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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.
has been putting in quite of bit of overtime copying other companies.
What's the best dumb flip-phone these days?
Tin can and string.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It will never be bezel-less. Not that it can't be done technically, but because there will ALWAYS be a fucking case on it!!
It's called gravity and insurance. Deal
Life is not for the lazy.
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.
This post isn't called 'what phone should I buy?'
No one cares what phone you have.
Quoth the GP:
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!
You must be a CenturyLink customer.
Worse, a Sprint customer for 20+ years.
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...
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.
So you're not okay with it recognizing your face, which is probably in dozens of hundred of pictures already on the phone, but you're okay with it storing your fingerprints and using them for access?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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?
Err...I don't give it my fingerprint either.
Passcode still work just fine.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
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.
Apple already addressed the holding problem in iOS 11. Jobs may be dead, but that doesn't mean all the engineers and designers are drooling idiots. That's reserved for slashdot.
You had no idea that the company that built its fortune on tracking everything you do online was tracking you via a GPS receiver in your pocket? You have to be either the most naive or the most stupid person to grace the planet in the past 123423 millennia.
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.
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
No bezel means you have to have zero-fat fingers to hold it.
You are right but this is a UI problem, not a hardware problem;
It is totally possible to make the edges of the screen inactive. Call it a virtual bezel if you want.
Or better : make the edges active only if the action crosses the inner area. This way it will protect you from accidental input but you can use the edges for swipes and drag-and-drop.
I don't know how it would do in practice but when it comes to touch-based interaction, Apple is unmatched, so I am confident they will do it right. And I am not an Apple fan (I hate them), I don't own any Apple product, but when I pick one up, I'm always impressed by how good the touchpad/touchscreen feels.
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?
To each his/her own, but I've had great success with the Spigen Case Ultra Hybrid for my iPhone 6s. It provides very good protection while still riding out the far edges of the screen. I fail to see how it could get any better bezel-less without compromising protection.
Life is not for the lazy.
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
I recently bought an iPhone 6S, since I still use my headphone jack for all my headphones, and to plug into my car stereo. This may be my last iPhone if they don't stop this drive toward stupid design obsessions that leave out actual user needs and desires.
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.
Just curious what do you think someone will do with your fingerprint? If we assume worst case, somehow someone can get your fingerprint from your phone. Who is this person and what would they do with it that concerns you?
Well, I don't know...I could go all conspiracy theory and come up with some ideas about what government (state and federal) entities and private corps could do with them, but I think the best thing is to NOT give them the chance, and then....I don't have to worry about it, now do I?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Nope, not at all. I think most people just weigh the convenience against the remote possibility someone might get their fingerprints and then ... ? I don't even know what they'd do with them. Frame me for murder? I can't even fathom what they might do.
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
No need for a company, which would turn them over to govt if requested...hence, no need of the government to have this information if you've done nothing wrong.
I would posit, that the better question is...what would they need it for?
But anyway, I don't use that feature, and I"d not use facial recognition either....passcodes work just fine still.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hey, I recently bought a (refurbished) 6S as well!
But, for me, another part of the decision was along the lines of my thinking when I buy a car anymore... why spend so much on something that's going to lose 20-30 percent of it's value the moment you drive it off the lot, when a 2-3 year old car still has all the features you care about?
(I'm thinking about cars a lot lately - I'm probably gonna retire the Escort soon *sniff*)
#DeleteChrome
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!
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.
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.
I think facial recognition is already there. My photos library had a ton of pictures of me & my relatives, and the Photo app bunched all the similar ones together - those of me, my son, my sister, niece & so on - and prompted me to identify who is who. Really scary! The other thing both Microsoft and Apple do - create new albums whenever they feel like it.
But this will probably be my last iPhone as well. Unlike previous iDevices I have, I got this one w/ 128GB of storage, so I'm unlikely to run out in the next few years. I don't like some of the 'improvements' they are contemplating, such as getting rid of the home button. I do have 3 new Apple toys - the iPhone 7, an iPad Mini 4 (again w/ 128GB storage) and an iPod Nano (w/ 16GB storage). Not likely to replace them anytime soon.
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?
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.
You must be a blast at parties
Don't they 'just' store a hash that is generated on setup?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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
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.
Apple already addressed the holding problem in iOS 11. Jobs may be dead, but that doesn't mean all the engineers and designers are drooling idiots. That's reserved for slashdot.
Ya, but essentially, Jobs was the QA guy who had the power to tell the engineers and designers that something didn't ship till every little thing was fixed. I doubt their current QA manager has that power.
If that's all you wanted, why the fuck did you even look at a smart phones in the first place? Fucking majority of people don't buy what they need.
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.
But I can understand him. You? Make no sense.