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Tech Breakthroughs Take a Backseat in Upcoming Apple iPhone Launch (reuters.com)
Stephen Nellis, reporting for Reuters: The new iPhone is expected to include new features such as high-resolution displays, wireless charging and 3-D sensors. Rather than representing major breakthroughs, however, most of the innovations have been available in competing phones for several years. Apple's relatively slow adoption of new features both reflects and reinforces the fact smartphone customers are holding onto their phones longer. Timothy Arcuri, an analyst at Cowen & Co, believes upwards of 40 percent of iPhones on the market are more than two years old, a historical high. That is a big reason why investors have driven Apple shares to an all-time high. There is pent-up demand for a new iPhone, even if it does not offer breakthrough technologies. It is not clear whether Apple deliberately held off on packing some of the new features into the current iPhone 7, which has been criticized for a lack of differentiation from its predecessor. Still, the development and roll-out of the anniversary iPhone suggest Apple's product strategy is driven less by technological innovation than by consumer upgrade cycles and Apple's own business and marketing needs.
There is pent-up demand for a new iPhone, even if it does not offer breakthrough technologies
No, not really. As long as it gets security updates and still works, why bother upgrading? I just replaced the battery in my iPhone and expect to get at least a couple more years out of it.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
a headphone jack.
Get rid of that awful fucking iTunes software and let me access the phone like any normal USB device.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I opened iTunes on a desktop computer or synced my iPhone with it. That hasn't been a requirement for years.
As for using it as a USB device, I feel you but doubt it is going to happen any time soon.
Apple's Marketing is awesome like that.
One thing I will give Apple is that they will take technology that is mostly mature, fix lots of bugs and kinks, then roll it out and proclaim it "New! Exciting! So Pleased to show you!"
Yes Premium Android Smartphones have had everything that the Iphone8 will have for years. Apple will bring that capability to the masses and then the fleet of android handset manufacturers will push those features out till every single phone has it.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
"There is pent-up demand for a new iPhone, even if it does not offer breakthrough technologies"
Why is there demand for a very modest upgrade? It seems like people are holding onto their old phones because the upgrades are insignificant..
Twinstiq, game news
"if you want to know what is coming in the next iPhone, just look at what was new on Android two years ago"
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Apple tends to let others release new "innovations" first, and then released improved versions of those innovations that are more stable and easier to use.
People seem to forget that Apple didn't invent the smartphone, or even the first smartphone with a touch screen. Microsoft had "Windows Mobile" products years before Apple, but they were unstable and difficult to use. They basically were a mess because they tried to cram a Windows XP style UI onto a 3.5" screen.
Same deal with the tablet. There were plenty of touch screen tablets before the iPad came out, but most of them had a crummy UI and lousy battery life. Apple fixed most of those issues.
It's not the marketing, it's the consumer. The vast majority of consumers want mature technology. They don't find bugs and quirky behavior a selling point nor do they want that on them even if it means some kind of bragging rights. Apple does it right by consumer demand. It's not cutting edge but it works and I'm more than happy with that. I can't recall the last time Apple put something out there that I really felt that they should have done sooner. I remember far too many rushed-to-production "features" on Android that finally got me to give Apple a try. It's a trade off but it's well worth it at the end of the day.
Turn by turn GPS navigation, WiFi hotspot, contact cloud synchronization, large displays, water resistance all worked just fine on Android before being copied by Apple. I don't mind if it is called "beta" by Google as long as it works.
Once again an AC troll who claims that "you gotta use android to do that" is wrong...
VLC on the iPhone is free and allows you to transfer videos to an iphone without even using iTunes:
http://ioshacker.com/how-to/tr...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
My wife's two-year-old iPhone 6 started glitching, so she just replaced it with - An iPhone 6.
She likes the iPhone technology stack (I'm an Android guy), but refuses to buy a phone without a headphone jack. For times when she does want to go wireless, bluetooth works fine for her.
That's exactly right. And because these devices are designed down to the level of the ignorant, rather than uplifting them, they don't have to learn. And those of us who could use these devices to a much greater extent remain reined in by this pandering to market. Subfolders are too complicated, the apologists tell us. There's no saving people too stupid to learn what a subfolder is/does. But those who are simply ignorant can learn in seconds. The insistence that this is "too much" is utterly pitiful to hear.
In the end, dumbing everything down is the surest way to the market consisting of the broadest portion of the Gaussian, and therefore, their money. That's why this is happening.
Time to watch the intro to Idiocracy again to remind ourselves why pandering to the lowest common denominator is a really, really bad idea.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This speaks to the /. crowd not really understanding what "technology" is.
Do you think Thomas Edison really "invented" the light bulb out of thin air?
New technology is pretty much always a slight improvement from some previous tech. Marketable consumer technology makes its improvements in things that consumers care about (i.e., getting rid of those bugs and kinks--and this isn't easy, btw, try it someday). Apple wins in the market because they are (a) trying to solve the technology problems that matter most to consumers, and (b) they're better at solving those tech problems than their competitors.
If it was easy (or just a matter of "marketing") then every other company would do it.