The competitors to the Samsung Galaxy S6/Galaxy S6 Edge/Galaxy S6 Edge+/ Galaxy Note 5 have been revealed: the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus!
The new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are 90% faster in terms of graphics and 70% faster in terms of CPU power compared to the previous iPhone 6 & iPhone 6 Plus.
The new 12MP rear-facing camera and 5MP front-facing camera are huge upgrades over the 8MP/1.2MP cameras of the iPhone 6, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5, iPhone 4s and iPhone 4. Seriously, this is the FIRST time Apple has actually upgraded the camera hardware in like 5 years.
Very importantly also, the battery life is rumored to be about 2X that of the iPhone 6.
I think this represents the biggest hardware upgrade that Apple has ever done. The iPhone 6 was just a form factor change from the iPhone 5s. The iPhone 6s is a HUGE upgrade over the iPhone 6 in terms of hardware.
The specs themselves should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, the 12MP camera on the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, despite having a relatively lower resolution compared to most new phones, will be one of the best cameras on the market, 100%. To be honest, 16MP is probably the maximum MP count anyone would need. >16MP is overkill and many phone cameras with high MP counts usually have poor sensor quality. Currently, the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge/Note 5/S6 Edge+ have the best cameras in the smartphone market to date. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will probably come near or match the image quality of these cameras. Also, the 2K Super AMOLED displays of the Galaxy S6/S6 Edge/Note 5/Galaxy S6 Edge+ lineup are still the best displays on the market according to DisplayMate. Not sure if the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus can beat them, and most likely they can't because the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus lack the 2K resolution. However, they will undoubtedly be of much higher quality compared to the last generation iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
One thing is for sure though, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus will be the smoothest phones (in terms of speed and performance) on the market. iOS has Android beat when it comes to software optimization, at least for now. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have some lag that I noticed, especially with Google Maps and Internet web browsing. The iPhone 6s and 6s Plus should solve these issues with the superior A9 processor which utilizes 14nm architecture. The new DDR4 RAM modules will also be a huge boost to bootup speeds, app launch speeds and overall performance.
Eh, we'll see what Google has in store for Nexus series that and everything from Music, TV, and Movies for me is on Android.
Not to get to OT but was disappointed with the unveiling of the Apple TV thought it was supposed to appeal to cord cutters etc. Saw no evidence of that. TV networks must be really hesitant about it.
just cracked the screen on my HTC one M7 and will be keeping on eye on the 6S. Other phones I'm keeping an eye on will be the: oneplus two, xperia z5 and the new nexus 5!
Premium phones under 5 inches are so rare these days and that just might be enough to convert myself to my first iphone.
On September 10 2015 09:35 CorsairHero wrote: just cracked the screen on my HTC one M7 and will be keeping on eye on the 6S. Other phones I'm keeping an eye on will be the: oneplus two, xperia z5 and the new nexus 5!
Premium phones under 5 inches are so rare these days and that just might be enough to convert myself to my first iphone.
Honestly, out of the options you've listed, the iPhone 6s would be the best choice.
If it has to be Android, the Nexus 5X seems to be most promising, along with the Samsung Galaxy S6/S6 Edge/Note 5/S6 Edge+.
Thousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.
Relatively few people outside the tech world are aware of the so-called “error 53” problem, but if it happens to you you’ll know about it. And according to one specialist journalist, it “will kill your iPhone”.
The issue appears to affect handsets where the home button, which has touch ID fingerprint recognition built-in, has been repaired by a “non-official” company or individual. It has also reportedly affected customers whose phone has been damaged but who have been able to carry on using it without the need for a repair.
But the problem only comes to light when the latest version of Apple’s iPhone software, iOS 9, is installed. Indeed, the phone may have been working perfectly for weeks or months since a repair or being damaged.
After installation a growing number of people have watched in horror as their phone, which may well have cost them £500-plus, is rendered useless. Any photos or other data held on the handset is lost – and irretrievable.
Tech experts claim Apple knows all about the problem but has done nothing to warn users that their phone will be “bricked” (ie, rendered as technologically useful as a brick) if they install the iOS upgrade.
Wow, that's huge. I loved my iPhone 4s but I quit Apple all together when my wifi button turned gray after a iOs update. I'm not into conspiracies but boy, that was too strange.
Yeah the new mobile phone market kind of died for me after nothing has changed with them of note in the last 12-18 months. There is a million different phones to get and my Samsung S5 of 2 years old does nothing less than the new S7 released 1 month ago.
My Iphone 5S almost shat it self terminally today. Wouldn't even do a factory reset. It's now wiped but I don't have high hopes it's not the hardware. My 4S fried itself after an update on a hot day. Next phone will be a cheap older one that is not apple.
On March 22 2016 05:29 Pandemona wrote: Yeah the new mobile phone market kind of died for me after nothing has changed with them of note in the last 12-18 months. There is a million different phones to get and my Samsung S5 of 2 years old does nothing less than the new S7 released 1 month ago.
Oh well TT
Yeah, not sure what else a phone could do now or in the near future that is so radically better or different anymore. I suspect that phone replacement cycles will lengthen dramatically and eventually come to mirror that of computers (i.e. 3-4 years or more).
I've got an iPhone 6S, love it, but probably won't replace it for a good long time.
I would imagine an insane amount of R&D would be going into Smartwatch technology to somehow and one day replace the cell phone. Instead all it does it offer email, music, texts, and calls (I think). WHat about real time maps, voice commands, and even something radical like bloodless glucose testing or something?
Two years, four years, 13 years, 18 years—with bad news piling up for Apple investors, the historical analogies keep getting stretched back further and further.
Apple shares dropped to $91.85 in mid-day trading on Friday, the lowest they’ve been in nearly two years. The decline also brings the tech giants share to a level they first hit in 2012, meaning all the gains the stock has made in the past four years have been wiped out. The shares recovered a bit during the day and closed at $92.72, still down 0.6% on the day.
Two other business lines, Mac computers and iPad tablets, are also shrinking. And while debate rages over how characterize the performance of Apple’s Watch, no one sees it as replacing the iPhone as the next hit product out of its Cupertino, Calif. headquarters.
In retrospect, much of the iPhone’s growth came in spurts from Apple entering key new markets. In the last two years, the addition of larger iPhone screens and gaining direct access to customers through a partnership with China Mobile, the biggest wireless carrier in the world, goosed sales to extreme levels.
There may not be another untapped market left. The company has targeted India, where its market share is low, but investors are skeptical because of the fractured retailing system for phones there and the extreme poverty in that country.
But another big part of Apple’s current struggles are less numerical and more psychological. As the stock price was rising, Apple triggered alarm bells that have signaled peaks for the stock prices of other large companies over the decades. Apple became the most highly valued public company, was added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, and set about building a massive–and massively expensive–grand headquarters.
Most recently, Apple CEO Tim Cook and his team have struggled to maintain their credibility with investors. One sore spot was Cook’s recent push to get investors to focus more on the company’s growing services revenue from app sales, movie downloads, and iCloud storage. That may be a legitimate yardstick for Apple, but with all those service revenue still dependent on declining iPhone sales, Cook’s efforts reminded many of similar efforts by other companies with shrinking hardware revenues in the past, like Xerox, to emphasize service revenue.
Removing the ubiquitous and amazing headphone jack, how revolutionary! The answer to a question literally no one asked. Are they trying to send everyone to android or what?
Telecom company T-Mobile has warned iPhone customers not to download Apple’s latest software update, adding to an already long list of complaints about the iOS10 system.
“Do not download iOS10,” the carrier tweeted on Thursday to customers who use the iPhone 6, 6+ and 5SE models. “We are getting reports of connectivity issues [and] Apple is working on a fix.”
The warning from a major wireless carrier is just the latest problem to flummox the release of iOS10. Customers have already complained that the update has left iPhones and iPads inoperable and sometimes trapped in a cycle of rebooting on and off.
In a terse statement on Wednesday, Apple confirmed a “brief issue with the software update process affecting a small number of users during the first hour of availability”. The company claimed that the problem had been fixed, but has also recommended customers back up their devices and download the update through iTunes.
Apple billed its software update as its “biggest iOS release ever” on Tuesday, but customers soon complained of a number of problems. Some found that after installing the software through Wi-Fi, they were asked to connect it to a computer with iTunes – and then the device became inoperable.
To recover their phones, users must connect and then reset the devices by holding down the home and power buttons.
Other users have found the software drains their batteries faster or suffers connectivity problems with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, though these problems will probably be resolved as the device updates and telecom carriers adjust. But some users have discovered problems within specific apps, for instance the newly updated Messages app.
As part of its updates, iOS10 has added a range of animations and images to the Messages app, which Apple hopes will compete with Facebook Messenger and other services. But when users searched for an image or animation of the word “butt”, the app suggested a sexualized gif of a My Little Pony character that pulls down its underwear. The app now blocks that word, as well as searches for “pornography”, “sex” and other explicit or anatomical words, but not the word “drugs”. The company has also disabled searches for the word “huge” after explicit images were returned.
The new software is meant to upgrade a range of iPhone and iPad functions, including photography settings, enhanced intelligence for the keyboard and new notification screen and more uses for the voice-activated assistant Siri.
If you’ve been waiting for Apple’s AirPod wireless headphones to go on sale, you’re going to have to wait a little longer. Apple says that it is not ready and will need “a little more time.”
“The early response to AirPods has been incredible. We don’t believe in shipping a product before it’s ready, and we need a little more time before AirPods are ready for our customers,” an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Apple did not say whether hardware or software updates are what is at the heart of the delay so I couldn’t conjecture which. My experiences with the AirPods have been very positive this far but the pre-production units that were given out to press are not without their foibles and bugs. Read about my time with them here.
I have seen a variety of small software/hardware interaction issues that have caused some frustration – but have taken them in stride because they are not final products. Some folks who have had them early, as noted by Eduardo Arcos, have reported seeing some physical issues, though I have not seen anything like that myself.
It appears that Apple feels the same way and is taking more time to fix either hardware or software issues that prevent them from being customer ready. No timeline was given as far as future availability.
The AirPods are a brand new piece of hardware for Apple incorporating a half dozen new technologies including a bespoke wireless chip. They couldn’t have been easy to make and it seems that’s being reflected in these delays. Apple has placed the AirPods at the center of a variety of strategies surrounding wireless audio and AI, so it’s important that it gets the launch right.
They kept the headphone jack but as a result iPhone 7 users won't be able to even charge or even use their lighting headphones on the new macs but Android users would be able to.
They kept the headphone jack but as a result iPhone 7 users won't be able to even charge or even use their lighting headphones on the new macs but Android users would be able to.
LOL, the visual presentation is SOOO similar to MS Surface Studio, which they've introduced a day ago:
Guys from Apple couldn't be too happy with that :-)
Following the confirmation that Apple has delayed its wireless "AirPods" beyond the original late October launch window, foreign supply chain sources are now pointing towards a launch date in January 2017, and not the late 2016 estimation that many believed would help the Bluetooth device sell during the holidays.
The news comes from Chinese-language Economic Daily News, which cites market watchers who believe AirPods manufacturing supplier Inventec will see a profit boost in January because of the new launch date for the device.
Apple Watch Series 3 models have entered the "final testing phase" in the manufacturing process, with mass production set to begin soon, according to a new Chinese-language Economic Daily News report.
The report, citing unnamed supply chain sources, said Taiwan-based manufacturer Quanta Computer will begin shipping Apple Watch Series 3 models to Apple in the fourth quarter, lining up with the smartwatch's widely rumored September launch, alongside new iPhones and possibly a 4K-capable Apple TV.
Apple Watch Series 2 models and slightly upgraded Series 1 models launched last September alongside the iPhone 7, so it's reasonable to assume that Series 3 models could launch this September as well. The original Apple Watch, now unofficially dubbed Series 0, launched in April 2015.
The rest of the report cites KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who recently claimed Apple Watch Series 3 will be available in both Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + LTE models in 38mm and 42mm sizes. Kuo said the cellular-enabled model will have an embedded SIM, but it might support VoIP calling only.
Apple Watch Series 3 models will also reportedly have improved performance and longer battery life, at least for the Wi-Fi-only version.
What's less certain is whether the Apple Watch will be significantly redesigned for the first time since being unveiled in September 2014.
Apple blogger John Gruber recently said he heard Apple Watch Series 3 models could have an all-new form factor, but he stressed that the tidbit came from an unconfirmed source who could be wrong. Kuo, meanwhile, said Apple Watch Series 3 models won't have any "obvious" form factor changes.
"It could also be that both my birdie and Kuo are correct," said Gruber, in a follow-up post yesterday. "The phrase 'will not feature an obvious new form factor' leaves a lot of wiggle room with the word 'obvious'," he added.
Few other details are known about the next Apple Watch at this point, and no components have leaked from the supply chain yet.
Apple has filed patents for a number of ideas that could eventually be included in an Apple Watch, such as a heart rate identification system, modular bands, haptic feedback band, and a band with a built-in charger. More significant health and fitness features could be added pending further FDA approvals.
So i just bought an iPad Pro and am somewhat surprised how easy it was to import my Music and media from my Android Cellphone by a simple app. Still exploring other things, still amused that Apple does not have YouTube by default as an App on everything.
Did not buy the Pen and was stunned how busy the Apple story was and why it was just an open glassed enclosure of a store with no identification but maybe that was just my area.
Following today's event that saw the introduction of the iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, and 4K Apple TV, Apple has quietly raised the prices on all of its 256 and 512GB iPad Pro models.
All 256 and 512GB 10.5 and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models are $50 more expensive. For the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, Apple now charges $649 for the 64GB model, $799 for the 256GB model, and $999 for the 512GB model.
For the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Apple charges $799 for the 64GB model, $949 for the 256GB model, and $1149 for the 512GB model. All cellular models are an additional $130 over the above listed prices.
Prior to today, 12.9-inch iPad Pro pricing was $799/$899/$1099 for the 64/256/512GB models, while 10.5-inch iPad Pro pricing was $649/$749/$949.
It is not clear why Apple has decided to raise the prices on its iPad Pro models, but prices could be increasing due to increased costs for memory.
Best Buy has already updated its iPad Pro pricing to reflect price increase, but other sites have not yet done so. If you plan to purchase a higher-capacity iPad Pro, now is the time to do it at a site that still offers the original price. For the best deals, check out our Deals Roundup, which features price charts for all Apple devices, including the iPad Pro.
I saw the first fifteen or so minutes of that announcement, and it was perhaps the most cultish shit I've seen in my life.
They actually started out praying to some giant b/w picture of a former CEO and not just Tim Cook, but also the audience, got super emotional. Now I get that Apple employees engage in that cult shit, but the actual public? That's just sad.
For the second time in as many years, internet advertisers are facing unprecedented disruption to their business model thanks to a new feature in a forthcoming Apple software update.
iOS 11, the latest version of Apple’s operating system for mobile devices, will hit users’ phones and tablets on Tuesday. It will include a new default feature for the Safari web browser dubbed “intelligent tracking prevention”, which prevents certain websites from tracking users around the net, in effect blocking those annoying ads that follow you everywhere you visit.
The tracking prevention system will also arrive on Apple’s computers 25 September, as part of the High Sierra update to macOS. Safari is used by 14.9% of all internet users, according to data from StatCounter.
Six major advertising consortia have already written an open letter to Apple expressing their “deep concern” over the way the change is implemented, and asking the company to “to rethink its plan to … risk disrupting the valuable digital advertising ecosystem that funds much of today’s digital content and services”.
Tracking of users around the internet has become crucial to the inner workings of many advertising networks. By using cookies, small text files placed on a computer which were originally created to let sites mark who was logged in, advertisers can build a detailed picture of the browsing history of members of the public, and use that to more accurately profile and target adverts to the right individuals.
Many of these cookies, known as “third-party” cookies because they aren’t controlled by the site that loads them, can be blocked by browsers already. But advertisers also use “first-party” cookies, loaded by a site the user does visit but updated as they move around the net. Blocking those breaks many other aspects of the internet that users expect to work, such as the ability to log into sites using Facebook or Twitter passwords.
To tackle this, the new Safari feature uses a “machine learning model”, Apple says, to identify which first-party cookies are actually desired by users, and which are placed by advertisers. If the latter, the cookie gets blocked from third-party use after a day, and purged completely from the device after a month, drastically limiting the ability of advertisers to keep track of where on the web Safari users visit.
It is this algorithmic approach which spurred the six US advertising bodies, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Association of National Advertisers, to write to Apple. In their letter, published by AdWeek, the advertisers argue: “The infrastructure of the modern internet depends on consistent and generally applicable standards for cookies, so digital companies can innovate to build content, services and advertising that are personalised for users and remember their visits.
“Apple’s Safari move breaks those standards and replaces them with an amorphous set of shifting rules that will hurt the user experience and sabotage the economic model for the internet.”
Apple responded to the letter saying: “Ad tracking technology has become so pervasive that it is possible for ad tracking companies to recreate the majority of a person’s web browsing history. This information is collected without permission and is used for ad re-targeting, which is how ads follow people around the internet.”
Apple has shown little concern for advertisers’ needs in the past. In 2015, it led that year’s update for iOS with a feature that allowed widespread mobile ad blocking on the platform for the first time. The move arguably kicked off an arms race that led major media companies to increase their use of subscription models, and ceded an ever-increasing portion of the digital advertising market to Facebook and Google, two companies whose models are more resilient to adblocking than many smaller publishers.
Google has also made a move on the adblocking market, testing a built-in adblocker for its Chrome browser, which is used by 54.9% of all internet users according to StatCounter. The feature, which is expected to hit the final release of the browser sometime this year, blocks what the company calls “intrusive ads”: autoplaying video and audio, popovers which block content, or interstitial ads that take up the entire screen.
Unsurprisingly, Google’s own advertising products are not deemed intrusive.
Apple had a message for its customers this past week: "We apologize."
Customers have been angry ever since the company confirmed its software updates slow down older iPhones with aging batteries. Apple says it did that to prevent those iPhones from shutting down unexpectedly.
While this apology might help on the public relations front, the legal issues are another matter.
Apple is facing a number of lawsuits over the issue from iPhone owners in states including California, New York and Illinois. There's also a lawsuit from customers in Israel and one from a French consumer rights group.
Broadly, the lawsuits cover contract law claims — saying that Apple harmed something the consumer owned and wasn't transparent about it — as well as consumer protection violations.
"You changed my phone in a harmful way [and] didn't tell me you were doing that," Rory Van Loo tells NPR's Lauren Frayer. Van Loo is a law professor at Boston University who focuses on technology and regulation.
The claims allege that the deception may have caused consumers to buy a new phone when instead they could have just bought a new battery. For the plaintiffs to succeed in the fraud claims, they will need to prove that Apple intended to promote new phone sales by slowing down old phone sales.
"For all claims [plaintiffs] will need to prove some kind of harm," Van Loo says. "They're going to need to show that Apple intentionally withheld information about slowing down the phones" and that customers would have made a different decision.
Though these lawsuits face a bit of an uphill battle, Van Loo says Apple should be nervous.
"For one, Apple has lost a number of cases across the country on some similar arguments in recent years," he says.
In a lawsuit first filed in 2015, iPhone 4s users claimed they were forced to download an update that made their phones buggy and unusable. Apple tried to get that case thrown out, but last month a judge ruled against the company.
Apple's argument, and one that they Van Loo says they may use again, is that users are told in the fine print of software updates that "things may go wrong."
"Apple is not going to be protected by what they put in the fine print," he says. "You have to be very specific about what you say in the fine print, and as far as I'm aware, it didn't anywhere say, 'We may slow down your phones with our updates.' "
After the battery issue came to light, Apple apologized to customers and said it would offer discounts to replace old batteries. The company also said new features are rolling out "that give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone's battery, so they can see for themselves if its condition is affecting performance."
While good news for future customers and in the court of public opinion, Van Loo says it doesn't free them from the potential legal liability.
Apple's apology "is not going to protect them from what they did last month and last year," he says.
Despite the criticism and lawsuits, Apple's explanation and response to the battery concerns does not include any indication that older phones using old batteries will stop slowing down.
Seems like an advantage for Apple to have a closed ecosystem but the one major disadvantage is that Siri is a joke and hasn't changed much over the years meanwhile Amazon, and Google get further and further ahead.
The report claims that many of the employees acknowledged for the first time that Apple rushed Siri to be included in the iPhone 4s before the technology was fully ready, resulting in several internal debates over whether to continue patching up the half-baked product or start from scratch.
Siri's various teams morphed into an unwieldy apparatus that engaged in petty turf battles and heated arguments over what an ideal version of Siri should be—a quick and accurate information fetcher or a conversant and intuitive assistant capable of complex tasks.
The team working on Siri was overseen by Apple's then iOS chief Scott Forstall, but his attention was reportedly divided by other major projects, including the upcoming launch of Apple Maps. As a result, Forstall enlisted Richard Williamson, who was also managing the Apple Maps project, to head up the Siri team.
According to the report, several former employees said Williamson made a number of decisions that the rest of the Siri team disagreed with, including a plan to improve the assistant's capabilities only once a year.
Williamson, in an emailed response to the report, wrote that it's "completely untrue" that he decided Siri shouldn't be improved continuously.
He said decisions concerning "technical leadership of the software and server infrastructure" were made by employees below his level, while he was responsible for getting the team on track.
"After launch, Siri was a disaster," Mr. Williamson wrote. "It was slow, when it worked at all. The software was riddled with serious bugs. Those problems lie entirely with the original Siri team, certainly not me."
Forstall and Williamson were both fired by Apple in 2012 following the botched launch of Apple Maps on iOS 6. The former employees interviewed said they lamented losing Forstall, who "believed in what they were doing."
Another interesting tidbit is that the Siri team apparently didn't even learn about the HomePod until 2015. Last year, Bloomberg News reported that Apple had developed several speaker prototypes dating back to 2012, but the Siri team presumably didn't know due to Apple's culture of secrecy.
In a sign of how unprepared Apple was to deal with a rivalry, two Siri team members told The Information that their team didn't even learn about Apple’s HomePod project until 2015—after Amazon unveiled the Echo in late 2014. One of Apple’s original plans was to launch its speaker without Siri included, according to a source.
The report says that Siri is the main reason the HomePod has "underperformed," and said Siri's capabilities "remain limited compared to the competition," including Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
Apple seems to be once again crippled by Siri meanwhile Amazon, and Google just continue off over the horizon in terms of AI etc. I am on the fence about switching to iOS from Android after the whole Facebook fiasco but Apple Maps, and the shitshow that is Siri hold me back.
Apple's HomePod hasn't ended up selling as well as the company was hoping, leading it to cut orders with suppliers, reports Bloomberg.
In late March, nearly two months after the HomePod first became available for purchase, Apple reportedly lowered its sales forecasts and dropped some orders with Inventec, the company responsible for manufacturing the HomePod. HomePod inventory in retail locations is said to be "piling up" with some stores selling "fewer than 10 HomePods a day."
Early analyst estimates based on strong pre-orders and initial sales figures suggested the HomePod would sell well and capture a solid portion of the smart speaker market, but Apple hasn't managed to maintain sales momentum.
During the HomePod's first 10 weeks of sales, it eked out 10 percent of the smart speaker market, compared with 73 percent for Amazon's Echo devices and 14 percent for the Google Home, according to Slice Intelligence. Three weeks after the launch, weekly HomePod sales slipped to about 4 percent of the smart speaker category on average, the market research firm says.
Apple charges $349 for the HomePod, making the device more expensive than competing smart speakers from Amazon and other companies. Apple put a lot of effort into promoting the HomePod's superior sound quality, but its high price tag, its lack of connectivity with non-Apple devices, and its inability to work natively with music services other than Apple Music have likely hurt its sales.
As Bloomberg points out, the HomePod's February launch was delayed from an initial promised December launch, causing Apple to miss out on key holiday sales.
HomePod also continues to lack promised features like stereo pairing to pair two HomePods together and AirPlay 2 support for controlling the music on multiple HomePods located in different rooms of the house. There are hints of this functionality in iOS 11.4, so these options could be coming soon, but HomePod owners and prospective buyers are likely disappointed with the months-long wait for basic features.
Apple isn't likely planning to give up on the HomePod despite its lackluster sales because it's part of an audio accessory lineup that includes the AirPods and the upcoming rumored high-end over-ear headphones.
Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster in February said he expects sales to pick up later in the year. He predicts Apple will sell a total of 7 million HomePods in 2018, with that number set to grow to 10.9 million in 2019.
Seems like Apple will release a new iPad Pro later this year. Since I am in need of a new tablet (that ideally can also function as a laptop replacement), and Google is basically "What's a tablet?", It might just be time for me to switch. Most of the stuff I do privately is already cross-plattform. I did get a chance to play around with the current generation of iPad Pros at work (even though that was just doing the bare-bones minimum setup) and I was impressed with them.
As for the smart speaker thing, another advantage that Google has is that third-parties can also make Google Home Speakers. I think JBL has a pretty interesting lineup here.
Seems like Apple will release a new iPad Pro later this year. Since I am in need of a new tablet (that ideally can also function as a laptop replacement), and Google is basically "What's a tablet?", It might just be time for me to switch. Most of the stuff I do privately is already cross-plattform. I did get a chance to play around with the current generation of iPad Pros at work (even though that was just doing the bare-bones minimum setup) and I was impressed with them.
As for the smart speaker thing, another advantage that Google has is that third-parties can also make Google Home Speakers. I think JBL has a pretty interesting lineup here.
One of the reasons I don't have an iPhone is the poor quality of Apple Maps. It seems Apple has started from scratch only problem I see is if it took them this long just to add Northern California.
"m not sure if you’re aware, but the launch of Apple Maps went poorly. After a rough first impression, an apology from the CEO, several years of patching holes with data partnerships and some glimmers of light with long-awaited transit directions and improvements in business, parking and place data, Apple Maps is still not where it needs to be to be considered a world-class service.
Maps needs fixing.
Apple, it turns out, is aware of this, so it’s re-building the maps part of Maps.
It’s doing this by using first-party data gathered by iPhones with a privacy-first methodology and its own fleet of cars packed with sensors and cameras. The new product will launch in San Francisco and the Bay Area with the next iOS 12 beta and will cover Northern California by fall.
Every version of iOS will get the updated maps eventually, and they will be more responsive to changes in roadways and construction, more visually rich depending on the specific context they’re viewed in and feature more detailed ground cover, foliage, pools, pedestrian pathways and more.
This is nothing less than a full re-set of Maps and it’s been four years in the making, which is when Apple began to develop its new data-gathering systems. Eventually, Apple will no longer rely on third-party data to provide the basis for its maps, which has been one of its major pitfalls from the beginning.
“Since we introduced this six years ago — we won’t rehash all the issues we’ve had when we introduced it — we’ve done a huge investment in getting the map up to par,” says Apple SVP Eddy Cue, who now owns Maps, in an interview last week. “When we launched, a lot of it was all about directions and getting to a certain place. Finding the place and getting directions to that place. We’ve done a huge investment of making millions of changes, adding millions of locations, updating the map and changing the map more frequently. All of those things over the past six years.”
But, Cue says, Apple has room to improve on the quality of Maps, something that most users would agree on, even with recent advancements.
“We wanted to take this to the next level,” says Cue. “We have been working on trying to create what we hope is going to be the best map app in the world, taking it to the next step. That is building all of our own map data from the ground up.”
In addition to Cue, I spoke to Apple VP Patrice Gautier and more than a dozen Apple Maps team members at its mapping headquarters in California this week about its efforts to re-build Maps, and to do it in a way that aligned with Apple’s very public stance on user privacy.
If, like me, you’re wondering whether Apple thought of building its own maps from scratch before it launched Maps, the answer is yes. At the time, there was a choice to be made about whether or not it wanted to be in the business of maps at all. Given that the future of mobile devices was becoming very clear, it knew that mapping would be at the core of nearly every aspect of its devices, from photos to directions to location services provided to apps. Decision made, Apple plowed ahead, building a product that relied on a patchwork of data from partners like TomTom, OpenStreetMap and other geo data brokers. The result was underwhelming.
Almost immediately after Apple launched Maps, it realized that it was going to need help and it signed on a bunch of additional data providers to fill the gaps in location, base map, point-of-interest and business data.
It wasn’t enough.
“We decided to do this just over four years ago. We said, ‘Where do we want to take Maps? What are the things that we want to do in Maps?’ We realized that, given what we wanted to do and where we wanted to take it, we needed to do this ourselves,” says Cue.
Because Maps are so core to so many functions, success wasn’t tied to just one function. Maps needed to be great at transit, driving and walking — but also as a utility used by apps for location services and other functions.
Cue says that Apple needed to own all of the data that goes into making a map, and to control it from a quality as well as a privacy perspective.
There’s also the matter of corrections, updates and changes entering a long loop of submission to validation to update when you’re dealing with external partners. The Maps team would have to be able to correct roads, pathways and other updating features in days or less, not months. Not to mention the potential competitive advantages it could gain from building and updating traffic data from hundreds of millions of iPhones, rather than relying on partner data.
If this is a pure iPhone event, I don't care. You wouldn't catch me dead with an iWatch and I have yet to see a compelling reason to upgrade from my iPhone 6s.
That said, if they end up announcing a new Macbook Air, with legacy ports and a retina screen, I'm going to shit my pantaloons.
A last-minute leak has seemingly confirmed the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR names for Apple’s newest phones, and revealed new Apple Watch sizes. The names, first spotted by ATH, are found in a product sitemap XML file hosted on Apple.com, and are associated with items that will be available to purchase including AppleCare support, phone cases, and Watch bands. Today’s leak would put the names “iPhone XS Plus” and “iPhone XC” out of contention.
The XML file mentions the Apple Watch Series 4 by name, and new watch bands in wider 40mm and 44mm sizes (existing Apple Watches are either 38mm or 42mm) and a variety of colors.
So it seems Apple has realized it's "What's a Computer?" marketing was a full blown disaster and are now pushing the iPad Pro's and it's future successors are replacements for the Laptop's, and even mobile gaming devices replacements. Sucks for the MacBook Air's and Mini's unveiled at the same time:
So Apple News+ is simply access to it's Magazines, and Newspapers. Not actual news coverage i.e. France 24 etc.
Also they paid Spielberg, who is notorious for being anti movies going straight to TV being paid by Apple on why it's good this time around. Anyone remember when he had a project going for Microsoft and announced it at E3 2015. How did that turn out?
Everything is subscription based, even their games. WTF Apple.
Also Apple now has their own credit card... for some reason.
Finally Apple TV+, this seems like Cook's idea. Also subscription based.
I was just about to buy the 2nd gen wireless. Jeez. Some of the boxes even mention the Airpower.
Apple Senior Vice President Dan Riccio made the announcement in a statement to AppleInsider and other venues on Friday afternoon.
After much effort, we've concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.
This cancellation of AirPower comes around 19 months after Apple gave a 'sneak peek' of it at the September 2017 iPhone event. Problems with design and manufacturing have previously seen mention of AirPower all but removed from Apple's website so at times it was rumored to be cancelled. Persistent rumors and even a hidden image on Apple's site appeared to suggest it would be launched alongside the AirPods.
What appeared to be a leak of the AirPods packaging included a drawing of what was clearly an AirPower charger. Yet, that graphic was not present on the shipping AirPods that AppleInsider examined.
Neither AirPods nor iPhones require Apple's own wireless charger as they can work with any Qi system. The Apple Watch, however, does need either AirPower or the wireless charging puck that the watch ships with.
It isn't presently clear what specific part of the AirPower was causing problems. The AirPower mat was more than a trio of charging coils, and appeared to utilize a series of cooperative flux generators to charge a device after locating it on the pad in software, which likely led to complications in design and manufacture.
Apple's hands-on demonstration from 2017 showed this in-action, and AppleInsider was able to put multiple devices anywhere on the pad, in any order. After doing so, the AirPower was communicating with the charging devices, and the iPhone on the pad was displaying information about the other charging devices.
Apple wiped mention of the AirPower from its website in September during the iPhone XS launch, and didn't mention it at all during that presentation.
AppleInsider has reached out to Apple for comment on specific reasons why the AirPower was cancelled.
xD Yeah I was a bit surprised it got canceled, I guess you never really release how complicated stuff like this is until companies with some of the best engineers etc struggle to make stuff work.
Anyway, better to cancel than to have things burst into flames etc.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal published a report describing the years and events leading up to design chief Jony Ive's recently announced departure. Among other things, it claimed Ive had become increasingly disengaged from the company and its design teams after Steve Jobs' death, in part because of his frustration with a new, emerging Apple leadership that focused more on operations than design.
In the wake of that report, Apple CEO Tim Cook—who had allegedly frustrated Ive with his lack of interest in product design, the story's sources claimed—emailed NBC News and MSNBC Senior Media Reporter Dylan Byers calling the story "absurd." Cook said its "conclusions just don't match with reality" and claimed that it "distorts" the events described. Byers then claimed on Twitter that a Wall Street Journal spokesperson told him "the paper stands by its report."
The story "is based on conversations over more than a year with people who worked with Mr. Ive, as well as people close to Apple’s leadership," the Journal says. It claims that Ive clashed with other members of the company's leadership over the positioning of the Apple Watch, which he saw as a fashion-focused product. Meanwhile, unnamed leaders saw it as an extension of the iPhone, and they came to feel that the company had lost its focus on design as key senior roles were stacked with operations and business-focused personnel.
According to the report, Ive was promoted in 2015 to Chief Design Officer, not just to recognize his expanded oversight for hardware, software, retail, and more, but also as a way to allow him to take more time to work from home to have space from the company to think after a frustrating year that saw the Watch, a product he was heavily invested in, fail to meet initial expectations in the market. The Journal's sources claim Ive sometimes failed to show up for meetings and seemed disengaged in some that he did attend, dispiriting the design team that admired him.
Ive was given a more involved role again in 2017, the piece says, but he again became less engaged over time, at least in part because he was traveling frequently to the UK to spend time with his ailing father.
Titled "Jony Ive Is Leaving Apple, but His Departure Started Long Ago," the article draws all this together to paint a picture of a company struggling to introduce new products because of the current leadership's emphasis on operational and engineering matters over design ones—supporting many observers' theories about the company's struggles to adapt to a post-Steve Jobs reality.
While strongly worded, the email does not clarify exactly what about the story Cook believes to be absurd, out of touch with reality, or distorted—a strategy that casts doubt on the report while making it difficult to productively assess the rebuttal.
Apple's current leadership does have a very different focus than the company once had. In the wake of slowing iPhone sales, Apple has begun to emphasize ways of monetizing users over the long run by offering what it hopes will be valuable services and content rather than leaning entirely on high margins and volumes for hardware sales to keep returns to investors strong.
Whether that will have been the right emphasis for Apple, its shareholders, and its users in the long run remains to be seen. In the meantime, Ive's new design firm will count Apple as a customer in 2020 after the transition concludes. So he has not yet completely parted ways with the company.
Has anyone got theirs yet? If anyone, as their CC a lot better benefits and less hassle that this current version. I expect Apple is working on a higher tiered version to release in the future.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Apple Card would arrive in August on the company’s last earnings call, and here it is: Apple’s new credit card, issued in partnership with Goldman Sachs, will begin a “preview rollout” today, and then become broadly available to all iPhone owners in the US later this month.
Apple says a random selection of people who signed up to be notified about the Apple Card will be invited to sign up today, although the company won’t disclose exactly how many people will be in the preview group. The signup process, which requires iOS 12.4, involves entering your address, birthday, income level, and last four digits of your Social Security number. That information is sent to Goldman Sachs, which will approve or decline your application in real time — Apple says it should take less than a minute. (There’s a TransUnion credit check involved, so if you’ve locked that info you’ll have to unlock it.)
Apple says the Apple Card is not meant to directly compete with premium cards like the Chase Sapphire or American Express Platinum cards — the goal is to be broadly accessible to every iPhone owner, so the signup requirements will not be as strict as those cards.
Once you’ve been approved, your new card will show up in your Apple Wallet immediately and be available for use — you can request Apple’s fancy titanium card for free during setup and it will arrive in the mail later. Setting that card up is neat: the envelope it’s in has an NFC tag, so you just tap the phone to it and it activates automatically, no phone call or sticker required.
I got to hold the card itself and it is very nice, although it is fairly thick and felt a little bit heavier than the typical metal credit card. You can use the card without your phone nearby like any other card, but it doesn’t support contactless payments — Apple obviously wants you to use your phone or watch for that.
Once you’re all set up, you will actually have three credit card numbers associated with your Apple Card: the number assigned to your phone, the number assigned to the physical card, and a virtual number you can access in the app for online merchants that don’t take Apple Pay. You can request a new virtual number at any time. The card itself doesn’t have a expiration date or security code, and it doesn’t have a number printed on it, but you can lock the card if you misplace it or deactivate it entirely from the Wallet app with a single tap.
The Apple Card interface in the Wallet app is extremely nice: it provides detailed information about all your purchases, using machine learning to clean up merchant names and categorize your spending over time. You can set payment schedules in a variety of ways, play with a circular slider to see exactly how much interest you’ll be charged at various, and see how much you’re spending weekly and monthly.
Compared to something like Intuit’s Mint, it’s definitely smarter and simpler, but it’s also limited to just one card, so its overall utility is a little limited if you have any other cards or payments in your life to manage.
Apple isn’t charging any late fees, annual fees, or international fees on this card, and it says that it doesn’t see any of your purchase data at all — all that transaction data cleanup and categorization happens locally on your phone. Goldman Sachs can obviously see that data since it has to approve or decline purchases, but Apple says it’s entered into a special privacy agreement with Goldman that restricts Apple Card purchase data from being used for anything other than operating the card itself — it can’t be used for advertising, sold to third parties, or anything else.
Apple’s rewards program is much simpler than any other major card: the company offers 3 percent cash back on any Apple transaction, from the Apple Store to the App Store to even iCloud storage, 2 percent on any Apple Pay transactions, and 1 percent on purchases made with the physical card or virtual card number. That cash hits your Apple Pay Cash account every day, and you can use it to pay off your balance, send it to friends, or transfer it a bank.
It’s a little skimpier than other premium card perks like access to airline lounges, concierge services, and so on, but Apple believes the simplicity and speed of just getting cash back will entice premium card customers who are frustrated with complicated points schemes to switch, while the payment and financial health features will appeal to everyone else. (Basically: people with less money.)
There has been some fierce criticism of Apple’s fairly standard APR, which starts at 12.99 percent and goes up to 24.24 percent, but Apple says its goal is to be among the lowest possible rates you can qualify for. This is impossible to know until people start signing up, but it’s fair to say that this is still a credit card, and you should definitely treat it like one, regardless of how good the software looks.
And just like any other credit card, while it’s easy to sign up for an Apple Card and easy to spend money with it, it’s not necessarily easy to get rid of it: canceling an Apple Card requires messaging or calling Goldman Sachs.
That’s actually the most interesting thing about the Apple Card, and the thing we’ll see shake out as people get them: Apple is providing a lot of the user experience of the card, but the card itself is still a credit card issued by Goldman Sachs, and when you click the support button in Apple Wallet, you’ll be chatting with Goldman Sachs reps. Apple says the two companies are working very closely together, and that Goldman Sachs employees are being trained using Apple tools and technologies, including specific language around helping people understand credit issues. Basically, Apple says this is much more than just a very nice front-end to a Goldman Sachs card — it’s a product Apple has designed like any other.
But the end of the day, Apple can’t issue a credit card without a bank, and Goldman Sachs is that bank. We’ll just have to see how the experience of the Apple Card matches up with the high expectations of Apple customers.