Musing on Apple September 2013

[holymadness]

Here's a neat video of the fingerprint scanner in action. Seems pretty quick.

[holymadness]

Steel is heavy:

iPhone 5S: 112g (3.95 oz)
iPhone 5C: 132g (4.65 oz)

[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Haha, wow the iPhone 5C cases are even uglier than I first thought. And look at this:



"non"

Terrible design, just terrible.

When you're holding it in your hands, it won't really matter.

[NickyWithNook]

I got the info I wanted. No new iPad at this time, so I got an iPad 3. I'm surprised how much faster it is than the iPad 2.

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

I got the info I wanted. No new iPad at this time, so I got an iPad 3. I'm surprised how much faster it is than the iPad 2.

New iPads will probably be released in October, but they might be incremental releases too. I love my iPad 3.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

When you're holding it in your hands, it won't really matter.

This isn't an excuse. First, because a case should look good in all situations, not just some. In your dock, on your stereo, lying on your desk, in your hand, when your friend picks it up and examines it. Secondly, the back of the case is meant to be seen; its very design is intended to show off the holes so you can see the colour underneath. But then you notice the writing underneath, chopped up and illegible and looking like a horrible printing error, and you realize that either no one considered how bad this looked (sloppiness) or they did but didn't care (shoddiness).

Bad design.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Steel is heavy:

iPhone 5S: 112g (3.95 oz)
iPhone 5C: 132g (4.65 oz)

They should've left the 5C in its original aluminum case; which was thinner and lighter.

[kyteflyer]

Originally Posted by holymadness

This is silly, and of course your current phone won't support iOS 8, which will only be an incremental upgrade anyway.

I'm getting annoyed by this nickel-and-diming. UK and EU customers are also getting the shaft on price. On top of that, the cost of replacement devices from AppleCare+ has gone up from $49 to $79.

And I am getting annoyed at people misinterpreting what I say. I did not say nobody else had bad pricing. I said Australia's pricing sucks. I also did not imagine for one moment that I would be upgrading the OS on my current phone. I did imagine I would upgrade to a newer phone.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Secondly, the back of the case is meant to be seen; its very design is intended to show off the holes so you can see the colour underneath.

I'm wondering if the holes are to allow the phone to cool?

Graham

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by kyteflyer

And I am getting annoyed at people misinterpreting what I say. I did not say nobody else had bad pricing. I said Australia's pricing sucks.

And I was agreeing. I never insinuated what you seem to believe; on the contrary, I was confirming your opinion.

I also did not imagine for one moment that I would be upgrading the OS on my current phone. I did imagine I would upgrade to a newer phone.

Being clearer on this point would have avoided any misinterpretation. And in any case, I cannot imagine for one moment why you would not upgrade the OS on your current phone.

[robertc88]

Not surprising the stock has taken a hit. We will see what the new IPads bring to the table.

[WT Sharpe]

I like the new iPhone 5S. That fingerprint technology in neat. Plus, I understand it's endorsed by the NSA.

Okay, I won't go there, but I wish the 5S phones weren't so expensive. A 64 MB Gold iPhone 5S would be sweet to own, but it's out of my price range, and I have a sneaking feeling that the OS used for the other phones is doomed to have a short shelf life; unlike the iOS 7 that the 5S phones use which I think will be around for a bit longer.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

ilovejedd, some of the MVNO's (mobile virtual network operators) have exactly the coverage you require. I switched from AT&T to Straight Talk. They use AT&T's network. Whatever USA-wide coverage (voice and 3G data) I got with AT&T I still have with ST. There are some claims that my signal is a 'second class citizen' on the AT&T cell towers but my experience is no degradation of service quality after I switched and I've traveled cross-country several times since I switched.

Why did I switch? For the past year or so, I've paid just $43 and change every month (pre-paying one month at a time, auto-pay gives a small discount to the $45 rate). I have no contract and get unlimited calls, texting, and 3G data. There are reports of throttling and warnings at high data consumption but for my 1 GB-or-less monthly consumption rate I had no issues at all.

AT&T (or Verizon) wants something around $80 a month for a worse plan. That is just non-competitive, even if I have to pay full retail for my next iPhone. Now it is also true that AT&T could shut off the entire ST virtual network some day. I'll have to make a switch if that happens. AT&T's customer service is also much easier with AT&T having a solid retail presence in my area, not that I've needed it.

Anyway, don't feel locked into your cellular service provider just because of coverage.

I've looked into MVNO's and they end up being more expensive for me than a family plan from AT&T (4 phones). Not to mention they specifically state no tethering in their terms of service. I personally use at least 5GB of data a month tethering my laptops (no wifi). Even my mom uses tethering so she can check her email and Facebook account on her wifi-only iPad. While I know there are workarounds, I'd rather not have to resort to them.

I really like T-Mobile's BYOD plans. I think it's the way AT&T and Verizon should have gone instead of the new, ridiculous fast track plans which end up costing much more than traditional plans with subsidy. If they just decouple phone cost from the service cost, then they wouldn't need to pay high subsidies and customers can upgrade their phones whenever they like (budget permitting, of course). If only T-Mobile had signal in my area, I'd switch to them.

[holymadness]

Thoughts.

Tech pundits were shown up yesterday. For months, every single analyst, blogger, and newspaper had been predicting a low-cost iPhone that would allow Apple to compete with mid-tier Android handsets and make inroads into developing countries. That didn't happen. Apple's pricing strategy is totally unchanged from previous years and the company, more than ever, seems uninterested in sacrificing margins to obtain market share. Once people figure this out (some, still calling the 5C the "cheap" iPhone, have been slow to comprehend what happened), the share price is going to suffer.

That being the case, why replace the 5 with the 5C at all? For one, there's a huge marketing element in play. Apple is betting that the 5C will increase the attractiveness of the iPhone lineup in two ways: first, that the colours will have immense mass market appeal in the same way the translucent iMacs did. Second, that people will be more willing to buy a product marketed as "new but affordable" than one labeled "last year's model." This, incidentally, may backfire if Apple stops extending OS updates to the 5C within the same time frame as it has stopped supporting older handsets. Next, Apple is splitting the iPhone product line the same way they've split every other product line they have. MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. iMac and Mac Pro. iPad nano and iPod. Now we have the 5S (pro version) and 5C (mainstream version). They expect this distinction to make it easier to sell the phone, as well. Finally, utterly contrary to the rumours, this move may be intended to boost Apple's profit margins by reducing the manufacturing costs of the 5C relative to the 5 while selling it for the same price.

The iPhone 5S was interesting. Apple seems very serious about steadily improving the camera and while smartphone optics are still inferior to dedicated devices, the software side is advancing rapidly. It's clear that Apple is aiming to take over the point-and-shoot market. They imagine in a world in which serious photographers use DSLRs and micro 4/3rds, while everyone else uses an iPhone. This isn't that far-fetched, even today.

Next, the M7 processor. The big news here is that it tracks fitness metrics with much less impact on battery life. Seems like the kind of chip that would be useful to put in another kind of product, should Apple go down that road.

The fingerprint sensor has a lot of potential, but it rests mainly on its integration with services. As a means of unlocking your phone and authorizing iTunes purchases, it's neat, but not yet groundbreaking. Worth keeping an eye on to see how it evolves.

I'm thinking Jony Ive spent way too much time on iOS 7 and not enough on the iPhones. The 5S in particular looks like a project that was thrown together at the very last minute. It's not as bad as the "look it now comes in white" crap they pulled a few years ago, but close.

As far as the 64-bit processor, I can't help but think it will be a long time before developers take advantage of it. I've been running 64-bit computers (PC and Mac) for at least 5 years and some of my apps are just now being released in 64-bit versions and many are still in 32-bit versions only.

The fingerprint thing is old school. My Motorola Atrix 4G had it 3 years ago. It seldom worked though, so perhaps Apple has done better at implementing it.