I wonder what will be the rollout order. I guess I would most like to have this in the countries that are usually the last to receive Apple feature support.
It's not a pure software feature and seems like it needs tons of "boots on the ground" support in terms of cooperation from local emergency services. So I'm guessing it will be first/only in developed countries with high state capacity.
There’s a handful of countries where you’ll be arrested if caught with a satellite communications device so keeping it NA only is probably just as much apple trying to not present this as trying to force the feature on the world (yet)
I don't have one. If there's 100k people in the beta, do you have a link to reviews or anything? I'm curious how well it works, compared to Apple's version where you apparently have to wave your phone in the air a certain way. Maybe with LEO receivers that isn't necessary?
Neat but the phone isn’t super robust. I’d hate to have to rely on it in extreme emergencies. A dedicated tracker is better as it can survive in cold and other serious conditions. That being said you are more likely to have the phone on you which is a big deal
They definitely marketed it as a tool for situations when you're not expecting to need it. Like, they were pretty clear about how it would be slower and very limited compared to dedicated satellite telephony devices.
I’ve found it to be pretty robust. I’ve taken the same phone on winter climbs in interior Alaska and summer floats, one of which I had to unstick a raft from a rock while water poured over me for about 30 minutes while it was in a pocket in my PFD. It’s held up just fine.
The only thing is battery life. Especially in the cold, but that’s not an Apple thing, that’s an electronics thing. But you keep it in an internal pocket where body heat can keep it warm and turn off all the radios, or even the phone itself while not in use, and it can last a long time. I can now trade out my garmin inreach for a portable battery (which I already carry every trip yet never needed so far).
I don’t know, modern phones have zero moving parts, are adequately water resistant so I don’t see that. The most likely problem it might have is the battery, which doesn’t happen overnight.
I really hope they still allow you to use it even if you haven't paid the subscription. It's a tool for emergencies so by definition you need it only when you don't expect to need it. It would be a shame to lock people out from something that could have saved their life just because they haven't paid the $x.99 per year service. In theory they could always back-charge users who are not subscribed but even then that could discourage people from using it in a dangerous situation.
I think the amount you'd have to charge to not have a massive decrease in revenue would make Apple look like monsters. Human brains really aren't good at valuing rare events.
Here's a possible scenario. I'm sure it's wildly off from reality, but maybe reality has the same properties. Each month, 1 in 10,000 users call in [1]. For the same revenue you can charge:
$1 per user per month
$10,000 per use
One of those, people will hate you for. Charging $100 per use would slash your revenue by 99%. May as well make it free. I actually think that would be the way to go and maybe they'll do it some day.
[1] If that seems wildly low, remember it's per month and getting lost in the wilderness is pretty rare for the average person.
would be nice, but garmin inReach is very specific in their wording to make sure you know that if you don't have an active subscription, your SOS call will NOT work. Subscription is the standard now so doubt apple would do differently. I was genuinely surprised by the 2 years free though. Garmin inReach mini is a $350 device with 0 free function out of the box without the subscription
I think it's more justifiable to require a prepaid subscription for a dedicated safety device. The difference with a phone is that you're much more likely to have it on you even when you haven't paid for the satellite feature. On the other hand, if you haven't paid your Garmin subscription, you wouldn't take your beacon with you. The iPhone would be great for situations that you don't anticipate such as a breakdown. It seems cruel not to help people in those types of situations just because of a small fee.
There are devices however that offer free satellite help signals. No data or anything, just press the button and it will send your coordinates to a (government funded) emergency dispatch who will automatically send rescue.
Next time you plan to buy an Apple product, check the macrumours buyers guide which estimates where in the product lifecycle it is and whether it’s a good time to buy it or not.
Nah. My net cost is only $200, and I'll probably keep it for 3-5 years like I did my X. I really only wanted the larger, brighter screen and much better battery life.
Nope - that's the reason I bought when I did. I was aware that it was very likely that the 14 would be announced this week, I was only expressing my amusement.
I upgraded through AT&T, who gave me a $700 trade-in on my iPhone X. I also snagged an additional discount on my new iPhone 13 Pro Max because I was OK with an unpopular color ("bamboo"), so my total cost ended up being around $200.
T-Mobile in January offered $600 off when trading in iPhone 8, and $800 off for newer models. I received iPhone 13 in the mail, sent back 8, paid $80-90 up front for taxes and fees, and am paying $6.67 a month for 30 months after which I will own 13 free and clear.
Have they even dropped the price? They're £649 for the base model in the UK but I'm not sure how much they were yesterday. I was expecting around £100 off last year but apparently not.
I was thinking of getting a mini but this all feels a bit weak sauce, I might just wait until next year and squeeze the final year out of my 8 plus even though its battery life is absolutely dire.
The iPhone 13 mini was £679 and the iPhone 13 was £779 and today it's £649 and £749. They've discounted it by £30. That might seem small, but the pound has lost 17% of its value over the past year (relative to the dollar). Last year you would have paid (in dollars) $937 or $1,075 for the iPhone 13 mini or iPhone 13. Today, you're paying $746 or $861 so they've discounted it by $191 or $214 (including the change in value of the pound) which is a pretty substantial discount.
You can see this in the new pricing too. The iPhone 13 was £779, but the iPhone 14 is £849. That's an increase of £70 (9%) in pounds, but a drop of $99 (9%) in dollars. Presumably, Apple is willing to eat a bit of exchange-rate fluctuations. Likewise, the iPhone 13 Pro was £949, but the iPhone 14 Pro is £1,099 - an increase of £150 (16%), but a decrease of $46 (3%) in dollars.
Before someone says "Apple is always overcharging UK customers - $1075 for an iPhone 13 compared to $800 in the US," it's important to note that different countries have very different regulations, fees, import tariffs, and taxes. I believe VAT in the UK is 20%.
Yes, they have dropped the price. It doesn't seem like much of a drop because most of the price decrease is in the fact that the pound has lost so much value. It's £100 cheaper than the iPhone 14 (which is what you were expecting), but it's only £30 cheaper than the iPhone 13 was a day ago (presumably in large part due to the fact that the pound is worth so much less now than a year ago).
The "action" camera mode (basically gimbal replacement) looked pretty good if you were a film maker/Youtuber. And "multiple eSims" might be useful if you're a traveller/digital nomad as you were previously limited to two. But yeah, other than that it did seem a bit sparse on new features this year. Hopefully next years will be a big one to make up for it?
I still haven’t looked into it much but IIRC iPhone 12 & iPhone 13 could already save multiple eSIMs, while 13 could activate 2 at the same time. I think it was up to 8 (or 10) saved eSIMs?
If this is true it may sway me to getting an iPhone 13, I want to do some travelling in the future so being able to have multiple e-sims saved would be beneficial. I thought that it seemed a bit odd that you could only have two of something that was completely digital but makes much more sense if it's only two active SIMs at once.
Yeah, after I wrote that comment I went looking for actual info on eSIM differences on iPhone 14, but there isn’t really any. Support articles aren’t up yet and the asterisk/note is just a basic eSIM disclaimer.
I think that bit along with SIM slot removal is just a push towards eSIM.
AFAIK eSIMs are implemented using a reprogrammable SIM chip residing in the device, and “applying” a saved eSIM (or installing one) means reinitializing it with the SIM’s parameters. I think it’s even implemented somewhat closely to a physical SIM.
Regardless, you need your carrier to support phone eSIMs and one of several registration methods: app, QR code, or manual parameters. (because some carriers support data-only eSIM for smartwatches)
But given this new eSIM push (and that non-US iPhone 14 models will keep the SIM slot) I think a lot more carriers are going to work towards this now. One of the 30 shown in Apple’s event is an Israeli carrier and they’ve been dragging their feet on eSIM for years, only doing the bare minimum for Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch.
The ”action” mode works by cropping in to negate the camera shake, so you’re left with a smaller image than with a physical gimbal. Also it’s post processing that’s probably already available in you editing apps, so it’s more about the convenience (and quality?) of having it done on the OS than something new.
In the specific case of stabilizing a video, the actual physical movement usually matters less than the pixels actually on screen, so it might be less of an advantage (for instance knowing that the phone turned right doesn’t affect the cropping you’ll apply to keep a stable portion of the image)
Stabilizing is usually a separate feature from tracking, at least it’s a separate plugin on Premiere. Sadly I’m not well versed in the field.
I would wait until it's actually confirmed that it has 6 GB of RAM. There is also an A15 in the iPad mini 6 which is based on the A15 in the 13 Pro, but with only 4 GB RAM. If this is the case a discounted 13 Pro could actually be the better option (also because of the 120 Hz screen).
That's a good point. According to wikipedia, there are 3 different A15 chips already.
The iPhone 13 and 13 mini have 2.93ghz high power cores and 2.02ghz low power cores.
The iPad Mini 6 has the same 2.93ghz high power cores and underclocked 1.82ghz low power cores, I believe because of the extra heat from the larger screen.
The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have higher clocked 3.23ghz high power cores and the same 2.02ghz low power cores as the regular iPhone 13.
The iPhone Pro's also have the extra 2GB of ram compares to the others and the iPhone 13/13 Mini are the only ones with the 4 core GPU rather than the 5 core GPU.
All we know now for sure about the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are that they will have the 5 core GPU. We will have to wait for a hands on to know more about the specifics of the A15 they are using.
That said, I doubt that they will have the underclocked low power cores that they iPad Mini 6 has so I think the path of least resistance is for them to take the same A15 from the 13 Pro, with more RAM and overclocked high power cores, and just keep using it in the iPhone 14.
Otherwise they have to introduce a fourth A15 variant which seems like more work than using one they already are manufacturing.
I don't know shit about CPU manufacturing though so I am mostly just talking out of my ass.
Camera sensor specs got a significant bump if you're looking at the 14 Pro. The 13 is a 12MP sensor, the 14 Pro is a 48MP sensor.
Comparing the base 13 and 14 the only real hardware difference is that the selfie camera picked up autofocus and has an aperture change. There's a very minor aperture change to the main camera lens, but I'm not sure whether it's significant.
Again with the 14 Pro, the always on display is a definite change. Probably depends on your own usage patterns whether it'd actually make a practical difference for you.
The best way to really tell the difference, in my view, is to watch YouTube videos or see comparisons of photographs. I find that a lot of written articles or comments on forums really hype up the difference (along the lines of "get the new phone, it has a better camera"), when in practice, it's not that noticeable.
For example, this YouTube video from a quick YouTube search shows fairly insignificant differences between the iPhone 11 and 13 non-Pro models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjosGytrIJI
Sometimes the later model's image looks a bit better, sometimes it's indistinguishable. Meanwhile the 13 pro max costs more than twice as much in my country.
I think I'll be upgrading my XS to the 14 Pro. My only gripe is how big the phone is. XS is 5.8" / 177 grams, the 14 Pro is 6.1" / 206 grams.
I really wish they kept on offering a Mini. Maybe I'll just go for a 13 mini, but the camera does look substantially improved, and satellite communication would be very nice to have (I do lots of hiking away from cell reception).
I was hoping (despite no rumors to the contrary) that they’d at least keep the non-pros at slightly smaller sizes than the pros (say, 5.8” and 6.4”). But alas if you want a smaller phone your stuck with last years model.
And that graph of an A11 A16 and “competing CPUs” is still true (showing A11 lightly ahead of the competition, while A16 being like 15% better than it) - apple is ridiculously ahead of the pack in CPU design.
When Tim Apple announced the iPhone X in 2017, they stated it would "set the tone for the next decade". To me, it feels like that still holds true and my bank account is happy for it :)
How is the iPhone X working for you? Mine is struggling now. Gets very hot after a video call. Cell network completely drops randomly and will only recover if I take out the SIM and put it back. I was hoping for a couple of more years.
It's weird, while Google struggles to make basic Emergency Services calling to work reliably[1], Apple keeps adding life saving features from detecting falls and car crashes to ability to call Emergency Services via satellite.
Just shows you how companies are different in focus, quality control and attention to detail.
The issues mentioned are existing issues in Android devices today and for a few years that the iPhone has full parity with, so I think even if the new features are dropped the criticism stands.
I'm talking in general, nothing to do with iPhone 14.
Apple released fall detection in Apple Watch few years ago, there are already stories of lives it saved.
I'm pretty sure if Apple had an outstanding software bug of not being able to call emergency services for over a year now, I'm pretty sure we (HN crowd) would know it by now.
Android does have crash detection. I understand your claim as Apple values safety, whereas Google does not in their feature releases. But, that is not true.
It is true that Google products are mostly garbage these days, so don't get me wrong there.
Google has never shown competency in building hardware.
I loved my Nexus 5 phone. It’s still my favorite phone as far as aesthetics goes. It was a great value and much cheaper than comparable phones at the time. It bricked itself with a boot loop issue 2 weeks out of warranty. Google was nice enough to replace it with another one that promptly ended up boot looping as well.
I also loved my Nexus 7 tablet. Beautiful device that was so far ahead of its time in terms of looks. It had an issue with absolutely terrible storage that made it so sluggish past its initial release (I believe the issue was the chip itself was degrading and it was a widespread issue). Updating to a higher version of Android made it completely unusable.
I’ve not owned any, but I keep hearing about issues of reliability in both software and hardware with Pixel phones as well.
My best phone for Android has been the Samsung Galaxy S6. Every iPhone i’ve had has been almost entirely problem-free. At this point, I don’t see any reason to buy Google anything.
I completely agree with you. I tried updating my Nexus 5 with CyanogenMod for a while. I was very impressed with how well CyanogenMod worked but eventually I wanted manufacturer support instead of having to put the OS on an SD card and try to boot from it so I could install the OS. And worrying that the one volunteer doing my phone would get tired of updating the OS.
The Nexus 7 was a nice form factor for reading web pages because it was long and thin in portrait mode. The combination of hardware issues reported by other people and again lack of supported upgrades led me to eBay it.
It's funny, when I try to search for Pixel 5 crash detection Google tries to autocomplete it to Pixel 5 crash loop.
The thing about Apple is, and has been since its inception, that makes devices that actually work in a way people can benefit from it instead of ticking items on checklists.
Mind you, Apple makes bluetooth earphones that reached business since larger than some of the most sexy and famous businesses out there. These bluetooth earphones have just one feature that is outstanding: They work as expected, most of the time.
Sure, Android is useful as an option for companies that can't have vertically integrated products like Apple has but still want to be in business. It's also always good to have an open source alternative for niche projects or as an insurance against Apple going full 1984.
I don't have anything against Android, I'm happy it exists but I'm annoyed with the lack of polish of the products running it or the fragmentation they created.
If you search "pixel crash", it completes with detection.
Again, just because Google doesn't open their presentation with a dramatized video of people sending them fan letters about how their product saved their life doesn't mean their product aren't useful or not saving lives.
Another thing Google has had for some time is early Earthquake warning, which also has saved lives, maybe that's another feature you'll see show up on iPhones in a few years, and people like you will claim Apple invented it and praise Apple for it.
> Another thing Google has had for some time is early Earthquake warning....maybe that's another feature you'll see show up on iPhones in a few years, and people like you will claim Apple invented it and praise Apple for it.
Can verify this having been woken up more than once by a -very- attention getting earthquake alarm on my or my employer’s iPhone. A contender for Most Shock and Awe in a single notification.
1. Different companies have different focus and strategies. I would say Google likes to experiment, but sometimes has poor follow-through. Apple often waits a few generations before committing to new technology, so they often are not innovation leaders, but they execute well.
2. Roll-outs often do not occur all at once. There might be blockers which are not immediately visible, such as regulational, financial, cultural. A regulational example would be how Apple Watch's ECG was not rolled out world-wide at first, and was spread slowly as various countries gave approval for this feature.
Apple Watch ECG is a good example: it required actively applying for regulatory approval, and they ended up accomplishing that on non-US/EU territories.
Whereas Google just sticks to the same 10-or-so countries for rollout.
(I had Nexus/Pixel phones for a decade up until recently)
I can attest to this. I worked at two different large telcos and they both had "calendars" that revolved around iPhone and Samsung phone releases. They had massive multi-month-long change freezes before and after each September iPhone announcement and release! I was told that this was mandated by Apple, and that they had virtually no choice in the matter.
Are they life saving features or do they just appear to be such?
I'm wary of the actual math on these things.
I think it's an honest attempt either way, but aside from a few anecdotes of 'it working as intended' I really do wonder if the math works out on this stuff i.e. cost/benefit is really there.
Without seeming too apathetic, if 2 or 3 people are able to make life saving calls due to this every year because they were 'out in the wilderness' ... then it may not be worth a massive global technical deployment. It might be more rational for people to buy/rent proper off-trail gear, or, for cars to have these things built in or something along those lines - where the cost efficiencies are much greater.
Does anyone else have the hardware issue where the iPhone can't output audio if it is tethered to the monitor (w/o speakers) via the lightning cable?
AFAIK, the only app that works in this configuration is Facetime. For all other apps such as AppleTV, Apple Music, youtube, zoom, etc. the iPhone doesn't output audio at all.
I know you can output the audio to 'other' devices, but I only want to output it from the iPhone or iPad. Strangely, in the link above, we can see there being an iPhone option but I don't see that as of the latest iOS. Is this feature in the unreleased iOS 16?
Yes, absolutely a deal breaker... but I carry two phones b/c I do not trust Verizon after being disconnected overseas. Their international plan requires you to re-connect to a US-based cell tower in order to "reactivate" the international plan if it has been disconnected. I am not aware of any service that allows me to buy an e-sim for any given random country airport and activate it before I reach the exit.
edit: forgot to add ... if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either.
> connect to a US-based cell tower in order to "reactivate" the international plan if it has been disconnected
> if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either
Just so I understand you, Verizon has an international plan where you have to touch base back in the States every time you go to some other country, before it will work in the next country? I must have misunderstood what you were saying.
No misunderstanding... been affected twice with EU trips that included hops to MENA. And if you are somehow disconnected (due to an error on their end, which are quite frequent) it can not re-establish functionality without accessing a US-based cell tower. After the second or third time it happened, I just started carrying a second phone to put in a local SIM. I ended up saving a ton of money in data charges too.
It's even dumber than that! It used to "just work" when you landed in another country and tried to pull a single byte of data. But now you're required to call VZ and inform them of your trip beforehand. To make matters worse, not all of their reps know this and will tell you that isn't the case and leave you stranded with no coverage. I'm generally happy with VZ over the years but this is just pathetic.
A rep once explained this to me as "innovation". Cool.
Current VZW customer here. Been overseas to Europe a few times (multiple countries each time) and SO went to Asia (3 countries) with absolutely zero issues. Just have to go on the app before you leave to pick an international plan (daily or monthly), select all the countries, and total trip start/end dates. Maybe you are on a business plan and can’t access the app? It’s pretty straightforward in there. Also pretty sure you can update the countries in the app if needed before you hop on the plane in the scenario of an unforeseen stop (or hop on free wifi when you land).
eSim feels similar to a credit card, if you don’t tell the company you are leaving town you could run into issues, but as long at the company is notified it should be seamless.
A bunch of carriers around the world have either “up to X roaming days in a year” or “up to X roaming days at a time” for the included roaming plan. I guess it’s to reset that.
I used Airalo recently in Argentina and can't say I'd recommend it, it somehow broke my iMessage until I reset a bunch of settings and seemingly got throttled at random despite having a ton of data left. Which is a shame because topping up data that way is much easier than switching out a physical sim. I also don't know if it was an esim problem or an Airalo problem, maybe support will be better when it is only esims.
Traveled to Central America, North America, UK, and various parts of EU, and I've never had any problems at all getting an eSIM sorted out. When I do upgrade to this new iPhone 14 Pro I will likely still bring my old iPhone 12 Pro that does have a physical sim slot JUST IN CASE, but in the past I've had no troubles with eSIMs. I think this is a non-issue from what I've seen, assuming it's not too remote of an area you are traveling to.
All the people saying there are no eSIMs, I don’t know where they are traveling.
I for reasons kept physical sim as US domestic, and used the eSIM internationally for years, popping into any random local phone store and getting dirt cheap local numbers with a QR code.
As a backup, a half dozen apps like GigSky or Nomad that manage eSIMs for countries or regions in case you just can’t find anything (search eSIM in app store). Haven’t paid more than 30USD for unlimited data for a month (or a couple bucks a GB metered) anywhere since they introduced the first eSIMs in EU and Asia.
Similar approach for Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Korea, Japan.
First, check if any of the big few domestic carriers have a temporary or contract free esim. In Japan, for example, NTT Docomo does.
When you get to Japan you are going to find an operator NTT Docomo physical store, the second most popular. The virtual SIM cards of this company have the following characteristics:
- Data plans of 1 to 7 GB.
- 4G LTE connection.
- No minimum clause or contracts.
- Exclusive virtual SIM cards for 5G devices.
Otherwise, Google "esim Japan" and use any of the gazillion variations of esimjapan, or use a trusted one you have an account with like GigSky, Truphone, or HolaFly.
Yes. Even for domestic travel. I’m travelling to a remote island in my country for a short holiday. My network doesn’t have coverage there (only one of the “big four” has decent coverage) so I’ve picked up a prepay SIM to use for a few days. No networks in the UK support prepay SIMs (other than some quite dubious international roaming MVNOs).
International travel usually involves stopping by a kiosk or store at the airport to pick up a SIM. They’re absolutely universal.
There are so many small carriers out there that resell data from partner networks. Often one of these MVNOs can be the best deal to pick up a few dozen gigs of local data that support hotspot. Many may not even have an app, stores or much customer support infrastructure. They sell these in kiosks and cigarette shops all over the world. THese carriers will not be supporting a sim-less phone any time soon and it hurts any frequent traveler to lose access to them.
Although Google Fi claims to support eSIM, the front-line support was unable to help me connect an iPhone 13 Pro, and the back-line support never responded. The solution was to buy a physical SIM card.
Perhaps Google is uniquely incompetent, but I would be very wary about assuming that an eSIM-only phone will work with a given provider.
I remembered a while ago you meed to first get an physical SIM to activate the line then switch to eSIM. Now sure about now. I’m currently with Google Fi on an eSIM in my 12 mini.
I just set up my iPhone with a Fi eSIM without having to get a physical SIM first. There are oblique references on how to do it at checkout that involve backing out of the default flow and then choosing your iPhone model from a compatibility list. It was quite the maze.
My carrier/plan has service anywhere I go, so I'm not particularly concerned about it. I'm using my US sim card in Europe right now to post this comment.
Roaming is fine for short trips, but you are typically pretty badly de-prioritized and your connection is usually routed through US servers giving you a bad ping. Eventually the carrier is going to boot you off if you stay too long.
Grabbing a local sim card is a must for me since I rely on the data plan for work. It also tends to be much cheaper to get 20 or 30 gigs of 5g data. eSim is making this much more convenient to pick up a secondary plan, but sometimes your best option is a SIM card.
> Roaming is fine for short trips, but you are typically pretty badly de-prioritized and your connection is usually routed through US servers giving you a bad ping. Eventually the carrier is going to boot you off if you stay too long
Not my experience. AT&T international day pass works in many countries I’ve been to, and I stayed online all day, phone or internet. Never once got booted. Not sure what you mean by pinging home either. It works just as well as local SIM card. It better does, as it costs $10 a day
Often the traffic is routed through the US. Did you do a ping to see where your exit node was?
Also, not like I couldn’t pay it, but $300 a month is pretty steep when my current in-country plan is $10 a month for 40 gigs of 5g and I know I am getting first priority and have the lowest ping.
I was in Switzerland for a single day recently, which is a situation where I can see a $10 a day roaming plan make sense, but then I just switched to my secondary sim’s data which included Switzerland in the coverage area.
Yup, it means I will absolutely not buy this phone. eSIM support is getting better, but if you switch countries with any regularity, you absolutely need a physical SIM card. Currently running a dual eSIM and SIM on my iPhone.
This seems like a deal breaker for me. Although maybe with this announcement, carriers will quickly adapt eSim. Apple has a page of supported carriers (and missing the country I’ve been living, Guatemala)
I'm in the USA and on AT&T and use their "$10 a day international plans" when I travel. It's a little expensive, but it just works. My wife and I were in canada recently during the Rogers network issues and I called up AT&T support and then enabled an option to select the carrier for both our phones. Two reboots and we were back on a known good network. We've traveled to Italy, Serbia, France, Spain, Hungary and haven't run into issues with this setup.
I can confirm the same with AT&T. Used it on several trips in Italy, Serbia, and Germany. Really easy to use and I didn’t notice any slowness or apparent deprioritization from being a US carrier.
This plan is only available to AT$T postpaid customers. Prepaid customers are SOL.
I use Google Fi when I roam abroad now for the most part, especially in South America where getting and activating local SIM cards is often especially difficult.
Sometimes getting a local SIM as a foreigner is at best a hassle (Ecuador) and at worst basically impossible to do legally (Peru). In other countries, however (such as many EU countries) it can be quite easy.
I have traveled quite extensively in the developing and developed world and in my experience it’s a rare exception not to be able to get a local sim easily. In most cases you can have one before leaving the airport.
Even in the examples I gave (Ecuador and Peru) it is possible to get a SIM at the airport. But you will pay handily for that privilege due to basically skirting government regulations (the most common scenario is that you are given an under the table SIM that is legally registered to some citizen of the country). In a lot of these cases Google Fi or whatever roaming solution you are using is cheaper, and that doesn’t even count the time value of getting the local SIM card and activating it (and I have also travelled extensively and understand that this process can be a non insignificant time sink) vs just turning your phone on and having it work in whichever country you are traveling to.
I would wonder what would be the effect of eSIM only on MVNOs in the US. Three major carriers have good eSIM support but the adoption among MVNO is low. And prepaid plan from Verizon doesn’t support eSIM either.
Sure you can often get esims “sorted out”, but… why? What’s the upside? Having the physical one “just works”, and you can swap them or put them to different phone or whatever. No need to “download app” or do some registration dance.
Yup, smaller carriers in Europe don't offer eSIM for their prepay options, which are super useful (a couple of bucks to get a ton of data with EU roaming as well).
I can report that I’ve used Nomad in France this year and it worked flawlessly. It advertised 100+ counties for that single app. I would give it a try on a compatible phone.
Yep. That's absolute 100% nonsense. Whenever I travel to Canada for work I just order a t-mobile(or other) sim online before flying out, pop it in on arrival = decent internet in Canada. What am I supposed to do with an eSim? Literally no one will sell you an eSim contract for just few days.
I predict it will get easier following this announcement. Also there are services like Airalo with travel eSims for most countries in a single account and app.
It’s pretty common for European carriers to offer pay as you go plans via eSIM and an app. Pay with your card and can add it to your phone ahead of your trip.
So no, not “literally no one”. Things are changing, eSIM is increasingly common. Apple’s being Apple and just propels that change.
That’s nice but it’s still going to be 10 years or more until it’s as convenient as SIM cards everywhere.
When I crossed the border from Rwanda to Uganda, I bought a sim at a local shop, and a boy from the village cut it down to size by hand with a pair of scissors. They are not going to have ESIM anywhere soon.
ESIM requires carriers around the world to have the technical competency to make the activation and management process work smoothly and that is not something I would count on.
That's $44 for 15 days and 6 GB! If I recall correctly, I was paying like a dollar a gigabyte or something on a local sim. You would go to any market and there would be these guys walking around with rolls of activation codes which you could buy for like $0.10 each and they were good for 100MB or a certain number of minutes when you typed it in the phone.
This is exactly what I'm talking about: if you have this phone you will be paying exorbitant prices for connectivity all over the world.
edit: it looks like the average in Uganda is $1.56/GB and you can get data as low as $0.45/GB USD
Airtel, for example, said it was work in progress, as of March this year.
Seriously, when it comes to application of new technology, the world isn't as behind the US as US might think. Often times, they actually get years ahead. I think you overestimate how long it's gonna take Africa or Asia to get eSIM up and running. They have a clear incentive now, as it's only a matter of time before Android manufacturers start to copy Apple in that regard, too.
Do they have a clear incentive? We're only talking about iPhones purchased in the US, so basically this only affects US tourists or expats in Africa which is going to be a tiny number of potential customers.
It remains to be seen if Android will copy this move, as Apple is even hesitant to roll it out anywhere besides the US. I almost wonder if there is something else motivating it, like pressures to prevent iPhones intended for the US market from being sold overseas.
eSIMs were being rolled out in many markets before Apple gave up the physical SIM completely. Clearly there’s been other incentive than sustaining iPhone users. With Apple’s move, they just have one more: the impending technological change, for which Apple, fortunately or not, is some kind of Messiah. They have a proven track of crating such momentum, and they just sent a clear message: adapt.
> That’s nice but it’s still going to be 10 years or more until it’s as convenient as SIM cards everywhere.
That's a bold statement to make. You realize that merely 15 years we didn't even have smartphones? How many random prophetic it-won't-happens happened in that time?
That's a fair point, 10 years might be a bit hyperbolic.
On the other hand, Smartphones were better positioned to drive adoption that eSIMs are. Smartphones create immediate utility for the user over feature phones. eSIM is arguably better than a physical sim, but at the end of the day you are only saving maybe a tiny inconvenience every time you have to swap out the sim. So there's not going to be a large push to switch from the user side.
A good comparison might be USB-C. People were writing in 2015 that the writing was on the wall for USB-A[1], and even though USB-C is basically better in every way, it's still not fully adopted 7 years later. It's not even the standard for desktop peripherals.
Also Smartphones are a highly competitive market with multiple vendors vying for users. Telecoms are mostly monopolies, and have little incentive to improve in most cases.
The only real driver I see for this is if eSIM-only devices get widespread popularity. I don't see it happening any time soon with low-end Android phones. Maybe wearables, but I feel like the idea of people in the developing world getting a second data plan for a wearable is a long way off.
I'm a dual physical SIM user today but I'm not worried about going eSIM, especially if that was the state of things prior to the iPhone going eSIM only.
> Literally no one will sell you an eSim contract for just few days.
T-Mobile definitely will (I mean, you pay for x GB and minutes and it lasts a month, just like most prepaid setups). Just requires a download of their app -- I use it when I'm traveling to the states (my carrier in NZ uses a physical SIM).
Not even traveling, how about your phone dies as they often do? In that scenario I grab whatever old phone is around, pop in my SIM and I get through the day without calling or visiting some retail store. I want less interaction and SIM cards let me have that.
eSIM isn't nearly as easy to get outside of the US as it is from the inside. I can't imagine getting an eSIM if/when I go to India again in the future. Getting a physical SIM was REALLY REALLY difficult.
that said, all of the US carriers have extensive international roaming agreements and international data/voice is much cheaper these days.
I was able to buy a prepaid orange esim, valid for all of EU, load it on my phone before my flight, and activate it on landing. At least for the EU, I don’t see an issue. There are partner networks that are local carriers that will be used when you’re out of orange’s range
No - At least travelling from Europe (UK), carrier charges abroad are usually pretty reasonable. I'm with Vodafone.
I can access my full dataplan for £2 a day if I am travelling in Europe, or £6 a day if travelling outside Europe. This usually means that it's not worth getting a sim now if I go abroad (which maybe is a bit cheaper, but a lot more hassle and I can't keep my number).
Plus if you are travelling through a few countries, you don't have to buy several sims, and if travelling for work then a few days roaming is cheaper than buying the sim anyway.
There's less advertisement about CPU core performance on A16 so I expect there's little (less than A14 to A15) improvement for that. It's completely fine for iPhone but not good sign for future M3 for Mac/iPad.
There was similar speculation last year when the A15 came out[1], because Apple didn't talk about performance (at all, I think?) in the iPhone 13 announcement. Then the A15 kept up their regular rate of improvement. So it's plausible the same will happen this year.
Wouldn't surprise me if Apple currently feels that they're so widely perceived as being the performance winners that they don't need to hammer down on it. They had that one slide comparing their competition to the A13, after all.
I look forward to EU landfills receiving tonnes of Lightning cables. And 10 years from now, receiving more tonnes of USB-C cables once the next USB standard makes the current set of cables obsolete (even assuming they share the same port shape).
Does this apply to the phone or only the transformer? Last iphone i unboxed came with a charger that has a usb-c outlet and a usb-c to lightning cable.
Even if i would be more than happy to hear that the phone requires it as well. The transformer is the biggest source of e-waste and the biggest nuisance to carry around while traveling. Cables are smaller factors in both aspects.
For new or transferring Android users this would be amazing, but I have to say at this point I'm so deep into the Apple ecosystem that I'd be more mad if they switched to USB-C. Haha I realize the Band-Aid will most likely have to be ripped off at some point, but currently I still am fine with no USB-C.
A dongle attached to my IR camera would make the IR camera much more annoying to use, for example. It operates directly flush against the bottom of the phone. Cables tend to wiggle around.
It's really weird how folks talk about e-waste and environmental factors, as if a switch to USB-C wouldn't mean three trillion Lightning cables getting yeeted into the ocean… like, I personally am quite over Lightning, but come on, folks
also deeply weird and annoying that the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse use lightning for charging, that was a dumb call out of the gate
double-check the little paper pamphlet that came with your iPhone, it literally says "please drive to the closest ocean — Pacific if you're in Kansas — and throw your lightning cable into the water when it reaches the end of its finite lifespan" in fine print.
That's such a backwards way of thinking about it, e-waste could be cut down so much if people only had one charger for everything. You're overstating the magnitude of a short term side-effect, instead of focusing on the long term benefit.
> It's really weird how folks talk about e-waste and environmental factors, as if a switch to USB-C wouldn't mean three trillion Lightning cables getting yeeted into the ocean… like, I personally am quite over Lightning, but come on, folks
This argument is bollocks.
People won't throw lightning cables if the iPhone 14 had USB-C because their current phones STILL use Lightning.
Current phones' ports wouldn't magically become USB-C overnight.
Mechanically, I'd much rather have Lightning on a phone than USB-C. The USB-C connector fucking sucks for a device that plugs and unplugs multiple times a day. The device-side connector is more fragile since it's a thin center fin vs Lightning's edge connections. Lightning's device side connectors are backed by the body of the device itself. In my experience the retention mechanism is far more secure as well.
I don't hate USB-C but it's far from perfect for every use case.
Same. The Lightning connector does double duty as a holder for the phone. You can support the weight of the phone cantilevered from just that connector.
I wouldn't trust USB-C to hold up to the same abuse I deal to my lightning connectors.
Typically the ends of the cable has a steel part that goes into the slot. Torque applied to the cable would be limited by the steel end and not affect the inner electrical connection.
What bugs me most about Pro vs non-Pro models is that they don't enable you to take macro shots on the non-Pro models. Even my old Samsung s8 could do those - yet on lots of newer phones (iphone and android) macro shots are for some reason not possible on the cheaper versions. I'm pretty sure that's not because it requires expensive camera features but because it serves as a way to segregate the market.
The iPhone macro uses the ultra wide angle lens which has huge depth of field and can focus really close, so can get very close to objects. Without the ultra wide angle lens you can’t take what most would define as macro photos.
You can still take photos as close as the camera can focus otherwise on other models, I suspect your S8 is doing this but the macro mode locks it to minimum focal length. Macro mode (or anything focal) isn’t something explicitly exposed in the iOS camera app so it would actually be weird to have it there - you take macro photos with the Pro by just moving the phone really close to something, there’s no way to force it.
You may like to check out the app Halide, which can force macro focus and will even do its best on non-Pro iPhones (but the results won’t compare without a lens that can focus really close)
If I remember correctly the iPhone Pro models allow you to enable macro mode in the settings while the non-pro don't. Using different camera apps doesn't help. I've done a hands-on comparison between a Pro and non-Pro model, the difference in close-up shots is staggering.
Yeah, this is because the Pro has the UWA lens which can focus super close whereas the non-Pro does not so all it can do is take a normal photo. It’s a physical restriction of the lens
Starting with the iPhone 13 series (actually already the iPhone 12 Pro Max) Apple somewhat crippled the standard camera regarding close-range photos. Closest focus is now around 14cm. All previous models, and most main cameras from all other brands, typically have a closest focus at around 7-10cm. Means the best resolution with the main cam is now about half what it was before...
If you regularly need close-range photos with decent resolution, the iPhoneSE 22 will give you far better results than the iPhone 13.
Halide will not help you, it seems that it is a hardware limitation. Probably a marketing decision by Apple to promote the UW macro mode of the Pro model.
Dynamic Island looks neat (reminds me of webOS) BUT controls at the top of the screen still work poorly, especially on these bigger phones. I had a little hope when Apple introduced those controls in iOS 16 on the lower half of the lock screen but alas... I'm curious how it works in landscape orientation if at all. If there were a ‘iPhone 14 Pro mini’ that would be amazing
It doesn't seem like they're actually controls, but more status indicators? Doesn't look like it's supposed to be an area of high and frequent interaction.
The phone was released today and Reachability does NOT allow for one-handed operation. It wasn't referred to in any pr or reviews by the way... Not sure how well Apple could make it work but Reachability would still be a crutch
While this does seem a bit high, it’s worth bearing in mind two things. One, most other places price sales tax into the advertised total, which doesn’t happen in the US. For UK prices, that’s 20% right there. Two, to prevent constantly floating prices, they need to fix a price at a decent hedge against currency fluctuations. This should be all the more understandable given the recent volatility in forex rates.
Yeah but Samsung compensate for that sort of thing and actually take a hit in their margins to lower prices in certain markets. Apple doesn’t care, it clearly isn’t selling to price sensitive clients in non US markets, because its prices are insane. Particularly in countries like South Africa and Brazil.
Testing my program on a dual Xeon 8280 workstation when listening to the apple event, heard they mention that there are 16 billion transistors in A16 so checked how many transistors are in Xeon 8280 - 16 billion in total in two 8280 CPUs.
It’s getting tiresome reading terrible takes from anti capitalists that not only attribute everything they view as negative as a product of capitalism, but also when those things are very obviously an improvement to the status quo.
The alternatives are satellite phones, which on their own cost a lot of money and will realistically only be wielded by people who expect they might end up in an emergency situation rather than anyone who owns an iPhone. This expands the coverage for life saving communication vastly.
We also don’t know the payment mechanisms involved with this service other than they’ll be covering the cost of it for the first two years of ownership. It seems extremely unlikely that they’d simply refuse to connect people in actual emergencies. Much more likely is that there’d be a fee for its use collected after the fact.
Get a degree in Aerodynamics and then successfully build and launch a rocket and satellite. Once you're done with those small potatoes, code an app so that everyone can connect to the satellite from their phone. Once that's done feel free to offer your lifesaving satellite service to the world for free, if of course after all the time, effort, and money you've invested you still think that nobody should pay you for your work.
Like the only fair alternative here that I can see is that governments give tax breaks to Apple to compensate for the essential service that is provided for free. Of course, you'll then get a bunch of Android users moaning that they don't have access and demanding that it's open sourced.
At the end of the day, someone, somewhere, has to pay for the monumental effort that goes into something like this.
Hate how good these phones have gotten. Screen is so fluid and apps so fast. Easier to get addicted to reading hackernews and twitter and reddit and stuff.
1. background is always black (since it's what the notch used to be) for things like FaceID the animation looks worse and more intrusive
2. it's interactive that means you're gonna be touching it a lot and getting smudge on the camera
Thanks for the replies, I see now that they're talking about pixel binning.
But doesn't the iPhone 13 sensor also have sensor "sub-pixels" that it's grouping into effective pixels to get a 12 MP camera?
i.e. does the iPhone 14 do something different with the data coming from the sensor, or is the sensor different (for example, it allows some sub-pixel control that the iPhone 13 sensor does not)? Apple says the sensor (area I suppose) is 65% larger, but that's not enough to account for this 4x'ing.
Thanks!
---
I might be totally wrong, but could the 48 MP not be... real megapixels of any one camera or sensor, but a software fusion of the 3 cameras' sensors? Is that possible?
There's language on the iPhone page that makes me think this -- "So the new sensor groups four pixels together into one large quad pixel, gathering 4x more light and producing spectacularly better photos at the practical 12MP size"
What does "at the practical 12MP size" mean? Which "four pixels"? Where are the pixels captured/coming from?
There's also "For the ultimate combination of detail and flexibility, shoot in ProRAW at 48MP resolution. A new machine learning model delivers sharper images and less noise for unprecedented detail."
How much is the 48 MP a mix of sensor fusion (which could be purely software, or running on a chip, but still, post-sensor) and AI versus an actual 48 MP sensor?
---
I have similar feelings about the crash detection (accelerometer-based) and even the satellite (5G-based?) capability. Are these features just... rebranded existing things // new software features?
Right, that's a Bayer arrangement. But... previous (iPhone 13) sensors also presumably have a similar Bayer arrangements and also group the sensor's pixels (which we could call "sub-pixels") into "effective pixels", right?
So what's different here? Are there truly 4 times more sub-pixels? Or is this a new algorithm to interpret the sub-pixels data...? But the sensor is the same as the previous generation?
No it's not a bayer arrangement. There are 4 times as many pixels, they are just being over-sampled. The sensor is not the same as the previous generation.
Each pixel is grouped together with three others for most applications (taking photos etc) but they can also be used individually (It said it could do 48MP videos)
Thanks, that makes sense. I did remember that sensors have "sub-pixels" that are grouped, and that you can access the sub-pixel to get "4 times" more pixels.
But... what's the difference between the iPhone 14 and 13 then? The iPhone 13 presumably also has a Bayer sub-pixel arrangement on its sensor?
What difference/innovation is happening with the iPhone 14 sensor? That the sub-pixel data can be processed, where in the case of the iPhone 13 it was inaccessible? Thanks!
Pixel binning isn't about having 4 subpixels per pixel it's about multiplying the number of supixels per pixel by 4. On a typical Bayer arrangement with 4:1 binning that means 4 red, 4 blue, and 8 green subpixels per pixel (total of 16) instead of 4 pixels each with 1 red, 1 blue, and 2 green subpixels.
I've never really seen a good explanation for why this is anything special vs just making the image smaller post capture in a non-naive way (like when they are already running it through the AI offload engine) considering all the hype it gets.
> Thanks, that makes sense. I did remember that sensors have "sub-pixels" that are grouped, and that you can access the sub-pixel to get "4 times" more pixels.
It's sort of backwards. You can get access to sub pixels to get '4 times' more data, but pixel binning is actually the other direction -> grouping pixels together.
A lot of camera performance is related to photosite size - larger photosites for light to hit, better performance/more sensitivity. The problem is that if you have a camera sensor in a DSLR, you have room for big pixels, but when you have the small sensors in phones you don't have the room for large pixels and giant MP count for marketing.
So pixel binning treats groups of pixels like one large pixel to try and improve sensor performance while still maintaining large megapixel counts for marketing.
In terms of innovation we haven't heard anything. There are already smartphones with pixel binning on the market. This is apple just saying Us Too unless they've released information on a new unique binning technique I haven't seen.
304 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 288 ms ] threadhttps://blog.telestial.com/2017/11/countries-where-satellite...
If people want it now in the US, they can just sign up for the beta. I know several people who did that and got it. It isn't a high bar.
In heavily tested locations (West Coast), it has gotten to the point that it seems to pretty much work.
Also SpaceX is not Tesla in the first place anyway.
The only thing is battery life. Especially in the cold, but that’s not an Apple thing, that’s an electronics thing. But you keep it in an internal pocket where body heat can keep it warm and turn off all the radios, or even the phone itself while not in use, and it can last a long time. I can now trade out my garmin inreach for a portable battery (which I already carry every trip yet never needed so far).
Here's a possible scenario. I'm sure it's wildly off from reality, but maybe reality has the same properties. Each month, 1 in 10,000 users call in [1]. For the same revenue you can charge:
$1 per user per month
$10,000 per use
One of those, people will hate you for. Charging $100 per use would slash your revenue by 99%. May as well make it free. I actually think that would be the way to go and maybe they'll do it some day.
[1] If that seems wildly low, remember it's per month and getting lost in the wilderness is pretty rare for the average person.
https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/
I upgraded through AT&T, who gave me a $700 trade-in on my iPhone X. I also snagged an additional discount on my new iPhone 13 Pro Max because I was OK with an unpopular color ("bamboo"), so my total cost ended up being around $200.
Apple's offering $150 for an iPhone X, and $430 for an iPhone 12 Pro.
$1,449 -> $1,399 for the 256 GB model.
You can see this in the new pricing too. The iPhone 13 was £779, but the iPhone 14 is £849. That's an increase of £70 (9%) in pounds, but a drop of $99 (9%) in dollars. Presumably, Apple is willing to eat a bit of exchange-rate fluctuations. Likewise, the iPhone 13 Pro was £949, but the iPhone 14 Pro is £1,099 - an increase of £150 (16%), but a decrease of $46 (3%) in dollars.
Before someone says "Apple is always overcharging UK customers - $1075 for an iPhone 13 compared to $800 in the US," it's important to note that different countries have very different regulations, fees, import tariffs, and taxes. I believe VAT in the UK is 20%.
Yes, they have dropped the price. It doesn't seem like much of a drop because most of the price decrease is in the fact that the pound has lost so much value. It's £100 cheaper than the iPhone 14 (which is what you were expecting), but it's only £30 cheaper than the iPhone 13 was a day ago (presumably in large part due to the fact that the pound is worth so much less now than a year ago).
I think that bit along with SIM slot removal is just a push towards eSIM.
Where I'm residing everything is backwards and difficult, I'm not sure eSIMs are going to be easy for me?
Regardless, you need your carrier to support phone eSIMs and one of several registration methods: app, QR code, or manual parameters. (because some carriers support data-only eSIM for smartwatches)
But given this new eSIM push (and that non-US iPhone 14 models will keep the SIM slot) I think a lot more carriers are going to work towards this now. One of the 30 shown in Apple’s event is an Israeli carrier and they’ve been dragging their feet on eSIM for years, only doing the bare minimum for Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch.
By the way, if anyone know any video stabilizing software, please let me know. Tracking feature on video editors seem complicated to me.
Stabilizing is usually a separate feature from tracking, at least it’s a separate plugin on Premiere. Sadly I’m not well versed in the field.
- have the latest and greatest iPhone
- crash only in apple approved countries, because apparently car crashes are specific to countries.
- improve your crash experience by buying an Apple Watch ultra for better detection.
— pray to Tim Apple that the algorithm detects your crash.
Plus it comes in purple.
The iPhone 13 and 13 mini have 2.93ghz high power cores and 2.02ghz low power cores.
The iPad Mini 6 has the same 2.93ghz high power cores and underclocked 1.82ghz low power cores, I believe because of the extra heat from the larger screen.
The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have higher clocked 3.23ghz high power cores and the same 2.02ghz low power cores as the regular iPhone 13.
The iPhone Pro's also have the extra 2GB of ram compares to the others and the iPhone 13/13 Mini are the only ones with the 4 core GPU rather than the 5 core GPU.
All we know now for sure about the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are that they will have the 5 core GPU. We will have to wait for a hands on to know more about the specifics of the A15 they are using.
That said, I doubt that they will have the underclocked low power cores that they iPad Mini 6 has so I think the path of least resistance is for them to take the same A15 from the 13 Pro, with more RAM and overclocked high power cores, and just keep using it in the iPhone 14.
Otherwise they have to introduce a fourth A15 variant which seems like more work than using one they already are manufacturing.
I don't know shit about CPU manufacturing though so I am mostly just talking out of my ass.
Comparing the base 13 and 14 the only real hardware difference is that the selfie camera picked up autofocus and has an aperture change. There's a very minor aperture change to the main camera lens, but I'm not sure whether it's significant.
Again with the 14 Pro, the always on display is a definite change. Probably depends on your own usage patterns whether it'd actually make a practical difference for you.
Apple's comparison tool is actually pretty useful for this stuff: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone13,iph...
They say that literally every year and I never notice.
For example, this YouTube video from a quick YouTube search shows fairly insignificant differences between the iPhone 11 and 13 non-Pro models: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjosGytrIJI
As an example, I looked at this low-light photo comparison of the basic 11 and the 13 pro max:
https://www.gsmarena.com/piccmp.php3?idType=5&idPhone1=11089...
Sometimes the later model's image looks a bit better, sometimes it's indistinguishable. Meanwhile the 13 pro max costs more than twice as much in my country.
I think often a single year's improvements are negligible but real, so any given two year's improvements are much more noticeable.
physical crash, not the kind that can be caught
I really wish they kept on offering a Mini. Maybe I'll just go for a 13 mini, but the camera does look substantially improved, and satellite communication would be very nice to have (I do lots of hiking away from cell reception).
Just shows you how companies are different in focus, quality control and attention to detail.
[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375
I'm not saying they do have those issues, but how do you know they don't? You can't compare a released product to a marketing ad.
Apple released fall detection in Apple Watch few years ago, there are already stories of lives it saved.
I'm pretty sure if Apple had an outstanding software bug of not being able to call emergency services for over a year now, I'm pretty sure we (HN crowd) would know it by now.
Android/Pixel safety features: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7055029?hl=en
I loved my Nexus 5 phone. It’s still my favorite phone as far as aesthetics goes. It was a great value and much cheaper than comparable phones at the time. It bricked itself with a boot loop issue 2 weeks out of warranty. Google was nice enough to replace it with another one that promptly ended up boot looping as well.
I also loved my Nexus 7 tablet. Beautiful device that was so far ahead of its time in terms of looks. It had an issue with absolutely terrible storage that made it so sluggish past its initial release (I believe the issue was the chip itself was degrading and it was a widespread issue). Updating to a higher version of Android made it completely unusable.
I’ve not owned any, but I keep hearing about issues of reliability in both software and hardware with Pixel phones as well.
My best phone for Android has been the Samsung Galaxy S6. Every iPhone i’ve had has been almost entirely problem-free. At this point, I don’t see any reason to buy Google anything.
The Nexus 7 was a nice form factor for reading web pages because it was long and thin in portrait mode. The combination of hardware issues reported by other people and again lack of supported upgrades led me to eBay it.
The thing about Apple is, and has been since its inception, that makes devices that actually work in a way people can benefit from it instead of ticking items on checklists.
Mind you, Apple makes bluetooth earphones that reached business since larger than some of the most sexy and famous businesses out there. These bluetooth earphones have just one feature that is outstanding: They work as expected, most of the time.
I'm sure people have found androids useful in a way they actually benefit from it.
I don't have anything against Android, I'm happy it exists but I'm annoyed with the lack of polish of the products running it or the fragmentation they created.
Better hope you don't listen to Apple Music in Lossless, though, because the newly announced Airpods... don't support it.
PS: It actually does play whatever sound you play but it wouldn't transfer it as a lossless since bluetooth can't handle those bandwidths.
Again, just because Google doesn't open their presentation with a dramatized video of people sending them fan letters about how their product saved their life doesn't mean their product aren't useful or not saving lives.
Another thing Google has had for some time is early Earthquake warning, which also has saved lives, maybe that's another feature you'll see show up on iPhones in a few years, and people like you will claim Apple invented it and praise Apple for it.
iOS has supported early earthquake warnings in Japan since iOS5. (see https://9to5mac.com/2011/08/21/ios-5-includes-early-earthqua...)
For other regions, like California, you can download a supported app to receive alerts, like MyShake (https://myshake.berkeley.edu).
Not so - just checked and it auto-corrects that to Pixel 5 Car Crash detection. Even the strawman argument is proven false.
https://9to5google.com/2021/02/23/pixel-car-crash-detection-...
Doesn’t look like Apple’s feature is country-restricted.
1. Different companies have different focus and strategies. I would say Google likes to experiment, but sometimes has poor follow-through. Apple often waits a few generations before committing to new technology, so they often are not innovation leaders, but they execute well.
2. Roll-outs often do not occur all at once. There might be blockers which are not immediately visible, such as regulational, financial, cultural. A regulational example would be how Apple Watch's ECG was not rolled out world-wide at first, and was spread slowly as various countries gave approval for this feature.
Whereas Google just sticks to the same 10-or-so countries for rollout.
(I had Nexus/Pixel phones for a decade up until recently)
Since Pixel 3, so 4 years ago.
I'm wary of the actual math on these things.
I think it's an honest attempt either way, but aside from a few anecdotes of 'it working as intended' I really do wonder if the math works out on this stuff i.e. cost/benefit is really there.
Without seeming too apathetic, if 2 or 3 people are able to make life saving calls due to this every year because they were 'out in the wilderness' ... then it may not be worth a massive global technical deployment. It might be more rational for people to buy/rent proper off-trail gear, or, for cars to have these things built in or something along those lines - where the cost efficiencies are much greater.
AFAIK, the only app that works in this configuration is Facetime. For all other apps such as AppleTV, Apple Music, youtube, zoom, etc. the iPhone doesn't output audio at all.
I hope this bug gets fixed in the new iPhones.
https://support.switcherstudio.com/en/articles/5009024-check...
edit: forgot to add ... if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either.
> if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either
Just so I understand you, Verizon has an international plan where you have to touch base back in the States every time you go to some other country, before it will work in the next country? I must have misunderstood what you were saying.
A rep once explained this to me as "innovation". Cool.
I for reasons kept physical sim as US domestic, and used the eSIM internationally for years, popping into any random local phone store and getting dirt cheap local numbers with a QR code.
As a backup, a half dozen apps like GigSky or Nomad that manage eSIMs for countries or regions in case you just can’t find anything (search eSIM in app store). Haven’t paid more than 30USD for unlimited data for a month (or a couple bucks a GB metered) anywhere since they introduced the first eSIMs in EU and Asia.
First, check if any of the big few domestic carriers have a temporary or contract free esim. In Japan, for example, NTT Docomo does.
When you get to Japan you are going to find an operator NTT Docomo physical store, the second most popular. The virtual SIM cards of this company have the following characteristics:
Otherwise, Google "esim Japan" and use any of the gazillion variations of esimjapan, or use a trusted one you have an account with like GigSky, Truphone, or HolaFly.Same approach anywhere, in my experience.
They are supporting dual eSIMs. https://www.apple.com/iphone-14-pro/specs/
International travel usually involves stopping by a kiosk or store at the airport to pick up a SIM. They’re absolutely universal.
Perhaps Google is uniquely incompetent, but I would be very wary about assuming that an eSIM-only phone will work with a given provider.
Existing members, even those using esim on Android phones, have to get a physical sim first.
Obviously this will have to change at some point since physical sim is going away but I am unsure how long it will take Google to make the change.
Technically, iOS support on Fi is still in beta even though it works quite well.
Grabbing a local sim card is a must for me since I rely on the data plan for work. It also tends to be much cheaper to get 20 or 30 gigs of 5g data. eSim is making this much more convenient to pick up a secondary plan, but sometimes your best option is a SIM card.
Not my experience. AT&T international day pass works in many countries I’ve been to, and I stayed online all day, phone or internet. Never once got booted. Not sure what you mean by pinging home either. It works just as well as local SIM card. It better does, as it costs $10 a day
https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/
Also, not like I couldn’t pay it, but $300 a month is pretty steep when my current in-country plan is $10 a month for 40 gigs of 5g and I know I am getting first priority and have the lowest ping.
I was in Switzerland for a single day recently, which is a situation where I can see a $10 a day roaming plan make sense, but then I just switched to my secondary sim’s data which included Switzerland in the coverage area.
Spent multiple years on roaming data permanently & was fine (UK vodafone)
https://support.apple.com/kb/HT209096
I use Google Fi when I roam abroad now for the most part, especially in South America where getting and activating local SIM cards is often especially difficult.
If you lose the sim tray, you are at a disadvantage in places where local sims are the best option, which are many.
Sure you can often get esims “sorted out”, but… why? What’s the upside? Having the physical one “just works”, and you can swap them or put them to different phone or whatever. No need to “download app” or do some registration dance.
Seems like just another vendor lock-in?
So no, not “literally no one”. Things are changing, eSIM is increasingly common. Apple’s being Apple and just propels that change.
When I crossed the border from Rwanda to Uganda, I bought a sim at a local shop, and a boy from the village cut it down to size by hand with a pair of scissors. They are not going to have ESIM anywhere soon.
ESIM requires carriers around the world to have the technical competency to make the activation and management process work smoothly and that is not something I would count on.
Found this for Uganda.
https://esim.holafly.com/esim-uganda/
This is exactly what I'm talking about: if you have this phone you will be paying exorbitant prices for connectivity all over the world.
edit: it looks like the average in Uganda is $1.56/GB and you can get data as low as $0.45/GB USD
https://techjaja.com/the-cost-of-1gb-of-data-in-uganda-vs-th...
Airtel, for example, said it was work in progress, as of March this year.
Seriously, when it comes to application of new technology, the world isn't as behind the US as US might think. Often times, they actually get years ahead. I think you overestimate how long it's gonna take Africa or Asia to get eSIM up and running. They have a clear incentive now, as it's only a matter of time before Android manufacturers start to copy Apple in that regard, too.
It remains to be seen if Android will copy this move, as Apple is even hesitant to roll it out anywhere besides the US. I almost wonder if there is something else motivating it, like pressures to prevent iPhones intended for the US market from being sold overseas.
That's a bold statement to make. You realize that merely 15 years we didn't even have smartphones? How many random prophetic it-won't-happens happened in that time?
On the other hand, Smartphones were better positioned to drive adoption that eSIMs are. Smartphones create immediate utility for the user over feature phones. eSIM is arguably better than a physical sim, but at the end of the day you are only saving maybe a tiny inconvenience every time you have to swap out the sim. So there's not going to be a large push to switch from the user side.
A good comparison might be USB-C. People were writing in 2015 that the writing was on the wall for USB-A[1], and even though USB-C is basically better in every way, it's still not fully adopted 7 years later. It's not even the standard for desktop peripherals.
Also Smartphones are a highly competitive market with multiple vendors vying for users. Telecoms are mostly monopolies, and have little incentive to improve in most cases.
The only real driver I see for this is if eSIM-only devices get widespread popularity. I don't see it happening any time soon with low-end Android phones. Maybe wearables, but I feel like the idea of people in the developing world getting a second data plan for a wearable is a long way off.
But I could be wrong.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2015/6/2/8704551/usb-type-c-is-the-...
I'm a dual physical SIM user today but I'm not worried about going eSIM, especially if that was the state of things prior to the iPhone going eSIM only.
T-Mobile definitely will (I mean, you pay for x GB and minutes and it lasts a month, just like most prepaid setups). Just requires a download of their app -- I use it when I'm traveling to the states (my carrier in NZ uses a physical SIM).
that said, all of the US carriers have extensive international roaming agreements and international data/voice is much cheaper these days.
also, if you're like me and get in at 0200, no stalls for you
I can access my full dataplan for £2 a day if I am travelling in Europe, or £6 a day if travelling outside Europe. This usually means that it's not worth getting a sim now if I go abroad (which maybe is a bit cheaper, but a lot more hassle and I can't keep my number).
Plus if you are travelling through a few countries, you don't have to buy several sims, and if travelling for work then a few days roaming is cheaper than buying the sim anyway.
Wouldn't surprise me if Apple currently feels that they're so widely perceived as being the performance winners that they don't need to hammer down on it. They had that one slide comparing their competition to the A13, after all.
[1]: https://9to5mac.com/2021/10/05/a15-performance-gains/
https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/07/eu-agrees-all-mobil...
MagSafe would need an update to support high bandwidth data transfer but that seems feasible.
Even if i would be more than happy to hear that the phone requires it as well. The transformer is the biggest source of e-waste and the biggest nuisance to carry around while traveling. Cables are smaller factors in both aspects.
Worst case is you add another dongle to your collection.
also deeply weird and annoying that the Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse use lightning for charging, that was a dumb call out of the gate
This argument is bollocks.
People won't throw lightning cables if the iPhone 14 had USB-C because their current phones STILL use Lightning.
Current phones' ports wouldn't magically become USB-C overnight.
What do you mean? Macbook is USB-C, iPad is USB-C etc. It's a pain in the ass to have the iPhone still lighting
I don't hate USB-C but it's far from perfect for every use case.
I wouldn't trust USB-C to hold up to the same abuse I deal to my lightning connectors.
You can still take photos as close as the camera can focus otherwise on other models, I suspect your S8 is doing this but the macro mode locks it to minimum focal length. Macro mode (or anything focal) isn’t something explicitly exposed in the iOS camera app so it would actually be weird to have it there - you take macro photos with the Pro by just moving the phone really close to something, there’s no way to force it.
You may like to check out the app Halide, which can force macro focus and will even do its best on non-Pro iPhones (but the results won’t compare without a lens that can focus really close)
Starting with the iPhone 13 series (actually already the iPhone 12 Pro Max) Apple somewhat crippled the standard camera regarding close-range photos. Closest focus is now around 14cm. All previous models, and most main cameras from all other brands, typically have a closest focus at around 7-10cm. Means the best resolution with the main cam is now about half what it was before...
If you regularly need close-range photos with decent resolution, the iPhoneSE 22 will give you far better results than the iPhone 13.
Halide will not help you, it seems that it is a hardware limitation. Probably a marketing decision by Apple to promote the UW macro mode of the Pro model.
I'd expect Reachability will allow for one-handed operation: https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/reachability-iph145eb...
(true, it is not an apple to apple comparison)
I've got these 2:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07V6CWS26/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C6RCRIW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
The alternatives are satellite phones, which on their own cost a lot of money and will realistically only be wielded by people who expect they might end up in an emergency situation rather than anyone who owns an iPhone. This expands the coverage for life saving communication vastly.
We also don’t know the payment mechanisms involved with this service other than they’ll be covering the cost of it for the first two years of ownership. It seems extremely unlikely that they’d simply refuse to connect people in actual emergencies. Much more likely is that there’d be a fee for its use collected after the fact.
There is a reason 911 works even if you donot have a SIM card.
I am not asking Apple to do any better, but this a place where government needs to step in and form some regulations.
If it was a basic emergency service, it would probably be accessible without a brand new $800 or more phone.
Like the only fair alternative here that I can see is that governments give tax breaks to Apple to compensate for the essential service that is provided for free. Of course, you'll then get a bunch of Android users moaning that they don't have access and demanding that it's open sourced.
At the end of the day, someone, somewhere, has to pay for the monumental effort that goes into something like this.
1. background is always black (since it's what the notch used to be) for things like FaceID the animation looks worse and more intrusive 2. it's interactive that means you're gonna be touching it a lot and getting smudge on the camera
Thanks for the replies, I see now that they're talking about pixel binning.
But doesn't the iPhone 13 sensor also have sensor "sub-pixels" that it's grouping into effective pixels to get a 12 MP camera?
i.e. does the iPhone 14 do something different with the data coming from the sensor, or is the sensor different (for example, it allows some sub-pixel control that the iPhone 13 sensor does not)? Apple says the sensor (area I suppose) is 65% larger, but that's not enough to account for this 4x'ing.
Thanks!
---
I might be totally wrong, but could the 48 MP not be... real megapixels of any one camera or sensor, but a software fusion of the 3 cameras' sensors? Is that possible?
There's language on the iPhone page that makes me think this -- "So the new sensor groups four pixels together into one large quad pixel, gathering 4x more light and producing spectacularly better photos at the practical 12MP size"
What does "at the practical 12MP size" mean? Which "four pixels"? Where are the pixels captured/coming from?
There's also "For the ultimate combination of detail and flexibility, shoot in ProRAW at 48MP resolution. A new machine learning model delivers sharper images and less noise for unprecedented detail."
How much is the 48 MP a mix of sensor fusion (which could be purely software, or running on a chip, but still, post-sensor) and AI versus an actual 48 MP sensor?
---
I have similar feelings about the crash detection (accelerometer-based) and even the satellite (5G-based?) capability. Are these features just... rebranded existing things // new software features?
So what's different here? Are there truly 4 times more sub-pixels? Or is this a new algorithm to interpret the sub-pixels data...? But the sensor is the same as the previous generation?
Each pixel is grouped together with three others for most applications (taking photos etc) but they can also be used individually (It said it could do 48MP videos)
But... what's the difference between the iPhone 14 and 13 then? The iPhone 13 presumably also has a Bayer sub-pixel arrangement on its sensor?
What difference/innovation is happening with the iPhone 14 sensor? That the sub-pixel data can be processed, where in the case of the iPhone 13 it was inaccessible? Thanks!
I've never really seen a good explanation for why this is anything special vs just making the image smaller post capture in a non-naive way (like when they are already running it through the AI offload engine) considering all the hype it gets.
It's sort of backwards. You can get access to sub pixels to get '4 times' more data, but pixel binning is actually the other direction -> grouping pixels together.
A lot of camera performance is related to photosite size - larger photosites for light to hit, better performance/more sensitivity. The problem is that if you have a camera sensor in a DSLR, you have room for big pixels, but when you have the small sensors in phones you don't have the room for large pixels and giant MP count for marketing.
So pixel binning treats groups of pixels like one large pixel to try and improve sensor performance while still maintaining large megapixel counts for marketing.
In terms of innovation we haven't heard anything. There are already smartphones with pixel binning on the market. This is apple just saying Us Too unless they've released information on a new unique binning technique I haven't seen.