Jon Prosser leaked a hole punch design for next year.
It’s always remarkable to me when I remember on these launch days that Apple probably has a working beta 14, proof of concept 15 and somebody working on 16. What a pipeline.
I wonder how big is the team that makes the small and irrelevant design changes that allow iPhone connoisseurs to distinguish what exact model you're using.
Face ID is extremely useful, and the real depth scanning capability makes it better. It's your right to elevate subjective aesthetics over functionality of course, but a significant number of us do not agree. If Apple is able to do the IR scanning, cameras and so on through the display in the future I'm sure they will take advantage of it, but a hole punch is not it.
And short of that it's not clear what a flat out superior biometric identification system would be feasible in the near future (a return of Touch ID in-screen say would be complementary, not exclusive) in a bar form factor? Some sort of short range penetrating scanner that can read bone structure in your hand or something, if that's possible? Just hard to think of many degrees of freedom there, we have lots of other attributes to our bodies which represent useful bits of entropy, but not ones that are easy, fast, convenient and low power to gather from a bar in your hand. Wearable displays of course could jump straight to retina scanning, but that doesn't help phones. So even though I do expect the iPhone form factor to get disrupted by wearables, I don't really see Face ID ceasing to be important for the iPhone itself for a while, or Apple stepping backwards the 3D scanner.
So the notch will probably stay until/unless they can do it through the display or something genuinely surprising/cool becomes available. Would be very cool if others who follow the field more closely can point to some possibilities I'm missing though.
I wear a respirator instead and Face ID works fine through it, so that hasn't been a problem for me. I certainly understand it's been a common complaint however, and I'd fully support Apple adding in-screen Touch ID. I just don't think that'd be a good replacement for Face ID, which all security discussions aside simply serves use cases (like wearing gloves) that Touch ID doesn't even as Touch ID serves cases that Face ID doesn't. It'd be better to have both.
Kind of too bad Apple couldn't have at least attempted to help more people out purely in software though. I use a complex password along with Face ID as well, but there isn't any inherent reason they couldn't have more of a step function there: complex master password for performing sensitive functions, then a PIN fallback for Face ID, then Face ID like normal. Complex master required for trusting devices, upgrades, installing profiles, etc, PIN/biometric for typical out-and-about functionality.
It's not about aesthetics, it's a pita to view contents in landscape and have the notch cut a hole in it. I keep having to rotate my phone the get it on the right side. I hate the notch (but I'm also not a fan of rounded corners).
I’m curious- What content are you watching that the notch cuts into? 16:9 and 16:10 content that I watch on YouTube isn’t cropped by the notch unless you zoom into it fully, but then it’d also cropped on the corners, and the long edges as well.
The screen is too long for most landscape content and the notch hides perfectly in the black bars in those instances.
Many times these Apple events listed "0.x mm thinner" as a new feature, but everyone knows you'll put it in a case, while the battery and screen stayed mostly the same until the last big improvement.
Both Face ID and Touch ID will be absolutely worthless if the Supreme Court determines that you can be compelled to unlock your phone (with biometric data). No case has reached the Supreme Court yet though and lower courts have ruled both ways, so it's not a settled matter.
When the iPhone first introduced the notch I hated it, HATED!!!
I ended up on the iPhone 11 Pro Max due to the low light photo function to take photos of my daughter, and after a day never noticed it again. I think I've come across 1 game which didn't optimize for it and caused it to overlap on the game controls, but apart from that it's not noticeable.
I think we make a lot of fuss over silly design things like this which are non-issues.
The camera bump on bump on bump design is really disappointing to see. There must have been a better way to deal with this surely? I can only imagine all the dust and grime build-up in all those ridges, especially in between the three cameras.
I've had one of those designs for several years now, less than you think, I clean my phone once every couple months, and I have never found a bunch of grime of build up there.
It seems the lenses are sufficiently spaced that it’s not really an issue. Also the ridges themselves are quite slippery, and don’t tend to cling onto dust.
I rinse my iPhone 8+ under a slow-running faucet once a week. It’s the easiest way to get pocket lint out of the lightning port. No problems after 4 years. Maybe I should replace the SIM card gasket one day?
I’ve been regularly washing my phone since the X and never had a problem. I also don’t use a case and handle it delicately, but do have glass covers on the front and back.
Use to drop/ break my phones all the time. One day it occurred to be I almost never drop a cup/ glass, so why do I drop my phone? I think I just kind of mental classified it as I did plastic flip phones I grew up with. And once I mentally thought of it an extremely expensive gem containing a super computer, almost never drop it anymore.
Seems to me that it's a practical form factor in response to prevailing market reality. Last I checked, every single bit of market research indicated that a super majority of phone owners use cases of one variety or another. Not all of them for sure, and I ran without for a long time myself, but the overwhelming majority. So if most are going to be adding some level of thickness and mass to their devices regardless, and that will necessarily have a hole for the camera system which would just be empty wasted volume otherwise, it makes sense to strike a compromise and try to make more use of that without making it completely unusable without a case.
But cases are the major form of physical customization most people have. Cases can provide physical keyboards, battery, environmental protection, texture, and aesthetics in a variety and individual granularity that would be impossible for any OEM to handle themselves. Fundamental to cases though is that they can only ever add, never subtract. So it seems very practical to me to design a device that is as thin and light as possible within a floor level of raw performance, since that represents the base state. Then individuals who want more battery life, more extreme environmental usage and so on can add from there, but those who don't aren't saddled with it. Cameras feed into that, if anything for many heavier duty case users it'd be more optimal if they were any even bigger bump. They represent a compromise.
> Last I checked, every single bit of market research indicated that a super majority of phone owners use cases of one variety or another
Mostly because an iPhone is unusable without a case. Naked it has no grip, you'll drop it frequently. Also, the camera bump in the back absolutely needs a case.
Probably the same dies with one GPU core disabled. My guess is the GPU cores are large (== relatively likely to have a defect) and also easy to isolate. Apple has done the same thing for previous processors and it's pretty common practice across the industry. Eventually yields will go up and they might either make a pure 4-core version for lower end products or they'll just remove that from the line entirely.
Obviously they edited the video and made careful shots to show off the feature in the best light, but it was really impressive. If nothing else, it made me curious to see it work in person.
I have had an X since the day it shipped and the fact that its still a decent phone for daily use is a testament to how much of a leap it was at the time.
I wonder how far back customer satisfaction is for older models. I'm still rocking my trusty 8 Plus and it suits my everyday needs just fine and works perfectly, with a slightly degraded battery life. I'm not gaming or shooting movies with it and so haven't seen any need to upgrade for quite a long time.
In my household we still love and use the iPhone SE from 2016. The only issue we have with them is battery life. I replaced mine myself, and while it is better than what it had been, the battery still isn't as good as when it was new.
I was hoping to like the updates enough to justify the upgrade at this point, looks like I'll be waiting another year. If I upgrade any of the phones in my house it will be my partners, who will want a 12 because they can get one in purple. (Seriously Apple, why not may a 13 in purple, you'd get more money out of me that way)
I was looking at getting a used 12 the other day, and it was hardly worth it. Almost new prices. Does Apple continue selling old models at a discount? Will the used prices crater now?
If they continue to sell the older versions they have usually a very light discount (50-100$). However you might get bigger discounts if you get one with a contract from a network operator, which wants to clear stock of those.
I'm probably in a tiny minority with this, but I use a lot of on-device storage. Lately I've been filling up my 512GB phone constantly... not to the point where it's hindering me but it's definitely a constant headache. For me, the new 1TB option was all I needed to make it a worthwhile upgrade. I can't wait to packrat with abandon again.
I was always curious about how people fill up all that space now that most of content is streamed... Can you share what's your use case? Do you shoot a lot of video or something like that?
Well as I said I don't think I'm a typical case... and honestly a lot of it comes down to "because I can"
By far the biggest space user is music. I own thousands of CDs and so have a huge (and entirely legal!) iTunes library of over 50K songs. Back in the days of the 40GB iPod I kept it synced against a complicated smart playlist that tried to include what I was most interested in listening to... with very little success: any time something popped into my head I'd find it wasn't there.
The introduction of the 512GB iPhone models was the first time that I could sync it ALL to my mobile device, no compromises. Now does it make logical sense in the age of Spotify to have 4000 hours of audio synced to my phone? Probably not. However having access to even the most obscure material in my CD collection wherever I go (and even if I don't have internet access) gives me the sensation that I'm living in the future.
More broadly I tend to think of my phone like a biometric-protected SSD that I always have with me. I try to keep a lot of my personal files synced from my desktop to it (mostly using Secure Shellfish right now)
Thanks for sharing. I can understand you as I used to do the same before I switched to Spotify many years ago. And I can still see why some people prefer that "old" way of syncing content. I remember when Spotify was missing even popular bands like "Beatles" or "Tool" and that was a pain... I guess lot of stuff still isn't there (or anywhere else online for that matter), and especially some more obscure stuff.
Video recording features look really nice, not that most of us need that.
I was mostly interested in A15 chip data, as a hint on what can I expect from the new laptops. But as usual, they just provide some random percentages comparing the chip to "leading competitor" or something. So we still need to wait and see.
I really think Apple is trying to force us into this mag-safe charger instead of switching to USB-C. :( I seem to only have USB-C cables now... EXCEPT for the iPhone.
What would you improve about the iPhone or iPad? I think these products are just mature and there is very little to improve other than iterative updates. The true test of whether Apple has entered their Ballmer era will be if they fail to launch a new product category in the next 2-3 years.
I get why a few years ago there was a push for this, but in this era, why? There are so many music / news / talk streaming options that traditional radio might as well be dead. You turn on the sports radio shows and they are deliberately advertising and directing you to their podcast over their radio show.
USB-C charging across the line would've been nice (the iPads are already on board with this generation it seems).
They could also do more innovation on the camera notch (20% smaller is not enough), I'd expect them to solve the under-display camera problem by now given their expertise and funding.
Paradoxically, I'd consider bringing the headphone jack back the most revolutionary change. It would give a clear message, "We heard our customers, we had been wrong, so now we are doing the right thing."
One painfully obvious thing would be to get rid of insane notch / forehead. While they're at it, implement an under-display front-facing camera so we can have 100% screen-to-body ratio. Fair that this is not really revolutionary (Samsung has had better screen-to-body for forever) but to me it was a surprising miss from Apple (yet again; maybe I should stop being surprised).
> What a disappointing event: a bunch of iterative updates.
Is that not the pattern Apple has followed since the release of the original iPhone? This is an "off" year, the device would have been called the 12S but they stopped that pattern a while back.
Is that not the pattern Apple has followed since the release of the original iPhone? This is an "off" year, the device would have been called the 12S but they stopped that pattern a while back.
This is a mischaracterization of the S models. Even though the non-S models had bigger design changes, the S models were often large technological leaps:
- 4S: single -> dual core
- 5S: first 64-bit iPhone, first Touch ID model
- 6S: twice as much memory, 70% faster CPU than the 6. In contrast to the 6 still supported, probably because it has so much headroom. Also 3D Touch (though it ultimately failed).
IMO it’s not much of a mischaracterisation. Apple has always led with features, not tech specs. New features and designs tended to come one year with performance improvements the next. That feels very much iterative to me.
I think another commenter got it right. This is a refinement year anyway.
If anything, it's the screen tech that could be holding them back, there's supply constraints in that chain as well.
I'm genuinely suprised we even got variable refresh rate; Apple clearly had much higher standards for it or they were concerned they couldn't meet demand, otherwise it should have shipped 2 years ago.
iPhone 6 had headphone connector, reasonable size and touchid. It had headphones and charger bundled in, for $650 at launch.
iPhone 13 definitely has better camera, display and performance, and it is bit more water resistant and has wireless charging. But it's larger, missing headphone connector, it has faceid (which never works in pandemic world due to masks), has no headphones or charger in the box, and cost $1000 at launch.
So there definitely are improvements (the quality of life from wireless charging, nicer screen and camera) but it comes at almost twice the cost and a lot of stupid choices like faceid. For people not interested in performance and camera, the iPhone 13 can almost seem worse.
I have iPhone 6, and it's fine with iOS 12.5.4 released in June 2021. I'm thinking about upgrading, but the current situation is still fine. The phone still works very well, and I use it a lot. Safari, YouTube, Reddit, podcast apps, maps apps, notes, messaging apps, etc. still work about the same. Photos would have better quality on a newer phone, but overall not a big change for everyday use. These newer displays look nice though.
I'll be forced to update when enough apps (not Apple, but third party) stop working because they no longer support iOS 12. Currently, there are only 7 apps out of over 200 that I have installed that don't support iOS 12. So I have to run an older version of these apps. Eventually there will be many. And the older versions of the apps will eventually stop working as well (if they connect to some web APIs that will be deprecated). This is what forced me to upgrade from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 6 last time.
Apple's privacy innovations are unique, and I wonder whether Google will follow along. With Apple relay and mail protection you have TOR lite for grandma when browsing or using mail.
I'm not defending the CSAM stuff at all because I hate it as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't say Apple is at a particularly worse area in the average consumer's mindspace than in the past.
In recent years they've dealt with some of the pain-points of iOS, e.g. starting to allow default apps, adding an app drawer so you don't need to have every app on your homescreen, etc.
And especially if we want to talk Macs, they recently released a batch of computers with their own silicon that are being rave-reviewed in terms of performance and battery life, and they're backtracking on the design flaws from their last era of laptops (getting rid of the butterfly keyboard that had a pathetic failure rate, giving up on the touchbar, rumors of potentially adding more I/O back, etc).
The whole presentation felt like a video version of some kind of a lifestyle magazine. Like, here's some devices plus some apps and services to suit your dynamic everyday lifestyle. The surrounding sceneries and the style of the presentation also gave a very "post-covid" feel in the sense that we hardly ever saw more than a few people on a single frame.
Most of Apple's updates are boring iterations on previous versions. Periodically, they'll come out with something that captures people's imagination for a while, then it's back to predicting the end of Innovator Apple because whatever is happening now doesn't match the excitement of the big shift.
Edit: I postulate that the disappointment effect crosses product lines
Usually they tick tock unless they missed the mark.
With the supply chain situation being what it is, essentially extending the 12 for a year is the smart move. They’ve already slipped the laptops to the point that they missed back to school and likely Christmas.
iPhones are increasingly cameras the other features, of which the actual "phone" part is almost trivially unimportant. Personally I'm actually happy about these updates (I've skipped the last many generations) and I really hoped for and got a tele zoom.
Only thing I would have liked different was a slightly bigger phone (for a bigger display).
I don’t want to rob you of your excitement for this feature. Just that scrolling through these comments, it made me smile that the iPhone is now so mature that we get excited about the frames per second while scrolling.
Maybe it reflects how much we enjoy the zero-latency analog world.
The notch is such a travesty. The fact that they removed landscape mode on the home screen after the iPhone 6S Plus is an affront to any good design principles.
I think it is deliberate so you have to buy an iPad if you want to use it like a mini computer. Beyond disappointing.
The notch is a whole lot better than a hole punch, in my opinion. If we have to wait another year or two for them to perfect under-screen FaceID or TouchID, I'm all for it.
There are far worse design compromises than the notch.
One thing I found curious from the event was that they added a "find my" feature to the mag wallet. They advertised it by saying something along the lines of "find where your wallet was last detached". This was likely a response to just how bad the magnetic attachment for these wallets was. It just slides off when you put your phone in your pocket. You can see how much these slide around in these clips:
No from saying “last detached” I’m betting it’s just adding a hook into the phone that logs the current location each time the wallet is removed from the back of the phone. There’s really not space in the current design of the wallet that you could squeeze an AirTag into.
I conclude there’s no airtag-tech in the wallet. If there were they would have said something like ‘find my will locate your wallet’
But they specifically say the LAST place it disconnected from your phone. So they must be tracking when it disconnects and updating find my…
Just think when all the "find my" features are baked into everything Apple. They will know that you are 30 feet away from your Apple TV. And they will know if when your family is away from the HomePods...
This will give Apple insight spatially how you move and interact in your home, compared to other devices and each other. Lots of insights to be gleaned.
> This will give Apple insight spatially how you move and interact in your home, compared to other devices and each other. Lots of insights to be gleaned.
True, but the explicitly do not collect any of that data, so it’s useless to “Apple” as a whole.
I’ve been using a 3rd party magnetic wallet and one of the challenges is that the magnet is so strong that sometimes I struggle to pull the phone out of my jeans pocket.
They’d need to come up with a new pairing mechanism. Currently you can only pair them by either plugging them in (the gen 1 method) or using the magnetic charging spot on the side of the later generation iPad Pros. AFIAK there’s no other way to put the Pencils into a pairing state that would work with phones for the newer ones so you’d be selling people more of the Gen 1 devices which I bet they’re looking to obsolete ASAP.
What’s the put “it in the case” equivalent action for an Apple Pencil? There’s no a need for the secondary battery in the pencils because they’re large enough to have a sizable battery built in. Not saying it’s an impossible problem but it would need a button that doesn’t exist on current pencils.
They could in theory use the older gen 1 pencils but then you’d be bifurcating the pencil branding forcing them to continue making the older pencils with the built in Lightning (which would be even less convenient on a phone since the pencils are longer than the phones). Everyone brought up the issue of losing the pencil with the old version because there was no way to keep them together outside of a case with an extra nub built in. The pencil form factor just isn’t great for phones. It just barely works on devices like the Note line of phones because it’s tiny and has a built in slot to not lose it.
Hmm, iPhone 12 Pro (idk about non-pro) has the MagSafe charging ring on the back side of the device, I’d assume the side spot isn’t that much different from that?
To charge it has to be able to function as a Qi pad instead of just a receiver which requires chips that may not exist on the phone side of things. Also there may be issue with coil mismatches the pencil has to have a really small coil compared to almost all other wireless charging devices. It might be very specifically tuned for the spot on the side of the iPadPros in a way that wouldn't work well on anything else.
Some Android phones have a feature now that actually lets you charge another phone wirelessly (using the energy in the Android phone's battery). Power Sharing, or something like that, I forgot the name for it.
I wish they'd have gone to USB-C for charging. I'm a recent (2 years ago) convert to iPhone and don't have a lightning ecosystem built up. Everything else in my life uses USB-C. Life would be so much simpler if they'd just convert the iPhone. Or even offer separate skews, where one had USB-C
AirPods using lightning is one of the more obnoxious Apple decisions in the last 5 years or so. Even long after the iPhone has moved on to USB-C or no port at all, your AirPods Max will still force you to charge with Lightning.
I guess it's a good thing that everybody's AirPods and AirPods Pro are going to be dead in a couple of years, so if they update them to use USB-C they won't hang around too long. Thanks, poor battery longevity!
Apple took a lot of grief for retiring the 30 pin connector and USB-C didn't yet exist when they did so. At the time I recall Apple saying they would support Lightning for 10 years. That was 9 years ago. It makes sense that the AirPods would use the same connector as the iPhone - imagine the mess that would be if they didn't! Anyway, since next year is the 10 year anniversary of switching to Lightning I suspect that's when they're going to transition all the iDevices (except Watch) to USB-C.
You're probably right. I know I don't use the wire to charge my phone any longer. Also eliminates a port which should improve the device's water resistance.
The lightning ecosystem is that a huge percentage of people in the united states expect their phones, and their friends' phones, to charge over lightning. This is a convenience for them. I'm not really defending it, since usb-C would be much easier for me, but I can understand why the transition would be painful for a lot of average users.
Yup. It's incredibly irritating to have devices from the same manufacturer require different cords. Apple should have moved all the iDevices to USB-C at the same time OR left them all on Lightning. As it is now, I have phones with Lightning, tablets and laptops with USB-C, and watches with a proprietary dongle.
The reason Apple keeps forcing us to use lightning cable while everybody else uses USB-C is, well, money. Apple gets paid for every lightning cable sold and would leave a lot of money on the table if we could simply use any of the USB-C ones available everywhere.
Life would be easier with USB-C, and that day will come, but Apple will certainly put it off as long as they can.
For pro versions I don't think it's money. They can charge me extra for not having to use an adapter (just make ipod air pro more expensive). I'm happy to pay extra for USB-C.
I think it's more to do with how Apple releases new products (no incremental updates without big announcements)
I think you're underestimating the amount of shared production/tech between the two tiers of iPhones.
I'd bet the cost of changing over to USB-C on only the expensive tier would outweigh the current MSRP difference. I'd also bet USB-C still isn't cheap enough at iPhone mass market scale.
They're either waiting to use USB-C across all new models, or they're convinced wireless is worth waiting another few years.
Disagree that it's about the relative pennies they make on cables. I think they were caught off guard by the enormous negative public reaction to Apple switching from 30-pin to Lightning.
They knew they had to abandon the 30-pin prior to 2010, and the Lightning spec didn't materialize magically, years of design went into it.
USB 3.1 and the associated USB-C wasn't even on Apple's radar when they started designing Lightning.
I'm completely convinced that Apple would've liked to move to wireless charging before entertaining the idea that the port on the iPhone should switch to USB-C. Unfortunately wireless charging tech hasn't been up to their standards, and we've seen Apple back itself into similar corners with other computers/devices, where they miscalculated future performance.
The fact of the matter is that families tend to have more than one iPhone, with cables that are shared, and iPhones get passed around as they age. I can't imagine how many articles will be written by the tech media and how many angry commenters on Facebook will be crying about perceived forced obsolecense if Apple were to switch USB-C.
The money they make on Lightning cables simply does not matter.
> I think they were caught off guard by the enormous negative public reaction to Apple switching from 30-pin to Lightning.
I dont record any negative reaction. Everyone was looking at what seemingly like a small problem, being able to plug in any other way around, and Apple finally did it.
>USB 3.1 and the associated USB-C wasn't even on Apple's radar when they started designing Lightning.
Apple donated part of the work to make USB-C. They are well aware of USB-C
>Disagree that it's about the relative pennies they make on cables.
>The money they make on Lightning cables simply does not matter.
Lightning Cable, or MFi is a multi hundred million dollar business a year. Most dont seems to realise the gigantic scale of MFi business.
I almost made the plunge on the iPhone last year, but I simply cannot move backwards after USB-C. My Macbook and my Pixel charge on the same cable, it is bananas.
I recommend you switch to magsafe. You can buy really cheap magsafe charging stands. At this point I only have a lightning cable for my car, I basically never use one in my day to day life which rather lessens the pain.
Fair, I use MagSafe next to my bed so I'm not worried about charging speed really at all. I do have a lightning cable around in the event that faster charging is required, I just genuinely barely use it.
Except charging speed is now intentionally throttled by the iPhone itself. AirPods do this too. The learn from your schedule and intelligently charge slower and to a lower capacity in order to maximize battery health.
I have a magsafe cradle on my desk. But its too bulky to fit in my bag.
Its funny, the last time I flew I was in a pickle. I had my M1 MBP, its charger, a USB-A to lightning cable, and a USB-C to micro USB for my headphones. Only when my phone was down to 20% did I realize I had nothing to plug the lightning cable into.
I very recently started using Apple products and have an M1 MacBook Pro (work) and M1 iPad Pro (home). Naively I thought this meant they were done with lightning so when work put out an email for a new round of meeting equipment I picked AirPods Pro.
I can't describe how disappointed I was when I went to go charge the case for the first time during a remote meeting and my MacBook charger didn't plug in. It just seemed like such a unnecessary hassle for a product that had otherwise been good in an ecosystem that had otherwise used the same cable as everything else in the world.
Your AirPods came with a USB-C to Lightning cable. It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t use the power cable from your Mac, but at least the correct cable to charge the AirPods case was included.
My guess is that there would be an even more negative impact on sales if they would call it 12s. Lots of consumers would assume that only minor improvements were made and would choose not to upgrade.
As always with the iPhone specs, Apple lists every detail such as the list of audio codecs or the document types supported in the Mail application, but "forgets" to mention the RAM. So I guess it's not much RAM as always.
iPhones work very differently when compared to Android. By default, there really aren’t backgroud apps, iOS forces their usage to minimum. iOS has own thread for UI rendering and everything on background is not prioritized.
And yet when you leave Safari (or any other browser) and use other apps and come back, and have your tab(s) reload and lose your position in a long webpage or have to re-fill a form... sometimes happens even after 10 seconds... then you wish you had more RAM
To be honest I never ever noticed this. I have a lot of apps at a particular time used and switching between them is instant and gets me to the last position and state every time.
The - seemingly - easiest way to trigger this is to stream audio via the Music.app, have Apollo (Reddit-client, og Reddit app may be even worse) in foreground and switch back and forth between those...
I use official reddit app, spotify, audible, browser, crypto apps, lichess, maps and probably some other apps and frequently switch between them and they always keep their state.
That is app specific behavior and probably working as intended from the OS point of view. OS prioritizes the UI and background apps are even stopped, if they are poorly implemented. This is not the fault of missing RAM, instead app developers should know what OS does in these situations and reload the situation from the cache, not from the RAM, depending on their implementation and needs.
When I'm not being a frontend dev I do a bit of wildlife photography. I really wish Apple made an actual camera. Their camera tech is great, their software is first class, but phone cameras are limited in sensor size and lens size simply by being phones. If Apple took their tech and put it in a dSLR size package with a first class lens (or interchangeable lenses) that would be truly awesome.
They probably could make a killer camera. But, DSLRs are pretty much dead. Canon and Nikon are both investing in mirrorless now and IIRC Canon has effectively stopped development of their SLR line. And the camera market in general isn't great - compact cameras have effectively been replaced by cell phones and mirrorless systems are largely a pro-sumer product.
FWIW, I bought my iPhone Pro specifically to replace my second mirrorless body. I'll keep one body around for "real" photography. But the phone is good enough for random snapshots.
I think the idea that they’ve been pushing for years is that you don’t need a camera anymore. You can do all this “pro” stuff on their phone.
It’s a good strategy too. Suppose they had an ILC camera . That reads “Apple isn’t confident that the iPhone is a pro-level camera”. Now that you’ve got that on your mind, Apple would need to compete for your money in a space where they definitely don’t have the upper hand in.
In other words, Apple makes more by convincing you that you don’t need Canon.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 239 ms ] threadIt’s always remarkable to me when I remember on these launch days that Apple probably has a working beta 14, proof of concept 15 and somebody working on 16. What a pipeline.
And short of that it's not clear what a flat out superior biometric identification system would be feasible in the near future (a return of Touch ID in-screen say would be complementary, not exclusive) in a bar form factor? Some sort of short range penetrating scanner that can read bone structure in your hand or something, if that's possible? Just hard to think of many degrees of freedom there, we have lots of other attributes to our bodies which represent useful bits of entropy, but not ones that are easy, fast, convenient and low power to gather from a bar in your hand. Wearable displays of course could jump straight to retina scanning, but that doesn't help phones. So even though I do expect the iPhone form factor to get disrupted by wearables, I don't really see Face ID ceasing to be important for the iPhone itself for a while, or Apple stepping backwards the 3D scanner.
So the notch will probably stay until/unless they can do it through the display or something genuinely surprising/cool becomes available. Would be very cool if others who follow the field more closely can point to some possibilities I'm missing though.
Kind of too bad Apple couldn't have at least attempted to help more people out purely in software though. I use a complex password along with Face ID as well, but there isn't any inherent reason they couldn't have more of a step function there: complex master password for performing sensitive functions, then a PIN fallback for Face ID, then Face ID like normal. Complex master required for trusting devices, upgrades, installing profiles, etc, PIN/biometric for typical out-and-about functionality.
Funny. There was a time when I would have complained about Apple doing exactly this.
I'm probably not their target audience if they want to keep all that camera power for selfie-taking such that it can't be embedded into the screen.
I ended up on the iPhone 11 Pro Max due to the low light photo function to take photos of my daughter, and after a day never noticed it again. I think I've come across 1 game which didn't optimize for it and caused it to overlap on the game controls, but apart from that it's not noticeable.
I think we make a lot of fuss over silly design things like this which are non-issues.
IMO they should have notched the bottom for a fingerprint sensor.
That’s sounds like some heavy-duty retconnning there - which Android phones are you referring to and when did Apple rag on them ‘pretty hard’?
Use to drop/ break my phones all the time. One day it occurred to be I almost never drop a cup/ glass, so why do I drop my phone? I think I just kind of mental classified it as I did plastic flip phones I grew up with. And once I mentally thought of it an extremely expensive gem containing a super computer, almost never drop it anymore.
But cases are the major form of physical customization most people have. Cases can provide physical keyboards, battery, environmental protection, texture, and aesthetics in a variety and individual granularity that would be impossible for any OEM to handle themselves. Fundamental to cases though is that they can only ever add, never subtract. So it seems very practical to me to design a device that is as thin and light as possible within a floor level of raw performance, since that represents the base state. Then individuals who want more battery life, more extreme environmental usage and so on can add from there, but those who don't aren't saddled with it. Cameras feed into that, if anything for many heavier duty case users it'd be more optimal if they were any even bigger bump. They represent a compromise.
Mostly because an iPhone is unusable without a case. Naked it has no grip, you'll drop it frequently. Also, the camera bump in the back absolutely needs a case.
Besides that, this is as rumored, except without the Always On Display.
With a new M-series expected in an updated set of MBPs, presumably they are based on A15 and have even more cores?
I have had an X since the day it shipped and the fact that its still a decent phone for daily use is a testament to how much of a leap it was at the time.
I was hoping to like the updates enough to justify the upgrade at this point, looks like I'll be waiting another year. If I upgrade any of the phones in my house it will be my partners, who will want a 12 because they can get one in purple. (Seriously Apple, why not may a 13 in purple, you'd get more money out of me that way)
I think it’s a pretty subjective call.
Currently, the 11, 12, and 13* are all listed for sale (on apple.com)
* Will be for sale this Friday
By far the biggest space user is music. I own thousands of CDs and so have a huge (and entirely legal!) iTunes library of over 50K songs. Back in the days of the 40GB iPod I kept it synced against a complicated smart playlist that tried to include what I was most interested in listening to... with very little success: any time something popped into my head I'd find it wasn't there.
The introduction of the 512GB iPhone models was the first time that I could sync it ALL to my mobile device, no compromises. Now does it make logical sense in the age of Spotify to have 4000 hours of audio synced to my phone? Probably not. However having access to even the most obscure material in my CD collection wherever I go (and even if I don't have internet access) gives me the sensation that I'm living in the future.
More broadly I tend to think of my phone like a biometric-protected SSD that I always have with me. I try to keep a lot of my personal files synced from my desktop to it (mostly using Secure Shellfish right now)
I was mostly interested in A15 chip data, as a hint on what can I expect from the new laptops. But as usual, they just provide some random percentages comparing the chip to "leading competitor" or something. So we still need to wait and see.
A13: 8.5 billion transistors. A14: 11.8 billion transistors. A15: 15 billion transistors.
A13 neural engine: 5 trillion operations / sec. A14 neural engine: 11 trillion operations / sec. A15 neural engine: 15 trillion operations / sec.
A13: 4 core GPU. A14: 4 core GPU. A15: 5 core GPU.
I think we're progressing into Apple's Ballmer era, if we weren't there already.
- Act as wireless charger
- Dual SIM
- Under-screen fingerprint reader
- Maybe FM radio
- Headphones socket
iPhones are Dual SIM. You can use a physical SIM + and eSIM. I have used my iPhone with two different plans/phone numbers for a while.
I get why a few years ago there was a push for this, but in this era, why? There are so many music / news / talk streaming options that traditional radio might as well be dead. You turn on the sports radio shows and they are deliberately advertising and directing you to their podcast over their radio show.
They could also do more innovation on the camera notch (20% smaller is not enough), I'd expect them to solve the under-display camera problem by now given their expertise and funding.
1) Drop the photo scanning BS.
2) Add Touch ID back.
3) Just call it what it is. It's an iPhone 12S.
4) USB-C
5) Put a charger back in the box.
Never gonna happen, though.
Is that not the pattern Apple has followed since the release of the original iPhone? This is an "off" year, the device would have been called the 12S but they stopped that pattern a while back.
This is a mischaracterization of the S models. Even though the non-S models had bigger design changes, the S models were often large technological leaps:
- 4S: single -> dual core
- 5S: first 64-bit iPhone, first Touch ID model
- 6S: twice as much memory, 70% faster CPU than the 6. In contrast to the 6 still supported, probably because it has so much headroom. Also 3D Touch (though it ultimately failed).
If anything, it's the screen tech that could be holding them back, there's supply constraints in that chain as well.
I'm genuinely suprised we even got variable refresh rate; Apple clearly had much higher standards for it or they were concerned they couldn't meet demand, otherwise it should have shipped 2 years ago.
They are for the ones whose phone is so old that the latest iOS stopped supporting it.
Think about the amazing leap you get from an iPhone 6 to iPhone 13? That's not "iterative", it's damn revolutionary.
After that you just won't care and barely notice it.
iPhone 6 had headphone connector, reasonable size and touchid. It had headphones and charger bundled in, for $650 at launch.
iPhone 13 definitely has better camera, display and performance, and it is bit more water resistant and has wireless charging. But it's larger, missing headphone connector, it has faceid (which never works in pandemic world due to masks), has no headphones or charger in the box, and cost $1000 at launch.
So there definitely are improvements (the quality of life from wireless charging, nicer screen and camera) but it comes at almost twice the cost and a lot of stupid choices like faceid. For people not interested in performance and camera, the iPhone 13 can almost seem worse.
I've got so fucking many wired Apple headphones and chargers I don't know what to do with them all.
I'm glad they're not bundling them any more. I use an Anker charger and cable anyway.
I'll be forced to update when enough apps (not Apple, but third party) stop working because they no longer support iOS 12. Currently, there are only 7 apps out of over 200 that I have installed that don't support iOS 12. So I have to run an older version of these apps. Eventually there will be many. And the older versions of the apps will eventually stop working as well (if they connect to some web APIs that will be deprecated). This is what forced me to upgrade from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 6 last time.
In recent years they've dealt with some of the pain-points of iOS, e.g. starting to allow default apps, adding an app drawer so you don't need to have every app on your homescreen, etc.
And especially if we want to talk Macs, they recently released a batch of computers with their own silicon that are being rave-reviewed in terms of performance and battery life, and they're backtracking on the design flaws from their last era of laptops (getting rid of the butterfly keyboard that had a pathetic failure rate, giving up on the touchbar, rumors of potentially adding more I/O back, etc).
Most of Apple's updates are boring iterations on previous versions. Periodically, they'll come out with something that captures people's imagination for a while, then it's back to predicting the end of Innovator Apple because whatever is happening now doesn't match the excitement of the big shift.
Edit: I postulate that the disappointment effect crosses product lines
With the supply chain situation being what it is, essentially extending the 12 for a year is the smart move. They’ve already slipped the laptops to the point that they missed back to school and likely Christmas.
Great, brb going to throw my old one away and buy this one
Only thing I would have liked different was a slightly bigger phone (for a bigger display).
My mother will be thrilled with the new camera, coming from her iPhone 6.
Maybe it reflects how much we enjoy the zero-latency analog world.
I think it is deliberate so you have to buy an iPad if you want to use it like a mini computer. Beyond disappointing.
Good thing they kept it for this year or barely anything would’ve changed
There are far worse design compromises than the notch.
Low grip strength: https://youtu.be/HNX1v-mJmEA?t=141
Coming off when pocketing: https://youtu.be/HNX1v-mJmEA?t=225
EDIT: Yes they did add a new SKU. https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MM0Q3ZM/A/iphone-leather-...
As replies note, there's no new tech, just tracks last detached.
Weird footnote:
Requires iPhone Leather Wallet with MagSafe and iPhone 12 or later with Find My enabled in iOS 15. Not supported on Clear Case with MagSafe.
This will give Apple insight spatially how you move and interact in your home, compared to other devices and each other. Lots of insights to be gleaned.
True, but the explicitly do not collect any of that data, so it’s useless to “Apple” as a whole.
* Unless they build in another backdoor.
They could in theory use the older gen 1 pencils but then you’d be bifurcating the pencil branding forcing them to continue making the older pencils with the built in Lightning (which would be even less convenient on a phone since the pencils are longer than the phones). Everyone brought up the issue of losing the pencil with the old version because there was no way to keep them together outside of a case with an extra nub built in. The pencil form factor just isn’t great for phones. It just barely works on devices like the Note line of phones because it’s tiny and has a built in slot to not lose it.
The same as the airpods: stop using it and wait a few minutes for a usable charge.
I guess it's a good thing that everybody's AirPods and AirPods Pro are going to be dead in a couple of years, so if they update them to use USB-C they won't hang around too long. Thanks, poor battery longevity!
Le Sigh.
Life would be easier with USB-C, and that day will come, but Apple will certainly put it off as long as they can.
you don't get to 2 Trillion without generating a ton of e-waste in your wake
I think it's more to do with how Apple releases new products (no incremental updates without big announcements)
I'd bet the cost of changing over to USB-C on only the expensive tier would outweigh the current MSRP difference. I'd also bet USB-C still isn't cheap enough at iPhone mass market scale.
They're either waiting to use USB-C across all new models, or they're convinced wireless is worth waiting another few years.
They knew they had to abandon the 30-pin prior to 2010, and the Lightning spec didn't materialize magically, years of design went into it.
USB 3.1 and the associated USB-C wasn't even on Apple's radar when they started designing Lightning.
I'm completely convinced that Apple would've liked to move to wireless charging before entertaining the idea that the port on the iPhone should switch to USB-C. Unfortunately wireless charging tech hasn't been up to their standards, and we've seen Apple back itself into similar corners with other computers/devices, where they miscalculated future performance.
The fact of the matter is that families tend to have more than one iPhone, with cables that are shared, and iPhones get passed around as they age. I can't imagine how many articles will be written by the tech media and how many angry commenters on Facebook will be crying about perceived forced obsolecense if Apple were to switch USB-C.
The money they make on Lightning cables simply does not matter.
I dont record any negative reaction. Everyone was looking at what seemingly like a small problem, being able to plug in any other way around, and Apple finally did it.
>USB 3.1 and the associated USB-C wasn't even on Apple's radar when they started designing Lightning.
Apple donated part of the work to make USB-C. They are well aware of USB-C
>Disagree that it's about the relative pennies they make on cables.
>The money they make on Lightning cables simply does not matter.
Lightning Cable, or MFi is a multi hundred million dollar business a year. Most dont seems to realise the gigantic scale of MFi business.
FYI it is spelled "SKU", a Stock Keeping Unit.
Ironically MagSafe represents the best speeds and efficiency in the industry, but yet it still pales in comparison to a wire.
Its funny, the last time I flew I was in a pickle. I had my M1 MBP, its charger, a USB-A to lightning cable, and a USB-C to micro USB for my headphones. Only when my phone was down to 20% did I realize I had nothing to plug the lightning cable into.
I can't describe how disappointed I was when I went to go charge the case for the first time during a remote meeting and my MacBook charger didn't plug in. It just seemed like such a unnecessary hassle for a product that had otherwise been good in an ecosystem that had otherwise used the same cable as everything else in the world.
https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone13mini...
I never had an issue with an application on iPhone due to RAM nor saw any reference on App Store for an app requiring at least X ram.
You never experienced Safari reloading your web pages after switching between apps for example?
Ahh: Found it. It's Sensor-Shift not SensorShip.
Edit: https://youtu.be/EvGOlAkLSLw?t=2920 Apple event, 48:40
That said, a typical full frame sony sensor is going to blow the apple sensor out of the water.
FWIW, I bought my iPhone Pro specifically to replace my second mirrorless body. I'll keep one body around for "real" photography. But the phone is good enough for random snapshots.
It’s a good strategy too. Suppose they had an ILC camera . That reads “Apple isn’t confident that the iPhone is a pro-level camera”. Now that you’ve got that on your mind, Apple would need to compete for your money in a space where they definitely don’t have the upper hand in.
In other words, Apple makes more by convincing you that you don’t need Canon.