Theoretically it means that the screen senses pressure in addition to location(s) (note that all capacitive screens do this already, where pressure is proxied by size of touch, which is useful with big meaty fingers but is arguably less precise. Android publishes this, since version 1.0, as "force"). The demos are a little odd, though, as all seem to be primarily about the difference between taps and long presses, being entirely defined by touch time rather than pressure.
Yup you're correct: named pressure rather than force (the specific function you linked was not in 1, but pressure was in the legacy methods since version 1. Search the page for pressure).
It is live on most devices, and reflects pressure quite accurately, and is doing it by measuring the touch area per contact on the screen, which with a human finger varies based upon the force of the press. Presumably on the Huawei they would just use the actual pressure sensor instead of the proxied size.
I'd love to see the lightest, regular swipe and tap act as a mouse on-rollover hover state and the slightly harder swipe scroll the page.
The harder press would be the on-press and on-release states.
I miss all of those interaction states, with multi-touch.
Not only will Apple not do that, but we won't even have the options to do so. It'll be all about new, gimmicky peek and poke style gestures. I'm sure they'll be nice, though.
It's usually pretty random which particular versions of a story get traction here, especially when there's a media burst of roughly equivalent articles.
If people suggest significantly better sources, we can edit the URLs.
Very curious as to the intuitiveness of the variations in tapping. 3D Touch seems neat.. but I'd have to use it personally to know whether or not its a revolution, or an Amazon Fire Phone-esque gimmick.
The shortcuts on the homescreen looked real useful (though they would depend on what the application developer decided to add as quick jumps), and I've done the "open message/back to list/open message/back to list" way too often
The finger would obscure part of the display, but it would likely leave enough uncovered that you have the information you need to decide whether you want to actually open the resource, don't want to, or want to act (using the contextual gesture things)
I hate the name, but the 3d touch is a nice interaction model. I really like peaking as a UI metaphor. It helps slice through layers of information without committing to the next layer.
edit and you have to be fucking kidding me with 16GB base models...
edit2 oh, I get it, it's a push for iCloud storage, lame
Side note along with this thought, I feel like Apple is going through some kind of naming transition in its lineup:
Mac<thing>: e.g. Macbook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro
i<thing>: iPod, iPhone, iPad, iSight
Apple <thing>: Apple watch, Apple pencil
I think the Apple one is the worst, because <thing> seems to be common non-trademarked words and has a weird marketing exec "let's get the branding out there!" strategy.
And now it kind of smells like they might be thinking about going to a "Smart <thing>" naming scheme.
It makes calling things kind of hard and schizophrenic, most people just default to i<thing> when they don't know what to call it. I hear iWatch at least once a week.
They're copying the facebook-esque thing of grabbing the base word and making that the brand. IE facebook messenger is "messenger", compared to google messenger which is "gchat". Calendar vs "gcal", and so on.
Facebook effectively owns the word "like" at this point, has "internet.com", and so on.
Apple wants people to be calling the "Apple Watch" just "the Watch".
I don't know about "the Watch"; it's more that they constantly push you to say things like "I'm using my iPhone" rather than "I'm using my phone", whereas with the "Apple" products, they seem to encourage you to just mentally commoditize them and say "I'm using my watch."
I could hazard a guess at the reason, too—everyone knows what a phone or a tablet (or a laptop, or a PC) is, and theirs don't break from the trend, so they need to differentiate their product in those lines using the name. Whereas, with the "watch" and the "pencil", they're making a new thing that attempts to redefine the category it's in, and so they want people to start using that name for the category as a whole. Specifically, they want people to think of any accessory-computer used for passive alerts and alarms and checking notifications as a "watch"; and a stylus used primarily for finesse drawing with extra sensory features to enable that as a "pencil." (The latter is also, I think, trying to avoid the current image of a "stylus" as effectively a prosthetic finger for those dumb devices that can't read your touches without it.)
I don't think Facebook can make their messenger a memorable brand. The actual brand that people think about is Facebook. Messengers these days are a dime and a dozen, with Facebook's messenger being popular because it is "at hand", but that's due to people being active on Facebook. But it's not like Facebook has multiple products, their messenger being part of what Facebook is. Before Facebook my friends where using Yahoo! Messenger. And now it's pretty much dead.
"gchat" was actually Google Chat and was about voice and video chat. Now it was replaced by Google Hangouts. It's a pretty cool service, except that they have had two problems - their fuckup with Google+ and the popularity of Skype. Now Skype is a very memorable brand. And it has lots of problems, but people keep using it because it works for group video/audio calls and because it has good prices on calling phone numbers - like, Skype has a freaking monopoly on emigrants and their families or on companies working with remote consultants or employees.
In other words, I don't think the actual name matters that much, plus if you pick a weird word you might get more out of it. Googling is now a verb in the dictionary and tweeting should probably be as well.
Those are metaphors and metonyms. MS Word is not a word. MS Office is not an office. Facebook Messenger is literally a thing that carries messages. Apple Watch is literally a watch.
Apple Watch is to watches as iPhone is to phones. In both cases they are supersets of what their name suggests, where the consumed set is a tiny fraction of their purpose.
Because "Force Touch" is just waiting to turn into a PR nightmare: at some point, people are going to jokingly call it "Bad Touch", and it's going to turn into a widespread meme that embarrasses Apple.
Often when a company has to switch to a less obvious name at the last minute, it's because of trademark issues. There is already a registration covering "ForceTouch" as an input method for computers.[1]
Sounds like it would be very difficult to get right. I can imagine a lot of false positives where I want to do a normal click, but I happen to press lighter than usual so it registers it as a "peek". Maybe they'll do it well enough that this doesn't happen, and maybe it's just something you'd get used to after a while, but to me it's a bit of "trying to be too clever", but then I'm the sort of person that disables things like auto-rotate for that reason.
Also the new MacBook and MacBook Pros. The trackpad feels exactly like the old one, but you can just keep pushing it and get a second click. It's really neat and I can't wait until El Capitan and for more apps to take advantage of it.
Though I think I'd like 3D touch just fine, I feel like it will be a difficulty to provide support for less tech centric family members. Something like the left and right mouse buttons and single vs double click, now touch lighter/harder. Touch the icon, is everything blurry except for a little menu, no press lighter now...
I don't know, pressing light or hard is a much more natural movement than even right/left clicking (let alone double-clicking). I press stuff light or hard all the time (check consistency, poke hole, induce movement, push stuff, etc…).
There might be a concern for people with motor ailments though (e.g. post-stroke), but hopefully force touch will stay a feature for shortcuts and peeking. Application features only being accessible via force touch would be terrible (outside of games maybe, since they're not really accessible in the first place)
I think you are not supposed to hide any features behind that … Apple certainly doesn’t seem to want to. I really hope third party devs won’t … (games are the notable exception here – I generally don’t have a problem with those using any and all inputs their can get their hands on, but that’s just in the nature of the thing)
Not sure about this, in my (completely anecdotal, yes) experience, it's actually common for non-techies to think (consciously or not) that binary buttons can respond to different forces and press them harder when they are angry, frustrated, or being emphatic (think pressing harder while thinking "Yes, I REALLY want to turn on the microwave").
That’s the biggest worry, certainly, but I think it’s very possible to get this right. We do not yet know how this feels, but one positive indication that they payed lots of attention, to exactly this, one of the two central riddles to solve to get this tech right (the other being the places in the UI you use it and to what end), is that implementation details in the UI also telegraph how they want to communicate this feature.
So, first of all, there are three levels and the first level is a peek, nothing serious and totally non-committal. Frequently accidentally engaging this would probably still be super annoying, but if it happens once in a while and is also super responsive then that’s not a big deal. Making this first step non-committal is probably a big part of making this all work.
Second, the peek seems to show off some direct input based on force (with the preview dynamically resizing based on it), so that you are not blindly guessing the pressure you have to apply. This direct feedback is probably also a big part of the puzzle.
If they get that right and given their implementation (distinct, few and pretty clear and consistent places to force touch, at least within their applications, that all do predictable and understandable things) I think this is a winner and will make using everything much more of a joy to use. It could also suck. We don’t know yet. I’m just really happy someone is trying stuff like that. The vocabulary on touch devices we have is nice, but it is still sparse. Maybe this extension will work out, maybe it won’t. Either way, I’m excited.
I remember when full-screen touch was a new concept. Blackberry tried to introduce a physical "click" with the BB Storm. It sounded like a good idea, but it practice it turned out to be unnecessary. Apple won the UI battle. Not sure if 3D touch is a step forward or step back.
I'm just reading the live blog, but can someone provide more details on how this works. To me it just appears to be a contextual menu based on long press of the app icon ? Is it something more than this ? I'm curious as to how this will effect when you want to move app icons.
Sometimes you don't want to have to worry about how long you're holding your finger down. It's much easier to control finger pressure than to guess how many seconds you have left before the screen changes fully into a new context.
It's not a long press, because a long press will usually start the rearranging-your-app-icons operation. So this is a distinct operation. I wonder how well it will work for non-techies?
It's a linear reaction to the amount of force you apply. So it seems to be implemented in a number of ways. They demonstrated contextual menus, as well as peaking (holding with a bit of force) where you could then push harder to "pop" into the content or relax to go back to what you were doing.
It seems highly similar to the Watch — including the haptic feedback (which to me is an important part of what makes the interaction work on the watch).
It is not discoverable. It is a power-user feature that makes the UI less obvious for ordinary people.
A lot depends on how developers use/abuse this feature. If only power-user features are hidden in the 3D-touch menu then it will be OK. But if ordinary features are only exposed via this menu then apps will become harder to use.
I don't think so. If the ordinary user doesn't know about it, they won't care. They'll still continue to press as normal. When they do discover it, they'll try it again to see if they like it, if they don't they'll forget about that too and continue on with regular presses.
Just like the watch. I may be stupid but I really don't like that the watch makes me feel like I definitely am when I can never find or repeat anything on it. It's a really lousy feat of experience design
Its interesting to see Apple re-introduce 'modes' something that Jobs himself hated.
Things like right clicking, force/3D touching, or stylus's are specific modes that need to be activated and de-activated discreetly -- showing a separate set of otherwise non-discoverable features.
You're confusing modes with discoverability. Force touch isn't a mode but it is invisible if you don't know it's there. Jobs wanted discoverable, modeless user interfaces where possible (and he was right). Both the watch and force touch are horrible from a discoverability point of view.
I haven't tried it but it appears that you'll now always be able to touch "too much" or too little, which sounds scary, as I'm afraid you would know that you overdid it only after the fact. I doubt the motion feedback can prevent that, but I don't exclude the possibility that they solved it to be "acceptable" enough.
My impression based on demos, without trying is, the unintutivity increased.
Have you actually used it? On the Macbook, Force Touch is totally intuitive -- it's like using a normal trackpad. It's actually quite eery. So I don't think "touching too much" is going to be an issue, any more than accidentally clicking a trackpad. It will probably be _very_ natural for things like text selection (which is a constant PITA in touch UIs).
Would someone explain to me why there's so much hate towards the base model? I really, truly don't understand what's wrong with offering an entry level device? I carry a 16GB 6+ and am quite happy with it.
Its easy to blow through 16GB when you take 12MP live pictures of every cute thing your cat does. Removing pictures off of iPhone is way harder than it should be.
I've found another "invisible" consumer of space tends to be iMessage threads. If you exchange photos or videos and never clear out those threads it can consume your entire phones spare space pretty easily. The only way to extract the media is to save them one by one or use a 3rd party tool to do so.
Is control over your own data dead? Even if I use all cloud services I don't see 16GB being remotely reasonable for an age of HD photos, videos, unlimited music libraries (my spotify cache takes up 6GB alone). Even androids with microSD cards only go so big. If apple is serious about this push to using iCloud storage for everything I don't see myself using their products for much longer (and I've been a fanboi forever). Problem is I don't see a good alternative.
This isn't sustainable. Photos/video/music/apps will continue to grow in size and Apple clearly isn't scaling their storage options at the same rate. I already pay out the nose for upgraded iPhone storage and continually run into limits with reasonable usage. Backups are great, but pointless for "hot" data that I, ya know, want to use on my phone (which isn't usually within the vicinity of a backup drive).
Right, but I don't understand why you ask: "is control over your own data dead?" in relation to the 16 GB iPhone.
Because even 128 GB is not enough for most photo libraries.
The amount of control over our own data seems the same as we had before — basically dependent on how much work we want to put in managing it vs. trusting and paying for cloud storage providers.
I don't understand your argument. 128GB is more than enough for my photo library (and most people I know), but not more than enough for photos, video, music, and apps. This will increasingly become the case as Apple/others continues to improve the quality and size of media you store on your phone. But again, I realize what the current paradigm is. However I have no options for iPhone backup/cold storage besides iCloud or physical hardware backups. I'm very unlikely to be using my phone within the vicinity of a physical hardware backup, and iCloud means I lose control. Thus, I either have to choose between a neutered user experience or loss of control.
tl;dr: Apple is actively and knowingly encouraging the use of more data while refusing to upgrade internal storage space and instead pushing iCloud storage. This leads to misaligned incentives.
I wonder how much higher they can offer with current technology. If you peek inside one of those 2.5" SSD boxes, it's not full to the brim but it's not empty either. I would actually expect them to go to 256GB in the next year or so, because that has been the general pattern (as far as I remember, the first iPhone maxed out at 16GB)
But they aren't refusing to upgrade internal storage. 128 GB is an option now, and I'm sure it will grow with time.
And you can also use iCloud alternatives (we use Flickr and Dropbox on iOS for photos and movies, as iCloud is too pricey and inflexible).
Your argument was relating to the 16 GB option of the phone, but asked the question "is control over our own data dead?" in connection with that 16 GB version. I was unsure why you asked that because of two things: 16 GB is an option, not the only size available; and one still has ultimate control over their own data, be it on the cloud or local.
You are absolutely correct they aren't scaling storage. As a business, they want you to use iCloud AND/OR get a bigger GB phone. Simple. They are a business, you can't fault them for that.
Of course I can't fault them for chasing profit, but I can fault them for chasing profit while encouraging users to make choices that are against their best interests.
There is a threat though that consumer unhappiness with their device's glaring lack of storage may lead to long term problems for Apple in 3 years from now.
It's short term gain for long term pain to the quality of the brand.
Absolutely it's dead as the default. Storage is for app repositories, i.e. software which tunes into the cloud which hosts actual data.
Note that's the default. It's still optional (e.g. pay $100-200 more for more storage, or buy seemingly increasingly more niche phones that offer SD card slots).
And of course the age old alternative, which is making a compromise. i.e. not store all and any music, video, photo etc on your insta-use phone. Instead keep old albums on an external drive in your home, just like movies you've already seen or movies you won't get to anytime soon. Or albums you rarely listen to. Compromise.
I'm concerned about durability. Is 3D touch passive sensing, or is the screen/glass actually moving? IIRC, Force Touch physically depresses (which explains why they didn't call it Force Touch).
I suspect 3D touch will cause more cases of iPhone induced tennis elbow. Matt Bonner (San Antonio Spurs) and I are two victims. Forcing us to press harder will trigger more cases.
I think once app developers fully adopt 3D touch and Apple refines the iOS UX in future iterations to take complete advantage of the tech, it's going to be a huge improvement in how we interact with smartphones.
With the app ecosystem stagnating (really - are you doing more things on your phone than in 2010) and the only new things that crop are differently flavored messenger apps - we are at the moment that we have to answer - what more can we do with the phones, not how to do it.
Not trying to offend you, but have you had your hands on one yet? I don't think you can say this until you do. It may be crap. Well, it's Apple, so it's probably not crap, but maybe it actually won't make a <i>huge</i> difference.
It's the first time we get a new interaction idiom since 2007 really. I think it will bring great changes and improvements to mobile app UIs. Adaption gonna take a while though, 2-3 years for it to be considered standard on iOS, another 1-2 years on Android, I'd guess. Also given it's from Apple the implementation will probably be rather solid.
Interested to hear whether people think the fragmentation/differentiation of the iPhone line is a good strategy or not. Where there used to be 1 flagship phone, there are now 4 different models, possibly 5 if they make a (c) version.
What made the iPhone iconic was that there was one powerful and curated model, and that you trusted Apple to make design choices for you. You paid extra because you knew you were getting a quality phone, not the low-tier/hard to compare versions of the multitude of Android-based phone. Why move away from simplicity and curation?
Yeah, I understand the naming conventions (S = same case, different internals, C = cheap case, Plus = large) but my point is: why? Apple is supposed to think these design choices through and give the user whatever is best. That's what they've done in the past, and that's why they have such a strong brand.
Because people around the world are different. Mainly as far as I read Apple created "+" version for Asian market, where people really like the big display screen.
If you keep doing the same thing your market price will start to fall. Smartphones are old and boring. They can't capture more users simply by being Apple any more, they have to offer the variety users want in order to increase their piece of the pie.
So they get three years out of a fabrication process and supply chain instead of 8 months if they only allowed you to buy the newest models every year.
It's not a big choice. You have "free on contract", "cheap on contract" (last year's models), or "best on contract" (current models).
If you have a product called the Widget v6, and the Widget v6 Plus, then you introduce the Widget v6X and the Widget v6X Plus, it's natural to think that these 4 different product are all versions of one flagship model: Widget v6.
As abritinthebay said, Apple has been using this taxonomy since 2009 so I'm not sure why you think it's a new strategy now.
In a way, you're completely right -- they are all versions of one flagship model. The "S" are always upgraded internals of last years model (the 3GS, 4S, 5S, and now 6S). And plus is a bigger version of that flagship model.
This is true, we are power users so we only think about 6s and 6s plus being the current iphones. But I'm sure a huge amount of people are just as confused as people are confused with the Wii and Wii U
So fucking irritating that more/less the primary way Apple does price differentiation for their product models is by locking you in at storage capacity sizes.
My life is a hell of iCloud + Dropbox backups & constantly deleting all media so I can keep all of 40 apps on my 16GB iPhone.
Sometimes the mere existence of the base model causes some problems that can't be fixed with the existence of an upgraded option. This is a consistent problem in an enterprise environment. The base model is always the one purchased more frequently whether through BYOD or enterprise owned devices. This means that support staff has to spend a lot of time working with users to manage space.
The 16GB base model wasn't sufficient for the 6/6+, and is even less sufficient now with the 4K videos and 50% more megapixels (which I imagine would be on by default).
In the previous models (5/5s, 4s) the base model provided enough memory for doing most things comfortably. Now you actually HAVE to get the intermediate model to do anything useful (unless you're in masochistic mood). So the intermediate model (costing $100 more) becomes the entry level model.
I would even go so far to say that the 16/64/128GB memory gradation, coupled with the slippery 6/6s (slip and break more often ==> more AppleCare purchases and/or service repair costs) are intentional.
I understand capitalism and all that, but this is just pure greed and they're not doing much to hide it.
Computer makers, notably Apple although others are guilty of this too, have always shipped low end hardware to get you in the door. Like a car manufacturer offering low end engine for some models.
But in this case, how much is your time worth? If you're like most people hanging out on hacker news (assuming a tech career) its not unreasonable to expect your salary to be $100/hour.
If you're spending more than 2 hours mucking with moving things around, then perhaps your next phone purchase should consider how much time you're spending vs. the price of increased storage.
The more general point is that the price difference between those models has next to nothing to do with the actual cost of storage, though. I bought a 16GB Android phone then bought a 64GB micro SD card for $30. That's a lot less than the $100 price bump on the iPhone.
But I digress. The 6S was clearly never getting an SD card slot.
But the iPhone has shipped with 16GB minimum storage ever since the 4s four years ago. Since then the speed, resolution, and camera have all increased by at least one factor of two. All of these things also increase the storage requirements for photos and apps.
If I was the type of user who was satisfied with the base model of my old phone, and I buy the new base model and am not satisfied, then I am not going to be happy. I use my phone the same way I did four years ago. If I wasn't a 'pro' user then, why am I now?
I agree, it's kind of ridiculous. I don't own an iPhone but "support" my wife, mother and mother in law who ALL have major issues with space and iCloud space to the point where they have to pay for additional money.
The new iPhone 6S will make this issue much worse. 4K video, larger pictures, "live" pictures (oh god). The small memory on these devices and lack of SD is intentional to push iCloud and device upgrades.
99% of people don't need an SD slot. Everything is wireless now, why bother with cards or cables or whatever? You're an outlier, not a normal smartphone user.
well, yes, not counting new iPad, new Apple TV with tvOS, not counting 3D Touch, there is nothing new.
I just wonder, do people making these complaint even imagine, what new could there be?
I think you need to take a step back and look at what Apple usually deliver - not the latest and greatest technology, but well thought-out features with impressive vertical integration. It's compelling for some people - just like the Samsung "all the features" approach is for others. They're both valid; use what suits you best.
It's nice to hear that the screen is becoming more durable. I've already broken one screen on my 6+ because I had it in my pocket and my jeans were a bit too tight and put a lot of stress on the phone.
It doesn't add unusable thickness to the phone and as a bonus it gives you more friction so if your hands are sweaty you're less likely to drop your $1,000 magic pocket supercomputer (completely smooth rounded corners look nice, but sure are slippery and drop prone).
tldr: My mom has no idea what force touch is. She'd not going to get 3d touch.
I love all of this, but it seems to me that there is really becoming a divide in the type of people who can fully appreciate/employ the UI nuances? I'm not a photographer, and basically only use photoshop to crop and do bullish things. But I know there's a whole universe of things I could do, if I appreciated the power set tools.
I think that's where many "smart" products are going, but because they are distributed to the masses (unlike PS for instance), that divide means something else.
For some people this is going to make their "daily lives" more enjoyable. For another set of folks, perhaps equal in size even, I think a lot of this stuff will just go over their heads.
And like most discoverable UIs, the feedback (in the form of the haptic thingy) will clue you in and either reinforce your behavior if you like the feature, or allow you to remain with the previous behavior without destroying your state.
Is that necessarily a problem? Things still work as they always have in iOS, and now users have more interaction options without compromising the old simplicity.
My mom also has no idea what right-click is. I showed it to her once and it blew her mind. Then she promptly forgot about it.
I figure as long as you don't hide essential functionality in your app's 3d-touch interface, and primarily use it for short cuts, you are probably okay...
It's basically what they said in during the presentation: it's a 7000 alloy as used in aerospace industries[0], and it's a new alloy (proprietary, not a standard spec). The apple watch also uses a proprietary 7000 alloy (whether it's the same alloy is unknown at this point)
[0] not solely, they're also used in bike frames. Basically 7000 is zinc alloys, and have the highest available tensile strength, rivalling low-level steels at a third the density.
If that was truly the reason, there is no reason to not make 32GB the base option. A few people would be saved hassle and it would cost Apple pennies and do their reputation good.
It makes a whole lot more likely that the base model is just to get you to upgrade to the 64GB at this point.
And then they charge an extra hundred bucks for an extra few bucks' worth of memory. Which is why I have the base model.
It's the same with the European cars. BMW or whatever will sell you (in this country) a tiny underpowered four-cylinder engine for $N. If you want the four-cylinder engine with more power it will be $N+10K, if you want a six-cylinder engine that doesn't feel sluggish it will be $N+20K, and if you want something that actually feels as fast as the car looks it'll cost you $N+30K.
Meanwhile you can buy a fast engine in a crate for about $5K.
I wrote this elsewhere in this thread, but might as well copy and paste it here.
>Sometimes the mere existence of the base model causes some problems that can't be fixed with the existence of an upgraded option. This is a consistent problem in an enterprise environment. The base model is always the one purchased more frequently whether through BYOD or enterprise owned devices. This means that support staff has to spend a lot of time working with users to manage space.
"Live Photos" They must really want more people to start paying for iCloud Drive every month. That sounds like a big data hog compared to a single photo every time I hit the shutter button.
For the same price, a video (or a still from a video) doesn't look nearly as good as a photo. The development here is packaging a high-quality still inside a video and doing compression in a way that doesn't kill the photo.
Think about it - why do professional photographers bother with shutters or try to time the perfect shots? Why not just constantly shoot video and pull frames out of it later? Because it would look like crap.
This wouldn't be hard to imitate. Record the live preview into a 3 second buffer. When the user presses the shutter, switch into still mode, take a real photo, wait 1.5 seconds, and then write both the buffer and the photo into the same archive. On playback, by default show the normal photo, but on whatever UI gesture, play the first 1.5 seconds of the video, then the photo for one frame, then the next 1.5 seconds of the video.
Only barrier I could see to re-implementing this on other phones is long wait times while the camera switches modes, during which information is lost.
>[W]hy do professional photographers bother with shutters or try to time the perfect shots? Why not just constantly shoot video and pull frames out of it later?
I'm not suggesting people should take videos instead of photos. It was just ridiculous the way they trotted it out as a brand new and of course revolutionary idea, considering it has been done before and also is just video taken simultaneously with stills, something camcorders have done for a decade.
I assume, by their explanation, that it's actually a normal 12MP still image, jpg/raw, and the "live photo" is an additional video along side the picture that opens seamlessly when you activate it.
I'm curious what exactly they mean when they say Live Photos are 'not a movie, it's a photo!'
So what's the file format? How does one encode sound to a moving photo and not call it a movie?
This, but they missed the opportunity to call it a single I-Frame with only P-frames in each direction, if they actually did some effort in terms of compression efficiency.
Another thing is that any 4k capable codec is also probably magnitudes more space efficient than baseline jpeg for stills, with or without added temporal information.
Sound as metadata, multiple frames in a single file pointed to by metadata? First "snapshot" frame the first, so works with normal software? Lotsa ways to play games.
- It's the full photo data (12 MP) for each frame
- It captures 1.5 seconds before and after you press the capture button
- (Speculation based on a dot-point in the keynote) It's stored using some frame-to-frame compression thing, probably similar to a movie but with the option to recover any individual frame as a full size, full quality image
I reckon much of their photo technology comes from their acquisition of the SnappyCam app and that developer's custom JPEG encoding.
I'm worried about what the 3D Touch does to the ruggedness of the phone. With two toddlers, I don't think this phone would last 3 months in my house, even with a case.
Or is 3D Touch somehow achieved with passive sensors?
My interpretation of the keynote: The screen flexes a tiny bit when you press on it (which my iPhone 6 does as well, so this doesn't necessarily imply new materials). They now have sensors behind the screen to quantify the flexing, and translate that into "force".
I'm not the sort of person to update phones every year (I've had my current phone for almost two years and the one before that for six years), but it's often cheaper to pay the flat price when upgrading every two years than to pay the reduced price with the contract. It all depends on how your carrier structures their plans.
with the contract. It all depends on how your carrier structures their plans.
Historically, US carriers don't change plan pricing based on having a contract. So, you can be month-to-month for $100 per month, or get a two year contract for $100/month plus they give you $500 up front towards the purchase of a $1,000 phone (as received by just discounting the phone up front).
I know this was the case historically, but I think it stopped being the case for my carrier (ATT) a couple of years ago. I believe our plan is cheaper by not taking the phone subsidy, and sufficiently cheaper to justify paying for the phone up front.
You can take the "estimated monthly cost" that they showed and multiply by 24. i.e. $36/mo = $864. $32/mo = $768. It may not be exact but it should be close.
What is the iPhone 6 going to do with iOS 9 w/out the, cough, 3D touch? How will that be handled? For instance, app switching, will it stay the same (double click the home button)?
It's in-depth. So developers will have to design and implement a middle step, hence nothing is lost. You'll see all details on press, snapshot on semi-press
331 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 303 ms ] threadIt is live on most devices, and reflects pressure quite accurately, and is doing it by measuring the touch area per contact on the screen, which with a human finger varies based upon the force of the press. Presumably on the Huawei they would just use the actual pressure sensor instead of the proxied size.
The harder press would be the on-press and on-release states.
I miss all of those interaction states, with multi-touch.
Not only will Apple not do that, but we won't even have the options to do so. It'll be all about new, gimmicky peek and poke style gestures. I'm sure they'll be nice, though.
If people suggest significantly better sources, we can edit the URLs.
The shortcuts are nice, though.
edit and you have to be fucking kidding me with 16GB base models...
edit2 oh, I get it, it's a push for iCloud storage, lame
Mac<thing>: e.g. Macbook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro
i<thing>: iPod, iPhone, iPad, iSight
Apple <thing>: Apple watch, Apple pencil
I think the Apple one is the worst, because <thing> seems to be common non-trademarked words and has a weird marketing exec "let's get the branding out there!" strategy.
And now it kind of smells like they might be thinking about going to a "Smart <thing>" naming scheme.
It makes calling things kind of hard and schizophrenic, most people just default to i<thing> when they don't know what to call it. I hear iWatch at least once a week.
Facebook effectively owns the word "like" at this point, has "internet.com", and so on.
Apple wants people to be calling the "Apple Watch" just "the Watch".
I could hazard a guess at the reason, too—everyone knows what a phone or a tablet (or a laptop, or a PC) is, and theirs don't break from the trend, so they need to differentiate their product in those lines using the name. Whereas, with the "watch" and the "pencil", they're making a new thing that attempts to redefine the category it's in, and so they want people to start using that name for the category as a whole. Specifically, they want people to think of any accessory-computer used for passive alerts and alarms and checking notifications as a "watch"; and a stylus used primarily for finesse drawing with extra sensory features to enable that as a "pencil." (The latter is also, I think, trying to avoid the current image of a "stylus" as effectively a prosthetic finger for those dumb devices that can't read your touches without it.)
"gchat" was actually Google Chat and was about voice and video chat. Now it was replaced by Google Hangouts. It's a pretty cool service, except that they have had two problems - their fuckup with Google+ and the popularity of Skype. Now Skype is a very memorable brand. And it has lots of problems, but people keep using it because it works for group video/audio calls and because it has good prices on calling phone numbers - like, Skype has a freaking monopoly on emigrants and their families or on companies working with remote consultants or employees.
In other words, I don't think the actual name matters that much, plus if you pick a weird word you might get more out of it. Googling is now a verb in the dictionary and tweeting should probably be as well.
Hasn't stopped Microsoft being successful with this strategy, e.g. Office, Word, Windows, etc.
I liked the name Force Touch. A little creepy, sure, but it made sense, and basically told you what to do.
[1] https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85616589&caseType=SERIAL_...
There might be a concern for people with motor ailments though (e.g. post-stroke), but hopefully force touch will stay a feature for shortcuts and peeking. Application features only being accessible via force touch would be terrible (outside of games maybe, since they're not really accessible in the first place)
The assistive touch "wheel" menu might also include a way to trigger it.
So, first of all, there are three levels and the first level is a peek, nothing serious and totally non-committal. Frequently accidentally engaging this would probably still be super annoying, but if it happens once in a while and is also super responsive then that’s not a big deal. Making this first step non-committal is probably a big part of making this all work.
Second, the peek seems to show off some direct input based on force (with the preview dynamically resizing based on it), so that you are not blindly guessing the pressure you have to apply. This direct feedback is probably also a big part of the puzzle.
If they get that right and given their implementation (distinct, few and pretty clear and consistent places to force touch, at least within their applications, that all do predictable and understandable things) I think this is a winner and will make using everything much more of a joy to use. It could also suck. We don’t know yet. I’m just really happy someone is trying stuff like that. The vocabulary on touch devices we have is nice, but it is still sparse. Maybe this extension will work out, maybe it won’t. Either way, I’m excited.
This seems like one of those features that looks kind of cool in a demo, but in practice you don't end up using it much. Time will tell.
http://p.events-delivery.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1509pijnedf... [1]
[1] From a previous HN post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10192594
It seems highly similar to the Watch — including the haptic feedback (which to me is an important part of what makes the interaction work on the watch).
A lot depends on how developers use/abuse this feature. If only power-user features are hidden in the 3D-touch menu then it will be OK. But if ordinary features are only exposed via this menu then apps will become harder to use.
Things like right clicking, force/3D touching, or stylus's are specific modes that need to be activated and de-activated discreetly -- showing a separate set of otherwise non-discoverable features.
My impression based on demos, without trying is, the unintutivity increased.
When something is usable, that doesn't necessarily make it useful.
And to handle the backups yourself, import your own photos, store them wherever you like. None of this has changed as far as I can see.
Because even 128 GB is not enough for most photo libraries.
The amount of control over our own data seems the same as we had before — basically dependent on how much work we want to put in managing it vs. trusting and paying for cloud storage providers.
tl;dr: Apple is actively and knowingly encouraging the use of more data while refusing to upgrade internal storage space and instead pushing iCloud storage. This leads to misaligned incentives.
And you can also use iCloud alternatives (we use Flickr and Dropbox on iOS for photos and movies, as iCloud is too pricey and inflexible).
Your argument was relating to the 16 GB option of the phone, but asked the question "is control over our own data dead?" in connection with that 16 GB version. I was unsure why you asked that because of two things: 16 GB is an option, not the only size available; and one still has ultimate control over their own data, be it on the cloud or local.
It's short term gain for long term pain to the quality of the brand.
Note that's the default. It's still optional (e.g. pay $100-200 more for more storage, or buy seemingly increasingly more niche phones that offer SD card slots).
And of course the age old alternative, which is making a compromise. i.e. not store all and any music, video, photo etc on your insta-use phone. Instead keep old albums on an external drive in your home, just like movies you've already seen or movies you won't get to anytime soon. Or albums you rarely listen to. Compromise.
/5c with 16GB and 0 free space... even with "optimize storage on phone" for photos enabled they still take up all my space
I have several gigs taken up by whatsapp alone and I do not want to delete my history.
> iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 6c
What made the iPhone iconic was that there was one powerful and curated model, and that you trusted Apple to make design choices for you. You paid extra because you knew you were getting a quality phone, not the low-tier/hard to compare versions of the multitude of Android-based phone. Why move away from simplicity and curation?
Personally I'm sticking with my 5s until it dies at this point, the 6 is too damn big.
If you keep doing the same thing your market price will start to fall. Smartphones are old and boring. They can't capture more users simply by being Apple any more, they have to offer the variety users want in order to increase their piece of the pie.
So they get three years out of a fabrication process and supply chain instead of 8 months if they only allowed you to buy the newest models every year.
It's not a big choice. You have "free on contract", "cheap on contract" (last year's models), or "best on contract" (current models).
Just two flagships. And they are differentiated on size, that's all.
This is no different to the 5/5C situation really (in fact, a clearer differentiation tbh).
The previous years models have always been available since the 3GS was released.
Seems like you're running about 6 years behind the times...?
Maybe this sort of taxonomy only confuses me?
In a way, you're completely right -- they are all versions of one flagship model. The "S" are always upgraded internals of last years model (the 3GS, 4S, 5S, and now 6S). And plus is a bigger version of that flagship model.
But it's not like they released the 6, the 6a, and the 6b all the same year. It's quite clear.
I haven't watched it in years, time for a Matrix marathon :-)
So fucking irritating that more/less the primary way Apple does price differentiation for their product models is by locking you in at storage capacity sizes.
My life is a hell of iCloud + Dropbox backups & constantly deleting all media so I can keep all of 40 apps on my 16GB iPhone.
In the previous models (5/5s, 4s) the base model provided enough memory for doing most things comfortably. Now you actually HAVE to get the intermediate model to do anything useful (unless you're in masochistic mood). So the intermediate model (costing $100 more) becomes the entry level model.
I would even go so far to say that the 16/64/128GB memory gradation, coupled with the slippery 6/6s (slip and break more often ==> more AppleCare purchases and/or service repair costs) are intentional.
I understand capitalism and all that, but this is just pure greed and they're not doing much to hide it.
But in this case, how much is your time worth? If you're like most people hanging out on hacker news (assuming a tech career) its not unreasonable to expect your salary to be $100/hour.
If you're spending more than 2 hours mucking with moving things around, then perhaps your next phone purchase should consider how much time you're spending vs. the price of increased storage.
But I digress. The 6S was clearly never getting an SD card slot.
But the iPhone has shipped with 16GB minimum storage ever since the 4s four years ago. Since then the speed, resolution, and camera have all increased by at least one factor of two. All of these things also increase the storage requirements for photos and apps.
If I was the type of user who was satisfied with the base model of my old phone, and I buy the new base model and am not satisfied, then I am not going to be happy. I use my phone the same way I did four years ago. If I wasn't a 'pro' user then, why am I now?
The new iPhone 6S will make this issue much worse. 4K video, larger pictures, "live" pictures (oh god). The small memory on these devices and lack of SD is intentional to push iCloud and device upgrades.
If you buy a new iPhone just get the 64GB.
Is that what we call a complete dud? Even worse than last year's event?
It's not new, except in the sense that now also Apple delivers it, a few years later than everyone else.
I think you need to take a step back and look at what Apple usually deliver - not the latest and greatest technology, but well thought-out features with impressive vertical integration. It's compelling for some people - just like the Samsung "all the features" approach is for others. They're both valid; use what suits you best.
It doesn't add unusable thickness to the phone and as a bonus it gives you more friction so if your hands are sweaty you're less likely to drop your $1,000 magic pocket supercomputer (completely smooth rounded corners look nice, but sure are slippery and drop prone).
I love all of this, but it seems to me that there is really becoming a divide in the type of people who can fully appreciate/employ the UI nuances? I'm not a photographer, and basically only use photoshop to crop and do bullish things. But I know there's a whole universe of things I could do, if I appreciated the power set tools.
I think that's where many "smart" products are going, but because they are distributed to the masses (unlike PS for instance), that divide means something else.
For some people this is going to make their "daily lives" more enjoyable. For another set of folks, perhaps equal in size even, I think a lot of this stuff will just go over their heads.
She'll get it if she uses it. It's not any more difficult than using the current touch gestures.
If she means to use it. Not difficult to imagine people triggering this by accident.
I figure as long as you don't hide essential functionality in your app's 3d-touch interface, and primarily use it for short cuts, you are probably okay...
How discoverable is Siri? It’s super obscure, nowhere to be found in the UI, you can only activate it via an obscure long-press.
"Brand New" and "Same as used in X" - choose one. (I think this is just standard TechCrunch, not from Apple, but still rather irritating)
http://leancrew.com/all-this/2015/08/aluminum-and-strength/
[0] not solely, they're also used in bike frames. Basically 7000 is zinc alloys, and have the highest available tensile strength, rivalling low-level steels at a third the density.
It makes a whole lot more likely that the base model is just to get you to upgrade to the 64GB at this point.
It's the same with the European cars. BMW or whatever will sell you (in this country) a tiny underpowered four-cylinder engine for $N. If you want the four-cylinder engine with more power it will be $N+10K, if you want a six-cylinder engine that doesn't feel sluggish it will be $N+20K, and if you want something that actually feels as fast as the car looks it'll cost you $N+30K.
Meanwhile you can buy a fast engine in a crate for about $5K.
>Sometimes the mere existence of the base model causes some problems that can't be fixed with the existence of an upgraded option. This is a consistent problem in an enterprise environment. The base model is always the one purchased more frequently whether through BYOD or enterprise owned devices. This means that support staff has to spend a lot of time working with users to manage space.
Live photos are not really "completely new technology", but I think Apple does it better, since most likely every Apple device plays the live photo.
Think about it - why do professional photographers bother with shutters or try to time the perfect shots? Why not just constantly shoot video and pull frames out of it later? Because it would look like crap.
This wouldn't be hard to imitate. Record the live preview into a 3 second buffer. When the user presses the shutter, switch into still mode, take a real photo, wait 1.5 seconds, and then write both the buffer and the photo into the same archive. On playback, by default show the normal photo, but on whatever UI gesture, play the first 1.5 seconds of the video, then the photo for one frame, then the next 1.5 seconds of the video.
Only barrier I could see to re-implementing this on other phones is long wait times while the camera switches modes, during which information is lost.
Photographers are doing this.
https://news.creativecow.net/story/879117
>"RED cameras allow Inez and Vinoodh to simultaneously capture high-resolution images for their photographs along with their artistic videos"
You can get to comparable image quality, but it's going to cost you.
Two separate files tied together by the UI.
That "Live Photo" will still be a normal jpg
Another thing is that any 4k capable codec is also probably magnitudes more space efficient than baseline jpeg for stills, with or without added temporal information.
I guess they differentiate it as follows:
- It's the full photo data (12 MP) for each frame - It captures 1.5 seconds before and after you press the capture button - (Speculation based on a dot-point in the keynote) It's stored using some frame-to-frame compression thing, probably similar to a movie but with the option to recover any individual frame as a full size, full quality image
I reckon much of their photo technology comes from their acquisition of the SnappyCam app and that developer's custom JPEG encoding.
Or is 3D Touch somehow achieved with passive sensors?
Historically, US carriers don't change plan pricing based on having a contract. So, you can be month-to-month for $100 per month, or get a two year contract for $100/month plus they give you $500 up front towards the purchase of a $1,000 phone (as received by just discounting the phone up front).
I thought 16GB was bad in 2014 but it's just comical now considering the 4k and 12MP camera.
The RAM should hopefully be at least 2GB.