick
*Well, anyone who does the whole "walled garden" thing, really.
**This is actually kinda important, since in order to prove a tort, one has to prove an injury has occurred, and presumably not merely an inconvenience.


#481

GasBandit

GasBandit

PatrThom said:
Yes, Gas, we know you hate Apple*. I keep hearing this, and I want to see how the case shakes out. My prediction:

Lawyers: "So you slow down old phones to get people to buy new equipment."
Apple: "No, we slow them down so they don't shut off unexpectedly when the batteries age."
Lawyers: "But you admit you expect people with aged batteries to just buy new phones."
Apple: "No, we expect them to buy new batteries like any other phone."
50 GOTO 10

I really don't see how any of the lawyers have a case. Old phones running new iOS with new batteries perform exactly the same as at launch. There's empirical proof across all models. The suits allege the slowdowns are to drive sales. Apple alleges the slowdowns are to avoid shutdowns, and even the plaintiff's own testing shows phones speed back up with new batteries installed. If the lawyers (somehow?) win their case and force Apple to remove any throttling code, who exactly is going to be happy about having a phone that now constantly shuts off at 30-40% battery instead of just being 10% (or whatever) slower? Are the lawyers just trying to get Apple to somehow settle? To what end? Just to smear Apple's reputation? To get free replacement batteries for everyone for the life of their iPhones? Are people actually being injured somehow** due to their phone(s) being slower? All phones do this as the battery ages (the early shutdown thing, not the slowdown thing). And so do all shavers, all drills, all leaf blowers, and everything else that uses Li-ion technology. What's the actual point of the suit?

The best guess I've heard bandied about the Internet is that the lawyers are hoping that, during the discovery phase, some email/memo/whatever will be discovered wherein some executive-level employee says, "...well I guess they'll have to buy new phones won't they?" so they can latch onto that to be all, "Aha! See, we told you it was always about driving new sales!" And then they'll get that sweet class-action money they're hoping for.

--Patrick
*Well, anyone who does the whole "walled garden" thing, really.
**This is actually kinda important, since in order to prove a tort, one has to prove an injury has occurred, and presumably not merely an inconvenience.
Click to expand...
Actually, if you read the article, the suit alleges that the battery problem is a defect, and apple should have corrected it by supplying new batteries, but they decided to slow down their phones instead.

Also the thing is they didn't TELL anybody until now they'd been doing this, so naturally people just thought they needed new phones.


#482

PatrThom

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Actually, if you read the article, the suit alleges that the battery problem is a defect, and apple should have corrected it by supplying new batteries, but they decided to slow down their phones instead.
Click to expand...
This is the first article I've read that alleges the battery defect angle. I admit I didn't read it until your reply. All tech news sources lately have been inundated with this story and since nobody seemed to be saying anything new, I didn't expect this one would be different. It's still going to be hard to prove, especially since Apple did acknowledge a battery defect (with the 6s) and replaced those batteries (for free) but of course when those new batteries run down, they're going to do the same thing. So either Apple's stance is legit, or else every single battery manufactured by Apple('s partners) since 2012* inherently has this "defect."
GasBandit said:
the thing is they didn't TELL anybody until now they'd been doing this, so naturally people just thought they needed new phones.
Click to expand...
Apple does have a reputation for doing things without asking for input, no contest. The new phone OS would tell people their battery needed service, but didn't tell them it would throttle. I admit I didn't even know about this until a couple weeks ago when the stories first started coming out, but I'm also not in the habit of periodically drag racing my phone. When my battery started going, I wasn't concerned about how slow it went, I was more concerned about getting it to last until its next charging opportunity. Still not sure how "didn't tell anyone" caused harm to customers, though (other than bragging rights).

I tried to check my own phone using the free app mentioned in many of the articles, but when I went to get it, I discovered a) the price had risen from "free" to $0.99, and b) reviews of the new $0.99 version claim all the English dialogue and menus were removed and replaced with Chinese-only. Also it requires iOS 11 now (my iPhone 5 can only do up to 10.3.3). Soooo I didn't try it.

--Patrick
*2012 was the year the iPhone 5 was introduced, which is the oldest phone capable of running iOS 10.2.1, the first version alleged to contain this throttling code.


#483

strawman

strawman

Batteries wear out. It's a simple fact. They weren't designed to operate more than two years without replacement.

While I'm upset Apple did this without telling anyone I'm more upset they didn't give an alert. A simple "Battery needs replacement. This phone will continue to operate at a reduced level of performance until replacement" would have been vastly better than doing it silently - and I would have had the replacement done. If this happened within the applecare warranty or regular warranty, then sure, Apple covers it. Otherwise let the users replace it at a cell phone repair shop or through apple directly.

I don't think there's a reasonable damages claim here. The phone still works. Harm by reduced performance, especially when there's no guarantee of any specific measurable level of performance, is going to fail. The phone still plays games, makes phone calls, etc.

The reality is that this is protecting the users anyway. Not just from suddenly dead phones, but also from expanding batteries and "venting with flame".

Doing it sneakily was the bad choice.


#484

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

stienman said:
Batteries wear out. It's a simple fact. They weren't designed to operate more than two years without replacement.

While I'm upset Apple did this without telling anyone I'm more upset they didn't give an alert. A simple "Battery needs replacement. This phone will continue to operate at a reduced level of performance until replacement" would have been vastly better than doing it silently - and I would have had the replacement done. If this happened within the applecare warranty or regular warranty, then sure, Apple covers it. Otherwise let the users replace it at a cell phone repair shop or through apple directly.

I don't think there's a reasonable damages claim here. The phone still works. Harm by reduced performance, especially when there's no guarantee of any specific measurable level of performance, is going to fail. The phone still plays games, makes phone calls, etc.

The reality is that this is protecting the users anyway. Not just from suddenly dead phones, but also from expanding batteries and "venting with flame".

Doing it sneakily was the bad choice.
Click to expand...
My mom broke her arm thanks to having to deal with a wonky iphone battery that wouldn't keep a charge. And the same arm just broke again since it was weakened from the first beak. Wondering if we'd have a case thanks to Apple hiding the problem...


#485

strawman

strawman

DarkAudit said:
My mom broke her arm thanks to having to deal with a wonky iphone battery that wouldn't keep a charge. And the same arm just broke again since it was weakened from the first beak. Wondering if we'd have a case thanks to Apple hiding the problem...
Click to expand...
I suspect it would be a very, very hard case to press.


#486

DarkAudit

DarkAudit

stienman said:
I suspect it would be a very, very hard case to press.
Click to expand...
It happened at the nursing home, so there'd be plenty of documentation, but you're probably right.


#487

strawman

strawman

DarkAudit said:
It happened at the nursing home, so there'd be plenty of documentation, but you're probably right.
Click to expand...
Well, you'd have to show that 1) the phone had a guaranteed level of service that 2) wasn't met due to a manufacturer's decision or failure, 3) happened when the phone was in good repair/condition and being used appropriately, and 4) the performance/service failure led directly to the injury.

If, for instance, the remote control of the TV failed to work, and someone was injured walking to the TV, that couldn't be attributed to the manufacturer. There has to be a more direct causal link.

If the device was connected to cellular service or wifi, then you'd also have to show that the failure wasn't due to service issues or quality.

If the phone is older, had water damage, been dropped and dinged or scratched or had other large physical scars you'd have to show that these were well within the manufacturer's guarantee of service.

And on top of that, Apple promises very little. In fact their terms of service specifically disclaim performance for many functions and services.

You'd have to show that either they promised something that wan't met, or that the legal requirements government places on consumer products somehow provides a guarantee that Apple should have met but didn't.


#488

PatrThom

PatrThom

Looks like Apple decided to Do A Thing in response to the battery controversy.

tl:dr; For 2018, $50 discount on OOW battery replacements for iPhone 6 and newer (dunno if this includes SE), and iOS software will be updated to include better feedback as to whether the battery's condition is impacting the phone's performance.

--Patrick


#489

strawman

strawman

$50 discount - what is the cost these days, or what is the cost after the discount?


#490

PatrThom

PatrThom

stienman said:
$50 discount - what is the cost these days, or what is the cost after the discount?
Click to expand...
The article says that battery replacement cost is being reduced from $79 to $29 (but only for 6 and newer, and only during 2018), I just did the arithmetic to arrive at the $50 discount figure.

--Patrick


#491

strawman

strawman

That's a good deal.


#492

PatrThom

PatrThom

It's having a ripple effect, too.

ifixitresponse.png

link

--Patrick


#493

SpecialKO

SpecialKO

I will also point out that if you have a iPhone 6S that was manufactured 2 years ago (basically in the holiday launch window), there is a good chance that you are eligible for a free battery replacement. Based on specific batch serial numbers.

Check that first before you take advantage of this new pricing.


#494

GasBandit

GasBandit



#495

PatrThom

PatrThom

That looks just like the search stats that get posted every year.
Nothing makes a phone feel slow more than sticking it right next to a newer, faster model, especially when that newer phone is being held in your face by Bob from Accounting. He's such a jerk, has to talk about his amazing Jamaica trip and what a wonderful time he had, too.

EDIT: Turns out "iPhone fast" shows peaks at the same locations, while "Android slow" just has a long, steadily rising rate until about the time in 2015 that Lollipop came out, at which point it shows a slow, steady decline. Here's the graph from last year that overlays 'em all on one image. Looks like iPhones didn't REALLY get slow until the 4 came out. Either that, or it's because the 4 finally added CDMA with a corresponding increase in ownership.

--Patrick


#496

blotsfan

blotsfan

Given that I wanted a battery replacement for my phone anyways, this kinda works out well for me.


#497

PatrThom

PatrThom

They pushed the $29 price out earlier, too. Was originally supposed to start late Jan, but now they've apparently said it'll start immediately.
They do warn that initial supplies may be limited, though.

--Patrick


#498

Eriol

Eriol

Not the battery thing, but the entire week of the 25th-29th of Dilbert is kind of "on the nose" about smartphones in general: Smartphones ala Dilbert:

I'd argue the iPhone started this, and then everybody else followed.


#499

PatrThom

PatrThom

I'm again reminded of the "Send Me to Heaven" app, and all the complaints from Android and iPhone users alike about how it was the app that broke their phone.

--Patrick


#500

PatrThom

PatrThom

I have to admit, I was interested in the HomePod.
And then I heard one. And now I want one.

That's not true, I actually want two of them, but the ability to set them up as a stereo pair and watch TV through them won't be enabled until a future software update. But that's fine, because I can't afford two of them right now anyway. They don't sound like they'd be able to fill an entire hall with sound, but they get plenty loud enough for a living room, and that's what's gonna matter. We have a couple of 1st gen UE Booms in the house, but they're always being moved to other rooms and hooked up to other stuff, so having dedicated sound in the room where the entertainment happens is quite appealing.

Yeah, I know, Apple blah blah stuff and things. Apple's philosophy and choices are considered "polarizing" by many, and the HomePod is noticeably less useful if you don't have other Apple hardware to go with it, but I do, so it's not really an issue for me. And someone on r/audiophile took the time to qualitatively test one, and came away legitimately stunned. I look forward to @fade 's critique of his testing methods, or even perhaps @stienman 's analysis of the messy hardware teardown.

--Patrick


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