Apple's Risky Balancing Act With the Next iPhone (macworld.com)

Long time columnist Jason Snell: As there always are at this time of year, there are lots of rumors out there about what the next iPhone will be. This year we're hearing that Apple is going to release a high-priced, next-generation phone in addition to the expected iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus models. [...] By most accounts, Apple's next-generation iPhone will offer a similar design. But also, by many accounts, Apple is struggling to create that product -- and when it arrives, it may be expensive, late to ship, and supply constrained. This is one of those areas where Apple may be the victim of its own success. The iPhone is so popular a product that Apple can't include any technology or source any part if it can't be made more than 200 million times a year. If the supplier of a cutting-edge part Apple wants can only provide the company with 50 million per year, it simply can't be used in the iPhone. Apple sells too many, too fast. Contrast that to Apple's competition. On the smaller end, former Android chief Andy Rubin announced the Essential phone, but even Rubin admitted that he'd only be able to sell in thousands, not millions. Same for the RED Hydrogen One -- groundbreaking phone, hardly likely to sell in any volume. The Google Pixel looks like it's in the one million range. Apple's biggest competitor, Samsung, has to deal with a scale more similar to Apple's -- but it's still only expected to sell 50 or 60 million units of the flagship Galaxy S8.

Comments

As much as I'm not an Apple fan

[enjar]

If they want to make something exclusive, they have done it before and priced it accordingly. See the Apple Watches that had list prices of $10-17K. Who knows how well they actually sold, but Apple doesn't have a hard time putting a large price tag on something exclusive. I'm also intentionally omitting the diamond studded phone cases and so on sold by high end designers. Evidently there's a market for this stuff, and you have to imagine the margins on a 10K iPhone are going to be huge when it (likely) repurposes most of the guts the run of the mill models.

Re:As much as I'm not an Apple fan

[Cro Magnon]

I have an iWatch. It didn't cost 10K. I don't care if Apple releases a 10K phone. I won't buy it. I will buy an iPhone 7 at a price that doesn't choke a hippopotamus. Or, an iPhone 6 at a price that doesn't choke a horse. Or, if I have to, switch ecosystems and get an Android.

Re:As much as I'm not an Apple fan

[enjar]

I'm not suggesting that every Apple Watch is 10K, but that Apple has added "exclusives" in the past, and priced them at eye-popping price points.

Re:As much as I'm not an Apple fan

[Cro Magnon]

Yeah, and I'd consider a 10K phone in the same category as a 10K watch. As long as they sell stuff that a mere mortal like me can buy, I don't care if they have stuff for those with more money than brains.

Re:As much as I'm not an Apple fan

[lucm]

I'm not suggesting that every Apple Watch is 10K, but that Apple has added "exclusives" in the past, and priced them at eye-popping price points.

yes, and Carl's Jr has an exclusive $6,000 burger combo only available at the Palms, and Oprah Winfrey has a gold-plated toilet seat. Apple is not innovating when they glue diamonds on stuff.

Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

As is well known, Intel's toughest competition ain't AMD: it's Intel's own, previous CPUs, which w/ multiple cores, is still more than adequate for anything thrown at it. Very different from the 90s where every MHz bump resulted in a major performance improvement. Same for Microsoft: Windows 7 was good enough, and people have had to be dragged kicking & screaming to 8 & 10.

Previously, I had an iPhone 5s and an iPad mini, both w/ 16GB storage. I just upgraded both over the last few months to iPhone 7 and iPad mini 4, both w/ 128GB of storage primarily b'cos I had hit the limit on those. But I don't anticipate getting even close to 128GB on these 2 new toys. While iPhone 7 gave me Apple Pay, which 5s didn't have, there is nothing missing in the iPhone 7 that I'll want in iPhone 8. If anything, the loss of the home button will be a bummer: I like the fingerprint detection way of logging in, buying things and authentication. Essentially, what stops me from buying future Apple toys is that these new ones of mine are good enough for the foreseeable future. I do see myself buying a Macbook sometime just to avoid getting into an annual Windows subscription.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[swb]

If anything, the loss of the home button will be a bummer:

They've reached the point where they're just making "courageous" changes which benefit their own assembly & engineering but lack significant user value and don't solve obvious consumer problems with the device. Case in point, the headphone jack.

My guess is they are on the cusp of a "Windows 8 Start Menu" kind of change where the fuck up the design enough to seriously damage their user base.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[Moof123]

Yep, revolutionary engineering is only able to make incremental improvements at this point. At what point will buyers stop seeing the point? Will facial recognition be enough better than a fingerprint for people to actually be wowed?

The real frustration I have is that iOS itself, regardless of hardware changes, is become unwieldy and going backwards in usability with too many features have been saddled on an OS aimed at simplicity. It is faltering under that weight. I used to be able to easily switch to shuffle and start a playlist on a specific song with one click. I can't easily do several simple things like that anymore, and google gets consulted way too often to figure out where to find lesser used settings lost in a see of crap. Basic music functionality has been mangled to be streaming friendly first, tossing old simple stuff for ghastly now stuff. my old ipod touch stuck on iOS 6 is a great time capsule that "just works", while my ipad air 2 is a frustrating PITA for a lot of the same basic stuff.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[enjar]

They've reached the point where they're just making "courageous" changes which benefit their own assembly & engineering

I believe you meant to say "shareholders" there ... elimination of the headphone jack meant add on sales of dongles, AirPods, Beats, etc with each new phone that didn't have a headphone jack. Why have the newest thing when for "just" another $159 you can have these very obvious "I GOT THE NEW THING" headphones? So in effect, Apple sells the $650-750 (or more) iPhone 7, plus then adds on $159 to that sale with the AirPods. Sure some people will just use the dongle and old headphones, but there will be a non-zero attach rate for the other stuff, driven by lack of headphone jack.

FWIW I see bigger stagnation as you discuss in the tablet/notebook space. In the phone space there are fuck ups all over the place, the most recent being exploding phones from Samsung. Convertibles on the Windows side are getting to the point where the line can be extremely blurred between a laptop with an occasionally detached keyboard and a tablet with a add-on typing cover. Apple should be owning this market, with clear leadership in the tablet space -- but instead they are giving half-answers like the touchbar. Plenty of PC notebook designers are doing a fair job of aping aluminum bodies, rugged design and so on. My wife bought a HP Spectre that seems well made, is convertible and stylish. Most of the time she's using it as a PC, but then she "tents" it to watch video, or uses it as a tablet for web browsing. Multiple USB-C ports, one USB-A and accessories that work well with it for driving an external monitor and so on. Why doesn't Apple have a product like this? Are there warring fiefdoms between iPad Land, Mac Book Land and Mac Book Pro Land?

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

If anything, the loss of the home button will be a bummer:

They've reached the point where they're just making "courageous" changes which benefit their own assembly & engineering but lack significant user value and don't solve obvious consumer problems with the device. Case in point, the headphone jack.

My guess is they are on the cusp of a "Windows 8 Start Menu" kind of change where the fuck up the design enough to seriously damage their user base.

Very doubtful. Unlike MS and Linux/Android, Apple moves VERY slowly and carefully with UI paradigm shifts.

For example, In the computer world, a user familiar with a 1984 Mac would have less difficulty acclimating to macOS 10.12 than a Windows 7 User would have with Windows 8. And in the mobile world, a person familiar with iPhone OS 1.0 for the most part would feel right at home with iOS 10.3. I can't speak for Android, but I think they have far too many "customizations" to say anything close to the same thing.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny,

i am stuck on a 5s exactly because none of the newer models is offered without the NFC hardware and the pay capability. These should not exist on a phone in my book. Until Apple offers a device where NFC and apple pay can be disabled, I am not buying a new one.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[jittles]

Very doubtful. Unlike MS and Linux/Android, Apple moves VERY slowly and carefully with UI paradigm shifts.

Surely you jest. What was it, iOS 9 where Apple changed the way that you navigate through all your open apps so that you swipe towards the left to see older apps instead of the right? And iOS10 where they decided peoples Home buttons weren't wearing out fast enough so they made you double tap the home button to unlock your device if you didn't have a fingerprint sensor? And what was the purpose behind those changes? Well in one case, Apple wanted to try and push people to seeing widgets on their lock screen (defaulting to Apple software), and in the other case it seemed to be a very arbitrary and useless change that was confusing to me when I had two different apple devices that behaved in the opposite way on the same screen.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[Falos]

>implying superiority
Citation needed.

But not through bluetooth please, or you'll have to repeat yourself three times.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[jittles]

Yes, yes, I know. Everything Apple does is one big Conspiracy.

The double tap on the home button to turn on the device and then go to the PIN entry adds exactly what functionality? None! At least let me swipe to get to the lock screen instead of wearing out a mechanical button on the device. And since the home button is the #1 thing to fail on an iPhone (besides cracked glass), how can you not claim it to be malicious on Apple's part? One of the first mods ever added by the jailbreak community was a soft home button so that you could use a device without replacing the button. That's how common of a problem it is and Apple did something that makes the problem worse.

You're kidding, right? The swipe left vs. right went completely unnoticed by me. I don't use that feature often enough to remember which way to swpie anyway!

I sometimes write software for Apple devices and have hardware that cannot be upgraded to the latest iOS. So some of my devices scroll through apps one way, and some of them scroll through the other. It's incredibly irritating when you switch devices. Sure, if you've only got one device you get used to it pretty quickly but again it was an arbitrary change for no real reason.

But if that's the best you can come up with, that's pretty minor stuff in the overall scheme of things for an OS.

I can think of dozens of changes that Apple makes to the UI every single time they roll out a new version of iOS. But you made the claim that everything they did was deliberate and well studied and I just don't think that's the case. Jon Ive does whatever the hell he wants now that Jobs is gone, and most of it is just because he decides it looks better this week than it did last week.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

That, and also, going from having a separate button on the iPad Mini 1 to getting rid of it on the iPad Mini 4, and making one swipe up to discover where that is. Very intuitive! NOT!!!

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

That was the only major change in Apple's history - when they went from a System 7 based OS that was at par w/ Windows 3.1 as far as multitasking went - cooperative, but not preemptive. Apple took forever on Copeland before pulling the plug on it, acquiring NEXT and replacing a completely proprietary OS w/ a Posix compliant OS.

NeXTstep had nothing in common w/ System 7, since the companies were different, as was the hardware (despite being Mot 68k as well). NEXT made a computer from scratch dedicated to RAD, and had no mission to be compatible w/ Mac applications in any way, since their target market was the enterprise. When NEXT got acquired by Apple, they re-designed the UI somewhat from NEXTSTEP to get OS X, which remained consistent until Apple decided to make it look more like iOS, due to the popularity of the latter.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[lucm]

the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous.

that was in 2001. Since then it's always been looking like an old KDE, version after version.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

If you don't associate your credit card(s) w/ Apple Pay or NFC, it is automatically disabled. Like my new iPad Mini 4 has Apple Pay as well, but I haven't associated that w/ my cards, as I did my phone, since I don't use the former that way.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

I quite agree. Like I got a new iPad Mini 4, and one thing I noticed - the Rotate lock/unlock button (which is also usable for something else, I forget what) is gone: it was there in the iPad Mini 1. Instead, I had to experimentally discover that one has to swap up to get the lock button (next to the disturb crescent) and select it accordingly

Also, my iPod Nano has a touch screen, and some very basic functionality. However, couldn't they have included iTunes there, instead of forcing us to sync w/ iTunes on my laptop, which is a pain? On this thing, I can't add songs or alter a playlist w/o connecting it to my laptop. Really annoying!

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[mjwx]

As is well known, Intel's toughest competition ain't AMD: it's Intel's own, previous CPUs,

This is emphatically not the case with Apple. Apple's compeittion is Android and competition is strong. Allow me to explain.

There are two types of Iphone buyers.

1. The type that upgrades every year (or two if they're in a restrictive contract).

2. The kind that doesn't care what kind of phone they have.

The first type, they will buy the next Iphone no matter what is or isn't changed. They're too emotionally invested to change, they've spent years building their persona around the Iphone, it doesn't matter if the new Iphone had a single changed icon or whether it's purposely designed to give the user random electric shocks, they will buy it because they wont change their mind from the OMG, JesusPhone, OMFG.

The second type will buy whatever is in their budget and meets their needs at the time. Some will upgrade when their contract ends, others will keep phones until they die. Their motivations are many, but the difference between them and the first kind is that they aren't emotionally invested in their phones. Its just a phone to them, not the second coming. My housemate is like this, he's still got a *gasp* Iphone4. He doesn't care, in fact he gets more hate than me (I'm Android) for daring to say the JesusPhone is just an ordinary phone, no more special than any other phone.

Apples problem is that the second type of Iphone owner outnumber the first. Iphone market share in western nations has been shrinking for years with strong competition from Android at all price points. Apple has been hiding this for years by expanding into new markets, however with their recent entry into India and China, they can no longer do this.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[unixisc]

Wireless charging - don't need it. Whenever I'm not using something, it's plugged in & being charged. Some have said that that shortens the battery life, but no: these things have internal software/circuitry to disable charging once the charge level is above a certain threshold. Similarly, battery life of this thing is fine. Pixel density - the 7 has a 12 megapixel camera, and iPad 4 mini has an 8 megapixel camera - both good enough. 802.11ac is good enough - not seen too much w/ 802.11j, and phone calls are easy enough.

I did kick myself in 2014 for getting the 5s just weeks before the 6 debuted. Had I bought the 6, I may not have upgraded to the 7, depending on how much storage I had. I was mindful that that was one of the stumbling blocks that might force me to upgrade, but now, I don't see a need even in the distant future (unless the phone just dies

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

You're on crack, the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous. Prior to that I would say you're right. Mostly OS 6 through 9 had mostly the same UI.

Contrast that Windows 95 and every version of windows has had a start button in the same exact spot, only Windows 8 did that change dramatically and it shifted back for 10.

It was a bit of a re-learn for those familiar with MacOS "Classic".

But, still nowhere NEAR the learning-curve between Windows prior to 8, compared to Windows 8.

I STILL find myself sort of "lost" sometimes in the pseudo-Metro interface on some of our Windows Servers > 2008 R2. It was, and remains, a HORRIBLE, NON-DISCOVERABLE, Interface!

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

When NEXT got acquired by Apple, they re-designed the UI somewhat from NEXTSTEP to get OS X, which remained consistent until Apple decided to make it look more like iOS, due to the popularity of the latter

While I agree with 99% of your post, I disagree with the statement above.

The reason why certain things, like "Natural Scrolling" were instituted in OS X (but which were still "defeatable") was not actually just because iOS was so popular; but because people that owned both Macs and iOS devices suffered "muscle memory issues" because the scroll direction was opposite on the two OSes.

But even the "iOS-ification" of macOS has been glacially-slow and deliberate, compared with the "Throw ALL of the User's experience out the window" (pun intended, because multi-windowing was one of casualties of The-Interface-Formerly-Known-as-Metro) changes between Windows 7 and 8.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

the shift from OS 9 to OS X was enormous.

that was in 2001. Since then it's always been looking like an old KDE, version after version.

LOL! KDE looks like Windows 3.1 compared to even OS X 10.0

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[lucm]

I wonder which one you've never actually seen. KDE, Windows 3.1 or OS X.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

I wonder which one you've never actually seen. KDE, Windows 3.1 or OS X.

I'm over 60 years old. Do you think I've seen (and used) Windows 3.1 at some point?

And as far as macOS/OS X goes, take a look at my Username...

I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish. I will admit, it is more Windows 95 or Windows 7 than it is W 3.1; but when I last looked, it seemed like it was closer to 3.1 than 95 or 7. For example, here's KDE 2, looking like Windows 95/7:

https://www.kde.org/screenshot... ...And here's a sample of KDE screenshots over several versions:

https://www.kde.org/screenshot...

So, yeah, maybe not W 3.1; but DEFINITELY a Windows clone.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[lucm]

I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish.

Dude, there's a date in your KDE screenshot that says "2000-10-24". That's one year before OSX, and already we can see where Apple took their design ideas. Same taskbar with big icons, even the same 3 buttons on the window toolbars.

At this point even Ubuntu Unity looks sophisticated compared to OSX. That says a lot.

Re:Apple's getting to Intel's/Microsoft's problem

[TheFakeTimCook]

I'm least familiar with KDE; but I've seen enough to realize it WANTS to be Windows (well, newer version want to be more like macOS than Windows > ver. 7), but is even more clumsy and childish.

Dude, there's a date in your KDE screenshot that says "2000-10-24". That's one year before OSX, and already we can see where Apple took their design ideas. Same taskbar with big icons, even the same 3 buttons on the window toolbars.

At this point even Ubuntu Unity looks sophisticated compared to OSX. That says a lot.

Depends on what you mean by "sophisticated". If you mean "obnoxiously busy", then I would agree.

How does scarcity not work in their favor?

[swb]

If Apple is releasing both a 7S model in incremental fashion and a higher-end model, how does scarcity of parts become a problem for Apple?

They can probably already jack up the price of the 7S and get away with it, and presumably the 8 (or whatever it will be called) can be priced wherever their economists/MBAs/wonks think it needs to be priced to limit demand to what their suppliers can provide.

IMHO, their larger challenge is create an "8" that has enough appeal to attract enough buyers at this price point without creating "Apple iPhone 8 FAIL" headlines through weak demand. Haven't upgrade purchases already slowed, as even 2-3 revision behind models are still good performers? It's hard to see too many people thinking they need a $1500 phone when the $900 one is already a marginal upgrade.

Re:How does scarcity not work in their favor?

[Gilgaron]

The point isn't that they can't make a better phone, but that a better phone that is better enough to matter cannot be easily made in the volume they'd want. Even if they could sell whatever they could make at a higher price it is still not desirable to be unable to meet demand. You can't maintain market presence with an 'artisinal' product.

Re:How does scarcity not work in their favor?

[DigiShaman]

Artificial scarcity that you can control, is the new hotness. Apple has become a fashion company. In many ways, it already was one. It really became prominent with the Apple Watch and all the band accessories. That's what Apple needs to do with the iPhone. Mass-produce the specs, but limit the case edition to different material. Software (iOS) doesn't give a shit about esthetics and materials. However, it does care about a unified hardware platform. If Apple isn't careful, they could really fuck themselves by creating too many hardware permutations of iPhone.

Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the latest internal parts.*
Revert to including headphone jack.
Go crazy on edge-to-edge screen.
Make an "SE" version.
For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.
Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Apple's success will depend on how much of this fantasy they can bring to reality. I've used both iOS and Android for some time now; they each have their foibles. The above phone would get me to buy an iPhone in spite of Apple's OS path diverging from my personal preference (i.e. Trust everything in our cloud! No 3rd party cloud allowed!)
*I don't personally care about touch ID sensor.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[SuperKendall]

Revert to including headphone jack.

People do not care and the AirPods are the most beloved bluetooth headset ever sold. Even Android owning friends I have love them (I don't have them myself as I still preferred wired headphones, and just use the adaptor that comes with the phone).

For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.

99.9999999999% of phone users do not use those, so they are basically just a giant security hole waiting to bite you in the ass.

Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Well yes, it's horrible, but why does that matter in relation to the iPhone? I've not connected to iTunes in years, all backup is handled via iCloud and all app purchases are made on the device.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[TheFakeTimCook]

Use the latest internal parts.*
Revert to including headphone jack.
Go crazy on edge-to-edge screen.
Make an "SE" version.
For the love of storage include a MicroSD slot.
Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Apple's success will depend on how much of this fantasy they can bring to reality. I've used both iOS and Android for some time now; they each have their foibles. The above phone would get me to buy an iPhone in spite of Apple's OS path diverging from my personal preference (i.e. Trust everything in our cloud! No 3rd party cloud allowed!)
*I don't personally care about touch ID sensor.

No 3rd party cloud allowed?

You mean like this?

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/ho... ...or this?

https://venturebeat.com/2015/0...

In fact, it looks like most, if not all, of the major "Cloud Storage" providers work with iOS:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/on...

And when iOS 11 drops in a few weeks, the built-in "Files" App will make 3rd party Cloud storage quite simple:

http://www.idownloadblog.com/2...

So, you MIGHT want to revise your meme to comport with REALITY...

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[Moof123]

Well, the "Music" app is horrible now, which is what i think the OP might have been meaning. Ever since Apple Music debuted and the Music app was rototilled to work with streaming it has been a disaster for non-streamed music. Try to play and album and switch from non-shuffle to shuffle. I'll wait while you try that.

Sucked, didn't? Yep, bet you had to go google how, since you have to go find the Album/Playlist again, and begin with "Shuffle All". Now you are on a different song, crap.

The Music app manages to be as bad or worse that iTunes has been for years.

"Just works" my arse.

Re: Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[that this is not und]

Wtf? 99.99999% of what is made up bullshit from an iBot on a blog??

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[gspear]

[...]

Please revise / update iTunes, it's horrible.

Well yes, it's horrible, but why does that matter in relation to the iPhone? I've not connected to iTunes in years, all backup is handled via iCloud and all app purchases are made on the device.

I had to stop using iTunes for my iPhone because my MacBook was too old to be upgraded to the required version of MacOS and iTunes. It was fine and I didn't miss using iTunes for a long time. I even restored the contents from iCloud after my phone was replaced due to a swollen battery.

That was until I found out that it didn't restore my music purchases correctly -- in a number of cases, it restored the wrong song from the same album. I ended up transferring my iTunes library from the old MacBook to a new one, and then syncing from there.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[mrun4982]

Some people I know do not care and I and some people I know think the AirPods are the most beloved bluetooth headset ever sold.

FTFY. I guarantee there are lots of people who disagree with you.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[guises]

99.9999999999% of phone users do not use those

This is 1/125th of a person.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[lucm]

Dude, you just swipe the album art upwards to reveal the shuffle/repeat buttons. The current song stays, the mode changes.

That's very intuitive. It's almost like on Google Play Music, except on that one you see the buttons and you don't have to swipe useless album art upwards.

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, in the olden days behind the wall if you wanted to buy a car you deposited 20% of the price and then waited.....up to 10 years!...and you got a Lada at the end. Does that mean the Lada was a superb car?

Re:Best iPhone ever - fantasy

[JaredOfEuropa]

It means Lada was the only game in town. That's not the case with Airpods. There's plenty of other BT headphones or earbuds to choose from, not to mention regular headphones for those who still have a 3.5mm jack on their phones. Most are cheaper too. Yet some (apparently: plenty) people still choose to pay the premium and wait 6 weeks for their AirPods.

LCD vs OLED vs MicroLED

[monkeyxpress]

The fundamental problem Apple has is that Samsung has the key display technology that Apple needs to do much more innovation with its hardware. LCD panels are a dead end for mobile devices, if thinness and efficiency is the goal. Apple needs to get away from LCD, but to do so right now requires becoming dependent on Samsung again.

This is why we had the whole Tim Cook spin about OLED having terrible colors a few years back. Apple needed to down play the tech that it didn't have. In the end though, it looks like Apple is going to throw the kitchen sink at getting micro LED going, which looks like a technology that could easily surpass OLED in a lot of areas. If they can pull that off before their entire product line becomes dependent on Samsung AMOLED, then they'll be good to go for another 5 years.

In the end though we must keep in mind that all OLED or AMOLED is going to ultimately allow is thinner devices. You could imagine that the next big step will be semi-flexible displays so that we can avoid another bend-gate situations as devices get even thinner. It's cool to see how far the tech is going, but since almost everyone I see puts their thin new iPhone into a big bumper case, it does all feel pretty pointless.

Re:LCD vs OLED vs MicroLED

[lucm]

It's cool to see how far the tech is going, but since almost everyone I see puts their thin new iPhone into a big bumper case, it does all feel pretty pointless.

Yeah I saw someone put their new Samsung S8 in a big case today. Instead of a slim phone they now have something similar to what Gordon Gekko was using to make insider trades.

Re:LCD vs OLED vs MicroLED

[Evtim]

9/10 people I see have protection screen and a case regardless of the phone size or manufacturer. So why do we need thinner phones [we don't!]? I dropped my Samsung A3 4 times in the first week before getting the case. The damn thing is slippery as hell.....and yet the manufacturers are ditching useful tech [phone jack] for slimness...

Re:LCD vs OLED vs MicroLED

[lucm]

At least you have the option of not using a case. I personally don't. It's annoying when I break a phone but I prefer the occasional incident than carrying a brick.

Re:LCD vs OLED vs MicroLED

[JaredOfEuropa]

OLED's going to allow for more room for the battery. But I know, we'll get thinner devices with the same rubbish standby time instead...

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[RotateLeftByte]

The Android fans will lambast you for being inside the apple Walled Garden.
To many of them Apple is verging on pure evil.

But to be honest IOS needs Android to be strong just as much as Android needs IOS.
If Google put their foot down and enforced at least 3 years of updates for ALL Android devices I think a lot of people would move back to Android.
Updates are the millstone around its neck. Google could fix it but they for some reason won't.

Steve Jobs Residue

[sycodon]

Apple has used up almost al the Steve Jobs karma it had. They are being more and more just another Dell,IBM,Sony, etc.

The Vision is gone. Look for the product lines to dry up and turn into just another dreary corporate marketing exercise.

Chicklet Keyboard mentality.

Re:Steve Jobs Residue

[sycodon]

And I say this after just having tossed my Fat Mac, upgraded to a Mac Plus with 1 megabyte of ram while cleaning out the garage

I love new technology to tinker with.

[Kokuyo]

Haven't seen any in the last five to ten years though.

Very few exciting things happen in tech at the moment. The only somewhat groundbreaking change is the move to all electric, which has less to do with technology than with social norms and expectations.

My next gaming monitor might be 4k and have freesync so that might be a little exciting. It's also probably another year off before I get one.

My next tv will probably be a 4k HDR OLED. Which might actually be exciting, if not for the fact that the tv is mostly used for My Little Pony, Nick's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Last Airbender.

So.... meh?

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Spy Handler]

lmao I own an iphone 6 plus and I'm doing everything humanly possible to PREVENT updates. Because Apple really really wants you to upgrade your OS to the latest version, the phone will automatically download a 2 GB update, by itself, with no warning. And there's nothing you can do to prevent this, no amount of fiddling in settings will prevent this auto-update. Only thing that can stop it is jailbreaking, but currently there is no jailbreak for iOS 9 (which my phone is on).

Since there is no way to prevent it from the phone itself, you have to stop it on the network level. Which I did, by blocking the Apple update server on my Linksys router (it has a rudimentary firewall function). Here are the URLs you need to block if you don't want your phone auto-updating:

appldnld.apple.com
mesu.apple.com

Why would I want to prevent auto updating, you ask? Because after a certain point (usually 2 number versions later) your old(der) phone will choke on the bloated new OS and run like complete shit. I've had iphones and ipads that came with iOS 4 from the factory. Ran beautifully, very smooth and snappy. A year later iOS 5 comes out and you upgrade to it. You get some new features but you notice some jittery-ness and slower response and longer loading times for the browser and so on. Still usable, but definitely slower than before.

Then another year later (it's been 2 years now since you bought the phone) you upgrade to iOS 6. Now is when shit hits the fan, your phone runs like complete utter garbage to the point where you don't wanna use it for anything except taking phone calls.

It seems like iOS 6 was a particularly bad version. Apparently Safari got a major upgrade with a new rendering engine or something, so older hardware really struggled with it. There were lots of complaints, people asking how to revert to the older iOS version 5 (you can't). So Apple said they addressed the issue a year later when iOS 7 came out. I upgraded, hoping it would be better. Turned out iOS 7 was slightly better in app loading times, but still just as bad in terms of response and navigating (slow slow slow). At this point I just said fuck it, you win Apple, I'll sell my old iphone and ipad on Ebay for pennies on the dollar and pony up for new shiny Apple shit. And I bent over and spread wide.

Anyways my current iphone 6 came with iOS 8 from the factory. I upgraded to 9, and as expected noticed some slowing but still quite usable. But now I know better than to upgrade to 10 or 11 or whatever the fuck they're on. So my phone will stay on 9 until the day it dies.

iPhone is having it's XP moment

[MrLogic17]

I fear we've reached peak-iPhone. Just like Windows 10's biggest competition was Windows 7 and XP, iPhone 8's biggest competition is the phone people have now.

If I know that the new phone will have a bigger price tag, a more cluttered interface (dare I say very un-apple-like), and in some cases missing basic features I know and love (headphone jack, anyone?) - that makes for a hard sell.

The features that are getting touted leave me going... meh.
  - Denser pixels? Dude, I'm scaling up the text size so I can read even with my glasses.
  - Faster processor? Can't say I'm doing anything that needs more.
  - Better camera? That's nice- but I have no complaints about the current one. My dedicated camera hasn't seen daylight in years as it is.
  - Thinner? Couldn't care less. I never complained about the original iPhone's thickness. I'd rather have a double-thick battery, but ain't holding my breath.

In short, I'm having trouble seeing that's so awesome about the next phone. Or what even could be awesome. Something's going to have to come out of left field, and I just don't see a post-Jobs Apple pulling that off.

Re:iPhone is having it's XP moment

[Moof123]

But Lasers!!!

yawn.

Re:iPhone is having it's XP moment

[garote]

How about a pair of AR glasses that can substitute for the iPhone display, so you can use it without even looking at it?

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Bert64]

It downloads the 2GB update on its own? Very annoying...
On a related note, iOS has options to be frugal with data usage on cellular connections (as they're often metered and expensive), but always seems to treat wifi as a free for all... There's no option to declare a wifi network as being metered and prevent background activity from happening short of disabling all background activity in several places...
I thought i'd disabled all of this when i connected to an in flight wifi service, but it proceeded to download all my email automatically, and quickly burning through the 5mb data allowance i was given.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking it in your router doesn't help when you connect to a different wifi network. Instead, install the tvOS beta profile - your phone will never download an update because no tvOS version exists that will run on it. I've been blissfully update-nag-free for over 6 months using this.

https://writekay.github.io/Dis... (skip step 2 which is stupid, convoluted,and totally unnecessary)

My bigger concern than bloat is the horrific regressions in user interface that I've seen, particularly starting with iOS 10. Notification Center is a total shitshow, as is the Music app. It's like nobody at Apple even uses their crap anymore. Or more likely, Jony Ive has been given way too much power, and the smart people who actually understand good UI (make things obvious and minimize taps/swipes to do things) are being silenced. Sad.</trumpvoice>

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Cro Magnon]

Updates are a big reason I stick with IOS.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Spy Handler]

interesting technique, I wanna do it but the link is dead (404 site not found)

Music app is fine now

[SuperKendall]

Well, the "Music" app is horrible now, which is what i think the OP might have been meaning

It was bad at first, it's been fine for a while now... I'm pretty sure he was complaining about the desktop app.

Try to play and album and switch from non-shuffle to shuffle. I'll wait while you try that.

I either hit Shuffle All at the top of the track list, or hit a song and it plays sequentially from there... yes it was tricky before but like I said they fixed most of the usability issues in the past year or so.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[sexconker]

Works for me. Here it is. I even manually preserved the link and converted < and > and stupid "smart" quotes for you so Slashdot wouldn't eat them.

Disabling iOS OTA Updates
Written on February 9, 2016

This is a three-fold process. One, disabling check and automated download of new OTA updates. Two, removing badge "1" on Settings app. Three, removing downloaded, but not yet installed OTA packages.
Step One
Disabling automated checking and download of new OTA updates

You can disable automated downloading of iOS updates by installing the following tvOS Beta Configuration Profile.

iPhone checks whether an update is available through a special XML document at mesu.apple.com. This configuration profile redirects the check to only look for beta updates available for the Apple TV. Since your iPhone is not an Apple TV, the redirected catalog check will make your device "believe" iOS is up-to-date.

The configuration profile is cryptographically signed by Apple (in fact, configuration profile that redirects OTA update catalog through "Internal Settings" will fail to install if it is not), therefore, can be trusted. Other than adding a "Feedback" icon that you can dump into any folder at any time, this configuration profile does not negatively affect your iPhone's performance or battery life. Don't worry. It is not possible for your phone to suddenly install tvOS.

Alternatively, you can also block "mesu.apple.com" through your router settings. However, as you connect your devices to Wi-Fi hotspots that you do not have control of, this would be rendered uneffective.

Step Two
Removing badge "1" on Settings app

1) You can remove the "1" badge on Settings app icon through backing up your iPhone, then open up the backup in iBackupBot.

2) After that, go to the following directory. /System Files/Home Domain/Library/Preferences

Then double click to open the following file:

com.apple.Preferences.plist

Then locate the following key:

<key>kBadgedForSoftwareUpdateKey</key>

Then change the value from its initial value...

<true/> ...into:

<false/>

Then locate the following key:

<key>kBadgedForSoftwareUpdateJumpOnceKey</key>

Then change its value from...

<true/> ...into:

<false/>

Then click save and close the window.

3) Select the following file

com.apple.Preferences.plist

Then click Restore in the toolbar. When prompted, untick the third option and only tick "Don't copy backup" and "Reboot device after restore (Recommended)". Then click OK. Your phone will reboot.

4) Navigate to the following folder in iBackupBot: /System Files/Home Domain/Library/BackBoard

Then, double click to open the following file:

applicationState.plist

Then, locate the following key:

<key>com.apple.Preferences</key>

In the key, find the following entry:

<key>SBApplicationBadgeKey</key>

Then change the value of the entry from:

<integer>1</integer> ...into

<integer>0</integer>

Then click save and close the window.

5) Select applicationState.plist file and click Restore in the toolbar. When prompted, untick the third option and only tick "Don't copy backup" and "Reboot device after restore (Recommended)". Then click OK. Your phone will reboot.

If everything went well, your phone's Settings app should no longer be badged. However, it is possible for the changes to not take effect. If that's the case for you, repeat (5).

Step Three
Removing downloaded, but not yet installed OTA packages.

You can remove existing downloaded OTA packages at Settings - General -

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[Spy Handler]

I mean the FILE link listed on the webpage is broken. This one:

You can disable automated downloading of iOS updates by installing the following tvOS Beta Configuration Profile.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[sexconker]

https://github.com/suisreactio...

I just searched for "tvos10.mobileconfig" in Bing. I have no clue if it's the same, not malicious, etc. But if I had to guess it's exactly what you want.

Dilute production across brands/the world.

[mutherhacker]

It's fine if Apple cannot sell 200 million eyePhones. In fact, not only is it fine, it's great. It looks like monopoly is hitting physical limits. More brands should make more diverse phones built across the world. Not everybody has to have the same shiny toy ffs.

Re:Supply constrained??? BS

[Falos]

Capital systems are self-optimizing. They will, by definition, flow downhill towards min costs and max revenue.

Theoretically, sure, personify Apple as "Some Guy" and he could fucking buy Africa, pay enough to draw in half the continent to eagerly mine, buy Taiwan and repurpose every factory.

But there isn't "A Guy" there's just a not-conscious not-organism that can't help but profit. I'm not shooting for morality here, just measuring our expectations.

Zero power charge iPhone

[WillAffleckUW]

They're faced with the contradictory desires of consumers both to make things bigger - Boomers, Gamers, and Twinks - and to make them low power and smaller - Zero Gens, Music Lovers, and Fashionistas.

Thing is, the tech exists to do both. We can power cell phones from incidental power from local wireless now, and have foldable bendable waterproof bioelectric screens we grow.

The question is, which side will win.

I figure they'll do both. You can get a Star Trek communicator "wallet" phone that unfolds, or a comm badge phone that beeps. They'll probably act as if you have to buy both, but you don't.

Doooomed! DOOOOOMED I TELL YOU!!!

[garote]

Any minute now!
It's the world's most valuable company; what more proof do you need that it has nowhere to go but down?
Washed up! Has-been! Can't-hack-it! (...At being the world's most valuable company -- some loss.)

You know what's funny is, they were right.

[garote]

The new phone came with a 2-inch adapter, and I plugged it into the end of my headphone cord, and since then the loss of a headphone jack hasn't affected me at all.

Except for that one time when I wanted to use headphones and charge at the same time, and that's when I discovered that I can get a little bluetooth widget that supports AptX, with a microphone built in, and now I plug the same ol' pair of headphone into that, and I don't even need to be carrying the phone any more when I'm home. I just plant it on the stand, and the bluetooth range of about 25 feet in all directions is good enough to cover the whole house. It cost less than 20 bucks.

In the end, it wasn't like Apple removed the headphone jack, it was like Apple removed the whole damn phone. Now it's just my headphones and a 3-ounce widget I carry around. The music sounds just as good and the calls are just as clear.

iToy headphone jacks

[unixisc]

Headphone jacks are so quaint. I suppose you still have manual windows in your car. Or are you more of a horse and buggy man?

Excepting that most state of the art headphones have that 3.5mm jack. Similarly, if one wants to connect the iPhone 7 to an otherwise perfectly good non-Bluetooth speaker (another quaint relic, I suppose), one would have to use the dongle along w/ the aux connector. If headphone jacks are so quaint, why did Apple leave it alone on the iPad Mini 4, as well as all their iPods? In fact, on the iPod nano, it's next to impossible to connect that to anything via bluetooth: I connect it in my car via USB to the iPod player in the navigation system

Apple needs to figure out its overall strategy, instead of forcing people to use lightning connectors on one thing and headphone jacks on others.

Re:iToy headphone jacks

[eionmac]

QUOTE : I suppose you still have manual windows in your car.

Yes. So I can open windows to escape if electrics fail.

water damage?

[unixisc]

Water damage where? In the rain? Dropping it in a drink? Same thing can be said for any of Apple's other toys - the iPads, the iPods, yet none of those have gone jackless as yet. In fact, for the iPod nano 7th gen, if one has one of those Beat or bluetooth headphones or speakers, can't use those things!

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[iamacat]

Did that iPhone cost you $200 off contract? If not, consider that you can buy an iPhone every 6 years or a Samsung phone every 2 years and have about the same upgrade experience, but use much newer hardware with Android.

Strong brands have an egalitarian effect

[Qbertino]

In this situation we observe a know effect that appears to be a paradox, but really isn't:
That strong brands - such as Apple - actually have an equalising effect on society. You can get a supsidised and/or used iPhone even as a poor guy, but even the richest guy can't get a better one than the current model. It's the same reasone Vertu went broke these days and Apple discontinued their hyper-expensive golden Apple watches a while back.

I presume making a super-expensive iPhone would have the same effect and that they wouldn't keep it around for long. Damage to the brand would be stronger than the profit generated. In making a scarce iPhone, Apple would actually damage the exclusivity of the Apple/iPhone brand. Sort of like some special Coke that costs 1500$ a bottle, like some exclusive Champagne or something. Being exclusive by scarcity would actually damage the equity of the Apple brand and I suspect Apple knows this.

I really think at this stage Apple should settle for the fact that they really just about have covered the global high-margin market on smartphones and should moving into optimising their toolchain and resource usage even further. As a such obscenely rich company they could actually use their power to do some good, like improving the negative impacts of rare earth mining or something. That would be something to brag about as a company.

My 2 Eurocents.

Re:First World Problems

[mutherhacker]

Hahaha :) Exactly.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[TheRaven64]

It's swings and roundabouts. With the Samsung, when the vendor stops shipping updates you can probably get them from LineageOS. The Galaxy SII, released in 2011, is still getting updates and runs the latest Android. You lose on first-party updates, but you win on third-party updates. In contrast, the oldest supported iPhone is the iPhone 5, which is now getting only security updates (no new OS) and was released in 2012. When it stops getting security updates, the hardware is effectively useless: the bootloader is locked and so you will never be able to run a non-Apple OS on it.

Re:Supply constrained??? BS

[Carewolf]

Apple is sitting on over $250 billion USD in cash:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02...

I'm sure Apple can spend whatever it takes to make as many iphones as they choose.

Well, when you have justly deserved reputation of screwing over sub-suppliers, I doubt many would be willing to just take Apple's word for it that they will buy 200 million components, when they also refuse to sign a contract to pay damages if they don't.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[unixisc]

My contract had expired some months back, so no, I didn't need to pay anything for leaving. Just started a new 2 year contract w/ a monthly payment on the phone.

I've never bothered about Galaxies: my Android phone is a Moto X. It does have a poor battery life, but is otherwise fine. Also have a Lumia 550, which is great value for money, if one ignores the store & apps diversity

batteries for everything!

[unixisc]

These fully electrical controls are a disaster. Recently, my car wouldn't start due to a battery issue, so I had to call roadside assistance. He had trouble jumpstarting it too, so he towed it to the nearest repair shop where they did have a charger capable of jumpstarting it. While my car was down, I could not remove my key from the ignition - after all, the battery was low! I couldn't open or lock the car doors using the remote, b'cos those were powered by the battery as well! The 2017 version of the car - a Subaru Crosstrek - is now totally keyless.

One thing that tow guy told me, while we were towing my car, was his torrid experience in fixing someone's Prius just the previous day: since the hood can't be popped mechanically (in my car, thankfully, it still can), it was a major headache for him to draw the connectors to the battery of that Prius. That's the thing w/ these all electronic cars: once the battery is down, they are hosed. He also told me that he & others in his profession refuse to handle Teslas, and that Tesla provides their own roadside service due to this issue. Nothing more glorious than having a single point of failure that makes it impossible to fix what's wrong w/ a car.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[iamacat]

Well, you did have to pay for leaving, it's just your payment is spread out over two years. iPhone 7 with minimum usable flash is $749. OnePlus 5 is $479 (nice troll hehe) and there are many choices under $200. So you are paying for longer free software upgrades with cash and/or by foregoing hardware upgrades for longer time.

Re:Android updates sold me on IOS

[unixisc]

No, you only have to pay for leaving if it's within the 2 year window. My payment is for the discounted amount that is spread out over 2 years. The phone has 128GB of storage, not 32GB. I don't need upgrades when the phone has everything I need