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Apple Announces iPhone 5

Today Phil Schiller took to the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where he announced the long-expected iPhone 5. The casing is made entirely of glass and aluminum, and it's 7.6mm thick, which is 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S. It weighs in at 112 grams, which is 20% lighter than the 4S. Schiller confirmed that the iPhone 5 has a 4" display, with a resolution of 1136x640. It's a 16:9 aspect ratio. The screen is the same width as a 4S, but it's taller. To accommodate older apps, they either center the app or add black bars to make it look right. The new device also has LTE support. Tim Cook spoke earlier about the iPad, making some interesting claims: "Yes, we are in a post-PC world." He also claimed 68% tablet market share for the iPad, and says iPads account for 91% of tablet-based web traffic. The event is continuing, and we'll update this post as further announcements appear. A real-time liveblog is being quickly updated at Ars Technica. Update: 09/12 18:16 GMT by S : Further details below. Further details: for the iPhone 5, Apple also added support for HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA. The dynamic antenna is an improvement over the 4S, and can switch connections. In the U.S. LTE partners are AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. On to processing: the iPhone 5 runs an A6 chip that's twice as fast as the A5, in addition to being 22% smaller. Rob Murray from EA got up on stage to show a racing game, claiming that the graphics "have been built to full console quality." Battery life for the phone will be roughly 8 hours for either 3G talk-time or browsing. Engadget has a feature-by-feature comparison to the 4S.

The new phone's camera has an 8-Megapixel sensor, with a resolution of 3264x2448. It includes a hybrid IR filter, an f/2.4 aperture, and a five element lens. And a sapphire crystal lens cover, for whatever that's worth. There's a new feature for taking panorama shots (claimed 'breakthrough software,' though similar software already appears on actual cameras), and new software for automatically sharing pictures.

Apple also detailed the new connector, dubbed 'Lightning.' It's entirely digital, and 80% smaller than the old connector. It can be plugged in in either direction. Apple has created a bunch of adapters to let old cables and hardware work with Lightning. They then spoke at length about iOS 6, which will run on the iPhone 5, and demonstrated their new Maps app, which includes turn-by-turn directions (also in 3D using a 'cinematic camera'). "Apple is betting heavily on Passbook and other features to give it a leg up in the competition over Google Android and the upcoming Windows Phone 8." Pre-orders for the iPhone 5 start on Friday, and the device will start shipping on September 21. iOS 6 will roll out on September 19.

Apple's Eddie Cue went on stage to discuss changes to iTunes and the iPod. iTunes has been redesigned to work better on the iPad, and, more importantly, iCloud integration has been built in. They've also made a 'mini-player,' which takes up much less screen real estate. The new iTunes will be available in late October. Changes are coming for iPods as well. The new iPod nano looks like a mini iPod Touch. It's 38% thinner than the previous model, but has a bigger, 2.5" multitouch display. It contains an FM tuner with DVR functionality, it has a Home button, and it uses the Lightning connector. The iPod Touch is now 6.1 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. It has a Lightning connector port too, in addition to the headphone jack. The screen is bigger; it's a 4" display, the same as the iPhone 5. It runs on a dual-core A5 processor that's twice as fast as the previous model. Graphics are claimed to be seven times faster. The battery allows for 40 hours of audio playback or 8 hours of video playback. The camera has been upgraded to a 5MP sensor. The iPod Touch comes in colors now. But not grape. Apple also took the wraps off what they call "EarPods." They're like earbuds, but they don't form a seal within the ear. They let air flow continue, and a tiny speaker directs the sound into the ear. The EarPods will come standard with the iPhone 5 and with the new revisions of the iPod Nano, and iPod Touch.

88 of 1,052 comments (clear)

  1. Re:meh by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. Re:Looks nice so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    yes, when you only get one choice it's nice if it aligns somewhat with your preferences.

    don't know what those silly Android folks are thinking with making lots of different styles and shapes. how does anyone know what they are supposed to want?

  3. Oh yeah?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But but, Steve Jesus Jobs said "3.5 inch was the MOST PERFECT EVAAAR phone size"... and all you fanbois were falling over each other bashing Samsung and Android for large screen size. whatever happened to that????

    1. Re:Oh yeah?? by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Steve Jesus Jobs also one year said that nobody wanted multitasking on a phone. The crowd cheered.

      Next year, the iMessiah introduced multitasking on the iPhone. But it has sucky "badges" to annoy and interrupt you.

      Next year, the great prophet showed a new notification system with a notification bar at the top that could be pulled down to reveal a tray of notifications from various apps that wanted your attention. Wow, what magic will Apple think of next!

      In another year, I don't remember which one, Steve the great profit, er, um. . . I mean prophet, said that "7 inch tablets are dead on arrival". The crowd cheered.

      One great thing about the iPhone is perpetual continuous warranty coverage forever and ever. Amen. Warranty lasts until next year when next product is announced. Therefore the iFaithful have continuous coverage. (Unless you're a heretic!)

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  4. post-PC world you can't code on ios and the scree by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    post-PC world you can't code on ios and the screen is to small to do big typing / excel type work.

  5. Yawn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    iPhone whatever...but will it blend?

  6. Apple can't use LTE by meridien · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where are the lawyers from Samsung when you need them?

    1. Re:Apple can't use LTE by Idbar · · Score: 4, Informative

      And, I have had the "breakthrough" panorama capability in my Samsung Galaxy S for 2+ years already.

    2. Re:Apple can't use LTE by rasmusbr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Samsung jumped the gun with that one. Apple wisely waited for the key breakthrough, the one that makes the ocean look bluer and your kids look happier.

  7. Re:Looks nice so far by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's simple really, iPhones are for skinny people who wear tight pants in order show off their junk. Droids are for IT fatboys who still wear cargo pants.

  8. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    3G worldphone, LTE, and decent battery life. This is actually impressive, though we've been waiting 2 years for it.

    If it let you out of the Apple sandbox if you wanted, then it would be the best smartphone by far. But that sandbox is a major detractor.

  9. Or even 1280x768 on the new BlackBerry by accessbob · · Score: 4, Funny

    I blame my Mac keyboard, it knows what I'm typing...

  10. An innovative 5th row of icons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My T-Mobile G1 has 5 rows of icons. I expect Apple will sue HTC and win over this innovation that HTC obviously stole years ago.

  11. remember when slashdot was good?! by Thud457 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Won't wirelessly stream video to my HDTV

    less storage than the Library of Congress

    Lame.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Funny
      • No NFC
      • Smaller screen than the competition
      • Yet another non-standard socket
      • Still requires the sacrifice of your firstborn
      • Less storage than a SAN

      Lame. But lots and lots of people will buy it.

      Still, Thorsten Heins at RIM is probably breathing huge sighs of relief. I don't know what the CEO of Nokia does, as I've never really studied vampires.

      --
      From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
    2. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by snowraver1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      About the screen, they mentioned that older software will be letterboxed, but what about new software for older devices? One of the great things about the iphone was the unified ecosystem. This seems to fragment it a little more.

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    3. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by Mike+Buddha · · Score: 4, Funny

      This seems to fragment it a little more.

      Don't you DARE talk about Apple and fragmentation, else ye be cast out of the land! There is NO Apple fragmentation. That be the realm of Android, so say we all!

      --
      by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
    4. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by thoughtlover · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ok, dumb-dumb, you're mixing up NFC with RFID.

      No he's not. Disabling the NFC chip, if possible, is the second thing I'd do if I was forced to own a phone that had such functionality -first, I'd not buy one. RFID was a precursor to NFC. It's main benefit is two-way communications, not just one-way.

      NFC standards cover communications protocols and data exchange formats, and are based on existing radio-frequency identification (RFID) standards including ISO/IEC 14443 and FeliCa.[3] The standards include ISO/IEC 18092[4] and those defined by the NFC Forum, which was founded in 2004 by Nokia, Philips and Sony, and now has more than 160 members. The Forum also promotes NFC and certifies device compliance.[5]
      NFC builds upon RFID systems by allowing two-way communication between endpoints, where earlier systems such as contactless smart cards were one-way only.[6] Since unpowered NFC "tags" can also be read by NFC devices,[2] it is also capable of replacing earlier one-way applications.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication

      Besides, as we use these little computers (with cellphone functionality, attached), we can expect our information on them to be compromised through many vectors. If I were Apple, I'd have made sure that all personally identifying info (contacts list, notes, browser history, etc) on the iPhone was encrypted out of the box. No app could take data from any other app if they were secured with powerful encryption. I'm not a Luddite, but I'm at the point where I'm giving up my iPhone for a cheap Motorola clamshell. I just don't need all those 'bells and whistles', nor the headaches from losing my entire checking account to someone with a sniffer in a crowd... nor the poor service from AT&T, inconsistent billing, and their iPhone tax.

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    5. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Obligatory pedantism

      Pedantry

    6. Re:remember when slashdot was good?! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Little bit paranoid I think. Remotely transacting with NFC isn't practical. If you have a big enough signal to activate it you will everything in range and bugger up all kinds of other radios. When the response comes back it will be incredibly low power so you will need an amazing and very bulky receiver to catch it from more than a few centimetres away. Under ideal conditions.

      Maybe someone could brush past you and transact with the phone in your pocket. They would have to linger a moment for it to happen though. Even then the payment systems don't actually allow phone to phone or card to card transfers, only phone/card to merchant. So they need a merchant account, which means it will be traceable. And with your phone the charge appears on your phone bill and is paid at the end of the month, so you can contest it.

      People have been using NFC for all kinds of payments for years now in Japan and I'm sure elsewhere. Oyster in the UK is NFC, and I know Germany and France both use NFC for transport too. I don't recall a single instance of anyone ever being robbed by NFC scanner. It would be simpler to just steal the card/phone.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  12. Re:Still not HD? by ackthpt · · Score: 4, Interesting

    For a company that wants to be seen as being on the leading edge they could have at least tried competing with the GS3.

    HD on a 4 inch screen is like expecting Klipsch loudspeaker performance from a pair of ear buds. Now I'm not saying everyone will have the same experience, but I'm already wearing reading glasses (began at the ripe old age of 28) and am happy to be able to focus on anything within 2 feet, I'm not about to care about HD on a puny display.

    "What's that little white blur?"

    "That's the opposing team quarterback.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  13. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    "What's wrong with me?!"

    A lot of things. You go for functionality over fashion accessories. You go against the herd mentality by not letting others decide what's good for you. You are showing clear signs of a cognitive person and that's now allowed in the era where everybody is supposed to suck Steve Jobs' dick (even a dead one).

    This clearly makes you a sociopath. Ask any Apple fanboy.

  14. Re:meh by Moheeheeko · · Score: 5, Informative

    LTE = Incoming Samsung Lawsuit.

  15. Re:Something shiny! by khr · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not going to change your life, get you laid

    You don't know my wife...

  16. Re: Where are the lawyers from Samsung? by accessbob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Filing papers in court I suspect.

  17. Re:meh by kelemvor4 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.

    I'd definitely be amazed if I saw a dead guy give a presentation.

  18. Re:Still not HD? by MozeeToby · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair, the GS3 was released only 3 months ago. I don't know if it would be possible for them to adjust their design in the time between the specs for GS3 being released and their production needing to start. Now not competing with the display on the Galaxy Nexus (also a full 720p display and released 9 months ago)... that's a bit harder to understand.

  19. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you are waiting for something for 2 years, and the competitors are already offering it, it's not impressive, but just about caching up with competition.

  20. Re:Still not HD? by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's the problem? You just attach a big magnifying glass in front of the screen, like 'Brazil'.

  21. Re:Remember CmdrTaco's story for the first iPhone? by sconeu · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, I don't remember that. Because it was CmdrTaco's story for the first iPod.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  22. Same 640 pixel width by tepples · · Score: 5, Informative

    1136x640? What kind of crack-smoking resolution is that? It's not any kind of standard and it isn't an integer multiple of the existing iPhone resolutions.

    It's an exact 1x the 640 pixel width of the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPod touch 4. As I understand the summary, retina apps will look the same, just with borders on the top and bottom.

    1. Re:Same 640 pixel width by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck? No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.

      Seriously, when I run an Android app on a device with a different screen resolution, it just works. It's almost as if they designed for the idea that not every device would have exactly the same screen! I wonder how they realized that so far in advance! How did nobody ever think of that befo... oh, wait, no, every damn UI design for the desktop has realized this since back when a "phone" was that thing tied to a jack on the wall with a length of copper cable.

    2. Re:Same 640 pixel width by tgibbs · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Apple's view is that an app should be hand-customized to support the resolution and screen size of the device, not shoehorned in by an automated scaling routine. So the last thing Apple wants to do is tell developers, "Don't worry, the API will fit your app onto the new display." What Apple's API will do is allow developers to check the screen size and take advantage of the extra screen space in a way that fully exploits it. Based on the way that Apple's development environment works, this should be pretty trivial for the vast majority of apps. And for those developers who don't care enough to bother, the app will look exactly the way it did before, down to the pixel.

    3. Re:Same 640 pixel width by jeti · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yeah. I miss the times when web pages were finely crafted for a specific resolution.

    4. Re:Same 640 pixel width by _xeno_ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, iOS does support auto-resizing. Unfortunately:

      No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.

      No, Cocoa was not fine. The autoresizing system Cocoa uses sucks. iOS 5 supports it just fine, though, but it's nearly useless. And support is there by default, as there are still a few times when the view size changes in iOS and you need to rely on Cocoa Touch's autoresize:

      1. Landscape versus Portrait. The view will autoresize by default. Unfortunately, autoresize is so bad at what it does, that I wound up overriding it and just manually setting the bounding boxes of the widgets on screen. I expect most apps do that because the autoresize support is so awful. (Apparently this is the reason why, until iOS 4 or something, Xcode's default template for iOS apps disabled the portrait mode entirely.)

      2. The view shrinks because you're in a call. When in a call, the status bar doubles in size and your app loses several pixels off the top. (I think it's 22 in retinal, but whatever, you get the idea.) This is something that just about no app bothers testing for, despite the iOS simulator including explicit support for testing. But it's another thing autoresizing is supposed to deal with.

      Fortunately, another AC responder indicates that they're adding a new "constraint based" system for iOS 6. Sadly, having also written a Cocoa app that used the new support for that, this is almost certainly going to be even worse. It's call "auto layout" and there are some 200,000 Google results on how to disable the damned thing.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    5. Re:Same 640 pixel width by maccodemonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck? No, that's not right, Cocoa was fine; they must have just reinvented the wheel for iOS, poorly.

      There is an API. There are two actually, springs and struts and (as of iOS 6) autolayout. Exact same APIs that were on the Mac side.

      The problem is developers, unless they supported the iPad as well, tended to ignore these APIs meaning if Apple just starts resizing apps they'll probably break a lot of bad code. Or things like games that only planned on targeting the original resolution.

      So Apple played it safe and stuck apps compiled for iOS 5 into a legacy mode.

  23. Re:Why the weird screen resolution? by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It sounds like they wanted to keep the same width and just make it taller until it got to 16:9.

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  24. Re:meh by c · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.

    I'd definitely be amazed if I saw a dead guy give a presentation.

    I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...

    --
    Log in or piss off.
  25. Re:meh by basscomm · · Score: 5, Funny

    LTE = Incoming Samsung Lawsuit.

    Wow, I totally had that initialism wrong.

    --
    http://crummysocks.com
  26. Re:meh by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, Damen und Herren, from what was once an inarticulate mass of lifeless tissues, may I present a cultured, sophosticated, Man About Town..."

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  27. Obligatory TheOatmeal Reference by MatrixCubed · · Score: 5, Funny
  28. Re:meh by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Funny
    I have to disagree. If Jobs did the presentation it would be horrible. I'll give you a preview:

    "Mmmmm. Rawrrrrr. Brainssss."

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  29. Re:meh by morcego · · Score: 5, Funny

    If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.

    I'd definitely be amazed if I saw a dead guy give a presentation.

    I've seen some where I'm almost sure the presenter was dead...

    .. and several where I wish he was.

    --
    morcego
  30. Re:meh by localman57 · · Score: 4, Funny

    If Jobs did the presentation it would be amazing.

    Oh, and one more thing....BRAAAAAINNNNNS!

  31. Re:meh by morcego · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't even want it. What's wrong with me?!

    You are ugly, have poor fashion sense and I simply don't like you ...

    There, is that enough ? :)

    --
    morcego
  32. post pc my ass by LodCrappo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Yes, we are in a post-PC world."

    Who is "we"? Certainly it's not anyone who does work on a computer, or anyone who supports computers that people do work on, or anyone who creates things that people use to do work on a computer. Those poor clods are still stuck in the "PC runs damn near every aspect of business" world.

    --
    -Lod
  33. Fragmentation by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With all of these different versions of iOS and different versions of hardware, Apple is creating Fragmentation! (gasp!)

    What is Apple going to do about this?

    Why can't old apps dynamically adapt to the new screen size? The iPad has been out for how long now?

    Further evidence that this isn't your dad's Apple computer anymore. Back in the early days of Mac, Apple specifically told developers to not make assumptions about the hardware, screen size, processor speed, etc.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    1. Re:Fragmentation by tooyoung · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But iPhones update to new versions of iOS. The only reason that somebody would have an old version of iOS is that for some weird reason they repeatedly tell the phone not to update. This isn't similar to the case with many Android vendors and carriers, where updates are actually being blocked (note, this is not Androids fault, it is the vendors and carriers).

      iOS6 is supported all the way back to the iPhone 3GS. How is this creating any fragmentation?

    2. Re:Fragmentation by maccodemonkey · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well they can't. The API doesn't give developers that capability. Other programming environments (ie, Android, Java, Windows... pretty much all of them) work with a layout system that doesn't guarantee exact positioning very well, but does work on different aspect ratios and densities automatically. iOS uses absolute positioning, so developers have to code specifically to each new screen (save for some special cases where they can get away with it, ie doubling of linear density).

      iOS has supported dynamic positioning since iOS 2. Bad developers use absolute positioning, not iOS.
      http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIView_Class/UIView/UIView.html%23//apple_ref/occ/instp/UIView/autoresizingMask

      There have always been at least two screen sizes in iOS. Portrait and landscape. iPad adds two more.

      The "iOS doesn't support dynamic layout" thing is something I see thrown out by Android developers/supporters all the time, and it's just not true at all.

  34. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But Android has 80% of the market, right? How is buying an iPhone "going with the herd"? Aren't you getting that backwards?

  35. Re:Rounded corners! Rectangular Design! by DickBreath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The new iPhone looks suspiciously similar to a Samsung phone from years ago.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  36. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't you mean....

    Liiiiiverrrrs!

  37. Re:Since when? by Dracos · · Score: 5, Funny

    leading edge of what?

    Hype and reality distortion.

  38. Re:demographic? by cryptizard · · Score: 5, Informative

    Maybe that means that iPad users actually use their tablets and Android owners just leave it in a drawer? No way to know without further statistics so its stupid to draw conclusions.

  39. Re:Looks nice so far by MachDelta · · Score: 5, Funny

    Even better, they could combine the "SS" with the new "Lightning" connector, and shape the S's like lightning bolts! Think about how cool would that be! ... what?

  40. Re:Something shiny! by yacc143 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, in 3G might have sucked in the US, but it worked perfectly well here around.

    Well, my Nexus does have 4.1.1, no problems. It's a little bit on the small side (with only 4.65" and a little bit more pixel than the brand new iPhone 5), it works surprisingly well, I had the second battery pack and external charger picked up the same day I got it, ...

    And yes, personally the non-changeable (by the user) battery is a show stopper. I don't need it often, but I do manage to run the battery dry (especially if I was sloppy about keeping it charged up before leaving home), and fixed battery devices (that includes all iDevices but also many Android tablets) don't offer an answer to that.

    Having just run on such a fixed-battery device as primary device, I really felt myself getting paranoid about always having it hooked up to the charger, be it in the car, at home, in the train, and so on. (And despite progress in this relation, there are quite a bit of trains that still have no power outlets, now explain me how you plan to use your iPhone for entertainment on your next 18 hours trip across Europe, I mean you'll be sleeping perhaps 6-8 hours of this, but 10-12 hours usage is still hard). And yes, I've been reading ebooks on my mobile devices years before ebooks become mainstream.

  41. Re:Something shiny! by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The thing is, I only hear these claims uttered sarcastically by neckbeards and other tiresome people in the geekverse. It's like how I only hear "The Earth is 6000 years old" from atheists. And who gives a shit what connector it is as long as the device comes with a cable and I can get a replacement if necessary?

    Back in the day geeks and nerds advocated competition and having multiple players in the market- it's how PCs got so cheap with a zillion motherboard and peripheral makers. People who really care about tech should hope for success for Apple, Android and, yes, Windows 8 phones so they can continue to fight it out. Anything else is fanboy horseshit. Yes, being a basher is simply fanboyism of a different platform- just as bad, if not worse.

  42. Re:meh by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think a iZombie Jobs presentation would be awesome to watch. see him start chewing on tim cooks head as the crowd screams. if only there were an app for that.

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  43. Time travelling googlers by vgerclover · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is further proof that Google already has a working time machine, in order to steal the revolutionary 16:9 aspect ratio, the 4 inch display design. The original evidence was the roll-down notification bar of course.

  44. Re:Lightning by medcalf · · Score: 5, Funny

    They have Thunderbolt and Lightning, so I'm going with "Very, Very Frightening"

    --
    -- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
  45. Re:Remember CmdrTaco's story for the first iPhone? by Missing.Matter · · Score: 5, Informative
    I believe this is the article you're looking for: http://apple.slashdot.org/story/07/01/09/1857231/iphone-apple-tv-headline-macworld-keynote

    Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.

    And that they did...

  46. Why go thin? by Jeng · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ok, but why is it that every single iPhone I see is covered by a huge honkin rubber protective case?

    From what I have seen Apple should quit trying to make the thinnest iPhone possible and instead make something that can survive a drop.

    --
    Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
  47. Re:Meh by crizh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " Nevermind that the iPhone was banned for two years in Korea."

    Holy shit, really?

    Citation?

    --
    Trust The Computer, The Computer is your friend.
  48. This pisses me off for so many reasons... by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • 1. They changed the aspect ratio. This is going to cause a headache for some applications designers who must now design new screen layouts and possibly reposition things to take advantage of the new display. Application complexity will be increased as the app will probably support both old and new aspect ratios.
    • 2. The maps app that Apple developed to replace Google Maps is not that good.
      • There is no Streeview facility - something that I used with Google maps all the time.
      • The "flyover" feature is only usable in certain select major cities. Although the number of cities will probably grow over time, it's my understanding that it will only ever be applicable to major cities. If you live in a smaller town, forget it. Google streetview, by comparison, works just about everywhere. The Google browser-based application will still work normally, of course, but the native map application has many features that the web application does not.
      • The turn-by-turn navigation feature that their map application has is only usable within the USA.
    • 3. The deprecation of some functionality is going to give cause for some users to not update their iOS version, which introduces delays and increases costs for development studios developing applications, who must verify that newly developed applications still work on other widespread iOS versions... especially since there may be some that will actively choose to not update.

    Ultimately, this product seems to be one that is geared towards fragmenting their own user-base. It's unhealthy for them as a company, and it's not remotely helpful to the consumer.

    1. Re:This pisses me off for so many reasons... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      The biggest difference between Google Maps and Apple's maps is not immediately obvious. Apple get their mapping data from other companies, for example with TomTom supplying street data. That is what Google was doing about five years ago when they decided to start their own data gathering project, of which Street View was just a part.

      Google analyses Street View images for things like speed limit and junction signs, the names of businesses, numbers on the front of houses, street signs, road markings and so forth. This gives them a lot of metadata about the world. They also gather data from their users, and allow corrections to be made very quickly (TomTom only releases data sets a couple of times a year, and often things like removed speed cameras take years to disappear).

      Google doesn't just map the world, it understands it. Maybe in a few years we will see Apple cars driving around photographing our streets but from the point they are at now they have a long, long way to go to catch up with Google.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  49. Re:Since when? by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Computting to the masses what pot are the smoking when the set the price point then? OLPC is computting to the masses, a cheap dell is computting to the masses, $1000+ macbook is to the elite

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  50. Re:But Nextstep software.... by cpu6502 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    >>>You can see what you are doing on a Pad. and get a full keyboard for typing.

    In other words walk past the iPad in the store and buy a small laptop instead. Got it. Tablets are really just small internet-connected TVs..... passive entertainment devices. Laptops are the better choice for people who need to do actual work.

    --
    My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
  51. BB by Kupfernigk · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's why RIM is in trouble. I stupidly dropped my 9810 today, nearly 5 feet. Not a scratch; just kept working. Now if that had been an iPhone, that would have been another sale for Apple.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  52. Re:Since when? by Iniamyen · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple since their inception has been about bringing computing to the masses.

    Generally, bringing something to "the masses" includes lowering the price, not raising it. Oh, and having a larger market share than your competitor, not a smaller one.

  53. Re:iPad traffic by TheDan666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, my thought was that people who bought tablets other than iPads don't end up using them because they suck. Hence, they account for less traffic then their purchases would indicate.

  54. Re:iPad traffic by Cinder6 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No. Mine was, "wow, iPad users must really like using their devices."

    --
    If you can't convince them, convict them.
  55. Re:meh by s73v3r · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You go against the herd mentality

    Don't most Android fanboys like to talk up the fact that Android has far more marketshare than the iPhone now? So can you really say that you're going against a "herd mentality" by buying a product that has the marketshare lead?

  56. Re:Still not HD? by jareth-0205 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now not competing with the display on the Galaxy Nexus (also a full 720p display and released 9 months ago)... that's a bit harder to understand.

    Well they've backed themselves into a corner with having absolute pixel positioning, so you can't just arbitrarily change the pixel count like you can on an OS with a UI layout manager. Sorry, let me re-phrase that: on a proper OS. They got away with it once by quadrupling the pixels, but they can't do that again (even if the tech was possible, there wouldn't be any point since we're at the limit of human eye capability). To go to something like 1240x720 would require all sorts of weird scaling, and not look very good. Soooo... what can they do? Maintain the pixel width and add black bars, and put some API for the developers to work around it. I'm very glad I'm not a iOS developer now, I have no idea how they can support that without it being pretty hacky.

  57. Re: post-PC world you can't code on ios and the sc by s73v3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    post-PC doesn't mean that the PC isn't around anymore. It just means it's not the main device in most people's lives.

  58. Re:What? by canajin56 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What good is apathy if nobody knows just how strongly you don't care?

    --
    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
  59. Re:But Nextstep software.... by s73v3r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course, that completely depends on what your definition of "actual work" is. What you consider "actual work" others might not. I'm sure a construction worker believes that you tinkering on a computer all day is "actual work".

  60. Re:not impressed? by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Funny

    Actually pretty much nobody's impressed with the iPhone 5. With the exception of a lone Samsung employee who as I write this is putting together a memo that'll cause Samsung much embarassment in a trial five years from now...

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  61. Re:iPad traffic by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Funny

    My first reaction was "Wow, iPad users watch a lot of porn."

  62. Re:...until now by tangelogee · · Score: 5, Funny

    One of the keys to Apple's success is the unshakeable conviction that "Nobody wants X--until Apple figures out how to do it right."

    Riiiiight...so the antenna snafu was a feature for easily hanging on unwanted calls, right?

  63. Re:iOS had pano before by tangelogee · · Score: 4, Informative

    Samsung's panorama feature has been around since at least the Omnia. And it was a function in the Phone app, not a separate app.

  64. No, not letterboxing. Apps already deal with this by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, letterboxing? Really? Really? Did Apple just never learn how to make an API for UI elements that doesn't suck?

    Yes, in fact they did it from the release of the SDK.

    An app has ALWAYS had to take into account the screen might shrink somewhat for an incoming call; it increases the header size.

    The same auto-layout logic (again present since the release of the SDK) would also handle simply expanding an app to fill the screen. Some apps might look a little funny until they get updated, but not too bad.

    If Apple had increased the WIDTH, then there would have been major issues as many fewer app developers plan for that varying.

    The question is if Apple is going to let apps auto-resize, or if they will present bars until you re-compile and re-submit the app. But the point is that apps already are handling variable heights to some degree so this is not a tricky thing.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  65. Re:My word. by OldSport · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And it's usually the iLovers who label anybody and everybody that levels the slightest bit of criticism at an Apple product an "iHater." Case in point: your reply, and the fact that my comment was modded down despite being a perfectly valid point.

    It cracks me up because I'm not an iHater at all. I still have my Mac Classic tucked away somewhere, and I've owned a Macbook and an iMac before my current MB Pro, as well as numerous iPods and an iPhone 3G. At the same time, I'm reasonable enough to see through the marketing noise and oohs and aahs and silvery shiny facade and say hey, this is really nothing new.

    But whatever -- lesson learned; you simply do NOT criticize Apple on Slashdot.

  66. Re:Durability by jon3k · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work for a company that deploys iPhones and iPads. We've given out hundreds of devices. So far we've had 3 broken (screen shattered). You can get a screen replaced for a couple hundred dollars. I've seen COUNTLESS iPhones/iPads dropped without suffering any damage, or just very minor scratching. The only time we see REAL damage is when it lands on a corner and all the force is concentrated in that one small area, and only happens on a very hard surface like concrete. As far as blackberrys, we replace about 3 a week. Usually trackballs and now the touchpads failing, keypads stop working randomly and of course the finish wears off all of them within 3-6 months, so they start flaking. Everyone knows when they inevitable freeze up you have to reboot them by removing the battery. The new problem now is speakers failing, we have people bring in Tours/Curves because their "ringer and speaker phone stopped working" -- tell tale sign every time. Basically we replace blackberrys at LEAST at a 5:1 rate as we do iPhones. No dropping required!

  67. Re:meh by nschubach · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running to one side of the stage*
    "Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running back to the other side of the stage*
    "Woooo!!!!" *waving arms running to middle of the stage*
    "Woooo!!!!" *standing at the podium drenched in sweat*

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  68. Re:Post-PC world? by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uh, yes. It is. An iPhone is a general purpose computer in a handheld form factor.

    Keep in mind that a general-purpose computer is distinct from an ASIC (application-specific integrated controller), where the former is programmable and the latter is not (except when it is).

    But even beyond that, an iPhone bears all the hallmarks of a PC: a CPU, RAM, persistent storage, run dynamic modern OSes, and allow various input/output devices to be connected. In fact, general purpose computers are becoming so cheap and effective that they're showing up in more and more cases where ASICs may have been used in the past, because it costs a lot less to write software than to design and build an ASIC.

    The distinction between a "smart phone" and a PC is almost exclusively one of marketing.

  69. Re:Post-PC world? by StripedCow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An iPhone is a general purpose computer

    Nope. With the artificial restrictions that Apple places on the device, it is certainly not general purpose.

    --
    If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
  70. Re:Meh by Cederic · · Score: 4, Informative

    You mean, other than the Asus screen being brighter and having better viewing angles?

  71. Re:No contract plans? by ThePeices · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'd like to buy one outright and go w/ a no-contract plan. Anyone know how that works?

    Yes Apple User I can help you here, it works well and is pretty easy.

    When they are available, you go to the store and tell the salesperson that you would like to buy an iPhone 5. The salesperson says 'ok' and grabs one and then tells you what the price is for an iPhone 5 with no contract. You then use your payment method of choice and pay the correct amount of money. Once the transaction is completed, the salesperson hands you your new iPhone 5. You then walk out of the store.

    Congratulations, if you have made it this far, you have done what we in the industry call a "purchase". You have now "bought" an iPhone 5 and in most cases you now "own" it.

    Please reply if you have trouble understanding these instructions, and Ill do my best to explain how this "purchasing" process works.