iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

https://www.apple.com/

by tosh • 6 years ago

485 1378 6 years ago

jblakey• 6 years ago

I really wish the Apple presenters would stop waving their arms... since I noticed they were doing it, I can't stop seeing it:)

mttjj3• 6 years ago

Wait until you notice that everyone's Apple Watch is set to 10:09.

DonaldPShimoda• 6 years ago

For context: watchmakers have often used 10:10 for marketing materials because it's symmetrical and it doesn't obscure the brand logo, which usually goes below the 12 position. Apple uses 10:09 probably because they want to be "ahead" of everybody else.

Similarly, iPhones are all set to 9:41 in marketing materials because that's the approximate time Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone back in 2007.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

Not for keynote speakers; this is only for promotional content.

Zenst• 6 years ago

You have a point, now wondering if there was some some memo akin to - pretend you are landing a plane as many appear to be doing just that with their arm flail.

psim1• 6 years ago

Every presenter is doing the Donald Trump hand movements: those open-handed "push" movements and then fingertips of both hands brought together.

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

Did you also notice that everyone wears white shoes when on that auditorium stage? I wonder how many other dress code-related tips or requirements every presenter is given?

torben-friis3• 6 years ago

These creative video transitions are soo much better than live events with awkward cheering and applauses...

tosh• 6 years ago

the transition to Tim reminded me of Fraggles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NygtPyTIkto

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Is 5G rollout in the US really comprehensive enough at this point to deliver on any of the promises they're making about it at this event?

[Edit: found this benchmark from a month ago: https://www.tomsguide.com/features/5g-vs-4g] basically looks like Verizon delivers on the promised speeds, but it still isn't clear to me what the spatial distribution of the higher speeds looks like.

sushicalculus• 6 years ago

I have an iPhone11. My phone says it connects to 5G already, so I’m actually confused by this launch. Why would iOS tell me I’m connected to 5G? I’ll be honest that I’m unfamiliar with this space

tenebrisalietum• 6 years ago

Telecom companies renamed some 4G networks 5G because they technically fall within the standard.

coder5434• 6 years ago

5Ge is a marketing term AT&T invented as a rebrand of 4G LTE. It isn't 5G, but it's probably faster than real 5G for now.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/atts-...

Spooky23• 6 years ago

AT&T defines LTE with better back haul as “5G”. It’s BS.

tootie• 6 years ago

No. But they probably sell enough iPhones to rich people in big cities that it's justified.

coder5434• 6 years ago

No. This article also discusses Verizon, not just AT&T: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/09/atts-...

paul7986• 6 years ago

5G phone with no 5G to use and the carriers have been working on 5G for the past 3 to 5 years?

Verizon just announced they are expanding today their 5g in three US cities... yet in reality there isn't much 5G now in those cities they mentioned.

Pointless marketing by all!

vosper• 6 years ago

It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation, isn’t it? By getting the chipsets out in the phone they’re at least solving the chicken part. Plus, iPhones are usually supported for a good 5 years, so this is a bit of future proofing for people who buy today.

macintux2• 6 years ago

I think the 3 cities are the 5g mmWave technology; Verizon’s general 5g coverage is much broader than that.

jimmar• 6 years ago

I live in a midwest city with a population around 25,000. We won't see 5G for a long, long time. We need signal that goes farther, not faster. 4G is still being rolled out to more rural areas. 5G is a feature I'd rather not pay for.

ryneandal• 6 years ago

200k city here, don't see it happening any time soon.

toast0• 6 years ago

We need signal that goes farther, not faster.

5G can potentially help with that when deployed on existing spectrum, because increased transmission rates reduces airtime utilization, and some cells adjust their range based on utilization. It might not help much, depending on current utilization and terrain and what not, but it'll probably help some, and I imagine carriers will do gradual deployments of that to lower density areas when there's enough handsets that support it and base station equipment is cost reduced enough. I don't think it's going to be fast, but I don't think it'll be on the long, long time scale.

Of course, 5G on the new high frequency spectrum is unlikely to be useful in low density areas, and is unlikely to be deployed. Also, I think AT&T has plans to declare their LTE coverage to be 5G :P

foobarian• 6 years ago

Are the speeds really that important or are they already good enough? Any time I try to do something substantial over cellular I wish for either better coverage or lower latencies (oh, the latencies... even with great signal strength)

ghaff2• 6 years ago

It depends on whether the higher speeds let you use mobile in conditions where WiFi/broadband is flaky or unavailable. But, I agree in general that is a bigger problem in more rural areas and that's where mobile range is more important as well.

Rebelgecko2• 6 years ago

on TMO, 5G speeds are basically the same as 4G but I've that the 5G is actually a bit more pervasive

secretsatan4• 6 years ago

Here in Switzerland, the rollout got delayed by the conspiracy theorists

marc3842h• 6 years ago

Mobile providers still upgraded their existing antennas. With my Note20 Ultra 5G on Sunrise, half of the time I am outdoors I get 5G (in Aargau) with speeds between 400mbps-600mbps.

lucasverra• 6 years ago

The new speaker does not play Spotify (or the Icon was clearly not there)... I thought we were over this Apple :(

zepto5• 6 years ago

That’s on Spotify.

strombofulous3• 6 years ago

Source?

numlock86• 6 years ago

They talk about 5G like it's a new and revolutionary thing. Is this US or iPhone specific? I am on 5G for almost a year now.

llampx10• 6 years ago

It is revolutionary when Apple does it.

khazhoux2• 6 years ago

It becomes widely adopted in the US when Apple does it.

seanmcdirmid4• 6 years ago

They are playing up 5G to get people to buy a 5G phone, it isn't an attempt to get people to think Apple just invented 5G; its called marketing.

fma2• 6 years ago

Their marketing works...Apple markets their fancy screens and people think they're better. But Samsung makes their screens and Samsung keeps the best screens for their own phones.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/26/samsung-iphone-12-displ...

dkonofalski2• 6 years ago

There's a difference between 5G and Ultrawide 5G. Some carriers in the US, for example, just rebranded their 4G LTE networks as 5G because the top of their speed range is above the minimum required speed for actual 5G.

ezconnect• 6 years ago

They even call shipping their phone without a charger revolutionary. It's Apple.

wlesieutre6• 6 years ago

At least they didn't tell us how courageous it was

mrDmrTmrJ• 6 years ago

I laughed out loud at that. Explaining the deletion of the charger, which is effectively a price raise, through the environmental angle is genius-level marketing and margin improvement.

To be clear: I support the move and think Apple's environmental efforts are both sincere and meaningfully helpful. It's just the best, "aren't you happy we're raising prices!" I've ever seen :)

yannikyeo• 6 years ago

It means US is one year behind in 5G adoption, as carrier tech needs Apple devices to be widely adopted in US.

akavi• 6 years ago

Interesting that they keep showing shots of the empty auditorium. You'd think they'd try to gloss over the lack of audience.

ehsankia6• 6 years ago

I disagree, at this point, showing that you respect social distancing and do things in a responsible way is actually something people look for.

LudwigNagasena• 6 years ago

Yeah, I am surprised they don’t wear masks to signal their responsibility.

marketingPro4• 6 years ago

Socially responsible but bends to multiple dictatorships...

5 star marketing

jtxx• 6 years ago

yeah, when the Verizon dude came on they were so far apart it was like “oh okay we get it”.

saos• 6 years ago

No talk of Spotify support for homepods. That’s worrying

ehsankia6• 6 years ago

These transitions are insane. The production quality is honestly fantastic. Apple has perfected the art of virtual keynotes.

tpmx13• 6 years ago

The one last month was a bit slow/boring. This one is keeping my attention so far; I agree, it's impressive.

pmarreck4• 6 years ago

I will say that the Apple Watch Series 6 has been a massive upgrade over my Series 3 though

marketingPro4• 6 years ago

When your business model revolves around marketing and aesthetics, you need to put the extra effort.

You can tell Apple's target demographic isn't enterprise markets at every turn.

cafed00d3• 6 years ago

One could argue that a company like Stripe's target demographic is _precisely_ the enterprise markets; yet, their product pages are slick af! Smooth scrolling, animations and all that jazz. Because they're made up of folks who love JavaScript (and animations, of course)

Apple's marketing team is similar. They're probably a bunch of people who _love_ making videos; probably studied film or art or spent a ton of time on Final Cut Pro etc etc.

moogleii3• 6 years ago

That's a tired and specious argument that might have held water if Apple were only successful for a year or two. There are a myriad of devices from competitors who also had large marketing budgets but eventually disappeared into the night.

But it's essentially been 13 years (if you only start counting from the introduction of the iPhone). Great engineering/product deserves a big marketing budget. They go hand in hand.

arcticbull3• 6 years ago

They actually wrote Keynote so Steve could give high-quality animated, uh, keynotes.

frankjr• 6 years ago

Agreed. I only wish they streamed in a higher quality. 1080p looks pretty bad on a 27" 4K monitor.

tpmx13• 6 years ago

I'm getting what looks like roughly a 6000 kbps stream (quick calculation from fragment size/m3u8 fragment duration). It looks very good for 1080p.

As a comparison I'm typically getting like 1500 kbps from Netflix on a 1 gigabit per second connection on their "HD" plan.

auggierose• 6 years ago

It is 4K on an Apple TV. At least it looks like it :-D

moogleii3• 6 years ago

If you were watching on YouTube and Safari, you were limited to 1080p. The Apple site and ATV were in 4k.

jayd162• 6 years ago

Maybe I'm being too negative but other parts of the production are throwing me off. The white balance is so cold and the profile photo style vignetting and background blur is so overbearing.

Its a great keynote but I would have preferred more subtlety in the production toys.

Shivetya2• 6 years ago

it is hard at times to determine if the background you see is computer generated or not. I am not sure that difficult in distinction is a good trend

jonplackett8• 6 years ago

I was wondering how they'd done the house with open sides. Looked really realistic but even apple don't have enough money to burn on stripping the side wall of a house off for a 10 minute segment... or do they?

joakleaf• 6 years ago

It looks impressive, but why does everybody talk in that weird way;"Wow. What an exciting day." It feels so weird and artificial. It actually makes them sound less enthusiastic and genuine to me.

They also present a lot of features (especially photos), but without comparison I am left wondering, how much better is the new stuff. And why should I buy it...

Sounds great with that new glass too; I wondered if they would show how much better it is -- Maybe do something funny, risky, and slightly stupid like the Cybertruck incident. Nope: Just 4x better than before -- Whatever those 4x means. Get some hammers out -- Do something...

The A14 is also faster than before. No real-life demo comparison. Wouldn't it have been easy to compare the games on the GPUs (stuttering frame rate on one side)? Just something. If you can't show us why it is better, it is not good enough.

Oh, and why no actual live demos with the phone instead of just 100 great photos and videos of the phone and by the phone?

The old keynotes had a slide with the comparison of the mini, normal, pro models and the end. Those actually served as an informative summary at the end. Instead Tim Cook just told us what we had seen, and that "it was the day everybody had waited for", and then I am left struggling to remember why the pro is more expensive and how much more it was...

They may be the best at this, and it does feel (overly) polished, but I feel the old much simpler Jobs keynotes were far ahead in enthusiasm and far more entertaining. Sorry.

kneel• 6 years ago

Apple employees already have the corporate robotic, overworked aesthetic down.

Watching them attempt to display emotions is hilarious.

zionic• 6 years ago

but without comparison I am left wondering, how much better is the new stuff

When the comparison is 8 vs 10 bit HDR while 99.5+% are watching a crappy SDR youtube feed on SDR panels comparisons literally can't be real.

tomashertus2• 6 years ago

why does everybody talk in that weird way;"Wow. What an exciting day." It feels so weird and artificial

This gets me every time. It's so artificial that I'm pulling my hair. I honestly don't know, why everyone is always so so "excited". Every time I hear someone say "this is exciting", I think BS. We had a colleague and his go-to phrase was "This is super exciting". "SUPER EXCITING!"

iNate2000• 6 years ago

lineup at 1:05:55

Damogran63• 6 years ago

I kinda don't think Tim was in the theatre. It's much more likely he's match moved and laid over pre-recorded renders. they're not the first tech group I've seen go to full pre-recorded footage like this, it takes _all_ the risk out of a failed demo.

Guereric2• 6 years ago

Do we know what program they use for their presentations?

timdorr• 6 years ago

They supposedly use Keynote, but I think with these presentations it's more likely custom motion graphics in After Effects or possibly Final Cut Pro if Apple is imposing in-house software.

sz4kerto2• 6 years ago

iPhone 12 Pro Max with Super Retina XDR display covered by Ceramic Shield.

I personally think this is simply too much.

mikkelam5• 6 years ago

Really hoping for an ARM macbook today

birdiesanders• 6 years ago

It’ll be worse than you think it will be.

MuffinFlavored• 6 years ago

Why's that?

someelephant• 6 years ago

Just make sure you don't purchase a first gen unless you are a masochist.

mikkelam5• 6 years ago

That's probably a good idea. I do expect the battery gains as well as speeds be massive though. I suspect at least 50% longer lasting battery, and less burning of my laps

_ph_• 6 years ago

Not very likely, they will want to reserve a seperate announcement for the new Apple Silicon Macs - probably more than one.

falcolas2• 6 years ago

I’ve heard that announcement is likely to come in yet another event in November.

justusthane3• 6 years ago

Me too. I just read that it’s likely delayed until 2021 though: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/08/12/new-macbo...

Minor MacBook update possible in Nov or Dec.

amrrs• 6 years ago

Is this the first iPhone launch without Phil Schiller (in a while)? Looks like individual experts have taken over each segment of iPhone (from Phil Schiller). Still I miss him!

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Presumably his transition to Apple Fellow also comes with fewer public facing responsibilities?

briandear2• 6 years ago

Joz is the new Phil.

jack22224• 6 years ago

Very involved behind the scenes. I'm sure he set the direction for a lot of this presentation.

ksec16• 6 years ago

I think he may appear in the Mac event in November.

macintux2• 6 years ago

Intercom made me wish I had a family to use it with. Apple does a great job of developing solutions, not just features.

rstupek• 6 years ago

Alexa devices also has had this feature for a while now. It is nice how the homepod adds the integration with other devices though

gerash• 6 years ago

Google home has had this for a while too

ActorNightly6• 6 years ago

Apple does a great job of developing solutions

Intercom is not a solution. Our house growing up had an intercom in every room. We used it for all of 2 days before we figured out that simply calling someone loudly was simpler.

Apple is great at providing solutions to problems that they tell you that you have.

Not to mention that other device like Alexa already have this.

jodrellblank2• 6 years ago

How can you complain at Apple for making up problems and at the same time criticise Apple for not having a thing everyone else has? If Amazon had it first, Apple didn't make it up. If not having it impresses you then it shouldn't be a point that Alexa had it first, that would be bad. If having what Alexa has impresses you, then Apple should be adding it, and adding it is not bad. You can't have both.

Not to mention that other device like Alexa already have this.

Then don't mention it. What on earth do Android or Lisp or Linux users think will happen when they say "X had it first"? The only sane conclusion is that X is not the reason people avoided Android/Lisp/Linux. That was already clear because people were not tempted over by the presense of X. So if the only point is show gloat or be dismissive and/or scornful, who would want to move to a system which has the same feature but has a public facing community that's more about gloating and scoffing than being welcoming or helping?

balls1872• 6 years ago

The shade at Fortnite was hilarious.

ryeguy_24• 6 years ago

I honestly was waiting for them to say Fortnite to surprise the industry but yes thought that was really funny too.

asenna• 6 years ago

I missed it, can you describe what they did please?

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

Lost Fortnite, got League of Legends. Apparently.

chki2• 6 years ago

Very impressive technology: With those 4GB per second download speeds I can use up my entire month of data in 250 milliseconds.

On a more serious note: what technology advancements will there be in the next 10-20 years that actually make 5G technology useful?

mikkelam5• 6 years ago

Arguments like these have been argued since dial up :) Probably longer. Don't worry, it won't be a problem for consumers

nikanj• 6 years ago

Mostly it's only a problem for North American consumers. Customers in the EU and Asia get true unlimited data for a pittance.

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Wirth's Law, applied to networks? Ad-filled javascript bundles will expand to take up as much bandwidth as you give them

llampx10• 6 years ago

Just looking at "mobile-optimized" web pages from now compared to a few years ago proves this in spades.

Waterfall• 6 years ago

Tinfoil hats, cancer treatment, self driving cars or perhaps platoons for highways, smart homes that are easily hacked, wireless low powered implants that cause benign tumors that sue a tech company into bankrupty, but the shell company opens another 5g implant company.

JoshGlazebrook• 6 years ago

5G unlimited on verizon is actually not deprioritized after any GB amount.

frogpelt2• 6 years ago

Yet.

ls612• 6 years ago

They’ll likely have to change that if for no other reason than someone will use their plan to run some servers using many TB/mo of data or something crazy. Like how MS needed to cap “unlimited” OneDrive because a few people were storing 100TB of system images.

arcticbull3• 6 years ago

5G is for the cell carriers not the customers. Towers can simultaneously transmit to a certain number of clients at a time, so if you can get latency down and bandwidth up, you can service effectively more clients in the same period of time. With that said clients benefit too since they can shut down their power-sucking radios sooner. Think of it like turbo boost for CPUs: it's all about racing to get the link to sleep.

chki2• 6 years ago

Thanks, that sounds very useful indeed! I had only heard about impressive download and upload speeds so far but this makes a lot of sense.

vbezhenar2• 6 years ago

Gotta counter that with few JavaScript timers continuously checking for new ads every 200 ms.

packetlost• 6 years ago

This isn't strictly true, consumers will benefit with better signals and less slowdowns in dense areas such as sports stadiums.

Traster• 6 years ago

There was a lot of talk about how the number of sensors on autonomous vehicles meant many gigabytes of data per minute would be produced and transmitted by 5G back to servers to help train the systems. I'm not sure if I actually believe that, but that's certainly what people were claiming.

jonplackett8• 6 years ago

The claims are even more dumb, that it enables automimous cars by connecting them - would you let a car drive you around if it required a mobile connection to work properly? Nope. Note that Elon Musk / Tesla nor any other self driving car uses anything of the sort. It all needs to be running on the car. And they're managing to do self driving already without any 5G. For uploads you can just wait til the car is home and use the wifi, or slowly (though not that slowly really) upload with 4G.

izacus3• 6 years ago

The theory here is nice, but who here on HN does actually get good unthrottled speeds on 4G now? Will carriers just magically stop throttling 5G after they sell it?

pi-rat3• 6 years ago

Most non-americans probably? :)

jeroen2• 6 years ago

A few days ago I downloaded a 4.8GB MacOS update over a 4G connection. That took 25 minutes, which is an average of 3.2 MB/s. My provider claims 30 Mbit/s, so that is pretty reasonable.

bydo• 6 years ago

I get ~100mbps at home over LTE, which is the same as my cable connection.

Edit: In the US.

leadingthenet2• 6 years ago

I get unlimited, unthrottled LTE + 5G for £24/month in the UK.

emrehan• 6 years ago

It’s 4Gb/s for Gigabit

pi-rat3• 6 years ago

It will become cheap enough (both hardware and subscription wise) that companies can include them in basically everything. That way you can't prevent your TV from uploading data to the mothership by not connecting it to wifi.

It's not a consumer technology.

atonse• 6 years ago

I am hoping that SOME TV manufacturer SOMEWHERE follows Apple's lead and markets a privacy-conscious TV as a feature. I have never bought a smart TV (I last bought a plasma 12 years ago), so I have managed to somehow skip the whole smartTV thing. And I'd like to continue avoiding it.

ksec16• 6 years ago

It will become cheap enough

I hope that would happen but nothing on the technology roadmap suggest that is possible. Even if 5G patents were free, i.e you paid Zero for all Wireless patents cost, Antenna, RF Front End and 5G Modem is expensive.

Even if you somehow Apply Moore's Law, it will take at least 3 Gen reduction in cost. ( That is 6 years ).

That is why everyone continues to improve WiFi.

amluto• 6 years ago

The next big JavaScript framework.

The original iPhone was 2.5G and could load webpages just fine. But when a modern iPhone only has a 2.5G connection, it’s useless. All we need to make 5G critical is for webpages to start being 500+ MB for basic text plus all the associated ads, trackers, and other important features.

coldpie3• 6 years ago

All we need to make 5G critical is for webpages to start being 500+ MB for basic text

I see you've never used GitHub before.

agd• 6 years ago

Think AR glasses constantly updating with new 3D data as you walk around town.

E.g. Apple are rumoured to be working on their own AR glasses for release within the next couple of years.

dylan6043• 6 years ago

The demo stated that iOS will only use LTE by default and only kick in to using 5G when it needs it. It will be interesting to see how it makes that decision.

Bud5• 6 years ago

You're off by an order of magnitude, because it's a max speed of 4Gbps. Not 4GB/sec. Bits and not bytes.

Your overall point is still valid, though. Most users will get essentially zero benefit from this and data caps or throttling will kick in hilariously quickly.

ricardobeat3• 6 years ago

what technology advancements will there be in the next 10-20 years that actually make 5G technology useful?

Real-time 3D/VR video streams. I think this will start happening immediately after release since the Pro models have LiDAR. Expect weird, interesting things to happen in games and streaming.

coverband• 6 years ago

Watching this right now (10:33 PDT)... What impresses me most is Akamai's capability to deliver this HQ stream seamlessly.

ksec16• 6 years ago

Are you sure it is on Akamai?

They have been using their own CDN for quite some time.

christoph• 6 years ago

They're bringing back MagSafe for iPhone... can we have it back for the laptops please?

jonplackett8• 6 years ago

It's pretty dumb to call it magsafe. With a laptop it really did keep your laptop safe from getting pulled off a desk when you got up to get a coffee and walked through the cord like an idiot.

What exactly is 'safe' about this? It's just... mag.

hrktb• 6 years ago

Lightning cables break if the phone falls at a weird angle or if you pull while twisting on the weakest side.

I thing the “safe” monicker is still warranted.

jayflux• 6 years ago

It's pretty dumb to call it magsafe

It’s called marketing and brand recognition. Most people won’t care it’s not a literal description of how it works, but they will have heard of MagSafe before and get the general idea.

freehunter5• 6 years ago

it really did keep your laptop safe

In my experience MagSafe never did that, so it’s likely to be the same on the iPhone as on the Macbooks. Most times when I tripped over the cable, it pulled the cable in a straight line. Unfortunately I can lift my Macbook with the MagSafe cable by pulling in a straight line, so it never actually broke apart the way it was intended. Also unfortunately, it breaks apart very easily if you push up or down, which happens frequently when the laptop is sitting on my lap.

So it would unplug itself constantly in normal use, but still pull the Macbook off the table when I tripped on the cable. It’s still better than nothing, but in my experience MagSafe never worked the way it was advertised. Especially as the Macbooks got lighter.

lenitabinol• 6 years ago

With USB-C, unfortunately not

aidanlister• 6 years ago

Why do people want magsafe back? The new USB-C cord pulls out of the wall if you trip over it ... and the little slot doesn’t get filled with metalic dust any more.

dzhiurgis6• 6 years ago

Tons of special adapters out there...

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

Well... MagSafe is back.

ciarannolan• 6 years ago

Do people still watch these live?

I find them really hard to watch. It's about 95% fluff and bullshit and 5% about the technology. I usually just read the bullet summary afterwards.

jedberg6• 6 years ago

I have it on in the background. I'm triaging email at the same time.

dilap• 6 years ago

Watched for a little bit, gave up. I used to find them very interesting back in the Jobs era, but now they're pretty boring. I think partly it's just because the tech is maturing so there's less exciting stuff to show, but it's also definitely down to a much less crisp presentation style.

ehsankia6• 6 years ago

I have zero interest in Apple, never owned one since the very first iPod mini, but I still find their marketing department to be fantastic. These virtual keynotes also have amazing production quality.

I do agree the talking parts could be maybe 50% shorter though.

dustingetz• 6 years ago

People need to feel like something substantial has happened so they can talk and get excited about it. Look around at the impact it's having!

fomine314• 6 years ago

It's exciting just because video quality is excellent than real live event.

roboyoshi2• 6 years ago

I started watching the keynotes with 2 tech friends when I was like 16 years old and as we grew older (am 27 now) they are the only events across the year where we sit down, talk a bit about tech and make fun of all the stupid bullshit in the keynote.

chadcmulligan• 6 years ago

I usually watch the twit.tv ones - they livestream the apple show and talk over it, with vaguely interesting and amusing commentary. The link https://twit.tv/shows/twit-news/episodes/364?autostart=false

christefano5• 6 years ago

I try to, if only so that I can get ahead of the headlines and opinion pieces. I like to form my own opinions first.

janhenr• 6 years ago

The League of Legends x Apple announcement is bigger than people might think. I 100 % believe that this is the start of a massive shift from pc/console to mobile which we have seen before in China. In fact, it is clear from this announcement that iPhone IS considered a console now for Riot. Huge stuff.

bustin• 6 years ago

It's not the start of a massive shift. You'd be surprised what the gaming spending per platform breakdown looks like - phones are a MASSIVE chunk, and growing by far the fastest.

I don't have the numbers on me to back this up but maybe someone else can fetch them.

umeshunni2• 6 years ago

The rule of thumb when it comes to sizing gaming audiences is:

- Mobile: Billions

- Console: 100s of millions

- PC: 10s of millions

In other words, a decent mobile game (not Fortnite or LoL, but something like Among Us) can get 100s of millions of users, a good console game can sells 10s of millions of copies and a PC game can sell millions of copies.

hobofan4• 6 years ago

I think you might have it reversed. I think the LoL announcement is mostly catering to the LoL playerbase (which is mostly located in China) rather than a great ploy to steal PC gaming share.

Separately from that, its pretty interesting how obviously faked the "playing" of LoL in the video was, in an presentation that is otherwise so focused on attention to detail.

ehsankia6• 6 years ago

Well they couldn't tout Fortnite so they have to now focus on another big game :)

minimaxir2• 6 years ago

Note that LoL for mobile was announced a long time ago (IIRC it was supposed to be out by the end of the year normally)

smiley14376• 6 years ago

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is partly why Epic made such a big move trying to put an Epic store on IOS (to the point of sueing Apple).

They managed to get Fortnite to run at 120FPS on Ipad Pro just this March and probably realized that high performance gaming on IOS is here and will only get better as CPU\GPUs improve on mobile, and sued Apple by August.

What better way to monetize your immersive, high performance, addictive game when it's in everyone's pocket all the time ie no need to sit at your console or PC.

pier253• 6 years ago

In fact, it is clear from this announcement that iPhone IS considered a console now for Riot

IMO the only thing clear is that Apple wanted to promote LOL because of all what's going on with Epic.

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

Actually, that MagSafe is really cool. The fact that you can basically stick your iPhone anywhere magnetically is awesome.

hobofan4• 6 years ago

Even though "Android had it X years ago" is mostly a meme by now, I can't resist: The Nexus 5 had magnets that automatically aligned it on a Qi charging dock 7 years ago.

GloriousKoji• 6 years ago

Oh! Oh! Oh! I want to play. The Palm Pre had a magnets to align wireless charging 11 years ago.

shortstuffsushi• 6 years ago

Here's an even easier one, Apple had them as early as 2006! But then pulled them, even though everyone loved them... and now are reintroducing it as new

wmeredith2• 6 years ago

Eh, I mean Apple's entire business has been to do what others are doing, but 10x better.

aviraldg• 6 years ago

There are two reasons I haven't switched over from Android. I wish Apple would try and fix them:

* The lack of a way to move Whatsapp messages between platforms. (They'd just need to allow Whatsapp to use Google Drive for backup on iOS)

* The lack of (physical) dual-SIM.

lotsofpulp2• 6 years ago

I don’t see them investing in physical dual sim when the future is e-SIM.

Nextgrid17• 6 years ago

eSIM gives way more control to the carriers which is not a good thing. I can take out a physical SIM, move it to a different phone, bring it abroad, lend it to someone, etc and the carrier has no say in that.

With an eSIM, once it's provisioned onto a phone it can't be "extracted" and getting a new one involves the carrier, which can say no or make the process difficult/annoying, even if unintentionally.

dreamer7• 6 years ago

They do have physical dual SIM for certain markets. Ex: China

juusto• 6 years ago

Problem solved: moved to china (I jest)

podviaznikov• 6 years ago

I think they have iCloud backup for whatsapp

DangerousPie• 6 years ago

The first one sounds more like a WhatsApp issue than an Apple issue, doesn't it?

kevincox10• 6 years ago

Where you place the blame has little effect on how easy it is to move.

ActorNightly6• 6 years ago

For me its

* all phones go obsolete in about 2 years and there is no reason paying $1000 for one when I can buy one 80% as good for half the price.

yepthatsreality2• 6 years ago

You’ll never get Apple fans to understand that. They will happily toss a $1000 Apple’s way yearly for a new unrepairable device to be created with rare earth metals in China, shipped across the ocean on a freighter and then turn around and tell you that paying more for a charging cable is helping save the environment. Diehards do not care about the cost, they are already paying.

graeme3• 6 years ago

I switched from android whatsapp to ios years ago and still have all the messages. I don’t recall how I did it, but it is definitely possible unless whatsapp locked things down.

jammmety• 6 years ago

Can't vouch for it, but there is software available that helps with your first issue: https://mobiletrans.wondershare.com/whatsapp/transfer-whatsa...

ValentineC5• 6 years ago

This only works to convert WhatsApp data from iPhone to Android, but not the other way around.

I don't understand why WhatsApp won't let their iOS version access a chat backup from Google Drive.

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Wait, so it's still Lightning but they include a USB-C to Lightning adaptor?

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

USB-C to Lightning is included. Finally.

jorge-d• 6 years ago

They just announced that the iPhone 12 will ship only with a lightning to USB-C cable. I don't understand why they don't switch from lightning to USB-C despite already using it on the iPads.

oflannabhra2• 6 years ago

At Apple’s scale, a decision like that has really big implications that from a single-user perspective aren’t that obvious.

Not only do you bifurcate your entire product line and supply chain, your customers are not just individuals, but families. Think about a family who has one new phone that now won’t work with any of the chargers the rest of the family uses.

On top of that, the new connector type won’t be compatible with any of the pre-existing “infrastructure”. While that might not be a big deal for some single users, it could be a major issue for others.

seedless-sensat• 6 years ago

They have to bite the bullet at some point

amf12• 6 years ago

I get your point. But then why not keep iPads consistent? Even MacBooks use USB-C.

falcolas2• 6 years ago

Gods yes. Lightning isn’t bad, but it certainly complicates charging.

I guess they’re really relying on wireless -everything-

balls1872• 6 years ago

Probably to allow more people to use existing charging cables, and accessories, as a way to limit e-waste.

I dunno if I buy that rationale, but they certainly were touting e-waste as the reason for omitting the pack-ins.

avtar• 6 years ago

And yet they dropped USB-A ports on all of their laptops and switched to USB-C on iPad...

kevincox10• 6 years ago

My best guess is that they make a lot of money on lightning royalties.

The other guess is that they are hoping to cost until a no-port future. However the fact that the iPad switched makes that seem odd. I expected the next phone generation after the iPad would switch but I was clearly wrong.

ffpip• 6 years ago

This is something only Apple would do, Introducing iPhone Mini.

Well, you're the only company making iPhones.

dijit3• 6 years ago

They seem to be the only company making a small flagship phone.

Ever since the Sony mini phones stopped getting updates I lost hope.

kevincox10• 6 years ago

It's not a flagship though. It is missing a lot of features compared to the bigger models.

mikkelam5• 6 years ago

I wish the iphone 12 mini was smaller :/ Seems like the best option for us compact loving people though

ActorNightly6• 6 years ago

If you can live with 30 minutes of battery life.

Yes Im being hyperbolic, battery life at full load is going to suffer tremendously, especially when you consider the degradation of battery performance over the years.

justapassenger• 6 years ago

I'm pretty sure lots of people will accept their phone to be 5mm thicker to allow more room for a bigger battery.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

You are aware that every iPhone form factor before the 6 existed, right?

z6• 6 years ago

The original SE actually had fantastic battery life. If I recall correctly, better than the larger flagship 6s at the time.

notSupplied• 6 years ago

As Apple makes their chips faster and more efficient and as phone batteries get bigger and bigger, app developers rise to meet the challenge by producing increasingly sloppy software that can afford to be incredibly wasteful because raw speed of the hardware is masking its cracks.

Try to run Instagram today on an iPhone 6, you won't be able to even scroll a feed of static images smoothly without hitching. Imagine what it is doing to the battery.

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

Hold on: Minor detail, but in the video showing off what iPhone 12 could do, the share icon was from iOS 12 and earlier?

kossTKR• 6 years ago

"The iPhone mini fits in the palm of you hand" lol.

It's interesting that a reasonably sized phone is now a selling point in itself.

In general i like keeping my devices for as long as possible - so when i jumped from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone 10, i was surprised to learn that the phone was hard to use with one hand now, extremely slippery and way, way heavier than my iphone 6.

The mini seems like a good size for me. The Pro 12 looks absolutely amazing though! I usually don't fanboy but goddamn their product design is stellar.

allenu• 6 years ago

I was genuinely confused when it was in her hand. It looked like a regular-sized phone or even slightly bigger than one.

tpmx13• 6 years ago

They had to find a huge guy with giant hands to show how "small" it was in the commercial segment following that part.

threatofrain2• 6 years ago

Here's an iPhone 5 advertisement about that exact feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E

robbyking2• 6 years ago

I think I'm the only person who likes iOS's reachability gesture. The only annoying thing about it is sometimes it will trigger touchUpInside for buttons along the bottom of the screen, navigating me away from the screen I was on.

ghaff2• 6 years ago

I've liked the iPhone X size but I do have big hands. I also find that I certainly feel more secure holding with a case with rubberized edges. Using it in one hand is sort of important to me. In normal times I often have a phone in one hand and food/beverage in another at events. The Plus sizes have always felt a bit too large to me.

I would have upgraded this year normally. With travel mostly shut down for a while though, I may end waiting another year. I don't need an upgrade for mostly using around the house.

suyash6• 6 years ago

Believe it or not the 'mini' used to the the standard smartphone size. As it goes in America, bigger = better so that is what you get.

reaperducer3• 6 years ago

As it goes in America, bigger = better so that is what you get.

The bigger phone trend actually started in Korea, and spread to China. It was several years before large phones came to the United States.

llampx10• 6 years ago

The bigger phones came from Asia first (not Japan, that's where tiny is better)

jonwachob91• 6 years ago

Believe it or not there was a real reason for bigger phones. They realized that most people still couldn't single handle the standard size smartphone, so if the majority of the population was going to have to use two hands the phone makers may as well jack the size up as much as possible to take advantage of the larger battery size and additional features.

quicklime• 6 years ago

From the market research I've seen, Americans were actually reasonably happy with the old phone sizes - the move towards larger phones was driven more by international (particularly Asian) consumers.

Part of this is because a smartphone is a "primary computing device" in those countries, whereas Americans tended to have tablets, laptops and TVs as well.

yunithr88• 6 years ago

There is obviously a market for big phones, though it was always odd to me that Apple went from a normal sized (now small) phone to big and even bigger.

There are obviously various profit motivations. Bigger phones are easier to throw more tech in since you're less constrained by physical size while also making the devices thinner. There was also no risk of losing market share since nobody makes smaller phones anymore. And lastly, most people still bought the product that was available.

I am excited to see this return to a smaller form factor. I hope we can get a Pro model eventually and decouple budget and size.

forrestthewoods3• 6 years ago

Apple resisted phablets for years. When they finally released their first “plus” sized phone sales were through the roof.

In absolute numbers there’s a good market for “mini” (or smaller) phones. But relatively speaking it’s a niche.

The market has spoken! But fortunately the market is literally billions of smartphone users so there’s a lot of room for variety.

Eric_WVGG3• 6 years ago

"relatively speaking it's a niche"

It's equally as ridiculous to say "small phones are a niche" in 2019 when nobody was selling small phones, as it was to say "phablets are a niche" in 2013 when Apple wasn't selling a big phone.

I would bet that the Mini will be a runaway bestseller.

agumonkey2• 6 years ago

I think the phablet thing was a fad, people were happy to see more but I've heard a lot of people say they miss tiny too now that they've tried.

simonh2• 6 years ago

Apple simply prioritised pixel density over screen size. Once they’d gone to retina resolution displays, they didn’t want to drop the resolution to make a bigger phone and still have good performance and battery life.

Bear in mind the 6+ was actually a bit under powered for its screen. While overall it was acceptably performant, mine noticeably lagged compared to a 6 in graphically intensive applications, so they did the transition just when they could get away with having both high resolution and acceptable performance.

caymanjim• 6 years ago

Even the iPhone 6 is too big to use one-handed, and I have giant sasquatch hands. I got one from work when they first came out, and ended up sticking with my iPhone 5. I also really dislike the protruding camera lens, and now all phones do that. The phone can't even lie flat on a surface. Bigger is not better. I use a Pixel 2 right now, and it's the perfect size for my hand. It also has a protruding lens, but with a slim cover, it's fine.

boogies• 6 years ago

Don’t some Pixels have a sloping back instead of a camera bump so they can lie flat?

agumonkey2• 6 years ago

marketing is absurdly relative and cyclic, smartphone sold you custom icons and wallpapers just like microsoft salesmen did in 82. Now they'll try to make small looks cool again. Wait for the iphone nano with only half a screen and new piezohaptic actuator matrix underneath.

jon-wood• 6 years ago

Wait for the iphone nano with only half a screen and new piezohaptic actuator matrix underneath.

It’s called the Apple Watch.

EGreg• 6 years ago

But how big is it???

I waited years to get the SE2 and it turned out to be the size of iPhone 8. The same iPhone 8 that introduced the double-tap to fix the “thumb reach problem” which Apple usd to proudly tout for the ORIGINAL iPhone 5 and SE.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6K3lTwGxMTk

Nition• 6 years ago

The original iPhone SE (same size as the iPhone 5) would have about a 5" screen if it was edge-to-edge[1], and this is 5.4", so probably larger than the old SE and smaller than the new SE.

[1] An old diagram I made: https://i.imgur.com/OKZiWrN.png

Edit, confirmed here: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?device1=iphoneSE&devic...

closetohome• 6 years ago

The "reach" gesture was actually introduced with the iPhone 6 Plus, due to its larger size.

derefr• 6 years ago

Phablets also fit in the palms of some people’s hands. There’s a surprisingly wide range of human variation in hand size.

My larger-limbed friends used to complain about how hard it was to operate dinky candy-bar phones with their large fingers. And today, they’re perfectly happy holding and tapping on a Galaxy S20 Ultra, presuming the display has been scaled up.

jansan• 6 years ago

Remember when they used a person with extra large hands for advertising the iPhone 1, so it looked smaller? If you consider how phone sizes have developed, it is quite funny IMO.

This may be the Ad from 2007: https://images.macrumors.com/article-new/2013/04/iphone.jpg

nemetroid• 6 years ago

Even a 2016 iPhone SE is significantly larger than the candy-bars of yore, though. I have large hands (my hand span, thumb to pinky, measures 26 cm). I have an iPhone 7 for work, and while it does fit in my palm, it does so much less comfortably than my SE. Going even larger is a non-starter.

Yes, there are people with hands large enough that phablets fit in them, but only if you loosen the definition of "fit".

Keyframe• 6 years ago

What do you mean by product design here? Tbh, I couldn't tell it apart from any other recent phone, let alone iphone.

smusamashah2• 6 years ago

It's same as iphone 4

odiroot2• 6 years ago

It's interesting that a reasonably sized phone is now a selling point in itself.

Sony was the last one in Android world to offer it to us. Now, even they chickened out.

cmrdporcupine3• 6 years ago

Looks about the same as Pixel 3 screen (5.5" I believe).

That's what I'm carrying now and it's the only reasonably sized phone I have had in years. I would love a 4.5" or 4" phone.

akvadrako• 6 years ago

The rumor is they'll release a new compact next year.

For now the Google Pixel 4a/5 are the most compact decent phones you can get.

cmrdporcupine3• 6 years ago

I'm blown away that 5.4" is "mini".

I'd pay decent money for a 4" phone.

pat2man• 6 years ago

The iPhone 4 width was 2.31 inches.

The iPhone 12 mini's width is 2.65 inches.

It's not insanely bigger.

macjohnmcc3• 6 years ago

My wife has the Se based on the iPhone 5 and I have the iPhone Xs Max. When I look at her phone it reminds me of looking in the viewfinder of a digital camera. She likes the size and will stick with smaller.

secondcoming• 6 years ago

Try get a Nokia N700

hk__2• 6 years ago

I'd pay decent money for a 4" phone.

I have a 4" iPhone SE. It’s great, but the web is becoming less and less usable as designers/developpers have larger phones and forget smaller screen sizes. It’s common to have cookies/newsletter popins with a button that’s too far below the screen, and sticky menus are the hell.

CoryAlexMartin2• 6 years ago

I'd pay decent money for a 4 inch phone as well. I've been in the Apple ecosystem for years but decided to search for a current Android phone that's around that size, but couldn't find anything decent.

roadbeats4• 6 years ago

I use Jelly, a tiny smartphone that fits the little keychain pocket of my running shortpants, I don't even feel it while running. They released a newer version of it, Jelly 2, if you're interested in small phones.

glandium• 6 years ago

My wife has an iPhone 8 plus. Back then it was huge (cue the plus). Its screen is 5.5". (but sure, it had huge borders)

kube-system3• 6 years ago

This 5.4" phone is smaller in dimensions than the current 4.7" SE2.

jdietrich2• 6 years ago

The diagonal screen measurement is meaningless because of improved screen-to-body ratios. The iPhone 12 Mini is smaller than the 4.7" iPhone 6/7/8, despite having a significantly bigger screen.

vmception4• 6 years ago

Funny you say that, I use my X series phones without a case and didn't with my 6

secretsatan4• 6 years ago

I was looking at the bit when they showed that gaming app and I kept looking at the phone in her hands and thinking it was a max, but they hadn't shown the pro max yet and thought they were swapping different phones in and out for different shots, but I think she just had tiny hands. (Relatively, I probably just have massive hands)

prvc2• 6 years ago

I wonder what the environmental impact of all the new adaptors that customers will need to buy is.

olah_1• 6 years ago

"And here's the best part. We are able to decentralize and distribute both the cost and impact evenly across the entire consumer base, making Apple itself much more environmentally friendly."

smiles

bilbo0s• 6 years ago

A lot less than buying a new phone in the first place. That's where you take the environmental hit. If you're going to fix the environment, implement the fixes that give the biggest bang for the buck. If you don't buy a new phone, you don't need to worry about buying new adapters.

prvc2• 6 years ago

If the probability of surviving a drop has been quadrupled, then it must have been less than 1/4 for the last generations.

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

The optical stabilization by moving the sensor looks pretty incredible, it's kind of nuts that it's even possible to do that.

clarkmoody• 6 years ago

It's been available in camera lenses and sensors for decades[0]. That doesn't diminish the cool factor, but Apple didn't invent it, by a long shot.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_stabilization#Optical_im...

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

No, of course, I'd just previously assumed it was the sort of thing only a couple thousand dollars worth of. You might also want to link to the section on In-Body Stabilization instead, since that's what I was specifically calling out here. iPhones have had lens OIS for a while now, unless I'm mistaken.

muterad_murilax3• 6 years ago

iPhone 12 Mini is the real iPhone 6 I've been waiting for since 2013.

muterad_murilax3• 6 years ago

(Sorry for the duplicate comment! I originally posted this in a separate thread (before the great merge) that I thought would go by unseen.)

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

4K60 Dolby Vision is actually really, really good.

faitswulff• 6 years ago

What is Dolby Vision?

llampx10• 6 years ago

It changes... everything.

jusujusu2• 6 years ago

A format to store HDR (high dynamic range) content, referring to colorspace. The difference to non-HDR is huge on a good display and this is the one feature I want to see hands-on on these new iPhones..

jusujusu2• 6 years ago

Yes, it is!

ActorNightly6• 6 years ago

Seem like basically a new camera with a smartphone around it

wlesieutre6• 6 years ago

Finally time to replace my SE. Pretty happy with 4.5 years for a smartphone lifespan.

uxp100• 6 years ago

Yes, my touchscreen is behaving strangely now, and I had a battery replacement along the way, but I also got 4 years out of my SE

abhishekjha• 6 years ago

Now that you mention it, I got 3 years with my SE today with one battery replacement. It is not holding much charge though.

jkestner• 6 years ago

Just got my wife's original SE its third screen. I freaking love that this product has been around long enough that parts and labor for a new touchscreen are $49.

mikepurvis• 6 years ago

I'm still rocking a first-gen iPhone SE as well— I actually picked it up a few months ago for next to nothing, second hand with a smashed screen, and swapped the screen from my former 5S to it. Happened to get double the storage along the way, as well as iOS 13 compatibility for my country's Covid exposure app. As a device, I love that it's small, and it having cost me very little means that I'm not nearly as paranoid about losing or breaking it.

And the screen swap/upgrade experience was great too— so much so that I expect my next device (in a year or two) will be the iPhone 8, with the explicit intention of doing a similar upgrade down the line to the 2nd gen SE.

dont__panic6• 6 years ago

I've replaced my 2016 SE's battery once through Apple ($29 battery lawsuit program) and once myself ($29 and an hour of my time, via iFixit). So the whole phone cost me something like $460 over 4.5 years.

I'm looking at the 12 Mini.

- It doesn't have a headphone jack, so I'll have to buy an adapter to use my chonky set of headphones with it.

- Apple phased out TouchID, and my state is experiencing it's worst-ever COVID numbers currently. So I'll just have to enter my passcode whenever I'm wearing a mask now, which is something like 40% of the time.

- It comes with a lighting<->USB-C cable, but not a wall plug. I don't have any USB-C wall plugs. Am I supposed to only charge this thing off my work laptop, or should I buy a $20 USB-C wall plug from Apple? My current lightning cable is fraying 4.5 years in so I need a replacement.

- The phone is advertised at $699, but it's actually $730 if I want to use it on non-Verizon/non-AT&T (I use Google Fi). Huh?

- 64GB is the same storage size as my current SE, which is just a little too small for me to store local Spotify songs (lots of trips in the mountains with crappy signal) and podcasts. So I'll have to step up $50 for the 128GB version if I want this to last me any reasonable number of years.

So I can either use my current SE, which is still treating me great... or I can cough up $780 + tax for the phone + $20 for a wall wart + $20 for a headphone adapter. So like $900 total.

Maybe I'll pass on this one.

wlesieutre6• 6 years ago

Similar boat, except:

- I don’t know when the last time I plugged wired headphones in was, so Bluetooth only is fine for me.

- I’ll still have all the same charging cables that I have now, the lightning to USB-C cable is nice but I’d be fine with out it. This is going to be a backup cable for my USB-C power bank, since I already have a cable with that.

- The $30 price difference is bulllshit, agreed. It’s shitty of them to be marketing these prices with a $30 AT&T/Verizon discount included. I’m on T-mobile, so no discount even if I stuck with them, but will likely be switching to Mint.

- I haven’t filled 64 gigs on my SE yet, but I’m certainly glad I spent the $100 to get it over the 16 GB base model. Looking at getting a similar life out of a new phone, I should plan on the $50 for 128 GB.

The things that I want are:

- Modern camera technology, especially night mode and the ultrawide. Many years ago I paid $700 for a cannon 10-22mm ultrawide lens, I don’t know if this is superior in every way to my (oldish) DSLR, but as they say the best camera is the one you have with you. And most of the time I don’t have my SLR, let alone it’s extra lenses.

- On that note, compatibility with Moment cases and M-mount lenses. A small phone is more important to me than the 3rd telephoto camera in the Pro phones, but it’d be nice to have the option to mount a decent quality telephoto or macro lens.

- More RAM. The SE does a lot of relaunching apps when switching between more than two things, and it’s not particularly fast at it.

Losing TouchID is a bummer, but a trade off I think I’m willing to make. I could drag this phone out for another year if I had to (barring hardware failures), but I’m looking forward to the upgrades.

bartvk2• 6 years ago

So I'll just have to enter my passcode whenever I'm wearing a mask now

If noone is around you, you can just pull down the mask for a second. At the moment, in my country (N/W Europe), I personally don't see the harm in this.

jedberg6• 6 years ago

One thing I hate about real estate listings in the USA is a lack of floorpans.

I hope this new lidar sensor is quickly followed by real estate agents using it to create floorpans.

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA• 6 years ago

I’ve been waiting for autogenerated floor plans ever since this photo-based approach was announced:

https://youtu.be/UBORpapdAfU

flobosg• 6 years ago

Don't miss Maciej Cegłowski's livetweet: https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1316073622184718336

ehsankia6• 6 years ago

Whelp, still no USB-C or 120hz display on their top iPhones.

burlesona• 6 years ago

The mini is the best thing I’ve seen in a while. Fans of smaller phones everywhere are rejoicing.

I just wish they’d give iPad the same treatment and make a Pro in a Mini size :)

d3nj4l2• 6 years ago

I honestly can't wait to buy it. I'm so tired of my 6.7" phone.

ChrisMarshallNY• 6 years ago

I agree. I think it will sell like hotcakes.

I use an iPod Touch (smaller than the Mini) as my "low-end" test device.

Whenever I'm using it, I feel envious, as my regular phone is an XSMax.

coldpie3• 6 years ago

I'm very tired of my 5.6" phone (Pixel 3A). 5.4" seems a small upgrade, but maybe worth it. I've been on the Android camp for a decade, but I'm getting fed up with these enormous phones. It's ironic that there's a million Android manufacturers and zero good small Android phones, while there is one iPhone manufacturer and they may actually take the small phone market.

jonplackett8• 6 years ago

So weird how these things come in cycles.

With the new flat sides and smaller form factor, they basically just rereleased the iPhone 5 (with, I'll admit, a couple of new features)

flixic2• 6 years ago

Apple is tearing me apart between Mini’s size and Pro Max camera.

ogre_codes2• 6 years ago

Yes... absolutely. I want a Pro Mini (Max).

centimeter6• 6 years ago

The way I avoid stressing about this is by realizing that the iPhone camera is still way worse than a real dedicated camera with a large optical path (lens and sensor). If you care about good photos, the Pro Max won't get you that far in the grand scheme of things.

ajmurmann5• 6 years ago

Same here. And then the touch ID on the SE!

asavadatti• 6 years ago

The iPhone SE has a devoted following because of its size. There is a huge market for people with smaller hands.

I was hoping for the headphone jack to make a comeback but I think that’s a lost cause at this point

smiley14376• 6 years ago

I still use a 6S because of the headphone jack, lots of long conference calls where my Airpods die and being able to quickly switch to a plug-in headset (while the phone is on a charger!) is such a convenience.

If they can have a camera bump for the cameras, why not a little bump for a headset jack???

ginko• 6 years ago

Still seems quite large, though.

albroland4• 6 years ago

12 Mini is roughly 1cm taller and 5mm wider than the original SE.

suyash6• 6 years ago

Is no one going to talk about the heath risks of 5G radiation and we will eat up their and Verizon's marketing?

muterad_murilax3• 6 years ago

iPhone 12 Mini is the real iPhone 6 I've been waiting for since 2013.

gjsman-10007• 6 years ago

That was actually much more substantial of an upgrade than I previously anticipated. The stronger glass, MagSafe being able to stick your phone magnetically to surfaces, and the Dolby Vision HDR recording are what really got me. Not so much 5G.

john_minsk• 6 years ago

True. MagSafe is what got me. Apple is genius in how they keep pushing accessories part of the ecosystem.

Spivak4• 6 years ago

They must be really confident with their drop protection because I don't know a single person who doesn't have their phone in a case.

ianmobbs2• 6 years ago

MagSafe is really cool, but I'm incredibly disappointed they're sticking with lightning...

gkoberger• 6 years ago

Give it a year (or two)! They probably want to go straight to full MagSafe rather than USB-C. However, if they drop Lightning right now, nobody will be able to charge their phones. It'll take a year or two for magsafe/Qi/etc to be ubiquitous enough that they'll feel comfortable dropping lightning.

audunw3• 6 years ago

There's no point switching from lightning to USB-C now. The MagSafe (should make it just as nice to charge while using the phone) and dropping earpods in the packaging kind of confirms a suspicion I've had that they really, really want to get rid of the port all-together on iPhones. They've switched to USB-C on iPad.. there it makes sense, they're making it more like a laptop. But phones will go all-wireless. Like, there's no other logical explanation now considering they're going all-in on USB-C on MacBooks and iPads.

They don't want to do the switch now because they don't want to send the wrong signal to accessory makers. They want them to focus on Bluetooth and wireless charging.

If they knew it'd take this long to get here, maybe they'd have switched to USB-C at an earlier stage. I know there were many blunders and delays with things like wireless charging and Bluetooth 5 audio. So the situation has become kind of awkward.

tpmx13• 6 years ago

I quite like the return of the iPhone 4 exterior design style.

vagrantJin• 6 years ago

I'd say that's regressing yes? When you can't find the road to the future, retreat to the past. Re-live the glory days so to speak.

adolph2• 6 years ago

Me too, although it has two fails:

0. Oval buttons instead of round. In terms of usability a larger target is better, but in terms of design style a loss.

1. It has buttons on both sides so it doesn't have a totally flat side for setting on its edge. Also, the camera sticks out.

Otherwise I appreciate the return to the classic look even if "mini" is still larger than the oversized model 5 body.

cbsks2• 6 years ago

My big question is... does the new "Ceramic Shield" mean that I won't need a screen protector anymore?

texuf2• 6 years ago

I don't put my iphone in the same pocket as my keys and my phone is scratch free after 3 years. The screens are made of sapphire, you don't need a screen protector.

[edit] Not made of sapphire. My head has been in the sand.

jaywalk2• 6 years ago

You haven't needed a screen protector in a long time.

XCSme• 6 years ago

This is what I thought they wanted to advertise by showing the attachments that go directly on the phone.

nvarsj• 6 years ago

Nope... it just seems to make the glass stronger (more shatter resistant). Which is unfortunate, given how bad iPhones scratch over the last few generations.

can16358p4• 6 years ago

Unless you drop your phone every week or so, then I wouldn't recommend a protector.

crooked-v2• 6 years ago

What I'm really hoping is that MagSafe finally fulfills my dream of having a secure magnetically-attached wireless charging point in a car. Accessories to this effect theoretically exist already, but they all suck.

Xavdidtheshadow2• 6 years ago

They very briefly mentioned a 3rd party one that will do exactly that!

fomine314• 6 years ago

MagSafe on Car looks really makes sense. I don't need it for home but I'd like to use it on car.

dzhiurgis6• 6 years ago

Hope someone (Belkin) makes one that fits into CD slot. Vent ones seem too flimsy.

bnj2• 6 years ago

The magsafe is really cool but for anyone interested in the wallet accessory just be careful with putting NFC chipped cards there. Paying with Apple Pay from your phone could get confusing.

fabiospampinato• 6 years ago

Maybe the wallet has NFC shielding.

Damogran63• 6 years ago

I tried a few months back to pair down as many cards as I could and just couldn't get under 7 (medical, CC, ID, Fleet Diesel Card, Insurance, etc.)

I don't know how people get it down to 3-4...

Nextgrid17• 6 years ago

The protocol does support anticollision so technically multiple cards (the NFC-enabled phone, which simply emulates one) can work and the card terminal would let you pick which one to choose, but in practice I don't think that is implemented and the choice of card you'd end up paying with is essentially "undefined behavior".

dartdartdart• 6 years ago

They finally updated the Chassis as well from the Iphone X in 2017

lifty• 6 years ago

It's not widely known but iPhone 11 pro has a softer glass, more flexible, which better withstands falls. Problem is that it scratches easier than previous models. They improved this in the iPhone 12 models, maintaining the flexibility while making them harder to scratch.

ricardobeat3• 6 years ago

A-ha. That explains why my 11 pro front glass is absolutely disgusting, covered in scratches.

Shivetya2• 6 years ago

Odd note,the amount of wealth on display in their demonstration home was astounding. Then again just the amount displayed across portions of the Apple campus and the cost to create such an event.

The Western world talk about distribution of wealth among the wealthiest and poorest people always tend to overlook how the people of the Western world of are of the first category and those in the later see no difference in a billionaire or other member of the same.

helen___keller• 6 years ago

Odd note,the amount of wealth on display in their demonstration home was astounding.

What are you referring to? Like the architecture and decor? It seemed professionally staged but not particularly opulent, in my opinion.

I suppose one might say just showing a single family home that presumably exists in the bay area is itself a ludicrous display of wealth.

spacedcowboy• 6 years ago

That home looked to be about 2x the size of my own, in SCV. My home is ~$1.5M, so let's say it's a $3M home. You'd expect some level of sophisticated furnishing in a $3M home...

person_of_color2• 6 years ago

Do you work for FAANG?

hiidrew• 6 years ago

Apple’s product pages are pretty cool and definitely clean in terms of visual assets and copy, but the usability is brutal.

Seems like it started with the AirPods page and will likely continue.

Would much rather have a page that is as clean but less scroll effects.

josteink• 6 years ago

It’s completely broken. You can’t even select text.

Might as well just make it one long-ass video.

hazz992• 6 years ago

I can select text on Firefox. I also really enjoy the scrolling effects, I think the experience is really high quality.

ksec16• 6 years ago

Seems like it started with the AirPods page and will likely continue.

No it started with TrashCan Mac Pro, and then stopped for a while and it came back to AirPod.

The whole page is Janky, not smooth, and painful trying to consume information out to it. Although it must admit this is better than AirPod Page, and it is also better than Mac Pro. So improvement are being made, but it is too slow.

brian-armstrong• 6 years ago

Still no headphone jack :(

flixic2• 6 years ago

I’d stop holding my breath for that, considering they are even removing the Lightning headphones from the box.

suyash6• 6 years ago

No matter how much they tout the video and picture quality, it's still behind DSLR and pro's can't use it until it beats DSLR at it's own game. LIDAR was interesting but I only see very limited use case for it.

azhenley• 6 years ago

Just because a tiny phone with a camera doesn't beat my big mirrorless+lenses setup doesn't mean I don't welcome the advances.

coldtea• 6 years ago

No matter how much they tout the video and picture quality, it's still behind DSLR and pro's can't use it until it beats DSLR at it's own game.

Pros increasingly don't use DSLR nowadays, the use mirrorless cameras.

That nit, aside, it's not about replacing DSLR/Mirroless FF cameras for Pros (which it will never do).

It's about having great video/picture quality for the average user and the ocassional pro use (which it does).

I have used it in pro contexts, as have many others (including several prime time TV shows and even movies). For photography it's even more of a non-brainer...

ebg13• 6 years ago

No matter how much they tout the video and picture quality, it's still behind DSLR and pro's can't use it until it beats DSLR at it's own game.

Steven Soderbergh would like a word with you. https://petapixel.com/2018/01/30/steven-soderbergh-shot-late...

iwasakabukiman• 6 years ago

Obviously it will be hard for a phone with 1/10th the z index to fit the same optics that a DSLR came.

But I work in video production and I can tell you that for 99% of people, there is absolutely no reason to buy a separate camera.

What Apple and other smartphone makers have managed to achieve in such small and (relatively, compared to a full frame DSLR) inexpensive items is pretty amazing.

They have such good quality that when I need to grab a quick pickup shot, I can easily use my phone's camera and drop the footage in with a pro cine-style camera. There are tons of apps that will let you shoot with full manual control or even flat color profiles.

People have shot entire, commercially released movies on their smartphones. Once you get to a certain image quality, it's not about the image quality but the artistic content/merit of said image.

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

It's the annual incremental improvement, and many will like the smaller form factor too I'm guessing.

But the whole 5G hype is lost on me. Specifically, none of the carriers or handset makers are telling me how much the data will cost. Maybe I'm a little price-focused, but that determines for me whether I'm excited about it.

If I'm just burning through my existing data limit faster, what's the point? What's the pricing of this new data capability?

macjohnmcc3• 6 years ago

yeah my carrier (Verizon) doesn't have good enough coverage for me to enjoy the full speed that 4G can offer so I don't care to pay more for 5G when it has little to no chance to meet the promised performance.

suyash6• 6 years ago

Yup, multiple incremental improvements is what I heard, will pass on this one and wait for iPhone 13 now.

strombofulous3• 6 years ago

I really hope that we come back to this comment in 10 years and it's weird that this was ever a concern (like what happened with texting/voice)

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

Well, I hope so too!

But it's in the intermediate stage when things are scarce that the price matters, or rate-limiting/throttling/etc matters.

You go to South Korea, and they would laugh to think that the US has monthly bandwidth limits, or is talking about net neutrality. Speed and pipe size take care of all issues some distant day in the future.

Yet here we are, living in the past.

rweir2• 6 years ago

it's already a weird USA-specific question, even in Australia, world leader in rich-country-shitty-internet, it's not an expensive addon.

illuminati19112• 6 years ago

The whole 5G thing is just complete bullshit. After the tech has flopped pretty much worldwide and Verizon's and AT&T's "5G REMOTE SURGERY" and "RACE TO 5G" marketing bs didn't get consumers interested, they finally decided as a last resort to pay Apple and see if that will be enough to push this technology through.

endlessvoid94• 6 years ago

Negative.

It will be a slower rollout due to the costs and infrastructure requirements, but 5g (from Verizon at least) will be faster than your home cable connection. That's a big deal.

phjesusthatguy3• 6 years ago

It hasn't flopped; It just won't be available to the majority of people on the planet for a very long time.

0xB31B1B• 6 years ago

disagree, sort of. The marketing was always shit, but the 2 big differences between LTE and 5G are latency and cell size.

Cell size matters because there is a ceiling for how many devices an LTE cell can support in a certain range. Thats why you get crappy speeds/connectivity’s at concerts/events/crowded areas. As I understand it, 5g can support more devices per cell, and also can have smaller cells for more connection density. With latency, LTE has a baked in 300ms min latency that 5g does not, so 5g can be used for latency sensitive applications.

WA• 6 years ago

What’s the point of 5G when I don’t even have LTE in many rural areas? I’d rather have LTE everywhere than a faster download rate when in a city but not at home.

gruez2• 6 years ago

Verizon's and AT&T's "5G REMOTE SURGERY" and "RACE TO 5G" marketing bs didn't get consumers interested

who are the ads supposed to be targeted to? why should I, as a consumer care about 5g remote surgery? it's not like only at&t subscribers have access to remote surgery.

throw513193• 6 years ago

Yeah it's completely useless lol.

All of this buzz so that a bunch of nerds can do speed tests and post them online.

What's the use? Youtube vids a second faster. Upload stuff to instagram .5 sec faster.

Nobody wants tech to be so intrusive in life anyway.

Analemma_• 6 years ago

I seriously saw some """"national security experts"""" claim that America was doomed to sink beneath the waves if we didn't deploy 5G first. It was a truly shameless level of nonsense.

mycall2• 6 years ago

5G isn't bullshit, but it will be years before the standards are completed to do novel things, like Vehicle-To-Pedestrian (V2P) -- imagine cars sensing humans and no longer running into them.

pantulis• 6 years ago

That's the carrier stuff, they will figure it out. Remember how ridiculous were data caps with GMTS?

nlitened• 6 years ago

Hey, there are iPhone users not only in US, but also in countries with cheap data plans!

isoprophlex2• 6 years ago

I had the misfortune of charging my iPhone via usb connected to my laptop while working. This triggered the 4G tethering, so i spent an afternoon working on my cellular data plan... schlepping multi-gb csv files around. I didn't even notice anything, until my data plan ran out.

I honestly wouldn't mind slower than 4G speeds. With 4G it's already bordering on ridiculous how quickly you can burn up a data plan.

jpxw• 6 years ago

Surely 5G can only make sense on an unlimited plan.

Or the limits are going to have to become ridiculously big. You could burn a 30G/month limit in 10 seconds in “ideal conditions”.

dylan6043• 6 years ago

Your laptop chose to override an existing WiFi/LAN connection to use a tethered phone USB connection? That seems highly unusual. I plug my phone into my laptop all of the time, and the tether has never overridden my WiFi. I've never had to use it, but macOS allows you to order the available networks according to your preference. Did you perhaps do this and forgot about it?

asutekku• 6 years ago

A lot of countries do not have data caps in europe. For example i’m paying ~$25 a month for unlilimited 100mbps 4g connection and unlimited 1gbps 5g is available for around $40/month.

gnicholas2• 6 years ago

I called AT&T to look into their service, and the rep said "all of our plans are unlimited data, it's just a question of how much you want to be able to hotspot". I can see why they're reframing things to call all their plans 'unlimited' in a 5G world, since most people will not sign up to pay more for 5G service. They will ask what the real-world difference will be, and then probably decline to pay even $10/mo more for it.

But if everything is 'unlimited' and they're differentiating based on amount of hotspot or throttling after a certain point, they're effectively charging you for high speed without making it seem like a surcharge.

After 20 seconds on the phone I knew it wasn't for me. I rarely leave the house during COVID, so I hardly use any data. I'm saving 50% going with a different company.

offtop5• 6 years ago

Most of the time you hit soft caps at 40gb, with 4gbp you can hit your cap in 40 seconds !

hughw2• 6 years ago

10 secs but yeah

llampx10• 6 years ago

Nitpick, but the cap is probably 40 gigabytes whereas the speed is measured in gigabits per second.

chrisseaton• 6 years ago

none of the carriers or handset makers are telling me how much the data will cost

Data is included in my contract where I live - is that not the case where you live?

If I'm just burning through my existing data limit faster, what's the point?

To get the same data... faster? Isn't that good? And is your data limited in some way? I never ever reach my limit no matter what I do.

curiousgal2• 6 years ago

Apple makes the best phones hands down but my only problem is with iOS. Granted it's been more and more "Androidesque" as of late but still.

nfoz• 6 years ago

Can you be a bit more substantial? What is it from Android that you would prefer on iOS?

curiousgal2• 6 years ago

The overall sense of control I have over the system. With iOS it feels like I am using someone else's phone, it's not as customizable/optimizable. I can't install other apps on it (outside the store that is) and the entire dev process feels so..gated. I want my phone to be an extension of my tech environment, something I can automate and freely fiddle with.

It might sound petty but having to jump through hoops to use a custom ringtone was the nail in the coffin.

mkoc• 6 years ago

...looks like iPhone 5

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

It's not chamfered :/

xwdv• 6 years ago

Very powerful upgrade. You could use this latest iPhone to control a spacecraft that takes you to the lunar surface and back.

illuminati19112• 6 years ago

It felt more like Verizon 5G event than Apple event.

I wonder how much they paid Apple for this?

xmichael02• 6 years ago

meh...

Hamuko• 6 years ago

The most disappointing aspect to me is that the difference between the Pro and the Pro Max is no longer just the size. I'm quite fond of the size of my 11 Pro and I don't really want to be upsold to the Pro Max if I want the best.

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Hasn't it always been the case that the Pro Max has a better camera package?

QuixoticQuibit• 6 years ago

Not the last two iterations with the X generation design (XS and 11 Pro had feature parity between regular and Max versions).

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

Not for Pro Max, since they're new and Apple stopped doing this recently. But the Plus models usually had a better camera.

whoisburbansky10• 6 years ago

Ah I see now, the only difference was screen size

majormajor• 6 years ago

The 12 Pro is larger than the 11 Pro too, which is a double kick there if you wanted to stay on the top camera without going up in size.

WillPostForFood• 6 years ago

It has been a lost opportunity not to take advantage of the extra size to improve the the features for the max.

ksec16• 6 years ago

The problem is I dont see anything about the Max Camera that could not be fitted into the Pro. They both share the same Camera Module size.

jiros982• 6 years ago

Welcome to the lives of people that prefer smaller phones.

8ytecoder• 6 years ago

The Pro and the Pro Max are exactly the same except for the camera and the battery.

https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/specs/

christefano5• 6 years ago

And the screen size, too…

It wasn’t until home widgets became a thing that I actually began entertaining the idea of getting a Pro Max.

ajmurmann5• 6 years ago

I was hoping so badly that the rumors were wrong and even the smallest option came in a full featured pro version. I don't get these enormous phones except for older folks who struggle with small controls. All options are super frustrating to me. Small, touch id and best camera is what I want.

xmichael02• 6 years ago

meh...

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

None of the carriers or handset makers are telling me how much the data will cost. Maybe I'm a little price-focused, but that determines for me whether I'm excited about it.

If I'm just burning through my existing data limit faster, what's the point? What's the pricing of this new data capability?

techsupporter• 6 years ago

Specifically, none of the carriers or handset makers are telling me how much the data will cost.

But...they are telling you? It's right there on each of their plan pages.

* Verizon: $80/month plus taxes for one line with 5G on Play More Unlimited - https://www.verizon.com/plans/unlimited/

* T-Mobile: $60/month plus taxes for one line with 5G on Magenta or $70/month with taxes included on Magenta Plus - https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans?lines=1

* AT&T : $65/month plus taxes for one line with 5G - https://www.att.com/plans/wireless/

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

Ah, well thanks for that info, I did not see that.

So it seems that at least at the low end, 5G add on costs something like $0-10/month, depending on carrier.

delish• 6 years ago

From the Verizon link you posted:

Lowest plan: "In times of congestion, your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic."

Upper plans: "Get access to 50GB of 4G LTE premium data per month. ... . In times of congestion, your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic after exceeding 50GB/mo/line."

Of course, that's 4G, not 5G, but before they tell you whether or at what point they throttle 5G, I can't say what "having unlimited 5G" means.

For context, it looks like this means what a commenter on a Verizon forum says (quoting verbatim, looks like the GB numbers changed):

"Verizon has 3 levels of unlimited data plans. The cheapest one has the possibility of being "throttled" AT ANY TIME there is congestion on the local towers. The mid-tier has no throttling until you have used at least 22 GB in a month on a line. The highest tier has no throttling until you have used at least 75 GB in a month on a line."

from 2019: https://community.verizonwireless.com/t5/4G-LTE-LTE-Advanced...

jdofaz2• 6 years ago

I'm pretty sure all t-mobile customers automatically have access to 5G, even prepaid.

slg2• 6 years ago

LIDAR: Cheap enough for a $999 phone but too expensive for a $35,000 car.

ben174• 6 years ago

You realize the lidar distance for a car would be entirely different. It's a way different beast.

slg2• 6 years ago

The price of a car is 35x the price of a phone. Does the cost of the LIDAR scale up 35x when going from phone distances to car distances? That is an honest question that I don't know the answer to.

acd10j• 6 years ago

Iphone uses orignial kinect style lidar which throws IR beam and captures back results (apple bought primesense which was the manufacturer of original kinect) , These lidar don't work that good under direct sunlight, So cannot be used in cars.

secretsatan4• 6 years ago

Yeah, while I'm pretty excited at the possibilities of LiDAR in the phones, they do have pretty limited range and would in no way be suitable for a car. I've been working with iPad Pro and I think there's a lot of possibilities for it outside of just autofocus...

mikkelam5• 6 years ago

Wow, the mini is only 7.7mm larger than the 2016 iPhone SE. Apple actually listened and made new powerful compact sized iPhone.

Too bad i recently dropped my 2016 SE and got the new SE which sucks..

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

7.7 millimeters is a substantial amount…but I guess I don't have a choice so I'll grab the new one anyways.

yepthatsreality2• 6 years ago

Yeah I just replaced my SE1 with another SE1. While this is tempting, it's a bit too little too late as I migrate from Iphone to Librem 5.

5tk18• 6 years ago

I am curious, what are your complaints about the new SE? I have a 2016 SE and am going to upgrade to either the 2020 SE, 12 mini, or 12. The 2016 SE feels a bit small in my hand (I have large hands), but I worry the iPhone 12 regular size will be too large.

fomine314• 6 years ago

You've got covid-proof iPhone SE.

yabones• 6 years ago

Wireless charging... Now with a bulky connector that attaches itself to the phone using magnets!

Did we just innovate ourselves all the way back to Magsafe that laptops (used to) have since 2006?

ihuman2• 6 years ago

Yes, but with more energy lost as heat

seanmcdirmid4• 6 years ago

I hope so, that wouldn't be a bad thing in my opinion.

llampx10• 6 years ago

Well, Magsafe was not wireless but you do raise an existing point. That the iPhone could have magnets and pogo pins and have fast charging without needing it to be wireless, thus saving the weight of the charging coil and saving the energy lost as heat.

beervirus• 6 years ago

Pretty minor improvements over the 11 or even the XS. I think I'll sit this one out.

sebmellen• 6 years ago

I hope this will finally stop iPhones from shattering so easily.

I remember a few years ago my iPhone 7 screen shattered while in my pocket, and just 2 days after the 1 year warranty had ended. I've never been so mad as when the "Genius" assistant told me the metal frame just sometimes bent and caused the screen to break. Seems this couldn't happen with ceramic.

Zaheer• 6 years ago

"Across the iPhone family, we’re removing the power adapter and EarPods that often go unused, but including the fast-charging USB‑C to Lightning cable that most people need."

Ouch. Do most people really not use the power adapter?

macjohnmcc3• 6 years ago

I don't really miss the power adapter as I have so many USB power sources and I will never miss those crappy earbuds though I do miss the headphone jack.

Spivak4• 6 years ago

Yeah, having an on-device DAC was really the killer feature for me. I'm fine using a lightning-to-3.5mm adapter but trying to be clever and putting the DAC in the adapter didn't work out super great for me since they seem to break super easily.

Rebelgecko2• 6 years ago

I was definitely a bit skeptical of that claim too. Seems questionable. I use nearly every charger I've gotten with a phone (except for pre-USB ones)

Spivak4• 6 years ago

I think it's recognizing the (at least true for me) reality that I have practically an entire box of wall-to-usb power adapters.

tompazourek• 6 years ago

Wall-to-USB-C?

khazhoux2• 6 years ago

It's not about not using it, it's that most people already have at least one (if not a small pile) of power adapter blocks with USB input already.

noahtallen2• 6 years ago

Right, I have gobs of them too... but they’re all USB type A, so the included USB C cable with the iPhone 12 is kinda weird. People don’t have many USB C bricks yet. So I don’t think the logic of “people have them already” checks out

whimsicalism• 6 years ago

In no world do most people have USB-C blocks already.

joshstrange2• 6 years ago

I actually never take any of the cables out of the box but I'm probably more of an edge-case. I take out the phone and use Anker cables/Qi-chargers and my AirPods Pro.

wtmt• 6 years ago

To be honest, this move by Apple is good for first world countries where many people may keep their older devices and power adapters, but will raise the costs in other countries where people usually sell their phones (with accessories) and replace those with new ones. Oh wait, people in first world countries do trade-ins too.

I think a minuscule number of people won’t mind this. For the rest, these phones are going to cost more than before with the additional purchase of adapters.

snazz4• 6 years ago

You're right, but to add a datapoint, I've done a few phone trade-ins that never included power adapters/accessories. Just the handset itself.

llampx10• 6 years ago

Calculated to help them sell the fast chargers. Until now, every iPhone came with USB-A chargers so yes people have a lot of them, but they are allll USB-A.

Skunkleton• 6 years ago

Last year's model came with a fast charger in the box.

deergomoo• 6 years ago

Mine sit in the box for years until I accidentally run the old one over with the hoover or something. Apple will ditch Lightning long before I run out of cables.

Of course, the right thing to do here would be to drop the price of the phone by some token amount, like £10. Sure the environment benefit is real, but the real driving force is that Apple makes an extra 1% margin on every phone.

syspec• 6 years ago

They will include a charging cable, just not the white box that plugs into the outlet

ProZsolt• 6 years ago

The included power adapter is really bad (1A, USB-A). Currently nearly all my devices charging via USB-C, except my company provided iPhone. I just bought a USB-C to lightning cable so I can charge it via my Macbook or Pixel charger

mcintyre1994• 6 years ago

Does everyone except me have a power adapter with a USB-C port on it? I’ve definitely never got one off Apple, though my Apple stuff is at least 2 years old so maybe they have been shipping them? But if I got one of these phones that cable would be useless, except I guess for plugging my phone into my work laptop without using a dock.

Amorymeltzer• 6 years ago

Of note: the iPhone 12 mini appears to be slightly smaller and lighter than the (current) iPhone SE (2), so is basically the phone those of us who prefer phone-sized phones have been asking for for years. The price differential of $300 seems reasonable (in Apple-adjusted numbers); if I hadn't bought an SE this past month (unfortunate toddler-related water incident!) then I'd be right in there.

jeroen2• 6 years ago

Smaller than the 2nd SE, a bit larger than the 1st one:

https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?device1=iphoneSE&devic...

adolph2• 6 years ago

Is the depth measure with or without the camera bump? I was not expecting it to be .2mm thinner than SE (1).

cgh• 6 years ago

I just bought an SE about a month ago too. Damn.

throw513193• 6 years ago

Same. They are kings of curating their marketing timeline to extract every single dollar out of you.

dylan6043• 6 years ago

Why? It's been leaked for ages that the iPhone announcement were coming this month.

I'm only asking because you added Damn as if you were disappointed in your timing. I've been holding off waiting to see if the 12 was going to be something I'd be interested in, or just waiting for the 11 series prices to drop. My 6S+ works fine, but the capacity is too small.

ajmurmann5• 6 years ago

What is it about the iPhone Mini that is selling you most?

I only now learned that the SE had touch ID and am now contemplating buying that instead of the mini. I was ready to drop $1500 if their had been a mini-sized iPhone with all the pro features and touch ID, but now I find every option frustrating.

sf_rob• 6 years ago

Honestly, the only feature that makes me lean towards the SE2 for my next phone is that I want a fingerprint reader since face masks have ruined Face ID

SllX2• 6 years ago

This was the deciding factor for me. I use my phone far less nowadays because many of its functions are served by other hardware at home, so the most important function left exclusively to the phone was the Wallet/Apple Pay. I would have preferred a better camera, but I’m not out taking nearly as many pictures as I used to, so the camera is fine. Post-pandemic I can always swap out my phone for a newer one, or rather I look forward to it.

terrywang• 6 years ago

I am keen to get a iPhone 12 mini once the iPhone X breaks (it had a touch screen replacement already within warranty, touch issues, problem still exists).

Size is pefect (iPhone range), love the iPhone 4 like frame and overall look. I don't use a phone too much at home (only on the go) so don't need the iPhone 12 Pro premium features. For taking photos and videos, I'll use the Sony A7 iii.

NOTE: in Australia the price is A$1199 for 12 mini 64GB, and A$1449 256GB (more expensive than my iPhone X 256GB).

Phrodo_00• 6 years ago

I'm really hoping someone like Samsung or Sony picks up on the small iPhone with the same specs as the normal one and come up with something similar in their next gen when my Pixel 3 will be due for an upgrade.

(I don't use apple phones because I'm against not being able to run whatever you want on your pocket computer)

kabacha2• 6 years ago

S10e came out year and a half ago! Unfortunate despite everyone complaining no one bought it and we didnt get s20e. Seriously that has been the best smart phone I've ever used or heard of and if mine dies I'm buying the exact same one.

nl• 6 years ago

Sony has had a few attempts at small phones, but now seem to be concentrating on a weird 21:9 screen aspect ratio form factor: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16089/sony-announces-xperia-5...

jachee2• 6 years ago

I only use Apple phones because I'm against anyone else being able to run whatever they want on my pocket computer.

Apple has built a huge trust with my information, and that's impossible to find anywhere else.

graeme3• 6 years ago

As a small phone fan I’m hoping the SE2 hasn’t cannibalized much of the small phone market. I’d like the mini to succeed. But, I also bought an SE and won’t be upgrading, as the SE us great and has Touchid.

suyash6• 6 years ago

Here is the comparison between various news models : https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/

strombofulous3• 6 years ago

This page is classic apple. It looks so nice but you can't even compare all four new models at the same time

wiremine• 6 years ago

I was a bit surprised on how much time they spent on the camera tech. I didn't time it, but it felt like they spent more time on the camera than things like 5G?

thecopy• 6 years ago

In Switzerland the 12 Mini is available from the 6th Nov, and the normal from the 16th of October. Bummer.

okigan• 6 years ago

still Lightning connector

where is usb-c as in macbook pro(s) and ipad(s)

d3nj4l2• 6 years ago

MagSafe is sweet, and I think it's a smart move for Apple to launch it this year in preparation for the anticipated "portless" iPhone. By the time they do that, the MagSafe ecosystem will be ready for it, and people won't complain as much about getting the phone right on the charging pad.

djsumdog3• 6 years ago

It would have been sweeter if it was regular USB-C, so we're not contributing to the massive piles of e-waste generated by their continually changing proprietary adapters.

dkonofalski2• 6 years ago

They have literally had 2 adapters for the entire history of the iPhone. "Continually changing" is flat out wrong and changing it to USB-C on the other end would support the opposite point you're making.

colejohnson663• 6 years ago

But if they switched, you’d be creating waste anyways; you’d need to throw out your lightning cables and replace them with USB-C...

jackson1442• 6 years ago

...you mean the Lightning adapters that have been in use since the iPhone 5 and would be thrown out upon the switch to USB-C?

dijit3• 6 years ago

Small phone! Finally!

Not as small as I would like, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ve been clinging to my 5SE for years and they stopped allowing me to renew Apple care a couple of months ago. :/

“a phone that easily fits in the palm of your hand” is a phrase I legitimately scoffed at, what are phones if not handheld devices?

AgentEpsilon3• 6 years ago

I feel like I'm going insane. On every single model revealed today, there is a differently-colored patch on the right side of the phone, below the power button. What is it?

It's not the SIM card slot - that's on the left side. It's not a new TouchID sensor - the website doesn't even mention it at all. And yet it exists in every single render.

richardwhiuk• 6 years ago

No, the SIM card slot is on the right hand side.

AgentEpsilon3• 6 years ago

Check the renders. The sim slot is on the left side.

hobofan4• 6 years ago

I think that's part of their antenna?

AgentEpsilon3• 6 years ago

This seems like the most likely answer. Disappointing how different the color is if that is the case.

dont__panic6• 6 years ago

I kept thinking it was the SIM card slot earlier in the presentation, but from what I've read on Reddit it sounds like it's part of the 5G antennae array.

kirill5pol• 6 years ago

It looks a lot like the magnetic charger for the Apple pencil in the iPad Pro and new Air, so it’s possible it could be a future addition.

stirlo• 6 years ago

It's not present on the renders on the Apple AU site so that would confirm it's related to mmWave which is not available outside US.

AU: https://www.apple.com/au/iphone-12/images/overview/design_mi... US: https://www.apple.com/v/iphone-12/a/images/overview/design/d...

runeks• 6 years ago

It’s on my iPad as well. Model A2228. On the same side as the volume buttons.

Here’s a picture: https://pasteboard.co/JvDAuop.jpg

teaswift2• 6 years ago

It seems to be part of the mmwave antenna. I do wish it was a touch ID sensor. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/10/13/21515128/...

djsumdog3• 6 years ago

I had a friend who had every single iPhone release. She'd immediately buy the new generation when it came out.

You know what I really want to see, more than any of this gitter and glam and a few features here and there? A real, actual campaign to reduce e-Waste. I way out of this bullshit, constant consumerism mess. How many more wars have to be fought, and people repressed, to continue the machine that gives us more machines?

Apple has so much money at this point. What are they even going to do with more? How about you do something that's actually innovative Apple: Officially open all the hardware specs, bootloader keys and what you can legally release of device drivers for iPhone 1-7. Maybe even contribute some code to get a DarwinBSD booting by itself on those devices; letting developers add on new layers.

How about something that will actually end the cycle of factory sludge, toxic waste and human toil that goes into each new generation of shiny new product.

I'm sick of these releases. Give me something fucking upgradable, fixable and usable. Give me something that's thicker and bulkier, but that I can take apart myself and fix.

I'm in the minority though. The rest of the planet is okay with this. Their advertising has made people even more okay with this, so they'll just keep selling us this crap, until we've extracted every last resource the Earth can give.

applehater• 6 years ago

I agree, it's absurdly overhyped. I mean, it's just a phone at the end of the day, no need for all this cult capitalist nonsense that goes along with some functionally minor improvements.

And with their huge wealth, Apple has such an opportunity to do some actual good in the world but, really, does fuck all.

jimbob45• 6 years ago

Just give me back the headphone jack please. Nothing since the iPhone 8 has been worth getting for me since they removed the jack.

onida• 6 years ago

Bring back touch id.

andreygrehov• 6 years ago

https://www.apple.com/iphone-se/

insickness2• 6 years ago

No 4k 240 fps video, as people were saying it would have. That's disappointing. I hate having to decide between the two whenever I shoot action shots.

kevincox10• 6 years ago

It would be very cool, but I would settle for 4k 60fps. Shooting 1080 isn't that bad but the higher resolutions definitely capture more detail.

insickness2• 6 years ago

It does 4k 60fps. https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/specs/

minimaxir2• 6 years ago

Accessories are also up. MagSafe charger is $40, 15W max: https://apple.com/shop/product/MHXH3AM/A/magsafe-charger

The clear case ($50) looks kinda neat though, since third-party support for MagSafe may be sporadic: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHLM3ZM/A/iphone-12-12-pr...

geek_at• 6 years ago

of course it's posted by tosh :D

dang4• 6 years ago

Related URLs:

https://www.apple.com/iphone-12/

https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/

Also: don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments in this thread. You can get to those by clicking More at the bottom of the page—or do it like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24767378&p=2

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24767378&p=3

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24767378&p=4

davidiach• 6 years ago

I remember the days when people were saying LiDAR will never be cheap enough for regular cars.

Now it's on smartphones.

swebs• 6 years ago

4. iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini are splash, water, and dust resistant and were tested under controlled laboratory conditions with a rating of IP68 under IEC standard 60529 (maximum depth of 6 meters up to 30 minutes). Splash, water, and dust resistance are not permanent conditions and resistance might decrease as a result of normal wear. Do not attempt to charge a wet iPhone; refer to the user guide for cleaning and drying instructions. Liquid damage not covered under warranty.

Shame. I was hoping they would develop a completely washable phone due to corona.

hentrep• 6 years ago

Does the MagSafe feature run the risk of demagnetizing credit cards and hotel keys?

mikestew3• 6 years ago

Buried in the marketing content of their web pages somewhere, which I'm too lazy to go look for again, is the answer: "no".

xGrill• 6 years ago

My guess is that they will say "no", but in reality, probably yes. My AirPods Pro case will demagnetize hotel keys fairly easily, especially ones that have been rewritten to multiple times.

mullingitover3• 6 years ago

I had a card case for my iphone and my cards would routinely get corrupted. I couldn't figure out why it was happening, there wasn't a magnet in my iPhone 4s at the time.

I eventually figured out that it was happening because I'd been routinely laying my phone on my iPad, and the magnets in the iPad would, over time, murder my cards.

The new phones will absolutely corrupt your cards, I don't care what Apple marketing says.

samatman5• 6 years ago

Yeah, that concerns me.

My left pocket loadout is a small carbon fiber clip, with cards and cash, and my phone. Been that way for five years and I have no intention of ever changing it.

I'm skipping this year, mostly because I want the Max camera and the regular form factor, but also to get some field data on whether this newfangled mag connector scrambles cards.

On the one hand, they're prominently featuring an accessory which clips your cards to the magnet itself. On the other hand, they build that accessory, and they don't build my clip, which offers no magnetic flux protection whatsoever.

wlesieutre6• 6 years ago

Also https://www.apple.com/iphone-12/

dang4• 6 years ago

Thanks. I got distracted on my way to adding that one :)

If you don't mind, I'm going to detach this subthread so that there's less noise at the top of the page.

anm89• 6 years ago

Does anyone have info on which banks will offer mortgages on these phones?

andor• 6 years ago

No fingerprint scanner :-(

joshstrange2• 6 years ago

That was a long shot but I too was disappointed

justusthane3• 6 years ago

$99 HomePod looks great and is in a nice spot to compete with Echo. $399 was way too much.

brundolf2• 6 years ago

Apple's putting me in a tough position here. My XS still works like new, but the Mini is basically my ideal form-factor.

skrtskrt• 6 years ago

Same, it looks awesome but I'm thinking I might hold out a year for a 12s Mini or whatever they will call it.

Maybe 5G will be more compelling in a year.

brundolf2• 6 years ago

Yeah, I couldn't really care less about 5G

trboyden• 6 years ago

I always get a laugh reading the comments on a new Apple offering. This time - OMG! Mini! Until you go back and review the specs and style of the original iPhone SE which these new phones get their styling from. The original iPhone SE was also smaller and lighter.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

They're glad because Apple hasn't sold a small iPhone for a while.

supernova87a7• 6 years ago

I wonder if everyone being locked up at home will dampen the demand for new data features too. If I'm just sitting with my wifi at home, what's the need for 5G?

colejohnson663• 6 years ago

If the phone lasts 5 years and Coronavirus is still causing lockdowns, we have bigger problems than 5G usage.

abhiminator• 6 years ago

Across the iPhone family, we’re removing the power adapter and EarPods that often go unused, but including the fast-charging USB‑C to Lightning cable that most people need. That shrinks packaging, and more boxes per shipment means fewer shipments overall. We’re also transitioning our manufacturing partners to renewable energy. Altogether, this eliminates over 2 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually.

Looks like Apple will start a trend by manufacturers of not including power bricks with their devices.

actuator3• 6 years ago

I sure hope not. Unlike most people, I upgrade my phone in 3-4 years, so by that time even my adaptor is worn out. I would not wish to spend more for one if I don't get any reduction in phone price.

lotsofpulp2• 6 years ago

I have never had or heard of a USB wall plug adapter "wearing" out in over a decade. How vigorously and/or frequently must one plug and unplug to cause this?

jack22224• 6 years ago

If it wasn't about the money and just about the environment Apple would let you walk in to one of their stores with your serial number in hand and pick one up for free if you needed one (one per person)...

ksec16• 6 years ago

That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Judging from the lack of announcement, it seems Apple has yet crossed the 1 Billion iPhone users threshold. ( May be they did but held back due to pandemic ) i.e The user growth is slowing, or reached ceiling.

4.5B people have a smartphone. Most of them are on at least 3rd or 4th Smartphone with plenty of chargers lying around. So it would only effect a tiny percentage ( I am willing to bet less than 5% ). So it is not a bad move from environment perspective.

Of coz I wish Apple had at least bundled a high power charger for a few generation before they moved on. But I am ok with the new pricing reduction of their charger. ( $19 )

read_if_gay_3• 6 years ago

Zero photos where you can actually see how thick the bezels are on the 12 Pro's product page. Guess it's safe to assume it'll be pretty disappointing considering how much they talked about thinner bezels.

Guereric2• 6 years ago

At a certain point, does the bezel thickness matter anymore? Surely not to me.

smadsen• 6 years ago

It matters to me, in the sense that I prefer to have some bezel left so I can actually hold onto the phone without accidentally pressing things on the screen.

cercatrova• 6 years ago

It matters to me. I want as close to 0 bezel as physically possible.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

…isn't there one the moment you scroll down?

read_if_gay_3• 6 years ago

Conveniently the image on the display has a black background so you can't make out the bezels. Or maybe, we're being served different pages.

olex2• 6 years ago

Looking at specs, the 12 (and 12 Pro) has the same 6.1" screen size as the XR/11 did, but body length and width are both about 4mm smaller. So that's ~2mm less bezel all around presumably.

jghn2• 6 years ago

Where are you seeing this? On the Apple site they list the 12 pro as being 146.7mm x 71.5mm whereas the 11 Pro was 144mm x 71.4 mm. That's a larger surface area than the 11 Pro, not smaller.

jedberg6• 6 years ago

You can divine it from the tech specs page by comparing the screen size to your existing phone.

https://www.apple.com/iphone-12-pro/specs/

slacka• 6 years ago

I HATE thin bezels. I actually returned my Galaxy S10 because palm-misclicks dove me crazy. After 19 days of practice and different grips, random clicks didn't get any better.

xnx4• 6 years ago

Would thicker case help this problem?

lucasmullens• 6 years ago

Apple might be better at detecting if it's your palm or an intentional tap. MacBook trackpads are great at detecting palm vs finger, so I wouldn't be surprised if the iPhone does well with that too.

simonh2• 6 years ago

Is the fact that wanting thinner bezels when they are 5mm wide != wanting thinner bezels when they are 1mm wide, really something that needs pointing out? Apparently so.

dang4• 6 years ago

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24768339.)

bonestamp2• 6 years ago

I can see where the screen ends and the bezel begins on the compare page. Turning up your screen's brightness and/or contrast might help.

actuator3• 6 years ago

I understand the value of the different phone sizes but still can't understand why companies are selling 64 GB models.

I know we have everything in the cloud these days but with apps with rich assets and smartphones being more capable with cameras, you run out of 64 GB quite easily. 128 GB should be the baseline model in 2020 for any phone that costs above $600.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

you run out of 64 GB quite easily

You might; I am still trying to figure out how to use my 32 GB…

actuator3• 6 years ago

I seem to run out of it quite fast. Even if we exclude all the new app install space, a typical 64 GB phone will have around 50 GB usable space.

50 GB is 66 mins of 4K 60 fps video or about 5000 RAW photos. I understand that in a city this might be enough but consider if you are traveling.

You will likely store songs for listening offline, you might not have wifi available with you to sync daily so you can't keep deleting your photos and videos once you have synced them.

kilroy1232• 6 years ago

I think 128 GB is still way too little.

Slartie• 6 years ago

A substantial amount of iPhones are purchased by corporations for business reasons. They run one or two corporate apps all the time, which probably don't need much room anyway since such apps are usually designed to sync stuff with some kind of server in order to not have anything on the phone to back up or be lost in the event of a failure. Nobody shoots videos photos with those phones, and nobody puts music or movies on them. They basically need the space for the OS plus a few gigabytes extra; any additional space is wasted and ideally not there in the first place.

ClikeX• 6 years ago

It baffles me that they offer the new iPad air in only 64GB and 256GB. It just seems really cynical.

It's either plenty, or very little. But no nice in between.

thirdsun2• 6 years ago

Furthermore the 512 GB option is, again, only available on the pro models. I'd sell my 11 Pro and get the 12 Mini in a heartbeat if I could get it with 512 GB.

ksec16• 6 years ago

I am willing to bet next year iPhone 13 will start at 128GB for the same price. Giving you the perception it is now $50 cheaper due to the increase in storage.

periya• 6 years ago

What’s the RAM on the phone I tried looking at the tech specs page but I can’t seem to find it. Is it still 2GB?

dddddaviddddd• 6 years ago

Usually this only comes out when benchmarking software can be run on the phones. Apple doesn't disclose it.

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

Apple doesn't disclose RAM in their devices; sometimes they show up in Xcode builds though. There's a new beta out today so this might come out soon.

the_arun• 6 years ago

Team Apple is great at marketing!

galkk• 6 years ago

Still no usb-c

kobe_bryant• 6 years ago

just the way they present stuff like the ceramics or chips is very nice, it makes it feel futuristic even when the actual in development tech has already advanced years past this point

riteshpatel• 6 years ago

If you know anything about cameras and low light photography, the sensor shift OIS is a HUGE deal, especially combined with an f/1.6 lens. Instant purchase!

foota• 6 years ago

Afaict this doesn't include a fingerprint sensor, is that accurate?

tomerico2• 6 years ago

What's amazing to me is how little of a difference they have between the regular and pro models: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/

It basically boils down to a few relatively minor camera features perhaps except for the addition of a 2x camera (The other differences are Lidar sensor, 60fps HDR recording at vs 30fps, and saving in RAW).

It looks like they think that just creating the impression that the pro model is better is enough to get more money from people who are less price sensitive.

epaga2• 6 years ago

It's a 4x optical zoom (or 5x in the Max), opposed to NO optical zoom at all in the non-pro version.

tomerico2• 6 years ago

It’s 4x zoom range (ultra wide to zoom lens). The regular has 2x zoom range (ultra wide to regular)

fomine314• 6 years ago

It seems that now iPhone 12 uses same housing design as 12 Pro. I think Pro is almost only for camera upgrade (including LIDAR).

Terretta• 6 years ago

Those are, to be fair, pro photography and video features, that likely make a real difference only to pros and so-called prosumers.

ihuman2• 6 years ago

The Pro is made from stainless steel, and the regular is made from aluminum.

jack22224• 6 years ago

Given they both have the A14 chip and seemingly no other differences in their innards, the fact the pro can do 60fps Dolby digital vs the regular phones 30fps feels like a lame software lock?

ksec16• 6 years ago

Pro has 50% more RAM ( 6GB )

fomine314• 6 years ago

Totally boring for me who don't care cameras. But iPhone 12 mini is impressible because it's only 135g with 5G mmwave support. I wish it had Touch ID.

Alupis2• 6 years ago

So now, a $1k iPhone comes standard with LiDAR sensors - but Musk still claims they're too expensive and cumbersome to use in self driving vehicles that cost over $40k.

Maybe someone will be eating crow tonight.

chorsestudios2• 6 years ago

The LIDAR sensors used in vehicles are specialized for a different purpose and are expensive. Its not a very fair comparison to an iPhone LIDAR sensor

marcinzm• 6 years ago

Amazingly, LiDAR that can roughly map a 10ft room and LiDAR that can accurately map 500ft of road may actually cost different amounts.

Alupis2• 6 years ago

It's more of, you can now put usable LiDAR sensors in a package as small as a phone, and so cheaply that it doesn't impact the final sale price of said phone...

That, and every other AV company is using LiDAR sensors...

But, Musk has doubled down, tripled down and more on this. So much so, I doubt he could come to his senses one day without a big PR nightmare - after all, they've been telling folks their car has all the hardware for fully autonomous driving for the past 5+ years.

Puts• 6 years ago

OMG, can you imagine all the magnetic stripes on credit cards that will be corrupted by the MagSafe?!?!?

youareostriches• 6 years ago

Especially given that people will store their credit cards inside the stick-on leather sleeve held directly against the magnet.

nikolay• 6 years ago

Not using USB-C. Again!

pazimzadeh• 6 years ago

I'm finally going to upgrade from my original SE. It's not as small as I'd like, but I think it will keep its value well if they do come out with the nano in the spring along with a new watch mini/nano.

It's looking like it was a battery issue all along, but once these magnetic chargers become common, that won't matter. It's perfect for mounting an iPhone in the car too.

cblconfederate• 6 years ago

iphone enables people to do more and more every day

Not entirely true , e.g. they can't play fortnite or other unreal-based games

Among Covid, uncertainty, and people moving, i m not sure it's the best time to present their most expensive phone, esp. now that comparable phones are half the price. 5G is exciting? hm most people use their phones in crappy wifi for years, plus it's not like apple built the 5G infrastrucutre. (plus there's noone to show off to at this time)

sercand• 6 years ago

It is Epic's decision to not put the fortnite to iPhones and they can play unreal-based games like PUBG.

dmix4• 6 years ago

Any new developments around their U1 chip (ultra-wide-band radio currently used by AirDrop and Find My)?

I remember reading it was building up to releasing a Tile-like product called AirTags for finding lost devices:

[Note: couldnt make it through the whole video, so just curious]

https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/apple/149336-how-app...

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/apple/149277-apple-...

matthewmacleod2• 6 years ago

It's included in the new HomePod thing, and there was a very brief demo of someone bringing a phone close to the device and the phone showing the current song that it was playing, apparently using that technology.

ahnick2• 6 years ago

I noticed that the new iphone 12 has a f/2.0 aperture telephoto lens whereas my existing iphone XS has a f/2.4 aperture telephoto lens. What are the implications of this?

I always understood that for a telephoto lens you wanted the f-stop number to be higher, so that the image is clearer since the subject is at a greater distance. My gut instinct is that the iphone XS/XR lens might capture a sharper initial image, but maybe the final product won't be as good as the newer lens do to all the processing being done by the phone? Perhaps a bigger diameter on the telephoto lens is better for night mode shooting, so more light is being captured? Hoping someone more knowledgeable than I can weigh in. :)

hgo• 6 years ago

A lower f-stop number means that the aperture is bigger (relative to the focal length), such that it let's in more light. This has several subjective benefits: more light can be used for shorter exposure time or lower ISO (sensor gain) each leading to a sharper image. Also, it creates a shallower depth of field or "more blur" which separates the subject for a more pleasing picture. (This may be irrelevant on sensors as small as on a phone, which counteract shallow depth of field effects.) It may reduce the image quality if the lens of of lower quality, as it is more expensive to build large-aperture lenses.

terramex• 6 years ago

Lower f-number means that lens captures more light and has less depth-of-field (more blurred background and foreground). For small sensors like in iPhone DoF is huge anyway and planes separation has to be faked in post-processing. In general less f-number is better.

mullingitover3• 6 years ago

I always understood that for a telephoto lens you wanted the f-stop number to be higher, so that the image is clearer since the subject is at a greater distance.

You want the lowest f-stop number possible for telephoto, so you have more available light hitting the sensor. This allows you to get a higher shutter speed. The higher shutter speeds compensate for the exaggerated shake you get from the longer lens.

ahnick2• 6 years ago

If this is the case, then can we infer that the iphone 12 pro has a slightly better telephoto lens than the iphone 12 pro max? (The max's f-stop is listed as f/2.2)

centimeter6• 6 years ago

I always understood that for a telephoto lens you wanted the f-stop number to be higher,

I suspect you are confusing f-stop (ratio of aperture diameter to focal length) and focal length ("zoom").

Also the f-stop marketing is annoying to me - the f/2.4 aperture on an iPhone lens is probably equivalent to like f/22 on an FF lens for most purposes.

andrewstuart2• 6 years ago

The aperture doesn't necessarily have a theoretical effect on image quality, though it will certainly impact the depth of field, and will be shallower at higher focal lengths for the same f-stop. Also, in practice, due to impurities and imperfections in glass and other inefficiencies, there will be effects, though they can definitely be managed and are always trade-offs. Usually with aperture it's well worth it to increase the aperture.

What you'll find with professional glass lenses, with variable apertures, is that sometimes you do need to decrease the aperture (higher f-stop) to get the sharpest possible image from the lens. At wider apertures you're collecting more light, from closer to the edges of the glass, at higher refractory angles, travelling through more glass, and thus sharpness goes down. The other side of the aperture though, aside from DOF, is that it lets more light through, so you will also get more flexibility in general on trading off proper exposure time vs motion blur, which is great for low light handheld photography.

I would expect for mobile lenses, though, since they know it's a fixed aperture, they've done their best to mitigate those effects, aside from the fact that your DOF is definitely fixed since there's no variable aperture on your phone camera lens. Honestly the only way to know for sure is wait for somebody like DPReview to run the camera through their test suite and get some objective numbers/photos to see what, if any, impact there is from the wider aperture.

A DOF calculator can be a helpful resource to get a gut feel for the relationship between the various inputs that affect DOF. e.g. https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

acomjean• 6 years ago

as others have said, the lower the f stop the more light the lens lets in. lower is almost always better, (But makes lenses bigger and heavier). The amount of light halves as the f stop goes up, but its in steps. 1.4/2/2.8/4/5.6 . so the difference is about 1/2 stop, not huge.

As you close the lens iris (the f stop # goes up) you get more of the image "in focus", so focus doesn't need to be as precise. But you'll need a minimum shutter speed so moving objects in the frame don't blur.

wikipedia has a good photo example of this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field#Effect_of_lens_...

jl6• 6 years ago

I guess it’s good to add 5G to the baseline feature checklist so that I can use 5G when it rolls out in my city in 3-5 years time, but I don’t see it as a headline feature unless carriers use it to provide much cheaper data plans (haha).

jefftk• 6 years ago

Why is this considered an exemplary shot? https://www.apple.com/v/iphone-12/a/images/overview/camera/s... (first picture under "Automatic magic")

The pants look artificial, the hands and feet are really dark, you can't see the detail on the trees. Is this just a really hard angle to shoot, against the summer sky?

pbronez• 6 years ago

looks like a video game

endgame• 6 years ago

The lack of definition in the arms, the sharp lighting and the absence of any sense of motion combine to make it look posed in garrysmod or something.

leokennis2• 6 years ago

Apart from that, it’s just not an aesthetically pleasing photo. Some dude in crocs?

pantelisk• 6 years ago

sandals and socks. high fashion uses multiple sources. Sometimes its inspired by nature, sometimes scifi, sometimes its inspired by traditional internet cringe!

Interesting pic. I think it tries to show the hdr, dynamic rage of shadows + cleanliness even though the person is in motion.

moogleii3• 6 years ago

It's the Grand Theft Auto filter.

hbosch• 6 years ago

Wide angle, no motion blur, is it HDR? I honestly don’t know myself.

make3• 6 years ago

it's very dynamic, the motion is interesting

saagarjha21• 6 years ago

Maybe it was taken at night?

mtzet• 6 years ago

On the other hand, there's pretty good shadow detail even against the bright sky.

Twisell• 6 years ago

Huge contrast, natural light only and focus on a fast moving subject, yeah definitively tricky (as for the artistic interest of the picture that's another story).

The weirdness probably comes from the post treatment. But still impressive for a smartphone. The result (almost) look like something you could expect from RAW post treatment of a reflex camera take.

Don't know if I'll go for the iPhone 12 Pro or a refurbished iPhone 11 Pro but for my amateur usage my mind is set. I wont replace my 10 years old reflex with a new one. Theses are "good enough" in most use cases and fit in my pocket.

adwi• 6 years ago

Dynamic range, it’s pretty amazing the black are holding and highlights aren’t clipping.

johnflan• 6 years ago

Wont the magnets in the phone stick to keys, coins, stuff on the desk etc?

mromanuk2• 6 years ago

I'm surprised that Apple didn't add a fix or workaround to unlock the phone while wearing a face mask. Should be plenty of features to recognize a person or the mask can be added.

It's really annoying to loose the unlock with your face feature and go back to entering the code while outside.

dnh442• 6 years ago

I’ve read that if you go to FaceID settings you can “set up an alternative appearance” and rescan your face with a mask. I’ve not tried it though.

mromanuk2• 6 years ago

Nope, it doesn’t work. It ask you to uncover your face

hardwaregeek• 6 years ago

I don't know if this has been remarked upon, but I kind of appreciate the diversity in the presentation. It's not showy or contrived; Apple doesn't make a huge deal out of it, but it's nice to see a wide variety of genders and races.

parsimoniousplb• 6 years ago

I used to think Apple has the best approach to diversity, but this presentation really showed the folly inherent to the entire project. You realize that what you just saw was a cast of exclusively white men and women gushing over a cast of exclusively colored models? All the engineers and executives vs. nice-to-look at minorities. This is not a new social arrangement, and certainly not one Apple would stand for, and yet inadvertently this is is the image that they've created.

The pictures themselves are telling to. They are all weird, lower power poses. Could you imagine Tim Cook or another speaker striking a pose like that? This is how the executives like to be seen: https://www.apple.com/leadership/

Sadly it has come to the point where any criticism of diversity for any reason is sacrilegious, but people would be wise to think twice what the outcome of these policies is. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

spaetzleesser• 6 years ago

Does anybody know how the 2 lens setups perform vs the 3 lens setups? I like the size of the Mini but I also want to get a good camera. I have a mirrorless camera with big lenses for tougher things like wildlife or night.

pi-rat3• 6 years ago

What happens to metal objects (like keys, etc) in your pocket now that your phone is a giant magnet?

I assume the iphone is always magnetic, judging by the magsafe wallet?

smiley14376• 6 years ago

It's obvious - your magsafe iphone becomes part of your keyring! GREAT...

Knowing my luck, the phone will pull my keys out of my pocket and hold on JUST long enough for them to fall into a sewer grate

sipjca• 6 years ago

Sewergate

cranium• 6 years ago

Interesting factoid from the footnote:

  iPhone 12 mini has not been authorized as required by the rules of the Federal Communications Commission. iPhone 12 mini is not, and may not be, offered for sale or lease, or sold or leased, until authorization is obtained.

333c• 6 years ago

Same thing about the iPhone 12 Pro Max on its page. I guess that's part of the reason why those two devices go on sale later than their respective counterparts.

dang4• 6 years ago

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24768339.)

winrid• 6 years ago

Looks nice. My wife was waiting for them to remove the notch. I wonder how long she'll have her 6s :)

tannernelson• 6 years ago

I really miss all the YouTube videos that would come out after an iPhone event with hands on and first impressions.

kilroy1232• 6 years ago

Not bad, I think the mini will be popular and I like the mag safe.

Still, this is my iPhone wish list:

- USB-C

- 120hz display

- face id AND in screen touch id

- better wireless charging

- dump the notch

google234123• 6 years ago

120 hz sounds like it would hurt battery life alot.

kevincox10• 6 years ago

It depends how it is implemented. Most of the time the screen isn't updating. It would only need to rev up when scrolling or similar. When you are watching a video it is probably 30 or 60fps. So it would use more battery, but with a good variable refresh rate implementation it shouldn't be too bad.

There are Android devices that show that it does have a battery cost, but it isn't extraordinary.

riantogo7• 6 years ago

I feel we need to talk about the charger. It is not included in the box. The reasoning is that we have our chargers from previous iPhones. But those white boxes all take USB-A. The included cable is USB-C. Never mind, I will just use the USB-C charger from other devices. But wait... the cable that comes in the box is USB-C male and those adapters from other devices don't take USB-C (either fixed cable, or USB-A, or non-standard female port).

btgeekboy• 6 years ago

Seems like those who need it will just pick up some of these: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B079LYHNSR/

roboyoshi2• 6 years ago

I was wondering about those while watching the keynote, but now that I see the price of 10$ I think most people would rather buy a cheap USBC charger at 10$ instead of an adapter?

riantogo7• 6 years ago

That is how you dent the "premium" perception you have built over several decades. You don't want your users buying $1500 phones and then having to search the web for solutions and pick up $5 converters off Amazon. You could have easily included one in the box.

dont__panic6• 6 years ago

Seems especially frustrating for folks who are upgrading from a non-iPhone with a non-USB-C wall wart. If you're unfortunate to end up in that situation and you don't have a laptop with USB-C... you literally won't be able to charge your new iPhone.

Especially worrying because I don't have a personal laptop with USB-C or any USB-C wall warts. I have a lot of friends who don't have any USB-C gadgets at all. Kids who finally get old enough for a phone will be in for a rude awakening.

riantogo7• 6 years ago

Not just non-iPhone users. I have been on iPhone since it first came out. Last upgrade was 2.3 yrs ago. All the wall warts I have from past iPhones are USB-A.

julienb_sea2• 6 years ago

To be honest this doesn't seem like that large of an issue. The primary market for this device is people who already own an iphone. They already have lightning charging capabilities in their bedroom, in their car. A new charger is pretty optional for the "main" market.

There is a minority of people, like myself, who are basically entirely on USB-C and can charge my laptop, ipad and android phone all on the same cable. Including lightning to USB-C is... well, honestly, it's not that stupid because most of my charging ecosystem now is USB-C, so this very slightly lessens the blow. Slightly.

Who am I kidding, I really wish it was just USB-C.

samatman5• 6 years ago

So there are only two possibilities here: you have a USB-C charger, or you don't.

If you do, like I do, then you don't buy one. If you don't, then you buy one: Apple sells them, everyone else sells them.

There's nothing to talk about: I've thrown my last two included chargers in a box, where they languish next to my Lightning-cable-equipped EarPods. I'm unlikely to get a new phone in this cycle, but if I did, the difference would be two gizmos which I won't use, won't be included.

riantogo7• 6 years ago

Then why include the cable? Apple sells them, everyone else sells them. You are missing the point here. A better solution is to put something like this in the box: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B079LYHNSR/

fraudsyndrome• 6 years ago

Then people will but the USB-C adapter but in 2-3 years Apple will be removing the charging port altogether and introduce wireless charging only!

I actually don't like that they removed the accessories from the box, unless they can prove that they reduced the cost of the phone's overall price.

I sell my accessories to other people which reduces the phones overall cost by a non-insignificant amount. People will happily pay $5 less for a 2nd hand (but brand new and unused) Apple accessory like earpods/adapter if it's genuine since there are so many fakes out there.

heartbreak• 6 years ago

But those white boxes all take USB-A.

Yeah, and the USB A to lightning cables they came with still work fine on the new phones. Just because it comes with a USB C cable doesn’t mean you have to use it.

ksec16• 6 years ago

Apple is basically saying;

You will likely already have a charger and a USB-A to Lightning Cable. Use those.

If you dont, the package comes with USB-C to Lightning, now you can get a USB-C 18W Fast Charger at a reduced price of $19.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

Let’s talk about the return of MagSafe!

It seems...kinda dumb. Instead of plugging in a lightning cable, I can now stick a hockey puck to the back of my phone?

The “safe” in MagSafe came from its “yankability” without sending your device flying. But if my phone is laying on top of a hockey puck...it’s gonna go flying if I trip on the cable.

Why couldn’t we fill in the lightning port and use flush surface contacts, like the MagSafe of yesteryear?

I’m also not sure why my case needs to magnetize to my device, getting rid of the lip around the screen that made it less cringe to lay my phone face down.

Am I missing something? I really don’t understand this feature.

EDIT: did I see an AirPower reboot in there or am I dreaming?

xnx4• 6 years ago

Being able to dock a device for charging with one hand (very difficult with a cable) is very nice. Wireless is superior to surface contacts because you can mount orient your phone in different directions without needing to account for the cable.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

Depends how the magnets work; sometimes these types of things are pretty opinionated about the orientation. I think a “smart connector” approach like the iPad could also be used one-handed, but point taken.

72deluxe9• 6 years ago

But docking an old iPod onto a dock was possible with one hand due to the wide connector. It isn't like it's an important problem to solve.

Using 2 hands to put a cable into a device - is this really too difficult??

Using two hands for things doesn't seem like a difficulty really - playing a guitar, driving a car etc.

filoleg• 6 years ago

Why couldn’t we fill in the lightning port and use flush surface contacts, like the MagSafe of yesteryear?

I don't remember MagSafe on macbooks ever being truly flush. It was less deep of a port than USB, sure, but it was still a port.

As for why not, there could be many reasons, but I have a feeling it might have something to do with their waterproof/dustproof rating. That's just a pure speculation on my end though.

Or, more likely, it is simply because swapping the lightning port with a magsafe one would make the phone pretty much impossible to use while charging. But with a lightning port + magsafe wireless charging, you get to have both use cases covered (using while charging with lightning, drop off for an overnight charge on your magsafe charging surface).

cmckn11• 6 years ago

MagSafe wasn’t flush, no; but I don’t think this is an inherent requirement. I think it’d be possible to make something flat on both the cable and device side.

swapping the lightning port with a MagSafe one would make the phone pretty much impossible to use while charging

How so? I used my MacBook in bed while charging with MagSafe all the time. The magnets were fairly strong. With a cable going away from the bottom of the device, I think it’d be perfectly usable.

As far as waterproofing, getting rid of the lightning port seems inevitable, because it allows for better hermetic sealing. A flush set of pins seems great for this goal, surely it’s trivial to avoid shorting something out in the prescience of liquid? (I am not an electrical engineer)

NoPicklez• 6 years ago

I don't see how it would make the device impossible to use while charging. Unless when you hold the phone you bend the bottom of the charging cable.

curiouser2• 6 years ago

It's likely solve the gap of "I can't use my phone while it's wirelessly charging". With the magsafe thing you can just clunk the charger to the back of your phone and keep using it. While battery life is still crap on these (side note - I didn't hear a single thing in the presentation about battery life... yikes) people are going to be charging their phones while they use them.

I hate to be a pessimist but with them not including a charger or headphones, they're slowly moving toward no data port whatsoever

cmckn11• 6 years ago

I guess my confusion is basically that: if I want to use my phone while it charges, I just plug it in with a lightning cable. I don’t need it to “wirelessly” charge if I’m having to connect something to the device anyway. It seems to be a weird 3rd option for charging.

They’re definitely getting rid of the port, maybe next year.

hajile• 6 years ago

Site claims about the same with small pro losing an estimated hour and mini having 5 hours or so less.

FoomFries• 6 years ago

Magnetic force falls off pretty quickly - a phone case can cause enough of a difference to make that force lackluster. Apparently, it seems, enough to put magnets in the case itself to better maintain that force.

Additionally, it looks like the goal is to let your phone be held vertically, while attached only to the magnet. This makes sense for car mounts, where you may want to mount your GPS via magnet and charge it simultaneously.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

Car mounts are a great point, thanks! I hope those magnets are strong though.

toxik2• 6 years ago

How fast you ask?

Why it’s an inverse square law! Like gravity. 1/r^2.

doc_gunthrop• 6 years ago

There appear to be a lot of people who use those ring-shaped grip holders (or a Popsocket, which has a similar functionality) that stick to the back of a mobile phone.

It appears you can have either MagSafe or the phone holder, but not both. Does Apple have a solution for this?

prh8• 6 years ago

They discussed how it could work through silicon cases, I wonder if it would work with the Popsocket in flat mode

blantonl• 6 years ago

I think the concept of the wallet that can quickly snap on and off of the phone is pretty neat. I currently use a case that has a wallet functionality (for my driver's license and credit cards) and that doesn't allow me to use wireless charging without completely taking the case off.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

True, the wallet and pop socket support is a great point.

torben-friis3• 6 years ago

I see some issues there:

- Is keeping a magnet near my credit /public transport cards safe? Can't they be damaged by magnets?

- all of those cards are contactless in my country. Will I have to take them out to use apple pay, to avoid approaching a bung of nfc cards ?

benhurmarcel• 6 years ago

I use a case that has that feature (Mous), and wireless charging works fine with the case on.

rorykoehler• 6 years ago

How will apple pay work when you have your credit cards snapped on the back?

bredren5• 6 years ago

I also thought the usability of the charger was odd.

It seems you would pick the phone up and if you didn’t grab and put down the charging disk, it would go clunk and hit the ground.

Sort of like the watch charger will do if it isn’t in a holder. Except louder and more expensive to replace.

This was actually shown in the “snap” video they showed where a phone was pulled away.

I couldn’t understand, are we expected to adhesive this to our bedside stand? Velcro adhesive? Use some other accessory that holds it down?

It just feels incomplete to me.

The cases and wallet thing seem great but I don’t get this charger.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

Totally! Apple is amazing at getting the tolerances on magnets, hinges, etc just right, but I don’t see how you could get by without a suction cup or something on the bottom of the hockey puck.

A downside to wireless chargers has always been alignment. I always do a double take to make sure my phone is actually charging. Having the magnets guide the phone onto the coils is an improvement, I guess.

joshgachnang• 6 years ago

Personally, I'm waiting for it to release before jumping to conclusions. It's possible it's weighted so this isn't an issue, or the magnet is just strong enough to hold it in place but make it easy to pick up. Apple's usually pretty decent about providing a nice UX for these kinds of things. But I do agree the watch charger is a weird thing that pretty much requires a stand to feel complete.

kube-system3• 6 years ago

My phone always slides off the center of my wireless charger in my car and it stops charging without me noticing -- I would love to have this feature there.

cmckn11• 6 years ago

True, the alignment help would be great. I had a Palm in like 2006 that had a magnetic wireless charging dock. Ended up modding a Galaxy Nexus to use it in the car.

shard3• 6 years ago

I have a wireless charger in the car, which has clasps to hold the phone. It has never misaligned. This simpler solution seems preferable to the more complex MagSafe solution.

philihp• 6 years ago

Why not flush surface contacts?

Cases then need to have an exposed area for charging, and the surface contacts lower the weather resistance.

alistairSH• 6 years ago

and the surface contacts lower the weather resistance

Relative to USB-C or Lightning? I think the question was "why do a Lightning port AND fake-wireless instead of just flush surface contact?"

varenc4• 6 years ago

MagSafe can be seen as the replacement for AirPower! It's solving the same problem in a much simpler way.

AirPower's big promise was that it was a multi-device charging mat that didn't require perfect alignment to get high power charging. Apple ultimately cancelled it, likely because this proved too difficult to do safely. (rumored to be thermal issues with the multi-coil design)

MagSafe solves the alignment problem in a simpler way. Instead of carefully aligning your phone, the magnets just "suck" your phone to the optimal charging position.

remir• 6 years ago

Aira's FreePower technology seems to be what Apple was trying to achieve with Airpower. Haven't tried it yet (because it's expensive) but from the review I read, it's legit.

https://airapower.com/

chaosharmonic• 6 years ago

This also assumes Apple doesn't plan on scaling the spec. Other phones are already up to 40W charging, and several OEMs have been tipped to be aiming for at 100 by next year.

whoopdedo• 6 years ago

How strong is the magnet? I can already see a benefit. Don't put you're phone "down" to charge it, put it up on the charger pad that's mounted to the wall. Can be placed out of the way where it's not in danger of being tripped over or spilled on, and frees tabletop space.

jayd162• 6 years ago

Xiaomi also solved the alignment issue in a charmingly inelegant way. Detailed in the video below, it uses motors to align the charging pad to the device.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNO5Kb-PZo

poisonborz• 6 years ago

Besides the convenience, it must be a way for Apple to eventually drop the charging port completely, maybe even with the next version. No police data tampering, but also no jailbreaks, a physically walled device.

devenblake• 6 years ago

....Further incentivizing the fascists to figure out how to either force Apple to give them a wireless backdoor or figure out a wireless backdoor for themselves...

gowld4• 6 years ago

How is wireless data more secure than wired data?

XorNot2• 6 years ago

I'm unclear how this works stop anything. Physical access is total access: there's a JTAG port in there somewhere.

propogandist• 6 years ago

This is much simpler, they wanted more sales of accessories to show higher sales revenue. Playing up the "eco-friendly" messaging, they're able to cut costs and avoid including a charger +headphones.

The changes forces most customers to buy either a wireless airpods or a new magSafe charger. This become an easy 'attach' sale for all retailers and virtually any sales person. Customers will be told that their device does not come with a charger and the apple authorized, overpriced charger is the best option to use with their new $700-$1K+ device.

This allows Apple to show stronger revenue numbers, even if demand for the iPhone is weaker.

fudged71• 6 years ago

I assume with MagSafe you can now plug your cable port (if you don’t use accessories) allowing the whole device to be basically sealed

millzlane2• 6 years ago

Eventually you will see the lighting port disappear with no way to back up the device locally. 5k cameras in cellphones with no removable storage and no way to locally backup.

nojito2• 6 years ago

What? i've been doing wireless local backups for years

totaldude87• 6 years ago

Another note: the iPhone 12s still support Qi wireless charging, up to 7.5W. MagSafe allows faster 15W charging (sigh). Apple said during the event that it wants a MagSafe ecosystem, so expect chargers, mounts and so on from third parties.- nilay Patel on Twitter

cmckn11• 6 years ago

Upon further reflection, the magnets might have been a necessary tweak to the AirPower concept. They couldn’t get it working with a large matrix of coils, on which you could lay the phone/watch anywhere. Instead, the combo charging mat shown in today’s presentation will use magnets to force proper placement on the mat.

harha3• 6 years ago

I would have much preferred a USB-C plug for all my devices.

It’s nice that it’s wireless on the new iPhone and all, but it’s still an extra cable (or puck) to carry around.

Much like the headphone cable, I think that things like charging could be done in such a simple way, that the alternatives that are presented just don’t make the users lives easier and generate unnecessary waste.

crooked-v2• 6 years ago

I find myself thinking that at some point they'll be moving to an iPhone with no ports at all, and aren't bothering with USB-C because they'll have a transition to entirely wireless charging instead.

rweir2• 6 years ago

if it was me, I'd skip straight to Qi-only just to avoid the amount of whinging they would have to endure (here would be among the worst) about "omg another cable change!!11" for their...second cable change in two decades.

me_me_me• 6 years ago

all of the issues stemming from charging can be solved by having bigger battery.

Why cant they make device 1 or 2 mm thicker and have device survive a day longer. Then I just plug it in at the nightstand and dont have to worry about yanking phone as I dont have to top up charge. No need for spare cables at your car/work/relatives.

m4632• 6 years ago

I've been using a anker stand for the past few years for wireless charging my iphone 8 and that works fine. Just plop the phone in place and it stands up and you can read it if it lights up.

The one thing that happened when I got that is that I never bought another lighting cable.

scoutt• 6 years ago

Now we should keep the phone away from our floppies!

72deluxe9• 6 years ago

And our CRTs! Can't have the rainbow colours sitting on your monitor forever!

jankyxenon• 6 years ago

MagSafe was probably a retroactive marketing message.

Primary goal here is to get a secure, consistently lined up charging mechanism.

Apple has used magnets in chargers before, and lo- a brand was reborn.

znpy• 6 years ago

But wait, there's more!

It also costs an extra! It's MAGIC! Aren't you excited?

strogonoff• 6 years ago

Nice to see the old angular frame[0], but disheartening to not see no LCD model. I have avoided OLED so far since I can spend a lot of time looking at my phone’s screen in low light and I’d rather not deal with PWM.

I had hopes for Touch ID comeback (IIRC Apple has a patent for fingerprint reader integrated in phone body or screen), but oh well.

[0] Although it was much better when power button was on the top—in all modern iPhones on/off can be easily mistaken for volume up/down by touch.

734129837261• 6 years ago

What an annoying presentation. They try to make 5G look like it's invented by Apple by labeling it "innovation". No, Tim Apple, it's Qualcomm who made that chip. You just had your hardware team build it inside the phone.

The screen, same deal. A fancy name for technology that's been around for a while. Nobody will really see the difference between the screen on an iPhone X and iPhone 12, but hey, it's a sales-talk.

Speaking of 5G, they're trying to sell us onto the idea that we need it. We are still dealing with relatively low bandwidth caps from our providers, and nobody in their right mind is going to use 4GB/s to do... anything. Do they expect us to willy-nilly download games of 4GB on the go or something?

5G is technology for the providers and their benefactors, not for us the comsumers.

On to the CPU. It's faster. Great. It was already industry-leading fast. I respect processing power as something amazing and I'll respect this improvement for what it is. Great job. Not too impressed because I wouldn't use it myself, but it's nice.

Then Touch ID, wow I'm so happy they reintroduced it last-minute during this pandemic where we all wear masks when out and about. What's that? They didn't include Touch ID? You mean their superior technology that is pretty damn amazing and convenient to serve NEXT TO Face ID isn't there even though they could have?

Yikes.

Well, at least the announced 120Hz for the Pro Max and 90Hz for the smaller Pro model was nice. Hm? They didn't do that either? Oh. They're still stuck on 60Hz while the competition is delivering phones for half the money doing all of the above since about a year ago?

Yikes.

MagSafe, though. Now that is quite nice! Not even kidding. They invented magnets at Apple, like, whoa I'm going to assume that the magnetic connection will allow you to charge the phone and ALSO transfer data! Wild assumption, huh?

The case with a spare pocket for the Apple Pencil was a nice touch, though, especially now the iPhone 12 supports it. That's also a lie. I'm lying. They did not do that.

At the very least they're good for nature and such. No more charger and earphones! As a result the price has gone down a whopping $300 across the field, with a respectful nod to the people who are struggling in these dire times.

That, too, was a lie. They did no such thing.

It's another iPhone X. Nothing new here.

roadbeats4• 6 years ago

Is it just me or the sample photos for the night mode look pixelated on the website; https://www.apple.com/iphone-12/

pmarreck4• 6 years ago

Still no transparent TouchID? Boooooo.

(Am I the only one who hates FaceID and feels like it was mostly a neat engineering problem to work on that doesn't actually suit the task as well as simple fingerprinting?)

whatever1• 6 years ago

Huge miss to not have touch id in a era of a raging pandemic. I literally have not used the face-id once outside my house since March, because I always use a mask, so I have to type in my password. Which I had to revert to an unsafe 6 digit one from my 12char alphanumeric that I had until March.

onedognight• 6 years ago

What’s makes this even more frustrating is that they just came out with Touch ID in the power button foe the iPad Air, so they could have put both on the phone.

tomduncalf• 6 years ago

I had the same thought initially, but the reality is that the amount of rework required in terms of design, development, QA and production (parts, production lines) will be huge at Apple’s scale. You probably have to plan features like that more than a year out, so they’d have to skip this generation (which they will have invested a huge amount it), which realistically was never going to happen.

I agree that the lack of Touch ID feels like a fairly big deal though. Face ID is useless right now and I don’t see things getting back to “normal” in terms of no mask wearing for some time, so I think I will wait and see if they bring it back next year.

ksec16• 6 years ago

Just wanted to say the Touch ID on power button was planned for quite some time. As rumour ( more like Supply Chain Fact Check ) from Ming pointed it out last year.

The thing he got wrong was that he thought it was for iPhone. Turns out it was for iPad.

samatman5• 6 years ago

Sure is.

Problem is that Apple just isn't nimble enough to do anything about it. Everything important about these phones was set in place before there was a pandemic.

q3k• 6 years ago

There's nothing forcing them to release new phones now instead of delaying and releasing a better product.

dfcowell• 6 years ago

100% this. That omission took the 12 from an insta-buy to an "I'm probably going to skip this gen."

sedatk2• 6 years ago

FWIW, Face ID started to work for me with a mask on after iOS 14 update. Apparently, it requires a lot of training by failed attempts with a mask before it starts working. It doesn't work if you have your mask all the way up to cover your nose completely, but a little space is enough.

netheril96• 6 years ago

A face mask that does not cover the nose is equivalent to no mask.

christefano5• 6 years ago

Interesting idea, though I’m not sure this is a good idea. Exposing one’s nose defeats the purpose of wearing the mask.

As an aside, I’m super curious to see whether Face ID works with the transparent PurME masks.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/purme-a-gas-mask-you-can-...

plaidfuji• 6 years ago

This has been the biggest unexpected benefit of having gone with an SE back in March...

Nextgrid17• 6 years ago

Face ID is a major downgrade from Touch ID regardless of the pandemic.

Touch ID (combined with a home button) is a lot faster. You can reach into your pocket or handbag, put the finger on the button and press it while you're taking it out. By the time your phone is out it's unlocked and on the home screen. I don't recall seeing people failing to unlock their phones while paying with Apple Pay before but now it's a reasonably common occurrence if they didn't "prime" it ahead of time.

You can also quickly unlock your phone if it's not directly aligned with your face without having to pick it up (let's say it's on a table or desk) or if you're letting another person handle it.

Face ID is also annoying in bed, when either your face is obstructed by pillows/blankets or if you're holding your phone too close to your face and need to hold it further away for a second, illuminating the whole room in the process.

Touch ID also makes the authentication action explicit. If you're handling someone else's phone, you can look at the lockscreen without attempting to authenticate by simply keeping away from the home button and using the power button to wake it up. With Face ID the simple fact of looking at the phone is an authentication attempt and you'd be consuming the limited amount of attempts the owner has before they have to fall back to a passcode.

KerrickStaley• 6 years ago

One major downside of Touch ID that is niche but affects me personally is that if your fingerprints get damaged (e.g. by rock climbing, which I do regularly) then Touch ID will stop working for ~1 day while your fingers recover. For this reason I'm planning on getting a device with Face ID or a similar feature next time I buy a phone. The downsides of Face ID you mention are valid, though.

brittohalloran• 6 years ago

The Pixel 3XL and others had it right - fingerprint sensor on the back (natural spot for your pointer finger), still allowing for the whole front of the device to be the screen.

jen729w4• 6 years ago

This is definitely subjective because I love Face ID and haven't missed Touch ID once since I got my iPhone 11. And I loved Touch ID.

Note that I'm in a COVID-free part of Australia so I'm not affected by mask wearing.

codeofdusk• 6 years ago

And as a totally blind person, I don't look at my phone anyway, so faceID has been a major downgrade.

secretsatan4• 6 years ago

A lot faster? what are we talking about? 1/2 a second? faceID is great, you look at the phone and it unlocks, I much prefer it to touchid, I used to have to use my passcode far more often with touchID because It didn't get it quite right, or my fingers were wet, or using my other hand from an odd angle. And, with winter, you know, gloves...

madeofpalk2• 6 years ago

I disagree, I prefer Face ID. They just both have pros and cons.

If you're wearing gloves, Touch ID doesnt work. If you're wearing a mask, Face ID doesnt work. If your finger is a bit wet and/or wrinkly, Touch ID doesnt work. If your face is at a very off angle Face ID won't work.

Face ID worked pretty well for me (before mask time) and for me it had less tradeoffs. I prefer it.

floatboth2• 6 years ago

combined with a home button

Or right in the display. The optical fingerprint scanner OnePlus uses is very nice.

leokennis2• 6 years ago

I have to disagree. Both systems have advantages over the other, and of course with a mask on TouchID has a pretty big advantage right now. But:

- FaceID is way better when your fingers are not perfect: after washing hands, in the kitchen, when wearing gloves etc.

- FaceID is more secure (lower chance of a false positive)

- FaceID already starts working when you pick up the phone (you do not need to trigger it), so by the time I swipe up to unlock, it has already long since identified my face

- FaceID enabled you to hide the content of notifications and only show them when you look at the phone

wrboyce• 6 years ago

Have you ever used FaceID? There are a lot of false claims in your rant.

My favourite was the room being illuminated (by IR light?) when using FaceID in bed.

christefano5• 6 years ago

Touch ID (combined with a home button) is a lot faster. You can reach into your pocket or handbag, put the finger on the button and press it while you're taking it out. By the time your phone is out it's unlocked and on the home screen. I don't recall seeing people failing to unlock their phones while paying with Apple Pay before but now it's a reasonably common occurrence if they didn't "prime" it ahead of time.

I was excited when I discovered this, but I now consider this “feature” to be a security issue. I used to “prime” my Touch ID-equipped iPhones until I accidental authorized an in-app purchase because my thumb was pre-placed on the sensor.

Never again.

I had modified the Accessibility settings so that resting a finger on the sensor would unlock the device, and when reverting that setting I still ran into the same issue.

killerdhmo• 6 years ago

This phone was designed, locked in place, and started manufacturing years ago.

mantap4• 6 years ago

Adding a fingerprint scanner doesn't affect every component in the phone. It doesn't affect the display, CPU, dimensions or anything with a long lead time. It affects the power button. Apple had well enough time to add it.

jen729w4• 6 years ago

Which I had to revert to an unsafe 6 digit one from my 12char alphanumeric

A 6 character alphanumeric is still way safer than a 6 character numeric. Just pick something you can type as quickly as you can punch in 6 numbers?

swiley• 6 years ago

Personally I never used either. Biometric authentication just seems like a terrible idea to me and I really don't want my phone collecting data like that.

sgerenser• 6 years ago

iPhones don’t collect biometric data other than locally, and even then only in a form that would never be useful to anyone (hashed and stored on Secure Enclave).

armandhammer• 6 years ago

Weird, fully masked Face ID has worked fine for me since the iOS 13.5 update (more than 95% of the time). Before that it never worked with a mask on. And I wear the L size huge standard disposable white mask which covers nearly my entire face from the bottom of my eyelids, fully side to side, all the way over my chin.

kwanbix2• 6 years ago

I cannot understand that huge notch.

m0zg• 6 years ago

I wonder if I'm the only one who doesn't give a slightest shit about "lidar" or "AR".

smusamashah2• 6 years ago

Same design as iPhone 4

xyst2• 6 years ago

Can we talk about the hypocrisy of the recycling segment given that Apple is a known adversary of the “right to repair” bill?

All of this “net-zero” talk yet they have a system in place that makes it prohibitively expensive to repair slightly damaged devices (ie, bad battery) out of warranty. So, consumers are left to live with the problem, pay for the cost of the repair which ends up costing about 1/2 to 3/4 of a new phone, or just buy a new phone.

Of course, people could go to a third party repair facility, but Apple doesn’t provide these businesses with the replacement parts and software to fix their phones. In one case, the display hardware identifier is tied to the “True Tone” feature and changing the display will result in this feature not working. In another case, the TouchID is hardcoded to the device and can only be reset by Apple techs, otherwise the Touch ID feature no longer works.

I like Apple products in general, but this is one of the few cases where Apple can do better.

tupputuppu• 6 years ago

Relatively I've understood that iPhones are still more repairable than Samsungs and other Android, based on ratings from companies that rank these (can't find a link on my phone)

ksk3• 6 years ago

Apple chokes the repair shops by banning other companies from selling them parts. Even if Apple devices are more repairable (companies find other ways to source parts, schematics), Apple is actively working against the right to repair movement.

Polylactic_acid6• 6 years ago

Apple started out as fairly repair hostile while Androids were relatively repairable. Now most android phones are sliding more and more towards glued together bricks while iphones are mostly the same to the point where most android devices are actually harder to repair.

I took my Pixel 2 in to a store for a battery replacement and the person told me that there is a chance the screen will shatter when they remove it. If a person with all the tools and training can't reliably replace the battery something is seriously wrong. Apple might be doing a lot of things horrible but they are the only ones who actually have a store in my area and offer repairs on their own devices.

rvense• 6 years ago

Maybe Samsungs are no better, but compared to a Fairphone it's quite obvious that Apple doesn't prioritize repairability in any meaningful way.

pier253• 6 years ago

That was my thought as well.

Also let's not forget about the 100k functional devices Apple sent to recycling and wanted to remove from the second-hand market.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/10/01/apple-catches-electronics-rec...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24663718

xyst2• 6 years ago

I’m torn in this case. On one hand, Apple is in the right because that company was hired to do a job but ended up doing something completely different. But on the flip side, if the phones were functional at the time of receiving the phones and required none to minimal repair, then shame on Apple.

This whole fiasco reminds me of the O&G industry and the manufacture of plastics. It’s much cheaper to create and sell “virgin plastics” rather than trying to recycle the existing plastic.

ksk3• 6 years ago

I'm due for an upgrade and the mini seems to be a really nice option. As an aside, does anyone know what the current limitations are in making a completely sealed weather-proof phone?

nbzso2• 6 years ago

I live in the future. Here we hate mobile phones. They are boring slabs with annoying demand of mental attention. The cool kids are using simple open hardware to tap into p2p networks. The old people are recycling 4g tech with 3d printed mods for fun and to save money. Economy is sinking daily and the only option to buy new hardware is to finance it for life, so we avoid to do this.

Seriously now, my last phone is SE. I am old apple user. I plan to buy cheap Android phone for Important apps. Actually Apple of now is what I don’t trust or like. I feel that this boring, politically correct, cunning corporation is exactly the opposite of the original Apple idea and ethos. This started years ago with whole Semi-Pro trend, but now is in a full swing, not listening of pro users, milking 30 percent everything, basically is a company for “fashion people” with polished marketing. My money are safe:)

DaiPlusPlus• 6 years ago

politically correct

Please elaborate.

nbzso2• 6 years ago

Using public political positions for boosting sales and marketing. People today are buying perceptions and lifestyle not technical products. When corporations are filling political realm with positive public perceptions and lobbing for profit margins and tax evasions the future is bleak.

torgian4• 6 years ago

Honestly I’m a little torn between the Mini and the Pro models, simply because of LiDAR. I kind of want to experiment with that and potentially make an app utilizing that. But I honesty can’t think of something that Apple hasn’t already includeD.

konamicode• 6 years ago

Same position here. Pro is compelling because I own an old iPad mini that's due an upgrade and I wonder if Pro would provide that for me. But for size I like my current SE gen 1.

christefano5• 6 years ago

Samesies. Having even close to the purported 6x speed improvement when taking low light photos would be amazing.

shoulderfake• 6 years ago

The arrogance of this fucking company, so now you dont even get the wall plug. And how much is their apple brand wall plug ? I bet minimum 40$. How are ppl still blindly just buying these dumbass iphones still I dont get it.

gowld4• 6 years ago

Live and let other people live with what they think is good value for money.

A phone that is supported for 2 years longer than its competitors is worth more than yet another redundant charger.

MarioMan2• 6 years ago

$19: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MHJA3AM/A/20w-usb-c-power...

sriku5• 6 years ago

The released phones are priced between $1100 to $2000 (eqv in India). What do these really have to offer that trumps putting that money into a mutual fund if you actually are willing to spend that kind of money? I'm quite sure this price range is high even in the US?

To me (and I can afford this) it looks insane to sink that kind of money into a bloody phone.

caseyf7• 6 years ago

Totally agree. The new emphasis on monthly payments Is also notable. It’s like they want people to view monthly phone payments like Americans view monthly car payments and buy a phone beyond their needs.

sriku5• 6 years ago

Those finding the monthly payments attractive should consider bumping that into an SIP (a systematic investment plan). I'm actually pained to watch folks in India to whom that kind of money would be several months salary burn it away like that for whatever fake notion of "prestige" they get from it.

infinityplus1• 6 years ago

Some people are simply so rich that spending $1-2k is nothing for them. Others are looking to show-off.

pfundstein• 6 years ago

It's just a matter of disposable income, you really don't have to be "so rich" to afford a $2k phone every year.

sriku5• 6 years ago

My crib here isn't about those who can afford it. It is about folks (specifically in India) who actually can't afford it and are pushing through for the "prestige". It's their life, but that they would prioritize it over .. well ... living ... Makes me turn laser eyes on Apple marketing.

ahtaarra• 6 years ago

A guy I know bought the base iPhone 11 Pro model for $1400 in my country because he needed it for the 'ecosystem' and because the cheaper iPhone 11 wasn't 'good enough' for him while not even having an iPhone-specific use case

mav3rick2• 6 years ago

What a dumb question. This is a luxury. Why buy an Audi, Mercedes, BMW, if you can put the money in a mutual fund.

sriku5• 6 years ago

We don't go "hey i've saved up $100000, let me buy a Merc". But that's what I see quite a few people doing . They "save up for an iPhone". If you have to save up for it, you better think of other uses for the money than a luxury item for wasting your time.

urda• 6 years ago

- Why take any vacations or time off? After all you can just put that into a mutual fund.

- Why enjoy any specific meals or foods? A simple, repeatable dish means you can save more money to put into your mutual fund.

- Why enjoy that movie or album? After all, that's another dollar you could be putting into your mutual fund!

All work and no play is not a way to live life either. Some folks like having the latest-and-greatest, others don't mind having the same phone for years on end. If you just boil the entire world down to money in, money out, and mutual funds you are going to have a very unsatisfying and unfulfilling life.

sriku5• 6 years ago

Faux analogies and all they indicate is that apple marketing has won in projecting so much "luxury value" on these things.

The comparison I'm drawing is what do you get out of this that you don't get out of, say, a $200 phone, that is worth paying 5-10x the price. The enjoyment ratio between a vacay and no vacay is way more and hence isn't a suitable comparison. Heck, spending $2000 on a vacation seems more worth it than the phone (to me).

It's a bloody phone. You'll browse stuff with it, do email, maybe tweet and Instagram or Facebook. None of that demands that budget today. Heck it wouldn't even feel different in those apps in the way an Audi or bmw would.

I use a phone that's plenty performant for all of that (and I don't insta or FB), with plenty memory (6gb) and storage (128gb) that I paid $150 for.

jungletime• 6 years ago

How does the camera compare to the Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro 5G. This looks like it has a bigger sensor and lens than what is on the new iphone. https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_mi_10t_pro_5g-10437.php

teaswift2• 6 years ago

Its hard to say until direct image comparisons come out. Historically, Apple computational photography has given it a edge over other phone cameras with seemingly better specs. However, that could easily change.

ab-dm• 6 years ago

My iPhone 6S+ is still running super smooth. Maybe because I'm not a huge photography buff or mobile gamer, but each year I wait to see something that will finally make me buy a new one, but each year I just don't see it.

I don't know exactly what I'm waiting for, but this wasn't really it.

(Also enjoying using one of the last TouchID iPhones during Covid 19)

asdojasdosadsa2• 6 years ago

This is pretty much my exact situation. The new iPhones have been so underwhelming and so highly priced that I haven't felt the need or want to upgrade.

Now previously this year, I dropped my phone and the glass broke - but it still works. So I am on the verge of upgrading, but iPhone 12 still doesn't really... make me want to upgrade - if I can put it like that.

So I am rolling with a cracked screen iPhone 6S+ until I can find the motivation to upgrade. Maybe my battery life is becoming one and the problem with charging.

gkanai• 6 years ago

why not just have the glass replaced?

donw2• 6 years ago

Same here. I like the improved camera, and the poor man's LIDAR would put me over the line to buy as I could totally use that for 3D mapping, but otherwise, a new phone just doesn't give me much.

Recently, since us in Massively Lucky Tech World mostly work from home now, I've taken to leaving my phone in the bedroom and just wearing my smartwatch for 2FA stuff... and it's made my life better.

The compulsion to look at my Sadness Rectangle has been fading quite rapidly, I'm more focused on whatever my task-at-hand happens to be, and I'm spending more of my break time doing stuff that I want to do for me: reading one of my books, writing stuff, etc.

SiVal• 6 years ago

It does often seem that the new feature causing people to upgrade more than any other is that the new model hasn't yet been dropped--parking lot, toilet, etc. #2 is battery. "We think you'll find the new iPhone has been dropped less than any iPhone we've ever made and has a newer battery...."

tannhaeuser• 6 years ago

Hopefully, the arrival of the mini doesn't spell the end-of-life of the 7 and 8. Also, has anyone noted the cost for display/battery replacement on any recent phone (including Samsung) has skyrocketed, making it uneconomical?

jamil73• 6 years ago

I picked up a refurbished 8 a while ago, great size + touchID

johnnycab• 6 years ago

So I am rolling with a cracked screen iPhone 6S+ until I can find the motivation to upgrade.

I recently fixed a iPhone 6S+ for a friend, primarily with an aim to retrieve the photos and contacts. It wouldn't switch on, and had a broken screen. I ended up replacing the screen, battery and the charger port+headphone jack flex. It cost less than £40 in parts and some elbow grease; a superb compromise for a phone, which supports iOS 14 albeit it might not receive any future OS updates.

fasteo• 6 years ago

Same here. Broke my 6s and got ... another refurbished 6s for under 300 Euro. Working like a charm for 1 year now

arvinsim• 6 years ago

Anyone who has the X series and later should just wait for the next generation.

trixie_• 6 years ago

I hope no one feels 'not needing to upgrade' is a 'bad thing'

It's a testament to Apple's build quality and long term support that you don't need to upgrade.

Samsung and Android are big on the half baked gimmicks and lackluster supports. Those phones you have to upgrade after a few years as they become more bloated than a Windows 95 machine bought from CompUSA.

LMYahooTFY• 6 years ago

Samsung and Android are big on the half baked gimmicks and lackluster supports. Those phones you have to upgrade after a few years as they become more bloated than a Windows 95 machine bought from CompUSA.

Am I missing something? What are the phones getting bloated with?

Deukhoofd2• 6 years ago

Samsung and Android are big on the half baked gimmicks and lackluster supports

Since when? I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 from 2016, and I honestly don't see any bloatware. It's still running smoothly, and without degraded performance.

72deluxe9• 6 years ago

But Windows 95 wasn't too bad once you removed the bloatware! In fact I think it's faster to use in daily usage due to the lack of animations and GUI candy than modern Windows.

Also, I have an Android device and have had them since the TMobile G1. Early models were hampered by RAM scarcity, and each Android release mentioned the smoother UI (it didn't get great until 6.0 or 7.0?). But in general they were OK (apart from a dreadful Samsung tablet I bought) and the only thing that would "bloat" them is running too many apps concurrently (but then they were "freeze dried" until relaunch) or having too many services running, which recent Android has started to kill vehemently like iOS.

I agree with your Apple build quality support though - my MacBook Pro is 8 years old no problems, and I'm happy with the Air 2 I own that is still supported and useful at decent speeds 5+ years after I bought it.

sailingparrot2• 6 years ago

It's a testament to Apple's build quality and long term support that you don't need to upgrade. Those phones you have to upgrade after a few years

Shall I remind you that Apple was sued and lost in Europe precisely because it forced user to either upgrade after after 3 years or be condemned to live with a phone that was throttled at like 50% cpu clock?

This is exactly why I never bought an iphone again, I don't want my phone to expire after exactly 3 years because of a forced update. Apple probably stopped doing this since they lost that case, but let's not talk about a "testament to long term support" as if that was a long standing tradition.

I switched to android 7 years ago because of that and never had that kind of issue, Android upgrades don't brick my phone, and I have not noticed a worse build quality even though I am buying "cheap" (OnePlus).

The only thing that is making me consider Apple is privacy.

perfopt• 6 years ago

My 6plus became unusably slow and remained that way even after a battery replacement. So I upgraded to a iPhone 11 after 5.5 years with the 6Plus. I expect to keep my iPhone11 for 5-6 years at least.

Karunamon• 6 years ago

I encountered this as well, the fix for me was a full reflash (from DFU) without loading the backup from iCloud. Apparently whatever was slowing down the phone was getting loaded back in. I'm guessing there's some internal cache or database or something that is grinding to a halt over time.

alecthomas• 6 years ago

Same here, and my wife. That was one of my most infuriating phone experiences. The 6S was working perfectly fine then after some update it was basically useless. This was around the time of the underclocking debacle.

bgorman• 6 years ago

OLED's have vastly superior picture quality and are easier on the eyes. I would say this is kind of the "4.7 inch iPhone" moment where Apple is finally giving iPhone users an acceptable screen at an "affordable" price. OLED displays have been dominant on Android phones and high end iPhones for a reason - they are so much better in picture quality.

brailsafe4• 6 years ago

Now if only app designers could get dark mode right, and not actually go full black mode.

vondro• 6 years ago

OLED's are very nice, but if the phone is used for example as a car navigation, then burn in might be an issue. I am very sensitive to it, to the point that I am very happy having an LCD screen.

nojvek2• 6 years ago

When they released the iphone SE last year I immediately bought it. It was the fastest processor, best quality camera in an Apple phone with Touch ID.

I refuse to upgrade to an iPhone without Touch ID. Until my phone absolutely dies and there is no choice, then I may consider.

mantap4• 6 years ago

I honestly feel a bit insulted that Apple is releasing a phone without Touch ID during COVID-19. They think I will gladly hand over large amounts of money for a phone that is highly inconvenient to unlock.

When it became clear that people around the world were being legally required to cover their face, in some places at any time they left the house, Apple should have raced to equip the next iPhone with a fingerprint scanner. Apple didn't even apologise for not including one. I would have bought the phone with that feature. Maybe next year.

Cullinet4• 6 years ago

I would immediately purchase a official TouchID accessory battery case.

Edit: autocorrects

Austin_Conlon2• 6 years ago

It would be nice if they put Touch ID in the lock button like they did with the new iPad Air.

Cthulhu_• 6 years ago

I've had this feeling ever since the 3G / 4; all the improvements since the app store and mobile internet have been incremental, and sometimes even regressive (e.g. getting rid of the 3.5mm jack). Maybe I'm a luddite though.

Anyway some years ago I got an iphone XR (via work) and it's just fine, it'll do me for the forseeable future. It was an incremental upgrade to my iphone 7 or 8, whichever it was.

mxcrossb• 6 years ago

I felt the same when I upgraded my 6 to an XR. But when you actually get your hands on the phone, you quickly notice the improvements. There’s no pressure to upgrade, but when you finally do I think you’ll be happy

acd• 6 years ago

Will not give up iPhone 6s it is the last iPhone version with a headphone jack. With iPhone 6s and earlier one can use Hifi headphones without carrying extra headphone jack dongle.

kazinator• 6 years ago

Google Pixel 4a is for you.

Abishek_Muthian• 6 years ago

The next iPhone box would be empty, we would have to pay another $1000 to get the iPhone; For the planet.

donmb• 6 years ago

Putting your phone next to your Macbook and letting it being charged wirelessly would be an innovation. MagSafe on a phone does not make much sense as it would fly away anyways if you hit it hard. USB-C consistency would also be nice.

nagarjun• 6 years ago

No USB-C, no fast charging, no high-refresh rate display, same large notch, mediocre battery life, expensive 5G chip that is useless in India, higher prices this year compared to last year, no charger included. There isn't one good reason to buy the iPhone 12 in India this year!

brailsafe4• 6 years ago

As a frugal Android spectator, a high-refresh rate screen is one of the only upgrades that I find compelling in new phones. Already have USB-C, AMOLED 400ppi screen, mediocre battery life but fast charging, no notch, and this is a OnePlus 3 from 4 years ago

submeta2• 6 years ago

Meanwhile my iPhone 7 Plus is doing great, running the latest iOS. All the apps I need are running smoothly, perfectly fine.

person_of_color2• 6 years ago

So the premium was worth it at the time haha

submeta2• 6 years ago

I didn‘t buy it at release time. I keep buying two or more generations later. - I love Apple products. They have an offer for many budgets.

gruturo3• 6 years ago

The one feature which would have had me (figuratively) running to the store was touch ID on a button like the iPad. We are 9 months into a pandemic and likely to be wearing masks for another 9, we use Apple pay all the time.

Too bad. Nothing really compelling compared to my XS max, I'll give this year a pass.

kevincox10• 6 years ago

Making a product change like that in 9 months would have been very difficult. It is on the edge of what could be accomplished, however with Apples very predictable release cycle I wouldn't have been surprised if the designs were being finalized as the pandemic was getting started.

gruturo3• 6 years ago

Agreed, but when the iPad came out with it, I was hoping they'd find a way.

amelius• 6 years ago

This article reads like an advert.

torgian4• 6 years ago

I’m wondering, would the MagSafe feature destroy cards? I usually put my phone in my pocket without cards, but occasionally I do put it in the wallet side.

social_quotient• 6 years ago

(Not intended to take away from the product announcement)

The “surgical steel” stuff always makes me curious - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_stainless_steel

There is no formal definition but we for some reason love to hear it.

In this case (no pun) I’ve left happy that my glass phone won’t also rust?

kevincox10• 6 years ago

There is no formal definition but we for some reason love to hear it.

This seems like half of Apple's marketing. They like making up new terms for features. Often these are to try to differentiate where there isn't already an existing term but often they seem like attempts to create an artificial differentiation.

- Ceramic Shield - Super Retina Display - XDR dynamic range

restlessdesign• 6 years ago

The scroll performance on this page is abysmal.

aphextron• 6 years ago

I'm a little concerned about the feature bifurcation with lidar only being available on the pro. Hopefully they won't just kill it off like 3D touch from a lack of developer support.

avidphantasm3• 6 years ago

It just seems like the entire industry is desperate for us to give a shit about 5G. I don't, sorry. To me this is similar to the 4K and 8K HDR TV craze. I don't plan on ever owning an 80" TV. At 30-40" 1080p looks great to me. I don't see giving a shit about this either. Most of the time I am near decent wifi. When I am not, I can always wait to download something huge (and really don't have a need to download something huge on my phone).

Now if they could just work on the audio quality and latency over regular wire-line networks, that I would be interested in. LTE to LTE calls already sound great, so I think there are some upgrades to the wired side of things that are required (which the likes of Verizon never want to do because it is more expensive/a lower margin business than wireless so they neglect it and regulators don't hold their feet to the fire).

richbradshaw• 6 years ago

I think the eventual idea is that 5G will replace Wifi for most casual use cases.

This has happened with 4G already to a large degree - I don't bother connecting to Cafe or Hotel Wifi these days as 4G is faster anyway.

5G would eventually ideally let me drop my home internet plan and just use 5G for everything.

I agree though that that's unlikely to happen during the next 2-4 years which might be lifespan of this phone if I were to purchase it.

avidphantasm3• 6 years ago

I guess I am just too cheap to pony up for an unlimited plan. I never stream video over the cellular connection, and rarely stream audio. I don’t see this changing unless unlimited plans get cheaper. I currently have fiber to the home for less than $70/month, and cannot imagine giving that up for any kind of wireless solution.

alwaysjoe• 6 years ago

A worse battery, no reverse charging, huge notch compared to alternatives... I was planning to upgrade my phone but I guess I'll have to wait for iPhone 13

mbishop• 6 years ago

I wish the power switch on the mini was back on top, where it should rightfully be.

iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

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