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Apple's Next iPhone: Facial-Recognition, All-Screen Design (theguardian.com)
Apple may have just revealed the features you could expect in the next iPhone. Last week, the company released the firmware of the HomePod, a smart speaker which it will begin selling later this year. In the code, the company has accidentally spilled some features about at least one of the iPhone models. Developer Steve Troughton-Smith looked at the code to find that the next iPhone is going to feature facial recognition and a brand new "bezel-less" design. From a report: The near bezel-less design has long been expected, with leaks and rumours suggesting that Apple was following Samsung's design moves with the Galaxy S8 and producing a smartphone that resembles Android-creator Andy Rubin's upcoming Essential phone. Apple is not the first company to use IR-based face recognition as a means of unlocking devices and authenticating users. Microsoft's Windows Hello IR-based face recognition is found in its Surface line as well as Windows 10 computers from other manufacturers.
No bezel means you have to have zero-fat fingers to hold it.
Facial recognition means yet another big brother feature.
I'm out.
What's the best dumb flip-phone these days? I don't even want texting or a camera. Just a flip phone with good audio quality and a battery that lasts a week or more.
#DeleteFacebook
Facial recognition?! NO THANKS! The fingerprint nonsense was bad enough. But facial recognition?! No way! I think facial recognition software is CREEPY CREEPY CREEPY!
What's next? Genital recognition just to use my phone?!
has been putting in quite of bit of overtime copying other companies.
Those prefacing the iPhone 8's arrival with "X already done here, Y already done there" are once again missing the point.
People don't buy Apple products because they're the first to market with an insignificant number of less than excellently integrated features.
People buy Apple products because when it's implemented in an iPhone/Mac/other it's done _well_ and can be bought in the tens of millions.
The original iPod was mocked upon it's release for not having the "essential features" some geeks considered essential yet sold in the hundreds of millions.
Same with the iPhone.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I like iPhones (I know, unpopulat opinion on Slashdot). I bought an iPhone 7 specifically because I'm not going to buy a phone with facial recognition built in at the lowest levels. This will probably be my last iPhone.
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for a removable battery & a headphone socket
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
After Apple had the "courage" to remove the 3.5mm Jack last year, they will most probably remove the Fingerprint sensor this time it seems. Not only that, but they replaced it with an technology which existed for more than 4 years on Android. Another way to save 20$ on an >1000$ device. Nice!
The original iPod was mocked upon it's release for not having the "essential features" some geeks considered essential yet sold in the hundreds of millions.
Same with the iPhone.
Good for Apple and their shareholders back then.
I'm still glad I never bought and iPod or any other overpriced MP3 player on which I can't just drag and drop files and play them.
Indeed. Being the first is irrelevant. Being the first to do something well is what is hard and what counts.
I tend to agree.
For me the question is though: for how much longer?
You refer to the first iPhone. And rightfully so. It was a complete game changer. Even to the extend that some didn't even get it.
But most of us saw it for what it was: the future.
But now the iPhone seems to be locked in a feature race with other phone makers *cough*Samsung*cough*. A race it seems to be slowly losing. Until now the iPhone users have been very loyal though and are dutifully paying the premium prices (although the top of the line Samsung is not cheaper).
I guess I'm wondering how long the reputation of 'visionary product' will keep it afloat.
Interesting corrolaria: imagine that at a certain moment Apple finds out it cannot keep the prices of its top of the line iPhone model as high as today. What would it mean for the others? Would they still be able to keep their prices? Or would it just mean that the whole update cycle with people standing in line for the privilege of spending €1.000 is over for everyone?
Just some thoughts...
because when it's implemented in an iPhone/Mac/other it's done _well_
bahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Look I ahhahahahahahahh oh man I can't even hahahahhahahahahah respond to that hahahahhahahahaha.
+5 funny man. I can't wait to see what a bezel less screen done right looks like. hahahahaha. I guess it will fold space time on itself using it's reality distortion powers hahahah.
Oh man, I feel like buying tickets to your show.
Or anyone unlocking it against your will by simply holding it up in front of you. No need to force a finger print.
Steve Jobs died.... The iOS interface has become increasingly cluttered and clunky too. Unfortunately, there is no substitute for the demanding, exacting mind of Steve Jobs.
We we need is a better battery (to be recharged no more than once a week), a stable OS (that doesn't require rebooting one a week), and a better UI (that doesn't launch apps randomly when I put my phone in my pocket).
Are you saying that they're likely not to use some type of extra-visible patterning, like Windows Hello, which cannot be unlocked with a photo?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Can we get it thinner and with less battery life? Strike 3. You're out.
Seriously: what's wrong with them? Marketing will not be able to fix their mindless "more of the same" gamble eternally.
Think different. Or else.
I feel the same, but all that matters is that folks _believe_ it is done well.
Who cares what they add (well, mostly 'cause they don't really do that anymore), what we're all dying to hear is what plug gets removed this time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Anything is possible with enough mescaline.
(I have a theory about Apple's mescaline autoinjection patents.)
+5 funny man. I can't wait to see what a bezel less screen done right looks like.
Depends on the protective cover you put around it. If none, it looks like a margin-less book. Sort-of distracting even before you had the first fall.
Ahhahahahahhahaha.
Sure. You keep believing that.
Apple sells because it's a designer brand, no more, no less.
As someone who manages nearly 1000 iPad/iPhone devices, as well as a "normal" network of PC's and phones, let me tell you that Apple does almost nothing "well".
iCloud fell over in Februrary. You couldn't use any of the iPads, even if they weren't on iCloud, because the message had no "No to All" kind of button, and popped up every few seconds making them unusable for several days.
Just about every feature, gizmo or gadget is flawed on them. From the date-of-birth spinner on the initial account setup (Good luck! I usually end up having to do it for people), to the double/triple-negatives in the setup process (including moving the "Yes / Next / OK" line around at random and renaming it at each stage to trick people into enabling Siri, etc. to Siri itself, to the app store to the MDM solutions to the VPP. It's a mess from top to bottom.
I honestly pity someone non-technical who's told that Apple is so easy, intuitive, well-designed (design means USAGE as well as just PRETTINESS) and then picks one up in a shop and tries to set it up on their own.
From the packaging on the box (no finger-holes on iPads/iPhone boxes = vacuum = only way to open it is to tip upside-down = first thing that lands is a completely unprotected, unpackaged and laying-on-the-top iPad... it's only sheer chance on the first one and the "Oh, fuck" moment that took me to explicitly saving the rest of the several hundred I've opened from a stupid fate), to the design of the machines (iMacs with a power button that you can't feel, tucked around the back, out-of-reach, and easily-overlooked, plus that stupid "custom" power cable - I mean, sure that's the FIRST place I look for a power button, and of course I won't be groping blindly behind it trying to feel where the fucking thing is), to the software (where for years, "Hey Siri, call mom" automatically dialled her, put her on speakerphone and transmitted your voice to her - whoever said it in the work office, and where even just Hey Siri followed by one of DOZENS of commands would allow complete lock-screen bypasses).
They sell because they "are Apple". That's it. People have said you must have one, so you go out and buy one.
All these wonderful features I will never experience because Apple is fucked in the fucker
Will they solve the problem of circumventing this technology with a photo of the person? Will law enforcement officials unlock your phone by holding it up to your face? When will they add a self destruct button for my phone?
Actually it is being the first one that makes a shitload of money is what is hard and counts.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Or would it just mean that the whole update cycle with people standing in line for the privilege of spending â1.000 is over for everyone?
That's been over for me for some time. My current phone is a Samsung Galaxy S5. I don't see any real need to update it anytime soon. I can swap batteries, have a 128GB SD card in it and it does more than I need it to. I would probably still have my S3 if it hadn't started having issues.
I'm also glad you didn't. Apple fans are an annoying bunch at times, but you're just a shit-brained, useless fuck-up who no one wants to associate with. Apple customers would be contaminated if you were to join them.
There was no point in February when any, much less all, iDevices owned by myself, my friends, nor my company because unusable. When you make up shit just to bash a company, you show yourself to be a fucked-up pile of shit who doesn't have even a single redeeming quality. Beyond your value as fertilizer, of course.
Finger scrolling on a touchscreen --- Stolen from IBM, US Patent 6278443
Kinetic scrolling on a touchscreen -- Stolen from Philips
Magnetic connector -- Stolen from Japanese appliance manufacturer
Landscape/portrait mode change based on phone orientation -- Stolen from the touchscreen myOrigo phone made in Finland
Browser Task switcher look & feel -- Stolen from Nokia
Large touchscreen phone idea -- stolen from comments on slashdot 2005 and prior.
Fingerprint authentication on a smartphone - stolen from Motorola
That's not mentioning the wholesale lifting of the idea and technology of cell phones, smartphones, and apps from Motorola, Blackberry, and others.
Apple sees your teeny tiny titters and laughs and laughs and laughs on their way to selling to people who do indeed care about design in 10s of millions of devices. But of course, for you that's just a sign of how deluded _they_ must be given that _they_ do not agree with _you_.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I think its basically going to follow the PC pricing trajectory, but more slowly, as the phone makers control the entire form factor and user interface because its a contained product in a single package, so they can tweak any element of it endlessly and string out the perception of difference longer.
But long term, I think phones are already hitting the point of maximum useful utility and that the past couple of years has been nothing more than nibbling at the margins to create the perception of change. Most people are judging their phones based on responsiveness to UI changes (app switches, etc) or other performance metrics and don't believe that it's slowed enough to warrant a change.
Phone makers may have even been kind of undermined by the adoption of LTE in some ways, as LTE is fast enough to make even bloated pages load reasonably well, making device performance step increases seem less worthwhile. Now that network performance has plateaued (until the widespread adoption of 5G), phone makers aren't able to claim network improvements as device performance improvements where they had overlapped in the past -- your new iPhone N+1 may have seemed faster less because of CPU improvement and more because it had a better radio capable of using the carrier's network better (channels, speed, whatever).
How long they can go from success to success is indeed Apple's biggest challenge and nobody knows how long it can continue. Yet their % of repeat customers is still by far the highest in the industry (absent some irrelevant niche players) & it isn't because they're a "visionary product" but because people prefer how they work/how they're supported.
I've got both an iPhone & an Android phone & justify the iPhone through it's better integrated design & security features & longer lasting lifetime due to better support. Others, among them previous iPhone owners do not share my judgement. Time will tell.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Can't wait until we see governments unlocking phones with a photograph of you, now, if this turns out to be true.
Can't wait until someone starts a collection of faces, removed from the fronts of the skulls of former iphone owners. Sure, he could remove the entire head, but a face folds up neatly to fit in your pocket.
And you thought removing fingers was bad?
Brilliant. To solve the non-problem of having a small bezel-case they will bring the glass screen to the very edge of the device to ensure that when you do drop it, even a short distance, it will shatter the screen.
Why is it that Apple execs think that the ultimate ideal form for every device is to be wafer-thin and all glass, sacrificing every other design consideration for that single obsession?
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
There is, but it's not Tim Cook. The substitute, IMHO, should have been Scott Forstall but he was fired from the company. Just watch him in past Keynote videos.
Now we have an industrial designer in charge of software interfaces. And we have the mess we have today: buttons with no outlines, pastel colours, folder tags only visible by people with 20/20 vision, thin fonts which are hard to read on retina displays and an unreadable blurry mess on regular displays, the list goes on...
#DeleteFacebook
From the amount of phones they sell and the profits they make, I would say there is nothing wrong with them.
And marketing HAS been able to fix it. Several times already. That is why companies spend more on marketing than they do on R&D. Because it works.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
We manage over 2,000 devices (about 98% iphone, 2% iPad) and we have none of the problems you describe. I'd recommend looking into DEP which might help with some of your deployment problems. And I don't know what you mean about opening it, you just lift the lid off the box? I certainly won't argue that Apple devices are perfect but if these are the worst problems you can come up with then they're certainly miles ahead of anyone else.
They're pointing out that it's been done before because when Apple did do something first and other companies followed up with the same or similar features on their products, the chorus of Apple fans declared that they were copying Apple, that they were followers not innovators, and that they should be sued to stop them from copying. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that when other companies do it it's copying, but when Apple does it it's properly implementing a feature.
The argument by most anti-Apple people has been that the industry thrives on lifting features that competitors introduce, and improving on them. That is how progress is made. Apple tried to halt progress by suing anyone who introduced anything remotely similar to the iPhone, which is what earned them the hatred of a large segment of slashdot. Reading/listening to Steve Jobs' talks on the matter, it's pretty clear that just because he happened to introduce the first successful touchscreen-only smartphone (not the first), he felt that the entire market should belong to him alone, and that anyone else who introduced something similar (when his wasn't even the first) should be sued. That attitude trickled down to the legion of Apple fans. It's been incredibly frustrating arguing against them, trying to point out that the well being of society via technological progress outweighs the well being of a single company.
Anyway, we're glad you're now on board, and believe that it's OK for companies to copy each other's ideas if they improve on them (or change them in ways that they hope will be an improvement). Please help us out and tell the remaining Apple fans to shut up next time they start talking about companies copying Apple.
P.S. The iPod became the best-selling MP3 player because Apple nailed how to sync your music collection between your computer and the MP3 player. If you ever owned one of the earlier MP3 players, this process was a nightmare. Even copying your music folder from your computer straight to the MP3 player's storage wouldn't work because the MP3 player would re-organize your music according to some internal algorithm which seemed to ignore folders and existing playlists. And don't even get me started on players like Sony's which insisted on re-encoding your music into some proprietary format after doing an ownership check (to enforce copyright) before it would allow you to copy it to the MP3 player. "It just works" for managing playlists was exactly what MP3 players needed. You'll note that the "No wireless, less space than a Nomad" issues were addressed in later iPods, indicating that those were legitimate criticisms.
Drag and drop files? You're still managing your music as files? Ever heard of metadata and playlists? You don't know what you're missing.
#DeleteFacebook
Ever heard of metadata and playlists?
Been there, done that. It's a terrible experience compared to simply playing files in directories.
Clearly deficiencies in his network's connectivity to iCloud is SOOO Apple's fault! And didn't you know that iPads must always be online and talking to iCloud in order to operate? After all, when you put them in airplane mode, they just spam errors at you until you reboot it - you can't even take it out of airplane mode because of all the errors!
Clearly the solution is to add a button to blindly dismiss any and all dialog boxes that have popped up, are popping up, or will ever pop up. And they need to put holes in the box because he can't figure out how to open it otherwise! Never mind that literally hundreds of millions of other people have...
You are clearly misinformed if you think not being able to drag and drop files is a requirement to be able to support playlists.
In the quest to make it thinner and lighter, they will pioneer anti-gravity and artificial singularities in the forms of a zero mass object with negative thickness.
It's so thin and light that it actually makes you thinner and lighter!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
I really wish I could! Yesterday, I was transfering music b/w iTunes on my PC, and my iPod nano. It was a pain: maybe it's easier on a mac. But when I wanted to delete certain songs from the iPod, I couldn't: I had to 'delete' it from my laptop, and then sync the iPod to the laptop w/o transfering the songs I wanted to delete, and only in that convoluted way did it work. Say what you will about Windows, but when I want to transfer songs from my laptop to my Lumia, all I have to do is drag and drop files from my music folder to the SD card, and that's it!
For a platform whose central theme is ease of use, iTunes is horribly convoluted. Particularly when editing the contents of the about-to-be-killed iPod shuffle and nano, which can't get music into them any other way!
If you do it well, you'll make a shitload money.
"I honestly pity someone non-technical who's told that Apple is so easy, intuitive, well-designed (design means USAGE as well as just PRETTINESS) and then picks one up in a shop and tries to set it up on their own."
And yet, hundreds of millions of people do this every year.
It takes a powerful level of willfull self-ignorance to believe Apple is just a "designer" brand.
Apple is far from the only "Mp3 media player company" that required some sort of music manager to update the library. It used to drive me nuts too, because I just wanted to drag and drop my MP3s and go.
But, judging from all of the cars that I've driven that support USB memory sticks or SD card media, I grudgingly must admit they were probably right in requiring that a database be kept up to date by an update tool rather than by the player itself. I've yet to see even a modern car "flat file" MP3 player that doesn't suck in some way or another, be it poor playlist management, folder file limits, slow startup times as it scans for changes, slow searching, missing support of gapless audio, etc.
Then, when people ask how to get their large library to work well, the answer is almost always to connect an iPod to the USB port. As clunky and quirky as iTunes is, it has had years and years of experience dealing with the storage of a digital music library. There's usually a way to do almost anything you can think of, even changing the EQ of specific songs. It has a script interface that you can use for automation. I use it to pull in a long audio source and break it up into gapless chunks, and add to a playlist with a specific order that I can skip through.
The thing is Apple doesn't necessarily do it better. I've had more crashes and bugs on an old iPhone 4S than on a cheap Android phone (obviously later iOS versions may have fixed this). The old iOS lacked swipe-to-text. It was also a pain in the butt to figure out how to delete apps (not in a menu where it should logically be, surprisingly).
The only thing iOS does better than anyone else is App Store and iTunes integration. They have a captive and integrated market to sell things.
The first TARDIS was supposed to be the thinnest phone ever before the manufacturing process went horribly right.
Yeah, I hate being able to search on multiple data points not named "filename"
You're an idiot.
metadata in playlists implies "smart" playlists, i.e. SQL style.
I can make a playlist of all 1980's pop songs not including Weird Al Yankovic without touching any file.
#DeleteFacebook
Simply switch iTunes/your iPod to "manage songs and playlists manually". Then you can pick the songs, playlists and smart playlists that you want synced one by one.
#DeleteFacebook
I bought my removable battery from Anker, and I take it (and its short tethering cable) along with me on my 1% of excursions that aren't near an electrical outlet. My removable battery is so clever that it can also charge my watch, tablet, and my buddy's Android. It also has the amazing design characteristic of adding zero additional hardware to my phone in the 99% of trips when I don't want or need it. How cool is that!
I'm meh on the headphone socket. Yeah, it was nice. But yeah, I prefer Bluetooth audio so that my headphone wires don't get snagged on the bus I'm trying to deboard. There's also the significant headphone jack problem that there's absolutely zero standardization for circuits more complicated than left audio / right audio. Every company that supports extra stuff like mics or volume buttons has come up with their own way of doing things. In the PC world, this manifests in my gaming rig's headphone + mic not working with our Xbox. Yay standards! At least Bluetooth has this stuff written into the core protocol instead of everyone going a different path, so we have at least some chance of Company A's widget being compatible with Company B's.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Sounds like a "let's make it crap for the masses for the special case where a DB is useful".
How about letting the users choose whether they want to use iTunes to manage their library or not?
My car plays MP3 on USB just fine. No, I don't have thousands of files on it. But I wouldn't want to have to click "next" thousands of times either.
Then, when people ask how to get their large library to work well, the answer is almost always to connect an iPod to the USB port
If you do that, chances are it won't play since the host needs to speak Apple's proprietary protocol. And no, the solution isn't for all the world to bend over and support Apple's (and all of Apple's competitors) proprietary protocol(s).
Apple is far from the only "Mp3 media player company" that required some sort of music manager to update the library
Probably, but if you picked a random MP3 player, chances are it didn't required a music manager unless it's an iPod.
Literally millions of people manage to unbox, set up, and use iOS devices every month. Don't you have to wonder what it is that these millions of people figure out without any problem whatsoever that still eludes you?
Custom power cable? It's a regular power cable with a plastic trim ring on it. The horror! Any standard 3-conductor AC power cable from any PC power supply that shipped in the last 15+ years will fit and work, as long as it isn't actually some proprietary horseshit. What an inconvenience, putting that completely unrequired trim ring on there and allowing any old cord you've got laying around to work!!
You're literally complaining about a well-fitting box, a well-fitting power cable, a power button you rarely even have to think about if you keep the default power management settings, and likely problems of your own creation by not using a properly configured Mobile Device Management solution with 1,000+ devices.
If these are the biggest problems with the products (again, a problem you likely caused through misconfiguration, a non-problem that only occurs for you in the first 5 seconds of multi-year ownership, and a non-problem with a plastic trim ring that isn't required) then I would count that as confirmation that the products are better designed than some of the competition.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
still, I don't see why your MP3 player must refuse to play a file drag and dropped to its file system to support that feature.
Do you suck your mother's dick with that mouth?
I did. Didn't get those options. Whole exercise was a pain. Might have been different due to the file systems and had I owned a Mac, don't know
Metadata is embedded in the files, it's called ID3 you idiot and was a standard for audio files long before the first iPod. Of course audio players were free to index that data for quicker display and search, which is exactly what decent devices did, apparently that was too difficult for Apple.
As for playlists, M3U was the defacto standard thanks to Winamp. M3U is... a FILE TYPE you idiot! Nearly all portable digital audio players supported them too... except Apple.
Note how iTunes supports both these things.
Apple is living proof that that is simply not true.
I'm just going to go out on a limb here, but maybe, just MAYBE, the smartest engineers at the wealthiest company in the world know more about this than you do.
Nearly 63 million people voted for Donald Trump.
Apple just made it simple about what and if I'll bother with another phone in the future.
Certainly won't be an Apple product with face scanning tech.
Before some /. type says something stupid about how my current phone probably does it already, I will just say: It tries.
Back camera is blocked with a piece of velcro I can remove when I need to use the camera. Front one is perma-blocked with a piece of electrical tape.
I don't use a fingerprint to unlock it.
Speakerphone isn't worth a shit so unless I'm yelling at the phone from three inches away, it isn't going to pick up anything either.
Guess I'll just go with a plain old flip phone next go round.
Those prefacing the iPhone 8's arrival with "X already done here, Y already done there" are once again missing the point.
People don't buy Apple products because they're the first to market with an insignificant number of less than excellently integrated features.
Those who think people are buying the Iphone because it has excellently integrated features couldn't have missed the point further if they were facing in the completely wrong direction and the point was in another country altogether.
In 2012, it was revealed that 4 out of every 5 Iphone purchases was made by someone who previously owned an Iphone. I'm willing to bet that statistic would now be closer to 19 out of every 20.
People are buying the iphone because they are emotionally attached, financially invested or technologically locked into buying another Iphone. In fact Apple has been losing marketshare in it's original markets because people are finally realising that the myth of Apple's "quality" and "Integration" is just that, a myth.
I have an Android phone and a Windows phone for work. Honestly the Windows phone is miles ahead of the interfact and application integration of the Iphone, Windows phone is the most integrated, but that has the downside of being the least useful for anything MS hasn't designed it for (it makes phone calls and integrates with Office, so it's fine as a work phone but I'd never buy one personally). The Iphone for me has been the most frustrating device I've ever had to use, just typing on it frustrates me to throwing it because the keyboard is so counter intuitive (I dont have this issue with the Windows Phone, so it isn't Android fanboyism).
However you've admitted one thing, if you want to know what the Iphone might get in 18-24 months, look at what Android is offering now.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oh you hit the nail on the head while completely missing the point.
Apple sells designs.
They do not sell quality / perfectly working / latest technology. Just designs.
They used to do a lot of those others, but those days disappeared when someone prominent thought that herbal tea was better than getting their cancer treated.
Meta data and play lists are not actual music files. Wtf are you talking about? Go away. Let the adults speak.
He's a fucking moron. He doesn't know a play list is just a list of files to play, they are not actual music files.
They sell an experience, one that you, your grandma and Dog all need. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread... To me, the whole turning point was the Mac vs PC commercials that made them cool to buy. I know of no one with an iPhone that buys it for features, they buy it because their friends have it, or someone told them to buy it. They have the best marketing. Full stop.