[HN Gopher] iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
___________________________________________________________________
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 298 points
Date : 2024-09-09 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| haunter wrote:
| Probably gonna upgrade from my iPhone 11 to a 16 Pro, seems like
| a good time to make the jump (also I'd need a battery replacement
| anyway and I rather spend that money on the new phone)
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I was thinking the same for my 12 mini. Love the form factor
| but the battery life is just atrocious.
| zoba wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. Not excited about upgrading to these
| phablets (hyperbole) but the battery life is forcing me to.
| ryandrake wrote:
| App support is forcing me. My iPhone 7 still does
| everything I need, but 3rd party developers have stopped
| supporting it. I don't mind if I stop getting updates, but
| some of these developers are _blocking_ my use of existing
| apps with a full-screen modal, telling me I need to buy a
| new phone in order to continue using the app (FlightAware,
| for example). Perfectly good phone, probably going into the
| landfill, for no reason other than to appease app
| developers too lazy to retain already-working code for
| older devices.
| fragmede wrote:
| refurbished iPhone SE (3rd gen) here. Was really hoping
| they'd announce a 4th one today but the third gen
| continues to be supported.
| jerlam wrote:
| I think iPhone SEs are usually announced in spring, don't
| want anything to take away from "the big event".
| raydev wrote:
| The 7 is coming up on it's 8th birthday, on the bright
| side that's a pretty good run.
|
| Is FlightAware blocking use of the app now? I assume it's
| because they've dropped support for iOS 15 (which can be
| a hassle depending on new APIs they want to use), not the
| 7 device specifically.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, they likely want to move on from iOS15, which is
| fine[1]. But at least let existing users with the
| existing iOS15-working app keep using that app version.
| But no, instead, they issued a final "update" which does
| nothing but block iOS15 users with a full screen modal
| that you cannot skip (as far as I can tell). Totally
| overboard. I hope this doesn't start a trend.
|
| 1: I don't see what the big deal is to just put if
| statements around any iOS16-requiring new features, yet
| keep targeting iOS15. We did this all the time back when
| I used to write iOS apps.
| robin_reala wrote:
| Keeping my 12 Mini; I just ended up getting a 2nd-hand
| MagSafe battery. It's small enough to have in a bag or pocket
| without a second thought, no cables to carry around and turns
| into a wireless charger when I'm not using it.
| forgotacc240419 wrote:
| I've the 12 and it's bad but not atrocious just yet. Have
| been told the 13 mini is much better so I'll probably get one
| of them next.
| nyarlathotep_ wrote:
| I really just want a 12/13 mini with a 120hz screen and
| marginally better battery life
| ninininino wrote:
| Nowadays you can go in and just get a battery replacement
| directly from Apple as long as you didn't smash your device
| too badly.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| I am also on 11. To be honest, I do not want to jump from LCD
| to OLED, for me it's a downgrade:(
|
| (I often use it on low brightness in dim ambient light)
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I went from 11 Pro to 15 Pro and found the screen to be a
| nice upgrade. OLED on the new iPad Pro is fantastic as well
| in my experience so far.
| risho wrote:
| what is wrong with oled?
| throwaway290 wrote:
| it won't dim as well without more obvious flicker compared
| to lcd. they make oleds look dimmer by pulsing leds at peak
| brightness
|
| also: burn in
| cherioo wrote:
| OLED uses PWM to modulate brightness, which makes some
| people uncomfortable due to eye sensitivity.
|
| All phone OLED exhibits this, though iphone is one of the
| more egregious ones.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Don't they also use PWM to dim the LED backlight on LCD
| displays?
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It doesn't go to full black and maybe other reasons it is
| less noticeable. You can compare with a slo mo camera
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > (I often use it on low brightness in dim ambient light)
|
| I'm curious, why? I hate the whole screen glow of LCD in low
| light, much preferring the pure black of OLED.
| kiririn wrote:
| LCDs are more accurate in low light, but OLED can reproduce
| readable text at lower brightness from its higher contrast
|
| Swings and roundabouts... for some people the grey tinge
| and messed up gamma curve of low brightness OLED is
| unacceptable. For others text readability in darkness is
| key
|
| There's also the PWM argument which has been beaten to
| death
| kubectl_h wrote:
| Same here, satellite messaging alone is enough to get me on
| this upgrade cycle. Beyond that though I am quite content with
| my 11 Pro, though I am looking forward to some of the AI stuff.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Ehh. Lacklustre.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Just curious, what specifically were you hoping for - from a
| product that is 17-years old?
| robin_reala wrote:
| Not that it was ever in the rumour mills, but smaller,
| thinner and longer battery life would have been nice.
| asdff wrote:
| At this point its just sad that its spec bumps on what imo is
| a pretty poor iteration of their own product. They had better
| ideas in the past that I wish they would rehash just for the
| sake of offering more skus to choose from vs "small and
| large." I liked 3d touch. I liked touchid. I liked having a
| headphone jack. I liked a small and lightweight phone. I
| liked a phone that actually sat flat on a table. It's just a
| shame that this is clearly never going to be made by them
| today, and being reminded of this through yet another paltry
| spec bump with stingy storage offerings that's been all too
| typical from this company with this product lately.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| It sounds like you'd rather sacrifice Function over Form
| ... in which case - the iPhone SE checks most of your
| boxes.
|
| Note: I don't disagree with what you're saying. But Apple
| also creates multiple models for different users desires,
| and it sounds like you're most closely aligned to the
| iPhone SE target market (not the iPhone base or Pro).
| asdff wrote:
| I currently do actually use an iphone se 2. But honestly
| its a worse device than the old se 1 in my drawer that I
| used when the se2 was in the shop not too long ago. The
| only issue was modern apps were not compatible with
| whatever ios version it was on. Otherwise, it was
| surprisingly faster. spotlight search was appreciably
| faster, without any delay vs the se2 that just hangs for
| about 2 seconds before returning any results. mobile web
| felt great although the smaller screen would often be
| reduced to a postage stamp of readable space after banner
| and footer and other ads gobble up the rest of it. It
| felt much better in the hand and in the pocket. Headphone
| jack of course.
|
| And what is worse about this se line is that I know it is
| temporary. They won't be building them out of new old
| stock iphone 8 parts forever. That will run dry like the
| old iphone 5 supply lines the se1 used did, which forced
| its obsolescence. Eventually I will be shunted into these
| newer, heavier, wobbly bottomed iphones, due to forced
| obsolescence in either the apps I use or the actual
| carrier network protocols.
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| Oh god are we really still going on about the fucking
| headphone jack?
| pzo wrote:
| There is lots of things were competition is ahead of them or
| things they could improve:
|
| - 90W fast wired charging, 80W wireless charging - many
| android phone have it
|
| - reverse charging - so that in emergency when you forgot to
| charge airpods and you already outside you could charge a
| little bit enough for a run - again some androids have it
|
| - stylus support - still would be nice to get apple pencil
| for some signatures etc
|
| - fingerprint reader either under display or on side button
| like on ipad air - sometimes when phone is sitting on the
| table it's easier to unlock with finger than pick it up and
| point at your face then put it back (especially annoying for
| iOS devs)
|
| - irda led for controlling air con in hotel - they have
| already IR blaster on front and maybe even on lidar that they
| could potentially hack it similar like they hacked screen for
| flash.
|
| - temperature sensor and humidity sensor
|
| - IR temperature sensor for checking your body temperature or
| stuff you baking in the oven
|
| - tiny thermal camera sensor for inspecting leaks in house
| for the winter
|
| - microsd support (yes can dream can I?)
|
| - any improvements for lidar quality or truedepth
|
| - another programmable button on the left side for lefties
|
| - 250GB storage by default
|
| - 12GB RAM
|
| - bluetooth 5.4
|
| - thread protocol support like HomePod
| rconti wrote:
| Sounds like USB-C iPhones have 'reverse charging' but not
| wirelessly. Default storage is just a pricepoint thing,
| IMO.
| coolspot wrote:
| The big LOL moment for me was when I connected my iPhone
| to my MacBook and it started charging the laptop from the
| phone.
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| I'd add "10x optical zoom"
| mnkv wrote:
| > IR temperature sensor for checking your body temperature
| or stuff you baking in the oven
|
| > tiny thermal camera sensor for inspecting leaks in house
| for the winter
|
| So just a thermometer gun? It costs like $20-30 on amazon
| and I've never needed one other than in my home / kitchen.
| Why in the world do you want a phone for this haha.
|
| I do think I've found the perfect car for you:
| https://tenor.com/view/homer-simpsons-car-gif-8120474
| ValentineC wrote:
| On that topic, I would have liked a new AirPods Pro to be
| able to monitor my body temperature through my ears,
| while I'm working out.
|
| It would be nice to have constant monitoring against a
| baseline as well, to alert people when a fever might be
| breaking out.
| pzo wrote:
| If they are producing and selling it on amazon means
| someone buying it even if you don't need it. Body
| temperature check definitely would be handy. Those
| sensors definitely don't cost $20-30. I had CC1350
| SensorTag and it already had that for retail price also
| around ~$35 (but altogether with 10 different sensors
| inside and that bought 10 years ago).
| zamadatix wrote:
| They also sell smart outlets, back massagers, and garden
| sprinklers on Amazon. That doesn't imply people would
| find them handy in their phone.
|
| I think it'd be an easier pitch in the watch though as
| that's where they are already shoving most of the health
| sensors (and have wrist temperature monitoring already).
| ainiriand wrote:
| They could also take a step towards a more conscious
| engagement with the environment by allowing to replace
| batteries or other parts. That would win them a very good
| deal of press nowadays, even if it is not strictly tech-
| related.
|
| Looks like they are super-uber risk-averse and there is 0%
| new ideas with these products.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| > microsd support
|
| Yes, this is the first thing I look for in a smartphone.
| Maybe next year, Apple?
| miramba wrote:
| Some ideas: -change screen ratio, increase width against
| height, like an iPad.
|
| -Why are iPads and iPhones treated so differently? I want to
| use a pen on the phone and make a phone call on the tablet.
|
| -Double screen, not foldable, but two screens like an open
| book. I could see a lot of useful applications like showing
| lists on one screen, details on the other, or a good ereader.
| In landscape, have a writing app on top and a touch keyboard
| on the bottom screen.
|
| -Slide the phone into a laptop-like shell and run desktop
| apps with MacOS. It's the same processor the macs have, no?
|
| -Likewise, attach to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and run
| desktop apps.
|
| Edit: Linebreaks.
| dbbk wrote:
| I've never owned an Android but I'm extremely curious about
| the Pixel Pro 9 Fold. That would really change how I use a
| phone in my day to day life. Presumably, Apple will get
| around to doing it too at some point.
| xelfer wrote:
| I got it last week and it's great. My main concerns were
| the older (pixel 7 generation) camera and the battery life.
| Both have exceeded my expectations, the massive screen is
| great for browsing and someone even got debian on there (ht
| tps://old.reddit.com/r/PixelFold/comments/1fcn4du/fullblow.
| ..), and it's fairly thin and light even with a case on.
| jsheard wrote:
| The non-Pro models are _still_ only 60hz? C 'mon man, high
| refresh rate is hardly a luxury feature anymore. At least give
| them 90hz and reserve 120hz for the Pro models.
| geodel wrote:
| Well, it is hardly a necessity too.
| kmac_ wrote:
| $150 phones have better refresh rates. Once you get used to
| the better rates, it will spoil any scrolling on 60 Hz
| screens.
| geodel wrote:
| This is great. Now people can have superior scrolling
| experience at much lower price than iPhone.
| kmac_ wrote:
| Since I scroll quite a lot, I prefer to have a better
| experience with this very basic and common activity.
| Apple claims to provide the best experience, while it
| clearly does not.
| t0bia_s wrote:
| I prefer to have two days battery of heavy used phone than
| few hours of smooth scrolling.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Once you get used to the better rates
|
| I suspect everyone who upgrades from a $150 120Hz phone to
| a new iPhone will be thrilled.
| kobalsky wrote:
| With that take Apple would still putting 32gb on the base
| models.
| raydev wrote:
| At the cost of worse UX in every other dimension, sure.
| dbbk wrote:
| The vast majority of people cannot even see a difference.
| consteval wrote:
| Literally anyone picked off the street will notice jumping
| from 60hz to 120hz after maybe, I don't know, 2 seconds of
| swiping around.
|
| You have it backwards. Nobody is pro gaming on an iPhone.
| That high refresh rate doesn't have a real, practical
| purpose. It just looks really really good and immediately
| grabs your eye - it's candy.
| dbbk wrote:
| They can't notice motion smoothing either.
| mchicken wrote:
| Yeah, like with 24 Hz right.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| PWM probably too? I keep waiting for the return of sweet smooth
| LCD but I guess my 11 is the last model...
| wrcwill wrote:
| yup, ill keep using the 11/se until they stop using pwm for
| their oled screens (most oled tvs can dc dimming just fine)
| vitaflo wrote:
| PWM absolutely kills all iPhone purchases for me. It's why
| I'm still using an SE.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Genuine question: what are you doing on a phone that you need
| 120hz?
| dilap wrote:
| Scrolling (much nicer/smoother feeling 120hz).
| _ph_ wrote:
| Scrolling is quite much more plesant at 120 Hz.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Does it make a difference though? I don't even know what the
| refresh rate of my phone is.
| veber-alex wrote:
| 60Hz is the new 8GB
| ashconnor wrote:
| Shocked they are still using 128GB as the starting storage size.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I guess they have more information about usage patterns than we
| do. Anecdotally, I have a 256GB iPhone, and I use it
| consistently for a whole variety of things, and my usage is
| just under 94GB. I'd bet that my 'normal' family members use a
| good bit less than that.
| metaltyphoon wrote:
| Ahh you need is kids to see that storage be laughable.
| eitally wrote:
| I'm going to downvote you because I don't know what you're
| talking about. My kids have 128GB phones and don't have any
| issues at all. They're also on our family plan with Google
| One for shared storage and we're still -- as a family of
| five where I personally have contributed about 100,000
| photos (and some videos) over the past 15 years -- only at
| 1.2TB of consumed storage.
|
| What are your kids doing that consumes so much local
| storage?
| sturza wrote:
| Both of you generalized from anecdotes.
| supportengineer wrote:
| Here is a data point. We went on a one-week family
| vacation, my teens created a shared album which contains
| 3,000 photos and 100 videos.
| kevinsync wrote:
| Yep. I'm in my early 40's, recently self-hosted Immich,
| imported the archive of photos and videos my wife and I
| have created since 2000, and we're sitting at 216,000
| photos, 5000 videos, 650gb+ of data. 2000-2011ish was
| point-and-shoot digital + DSLR, then 2012-2024 has been
| the output of TWO CELL PHONES.
|
| We aren't photographers, we just goof around, and our
| almost-teenaged son doesn't factor into those numbers.
|
| The sheer volume of data created is just .. it's nuts.
| And there's another 300gb of data generated from all the
| metadata, sidecar, smart search, face detection! Imagine
| all that plus much more that Apple Intelligence
| generates.
|
| Long gone are the days of just putting JPGs into a
| folder!
| dagmx wrote:
| But since it's a shared album, most of that lives in the
| cloud and not locally cached.
|
| If I was betting, most people likely pay for a cloud
| storage solution and don't use the majority of their
| device storage.
| rashkov wrote:
| They do cute things that I want to take a video or photo
| of and never delete from my phone
| fkyoureadthedoc wrote:
| I'm at 67/256GB, I don't know why I even went with 256GB
| cruano wrote:
| I got the 512GB model and have been using it without any
| regard for storage for a couple of years. All my music is
| downloaded locally in lossless formats. I keep full-res
| versions of all my vacation pictures/videos and I also
| download a ton of crap, from videogames to movies.
|
| I'm at 285GB right now.
|
| The breakdown is 81GB for music, 56GB for pictures, ~40GB of
| download content on TV/Youtube/Audible and ~23GB of games.
|
| I could _easily_ cut down on that. There's games I haven't
| played in a while, movies I've already watched, or even music
| I don't really listen to frequently enough to have it
| downloaded.
|
| Safe to say I'll go for 256GB next time
| drivers99 wrote:
| I'm at 166 GB out of 256 GB. Every time I upgrade my iPhone
| (average every 5 years), I get the most storage available
| (after learning my lesson on the iPhone 4) and it ends up
| being 4x bigger than before.
|
| iPod touch (32GB), if you ignore this
|
| iPhone 4 (16GB), 2010
|
| iPhone 6 (64GB), 2014
|
| iPhone SE 2nd gen (256GB), 2020
|
| iPhone 16 (1 TB)?, 2024
|
| Every time, I think "that's probably way more than I'll
| need", but I guess in 6 years or so I'll upgrade to the 4 TB
| model. Or wait for next year's model, maybe another SE will
| come out...
| jerlam wrote:
| I wonder if storage needs have a very bimodal distribution.
|
| Both my parents barely use the 64GB on their phone. The one
| that does photography, probably can't store all their photos
| on any iPhone, because it measures in the multi-TB.
|
| I usually overbuy storage but after three years, I'm removing
| things like music and podcasts because it's completely full.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| > bimodal
|
| Those who go heavy on the video vs those who don't.
| dlachausse wrote:
| With iCloud and music streaming 128GB is enough for a lot of
| people. I know I still have quite a bit of room left on my
| 128GB iPhone 12, even with taking tons of photos and videos.
| hintymad wrote:
| For people who want 256GB, they might as well just buy iphone
| pro max. It will be just $100 more compared to iphone pro.
| el_benhameen wrote:
| I still prefer the smaller form factor. Easier one-handed
| use, and less bulk in my pocket. I wasn't going to upgrade
| this cycle anyway, but the larger size of both pro models has
| removed any inkling of the "well maaaaaybe" feeling that I
| usually get.
| veber-alex wrote:
| Everything is in the cloud now.
|
| 128GB is plenty for me.
| kube-system wrote:
| Why is that shocking? Delivering a base model with minimal
| specs and upcharging for the specs that power-users need is
| Apple's standard way of doing business. If you want to store
| more, you pay more, either by buying more expensive models, or
| by subscribing to iCloud.
|
| This pricing strategy is intentional in the way it is limiting
| to encourage people to buy more expensive models.
|
| They don't offer 128gb as the base tier because they think it
| will meet everyone's needs. They offer that as the base tier
| because they think it _won 't_ meet everyone's needs. An ideal
| pricing strategy captures as many sales as possible while also
| upcharging as many people as possible who would be willing to
| pay more.
| trustno2 wrote:
| They can sell more iCloud subscriptions that way
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Fair - I'm sure it costs pennies to double the capacity.
|
| But also I just checked and I have 128GB and its fine for me.
| pzo wrote:
| Amazingly boring event - the last few years were boring as well
| but each year they don't disappoint to reach to the lower bottom.
| souvlakee wrote:
| It was super boring.
| thecryptopapi wrote:
| "By far the best iPhone yet" "The thinnest display ever" "more
| scratch resistant" said no Apple CEO ever
| uladzislau wrote:
| Absolutely underwhelming announcement, I will hold for the next
| year
| tropicalfruit wrote:
| every year the events get longer, the websites get bigger and
| more verbose and yet the products change less and less.
|
| is there a word for this...marketing inflation in lieu of
| innovation.
|
| apple used to be a tech company supported by marketing. now its a
| marketing company supported by tech.
| talldayo wrote:
| Stagnation
| souvlakee wrote:
| The more I watch, the sadder I get. It seems they've gone in the
| wrong direction. They have nothing to offer regular phone users,
| so they're targeting "creative professionals" with fancy
| features.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| That's just for the pro version of the phone though.
|
| I plan to get a regular 16, for the reasons you mention. What
| regular features would you want to see?
| souvlakee wrote:
| Also, my take on the new cinematic mode is that they should
| invest in a better camera if they can afford such fireworks.
| vundercind wrote:
| Lots of people have creative hobbies that involve their phone
| in some capacity--music and photography are common--and
| basically everyone takes family photos and videos with them, so
| new photo capabilities are always welcome even for non-hobbyist
| users. Personally, I think it's awesome that my kids could
| borrow my phone and make their backyard movies a hell of a lot
| more "cinematic" than mine on the family camcorder ever could
| have been, even if I'd had some idea of what I was doing.
|
| Several of the "AI" features looked like the kind of thing any
| phone will feel incomplete without as soon as I use them the
| first time, for normal-user use cases.
|
| Plus, you're on HN: your complaint about iPhones is supposed to
| be that they're just "mindless consumption devices" for sheeple
| who want to drool at YouTube shorts, wildly worse for any
| conceivable creative or practical, serious endeavor than Linux
| phones or a Thinkpad, because you can't get a root shell.
| You've gone entirely the wrong direction for this site, with
| your post :-)
| talldayo wrote:
| > Several of the "AI" features looked like the kind of thing
| any phone will feel incomplete without as soon as I use them
| the first time, for normal-user use cases.
|
| We must live on different planets. Are you really going to
| send your friends and family AI-generated emojis, or rewrite
| your texts to them with Apple Intelligence? I sure know they
| won't.
| vundercind wrote:
| No, I don't even use the "stickers" and shit they have now,
| but the enhanced photo and moment-in-video natural language
| search are gonna make any OS without that built in feel
| broken when I get used to that and try to use it anywhere
| that doesn't have it, I bet. Same as their existing
| transparent image OCR has left me going "wtf?" when I
| forgot I wasn't on an Apple OS and tried to use it. The AI-
| assistant stuff via camera for quick searches and item
| identification look great, too. If it's good enough it'll
| Sherlock multiple existing apps, all in one.
| matwood wrote:
| Once you start making silly stickers from photos, they
| are surprisingly fun. I have a bunch of my dogs in poses
| that can fit on and around the message bubbles.
| duped wrote:
| I do a bit of creative audio work and consider my iPhone next
| to useless. iPads are useful in some contexts.
|
| I've returned to the stone ages of digital tuners and
| metronomes for practice(1), and any recordings I make use a
| laptop. Not that there are _good_ options for quick and dirty
| recordings, just that they 're better than using a phone.
|
| If I were making podcasts or something like that the phone
| would be a lot more useful, but for music, not so much.
|
| (1) there was awhile back that my phone was integral to
| practicing music but now I can't use it at all, because every
| decent metronome/tuner app is trash.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| For an increasing amount of people, "making music" is
| recording a tiktok of themselves singing or playing a
| guitar or recording themselves rapping directly into the
| phone mic for soundcloud.
|
| Not trying to judge what counts as making music - just
| saying that the times are changing a bit and the GP
| probably wasn't referring to traditional DAW usage and
| stuff like that.
| sk11001 wrote:
| We're at a point where regular users already have everything
| they need, from any model in the past few years.
| souvlakee wrote:
| Before the iPhone, we thought we already had everything we
| needed.
| gnatolf wrote:
| Nah, but phones are commodities by now.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| Yes but marginal utility curves are a thing.
| theF00l wrote:
| Some of us may still feel we had everything we needed
| before the iPhone!
| mulderc wrote:
| No, no we didn't. Before the iPhone we wanted a device that
| would be something like a Palm pilot, an iPod, a cell
| phone, a camera, and give us mobile internet, but it wasn't
| clear how to do that in a good way. Blackberry was getting
| there, Pocket PC was interesting, and there were various
| other mobile devices that had some of the pieces. It wasn't
| until the iPhone we saw how to put that all together
| properly.
| gessha wrote:
| I think that's more of a hindsight than a concrete wish
| people had.
|
| Audio player, cell phone and camera were already
| implemented by "dumbphone" Nokias. I think adding mobile
| internet was a mistake. I use it all the time but it
| doesn't add much to my life. It doesn't make me more
| productive but it adds another consumption device.
| mulderc wrote:
| I know I wanted mobile internet and was very frustrated
| with things like WAP at the time. I know that having
| mobile internet made me more productive. Sure some phones
| could play music but it was nothing like a dedicated
| music device, the software and storage were just awful,
| so you had to have two devices when it was obvious that
| it should be just one. Something like the iPhone was
| pretty obviously being desired at the time, we just
| didn't see how to do it and thought it would be something
| more like what blackberry and Microsoft were doing.
| massysett wrote:
| Years ago I thought mobile Internet didn't add anything
| to my life. I bought a smartphone but was skeptical.
|
| Then one day I was at the airport waiting in a long
| check-in line. I got out my Motorola Droid, dug though my
| email, checked in to the flight, and got out of the line.
|
| After that I was convinced of the value of it, and I'm
| reminded every time I'm standing on the street, waiting
| for an Uber rather than looking around for a cab.
| vundercind wrote:
| I was a long-time holdout on getting a smartphone at all,
| then on really embracing it. Now I gotta admit, it's the
| only computing device I use that really delivers ROI for
| my everyday life (aside from my work computer, for...
| work, but that's not mine). All the rest could vanish and
| it'd mostly just give me fewer ways to frustratingly
| waste my time. Phone dies, and I gotta replace it ASAP.
| Everything important happens on there. A compact sensor
| package glued to good touchscreen, with an Internet
| connection, is just too useful.
| ruszki wrote:
| I have mobile internet since 2001. Those dumbphones had
| access to the full internet, not just WAP.
|
| Mobile internet was not a mistake, we just started to use
| it wrongly. It's your choice to not use it to browse
| internet aimlessly. It's your choice to make yourself
| available all the time. You can definitely use it how I
| did for more than a decade before everybody realized what
| being always online means. It definitely improved my
| productivity before that, but it's true that the added
| benefit is about flat in the past decade.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I don't think it's that we use it wrong exactly. I'm not
| trying to judge anyone who spends hours of time on
| Instagram sending photos or scrolling X.
|
| I 100% agree that if I was doing those things, they would
| be wrong for me so I avoid doing them.
|
| I don't like people who say "I don't like when I do this
| thing, so, this thing should not be available for people
| to do!"
|
| I equally don't like people who say "I don't like when
| other people do this thing, so, this thing should not be
| available for people to do!"
|
| I know that social media is designed to be addictive.
| This is why I'm mostly absent from it for most of my
| life.
|
| If you use and enjoy social media and it brings joy to
| your life, great, have fun. It wasn't doing that for me
| (or more directly, I realized very early on it was going
| down a bad path) so I cut it out.
|
| If you're lamenting social media and bothered by how much
| time you spend on it, or how it negatively impacts your
| life, or whatever: I am definitely going to advocate to
| you that you do simply have the option to turn it off.
| Life will move on!
|
| You can also have a smart phone and not feel the need to
| immediately respond to every text message, nor, click
| every notification. You can even choose to not pick up
| phone calls if you want.
|
| In the past decade while the reality of mobile
| connectivity hasn't changed much, the quality and
| ubiquity of it has improved dramatically.
|
| 10 years ago I would have agreed that in most places it
| was possible to get some form of internet connectivity,
| today, it's deeply unusual to travel anywhere in the USA
| and not get >100Mbit on LTE with "good enough" latency.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It's absolutely a wish I had, and I spent a lot of time
| and money trying to make it real!
|
| There's a huge difference between an audio player and
| having spotify (or apple music, or whatever you prefer)
| where you can play effectively any song you want at
| effectively any time.
|
| There's a huge difference between having a camera and
| something which can record 4k video or take photos which
| surpass any digital camera we had in the early 2000s and
| even today surpasses virtually any camera in the price
| range of the whole phone. You would need something like a
| Leica fixed lens camera or a mirrorless DSLR with
| multiple lenses at several times the cost of a smartphone
| to equal the photo and video capabilities. This also
| ignores the fact that I can snap these amazing pics or
| videos and send them to a friend instantly.
| PhunkyPhil wrote:
| Vision Pro, I think, is their first generation attempt at
| tackling this.
| Maximus9000 wrote:
| As a regular user, I'd still like 10x optical zoom
| rollcat wrote:
| > We're at a point where regular users already have
| everything they need [...]
|
| We still don't have:
|
| - an iPhone SE1-sized device
|
| - USB-C on a "medium" (iPhone Mini)-sized device
|
| - Touch ID or non-OLED screen on a non-budget device
|
| - 3.5mm headphone jack (even after they backtracked on
| removing most ports from Macbooks)
|
| Yeah basically can I just have a 2016 with an updated SoC
| please.
| mirsadm wrote:
| You and two other people want that. Every time they've
| released small phones they've not sold well. It's a small
| but extremely vocal community of people that constantly ask
| for this stuff.
| jraph wrote:
| Many women I know would be interested in a small phone
| (in part because for some reason clothes makers
| collectively decided that women should not have big
| pockets, or any at all, and in part because of smaller
| hands on average).
|
| It's probably not all women, maybe not most, but I can't
| believe there's not an important market, it seems like a
| common enough situation.
| fragmede wrote:
| The corollary to women's clothes have no pocket is that
| women have purses, which are often large enough to hold a
| bigger phone.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It's still millions of people who buy an iphone mini, but
| that's basically a rounding error when they're selling
| hundreds of millions per year, 3-5% from a quick google.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| None of those are happening. Small phones don't sell.
| rollcat wrote:
| Accessibility also doesn't "sell". Apple used to care
| about making their products actually accessible. They
| already have all the money. What's the real excuse? Do
| they just not care?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| What is the benefit of a non-OLED screen, and how niche is
| that ask? I'm assuming the benefit is "no burn-in" but is
| the risk of burn-in going to affect people in a 5 year
| timespan?
|
| And I think the 3.5mm ship has sailed, right behind the
| "persistent notification LED" ship. Fsck me if I can
| understand how not a single manufacturer has figured out
| that a bright, persistent, multi-color LED/OLED
| notification is a desirable zero-hardware-cost feature.
| jraph wrote:
| Re: the notification led, is it because of the wish that
| the screen should take the whole surface? Reviews
| complain about the "lost" space.
|
| Personally I value the notification led more, and don't
| mind some borders.
| rollcat wrote:
| > What is the benefit of a non-OLED screen [...]?
|
| Accessibility. https://rubenerd.com/the-iphone-14/
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > how not a single manufacturer has
|
| > figured out that a bright, persistent,
|
| > multi-color LED/OLED notification is
|
| > a desirable zero-hardware-cost feature.
|
| a LED has nonzero cost. The case having a hole for it
| also has a cost, as does engineering the hole not to be a
| weak point. It may not be hard or expensive, but nonzero
| nonetheless.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Why do you want a non-OLED screen?
| egypturnash wrote:
| I have everything I need with a 5s. The only thing making me
| ponder updates is shit like "hi the new T-mobile app requires
| a newer version of iOS than is available for your phone". Web
| still works though.
| lsllc wrote:
| Isn't that sort of the point though? I'm a regular phone user,
| but boy when I was on vacation this year, my iPhone took some
| fabulous pictures with stunning colors. I'm sure way better
| than I would with a DSLR (given I have no experience with a
| DSLR and/or whatever post-processing/editing suites I'd need to
| go with it).
|
| I totally buy into the "best camera you have is the one in your
| pocket" concept -- especially if that camera takes amazing
| photos without me needing to know how.
|
| I do agree on the other features (or lack thereof), in general
| I only upgrade my iPhone for two reasons: 1.
| Newer/better camara 2. Old iPhone is getting long in the
| tooth (i.e. battery degradation)
|
| I think the longest I went was maybe 3 years before the battery
| wouldn't really make it through the day.
|
| I'll take a look at this one and if the camera is compelling
| enough, maybe upgrade (the 5x optical zoom might just do that
| for me).
| swatcoder wrote:
| The archetype of a smartphone is essentially mature at this
| point and has been for a while.
|
| Innovations are either going to be aimed at improving niche
| uses, gradual enhancements on stats like
| power/cpu/display/photo-quality, or accommodating fashion
| trends like overall size or whether it's foldable.
|
| The most original opportunity lately is generative AI
| integration and that's exactly what they put into focus for
| 2024.
| throwaway918299 wrote:
| As one of those users I'm still rocking my iPhone 11 and am
| perfectly content sticking with it The phone works. Telegram
| and Whatsapp works. Slack works. Safari still runs great on the
| web on the very few websites I use or browse. The longer I can
| use this without feeling "forced" to upgrade, the happier I'll
| be.
|
| What apple offers me is peace of mind and stability. That's all
| I want from a phone.
| EricE wrote:
| If I had hadn't smashed my 11 Pro I'd still be using it. It
| feels wafer thin in comparison to the chunky 15 Pro I
| replaced it with :/
| mrzool wrote:
| > What apple offers me is peace of mind and stability.
|
| They'll literally make your beloved iPhone 11 obsolete in a
| year or so, deliberately.
| rlpb wrote:
| Don't Apple have a better track record for longevity of
| support compared to their competitors?
| fsflover wrote:
| Not all competitors. GNU/Linux phones will have lifetime
| updates (since they run mainline Linux).
| numbers wrote:
| Good updates to the video recording, event was okay...kinda
| boring. Airpods Max got no updates just color, why even mention
| them?
| jpalomaki wrote:
| They got USB-C
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| USB-C ?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I was immensely disappointed for the AirPods Max to be stuck
| with the H1 when even the standard AirPods got the H2.
| cube2222 wrote:
| I was planning to upgrade this year, and probably still will, but
| honestly, the differences between the base model and pro model
| this year are fairly limited.
|
| ProMotion, Always-on display, a bunch more resistant to fall
| damage, and a camera that is better, but doesn't look like a lot.
|
| I'm a bit worried about the Apple Intelligence features, as
| they've been very prominent on WWDC, but were fairly toned-down
| today. Not much of it was shown, and they're delaying their
| arrival (notification summaries look great though, as a "little
| thing that matters").
| whalesalad wrote:
| I can't live without the pro motion display now. I'm on a 13
| right now so this will be a big upgrade for me personally.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Yeah I'm on a 13 Pro. It's enough to upgrade, but it doesn't
| blow you off your feet. The colors are also arguably worse
| than the 13 Pro lineup.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| I'm going to miss the blue on my 13 pro. I'm probably going
| for the 'desert titanium' as that at least has some color.
| Such a shame that they reserve the bolder colors for the
| non-pro line.
| manmal wrote:
| I'm on a 13 Pro right now, and an iOS developer, so should
| have a reason to upgrade now. But the iffy situation with
| Apple intelligence in the EU makes me hesitate.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I think it is a good thing to delay arrival so they can get it
| right. I almost think playing it up at WWDC was intentional so
| that developers would care more about it.
| tekacs wrote:
| I've had notification summaries turned on for at least a few
| weeks as part of the iOS 18 Beta and I can sadly report that
| they seem to be very very low quality.
|
| On occasion they'll squash down something that is better read
| tersely, but I've overwhelmingly found them to make the content
| worse than simply reading the original text.
|
| I was really hopeful about them going in, but it seems like it
| might need an iteration or two more.
| mason55 wrote:
| I think that there are just very few notifications where a
| summary is the thing I want. Most of them I either don't care
| about at all or I want to see the actual text. Either it's
| important and the details matter or it's, like, a text from
| my wife and I want to read it in her voice and not a summary.
|
| The fun of my family group chat is reading the messages from
| everyone.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Presumably the AI features getting widely derided at WWDC
| influenced the script. I'm totally fine with generative AI, but
| I cringed when I saw the images they generated for the demo at
| WWDC. Just awful stuff.
| pistolpeteDK wrote:
| Interesting to see how they're marketing increasingly minor
| improvements as major breakthroughs. 16 Pro: Better camera, more
| zoom, dedicated camera button... isn't that it? WiFi 7, faster
| ray tracing, USB-C/USB 3? Hard to imagine many people really need
| that.
|
| Have we witnessed peak Apple?
|
| Apple Watch: minimal updates. AirPods Max: new color. AirPods:
| some minor tweaks.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| ehhhh, maybe. they used to do small updates (other than CPU)
| and call it the "S" update; now they seem to keep increasing
| the number but doing similar small updates?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I'm not sure what more you'd expect after the 14 barely had
| anything on the 13. The stagnation happened 3 years ago.
| crooked-v wrote:
| And the things they decided to not do are baffling, too. The
| AirPods Max doesn't even have the H2 chip and attendant
| features, for example.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| Smartphone has reached its peak. What's left to innovate? maybe
| Huawei's triple-fold phone(?)
| ilikeatari wrote:
| I think there is still some room. For me screen technology
| would be an innovation. Envision a screen that is hybrid
| between eink and current OLED. Or Siri that is useful (I
| think thats what they are working on). Or envision other
| inputs other than your thumbs :-) Maybe ironed out version of
| what they developed for Apple Vision Pro in terms of eye
| tracking or some other inputs. So many ideas!!!
| fsflover wrote:
| > What's left to innovate?
|
| How about running a normal OS without artificial
| restrictions, so that you could completely replace your
| laptop/desktop?
| rqtwteye wrote:
| The same happened with laptops a long time ago. They
| basically do everything that's needed.
|
| But in general I agree that the innovation output of Apple is
| really low compared to their size. But that seems to be the
| case for most of these mega trillion dollar companies. The
| bigger, the more conservative they get. But they are very
| good at making profits so it's all good as far as the CEO's
| bonus goes.
| nabaraz wrote:
| What about any other things like Word, Operating System, Cars?
| Are they not all doing smaller improvements year after year.
| matwood wrote:
| For the phone we've settled on a current form factor of a slab
| of aluminum and glass. All changes are at the margins. A little
| thinner, a little lighter, a little better X.
|
| Until some other form factor takes off, this is where we are.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I really don't know what people expect. That Apple won't market
| a product? That there will be a fivefold increase in
| performance each year?
| phatfish wrote:
| It's like Call of Duty, you're not supposed to buy one each
| year and be amazed. Just wait two or three years and THEN you
| get a marginal improvement that means you can justify the
| purchase to yourself.
|
| The yearly thing is to scam superfans.
| callalex wrote:
| And they still can't figure out how to make the battery
| replaceable even though they claim to care so much for the
| environment.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| I want replicable battery just to be sure that my phone is
| turned off when it says it is turned off.
| PhunkyPhil wrote:
| Why would a user-replaceable battery be better for the
| environment? Do you think that consumers are able to recycle
| hard-to-recycle lithium components like that _correctly_?
| Apple already offers battery replacements (comparatively)
| cheaply.
|
| Beyond that there's huge issues with it such as third party
| batteries tainting the overall quality of the phone, having
| an entirely removable back plate would kill their water/dust
| resistance rating, it looking bad (Yes this is important to
| Apple) etc, god-knows-what other issues arise changing the
| internal structure of their components that drastically.
|
| Don't assume they can't figure out an engineering problem
| because you're upset that phones aren't the same as they were
| 20 years ago.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I don't see much to upgrade to but, if I didn't get a iPhone 15
| Pro I would have probably gotten this. The new camera button is
| interesting and the gestures are nice.
|
| Interesting to see all the rumors of a iPhone Slim / Air be
| nothing and I almost thought that they would do it on the Pro
| lineup.
| skygazer wrote:
| The slim rumors are for the iPhone 17 line when they drop the
| Plus from the lineup. The rumors spanning two generations ahead
| is confusing.
| gamepsys wrote:
| The rumors of the thinner iPhone made me disappointed when
| this wasn't thinner.
| mgrandl wrote:
| The slim / air rumors were always for the iPhone 17 lineup.
| justin66 wrote:
| No.
|
| https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/apple-could-
| deliver-...
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| So did they just give up on Blood-Oxygen sensing on the Watch?
| Thought it might be a good time to update my Watch 6 (black
| titanium) to a 10, since they brought back the black titanium,
| but they just have no answer for the blood-oxygen lawsuit?
| ayhanfuat wrote:
| Maybe they are just not reporting it. Sleep apnea detection is
| probably using blood oxygen levels.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I checked the "Compare" page and it confirms no blood oxygen
| on Series 10 and Ultra 2. It's basically the one thing the 6
| does better.
| xattt wrote:
| It's pretty unsexy for Apple to say they're using their sound
| recognition tech to listen for snoring.
| flutas wrote:
| As the other commenter said it does seem like Apple might
| have either straight up removed it or is disabling it in
| software entirely for now.
|
| Comparison page lists the "Blood Oxygen app" for the S6
| through S8, but S9 and S10 both just have "-" for that
| comparison section like the S5 has.
|
| https://www.apple.com/watch/compare/?modelList=watch-
| series-...
|
| EDIT: Another difference between them is the Vitals App
| description removing the blood oxygen reference.
|
| S10: "Vitals app featuring heart rate, respiratory rate,
| wrist temperature, and sleep duration"
|
| S08: "Vitals app featuring heart rate, respiratory rate,
| wrist temperature, blood oxygen, and sleep duration"
| dc3k wrote:
| it is likely that they are disabling it in software as it
| is only missing on the product page for the usa
| flutas wrote:
| Good call-out!
| ValentineC wrote:
| Here's a non-US comparison link, for anyone interested:
|
| https://www.apple.com/sg/watch/compare/?modelList=watch-
| seri...
| qingcharles wrote:
| Patent issue, right?
|
| https://www.patentlyapple.com/2024/07/while-apple-has-
| update...
| skygazer wrote:
| It was using the accelerometer to detect breaths, or absence,
| and uses a month's worth of data, so not using O2 at all.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Wow, if they removed the blood oxygen measurement, I will keep
| my S7 Apple watch. I had planned an upgrade.
| ninininino wrote:
| Removed for US purchasers. Fine elsewhere.
| _ph_ wrote:
| The German website doesn't list it either, but lets hope
| that is just an issue with the web site.
|
| Edit: if you go to the comparison page, it lists the blood
| oxygene app for the 10 and the Ultra 2, so great :)
| billfor wrote:
| The Samsung Galaxy Watch series still supports it, as well as
| blood pressure and sleep apnea (though you may have to hack it
| slightly to unlock those features in the US).
| callalex wrote:
| It's been really crappy the entire time it existed, so it's not
| a big loss. I have my watch on quite snugly (but not too
| tight), and fairly high on my wrist, and the stupid thing only
| takes maybe 3-5 measurements per DAY. Also, it cannot take
| measurements while exercising, or even moving.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| I'm on the 9 and have blood oxygen sensor, are they removing it
| in the 10?
| raydev wrote:
| They didn't "give up", they were sued and had to remove it (at
| least in the US). This is the most recent update I could find:
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/5/24122407/apple-watch-masim...
| vault_ wrote:
| Probably a result of the patent dispute over the feature:
| https://apnews.com/article/apple-watch-patent-dispute-sales-...
| qingcharles wrote:
| Patent issue, it is blocked in the USA, IIRC.
|
| Here's one thing I saw about it:
|
| https://www.patentlyapple.com/2024/07/while-apple-has-update...
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Anecdotally I found it worthless anyway. I tried a variety of
| straps, tightness, positions, but I think the freckles on my
| white skin just confused it. Finger monitors consistently have
| it at 98%+. Apple Watch: "Your Blood Oxygen content is
| 85-100%". Thank you Apple, very cool.
|
| No real pattern to the large outliers, they'd happen at all
| times of the day, even with my girlfriend's watch that I asked
| for a lend of.
| jadbox wrote:
| No additional RAM? So 16 Pro is still using only 8gb? I was
| hoping to be able to run my own LLMs on device, but unless you're
| using micro sized models, it'll be practically impossible (or too
| slow for casual use).
| dblitt wrote:
| Notably, only the pro models support USB 3. The base 16/16 plus
| are still on USB 2. This hasn't changed from the 15 lineup when
| they switched to USB-C.
| unsnap_biceps wrote:
| what do you use that usb 3 speeds matter? The only thing ever
| plugged into my phones port is a charger.
| baq wrote:
| Same thing you use prores log video for.
| dbbk wrote:
| How curious that they would save it for... the pro model,
| then
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| I have a bad wired internet connection and use my phone to
| download anything over 1gb. takes 2 minutes instead of 2
| hours.
|
| also use it as a portable usb stick. when you are transfering
| stuff over 10gb, usb 3 is very very usefull.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier to simply fix your ethernet wiring
| (or just use wifi) than to sneakernet large files using
| your phone?
| fragmede wrote:
| if they can only get eg DSL at their location, how would
| they fix that?
| _ph_ wrote:
| They said that the iPhone can record video directly to
| external storage, so you would need the faster USB speed for
| that. Quite a nice feature for productions which use the
| iPhone for professional video.
| mirchiseth wrote:
| It will be interesting to see how users will use the new
| dedicated camera touch control. Other phonemakers have tried it
| in the past (Sony Xperia comes to mind) but capacitative is
| probably the first. Also how developers will adopt for their
| apps. It is a small change but definitely differentiating for
| Apple at least for now.
| sk11001 wrote:
| There's definitely a feeling that the Pro models are the actual
| model and the non-Pro is a bit closer to the old C/SE models. It
| didn't feel that way a few releases ago.
|
| I do love the colors on the regular models though!
| yreg wrote:
| Do we know what's the RAM in those phones?
| StayTrue wrote:
| Looks like 8GB.
| nabaraz wrote:
| I remember people lining up outside apple stores on the pre-order
| day. What has happened now? Have we seen the peak of smartphones
| until something new comes along and spur a new super-cycle?
| nunez wrote:
| Online ordering and Apple scaling production to meet demand.
| swyx wrote:
| i mean have you tried shipping familiar daily use hardware for
| 20 years? why the cynicism. this thing needs to be dependable,
| reliable. not introduce new fashion trend every year.
| brookst wrote:
| Upgrades in mature markets are less exciting than in new
| markets. See: how exciting the 2024 Corolla is compared to the
| 2023.
| gamepsys wrote:
| I get excited when Toyota does a major model does a refresh.
| The Corolla is likely the #1 selling car model globally, so
| it has a major impact whenever they change something.
| em500 wrote:
| Well I still remember people lining up outside of computer
| stores to buy Windows 95. Some people line up about pretty
| random things.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| As a trend in general it feels pretty dead, at least in tech
| and gaming.
| raydev wrote:
| Apple has had a solid online experience the last 5 or so years.
| No need for lineups.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The Pro variant is unusually poorly differentiated from the base
| model this cycle: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/
|
| The 13 Pro had ProMotion, 14 Pro had Dynamic Island and Always On
| display, the 15 Pro had USB-C and the Action Button, the 16
| Pro...has maybe slightly faster AI? 4k120fps video? USB-C w/ USB
| 3? Not things most people would care about.
|
| ProMotion/Always On is still limited to the Pro models which is
| enough to justfy the upcharge, but it's a surprise they aren't
| locking a new feature this time.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The 5x (vs 2x) optical zoom will also convince a few to go for
| the Pro. Isn't the price difference smaller than previous
| models too?
| dudus wrote:
| The extra optical zoom has been THE defining feature that
| pushes PRO to most users. It's a feature enjoyed by anyone
| and everyone.
| jahnu wrote:
| It basically saves some people into photography having to
| buy an additional compact camera.
| pradn wrote:
| The optical zoom on the Pro is so good! I often zoom in
| 3-5x and still get great results. I've gotten comments from
| people saying they thought photos of far off building
| features, etc, were taken with a DSLR.
|
| It's a no-brainer to get the Pro for this reason, if you
| care about photos.
| panarky wrote:
| Really thought they'd upgrade from 12MP to 48MP on the
| telephoto. iPhone 16 Pro matched the Pixel's 5x optical
| zoom, but weirdly it remains stuck at 12MP.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It might be a 48MP sensor that produces 12MP readout
| after pixel binning. That's how the sensors on the Sony
| Xperia 1 work. Does Apple use Sony sensors? I vaguely
| remember that being a thing.
| rconti wrote:
| $200 more for the base pro, but looking at trade-in values
| for my 14, you get half of that back.....
| slaymaker1907 wrote:
| I'm by no means a professional photographer, but better zoom
| is definitely a big selling point.
| janandonly wrote:
| The previous model 15 pro already has 3x, so it's a jump from
| 3x to 5x. Not enough for me to upgrade already, but a good
| feature if you like photography or videography.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| Is this a real zoom or just a fixed lens with longer focal
| length? I have read that the 13 Pro does digital zoom between
| 1x and 2.9x and only at 3x the 3x lens kicks in. So if you
| have a 5x lens you get digital zoom over an even longer
| range. So you may end up with worse image quality over a
| wider range.
|
| Is this correct?
| Kirby64 wrote:
| 15 and 15 Pro both had USB-C. The 15 pro just has USB3 capable
| USB-C (15 regular was USB2 only). Seems like they're keeping
| that differentiation, which I suppose makes sense given the
| USB3 PHY is a considerable die cost.
| jsheard wrote:
| > USB3 PHY is a considerable die cost
|
| Is it actually a different die though? The A18 and A18 Pro
| are so close in specs, with the same 6 CPU cores, same 16 NPU
| cores and only 5 vs. 6 GPU cores that I would guess that they
| are the very same die just with one GPU cluster and USB3
| switched off in the non-Pro version.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| On the 15 series it was since they used different chip
| generations. No idea on the new 16 series, we'll have to
| wait for die shots from teardown groups.
| dagmx wrote:
| In the presentation they said they're separate dies with
| different features available on the Pro, that aren't on the
| base SoC.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes, different dies. The Pro also has a more advanced NPU
| and massively more IO bandwidth to process 4K120 video.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| They mentioned the Pro also has a larger CPU cache.
| nabla9 wrote:
| A18 Pro is also faster. Typically the speed and 5 vs 6 core
| difference would use the same die and selecting Pro chips
| during testing. Chips that tolerate heat better become pro-
| model chips.
|
| The rumor was that they are different dies. It seems
| strange because both are made with the same 2nd generation
| 3nm architecture.
| veber-alex wrote:
| The 16 Pro has a bigger display.
|
| Each model now has a different display size.
|
| You can choose between 6.1", 6.3", 6.7" and 6.9"
| evilfred wrote:
| this part is really frustrating. I want to upgrade from my 13
| Pro and have 120Hz but 6.7" is huge
| jsheard wrote:
| They've trimmed the bezels enough that the 13 Pro and 16
| Pro are exactly the same width despite the bigger screen,
| and the 16 is only a few mm taller.
|
| https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-
| iPhone-13-Pro,A...
| raydev wrote:
| The new Pro is 6.3", not 6.7" (that's the outgoing Pro
| Max).
|
| If it helps, the Pro is only increasing by a few mm in
| height and depth, not width.
|
| [1]: iPhone 13 Pro specs:
| https://www.apple.com/by/iphone-13-pro/specs/
|
| [2]: iPhone 16 Pro specs:
| https://www.apple.com/ca/iphone-16-pro/specs/
| playa1 wrote:
| I would be fine with the Pro models getting larger screens if
| they would shrink the standard phone. I'm still trying to
| survive with my 12 mini for as long as possible until the
| battery dies. I tried a standard iPhone 15 for two weeks last
| year and I wasn't happy with the larger size and returned it.
|
| The mini was a great form factor, fits in more pockets
| comfortably and the whole screen is within reach of my thumb
| when using the phone one-handed.
| zamadatix wrote:
| More people want "all of the above" to be larger than want
| the smaller phone. It does leave those that prefer the
| truly small phones in a tough spot though, but they are a
| tiny percentage of buyers and only a fraction of that
| percentage actually dislike the other options vs would just
| use the mini when it's available
| https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-
| unpopula...
|
| That said I wonder if they'll slip in a new mini model
| every once in a great while to give that group of users an
| option.
| danieldk wrote:
| For me 60Hz on the base model is now a deal breaker. Even our
| daughter's 300 Euro A54 has a 120Hz screen (though not LTPO).
| Once you are used to 120Hz on a touch device, it's hard to go
| back (different on a relatively static computer screen, where I
| prefer having the high DPI of 5k 27"). So, it's iPhone Pro
| models until the base model gets >60Hz too.
| ahoka wrote:
| Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Same as the 8GB Macs, ridiculous_
|
| My mom doesn't need more than 8GB RAM. Overengineering is
| still bad engineering.
| nox101 wrote:
| I generally find the opposite. Experts know how to deal
| with limited memory. They benefit from more but they
| understand the tradeoffs. Non-experts get all kinds of
| bad experiences not realizing the issue is their machine
| is underpowered.
|
| Maybe 8GB ram is enough for your mom but know lots of
| non-techies suffering with underpowered machines.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Non-experts get all kinds of bad experiences not
| realizing the issue is their machine is underpowered_
|
| As always, it depends on how the machine is being used.
| The encompasses both intent and habits.
|
| Someone who will install ad-spam toolbars will chew
| through all the memory in the world. That doesn't change
| the fact that they're largely using their device to
| e-mail, read news and occasionally open a spreadsheet.
| nox101 wrote:
| The people I've seen with underpowered machines, wait 5
| minutes for them to boot since they are both slow
| (celeron) and low-mem (so swapping 10-15 times while
| booting). They they take minutes to launch apps (like
| open a spreadsheet).
|
| It doesn't matter than they're only using their device to
| e-mail, read news, and occasionally open a spreadsheet.
| In fact, reading news is arguably a memory and perf hog.
| 100s of large images, plus video, etc... taxes any low-
| powered/low-memory machine. It's bad enough on a fast
| machine that doesn't slow down but is still covered in
| ads on the news page. But it's horryfing on an under-
| powered/under-memory machine.
| consteval wrote:
| Might have been true 5 years ago, but I don't think this
| is true now. Base systems with nothing open are using 3+
| gigs of memory. Web pages use a ton, but even fairly
| standard apps will use a gig or more (thanks, electron).
|
| The end result is super slow loading as stuff is swapped,
| apps crashing (at least on Windows), tabs reloading when
| you don't want them to.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Web pages use a ton, but even fairly standard apps
| will use a gig or more (thanks, electron)_
|
| She does most of that on an iPad. The computer is used
| for e-mail, filling out government forms and looking at
| spreadsheets. She needs a sturdy machine that works,
| simply, and doesn't need a lot of babying. A cheap, well-
| configured Mac running Safari with an ad blocker is just
| about perfect for that.
| consteval wrote:
| Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Using Excel with 8 gigs of ram is really pushing it_
|
| Just pulled it up on my (16GB) Mac. 300 MB.
|
| Note that she's manipulating, like, a spreadsheet for the
| rotary.
| gessha wrote:
| You and Apple's marketing team have come to the same
| conclusion.
|
| Sent from my iPhone 15 Pro
| rottencupcakes wrote:
| I've actually come to the conclusion that a laggier worse
| phone display is a feature, not a bug. Quicker response times
| = more addictive with little to no upside in productivity.
| paulpan wrote:
| Are there new hardware features announced for the 16 Pro? Apple
| definitely would love to add an exclusive feature but it seems
| like negligible pickings. The "Fusion" or "tetraprism" camera
| is the only other one that comes to mind.
|
| Fundamentally Apple wants to leverage their supply chain to
| maximize shared parts between the Pro and base iPhones. Lack of
| hardware innovations makes it hard to create product
| differentiation.
|
| Heck, even the A18 Pro chip seems a marginal upgrade over the
| base A18 chip:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/09/apples-a18-chip-desi...
| reliableturing wrote:
| I agree but I already planned to upgrade to a 16 Pro up from my
| 12. Biggest thing I'm looking forward to? Battery life.
|
| In the announcement they said "big boost", and looking at the
| comparison page I will go from 17h video playback to 27h.
| That's not even including the battery degradation I built up in
| the last 4 years. I'm practically going to double my battery
| life.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Damn you can only watch 13 hours of video content per day
| now? Rough.
| reliableturing wrote:
| I know, really looking forward to watching 27h of video in
| a day
| kachapopopow wrote:
| If you plug in for 10 minutes you can watch 41h of video
| in a day!
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Are you assuming the upgrade 'stride' is 1, whereas perhaps the
| normal user does not upgrade more often than every 3rd model?
| minimaxir wrote:
| This isn't related to the user update cycle discussions, just
| pointing out it's odd that Apple has always locked a new
| feature/hardware to a higher SKU to help price discriminate
| but here it's weaker.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Here's the link you intended:
|
| https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone-16-pr...
| jhawk28 wrote:
| Lidar is only on Pro.
| echoangle wrote:
| The 15 non-Pro also had USB C, the main differences were action
| button and camera
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| It seemed like smartphone has reached its peak
| yungporko wrote:
| smartphone plataeu happened like 8 years ago. at this point,
| even in our wildest dreams, what else could you possibly want a
| phone to do? all that is left for this form factor is
| incremental QoL improvements until some crazy new technology
| which we can't yet fathom drops, and god help us when it does
| lol.
| veber-alex wrote:
| I am disappointed.
|
| The 16 Pro is larger and heavier than the 15 pro which is already
| heavy.
|
| I have small hands, I want a smaller and lighter phone.
|
| Not going to buy the 16 because of lack of ProMotion.
| eitally wrote:
| I'm not in the iPhone ecosystem anyway, so it's probably moot,
| but one thing Google did _really right_ this year was to issue
| Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL that are identical in everything but the
| screen size. I 'm very happily upgrading from a very large 8
| Pro to a nicely pocketable 9 Pro that contains all the same
| guts as the 9 Pro XL. Apple should have done the same.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The Pro and Pro Max are like you say with the sole exception
| of optical zoom level. OP is referring to the non-pro models
| at the end when talking about ProMotion (there are 4 main
| variants each release, not 2).
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| i bought my grandma an iphone 6, damn these thing were perfect
| size and the force haptic was awesome. Iphone are becoming more
| and more like android, in size, in complexity and jankyness.
| paxys wrote:
| Smaller notch? Touch ID? Better battery life? Faster charging?
| Larger default storage? Nope, let's skip all that and spend most
| of the event talking about video recording.
|
| Is anyone here actually excited about the features they just
| announced? Or are people simply upgrading because they get the
| latest iPhone every year or two by default?
| oldstrangers wrote:
| Judging by the success of TikTok, yes, lots of consumers will
| love new video features.
| thiht wrote:
| > Better battery life
|
| That's the only thing from your list that people actually care
| about and they did improve battery life, there was a whole
| segment about it.
|
| The rest? No one cares. Do you even use an iPhone? You sound
| like me before I got an iPhone:
|
| - I thought the notch would be annoying, I don't even notice it
| anymore, it's never been an issue in actual use
|
| - I was convinced TouchID was better than FaceID but I
| completely changed my mind. FaceID is just more reliable and
| convenient, especially if you have sweaty palms
|
| - Faster charging? I mean, why not, it's always nice if it can
| be faster, but I've found fast charging already surprisingly
| fast whenever I've needed to quickly get some % before going
| out
|
| - Larger default storage? Same, it's a nice plus, but if you
| want or need more storage, pay for more? You have the option
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| I disagree, there's lots to improve on that "regular users"
| would notice. I went from an 11 (non pro) to a 15PM, and
| there's still a few major gripes I'd like to see fixed that
| haven't been addressed in the 16, but would benefit regular
| users if improved:
|
| - I wish my phone was easier to unlock when outside in the
| bright sun and wearing glasses. I often have to take them off
| or try again, or put in a passcode.
|
| - I'd like the screen to not dim after a few minutes outside
| in the sun.
|
| - I wish my phone charged faster, especially for moments
| where I'm like "Oh crap, my uber will be here in 5m and I
| forgot to charge my phone"
|
| - I wish my safari tabs didn't attempt to reload at the most
| inopportune times (or ever like my Macbook). This is a very
| real scenario I run into often when in the subway with no
| cell/wifi, and is extremely annoying. Better than my 11, but
| not fixed by any means.
|
| - I wish my OLED screen didn't have visible PWM at low
| brightness, and strained my eyes. Not everyone is sensitive
| to this, but some are, and I didn't have this issue with my
| 11.
|
| These are all regular user stories.
| Bluecobra wrote:
| > I wish my OLED screen didn't have visible PWM at low
| brightness, and strained my eyes. Not everyone is sensitive
| to this, but some are, and I didn't have this issue with my
| 11.
|
| Have you tried playing with Reduce White Point in
| accessibility options? This plus the Dark Reader plugin for
| Safari it's a good option for late night reading.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _I wish my safari tabs didn 't attempt to reload at the
| most inopportune times_
|
| This is my absolute #1 wish for my phone.
|
| I want to load up 30 news tabs before I hop on the subway
| and just have them all stay loaded, instead of the most
| recent 4 staying loaded, while any others refresh (and
| fail) if I switch back to them.
|
| I absolutely want all of my tabs to have the page state
| cached in storage whenever I leave them and they're done
| loading. With the scroll position too, as I'll often be
| interrupted halfway through reading a long story. I don't
| want them to be stored ephemerally in memory.
|
| Surely it can't be so impossible to "pickle" the state of
| the page and then unpickle? I can totally accept it not
| surviving every app upgrade too. Just let me load up
| stories on the subway platform and read them all on my
| underground commute.
| callalex wrote:
| The "reading list" feature in safari saves pages for
| offline viewing.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Do you have one of the high wattage charging bricks? I got
| one from Anker and the speed at which my phone charges is
| absolutely insane.
| paperplatter wrote:
| The notch is ok, but FaceID is a downgrade, and so is not
| having a home button or a headphone jack.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Have you tried a phone with Face ID? I can't say that I've
| ever missed the home button.
| paperplatter wrote:
| Yeah. It fails maybe 10% of the time, I can't unlock it
| without looking at it, and the new swipe gestures are
| harder than using the home button. Lesser known: Once you
| enable FaceID, the option to require passcode only after
| X minutes is removed, leaving only "immediately." Because
| I had to unlock my iPhone way more often as a result,
| this made that error rate more of a problem. Gave up and
| went back to my 6S.
|
| It's even worse for my elderly friend, who absolutely
| cannot execute the app switcher/killer gesture that was
| previously a double-tap on the home button. Guess I
| should set him up with assisted touch (the onscreen home
| button).
| nox101 wrote:
| > - I thought the notch would be annoying, I don't even
| notice it anymore, it's never been an issue in actual use
|
| I have several apps the notch covers. Arguably that's the
| app's fault for not upgrading ? Or is it Apple's? Maybe Apple
| should let apps opt into the notch. For apps that don't opt
| in they'd get a blank bar at the top. That would at least not
| have broken so many apps.
|
| > - I was convinced TouchID was better than FaceID but I
| completely changed my mind. FaceID is just more reliable and
| convenient, especially if you have sweaty palms
|
| Sucks with face masks.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Face ID works fine with face masks. Check that you have the
| feature enabled. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102452
| nox101 wrote:
| Face ID does not work fine with face masks. Tons of
| complaints. Tons of people for which it doesn't work. If
| it works for you consider yourself lucky.
| rurp wrote:
| Not everyone has the same set of use cases that you do.
| Device storage for example is a big deal for anyone who
| spends significant time outside of wifi. Buying more cloud
| storage doesn't help someone without an internet connection.
| Many people prefer TouchID for various reasons and I'm not
| sure why we wouldn't believe them just because you happen to
| like FaceID.
| mysteria wrote:
| > I was convinced TouchID was better than FaceID but I
| completely changed my mind. FaceID is just more reliable and
| convenient, especially if you have sweaty palms
|
| Actually for me it's the opposite, and I see much more
| failures to unlock with FaceID compared to TouchID. There are
| many times where I had to hold the phone out in front of me
| like I'm taking a selfie and look directly at it for the
| system to work, whereas TouchID works in all kinds of weird
| positions as long as I'm able to place my finger on the
| sensor.
| grujicd wrote:
| FaceID is not really compatible with Always On Displays. When
| you glance at a screen it's because you want to take a look
| at the clock or see if there are any notifications. I don't
| want my glance to unlock it! At least that's my experience
| with Galaxy phones and how I use AOD.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| iPhones with FaceID and AOD work fine. Your glance doesn't
| unlock it unless/until you want it to.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| 5x zoom and the new camera button on the Pro sound great to me,
| will probably upgrade from my 12 mini for that
|
| I don't shoot much video but I do take photos
| petesergeant wrote:
| Is that a big upgrade on just using the volume down button
| for photos?
| saurik wrote:
| Do people have to "upgrade" constantly? Shouldn't the iPhone
| get at least a little bit better every year, even if no one
| "upgrades"? I often use my devices for years until they break
| in some way, and then I get a new one... is it really so wrong
| that the 2024 model is only better in ways you don't care about
| from the 2023 model?
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| you don't have to upgrade, but it used to be tempting
| TillE wrote:
| Smartphone development was super fast from the iPhone 2G to
| the iPhone XS, give or take. Now the technology has
| basically caught up to the vision.
|
| It's just a portable computer, and people don't buy new
| computers every year or two.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I don't think anything after the 6S or 7 was that
| impressive. The X's form factor was cool, that's about
| it. I was annoyed that they took out the force sensor/3D
| touch.
|
| It's not just the phone though, you would think by now
| they would release a smaller watch with round face.
|
| In the iPod era we got a new form factor almost every
| year. You didn't have to buy it, but you had the choice.
| Now if I want a round watch I have to buy from google,
| which doesn't work with my iPhone?
| nox101 wrote:
| Apple often gates features on model number. They'll make up
| some BS about needing the power of the newer model to do X
| but they'll be plenty of demos of doing X on various
| platforms with less power.
|
| Not saying I need those new features. Only that Apple's
| incentives are to try to get you to buy the new phone so they
| are incentivised to gate several software only features to
| try to get you to upgrade.
| whycome wrote:
| Especially when the upgrade cadence is just one year. It's
| not a PS5 or whatever.
|
| Like any evolution, the year over year changes shouldn't be
| that drastic
| dylan604 wrote:
| If Sony was able to keep their console upgrade cadence at
| this same rate, we'd be playing games in holograms by now
| 4dm1r4lg3n3r4l wrote:
| Exactly. Them releasing a new model every year with small,
| incremental updates is not for people to upgrade from the
| latest model (although it is obvious Apple tries to frame the
| newer models as large upgrades, they haven't been that for
| the past 5 or so years), but rather for people who have been
| wanting to upgrade for a while from their 3-4-5 year old
| iPhones, and whenever they do they get the latest and
| greatest. Would the new models feel bigger upgrades if Apple
| only released one every 2-3 year? Sure. Would that be better
| for the average consumer looking to upgrade from whatever
| iPhone they have? Not sure. Incremental updates are nice IMO,
| stop caring about them if your iPhone is less than 3 year
| old...
| spike021 wrote:
| My personal upgrade cycle has been every 4 or so years for
| the last few iPhones. You really don't need to upgrade more
| often.
|
| I'm on a 12 Pro and I only want to upgrade to get more memory
| and faster processors. My current phone easily pages apps out
| of memory too often these days and it gets a bit tiring.
| Also, I already replaced the battery once after 1.5 years and
| the current battery is already back to about the same
| health/capacity as the first one was in the same amount of
| time.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| The only reason I feel pressure to upgrade my 11 is due to
| Pokemon Go ruining the battery (again). Will try to snag a
| used 13 Pro Max on the secondhand sites in a few weeks.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| I'm on the same model and find it completely fine. The only
| thing I want is USBC. I keep saying "next year's model will
| have some killer feature that'll make it worth ditching my
| lightning cable finally", and Apple keep giving me no
| reason to upgrade.
| dylan604 wrote:
| They mentioned giving up to $800-$1000 for trade in for an
| iPhone 12 or newer. That's pretty aggressive on a device
| that's $999-$1199 list. It sounds like they are really
| wanting people to upgrade to this device.
| lyall wrote:
| It's "Up to $800" for an "iPhone 12 or newer". You won't
| get more than $200 for trading in an iPhone 12. The max
| value is reserved for the newest and highest end phones,
| i.e. 15 Pro Max.
| shmoogy wrote:
| Because you need more ram for apple intelligence and
| they'll probably assume people will buy more services when
| they start adding to icloud
| macintux wrote:
| If the iPhone was radically better every single year, people
| would be complaining about e-waste instead.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It was radically better every year for a while.
|
| We complained about lockin and the uselessness once the
| older devices falls off the Apple support list, as repairs
| became a huge PITA (full swing anti-repair design at the
| time), and rooting the phones didn't help much as the
| jailbreaking scene was kneecapped compared to android's
| alternative stores.
| grimgrin wrote:
| Dunno exactly what my dance is but more than once I've found
| myself getting on the upgrade program, but not upgrading on
| the 12 month opportunity and instead paying it off over the
| next 12. If it has a crack I'll do a last minute applecare
| swap while I got it. Cool, new old phone for another cycle
| dbbk wrote:
| No, most people shouldn't be upgrading constantly. But Apple
| does a least encourage this somewhat with their Upgrade
| Program.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| It's not surprising that a company tries to sell you a
| product.
| brookst wrote:
| Many families hand devices down. It would be odd for a bachelor
| to buy every new device every year, but if older devices end up
| with kids or grandpa it makes perfect sense for the family to
| buy a new device every year.
| mig39 wrote:
| Yes, my family practices trickle-down iPhoneconomics. I get
| the new one every year, because it's a tax thing. I give my
| old one to my wife, and whichever kid has the oldest phone
| gets hers.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > because it's a tax thing
|
| How so?
| thih9 wrote:
| Like this: it's an excuse to buy the latest phone.
|
| As long as other family members are happy with a steady
| stream of hand me downs, no harm done I guess.
| ricw wrote:
| Phones can be purchased through your company as a perk
| using pre-tax dollars, as everyone uses their phone for
| business.
| mason55 wrote:
| It's still cheaper to not buy a phone. Yes, buying with
| pre-tax dollars is cheaper than at a store. But not
| buying one at all is even cheaper.
|
| And business expenses, like a new phone, are usually
| above the line, meaning you essentially get a discount of
| your marginal tax rate, you don't just get it for free.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Yes of course it still costs money and not worth it if
| you derive zero benefit. But you pay less money, so you
| expect over many users there will be several for whom its
| worth upgrading at the lower price but not the higher
| price.
| nathancahill wrote:
| Classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAjxn2US7J8
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I don't think they meant it like "I have to get the new
| one for tax reasons", but more like "I get the new one
| instead of my wife getting the new one, for tax reasons"
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| But then they have to un-deduct the value of the phone
| given to family members, especially if it is only a year
| old.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| What tax thing results it being cheaper for you to buy a
| new iPhone rather than not buy a new iPhone?
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Probably as a business expense it can be deducted from
| income for the business + no increase in personal income
| for him. It's not free but is something like a 50%
| savings vs. paying himself and buying it personally.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| You really can't hand down your business expensed iPhone
| to a family member.
|
| That's liable to land you in hot water in an audit.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Gotta write off the wife, too.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| They write it off, Jerry.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I got the 15 pro because of an offer through my wife's work (it
| made it ridiculously cheap and seemed like the right
| opportunity to replace my 3 year old SE), and worried I'd have
| a bit of FOMO with the 16 a month away from release.
|
| I really don't care. The 15 pro is so much phone, I can't
| imagine it lasting less than my SE. And frankly I only upgraded
| due to the limited time opportunity and knowing my son could
| use my SE due to his 7 being a crumpled lump of broken glass
| and gnarled aluminum. It's like he skate boards to school on
| it. RIP little SE, I guess.
|
| I'd like the slightly nicer camera, but the ones on the 15 pro
| are so good it seems absurd to complain. I actually used this
| thing for product photos on my store's website, and they turned
| out remarkably well. It's not PRO level (I'll reproduce all of
| them with my camera later) but my god, cameras in phones have
| come a long, long way. We're at a point where I'd be very
| surprised if iPhone 17 introduces anything interesting.
| nox101 wrote:
| I got the 15 mostly for USB-C. I still have cable hell
| because my AirPods are lightning so sometimes I need USB-C ->
| lightning and sometimes I need USB-A -> lightning
|
| I might get an Airpod 4 for the USB-C though the Airpod 3
| sucked and I'm suspecting the Airpod 4 is just as bad. Falls
| out (compared to Airpod 2). Pinch to play/pause/que sucks
| compared to Tap to play/pause/cue. Several friends had
| similar experiences including several friends that work at
| Apple. All of them returned their Airpod 3s.
| mrcb_ wrote:
| A magsafe power bank should help alleviate the need for a
| lightning cable just for charging airpods.
| nox101 wrote:
| How does that help? now I need to carry a magsafe charger
| everywhere I go so that I always have a way to charge?
| That's not better than needing 2 different kinds of
| cables. it's worse.
| slt2021 wrote:
| both glass and back frame is easily replaceable and very easy
| to DIY.
|
| the CPU and integrated circuit is the core of the phone and
| if it is intact, the phone can be refreshed to be like new
| with the new shell for like $30 with parts from ebay
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is anyone here actually excited about the features they just
| announced?_
|
| I'm frankly happy Cupertino didn't add bullshit features to
| make it exciting. This is an incremental update. They opened up
| minor new capabilities, some of which will matter to some
| people to varying degrees of compellingness.
| coliveira wrote:
| I only upgrade every 4 or 5 years, and only because I need more
| storage after a few years of usage. This time I'll probably
| "upgrade" to last year's version.
| dagmx wrote:
| Video and photography are by far the biggest feature that
| people buy phones for. Pretty much every phone manufacturer
| focuses on cameras for that reason.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Incorrect. Video and photography is all the phone
| manufacturers can practically upgrade given the form factor
| constraints (size, thermals, etc.) so that's what consumers
| have been trained to differentiate between generations and
| makes and makers. The truth is the feature most people buy
| new phones for is more battery, and that's about it.
| paperplatter wrote:
| I'm just glad it makes the slightly less new ones a bit
| cheaper. My iPhone 6S needs to either get a new battery or get
| replaced.
| callalex wrote:
| The 6S is one of the last iPhones you can reasonably replace
| the battery on by yourself with a kit and guide from iFixIt.
| Cherish it!
| paperplatter wrote:
| Yeah but unfortunately I really needed more space than what
| I bought, and I figure at some point my cell carrier will
| drop support like they did with my 5. Also the 6S has that
| infamous battery design flaw. So the battery repair cost is
| something to think about vs replacing the phone.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| For better or worse the current big thing is AI. I wouldn't
| expect any big leap in hardware anytime soon, other than
| perhaps running local AI models locally.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| I mean, the big feature last year was that it was made out of
| titanium making it slightly lighter than the previous stainless
| steel models but still heavier than the aluminum regular models
| for no reason. Video recording is cooler than that, at least.
| amarshall wrote:
| They added enough weight back to the 16 Pro that it's now
| only 7 grams lighter than the 14 Pro, whereas the 15 Pro was
| 19 grams lighter than the 14 Pro. (I just want a new Mini,
| tbh)
| rkagerer wrote:
| > _Touch ID?_
|
| I missed the memo - I thought Touch ID was abandoned in favor
| of Face ID? Did they bring it back on the latest models? Can
| you use it again instead of Face ID, and is it as instant as it
| was on the older Apple phones?
| yoyoyo1122 wrote:
| TouchID is still on iPad Air and Mini.
|
| Would love to have both! FaceID never works for me when I'm
| laying on my side in bed.
| paxys wrote:
| It isn't abandoned. The side button on the iPad Air for
| example is a touch ID sensor. They just don't want to bring
| it to iPhone for some reason. Plus all other high-end phones
| from competing manufacturers have touch sensors under the
| screen now.
| throwitaway1123 wrote:
| The rest of the industry seems to be moving towards under-
| screen ultrasonic fingerprint readers, which if Apple
| adopted, would allow them to shrink the notch by getting rid
| of the Face ID sensors. I think they've dug in their heels on
| Face ID though, so it likely won't happen (although they did
| reverse course on Force Touch, so anything is possible).
|
| They likely won't end up reducing the size of the notch any
| further until they figure out how to either make Face ID work
| with just a single selfie camera (which would inevitably be
| less secure), or put the sensors under some sort of semi-
| transparent display.
|
| Many people thought they missed an opportunity by not simply
| putting the fingerprint sensor under the Apple logo on the
| back of the iPhone, but they probably didn't like the UX of
| that solution.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Is the notch size an actual problem, or is it just a
| popular complaint among gadget blogs?
| paxys wrote:
| You can get used to anything after putting up with it for
| long enough, but use a Galaxy S24 or Pixel 9 for a few
| weeks and when you come back to an iPhone you will
| realize just how intrusive the notch really is. Apple
| marketing has really convinced us that watching an entire
| movie on our $1200 device with a large chunk of the
| screen blacked out is totally normal.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Isn't the aspect ratio on the iPhone such that a standard
| 16:9 video wouldn't interfere with the notch or rounded
| corners anyway?
| paxys wrote:
| It covers 16:9, but nothing beyond that. Most new
| releases are now 2x1 or 2.39x1, and they all get blocked
| by the notch. Try playing a widescreen YouTube video or
| any Netflix original and you will see this.
| samyakbardiya wrote:
| its about day to day usage, S23 user myself, whenever I
| use my friends phone I just can't stop staring at the
| thicc notch, anothwr reason it pop so much is because my
| friend uses light mode.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _The rest of the industry seems to be moving towards
| under-screen ultrasonic fingerprint readers, which if Apple
| adopted, would allow them to shrink the notch by getting
| rid of the Face ID sensors. I think they 've dug in their
| heels on Face ID though, so it likely won't happen
| (although they did reverse course on Force Touch, so
| anything is possible)._
|
| Or they could have both Touch- and FaceID. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| throwitaway1123 wrote:
| They definitely could, but it would likely cost Apple
| more to have two sets of sensors, not to mention take up
| more space in the device itself. Isn't that how they
| justified removing the headphone jack? And of course this
| is Apple we're talking about -- they would probably deem
| having two authentication methods to be too confusing for
| users. They only recently decided to allow things like
| arbitrary home screen icon re-arrangements in iOS 18.
| xyst wrote:
| Not really. Apple has stagnated.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It said A18 uses 20% less power than A17. However, that might
| have been for the CPU cores. I don't remember if they made
| claims specific to the GPU cores or the ML cores.
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| Well it does actually have faster wireless charging and better
| battery life but ooookay.
|
| I buy a new phone every year because I'm rich, I love
| technology, and this is a device I use for a significant
| portion of every single day.
| jessriedel wrote:
| I'm excited that the cost of iPhone 15's will continue to fall
| so I can soon eliminate lightning cables from my life. Please
| everyone, go out and upgrade from 15 to 16! :)
| mohaine wrote:
| A set of these, while still not ideal, make the transition
| much easier.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6PDGLWZ
| paxys wrote:
| This cable has changed my life:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C6M8157L
| jessriedel wrote:
| I have half a dozen in my bag already :)
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Crazy how my Oneplus 10 (2 years old btw) charges to 100% in
| 30min and 80% in 20min from 0. All I do is charge when I
| shower, and it's done.
| fundad wrote:
| I don't think paying inflated prices for more expensive inputs
| while keeping the same retail price is good business, I wish it
| were because everything has gone up. Other than the camera
| button, Apple focused on features enabled by the System-on-a-
| chip because the per-unit marginal of those features are low.
| The 16 has improved computational photography which could be a
| substitute for optical zoom for some families who previously
| bought the Pro for optical zoom.
|
| It makes sense that they would keep prices constant this year
| considering the pattern over the last decade.
|
| Apple raised the retail price on the 15 Pro Max and added 5x
| zoom (2023). Apple raised the price on the iPhone 14 by using
| last-generation SoC (2022). Apple raised the price on the
| iPhone 12 and 12 Pro by dropping the AC adaptor and adding
| carrier charges of $30 (at least in the US) (2020). Apple
| raised the retail price of the iPhone 8 ($50 more than the 7)
| and in the same year, put more expensive inputs in the the X
| line which became the Pro line (2017). Apple put more expensive
| inputs in the 6 Plus and priced it $100 more than the 6 (2014).
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| My last iPhone purchase was the original SE... which turned out
| to be the most highly-regarded iPhone of them all.
|
| It got smashed, so now I have to deal with all the regressions.
| No TouchID, no headphone jack, no SIM slot. Will I enjoy having
| a much better camera? Yep. But that won't do me any good while
| I can't listen to shit on the plane or in my cars... unless I
| carry an octopus of dongles everywhere, and none of it breaks
| and none of its non-removable batteries die.
|
| The sad fact is that manufacturers work harder to screw the
| customer now than they do to impress him. Apologists enable
| this behavior, and entire product categories regress.
| sourcecodeplz wrote:
| They still sell the SE. It has touch ID and SIM slot. No
| headphone jack though.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The camera button and x5 zoom is why I'm finally upgrading from
| a 12 Pro.
| willseth wrote:
| I have a 14 Pro, and the main reasons I want to upgrade are for
| Apple Intelligence (mostly Siri-based) and for the better
| camera and video (as my family's default photog). If I didn't
| have kids I could wait a few more years on the camera, but I've
| been wanting a better Siri for years.
| rongenre wrote:
| I'm on a 6 year old XS. When I upgrade, I get 5G and USB-C, and
| a chip that's now ahead of the OS.
| ttepasse wrote:
| I had a small conspiratorial thought while watching this event:
|
| "Apple Intelligence" does not come to Europe and the rest of the
| world because of the DMA/DSA or other regulations. It doesn't
| come, because language support isn't there.
|
| They are only announcing US English support, with some other
| English dialects in December: https://eu-img-
| cdn.livecenter.com/lc-images-2021/lcimg-72ed0...
|
| And the list of proposed languages coming sometimes in 2025 is
| rather anaemic: https://eu-img-cdn.livecenter.com/lc-
| images-2021/lcimg-8aec0...
|
| Granted, Silicon Valley companies are mostly rather bad when it
| comes to other languages (and even more other cultures), but
| Apple in the last decade tried at least and language support for
| Siri, dictation and such had in the past much fuller lists of
| language support. When was the last time they had to pad an extra
| slide with different variants of English [1]? When did they had
| to put Spanish, the quasi second language of the US, into next
| year? And missing from the next year slide are major languages
| like Arabic, Japanese, German, Italian, Hindi and a lot of more
| languages Siri already could do, although badly.
|
| Maybe the new LLM/ML training for "Apple Intelligence" needs far
| more data, bigger data sets and that's why?
|
| [1] Normally I would have thought of a slide with english
| dialects as a good thing. Computer language systems should
| recognize that the English language is different in different
| countries, that different English-speaking cultures are different
| and I'd argue even "UK English" is far to wide for that country
| of dozens of vastly different dialects. And of course the biggest
| English dialect is missing: "English as a second/nth language" or
| better "English with an accent".
| th3owner wrote:
| I am still waiting for Safari to translate Danish.
| kube-system wrote:
| No Apple financing on the unlocked phones?
| rty32 wrote:
| > "Powered by the faster, more efficient A18 Pro chip and built
| for Apple Intelligence, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are
| the most advanced iPhone models we've ever made," said Greg
| Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
|
| Thanks Greg, that's very helpful information.
| gk1 wrote:
| As much as I can't stand marketing phrases like "the most
| advanced we've ever made" or "the most powerful yet" -- because
| it should go without saying that the newest thing you're
| releasing is also _the most_ of anything -- the fact that
| companies keep using it suggests it actually works to market
| the thing.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > the newest thing you're releasing is also the most of
| anything
|
| Well, they also regularly release lower specced models for
| people who don't want, don't need or can't afford the Pro or
| Pro Max iPhones.
|
| And on the other hand you have people who need the best or
| want the best.
|
| And it's helpful to both kind of people to know that ok the
| Pro and Pro Max are the most powerful ones.
|
| And while it might seem "obvious" to you and me that Pro and
| Pro Max are the most powerful iPhones, there's a lot of
| people that don't regularly stay on top of what models exist
| of iPhones.
| stavros wrote:
| Isn't "the most advanced iPhone ever made" a meme by now?
| crooked-v wrote:
| Keynote Bingo: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/g4z9cgmgep7.png
| kbouck wrote:
| Missing Forstall's "Blow Away"
| tehnub wrote:
| The phrase was used--infamously, in some circles--by
| Activision to describe the 2022 Call of Duty release (Modern
| Warfare II) https://www.gamespot.com/articles/modern-
| warfare-2-is-most-a...
| minkles wrote:
| They've run out of useful and interesting stuff to say so they
| just flatter themselves with amazing progress which is
| incremental at best.
| iteratethis wrote:
| We've manufactured this from a blend of grade 11 graphite
| collected from an asteroid and dried oyster tears which you
| will hide using a $5 cover from Alie Express.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| People make jokes but we now carry these thousand dollar
| devices that provide access to everything in our lives.
|
| They should be covered in a durable and easily replaceable
| cover.
| stouset wrote:
| Yeah, I mean, that's ideal right? Expensive and durable
| materials covered with cheap, somewhat-durable, and
| trivially replaceable cases to absorb wear and greatly
| extend the lifespan of the expensive part.
| LoganDark wrote:
| I prefer when the device itself is durable and easily
| repairable
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Even if the device is durable and easily repairable it
| makes no sense to exercise those features. Those features
| are basically like insurance.
| sixothree wrote:
| You have to because they make the Pro devices
| _intentionally_ slippery. I'm convinced it is to make the
| items feel "precious".
| cube2222 wrote:
| Fwiw, the newer iPhone Pros are in fact extremely durable.
|
| I don't like cases (they make the phone too bulky for my
| liking) but also frequently drop my phone on stone/ceramic
| tiles (not the perfect combo, I know) and after 3 years of
| having a 13 Pro it's still in great shape.
|
| Just a few scratches on the corners of the phone (which
| usually get the most of the hit).
|
| In other words, I very much appreciate them improving
| durability.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I have a 13 Pro. Gorgeous to see without a case but way too
| slippery for me. I need a case for grip.
| ericwood wrote:
| I've always wondered about the "most advanced ____ we've ever
| made" phrase, it seems like almost like a silly tongue in cheek
| inside joke at this point. Does it date back to Jobs? They've
| used that exact turn of phrase for every product iteration as
| long as I can remember but I can't find any info on its origin.
| Maybe I'm hallucinating this?
| readyplayernull wrote:
| "AI for the rest of us."
|
| https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/
|
| We don't deserve so much advance.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| It's just going to be true forever.
| antisthenes wrote:
| I've always wondered what a VP of marketing does at a company
| that already has a de-facto monopoly on their biggest market as
| well as in the luxury segment worldwide.
|
| Come out once a year and say "we made this thing bigger and
| better"?
|
| Must be nice to get paid $25mil/year for that.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| It's not like that monopoly was handed to them. They have
| some of the best marketing in the world.
|
| There's a quote from the CEO of Coca-Cola I remember but
| can't find a source for, about why they still spend so much
| on advertising. When a pilot gets to cruising altitude, he
| doesn't shut down the engines.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| I've read that Apple marketing has a hand in product
| direction. But yeah, maybe they are paid more for what they
| don't say and keep others from saying. :)
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| In business school they teach you that product is part of
| the field of marketing. In that choosing what you bring to
| market is completely integrated with how you message it and
| that they should not be separated.
| uladzislau wrote:
| This is very underwhelming update, let's wait for the next year
| lcnmrn wrote:
| More buttons? Since I lost my power button on Pixel 5, I'm using
| it only with gestures: touch the fingerprint sensor to unlock,
| swipe down on home screen to lock it. I think a slider on the
| notification area can be used for volume up and down for a true
| buttonless experience something Steve Jobs would have loved.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Ironic, isn't it? when the iPhone first came the most different
| thing about it was that it had a very few buttons. they were
| telling stories about how Steve Jobs wanted to remove all the
| buttons. Now we have more and more buttons.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| the iphone apple makes today and the iphone steve jobs made
| are very different. No one can say what jobs would do
| nowadays ofc, but i believe he adhered to strict guideline
| like make it hold in one hand and simplify everything -> less
| buttons, less settings.
|
| I bet he is rolling in his grave when he sees this new icon
| color theming thing or what they did with the control center
| where there is now 5 different page of settings.
| teekert wrote:
| _" Powered by the faster, more efficient A18 Pro chip and built
| for Apple Intelligence, iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are
| the most advanced iPhone models we've ever made," said Greg
| Joswiak_
|
| Was hoping for: "We peaked last year, this iPhone is slightly
| worse in all dimensions compared to last year."
|
| Disappointed.
| swyx wrote:
| i clipped the 5 mins on apple intelligence here for those
| interested https://x.com/swyx/status/1833231875537850659
|
| notes:
|
| - photos/album search now includes video understanding, which imo
| seems very good from the first 2 examples they showed. includes
| scroll to exact time of the moment you describe.
|
| - Mail and Notifications will show summaries instead of str[:x]
|
| - Siri now knows iPhone, becomes the ultimate manual on how to
| use the increasingly complicated iOS 18. and can read your texts
| (!) to suggest actions with Personal Context Understanding (also
| it will try to advertise apple tv shows to you... i'm SURE it
| will be totally objective and aligned to your preferences
| amirite)
|
| - new iphone 16 camera control button is PRIME real estate -
| notice how OpenAI/ChatGPT is now next to Google search, and both
| are secondary clicks to Apple's visual search, which comes first
|
| - camera adds events to calendar!
|
| - "all done on device" and on cloud (though craig doesnt say that
| haha)
|
| overall i think insanely good ideas on ai + phone integrations.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| This is good but... all I wanted for Christmas was anti-spam
| that didn't suck donkey balls. Sigh.
| callalex wrote:
| They don't prevent spam abuse through their app push
| notifications, and don't even offer a way to report bad
| behavior. They are pro-spam.
| swyx wrote:
| i undersatnd i might come across as an apple shill/fanboi
| here but just pointing out that its fairly easy to punish
| any abusive app by killing their notifs and apple does
| sometimes make it easy to do that by letting u go straight
| to settings to kill the notif (i'm not conscious of when it
| does that but i think it does?)
| callalex wrote:
| No I can't. Here's an example: my security system app
| sends me push notifications when there is motion detected
| at times and places where there shouldn't be motion. I
| need these critical ("time sensitive" in Apple-ese)
| notifications. It also helpfully sends me random
| "SUBSCRIBE TO SOME ADD-ON SERVICE, 50% OFF SALE THIS
| WEEK" at all hours of the day and night. Sure I could rip
| out my entire security system and replace it but that's a
| lot of physical labor and wasted hardware.
|
| Another example is my air filter. It's nice to get a
| reminder when it's time to change the filter since it's
| so infrequent, but I can't get that notification without
| also getting spammed with "news" about new machines I
| should buy. Apple actively enables this behavior while
| claiming that spam is against their terms of service.
|
| They are clearly working for the spammers, not the user,
| because they profit off of their cut.
| samatman wrote:
| This can always be turned off using in-app settings. It's
| an App Store requirement. Note: in-app settings, not
| general settings for the app. Check. It's there.
|
| > _Make sure people can manage their notification
| settings within your app. In addition to requesting
| permission to send informational or marketing
| notifications, you must also provide an in-app settings
| screen that lets people change their choice. For
| guidance, see Settings._
|
| https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
| guideline...
| gffrd wrote:
| Did you say spam?? Boy have we got the thing for you!
|
| Take a picture of a restaurant? Hey, did you know it's a
| place you can make a reservation at?
|
| Your friend mentions a song offhand? Psst ... wanna play it
| now?
|
| Don't forget about how your cousin talked about that AppleTV+
| series!
| gffrd wrote:
| Joking aside, I'm very curious how (or if) this gets
| implemented in a way that doesn't isn't suffocating.
| schmidtleonard wrote:
| I quite like AppleTV's content choices, but I am not
| looking forward to getting shilled on it. Again. In
| between the other spam that they don't block. Ahhhhhg!
|
| ("Get an Android?" Yeah, I hear you, I switch ecosystems
| in anger with every phone, which is why I am so keenly
| aware of how badly Apple's anti-spam sucks -- but also
| why I am not over the moon at the prospect of my next
| switch: I know where the Android skeletons are buried,
| although hope springs eternal.)
| thih9 wrote:
| > "all done on device" and on cloud
|
| The real indicator for me is: how many of these features are
| not available in the EU due to privacy concerns. Do we know
| that?
| bengale wrote:
| It's all Apple Intelligence and that's not coming to the EU
| currently.
| akmarinov wrote:
| They said France next year, so i guess they're working
| through it
| manmal wrote:
| I think they say French (the language), but that might be
| for people outside the EU. German is notably missing from
| their list, though it's a bigger market for Apple than
| French.
| a13n wrote:
| lots of the US has similar legislation to GDPR at this point,
| e.g CCPA
| eptcyka wrote:
| Privacy concerns? They're just trying to bully the EU.
| There's no legal or technical reason iOS 18's remote access
| features wouldn't work in EU, but alas, they do not.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _no legal or technical reason iOS 18 's remote access
| features wouldn't work in EU_
|
| How do you know that? (How much of your net worth are you
| willing to bet on it?)
|
| Between GDPR, the DMA and now the AI Act, there is a _lot_
| of unique regulatory cross section that Apple has in the
| EU. It would be surprising if there weren 't additional
| legal checks it had to do, internally and on its suppliers,
| before launching a product or feature in the EU.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Because the same exact tech, remote desktop access on
| macOS, has been working fine for years. That's how I know
| this has nothing to do with DMA, GDPR and the AI act.
| Yes, there might be AI features that are gatekept due to
| DMA and GDPR, cool, that is kind of understandable. But
| they also threw a hissy fit and excluded the EU from
| having lots of unrelated functionality. Or, maybe,
| they're really doing something horribly wrong if they
| can't be in compliance with GDPR when sharing a screen of
| your phone on your macbook.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the same exact tech, remote desktop access on macOS,
| has been working fine for years. That 's how I know this
| has nothing to do with DMA_
|
| Apple just got dinged under the DMA [1][2]. The text of
| the law may not have changed, but the reality of its
| meaning has.
|
| > _they 're really doing something horribly wrong if they
| can't be in compliance with GDPR_
|
| The point is verifying you are in compliance with a law
| has costs. Plenty of start-ups, for instance, are better
| off geoblocking jurisdictions they don't have the
| resources to comply with but don't want to accidentally
| do something illegal in. Not because they think they're
| violating anything. But because it isn't worth losing (a)
| nimbleness over or (b) future access to. (Common ones
| being the EU, China and India.) Apple isn't a start-up.
| But they probably don't want their design team to be half
| staffed with lawyers either.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/01/apple-
| announces-chang...
|
| [2] https://www.beuc.eu/sites/default/files/publications/
| BEUC-X-...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The Mac is not classified as a "gatekeeper"
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Nor should Apple be. Apple is a gatekeeper to one thing:
| its own app store. That's why lumping Apple in with the
| rest of "big tech" is ignorant.
| runako wrote:
| DMA allows EU regulators to designate certain platforms
| as gatekeepers. Platforms that are designated gatekeepers
| are subject to different requirements under EU law than
| those that are not designated gatekeepers. The EU
| designated iOS as a gatekeeper[1], but did not do the
| same for MacOS.
|
| So while you are correct that there is no technical
| barrier, you are incorrect that they are the same under
| EU regulation. Involving EU regulators in product design
| for designated gatekeepers was the entire point of the
| law, so this is the desired effect. Regulators want the
| flexibility to e.g. work with the gatekeeper to design
| feature modifications, like the default browser selection
| screen[2], for other aspects of designated gatekeeper
| platforms.
|
| One can choose to see this as good or bad, but this is
| clearly the intent of the law.
|
| 1 - https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en
| /ip_23_...
|
| 2 - https://developer.apple.com/support/browser-choice-
| screen/#:....
| daedrdev wrote:
| Its straight up unclear what compliance means in the EU, by
| design as they literally decided to figure out what the law
| they already passed later
| fundad wrote:
| I don't even think it's a question anymore, they opted out
| of new features on non-European handsets. Gemini is
| probably already on Nokia phones for all we know.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _real indicator for me is: how many of these features are
| not available in the EU due to privacy concerns_
|
| Lawyers and lobbyists are still getting their heads around
| the EU's AI Act [1].
|
| [1] https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/high-level-summary/
| jcz_nz wrote:
| EU ruled that Apple cannot link components. This suggests
| that Apple would need to provide API's to allow competitors
| to be listed alongside the "Apple AI", or any device to
| enable screen remote control (ala remote iPhone control). If
| you're a dev, you might appreciate why that is an absolute
| PIA from a software perspective. Since they want to bring
| these features to market ASAP, launching now and foregoing
| the EU is a sensible step. Huxley sends his regards, really.
| panarky wrote:
| "Insanely good ideas"?
|
| With the months of nonstop and over-the-top hype of "Apple
| Intelligence" these all seem underwhelming.
|
| Even in the idealized world of demoware there's no killer
| feature, not to mention that none of it is even available to
| real customers yet.
|
| I was expecting something only Apple could do with their vast
| ecosystem of IP and partnerships, the must-have cool new thing
| that would stimulate a leap in demand for iPhone.
|
| It's hard to see how any of this is enough to trigger a new
| upgrade cycle instead of just waiting until battery life goes
| to shit or the screen cracks so you have to upgrade.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Semantic search was always going to be the killer feature of
| this AI boom. But it's just a cherry on top of existing
| software and requires training users to expand what they
| think is possible.
| wwweston wrote:
| As far as I can tell, AI is one of several features that
| have actively made search worse. There are a handful of
| novel things it does well enough, but I'd rather engage
| those in their own LLM sandbox than have the facilities
| formerly available in a searchbox replaced with a guessbox.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| What kind of search has it made worse? I'm not talking
| about Google search. I'm talking about searching your
| personal collection of emails or photos or text messages.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I would guess is you're probably in the minority with
| that opinion.
| swyx wrote:
| 1) i am as ready to shit on apple and siri as the next guy,
| but imo the HN cynicism is overbearing here. apple isnt
| building to impress internet neckbeards like us. they are
| building for the normies. features they understand
| intuitively and cannot fuck up. maybe wait til it gets in the
| normies hands to judge. ~none of us here know what its like
| to work on a hardware/software platform for >1 billion?
| people.
|
| 2) i actually do think dedicated visual intelligence button
| IS a killer feature. suddenly phone is ai's view into the
| world. yes probably v1 today will disappoint. but 5 years
| from now the kids will laugh when we say we had to take
| photos and upload them to an app back in our day. or manually
| enter in any information from the real world into our
| calendars and emails and texts.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Highly doubt normies give a crap about any of this.
| consteval wrote:
| What? How could you possibly say that? They can take a
| picture of something and then auto make a note, or a
| reminder, or an email, or find out what it is.
|
| Normies struggle with the nuance of devices. They
| understand what they want, they don't understand steps,
| like start here then do this, then go here and copy this,
| then go there. This SKIPS all the steps. This is huge for
| them, but (probably) just mildly convenient for others.
| hobermallow wrote:
| >find out what it is
|
| Google Googles did this 13 years ago
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Goggles
|
| It remains interesting to me how much we have been able
| to do, already, with technology. But discoverability,
| walled gardens, and <hand
| waving>marketing/positioning/hype</hand waving> have
| obscured awareness/adoption.
| motoxpro wrote:
| Asking when your moms flight gets in, to pull up the
| picture of you and your partner on vacation at the beach
| or to take a picture of a restaurant from afar at 5x zoom
| and get reviews is insanely nice.
|
| This is the perfect use of AI, at least for me.
| randmeerkat wrote:
| > apple isnt building to impress internet neckbeards like
| us. they are building for the normies. features they
| understand intuitively and cannot fuck up. maybe wait til
| it gets in the normies hands to judge.
|
| Apple has lost its way, just look at how the "normies" and
| the "neckbeards" responded to the Vision Pro. Apple doesn't
| know how to innovate anymore, just how to market, and mass
| produce things, which is honestly good enough to keep
| making money for now.
| lurking_swe wrote:
| you're suggesting apple planned to sell a $3.5k headset
| to normies? That doesn't make sense. Sure, many normies
| had an opinion on it. Most normies never tried it so i
| don't care what they think. It's like asking a normie 20
| years ago about what driving an electric car is like.
|
| Vision pro was an over-hyped dev kit that offers a taste
| of the future. That's it.
| jdsully wrote:
| They have classes full of "normies" trying them out every
| time I pass by my local store. Sure looks like its meant
| to be something other than a dev kit to me.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _Apple has lost its way, just look at how the "normies"
| and the "neckbeards" responded to the Vision Pro._
|
| Such people are likely confused. The AVP makes sense as a
| high end POC and dev kit. It takes a minute for a new
| modality of computing to make sense to people, even for
| Apple's own devs to figure out how people can use it, to
| iterate the OS and default app suite for a few years.
| najork wrote:
| Agreed, and Apple's differentiator has always been seamless
| integration. With the iPhone, they own the boundary layer
| between the physical and digital worlds. It's an obvious
| place to introduce AI for daily tasks without requiring any
| behavioral changes from the users.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| I agree but all the normies I know say Siri is shit or just
| have it disabled
|
| They aren't that dumb to think calling it now Apple
| intelligence powered will make Siri work
| awfulneutral wrote:
| As a "tech person" I feel like we've all been told for 20+
| years that we can't have UX that makes any sense to us, or
| lets us do simple things we want to do, because we are
| power users and software has to cater to some imagined
| demographic of incredibly dumb people who can't understand
| basic computing metaphors. It can get frustrating.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Which would be fine if they easily allowed us to write
| software and scripts for our own devices.
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| I'm a Growth Engineer. What that actually means is "make
| the UI so incredibly simple people who are functionally
| illiterate somehow make their way to the place you want
| them to be so you can eventually monetize them".
|
| I view users moving through interfaces in a mass
| abstracted form like electrical or hydrological currents.
| My job is to widen the pipes.
| awfulneutral wrote:
| Well, cynically that fits with my own experience. :) But
| I don't know if I'd say it's simpler, just that you don't
| have any choices. For me Apple UX often feels complicated
| and I can't figure out how to do what I want, or figure
| out what is going to happen when I accept some dialog
| they want me to accept. But I guess I end up going
| through the pipe eventually, out of frustration.
|
| My impression of my non-tech friends is that they aren't
| too dumb to follow instructions, they just don't enjoy
| operating a computer like I do, so they are more okay
| with their choices being restricted if they don't have to
| waste time doing something they find boring.
| afavour wrote:
| > With the months of nonstop and over-the-top hype of "Apple
| Intelligence" these all seem underwhelming.
|
| None of that was coming from Apple, though. I don't think
| they can be held responsible for hype that gets put on them.
|
| IMO these are all solid moves into AI integration without
| getting carried away by hype and doing things that will have
| very middling results.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| True. All the whining was coming from lazy "industry
| observers" who never mustered up an example of what,
| exactly, they expected Apple to be doing with "AI."
| refulgentis wrote:
| Yeah all of that annoying whining was from them. No one
| other than "lazy" ""industry observers"" were expecting
| "so-called AI" stuff from Apple.
| refulgentis wrote:
| We just watched an Apple event where they discuss Apple
| Intelligence.
|
| My understanding is people knew Apple Intelligence existed
| before this event.
|
| Is it accurate to say Apple wasn't involved at all in
| touting it? All external parties? Sounds wrong to my ear
| falcolas wrote:
| It was brought up in their software yearly event - WWDC.
| It was actually a pretty big part of that keynote, even
| as it was light on details.
| swyx wrote:
| idk if its that light on details tbh:
|
| - https://buttondown.com/ainews/archive/ainews-talaria-
| apples-...
|
| - https://buttondown.com/ainews/archive/ainews-apple-
| intellige...
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Apple called AI "Apple intelligence". It's on them to live
| up to that smug claim. They didn't
| ricardobeat wrote:
| I think you're seriously underestimating the impact of
| actually-useful and reliable AI features at your fingertips.
| This is what everyone imagined computers would be, since I
| don't know... the 80s?
| manquer wrote:
| Nice to have sure, enough to consider spending upwards of
| $1000 on upgrade? don't think so.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Siri (for all the absurd whining about it) met those
| expectations 10 years ago.
| Mainsail wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of the Apple Knowledge Navigator.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=umJsITGzXd0
| robterrell wrote:
| Great opportunity for someone to make a side by side
| comparison video & go viral.
| concinds wrote:
| They showed up the full Apple Intelligence featureset at WWDC
| months ago. This was a shorter recap.
| gffrd wrote:
| Thanks for noting this. I was surprised how little it
| featured into today's announcement, so this fills in the
| picture.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Technically it's an iOS 18 feature rather than a phone
| feature, except the only previous phone model with the
| hardware for all of it is the iPhone 15 Pro, so it
| doesn't really feel like an iOS 18 feature
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Like what? People have been whining "where's the innovation"
| for years about phones, totally ignoring the fact that this
| is a mature product category.
|
| Where's the innovation in word processors?
|
| At this point, we're often talking about regression. Apple
| removed the audio output from its best-selling music player.
| It removed TouchID. It removed the SIM slot.
|
| You know what would be "innovative?" Making a goddamned phone
| that can withstand being used for its primary purpose. The
| failure of the iPhone's design has been confirmed by millions
| upon millions of people, who have concluded that they must
| bury their "thin, elegant" phones in bulky, tacky cases. You
| have to shake your head at Apple's breathless announcement of
| NEW COLORS!!!! when the vast majority of them will never be
| seen.
|
| Then there's the fact that Apple ignores an entire market:
| men who don't wear cargo pants all day every day. Maybe some
| of us don't want to look like a schlub with a TV tray jammed
| into his pocket (again, made even worse with a dumb case).
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| The moment you think a portable electronic system is a
| mature product category is the moment you become 'old
| guard'.
|
| Edit: and currently, that looks to be you and the entire
| iPhone engineering team
| gffrd wrote:
| > there's no killer feature
|
| You know when you go to a restaurant and the menu is like 3
| different cuisines, it's 12 pages, and each page has 20+
| items?
|
| The Intelligence section of the presentation felt a bit like
| that.
|
| Generally, I was surprised how lightly Intelligence featured
| into the keynote: it wasn't a standalone talking point,
| nothing on the Apple site talks to it directly. It's
| conspicuous, given that they've dedicated hardware real
| estate to it ... and the hype cycle.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Didn't it have a pretty large thing on the keynote where it
| was actually announced?
| canucker2016 wrote:
| No, Apple Intelligence is worse.
|
| I go to a restaurant and look at the menu/see a commercial
| on TV, I can usually order the item now (other than films).
|
| Apple Intelligence - certain feature(s) (can't recall now)
| are US-only in November, rolling out to other English-
| speaking countries in December. No idea when non English-
| speaking countries will get that feature.
|
| Who knows what Apple Intelligence features are in the
| device on day 1?
| influx wrote:
| I thought you were going to say the iPhone would be able to
| load the QR code for that menu, summarize it, sort it by
| ingredient or calories and give you a recommendation
| without you having to read it... Now I'm kinda bummed out.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Apple rarely ever innovates, so it's not surprising these new
| features seem underwhelming. What Apple does best is to
| perfect (others') existing ideas so that they work more much
| more reliably than the competition. The number one pain point
| of technology today is that hardly any of it consistently
| works correctly more than 95% of the time. But when Apple
| releases a feature, it works 99% of the time instead. That's
| their key differentiator.
| leptons wrote:
| >But when Apple releases a feature, it works 99% of the
| time instead.
|
| "You're holding it wrong" - Steve Jobs
| conception wrote:
| On device and not shared with advertisers is the Only Apple
| can do part.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > photos/album search now includes video understanding, which
| imo seems very good from the first 2 examples they showed.
| includes scroll to exact time of the moment you describe.
|
| This is a killer feature. Everyone can understand the
| usefulness of just describing the video moment you want to
| find. Digging through years worth of photos and videos
| looking for that one specific moment can be a huge chore when
| you want to show it to someone.
| boringg wrote:
| The part I am most interested in is how much of it is on device
| and how much of your data is trained only on your own model vs
| hovered up into a larger model.
|
| On device, my own model. Great.
| DidYaWipe wrote:
| Totally. I am down for decreased dependence on connectivity
| and remote servers.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| "- camera adds events to calendar!"
|
| I'm on iOS 18.0 on my iPhone 15 Pro, rather that the 18.1 with
| the "AI". Recently had an eye doctor appt for one of my
| children and they scheduled a follow-up, giving me a little
| card with the details. I was in a hurry so took a picture of it
| intending to enter the calendar event later, and it immediately
| pulled up a fully-filled in, completely accurate new calendar
| event. Little affordance that is just so nice.
|
| Indeed, in general the camera is getting...crazy. We have a
| pair of Maine Coon kittens and every picture is tagged with
| Maine Coon, despite the cats barely even coming into the
| breed's features yet. Constantly amazed at the stuff the built
| in camera is identifying.
| swyx wrote:
| oh so you're saying this is not an Apple Intelligence
| feature? its a little hard to tell
| m_mueller wrote:
| It's Apple Intelligent, not Apple Intelligence! When are
| you finally getting it! And no, we don't abbreviate it
| ever! Look, a new button! _runs away_
| llm_nerd wrote:
| They have their big generative AI push with 18.1, broadly
| called Apple Intelligence, but they've been building so
| many AI inference features for a few iterations now, with
| the camera and Photos getting loads of those additions.
| Object detection, subject identification, text extraction,
| etc, though this was the first time I've taken a picture of
| an appointment card and had it automate extraction like
| this.
|
| I feel like loads of these features just quietly appear to
| be randomly discovered by users.
|
| So it's AI, but not the big hype stuff that gets most of
| the attention.
| pants2 wrote:
| I have a hilarious list of animals that my cat has been
| misclassified as by my iPhone. Everything from a beetle to a
| nematode. It doesn't give me a lot of confidence in these
| features!
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| Beetle and Nematode a perfect kitty names though.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yeah I took a photo of a weird moth in my house the other
| day, and accidentally scrolled up the next day to realise
| that the iPhone had categorised it as the exact species - a
| Poplar Hawk Moth. I was stunned. Didn't even have to google
| for 5 minutes, the camera already knew.
| nashashmi wrote:
| [delayed]
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Anything that's going to recommend Apple TV shows (or any other
| product) to me is an automatic turn-off. I'll keep all of Siri
| off if I have to.
| 015a wrote:
| I have this sinking suspicion that the AI segment today was so
| quick, so high level, and so future-tense ("Siri will be able
| to..."), identical to the similar segment at WWDC; I have to
| wonder how many of these features we'll actually see. I'm
| getting vibes like the old "Facetime will be an open protocol"
| promise; its like someone is making them do this, their soul
| isn't in it, and for that reason they _still_ don 't have one
| narrative for why I should care. Instead, they have a quickfire
| list of twenty features, the titles of twenty epics from their
| jira.
|
| The iPhone 16's camera button will gain the ability to soft-
| press to lock focus "later this year". Their software teams are
| _so_ incredibly far behind, the new phone has literally one new
| feature, a feature medically prescribed to induce drowsiness,
| yet they can 't even get the software for it finished for
| release.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| I think Apple will be the first to realize nobody wants to
| pay for "ai features", and they are hella expensive to
| support
| baxuz wrote:
| As someone whose mother tongue isn't English, and whose
| residence isn't the US, apple intelligence is basically useless
| to me. Like every other ai assistant gimmick out there.
| melenaboija wrote:
| > overall i think insanely good ideas on ai + phone
| integrations.
|
| Mmmmm, feels disappointing to me if that is all we get from a
| multi trillion tech company + multi trillion technology
| miguelrochefort wrote:
| I predicted those features weeks ago [1], but I still feel they
| could do so much more. If anything, their implementation feels
| like a rushed afterthought.
|
| In their demos, they use the action button to capture an
| ambient song for Shazam, the power button to capture a voice
| command for Siri, and the camera button for an image for Visual
| Intelligence. All 3 captures should be performed using the same
| button.
|
| And screenshots still require pressing 2 buttons
| simultaneously. Unless you want to share your screen with Siri
| in which case it's the power button...
|
| People are going to use this button as a voice recorder, and
| Apple will announce native support next year.
|
| [1] https://miguelrochefort.com/blog/capture-button
| xavdid wrote:
| > Mail and Notifications will show summaries instead of str[:x]
|
| While it's true that the first x characters of an email don't
| always have the most important bits, they're never _wrong_.
| It's always exactly what's in the email.
|
| I'm worried about cases like this [0], where a summary is
| inaccurate or misleading. It may not happen often, but it's
| possible, so I have to be a little skeptical of every summary.
| Though I can see where AI summaries are a plus, the move from
| 100% accurate to <100% feels like a big downgrade.
|
| [0]:
| https://mastodon.macstories.net/@johnvoorhees/11288700482217...
| bartekpacia wrote:
| The thing I liked the most about this event was the beautiful
| places where the presenters were. Outlook on Golden Gate, Coit
| Tower, Palace of Fine Arts, De Young... loved that!
| heystefan wrote:
| Huh, I thought some of those were green screen.
| siamese_puff wrote:
| I don't even click these anymore.
| gibsonf1 wrote:
| I hope all the LLM features can be disabled.
| flowerlad wrote:
| All I want is for Apple to fix speech recognition in iMessage.
| Not sure if that's in this release. They demo'd AI text review
| and rewrite but not LLM speech recognition.
|
| I currently use ChatGPT for it's accurate speech recognition then
| copy/paste into iMessage.
| coder543 wrote:
| In my experience, iOS 18 makes it better, but no, it is still
| not as good as Whisper Large, which is what OpenAI uses behind
| the scenes.
|
| You can run smaller Whisper models on your phone through
| various third party apps, and those options work well too.
| (Trying to run Whisper Large even on the iPhone 15 Pro Max is
| asking too much... it works, but only barely.)
| flowerlad wrote:
| Looks like I can skip iPhone 15 then. Will upgrade when it
| can run Whisper Large locally... hopefully iPhone 20 or
| sooner.
| EcommerceFlow wrote:
| ATT is offering $1,000 trade in for Iphone 12 - 15, an amazing
| deal for those with slightly older iphones. Obviously it pays off
| over 36 months, but I don't see myself switching anytime soon so
| it works out. I think the others have similar deals too.
| thimabi wrote:
| It seems too good to be true. Surely they are offering _up to_
| $1,000 trade-in for iPhones beginning with the iPhone 12,
| right?
| asadotzler wrote:
| Correct, _up_ _to_ , which translates to about $200 for your
| iPhone 12.
| HeavenFox wrote:
| imho these high trade in offers are basically carrier-
| subsidized phones in new clothes: in exchange of a discount,
| you agree to stick with the carrier and phone for the next 3
| years. And the discount may not be that great! You can get
| plenty of money if you sell the phone yourself.
| jron wrote:
| Can I install my own applications on it yet?
| dmix wrote:
| > Featuring a new 48MP Fusion camera with a faster quad-pixel
| sensor that enables 4K120 fps video recording in Dolby Vision,
| these new Pro models achieve the highest resolution and frame-
| rate combination ever available on iPhone
|
| Every iPhone generation makes YouTube video quality slightly
| better as it's what a lot of people use. That plus social media.
|
| Camera quality is quite amazing these days
| parker-3461 wrote:
| Given that they had to upgrade to a new camera sensor to get
| faster readout speed, I'm wondering if they actually changed to
| a better sensor with improved pixel size and light sensitivity.
|
| I have read the official press release but it seems like there
| is no mentions of this.
|
| Might need to wait for the ifixit tear down in ~10 days.
|
| Edit 1: there has been some discussions that eventually the
| Sony IMX903 would be used, but not sure when that will actually
| eventuate.
| dmix wrote:
| A big part of it for content creators is stuff like this
|
| > You can capture 4K 120 fps ProRes and log recordings to an
| external storage device -- a big plus for pro editing
| workflows that demand a high frame rate and colour grading
| control.
|
| Might make a dent in mirrorless sales, just w/o the lenses
| shadowtree wrote:
| Well, Gurman was right - the 16 phones will not trigger a big
| upgrade cycle.
|
| 17 might, as it would indicate Apple is taking a breath.
|
| Or, of course, we'll never get a supercycle again till someone
| iphones the iPhone.
| spike021 wrote:
| I have a 12 Pro and was thinking I'd upgrade. Usually I'd opt for
| the Pro tier but this cycle I think I'll actually go for the
| regular 16. There just doesn't seem to be enough there for
| someone like me. Which is maybe the point? I liked having the
| better camera system but these days they show all this extra
| stuff I don't use my phone camera for anyway. I have a Sony a7iii
| for the fancy stuff.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Disappointed again there is no small version... I can't figure
| out why anyone wants to carry these massive phones everywhere. To
| me the major advantage of mobile tech should be it getting
| smaller and lighter each generation. Especially since nowadays it
| can wirelessly use whatever big screen happens to already be
| wherever you are anyways.
|
| To me the old iphones with 4" screens were a good start, and I
| was hoping they'd get smaller and lighter as the tech got
| better... an iPhone 5 was 3.95oz, now iphones weigh 6-7 ounces.
| maxglute wrote:
| Finally. More buttons. I miss those 5 way toggle switches on old
| gadgets. The wheels you can flick up, down, hold, and press.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Meh... it's still too heavy, too large, and the camera sticks out
| too far.
| callalex wrote:
| The biggest innovation they could have at this point would be the
| price, but that will never happen.
| lysace wrote:
| Gotta preserve that 50% profit margin (ish).
| adamwk wrote:
| It happens every year? Just buy the iPhone 15, which will drop
| in price next week.
| pil0u wrote:
| Should I replace my iPhone 7 with this one?
| jmmcd wrote:
| You see a cute dog in the park, and click the special button to
| find out what breed it is - amazing!
|
| But I know what Steve Jobs would have said to this. Just go up
| and ask the girl what breed her dog is, and get to know her.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I'm conflicted.
|
| It's absolutely stunning what smartphones can do these days and
| Apple makes an excellent product. It feels ungrateful and cynical
| to keep calling new models "boring".
|
| The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several
| generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user.
|
| She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she
| notice Pro-motion.
|
| You can add a million features to the camera app but she opens it
| and presses the shutter. Her only awareness of features is when
| she accidentally enables one and doesn't know how to get back.
|
| You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't
| notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features
| released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know
| they even exist.
|
| All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her
| as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group
| and Pinterest.
|
| You might assume my girlfriend is perhaps lowly educated or just
| not tech savvy. Wrong, she's highly educated, even works in IT,
| although not in an engineering role. It's not that she's unable
| to understand the advances, she simply doesn't care.
|
| It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies.
| Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their
| current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years.
|
| I think this is also why Apple put many Pro features into the
| regular model. Most people don't buy the pro and they're
| desperate for selling points in the regular model.
|
| If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their
| business would collapse.
| GenerocUsername wrote:
| Apple is a trillion dollar battery company.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The joke I want to make is they make phones that are as
| fragile as glass and that's why people replace them so
| often... but they actually make phones out of glass that are
| stupidly fragile. It's equally stupid that you have to buy
| this thing and put a protective case on it that increases
| it's size x%.
|
| Why is the back of my phone glass. Why does the front of my
| phone have 0 protection from the glass hitting whatever it is
| dropped on?
|
| This has to be on purpose. Or maybe in an opposite direction,
| their stock would likely drop a considerable amount if they
| made a phone you could drop on concrete with only minor
| blemishes.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| It's because the alternative is plastic. Hard to sell a
| phone for 1000 dollars when its made out of plastic.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Ceramic back? Titanium? Diamond? Anything but a glass
| back please. Why not even the option? A bezel around the
| rim?
| amelius wrote:
| They're not making phones. They make vending machines that
| go in your pocket.
| bouke wrote:
| MagSafe
| nemothekid wrote:
| I have been using the iPhone without a case since the
| iPhone 6. I think the fragility of iPhone displays is
| incredibly overblown. The idea that Apple is purposefully
| making the displays "weak" is unfounded.
|
| People buy cases because they _feel_ their $1,000 slab of
| metal must be protected.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Also because the camera bulge means the phone can't lay
| flat on a flat surface without a case.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Original iPhone SE was peak smartphone.
|
| Same camera hardware as the flagship 6s, but more
| comfortable to use one-handed and the camera lens was
| flush with the back.
| veber-alex wrote:
| I shared your mentality.
|
| I didn't get a case when I bought my 15 pro.
|
| For two weeks I was without a case, dropped the phone two
| or three times.
|
| Screen got scratched in 3 places and the paint chipped
| from around the bazel.
|
| Went into a store and got a case.
| treflop wrote:
| Hit concrete in the right corner on an iPhone and it will
| break.
|
| For me, it's just not worth it. Had iPhones break while
| on trips and it's just an absolute hassle dealing with
| replacements, especially when there aren't Apple stores
| for hours, while I can just put on a protector and done.
|
| (Plus I think a clear case looks really nice and brings a
| retro Casio vibe.)
| gizmo wrote:
| The iPhone is not fragile. It's astonishing how sturdy it
| is. Even without a case you can drop it on concrete and
| most of the time you get nothing more than a scuff. With a
| case a phone can take an absurd amount of abuse. Many
| people don't even bother with a case anymore. I suspect
| people would be a lot more careful with their iPhone if
| they shared your opinion.
| israrkhan wrote:
| 3.36 Trillion as of today.
| paxys wrote:
| > All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on
| her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video
| group and Pinterest.
|
| Gonna disagree with this one. Tell me, does using an iPhone
| today feel significantly faster than the top model 2-3 years
| ago or even 10 years ago? Does the battery last a lot longer
| than it did back then? Apple certainly claims this is the case
| in their marketing every year. The answer however is no,
| because with every increase in computing power and battery
| size, the OS and all the apps on it get that much more resource
| hungry. The entire ecosystem is designed to get users to _need_
| to upgrade every ~2-3 years, otherwise they will start to feel
| the lag.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _does using an iPhone today feel significantly faster than
| one from 2-3 years ago?_
|
| Yes. Absolutely. We just forget that opening an app--or
| restarting the device, or recovering from airplane mode--was
| an action that incurred a noticeable delay once and does not
| tend to anymore.
| amelius wrote:
| Sorry but you just contradicted yourself.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _you just contradicted yourself_
|
| Where?
| 0xFF0123 wrote:
| I assume their logic is that if we have forgotten what
| that feels like then it doesn't in practice feel any
| different.
| ben_w wrote:
| Ah, memories of RISC OS from school in the 90s. Instant
| boot, instead of the minute or so for Win95 and System
| 7.5.5...
| jen729w wrote:
| As an iPhone 12 mini daily-driver who also owns a 15 Pro
| Max (which I use exclusively to shoot video), I have to
| disagree.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _an iPhone 12 mini daily-driver who also owns a 15 Pro
| Max (which I use exclusively to shoot video), I have to
| disagree_
|
| Out of curiosity, where? I went from the 12 something to
| the 15 Pro and the speed in connecting to networks and
| rendering pages was memorable. Now I don't notice it
| anymore; the old phone is just slow.
| jen729w wrote:
| In fairness I'm not a heavy iPhone user. Hence still
| having a 12 mini. It's rare (~never) that I'm 'browsing
| the web' on it. If I'm in Safari it's for some functional
| reason and I'm in and out.
|
| Still, I can't say I've ever thought, _jeez, this thing
| is slow to render a page_.
|
| > the speed in connecting to networks
|
| I'm not even sure what you mean. Connecting to 4G? a)
| mine's practically instant and b) how often are you doing
| this?!
|
| (Not being snarky there. Genuinely don't understand how
| this is a thing someone would notice. But you may have a
| different use-case to me.)
| ajross wrote:
| Is opening an app on an iPhone 13 actually noticeably slow?
| What you're saying is true if you go back to a distant
| enough horizon, of course, but... 2-3 years? I don't really
| see it.
|
| I'm on the other side of the fence, and just replaced a
| Pixel 7 with a 9. And quite frankly I bought it because I
| was Supposed To. I'm sure there are benchmarks to say
| otherwise, but routine use is basically instant on both and
| absent a professional desire I quite frankly would have
| just waited until I broke it.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Mostly that's because RAM has increased enough to let the
| OS do things while multiple apps stay resident. Phones from
| 5 years ago were still handheld supercomputers, just
| hobbled by limited memory and code bloat.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Completely wrong. As an iPhone 12 User there is 0 perceived
| difference to iPhone 15 in day to day usage performance.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Completely wrong. As an iPhone 12 User there is 0
| perceived difference to iPhone 15 in day to day usage
| performance_
|
| This obviously revolves around what one perceives. Data
| speeds on mobile are objectively faster on their newer
| devices [1]. But we normalise those speeds without
| needing additional cruft; waiting for a page to load just
| ceases to be a thing one notices except when it doesn't
| work.
|
| [1] https://www.opensignal.com/2023/09/07/users-should-
| upgrade-t...
| nicoburns wrote:
| Eh, iPhones are pretty fast. I think a lot of older model
| just need a battery replacement. I was using an iPhone 6S
| until last year and it was certainly slower than the latest
| models, but not dramatically so. The bigger difference was
| the camera quality which has improved dramatically in 7
| years.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I agree that this effect exists but it's not as strong as it
| was in early generation models.
| jwells89 wrote:
| I've noticed overall improvements in responsiveness as well
| as the number of apps that can stay in memory without some
| getting evicted, though the latter is most noticeable when
| using smaller indie sorts of apps (think Ivory for Mastodon,
| Narwhal for Reddit, etc) which are on average built more
| efficiently and aren't dragging around a metric ton of
| tracking garbage.
| keyle wrote:
| Agree with what you wrote. That said quality of life things
| such as pro motion and increase battery life are noticeable.
|
| Scrolling at 120hz is butter smooth and improves the UX quite a
| lot. While battery life is peace of mind that you don't have to
| worry about.
|
| What ticks me off is OpenAI integration in my private life. I
| really like chatGPT as a daily google box but I hate the idea
| of it meddling in my private information. That's a big no no.
| veber-alex wrote:
| So don't enable it.
|
| ChatGPT is optional.
| keyle wrote:
| I wasn't sure, thanks
| Gud wrote:
| Until it isn't.
|
| Try using CarPlay without enabling Siri.
| _ph_ wrote:
| Siri doesn't use ChatGPT
| yunwal wrote:
| The parent comment is saying once an optional feature
| gains enough traction, Apple will make it mandatory.
| shuckles wrote:
| Apple very reasonably has decided using your phone while
| driving requires voice support. It's not about
| "traction."
| kridsdale3 wrote:
| My car's mic is dogshit, so this has not been a problem
| at all for me for a decade. What's so critical about car
| Siri?
| ghaff wrote:
| >If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their
| business would collapse.
|
| I was with you up to there. Do you really think that people are
| so lazy or stupid that they wouldn't go to any of the zillion
| battery replacement places (including Apple Stores) rather than
| buying a new $1K-$1.5K device?
| digital_sawzall wrote:
| I have a 2015 Macbook pro and an iphone 11 that works great
| save for that they don't hold a charge.
|
| I would happily spend a several hundreds dollars to save
| these and continue to use them, or give one to my parents or
| kid, but I can't find someone who will do a battery
| replacement. I live in Austin TX and have called 3-5
| different apple repair shops. If I can't find someone to do
| it in a city with the second largest Apple office in the
| world, I don't think anyone else will be able to.
| riley_dog wrote:
| Apple will replace the battery on your iphone for $89 and
| your macbook for $249.
|
| Source: https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-
| replacement and https://support.apple.com/mac/repair
| HomeDeLaPot wrote:
| Following the link on the Mac page, it looks like Apple
| will not repair a 2015 Macbook Pro:
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772
|
| > Obsolete: ... MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early
| 2015), MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)...
| 39896880 wrote:
| >Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only
| repair period for up to 10 years from when the product
| was last distributed for sale, subject to parts
| availability.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Yeah they started gluing in the batteries to the macbooks
| around then. RIP.
| bfung wrote:
| https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement
|
| Fill in the form and send your iphone 11 in for battery
| replacement.
|
| I've done this a few times w/different iphone models, works
| great, no fuss. The several days w/o the phone is nice
| forced social media detox.
| ecliptik wrote:
| I've replaced the battery on my 2015 MacBook Pro with one
| from iFixit [1]. They're a huge pain though, since they're
| glued to the inside of the case and requires using a
| solvent to get the battery out.
|
| It has held a charge for the last few years well. The other
| issue I had with a laptop this old was cooling. Ended up
| swapping out the fans and heatsink/heatpipe and am
| expecting to get another couple years out of it.
|
| 1. https://www.ifixit.com/products/macbook-pro-15-retina-
| late-2...
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The thinnest teflon turner worked fine for me, no solvent
| needed. 2 TiB nvme disk worked fine too with OLPC MacOS
| 14
| 39896880 wrote:
| If you're in South Austin, the Apple Store in Barton Creek
| Mall will help you. For North Austin, it's in The Domain.
| phil21 wrote:
| Yes. Because it's a giant pita to drop your phone off and be
| without it for an indefinite period of time (if something
| goes wrong). For a device worth a couple hundred dollars it
| typically makes more sense to trade it in and simply upgrade.
|
| Especially if you are paranoid and refuse to hand a third
| party your phone full of private data. If I need to wipe and
| restore that is a huge time sink I'd rather future proof
| against.
|
| It's the pain and uncertainty factor.
| iteratethis wrote:
| Do I believe that? Absolutely. Never underestimate how lazy
| people are. I very commonly hear battery health as the reason
| for replacement. In fact, I'd say it's the most common reason
| heard. A 3 year old iPhone is still excellent, why else would
| you replace it?
|
| Besides effort, there's also trust issues. I once had a
| battery replacement done but the "new" one was just as bad as
| the old one.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their
| business would collapse.
|
| Battery replacement costs at Apple are $69-99 and offered all
| the way back to the iPhone SE 1st Generation. That's the all-in
| cost where you bring it in, they open it up, swap it out, and
| give your phone back to you.
|
| An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50.
|
| Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like it's
| going to nuke their business from orbit.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Agreed. Apple phones are quite repairable (just not DIY-
| able), no one is dropping 1000 dollars on a new phone because
| their current one has a cracked back glass.
|
| Watching their live feed, one of Apple's selling points on
| such an expensive phone is that it will last a long time and
| have a higher re-sale value than other phones. It's not a
| case of planned obsolescence.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| There are absolutely cases where they have artificially
| gated features to new devices, even when the hardware is
| capable (I'm thinking around Handoff/Continuity, etc.).
| Where the initial reaction is "maybe it's a new BT chip or
| ..." but it can be shown that the functionality is perfect
| when some trickery is done to fool the OS its running on
| more modern hardware.
| twoodfin wrote:
| This is a consequence of Apple's deeply ingrained (and
| hugely successful) product design culture.
|
| When you're trying to develop a vertically integrated
| feature across a synchronized release requiring
| potentially new silicon, a new device, new OS frameworks,
| new app code... you have to express your requirements
| precisely. Either the M1 is being designed to support
| three displays or it's being designed to support two. Not
| "as much display support as we can squeeze in where
| performance is still OK end-to-end". By the time you know
| if end-to-end looks good for all the features you built
| up depending on lower layers in the stack, it's too late.
|
| You're also likely not to trust "hey, seems like our
| tolerances were excessive and it works great on older
| hardware". And building up that trust is time-consuming
| and difficult, so they rarely go back to do it without a
| strong market justification. Stage Manager being the most
| recent--somewhat odd--example.
| wolpoli wrote:
| There was also that instance where Siri was gated from
| the iPhone 4. It was later shown that it was possible to
| install the Siri interface on the iPhone 4 through a
| Jailbreak - the only thing that prevented full
| functionality was a device serial number embedded in the
| request to the Siri server.
| sroussey wrote:
| Eh, sometimes. Other times, a newer piece of internal
| hardware has no new "feature" but just works better and
| has fewer failures. This is particularly true with every
| kind of wireless networking, including Bluetooth. It may
| work, but not have hit the quality bar.
| barbs wrote:
| Absolutely disagree.
|
| Having replaced the screen, battery and home button on my
| 1st gen iPhone SE myself I can confidently say that Apple
| do not make these easy to repair yourself, and arguably
| make it more difficult to drive business for their own
| repair service. Lots of tiny screws requiring particular
| tools of different lengths that can't be mixed up, lest you
| permanently damage the phone. Glue that needs to be
| carefully removed or you risk dangerously damaging the
| battery. Just look at their repairability scores on iFixit:
| https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/smartphone-
| repairabilit... .
| npunt wrote:
| Repairability was bad but has gone up a lot, they did a
| big internals redesign for iPhone 15 to make it easier to
| swap batteries and replace screens. Still not something
| they want user serviceable, I imagine mostly because it
| creates headaches for everyone involved. Most people
| struggle fixing big things, let alone sub-mm precision
| things. But this helps the 3rd party repair shops a lot.
| detourdog wrote:
| Apple also has to develop technology at their own pace. I
| used to get an iPhone every year. Eventually it stopped
| making sense and I just now had to check to see which one I
| had .(14 Pro)I remember noticing a big difference when I
| bought this iPhone with the camera.
|
| I know whenever I upgrade it will always be to a current
| state of Apple"s art because of these incremental
| consistent upgrades.
|
| I"m very tempted to buy a new one. The last time I waited
| till it broke to upgrade.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Assuming those prices are correct and the procedure is that
| convenient, it doesn't practically exist if most people
| aren't aware of it. From my casual observations most people
| suffer with bad batteries until buying a new model.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| What more can they do?
|
| You can google it, go to the website, go to any of their
| stores or authorized dealers, or click the link the phone
| gives you in the battery health view.
|
| Short of apple beating down your door, what more do you
| expect
| SSLy wrote:
| It also complains in your settings app main screen if the
| battery is too low.
| pishpash wrote:
| It's a psychological game. People are primed to want new
| things, and more investment into something old is hard to
| justify even if it's financially right. Also OS's lose
| supprt, softwares bloat, and bundled offers from carriers
| are toward replacement. You'd have to be really
| disciplined to not succumb to upgrade pressure when you
| go into an Apple Store of all places where the entire
| setup is to generate sales.
| thund wrote:
| if they were really about saving the environment, they
| would put messages in software and case, informing users
| they could reduce waste by replacing batteries instead of
| replacing phones. But they don't.
| doctornoble wrote:
| What a reductive position.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Apple provides a warning and a link to battery
| replacement options from the Battery Health screen when
| it detects that it's been degraded too much. So... they
| do provide this?
| ryanwhitney wrote:
| They do. You're notified when battery health is either
| unknown or reaching EOL. It points you towards
| replacement, not upgrade.
|
| "If battery health has degraded significantly, the below
| message will also appear: Your battery's health is
| significantly degraded. An Apple Authorized Service
| Provider can replace the battery to restore full
| performance and capacity. More about service options..."
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575
| andrepd wrote:
| I'd love your being down voted for stating the obvious:
| capitalist enterprise cares about profits, not "the
| environment". Well duh. It's silly to expect anything
| else.
| tpmoney wrote:
| At what point are people responsible for their own actions
| or ignorance? Apple hardly makes the battery replacement
| option a secret, and there are plenty of 3rd party
| retailers that advertise them too. Anyone who bought a new
| iPhone because they didn't realize they could get the
| battery replaced has failed to do even the most cursory
| research into what options are out there for solving their
| problem. It would be one thing if we were talking the 1st
| generation iPhone days, when the "battery replacement"
| option was the usually "out of warranty" device replacement
| that was effectively Apple's entire repair process for the
| phone at the time. Then your "battery replacement" costs
| were ~50% of the cost of a new phone, and that definitely
| gets into the "buy a new phone instead of replacing the
| battery" territory. But the ~$100 battery replacement
| option has been around since at least 2010[1], now 14 years
| later there's no excuse for not being aware, or becoming
| aware when you need it.
|
| [1]: https://archive.nytimes.com/gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.c
| om/201...
| soneca wrote:
| The battery gets bad after 4 years. That's usually the
| moment I want to buy a new phone already, why invest $99 in
| a phone that I won't be using in a year? Better deal with a
| bad battery for a few months or a year, then already go on
| and buy a new one.
|
| I never heard of someone who bought a new phone _solely_
| for a new battery
| selimnairb wrote:
| Bring it in where? I have to drive an hour one way for an
| Apple store. It's easier to order a new device than be
| without my phone.
| leejoramo wrote:
| Last couple of times I have done this, I used Apple's
| online system to schedule the battery replace at a locally
| owned Apple dealer or at the nearest Best Buy. Same price
| and warranty as at the Apple Store. Turn around time was 2
| hours.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Helpful tip. Thanks!
| Detrytus wrote:
| Lucky you. I would need to drive to another country for an
| Apple store... And I don't live in Third World either
| (theoretically), but in Central Europe.
| conductr wrote:
| My thing is the battery timeline matches pretty closely to
| when I'm just ready for something new. I go bare, no case, so
| by 3-4 years my screen is scratched and scuffed enough to
| just do full replacement. I usually notice the speed leap too
| and how certain apps were severely unoptimized for my older
| device. So that's nice too. But it's not ever felt like a
| "upgrade" in a very long time because I don't have any new
| features unlocked (not any that I use), so I'm my mind it's a
| "replacement".
| wpm wrote:
| The one consumable much harder to replace is the oleophobic
| coating. There are drops you can buy and apply, they seem
| to work alright, but don't last nearly as long as the
| factory coating.
|
| By year two, the screen just gets grubbier and grubbier. By
| year three its just plan nasty.
| arcticbull wrote:
| If you get AppleCare+ the screen replacement is $29. I
| usually get it replaced right before I can hand it off to
| my family. It's not as good a deal obviously if you don't
| plan on getting AppleCare+ anyways.
| sroussey wrote:
| I've gone back to no case since the Ceramic Shield and it's
| been great. Excited for the improvements in the next model.
| I hate cases and will no go back.
| tstrimple wrote:
| I tried that for a while, but I find my iPhone 13 Pro Max
| to be easier to operate with one hand when it has a case.
| The iPhone is a bit too slippery for me without it.
| jtriangle wrote:
| You missed the _user_ bit of what you 're replying to.
|
| There are android phones that have this ability, I have one.
| New batteries are ~20 bucks, and they take about 5 minutes to
| swap, most of which is shutdown/boot time. I can take my
| phone out innawoods and use offline GPS all day, and as a
| flashlight at night, by just bringing a pocketfull of
| batteries.
|
| When a battery goes bad, I toss it in the recycle bucket, and
| buy a new one. I currently have 10 of them and they're on
| rotation.
|
| What that means is, I get a new phone when apps stop working,
| and I use very few apps, so, that's been 5+ years since I
| adopted this model. It'd certainly be better for the
| environment and better for the consumer if manufacturers were
| on-board with this idea, but, it'd be far worse for their
| margins, so, these devices only exist on the periphery.
|
| That said, I do think that Apple could make this work for the
| masses. Simply pair the batteries with the phone, keep
| everyone in the walled garden, don't allow 3rd parties in
| willy nilly, and then charge more for new batteries. That
| that system and spin the hell out of it, make
| android/google/et al look like evil megacorps filling the
| earth with chemicals leached from 1-time use android phones,
| and call it a day.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _the_ user* bit*
|
| "The masses" do not want to carry a bag of spare batteries.
| The masses don't want to have to think about it.
|
| The latest generation devices are mostly "don't have to
| think about it" on batteries.
|
| > _New batteries are ~20 bucks_
|
| Gotta love those after-market or counterfeit high density
| inflammable energy packs crammed against your body or the
| bagful of 9 spares left in your car...
|
| https://www.motleyrice.com/news/lithium-ion-batteries-
| explos...
|
| Getting worse, not better:
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/tech/lithium-ion-battery-
| fire...
|
| I want real ones from a real company spending real money on
| R&D, that I "know where they live" if it's a problem.
|
| Speaking of quality, I can use current iPhone off grid with
| offline GPS all day, and use it again the next day --
| without taking any battery packs.
|
| The new "max" devices clock effectively two day battery
| life if you are conscious of what you're using it for (say,
| camping out off grid instead of doomscrolling Insta, for
| instance). I find even 3 or 4 sometimes if you're not
| picking it up and are in low energy and low data mode.
| Definitely 3 - 4 if you shut it off while asleep. It's
| nuts.
| smitelli wrote:
| And sometimes they rip the display cable while they're trying
| to swap out the battery, and you end up with an entirely new
| SE2 in the end. Happened to us about 1-2 months ago.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like
| it's going to nuke their business from orbit.
|
| Apple's business model partially depends on selling people a
| new phone every few years. If people switch to battery
| replacements in place of new phones in large quantities, that
| is going to significantly hurt their business model.
| acdha wrote:
| Apple makes a ton of money from services:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/382136/quarterly-
| segment...
|
| That's not an accident, they spent a lot of effort building
| up their portfolio when this trend was obviously
| unavoidable. They'd love it if you buy a new phone every
| year but they're almost as happy if you keep the same phone
| for 5 years, buy apps, and subscribe to Apple One. One of
| the really big questions is what impact the EU DMA will
| have on this strategy: a lot of what's kept them ahead of
| Android on things like CPUs is the geyser of App Store cash
| stabilizing revenue for long-term commitments.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > iPhone SE 1st Generation
|
| To note, that's a regional thing. It seems to stop at gen2
| for Asian countries for ex.
|
| > Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years
|
| iPhone batteries become subpar way faster than that,
| especially the older models who get more strained as they
| bear the heavier OS. Once every year and a half looks more
| realistic to me.
| cogman10 wrote:
| > An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50.
|
| I just got mine replaced on my pixel 6, total cost was $200.
|
| Still gonna hang onto it because there's no reason to replace
| but yeah labor costs for android are a bit ridiculous.
| Fokamul wrote:
| "highly educated" != "tech savvy/smart". IT Project manager,
| right? :D
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The real advancements majority of users would notice:
|
| - Get rid of green text when messaging Android phones
|
| - More battery life.
|
| - Better camera (arguably already achieved)
|
| - lesser issue but fix the stupid bugs with storage/duplication
| with pictures and messages. I am already paying for a TB level
| plan with iCloud. How can my phone possibly run out of storage?
|
| That's it. All the AI stuff is marginal at best and useless at
| worst. The new UI stuff they introduced sometime ago? Doesn't
| really get used by anyone I know. Control center was probably
| the last useful feature added. If they did a release where they
| removed features to simplify iOS I would upgrade.
| peab wrote:
| where'd you see no more green text?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| iOS 18 (available for all iphones since 2nd gen SE) will
| support RCS
|
| I don't actually know how this will be implemented into
| iMessage but it's supposed to bring feature parity between
| android and apple.
|
| EDIT: looks like still green bubbles
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-rcs-texting-
| starts-i...
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| RCS brings plenty of new monetization and spam
| opportunities but doesn't bring feature parity. Or did
| Google decide to open up their proprietary extensions to
| non-Google RCS clients?
| vel0city wrote:
| There's a massive feature benefit: finally allowing
| multi-megabyte attachments. Hopefully pictures and videos
| won't be compressed to fit into 600KB.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| This is entirely possible with MMS but for most carriers
| refusing to adopt 3GPP's current recommendations. This is
| also entirely possible with other messaging apps
| available on iOS but for American android users refusing
| to use other apps.
| criddell wrote:
| Unless the RCS messages are end-to-end encrypted, they
| should stay green IMHO.
| paxys wrote:
| They are talking about features they'd _like_ to see.
| iteratethis wrote:
| Agreed on battery life. It's such a pity that advances in
| battery tech is never given back to the user.
|
| As for green text, this is purely a US thing. Most of the
| rest of the world uses Whatsapp.
| lloeki wrote:
| Most of the rest of the world doesn't give a rat's ass
| about bubble colour and just use SMS, including for sharing
| pictures.
|
| I don't have WhatsApp and literally nobody ever asked me to
| use it, even if I know they have it. they just flat out
| don't care as long as a message gets across.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I don't know any part of the world still using SMS. What
| part of the world is that?
| mattnewton wrote:
| Countries where telecom competition lead to unlimited sms
| early enough and/or iPhone/iMessage adoption meant people
| weren't motivated to install third party apps. The US and
| to a lesser extend the UK are the only countries I'm
| aware of this happening? But the UK plans added unlimited
| sms later and so WhatsApp has >50% market penetration
| there unlike the US.
| aksss wrote:
| The unreliability of sharing video with android users
| over mms is what drives my use of Signal. That and it's
| cross platform.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I don't care if you personally use Whatsapp or not, it's
| beyond the point. Whatsapp is by far the most used
| messenger app in the world. The US is unique in the
| developed world for using iMessages or SMS.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Here in Europe even my grandmother and her neighbours use
| WhatsApp and MMS for pictures seem to be unsupported for
| the last decade or so.
| Tepix wrote:
| Also, AirDrop and mobile hotspot are unreliable, if Apple
| could make them always work, that'd be noticeable.
| mhink wrote:
| For AirDrop, at least, I've found it to be very reliable,
| with one caveat that always tripped me up before I realized
| it: *the recipient's phone needs to be unlocked*. This
| completely changed the game for me, and now me and my wife
| use it all the time.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Get rid of green text when messaging Android phones
|
| Do you mean green background? Because the non-iMessage
| bubbles are the white text on a green background _for
| outgoing messages only_. Given that the most vocal folks seem
| to be Android users who care about the background color of
| someone else 's messages I doubt the majority of iPhone users
| care, would notice, or are even using the Messages app in the
| first place. Certainly if you're calling it green text you're
| not paying much attention either. Better
| camera (arguably already achieved)
|
| Apple can still get rid of that hideous camera bump.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| > Get rid of green text when messaging Android phones
|
| I don't think iMessage is big anywhere outside the US (which
| appears to account for about 9% of iPhone users). I don't
| think a majority of global users even knows there are
| different colors.
| epolanski wrote:
| I know virtually nobody using iMessage in southern Europe.
| treflop wrote:
| The AI stuff could be useful if it makes Siri more useful.
|
| Like when I'm listening to a Spotify playlist and I want to
| like the song or save it to a playlist while driving, it
| would be amazing if I could just tell Siri to do it for me.
| As-is, sometimes it tells me it doesn't how to play songs on
| Spotify.
|
| Or they were showing how you would be able to look for photo
| by describing it.
| knodi123 wrote:
| I have a beta of the new Siri, and it's still less
| impressive than the the OK Google I gave up half a decade
| ago.
|
| The capability set is indistinguishable.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > Better camera (arguably already achieved)
|
| I feel the later generation of phones went back a bit as they
| have more aggressive processing. It can work great, but the
| hit or miss ratio is worse, in particular noise processing
| can be way off.
|
| That's crazy the budget Pixel a lone gets overall better
| photos than a top of the line iPhone.
| jm4 wrote:
| How about getting rid of that stupid back button in the top
| left corner when an app opens another app? It drives me crazy
| seeing it every time I click a link in a message. It's the
| most useless thing. There's already a good app switcher. What
| is the point of the back button?
| baggachipz wrote:
| I've been working in tech for 25 years, and I'm sure I hardly
| use any of the new features. Camera? Click, maybe crop it or
| turn it into a loop if it's funny. I play some games on it. I
| browse some social crap on it. I occasionally tell Siri to set
| a reminder. That's... about it. I'm really not sure what else
| I'm supposed to be doing.
| ben_w wrote:
| Even as an iOS app developer, there's a huge amount of stuff
| that stock iOS can do that I'm unaware of.
|
| At this point, I'm not going to be interested (dead battery
| isn't "interested") in the upgrade cycle until there's a new
| kind of sensor, e.g. thermal imaging or (technically possible
| in software) repurposing the WiFi as a wall penetrating radar.
|
| Even on the dev side, WWDC for the last few years feels _more
| like_ "here's an even more complicated way to create a simple
| app" instead of "this will make your life easier because x" or
| "y is increasing important, use tool z to support it".
| kvgr wrote:
| I am professional android developer for more than 10 years. And
| even i dont care about the features anymore. Outside my work i
| just want good battery life and big screen. I have iphone 12
| and dont plan to upgrade until it stops working. Probably
| professional exhaustion. But i honestly care about the newest
| buzz.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| They have to keep adding new features because what to do
| otherwise? I have long lost interest of the mobile world.
| Battery life and some rams to run some apps are all I need.
|
| The general customers definitely want more. They are getting
| excited by AI in camera apps (existed before the AI hype) and
| other stuffs.
| cmeacham98 wrote:
| > She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would
| she notice Pro-motion.
|
| I find this example interesting, because on the android side I
| would rank these two in the top 10 _most_ notable improvements
| made to phones in the last 5-10 years.
|
| I have had multiple "normies" use my phone in the last few
| years and ask why it felt so smooth - and every time the
| difference between my phone and theirs has been a higher
| refresh rate display (what apple calls "ProMotion").
| iteratethis wrote:
| The lack of distinction between LCD and OLED can be
| explained. The specific condition in which OLED thrives
| rarely occurs. You'd need deep blacks in low ambient light
| viewing conditions for it to really stand out.
|
| iOS, most apps, most websites, even most video isn't mastered
| as such and not consumed in those conditions.
| runako wrote:
| I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at night is
| a normal use case. I thought it was a normal thing that
| many/most people do, but this comment suggests that perhaps
| my social circle is odd in that way.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at
| night is a normal use case.
|
| Your GP and optometrist would certainly prefer you don't
| do it. I can't speak to the frequency of how much other
| people do it, but my wife and I try to avoid it, not
| always successfully.
| iteratethis wrote:
| TV shows and movies aren't mastered like that either.
|
| I have an incredible TV. OLED with increased brightness,
| the latter being new tech. The combination of OLED and
| HDR is jaw dropping to witness. To me and to everybody
| that I show it to.
|
| What do I show them? A Youtube list with TV demo videos
| that specifically demonstrate the effect. Deep blacks
| with locally bright highlights. Not to mention very deep
| vibrant colors.
|
| I watch the demo videos every 2 months or so to remind
| myself that I have an awesome TV. Because I most
| certainly do not experience anything remotely like that
| on ordinary TV channels, streaming services, the like.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Apple makes an excellent product
|
| Contrarian opinion on the AirPods. Apple says that they think
| the new noise cancellation "auto adjust" is better on the
| "human" side of things, and the social - they showed an
| interaction where the barista started talking to the wearer,
| and the AirPods adjusted so the barista could be heard.
|
| To me, that's not social, I think it's actually anti-social. It
| moves the onus onto anyone who wants to or needs to interact
| with you to assume that you can hear them, that you're focused
| on the conversation, etc.
|
| It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any
| headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with
| someone, for just a few moments.
| iteratethis wrote:
| Fully agree. Same for putting a speaker on the Apple watch.
|
| "Great for when you don't have your airpods with you"
|
| Yes, and surely it will be normalized in the culture to just
| blast your watch in public.
| wilg wrote:
| the apple watch has had a speaker for 10 years and it
| hasn't been an issue
| doublepg23 wrote:
| I think that ship sailed a while ago.
|
| I was doing retail work around COVID and there were many many
| people who didn't have the decency to hold phone calls while
| checking out let alone taking off headphones.
| wilg wrote:
| > It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any
| headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with
| someone, for just a few moments.
|
| you can just do this. but sometimes your hands are full, or
| you dont have use of them, or you dont want to drop your
| airpod.
| tpmoney wrote:
| > It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any
| headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with
| someone, for just a few moments.
|
| Actually, I've found this creates more social friction, not
| less. I spent a while listening to some books while working,
| and originally had noise canceling turned on. Every time
| someone came over to talk about something, whether I paused
| and turned noise canceling off or removed the ear pieces,
| there was always an awkward moment for the person talking to
| me while they had to stop what they were starting to say,
| wait for me and then usually apologize for interrupting. It
| felt extremely anti-social, and I think a part of that is
| that headphones were for a very long time considered anti-
| social and the act of removing them was often a signal that
| someone was interrupting you (and that you didn't really want
| to be interrupted). But when you're using headphones in a
| shared space, it's usually less about not wanting to be
| interrupted and more being considerate that not everyone
| wants to listen to the same things you're listening to.
|
| Eventually I left them in transparency mode and kept the
| volume low enough that I could carry on a conversation over
| it, and could subtly reduce the volume while still holding a
| conversation. No more awkward pausing and restarting, no more
| apologies and the "hardest" thing I have to do is maybe
| rewind a bit after I'm done with the conversation. So much
| less anti-social feeling all around.
| 015a wrote:
| Heck, I have friends in _tech_ that in the past did iPhone 4,
| 6, 8, whether you were an "even number" or an "odd number"
| iPhone buyer became something of a label. One of these guys is
| on the 11 Pro, has the 16 Plus in his cart, but is actively
| texting the group chat whether or not to go through with it.
|
| If you feel Apple isn't actively facing a xx% risk to their
| business by 2030, you're beside yourself. Its not that people
| are switching away, or that Apple overtly missed some major
| tech trend; people just aren't upgrading anymore. They need to
| come up with something a lot more drastic to keep people
| motivated toward spending $1000+/year with them; its not
| ungrateful, its not cynical, its the market. AI is not it.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's the camera for me, especially 5x zoom lens in the big
| phone instead of the enormous phone. But if I do go through
| with it I'll be coming from a 4 year old phone, so I'm
| already not in the $1000/year market.
|
| If they're able to figure out a mass market VR headset that
| will give them another push for new phone sales. I hear the
| "spatial photos/videos" are very cool.
| 015a wrote:
| VR also isn't it. The best case scenario for Vision is that
| it becomes a <$10B/quarter market similar to the iPad, but
| it costs substantially more to build and evolve (more
| complicated hardware and software, lower margins, less
| software sharing with iPhone). The more likely outcome is
| that it doesn't even reach $5B by 2030 (that would be ~6%
| revenue).
|
| I think the broader problem is that no one knows what "it"
| is; what comes next. We had web3, crypto, AR, VR, now AI,
| but none of these things feel like they have the horsepower
| to launch another $30B in quarterly or even annual revenue
| for Apple.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I'm not convinced the next "it" is a new hardware product
| any time soon. You can do a lot with a screen, battery,
| and cellular connection. All the stuff that AI pins and
| necklaces can do will end up in phones, watches, and
| earbuds, and Apple will keep selling all those existing
| product lines for years. They might even find a way to
| squeeze an "Apple Intelligence Plus" subscription in
| there somewhere, with their recent focus on chasing
| services revenue to make up for slower phone sales.
|
| Just because phones are maturing doesn't necessarily mean
| a new computing paradigm is right around the corner.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| For phones, I think foldable screens are good for a
| couple more generations of updates. I've had a Flip for a
| couple of years and won't go back, when they make them
| lighter I'm in the market for the next one.
| Electricniko wrote:
| Apple AI selfie drone with a monthly contract for your
| own livestream channel to stream everything you do, with
| Siri as the AI stream moderator, and an asset/app store
| to upgrade different parts of your streams. Maybe even
| 30% cut of the donations from stream fans.
|
| If there's an Apple exec reading this, you can pay me for
| this idea before committing billions to develop and
| subsequently cancel it when everybody realizes it's dumb.
| 1-more wrote:
| > spending $1000+/year with them
|
| I figure Apple hasn't depended on latest model upgrades every
| year for a while now. Hell I'm going 12 to 16 Pro because I'm
| sick of not being able to photograph birds well.
| iteratethis wrote:
| I agree. I do think Apple is thrilled with the sudden AI hype
| as this gives them 1-2 generations of new "selling points" as
| they were truly running out.
|
| But still, it masks the problem of an underlying demand that
| will stagnate if not decline. They're aware of this danger,
| hence to pivot to earn more from services.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I really hope the vast majority will never upgrade every
| year, regardless of those poor Apple stockholders and their
| incentives. What a bunch of capitalist driven excess that
| would be. I say that and I write code for iOS.
| jmull wrote:
| It doesn't look like Apple needs people to be upgrading every
| other year to do well. Not anywhere close.
|
| Apple sold 232M iPhones in 2023, and had 1.83B active iPhone
| users.
|
| Doing a little math, they'd need their existing users to
| upgrade every six years to keep selling them at the current
| rate. Your friend would still be ahead of the curve for Apple
| if he goes forward with that upgrade.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > and had 1.83B active iPhone users
|
| be very curious to know what percentage of users bought
| second hand
| hintymad wrote:
| > even works in IT, although not in an engineering role.
|
| What an accurate profile! I work in an engineering role in IT,
| and I'm like your girlfriend when it comes to the phone. Like,
| I don't even know whether my iphone is max or max pro, as it
| does not make a difference to me. The top apps that I use are
| Kindle, Books, Chrome (for tracking my progress on
| dreamingspanish.com), Podcast, Spotify, Maps, and as everyone
| else: some social/messaging apps. Everyone of such apps seems
| work just fine on a much older phone.
| stroupwaffle wrote:
| My biggest complaint is that the lenses aren't flush with the
| back. I hate having cases on my phone, and their design makes
| wireless charging somewhat useless because it's not flush with
| the charging mat.
| spicymaki wrote:
| They would if they could. Optical physics is one factor that
| prevents the lenses from being flush with the back. If you
| want to support advanced optical features the lenses need
| depth.
| stroupwaffle wrote:
| Makes sense. Instead of having a flat back, it might be
| kind of neat to have it slope like a "wedge" shape.
|
| It would actually make the phone more comfortable in the
| hands too because they could improve the weight balance.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Always wondered why they don't do this. Just a subtle
| sloping of the edge around the lense, so the phone is
| flush with the table it is lying on.
| Zee2 wrote:
| The original Google Pixel (2016) was exactly this shape.
| No camera bump with a wedge profile.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| So put a periscope in there. Or synthesise the image from
| 48 tiny cameras in a grid.
| foobarian wrote:
| I vote for a fatter phone with extra space used for
| battery
| sroussey wrote:
| The really should do that with the "plus".
| alpaca128 wrote:
| But they could at least make the bump symmetrical so the
| phone doesn't wobble when used on a table.
| jrflowers wrote:
| People like better looking/more easily captured photos and even
| "normies" can grasp features like satellite 911
| mithr wrote:
| I don't know that I completely agree. To some degree, sure --
| most folks probably don't notice the year-to-year updates in
| e.g. computing power.
|
| But my 70yo mother, who is pretty far from being
| technologically savvy, uses continuity every day to copy one-
| time-use codes from her phone to her computer, even though
| she'd have no idea what the term "continuity" means in this
| context. She notices that it's easier to snap better pictures
| in more conditions than it was a few years back (and that
| pictures she receives are better looking on average, too). She
| uses 1Password with FaceID, which I set up for her, because
| it's so easy to just look at your phone to unlock that there's
| very little in the way of enabling and using that, and she
| doesn't need to write down passwords anymore.
|
| I think some of the magic of the Apple ecosystem is that you
| don't _have_ to know about these things in order to use them.
| Someone shows you how to do something (Apple could certainly
| improve on the organic discoverability of many of these
| features! Some are impossible to find without looking), and
| then it often just works. And these things do keep getting
| closer to that ideal over time, with each generation. When I
| first started using continuity -- long before my mother did --
| it definitely did not work all the time, and I persisted
| because I 'm a techie early adopter. Eventually, though, it
| reached a state where once folks learn about it, they can just
| use it.
|
| I'm also not sure about the 3-4 year number, at least from
| personal experience, fwiw. We pass down phones in my family,
| and it easily takes 5-6 generations for them to reach the end
| of that chain and be in use for a year or two before they're
| switched out for the next model. Battery has never been the
| reason someone in that chain switched phones.
| sroussey wrote:
| Battery can be replaced by going to the apple store and
| buying a new one which is cheaper than a new phone, so I
| agree with you on that.
|
| Phone definitely last longer so 6 years sounds about right,
| as after that they tend to get obsolete.
| camjohnson26 wrote:
| I had no idea this was possible, but yeah, going to
| "battery health" in my Settings shows battery health is
| degraded, and provides a link to schedule a replacement.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished
| several generations ago.
|
| Sure, and a couple of iOS updates into a good phone, and the
| phone is suddenly slow, crawling, and no longer meeting normie
| needs.
| acchow wrote:
| The savvy users that integrate new features into their
| creativity are the young people. Under 25.
|
| And of course creatives that do it as a hobby or a job.
|
| Regular folks won't be using this stuff
| runjake wrote:
| > Most people don't buy the pro
|
| Historically, that was true, but more recently, most people do
| buy the Pro. I don't know why (actually I do: FOMO and monthly
| payment plans).
|
| https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figu...
|
| iPhone 15 Pro Max: 23%
|
| iPhone 15 Pro: 22%
|
| iPhone 15: 14%
|
| iPhone 15 Plus: 9%
| foobarian wrote:
| I don't know if you're old or not or what your eyesight is
| like but even the pro max is getting hard to read for me :-)
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| You are already spending $800 for the 16; the 16 Pro is $200
| more and you get better camera, better battery life, and
| slightly bigger screen. It is a tempting proposition if you
| want the new tech. If you don't care about latest/greatest
| get the SE at 1/2 the price.
| Giorgi wrote:
| Owning current year's iPhone model is pretty much status
| symbol, that's basically all that is.
| tails4e wrote:
| I agree largely. I have a p30 pro, and it's a great phone
| despite being 4 or 5 years old . It's so good, recently it got
| water damaged and I as faced with replacing it. I couldnt find
| a phone for under 500 that could beat it, and especially the 2
| day battery life. So I didn't, I instead paintakingly dried it
| out over 3 weeks and it's pretty much fully functional. That's
| how much I didn't want to change phone, and how the new sparkly
| features don't really matter as much as battery life, and
| utility.
| wwweston wrote:
| > If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their
| business would collapse.
|
| For me it's _slightly_ more complicated than that. I would
| probably still be using my 2016 iPhone SE with its headphone
| jack and size if (a) it was still receiving OS updates and (b)
| iOS bloat didn 't make it slow.
|
| Would love it if the battery swap were easy for the end user to
| do, but TBH paying $100 to have it done every few years is
| doable for me.
|
| Better camera capability is the only other thing that even
| registered for me. The jump to the iphone 12 mini that I made
| last year did have some nice benefits on that front and got me
| some performance I'd lost back. Other than that, the main
| reason I upgraded is that I was forced to by the iOS
| obsolescence treadmill.
| dkga wrote:
| Sorry, jumping in here. I don't think it's so much iOS gloat
| as much as app gloat. Take a look at their sizes, it's
| absolutely bonkers and unjustified.
| jwells89 wrote:
| App bloat really is out of control, to the point that I
| wonder if maybe Apple shouldn't somehow incentivize
| developers to minimize bundle size and resource
| consumption. Maybe well-crafted, efficient apps get an "eco
| friendly" badge and their own section of the App Store or
| something.
| superfrank wrote:
| You only feel conflicted about this because (I assume) you
| lived through the phase where smart phones were changing every
| year and the updates from one phone to the next were regularly
| pretty ground breaking. People who lived through that era were
| conditioned to feel that every generation was a massive leap
| forward and that you were missing out on cool things if you
| didn't upgrade every year.
|
| That's not the case anymore, but it's a hard feeling to shake,
| especially when companies are still trying to convince us that
| it's true because it benefits their top line. The truth is that
| smart phones are just small computers at this point. Most
| people don't feel conflicted about not buying a new computer
| every year and you shouldn't feel that way about smart phones.
|
| At this point the only people who need (I use that term very
| loosely) a new smart phone every single year are people who see
| having the most recent version as a status symbol.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Apple is engaging in feature-bloat to protect the $1000 price
| point. That's all that's going on here.
|
| Phones (particularly iPhones0 have stubbornly resisted getting
| cheaper. That's by design. Features get added simply to make it
| more expensive.
|
| We saw this with the Macbooks about a decade ago. The Macbook
| Air was fantastic because it was cheap. For Apple it was too
| cheap. So we got Touch bar. Did it solve any user problems? No.
| I know a few will say they like it but it was a dismal failure.
|
| The only reason the Touch Bar existed was to make Macbooks more
| expensive.
|
| I have been frustrated with subsequent iOS updates because it
| gets less and less intuitive. Even Safari has a lot of touch
| points on the screen that do stuff I don't care about. On the
| iPad there's now split screen. I bet you've triggered this
| acccidentally or had to solve this for a friend or relative who
| had. We replaced private browsing mode with "tab groups". Does
| anyone actually need this? If you don't (and I would posit
| that's most people) then it's now an extra tap to switch modes.
|
| Cut and paste just seems to get worse and worse. It tries to be
| cleve by selecting a word. It can be difficult and involve
| several taps to get around this. The original implementation of
| this was (IMHO) far superior and more intuitive.
| gerash wrote:
| I haven't had a Mac with touch bar but I can see the point of
| the idea:
|
| You have a keyboard and mouse as inputs to a Mac. why not a
| mini touch screen as well? but instead of rendering the app
| content there you render the controls. this way you don't
| need to remember shortcuts because common actions for an app
| are displayed there.
|
| IMO the idea makes sense but needs further refinement in
| execution. maybe even better haptic feedback
| jmyeet wrote:
| This ignores the issue that physical keys have tacticle
| feedback that touch screens do not.
|
| This is a big issue with modern cars (particularly Teslas).
| People generally hate touch screens because you have to
| look at them to use them. For driving in particular, that's
| a real problem. Compare this to a more normal car where you
| can feel the AC button or the volume or whatever.
|
| Companies like touch screens because it lets them punt on
| UI/UX design and selecting controls, which means they
| basically never get done. It's purely a cost issue.
|
| Now with Macbooks, I did like that I could slide my finger
| for the volume. That's it. And that wasn't worth losing the
| Escape key for. Or function keys for that matter.
|
| But that's so specific that I'd rather just have a volume
| control. A slider would be ideal but that takes up a lot of
| space. The best compromise is a "roller" (like on the
| Corsair K70 keyboard) as you can get precision and speed.
| You absolutely don't want to repeatedly hit a volume up or
| down button.
| gerash wrote:
| I agree that the top row on a macbook keyboard shouldn't
| be replaced because some of the keys are essential there.
|
| I'm imagining a touch screen right next to the trackpad
| that displays the short cuts to common functions of the
| current app that's open.
|
| For example, I don't mind having common controls of, say
| Google sheets or Photoshop near the keyboard. Maybe the
| trackpad could be that touchscreen. idk but I feel
| there's something to explore in this space.
|
| Or alternatively, individual keys on a keyboard can be
| LCD screens and show you app specific controls. this way
| you get the haptic feedback too.
| tpmoney wrote:
| Ridiculous, iPhones are getting cheaper all the time.
| Yesterday a base model iPhone 15 was $799, today it's $699.
| In 2022 a base model iPhone 14 was also $799, today that same
| phone is $599. Sure today the iPhone 15 is no longer the top
| of the line model, but that phone is absolutely cheaper today
| than it was yesterday, and if it was good enough at that
| price yesterday, there's no reason it's not good enough at a
| cheaper price today. Either the new features are compelling
| additions that make it worth spending more money on or
| they're added "simply to make it more expensive", in which
| case the 15 is right there, 12.5% cheaper today than it was
| 24 hours ago.
|
| > The Macbook Air was fantastic because it was cheap. For
| Apple it was too cheap. So we got Touch bar. Did it solve any
| user problems?
|
| Do you remember the same Macbook Air I do? The first one was
| $1,799 retail, and probably the biggest complaint in reviews
| was that it was too expensive for what it was. The MBA didn't
| drop below $1000 until 4 revisions later with the
| introduction of the 11 inch model. In 2014 that dropped to
| $899 for the 11 inch model. The cheapest the 13 inch model
| ever got was $999 for the last intel and the first M1 model.
| Today it's $1099, hardly a change from the "too cheap" $999
| of its heyday. Also to the best of my knowledge, no MBAs
| shipped with a touch bar.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their
| business would collapse.
|
| Don't underestimate the power of marketing.
| AOsborn wrote:
| Absolutely agree.
|
| I'd say this goes one step further. We hand down older devices
| to our parents. They are completely happy with a device several
| generations back. The current product philosophy has completely
| cut them out as purchasers. They are product users, but will
| never purchase again.
|
| In fact, without planned obsolescence/battery degradation I
| suspect they would be happy never replacing their phones until
| they physically broke. It's a shame that they continually slow
| down to such a degree - the decreased speed is actually the
| only Apple 'feature' they notice.
| bastijn wrote:
| Im there with you, my wife as well as myself are in fact like
| your girlfriend and I work an highly educated software
| engineering role. I simply don't care, still on my iPhone 11
| Pro Max which I got as a present from my parents at the time.
|
| I think battery power drain is even not fast enough for phone
| companies to sustain the selling Model. My guess is sooner or
| later they realize the real control point is software updates
| and they forcefully shorten OS and specially OS security
| updates under a bullshit reason they still can get away with to
| get us all back in line of buying regular phone upgrades in
| fear of hacked internet banking.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| > sooner or later they realize the real control point is
| software updates
|
| That's why I'm in the market for an iphone (and a new service
| provider), my pixel 5a5g got its final "guaranteed" security
| update in August. Nothing wrong with the device. Time to de-
| google I guess..
| mihaaly wrote:
| Not only when the battery runs bad. That can be renewed
| (sometimes, my 1st gen SE from the last batch runs the second
| battery pack, probably the last batch of batteries available).
|
| Also when you are forced by apps you need that want the newest
| hardware by some reason. I mean when most of them, because some
| could be missed for a while, but when most you use are just
| refuse to work, then it is time to get a new one.
|
| Not like you need the new app, it is the same like with the
| iPhone 'features' you mention, but when your bank app cannot
| connect the bank when it is the newest version minus 2, then it
| becomes a nuisance.
|
| Not like I am afraid of tech, I have cool interconnected home
| appliances built from raspberrys and make my living on
| developing desktop tools, but the rampage of the mobile
| industry is just too much to handle. It does not worth the
| money and time they demand, getting in the way of my life as
| much as helping it. By now. It was better but getting worse as
| we speak.
| moffkalast wrote:
| 5G is rapidly becoming this.
|
| I'm still using a phone that's only a few years old and maxes
| out at 4G. Lately it's started sporadically losing connection
| entirely in locations where it previously worked perfectly...
| meanwhile everyone around me has a five bar 5G signal on
| their newer models. They've started to do to 4G what they did
| to E, H and 3G, complete bandwidth reduction to fuckin zero
| so the latest protocol can hog all frequencies. Planned
| obsolescence or what? Upgrade or we will slowly reduce your
| device to a useless brick.
| mihaaly wrote:
| : (
| ryoshu wrote:
| My daily is an iPhone 12 Pro and I work on bleeding edge tech
| daily. I don't need to upgrade. It works fine. Had to replace
| it when it had a battery problem. There are no features I need
| from the newer models.
| dangus wrote:
| Yeah, okay, hardware releases are incremental now. We get it.
|
| But someone somewhere has a 5 year old phone with a busted
| screen and a dead battery and it'll be nice for them to get
| this phone or another similar new, highly capable device. And
| they'd probably like to know that this 5-year-newer phone has a
| whole bunch of new capabilities when they spend a big chunk of
| money replacing a big purchase.
|
| Sure, I don't want to buy a new car. They're expensive and they
| depreciate. I would like to just keep driving mine, it's fine.
| But when the time comes that I _do_ buy a new car I _do_ want
| to know that it has a whole bunch of new, better things than
| the one I am replacing.
|
| Don't forget that Apple makes the perfect phone for your
| girlfriend: the iPhone SE. The flashy marketing videos are for
| high-value high-vanity customers who throw money at them. She
| could buy that type of low-mid-range phone at $400 and run it
| into the ground until she is forced to upgrade by hardware
| failure.
| foobarian wrote:
| The software mute was the last thing that made a difference in
| my day to day usage (but didn't upgrade for it). The next thing
| I would love and upgrade instantly for is a sealed, waterproof
| design
| epolanski wrote:
| Man I work in IT as a developer and I have absolutely no clue
| what most of my devices (can) do, and truth to be told I
| couldn't care less, because if I need something I find out how
| to do it.
|
| My main phone is a 2019 Xiaomi midrange phone, and I just can't
| tell how's the Iphone 14 I use to test our apps should be
| better, and I played with it some.
|
| I read the economist, hackernews watch some YouTube, play chess
| and occasionally use messaging apps or check banking stuff.
|
| I couldn't care less about editing photos on a phone nor mobile
| gaming.
|
| I know I live in a bubble, but I don't see users around me do
| much more than I do with the phone.
|
| It's not like these products are bad, and I think that people
| that live on their phone will benefit from all of this. But I'm
| just not one of them.
| benrutter wrote:
| I feel the same way, both in the sense of not feeling most
| features really add value to users, but also in feeling a
| little ungrateful and guilty for not caring about this kind of
| innovation.
|
| Recently, I've been valueing repairability more in tech that I
| buy and it feels like such a breath of fresh air and a bit of
| an antidote. Particularly, products like fairphone (a smart
| phone where almost every part can be replaced with a
| screwdriver) make me really excited, and feel like amazing
| innovation solving actual problems.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > It feels ungrateful and cynical to keep calling new models
| "boring".
|
| The church of American consumerism is so galling to me. This is
| a trillion dollar corporation that famously involves itself in
| tax schemes to avoid paying the face value rate that any other
| smaller corporation would have to pay.
|
| You feel "ungrateful" or "cynical" because they aren't
| innovating?
|
| Good lord man. Get out of that church.
| jwally wrote:
| Its like wine. I can tell the difference between a $4 bottle of
| wine and a $14 bottle of wine, but I couldn't tell the
| difference between a $14 bottle of wine and a $140 bottle of
| wine if my life depended on it.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I also like wine, but it's rare that I've had a $140 bottle
| of wine that wasn't actually a $30 bottle, but I was at a
| restaurant. It is real easy to be underwhelmed by a $30
| bottle.
|
| I'd also put a bottle of Trader Joe's 2 buck chuck ($4 cab)
| up against 75% of the $30 bottles and I bet in a blind taste
| test it would win.
|
| That isn't to say that people's taste buds don't work. I've
| spent a bit of time tasting wine essentially blind (to price)
| at vineyards, brought that same wine home and been
| underwhelmed again... I learned that even 30min in a hot car
| trunk (140F) can change wine. The wine I tasted from the
| storage cave that was great, sucks when I got it home. I
| actually tested after I got it home and saw this.
|
| I think a lot of the "wine flavors being mysterious and
| psychosomatic" is actually poor storage. I know Reddit
| disagrees with me, but now that I climate control my wine
| when I bring it home, I haven't had the same issues.
|
| This is a fact for beer (hoppy beer specifically) that is
| well known and pasted all over the Russian River Pliny the
| elder label. I believe it's a fact for wine as well. Because
| I've had a couple $100 bottles that were stored well, and the
| memory of that taste is still with me. I want to find a way
| to repeat it. (Without spending $100 for a bottle)
| leptons wrote:
| I'm probably a lot like your girlfriend, and I've been in tech
| for 40+ years. I'm still very active in tech, but I got over
| being interested in smartphones after my 3rd one, and I was a
| very early adopter. My needs were satisfied a long time ago. If
| I have internet access, and can remote into any of my other
| dozens of machines, the phone has satisfied most of its purpose
| for me - allowing me to access all of my computing stuff while
| away from my main computers. Oh, I also take the occasional
| call on the phone, but that's very, very rare.
|
| The biggest upgrade for me in the last 19 years is the fold-
| able phone with a much larger screen area. But honestly, the
| old HTC Wizard that I started with does 80% of what I need a
| mobile device to do.
|
| I don't need or want AI following me around, especially not in
| my mobile device.
| soneca wrote:
| > _"Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their
| current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years."_
|
| I am exactly like this. But I am also use it as an opportunity
| to upgrade the hardware.
|
| For some time it was memory, although now I am pretty done for
| 256gb. I don't need more. Recently it was the new
| processor+camera. I am not big into photography, but I like to
| take pictures. And I like them to look great, focused, even
| with bad light, without doing any setting myself (cause I am
| ignorant how to do it). Just regular picture of trips, or night
| with friends. I like the 2x and 0.5x zoom a lot also.
|
| It is also nice for the new updated apps I use to run fast. My
| 4 yo iPhone SE not only had a bad battery, but it was very slow
| already.
|
| And, occasionally, some gimmick is actually useful to me, like
| the notch. I turn off notifications of almost every app,
| including Uber and food delivery. For those the in-screen info
| in the notch is very useful.
|
| I'll probably only buy the iPhone 18 next, but it will be nice
| have the 5x zoom (maybe more by then) at the least.
| godelski wrote:
| For memory I've found that I'm much happier setting up a
| backup to my machines. Currently I'm on a pixel but looking
| to switch to iPhone. I do my backups with termux, so does
| anyone know a good alternative on iPhone? I see termus but it
| requires an account? Can I access my photos from these
| emulators? Just being able to have a few bash scripts really
| empowers these devices.
| mattnewton wrote:
| People like new and shiny things even if they don't use any of
| the shiny features. There is a contingent buying new cars every
| decade- those people are buying iPhones every other year. Apple
| may not sell the most phones but they do make the most money
| selling phones.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| You shouldn't call your girlfriend a normie, that's harsh
| andrepd wrote:
| "Normie"? Anecdotally and fro personal experience, I'd say the
| contrary: it's normies that (pushed by advertising budgets
| bigger than actual product development budgets) are in love
| with these yearly churn and ditch their Samsung S74 to buy the
| new and identical Samsung S75.
|
| Tech people, on the over hand, are some of the most borderline
| luddite people I know (me included!)
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > You can add a million features to the camera app
|
| there was a huge jump in the quality of my photos when I
| upgraded to an iPhone 13 (my current) from an iPhone 8. I've
| seen iPhone 15 photos and they're even better. And I'm not a
| pro photographer.
| hi_hi wrote:
| This is missing the point. It's not about the functionality.
| It's about the marketing.
|
| Apple aren't going to all this effort so you have an amazingly
| functional product that will solve all your real world needs.
| They're doing it so you think you need it to solve problem you
| don't have. Classic FOMO.
| r0fl wrote:
| Perhaps with Apple intelligence your girlfriend will just be
| able to tell Siri what she wants the phone to do and it will
| get done using a feature she never knew she had
| Lio wrote:
| I'd just a like a spell checker that I can trigger on the first
| click instead of on 10th.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Apple feels like MAGA. Everything is the greatest thinnest
| fastest ever, with no reality data, and only until next Sept
| usaphp wrote:
| I love how ridiculous the scene to showcase Apple's Intelligence
| ability to tell you what bread the dog was.
|
| Instead of simply asking a women what breed her dog was - he had
| to open a camera app on his iPhone, ask a women a permission to
| take a photo of the dog, wait until the AI gives him an answer...
| lelandfe wrote:
| "Is that rain?" https://youtube.com/watch?v=EP1YAatv1Mc
| evulhotdog wrote:
| Agreed. Normally Apple finds genuine uses of their features
| they're intending to market. The guy ended up talking to the
| person with the dog after, which made the use of the AI a bit
| of a miss.
|
| It honestly felt like Apple didn't do that scene because
| normally everything is well thought out.
| paperplatter wrote:
| It's weird how they pick unrealistic use cases when there are
| real ones. Last week I saw a nice plant and wanted to buy the
| same one, so I used Google's image recognition feature.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Apple already has that in current iOS. Take a picture of a
| plant, click the little icon in the corner, and it'll pull it
| up for you.
| siquick wrote:
| This is a pretty accurate representation of everyday city life
| in 2024.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| I'm probably in the minority, but a thing I'd love to see is a
| much stronger flashlight. It's silly, but the flashlight is
| something I use almost daily and having a more powerful one would
| be quite useful.
| rudros wrote:
| What a random feature request. In case you're not aware, you
| can open control center, long-press on the flashlight icon and
| you get to adjust the brightness of the flashlight. If you're
| not already at the max level, you might get a slightly (but
| definitely not much) stronger flashlight on your current phone.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't think I'd ever heard about this functionality before,
| thanks.
| semireg wrote:
| Except when it's accidentally turned on in your pocket. Ouch!
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| You'd think they could use all of the sensors on the phone to
| detect this
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I agree. It would be so easy to turn it from a book light into
| something actually useful.
| davidy123 wrote:
| I've been an Android user since day 1, but am very impressed by
| some of these features. I'd love to have the half-click to focus
| feature and other dedicated camera button features, macro, a few
| other things that put this generation in a next category. I'd
| like to see them catch up and surpass all of Google's onboard AI
| features, and it looks like they're working on it. Being able to
| find a section of a video by a vague description, all on-device,
| is incredible. And they're finally improving their photo app. If
| Apple offered call screening, ambient song
| identification/logging, and allowed browsers to support
| extensions, I'd be tempted to switch, especially since they have
| a clearer privacy story. I'm glad strong competition is
| continuing, especially around privacy.
| talldayo wrote:
| > I'm glad strong competition is continuing, especially around
| privacy.
|
| Until Apple releases an iOS platform equivocal to AOSP, there's
| really not any competition at all. Apple claims to care about
| privacy, Google proves they do.
| njbentley1 wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Google's entire business model is dependent on personal data.
| AOSP may have privacy features that are verifiable but Google
| Play Services is not open source and undoubtedly collect lots
| of data for Google. Most AOSP-based phones all largely
| include GPS. Sure, you can limit what access GPS has but then
| you're sacrificing features. The majority of people probably
| opt-in.
|
| In contrast, Apple doesn't need your data for most of the
| products / services they sell. Privacy is a selling point, so
| they're incentivized to build robust privacy features. I'd
| love to see more commitment to open-sourcing underlying
| technologies but imo Apple is way more privacy conscious than
| Google.
|
| I will however give Google credit for their privacy
| initiatives in recent years. They seem to be taking it more
| seriously.
| talldayo wrote:
| > Google Play Services is not open source and undoubtedly
| collect lots of data for Google
|
| Google Play services is not everything though, and Android
| being what it is, you can actually replace and spoof most
| of these features to your heart's content. Having used
| Android without Play Services for a few years now, I honest
| to god do not notice the difference. microG coming
| preinstalled on most Android derivatives helps a lot there.
|
| > Privacy is a selling point, so they're incentivized to
| build robust privacy features.
|
| Problem is, that's a tautology. Apple _says_ that, and
| certainly stand to gain quite a bit from claiming it. But
| nobody is holding them accountable besides themselves; if
| Apple was asked to compromise their privacy by a third
| party, their users may never know. Nobody can earnestly say
| that iOS is a comparatively private operating system,
| because we _literally cannot see_ how it behaves!
|
| Apple's approach to "privacy" is publishing whitepapers and
| then absolving themselves of real accountability. That's
| how they approached iPhone security, that's how they
| approached Mac security, and lord only knows how they
| approach iCloud security. When you say that Apple is
| "privacy conscious", you mean to say they market privacy
| better. You don't know how conscious Apple is of privacy,
| you only know what they claim to be true.
|
| As I said; it's not a competition. Marketing-based security
| is not a threat model; transparency is.
| kanbara wrote:
| i actually dont know how you can say this with a straight
| face
| talldayo wrote:
| I don't know how you can include "Apple" and "privacy" in
| the same sentence without some kind of source code to back
| it up.
| veber-alex wrote:
| How does source code backs Google privacy claims?
|
| AOSP so different than even Google own pixel phones it's
| code is basically irrelevant.
| talldayo wrote:
| It's an option. AOSP isn't identical to OEM-distributed
| ROMs, but it's certainly a great basis for private OSes
| like CalyxOS and GrapheneOS. For individuals that are
| serious about privacy, there aren't any options to
| compile your own iOS with Apple services disabled.
|
| I'm not saying that the AOSP absolves all of Google's
| server-side behavior (or even that it proves they're
| benevolent; neither company is). My point is that Google
| presents a realistic threat model to their users, that
| takes them seriously and even provides escape hatches for
| any potentially concerning features. iOS presents a
| comparatively cartoonish outlook that relies more on the
| strength of their marketing than the self-evidence of
| their security. Apple's position is indefensible but
| claims to be altruistic; Google's position is honest, so
| much that it treats themselves as a threat.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Are you running AOSP without GMS?
| callalex wrote:
| No user-replaceable battery even though that's a consumable/wear
| item?
|
| They even invited "Mother Earth" herself to their last
| presentation to talk about how much they care about the planet!
| Were they just lying to our faces then?
| pama wrote:
| The battery specs are not in the press release, but you can find
| them at the very bottom of this page:
| https://www.apple.com/iphone-16-pro/
|
| Up to 33 hours video playback on iPhone 16 Pro Max8
|
| Up to 27 hours video playback on iPhone 16 Pro8
| jdlyga wrote:
| AirPods are still Apple's best product. Depending on your ear
| shape, you might find that regular AirPods fall out and AirPods
| Pro with their silicon tips work better, or that silicon-tipped
| earbuds like the AirPods Pro don't fit well and only the regular
| AirPods stay in place. It's great that Apple is finally adding
| ANC to regular AirPods so people have options.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Phishing email operators rejoice: Apple still are not showing
| emails in the Mail app, and will even scan your phishing email
| and rephrase it while recognising and pushing it as a priority
| notification.
|
| I actually like the idea, but I worry a lot that it will lead to
| non tech-savvy (and tech-savvy-but-hurried) people to getting
| rekt. It's still obscene to me that they don't show the sender's
| email before clicking in. It not only removes valuable
| information to screen emails with, but if there are tracking
| pixels, they fire since you must open the email for further
| screening. (Sender email can ofc be spooked, but this catches
| most spam I get)
| tmaly wrote:
| I am not seeing a real benefit to upgrading. I wish I could just
| swap in a new battery myself once I have gone through enough
| charging cycles.
|
| I just upgraded to an iPhone 15 pro from an iPhone 13 pro a few
| months ago.
|
| Honestly, I felt like the iPhone 13 pro had better battery life.
|
| My friend confirmed the same thing between a regular iPhone 14
| and iPhone 14 Pro.
|
| Not sure if it is software or hardware or both.
| chrismatheson wrote:
| You can. I took my 13mini to Apple paid the Apple tax and now
| I'm happy to not be forced into a uncomfortably larger physical
| device for at least mother year or two
| dangus wrote:
| Why would you see the benefit to upgrading when you just
| upgraded to the previous model? That's an unreasonable
| expectation. That would be like complaining that the 2025
| Toyota Camry isn't good enough to upgrade to from your 2024
| model. Of course it's not!
|
| I also really don't understand what the hangup is with the
| batteries.
|
| You bought a $1000 phone, $99 to get a new battery is
| reasonable.
|
| I get it, the cost should be $20 and it shoulde be an easy DIY
| job, but it seems like you're actively refusing the solution.
| You undoubtedly spent more to upgrade to the 15 Pro than to
| replace the battery in your 13 Pro.
| smcleod wrote:
| I'm a little disappointed they all only have 8GB of RAM, I would
| have thought that with the world of AI we're all living in now
| we'd get at least 12GB for our $1850-$2850.
| nisten wrote:
| How much RAM?
| djhworld wrote:
| I have a 15 Pro Max and I like it, I actually switched from
| Android last year so I've only been in the iPhone world for a
| short while.
|
| The camera button/gesture thing on this new model seems decent
| but none of the features really seem that compelling to upgrade,
| the "visual intelligence" which is supposedly reserved for the 16
| models just seems like Google Lens with maybe tighter integration
| with the OS features.
|
| Additonally the 16 doesn't have more RAM which I thought they
| might have done given the local LLM models, so not really a
| compelling upgrade.
| raydev wrote:
| For fun, revisit the iPhone 6 announcement thread on HN[1],
| coincidentally posted 10 years ago today. I love going back to
| these to see how people responded.
|
| The more things change...
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8292029
| just_tubes wrote:
| What a wonderful perspective. Feels like we're talking about
| the same topics.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| What an archive. I wonder if who is still posting from 10 years
| ago
| eigenvalue wrote:
| I get so much utility from my iPhone that it's worth many times
| what it costs to me. So I've been on the upgrade program since it
| came out and get the new model every year. I always look forward
| to getting the new phone, even though at this point the
| improvements are incremental. But it's very much worth it to me
| just to get better looking videos and photos of my small
| children. And stuff like better battery life has obvious utility.
| I'm just on my phone so much of the day and use it for so many
| different things that having it be a few percent better in a
| bunch of categories is a no brainer. And it's often more than
| just a few percent!
| thom wrote:
| Does the new camera button thingy happen to be a fingerprint
| scanner as well? I live in a constant state of rage with Face ID,
| longing for my iPhone 8 Plus with its Home button and the ability
| to pay for things in one fluid motion.
| winstonp wrote:
| It's not. Your problems with Face ID seem to be of a super
| minority of users -- 99% of people I know have no problems with
| it.
| thom wrote:
| It's not a blocker, just that it's strictly more work, every
| single time.
| jacobn wrote:
| The fact that they have touch id on some of the ipad side power
| buttons, but not on the iphone, is so annoying. Face id is both
| great and terrible, and complementing it with touch id to cover
| the >5% of cases where face id fails would be such an
| improvement.
| usaphp wrote:
| How is using face id for payments not a fluid motion? Double
| click on the side button and it's ON to make payments, no need
| to do anything else. While on Touch ID you have to first
| initiate the payment and then unlock with a finger (2 steps)?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Touch ID works faster for me. I have it on the iPad and Mac
| and it's good. Face ID frequently fails, especially if I'm in
| bed.
| thom wrote:
| With Face ID you have to take your phone out, double click,
| then hold it up to your face and wait for it to work, then
| hold it out to do a contactless payment. With Touch ID you
| just take your phone out of your pocket with your thumb on
| the home button and pay instantly (you don't have to initiate
| anything).
| thom wrote:
| Even if you're just paying on the phone, the double side
| click plus wait is a wacky gesture to make compared to just
| moving your thumb down a bit.
| _ph_ wrote:
| May be not an earth-shattering update vs. the 15, but overall a
| lot of improvements. Probably more so for the plain iPhone 16, as
| it gets the A18 SOC, the Pro seems to have mainly one CPU core
| more.
|
| As I am on an iPhone 13 Pro Max, still in total absolutely a
| worthy upgrade for me. I certainly look forward to it. The
| advantages vs the 15 I can see so far:
|
| - updated SOC, somewhat faster, but up to 30% more power-
| efficient which turns into
|
| - larger battery life. Thats something everyone will welcome, I
| guess.
|
| - better camera: 48mp wide angle, 120mm tele lens, 4k 120 Hz.
|
| - a bit larger screen, too bad they at least didn't name any
| other screen enhancements
|
| - the shutter button. A ton of functionality built into one
| single button. Pressure/touch sensitivity, haptical feedback.
| That should greatly improve its usage as a camera.
|
| - all the AI stuff. We need to wait how it delivers, when it
| arrives (especially, if you are outside the US), but that could
| get interesting when it delivers.
|
| While there wasn't any big surprise or outstanding change, for a
| year over year update a lot of things and definitely very nice
| for everyone with an older phone than the 15.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| They mention battery life in this release 11 times without saying
| how long the battery will last. Please Apple, even just a typical
| usage number would be great.
|
| It's been many generations since I've had an Apple device, and
| each year they release a new one I try figure out how long the
| battery lasts, to no avail. Nobody I know has bought a Max Pro
| either.
|
| With Apple, you never know, it could still be 10 hours battery
| life. I mean they just released "ground-breaking" features like
| moveable icons, something I think Android had since Android 1. My
| point is one never knows.
| jacobn wrote:
| The only number I could find was 22/27 hours of video playback
| for 16/16 Pro, you can compare that to older models on
| https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/ that might give some
| indication?
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| Thanks this is perfect. That's really decent battery life.
| callalex wrote:
| Still no user-replaceable battery even though they claim to
| care about the environment.
| zdw wrote:
| Finally, they've matched the Zune in excellent color choices.
| jacobn wrote:
| So a lot of Apple Intelligence is still vaporware then?
|
| From [1] "Additional Apple Intelligence features will roll out
| later this year and in the months following", i.e. later in 2024
| and then in 2025, and the not-available-at-launch features appear
| to be the stronger ones, e.g. ChatGPT integration?
|
| Any word on improving the dictate-to-text keyboard feature? I
| could only find "In the Notes and Phone apps, users can also
| record, transcribe, and summarize audio", but that's different.
|
| [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/09/apple-debuts-
| iphone-1...
| peterweyand38 wrote:
| And I would pay a thousand dollars for this as opposed to finding
| a used earlier generation model for fifty bucks why? It's hard to
| tell if this is supposed to be satire or not.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| You probably can't even find an original iPhone for $50.
| Havoc wrote:
| >6.3 inches on iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches on iPhone 16 Pro Max
| -- the largest iPhone display ever.
|
| People want this? My current 6.7 14promax is already in hindsight
| too big for single hand operation.
|
| Realistically I'm probably skipping 16 anyway. Top end 14 is
| still adequate for everything I need
| redbell wrote:
| You know what really caught my attention with the 16 Pro Max? The
| 6.9-inch display, with a resolution of 1320x2868 pixels [1]!
| However, I'm a bit skeptical about this choice. A 6.9-inch screen
| size is quite rare in the smartphone world [2]. Samsung tried
| something similar back in 2020 with its S20 Ultra (and Note 20
| Ultra), only to revert to 6.8 inches with the S21 Ultra the
| following year--and they haven't looked back since. Why? I'm not
| entirely sure, but I've heard some say the size was just _too_
| big.
|
| So, will Apple be the one to make this a new industry standard
| for flagship devices, like they did with the removal of the 3.5mm
| headphone jack or excluding the charger from the box? Perhaps,
| but for now, I remain cautiously skeptical.
|
| _____________________________
|
| 1. Apple hasn't officially listed the display resolution on the
| iPhone 16 Pro Max's product page, but thankfully, GSMArena has
| all the technical details available:
| https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_16_pro_max-13123.php.
|
| 2. AFAIK, aside from Samsung, only two other major brands have
| experimented with this display size: Motorola, with its Razr 50
| Ultra (2024), and Huawei, with the Pocket (2022).
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| The faster new 6-core GPU in A18 Pro delivers stunning visuals
| for next-level gaming, benefitting games like Death Stranding.
| ----
|
| Hm, Death Stranding in the official article? :DDDDDDD
| wkirby wrote:
| Give me a new mini. I'm begging you.
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