Whoa, what's with the huge bezel? My only Mini is a 1st-gen, but that has a tiny bezel on either side, with somewhat larger ones top-and-bottom, and I really like the resulting overall size & proportions. Did the top and bottom bezels shrink a ton so it just looks like the whole thing's bigger all around because they all match now, or did they widen the sides? Looking at the dimensions on WP it looks like the height is what got bigger, with the width staying the same, which is confusing—did they change the screen proportions, too? I thought the old size & look was just about perfect, like a trade paperback.
Sure, but they don't do that with their phones, and like hell I'm carrying this thing around without a case (which is also why they don't bother to make their iPhones so they're easy to use caseless, or make them so the backs are flat without a case—everyone uses a case unless they're trying to signal "I'm rich enough that if I drop this and the screen shatters I'll just shrug and buy another immediately, and if it happens again next week, same story"). That was a problem with my Mini when I first took it out of the box, but it was in a case soon after and that stopped being a problem—and I would buy this as an explanation, if they hadn't kept the original design for the first 3 generations, and if they seemed to care about that for other devices—my 4th gen iPad Pro's like that, too, so it's hard to use in-hand without a case because the bezel's tiny—but of course I'm going to have a case on it, so it hardly matters.
[EDIT] in fact, with a case, this thing's gonna look downright fat. Maybe they just couldn't fit as much battery as they needed for these newer chips & screens, in the old size?
A phone fits easily in the palm of one hand whereas a tablet usually requires a stronger grip since it’s much larger than a phone. Just take a look at their product page and you’ll see a model holding the iPad mini with one hand and their thumb already touches part of the screen. If the bezels were thinner it would cause more erroneous inputs. So why engineer thinner bezels when it’s not practical to have them in such a device.
Yes, but they don't do that on other models of iPad, not just the phone, and again, most people put these things straight in cases, so they've usually (and correctly, despite complaints on Web forums) designed their devices so they won't be too bulky once a case is added, past the early generations when they kinda needed the bezel for space reasons (though, again, even the now-ancient first-gen mini barely had side bezels)
The side bezels on the previous gen were too small IMHO. I ended up putting mine in a case that added a grip on the left hand side. While the device has decent palm rejection, it's never perfect and I find it disconcerting when the only way to hold it from an edge is to cover a portion of the screen. I think it makes sense to make the side bezels slightly larger, though I agree that the proportions of the device are slightly less appealing as a result.
Yes, the screen aspect ratio changed from 2048 x 1536 (4:3) to 2266 x 1488 (roughly 3:2), same DPI. The outer width on the short side has remained exactly the same (134.8 mm). So they traded off 48 pixels for the wider bezel along the long side, while reducing the bezel (and adding 218 pixels) along the short side. The outer long side is reduced by 7.8 mm.
I'd love to have 2cm extra bezel on one side so as it hold it better. Cover it with grippy texture (similar to Thinkpads) on the flange, thinner than the rest of the device (step-down from the edge of the display) and that would be a great device ergonomically. The grip flange can be thin and strong, may be 2mm think.
I wouldn't be opposed to iDevices being usable without cases, but they'd need to make them a hell of a lot tougher, then. If we've got to have a case anyway because the devices are too fragile, I prefer the strategy they usually use of minimizing device size and relying on the case to provide the in-hand ergonomics (texture, bulk, bezels, handles, integrated stands, those bump-out grip thingies—you choose which of those you want when you buy the case)
I would agree about the new bezel —- it’s hard to tell if it’s just my eyes and the perspective in this image, but it really looks like there’s a new bezel that’s 2/3 the size of the old top/bottom bezel, and at least twice as thick as the old size bezel. Maybe 3 times the size.
I will say, having USB C on my iPad is very nice. Now if only they would do it for the iPhone. After the CSAM stuff hit I switched back to Android and it's so nice to only need one cable for everything.
Sometimes the alternative isn't much better, so instead of trying to punish myself and get a pixel, degoogle everything, etc. I voted with my wallet. Do I just keep my iPhone and let them get away with the CSAM on device scanning? I chose not to, even if the privacy is worse on android. Some may think that's ass backwards, but it was a solution for my beliefs.
Nah, Android 12 makes opting out of data collection for ads pretty straightforward. I'll take server scans instead of device scans any day of the week.
Same way it would get onto Apple’s servers: the customer chooses to upload it.
The difference is that with on-device screening, Apple wouldn’t have to take delivery of CSAM to detect it, and it doesn’t have to scan anything that’s not destined to be uploaded.
Did you read the comment I replied to? And read the second part of my comment? Not sure what your commment has to do with anything.
It's all good though, I'm still using an iPhone. But might switch, especially with so many people in HN comments telling me that Android would scan all my data and send it to Google without being able to substantiate that claim.
Presumably you're using Android with the Google frameworks installed, so it's sending all kinds of telemetry, usage, and location data to Google. You can confirm this with something like Charles proxy.
Or you may be one of the rare breed of people who can use a "de-Googled" Android distribution, such as CalyxOS, for over a month before giving up.
I'm on GrapheneOS since last December. Yes it's tough, but before that I had come to resent my phone and wondering what it was doing in the background.
What didn't you like? Been using LineageOS on an old OnePlus I had and I'm enjoying it the last few months. Especially knowing it's not doing anything weird without my approval.
It just required too much finicking with. With an iPhone, it's been a phone/camera and I don't need to spend any time messing with it.
I ran (and contributed to!) LineageOS^WCyanogenmod for years and years. It was great.
I can see myself returning to LineageOS (or similar), as iOS is getting quite buggy and I am put off by the wealth of gestures. It seems like whenever I use the iPhone, I accidentally swipe into some other screen. It's like slipping on banana peels.
Let’s wait until Apple actual starts device scanning before condemning them for it? Apple were up front with their plans and after hearing the public outcry they canceled their rollout. Other companies would have just rolled out the change without disclosure and called it a day.
Lets be crystal clear, Apple cancelled nothing. They only postponed. And every time they were challenged they double and tripled downed that we the customers were just confused. They are moving forward with this.
Ok, let’s use your terminology and say they are postponing the rollout. You speak as though they’ve already rolled it out. It could also be an indefinite postponement. Yet you insist on painting the narrative as if it already occurred. Guilty until proven innocent.
I’ll be right there next to you protesting my right to privacy if they do rollout the feature against our wishes, but until then I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Also you mention every time Apple is challenged they contend that customers were confused what instances are you referring to?
I mean I could go on but benefit of the doubt is gone after seeing Craig defend them so adamantly.
Why would Apple go to all this trouble, get some push back, and just throw their hands up and say you're right, we're not going to search for CSAM, sorry!
All the articles that you linked came prior to when Apple officially postponed the rollout. Doesn’t Apple have the right to explain and defend their position? Even though they tried defending their view adamantly they still ultimately didn’t go through with it. So why should I doubt their intentions?
IMO, I believe Apple was trying to offload CSAM scanning to devices to save some server-side processing costs. It was an example of Apple being stingy and penny pinching instead of anything nefarious.
That's an awfully generous viewpoint to take. One might imagine that the world's largest, highest valued company would find a more elegant solution than turning my phone into a portion of their botnet.
Apple already did roll out changes like this, without disclosure. They've been scanning your Emails like this without your knowledge for years, if it makes you feel any better.
On top of that, people aren't mad about cloud scanning: that's obviously nothing new. Wasting my CPU resources to do it though? It just further perpetuates this feeling that I don't actually own any of my Apple devices, but rather renting them from a company that seeks collection at every corner. As a developer, I was already appalled. Now that they're starting to cut corners at the expense of the consumer, it's only a matter of time before the veneer chips away and we all realize that Apple is Yet Another Big Tech Company Trying To Be Different (YABTCTTBD).
Re: scanning email, I did not see any articles that specifically said that Apple was scanning mail on-device. Can you point me to an article that states this fact clearly? As you say, scanning on the cloud isn’t really an issue since everyone is doing that anyways.
But as a developer you should know email is inherently not a secure method of communication thus you should not expect any privacy when using it. Email is analogous to sending a postcard through the mail system.
> But if I had to choose between Google and Apple for my privacy I would go with Apple (without much illusions).
See - I'm right there with you about not having much dog in this fight (I don't buy Apple hardware, and I mostly left google about 3 years ago) but I come out on the other side of the coin.
I'd much rather own a device made by folks I know I can't trust. Google is worse, but mostly honest about being worse.
Apple is a snake in the grass, though. I don't know what the fuck they're trying to do, but they sure have a good marketing team. To me, that's unpredictable and scary, even if the current state of their ecosystem is marginally more private.
I can sort of understand your poisiton if I squint hard enough... but what you're saying is that if apple came out as fully Anti-privacy and invasive like Google then you would be more okay with them than you are now.
Apple is way more pro lock-in and pro control than Google is, and that problem is unfixable. Google harvesting data if you don't fiddle with settings or install different android versions isn't a problem for technical users which I assume we are talking about here. Pretty much everything evil Google does is well documented and fixable, except data harvested from website visits but you'd have that issue with iphones as well. So then why would Apple devices be better? I see no reason at all to go with them except if you prefer living under a tech monopoly.
I mean - think of it like a coworker who doesn't like you.
It's much easier to work with someone (in my opinion) if you both agree you don't get along well and plan accordingly.
Having a co-worker that's sunshine and rainbows to your face, but scanning your phone for CSAM behind your back while talking shit about you to your manager is a lot harder.
it is easier to mitigate a technical problem that is up-front and already confrontational, than one which actively tries to mask the problem even exists by using language other than code
> Google is certainly less trustworthy than Apple if we're speaking about scanning your files
How so? Are Google scanning the local files on all Android devices? They might be collecting all sorts of data on what's the phone used for and by whom, but scanning files? Since when?
Their still having two connectors is even more annoying than I thought it would be. We have lots of iDevices from several generations and even brand new ones—but only some of them, though, significantly, all the iPhones—are still shipping with lightning, years after they should have gone to USB-C. Given how long we're able to keep these things around and in use, that means we'll be dealing with stupid lightning cables and two different kinds of dongle through at least 2026, even if they switch all their new devices to USB-C today. That, in addition to the irritation & expense of USB-C itself.
Well, the first one was a mis-designed piece of crap, so I don't mind that as much, though keeping it in use on some newer models after v2 was released does suck.
(source for assertion about them being crap: I own one—the bad part's entirely the terrible charging/connector design, but that part's nearly parody-levels of bad)
The pencil was intimately tied to the generation of iPad. The iPad had to have specific support for connecting to the corresponding generation of pencil. They could only enable the new pencil as they redesigned the iPads. They are now going through their iPad line and updating the designs which allows them to switch to the new pencil.
Yeah, I get the technical reason that as Pro chips shifted down-market to other iPads they couldn't add support for the new-model Pencil without significant (and unjustifiably expensive) changes, it's just unfortunate.
They had a similar, valid excuse for using Lightning connectors on lower-end phones and iPads for a while, but that time would now be long past if they'd introduced them when they should have, yet even the last round of top-end iPhones still had the damn things. I'm at the point where nearly the only things I can't charge with one laptop USB-C charger, and use with a single set of USB-C dongles, are old iPads (understandable) and new iPhones (which is the real WTF). Current-gen game controllers, the Nintendo Switch itself, my (non-Apple) wireless headphones, my (non-Apple) mechanical wireless keyboard, MacBook Air, 4th-gen iPad Pro, all USB-C for power. My 12-series iPhone I hope to use for at least three more years, and maybe as many as five, barring some must-have tech breakthroughs or my damaging it badly? Goddamn lightning connector.
Especially weird (though understandable) because it's basically "Doesn't scan your device and send the information to a corporation and the government" when Android basically does that everywhere, all the time.
But Android does it for profit, Apple does it "for the children."
Would you be down to write a blog post about how a "degoogled phone" still scans your data and sends it to Google? Let's say a Pixel 5 with CalyxOS? I didn't know thats the case.
Tbh, I'd even love to see a current blog post on how much and what data a "semi-degoogled" random OEM phone with the shipped Android sends.
Or maybe there is one that I don't know of, would love to see it.
It just seems really weird to assume that switching to Android involves switching to Google services. There were weeks of threads with people discussing which version of Android (Calyx vs graphene, etc) they were going to switch to.
We invest heavily in fighting child sexual exploitation online and use technology to deter, detect, and remove CSAM from our platforms. This includes automated detection and human review, in addition to relying on reports submitted by our users and third parties such as NGOs, to detect, remove, and report CSAM on our platforms. We deploy hash matching, including YouTube’s CSAI Match, to detect known CSAM. We also deploy machine learning classifiers to discover never-before-seen CSAM, which is then confirmed by our specialist review teams. Using our classifiers, Google created the Content Safety API, which we provide to others to help them prioritize abuse content for human review.
Maybe you're just trying to catch them on wording, but if you're actually wanting them to make it completely bezel-less... I don't think you actually do
It's hard enough to grip the previous iPad minis from the side, an entirely bezel-less tablet would have nowhere to hold it without touching the screen
>> Removing the home button is not the same as making an all-screen design.
Well, when the half inch bezel will be removed it will feature an "infinite all screen with really no bezel". Lately Apple has been pushing quite a lot of BS in marketing. I'm not sure if it's always been like that or I just started to "wake up". I remember when they announced the Apple TV 4K they made it sound like it's the first 4K device in the world while they were actually pretty late in the game. Now all I wait(hw-wise) is an iPhone with usb-c and, no glass back and better camera.
Is there a good reason that Touch ID can only be on the iPad Mini and must be replaced by Face ID on the iPad Pro? Face ID works terribly for students that use their iPad Pro face-up on a desk or table where the camera isn't directly pointed at the user's face.
It would be much easier to just place my finger onto the power button whenever it's time to transition from listening to a lecture to writing notes.
I have an iPad Pro and would not like to give up FaceID for TouchID. FaceID is much more convenient and reliable. I can see your issue with masks in classrooms during this pandemic, but in other scenarios, that is not an issue. I suspect that the Air with Touch ID is more popular among students due to the price.
Is it just me or are these latest announcement events lackluster and over-produced? I'm not judging the devices (going to pick up the watch series 7) but the events themselves are tough to sit through.
I agree and found myself wondering what Steve Jobs would think of these events. I think he might like it in that they would be "perfect" as he was notoriously fastidious about these types of events. However, he might also not like the "sterility" that seems to accompany them; he was a showman and liked to work the crowd.
I find it generally sub-optimal to link Apple press releases. They won’t mention the things that are actually notable, like perhaps a daringfireball would.
It feels weird to me. Maybe it's just the current American culture that feels off for a European like myself. It is over directed and over produced. Zero spontaneity. I would rather watch Elon throw a metal ball into a car window during a presentation. At least that is real.
Change the way movies are directed, because of this new phone? Give me a break. I'm sure it will produce nicer TikTok and YouTube videos but no serious director is going to shoot a million dollar production with a 1000 dollar phone.
> I'm sure it will produce nicer TikTok and YouTube videos but no serious director is going to shoot a million dollar production with a 1000 dollar phone.
I'm as crusty a curmudgeon as it comes, but Apple is targeting the right market here: people who may become directors and artists in the future.
Sure, there will never be a 3-hr Scorcese Mafia movie shot in portrait mode on a 12 Pro. But Scorcese and artists like him are already in the rearview mirror for Apple. They are a mass market brand, they're selling to the 'creator' generation.
Who cares if its used to make 2-minute videos that will disappear into the ether? Look at that 20% brighter screen. Buy now!
It's truly pretty amazing how much mileage a kid could get learning to shoot and edit video with just an iPad or iPhone. Sure, the editing will be really awkward and the full range of effects and such that one would have in Adobe on the desktop won't be there, but hell, when we screwed around shooting videos as kids we had a big-ass camcorder that shot terrible video in 4:3 and in-camera editing/fx and that was it. Maybe some really, really painful editing that would make quality way worse and take forever, if you could get ahold of two tape decks your parents didn't mind you screwing around with.
You can achieve more focused practice on shot choices, lighting, and cut timing on you parents' old, handed-down iPhone in a weekend than we'd have managed in a whole Summer with what we had. Got a buddy or two with phones or tablets, then you can probably manage multi-camera shooting (sure the picture characteristics may vary noticeably, but come on, this is still amazing) and ship the footage between devices in minutes. And once you get decent at it, the end result might even be almost watchable, instead of muddy garbage, and you can share it with the whole world with a few taps. I mean, damn.
moreover, the whole segment on fitness+ was so tone-deaf. they kept trying to make it seem like a universally-appealing service, portrayed by diverse people but in ultra-aesthetic settings, so really targeted at the well-off among us. regular folk don't set up their cellular-connected ipad in the park to work out with the aid of their iphone-dependent apple watch.
15 years ago when they had that "Nike+" tracker thing with the iPod Nano, I still couldn't figure out what it did, because I couldn't afford Nikes and could barely afford a used iPod.
sure, but apple trying to claim popular/inclusive cred for an affluent product is still tone deaf, akin to exploiters trying to claim the moral high ground.
Black Mirror frequently borrows from Apple's aesthetics and marketing style when presenting in-universe products and ads, so it's natural that an Apple keynote would remind one of Black Mirror.
Apple still makes the least cringey presentations of any of the big tech companies. Microsoft and Google are incredibly out-of-touch when they try to do similar things.
I recall the Windows 11 announcement event had speakers talking about how the new version will "enhance how you engage with the product"
Speaking for myself here, I can't really get into iOS devices like this new iPad mini anymore in part because I have grown accustomed to being able to:
a) roll back apps if a new version is broken/undesirable.
b) sideload apps if an app is not available on the app store because they fell out of grace (eg. fortnite).
c) choose a web browser, on iOS you can have any skin you want, as long as the engine is Safari.
d) choose a media player, no hardware decoding on iOS if it is not an Apple-blessed codec and last time I looked, Apple did not allow mkv and I fail to understand why I need to transcode or remux just to please them otherwise it is software decoding.
e) no emulation of other systems allowed or environments that can run code.
Can you please elaborate a bit more on the video decoding? It's sounds interesting. I have played all kinds of formats including mkv in VLC on iOS. What could be improved in that area?
On the newest iPhone 13 for example these are the video formats supported: "Video formats supported: HEVC, H.264, MPEG‑4 Part 2, and Motion JPEG"
If your video is not one of these formats, you're going to be using software decoding which will be done on the CPU and will drain battery more as a consequence.
You‘re spreading FUD. iOS (and other Apple platforms) had low level APIs to decode videos on hardware for years. Of course the video codec needs to be supported (AFAIK right now just H.264 and HEVC) but the container format doesn‘t matter, you just need to unpack it yourself.
Cameras are one of the few areas where phones are still making regular advances. Otherwise a phone from 2-3 generations back will probably meet all your needs.
Cameras from 2-3 generations back will meet 99% of people's needs.
The new SE is basically an 8, and the way 90% of people use their phone, they would notice no difference between the new SE and a 13.
Which is what I see happening in my social circles. No one gets a new phone unless the old one is dead. Setting up a new phone and stuff is a pain, why bother for a few extra details in camera for pictures you will never curate and probably just share once on WhatsApp?
i think the days of people expecting to upgrade their phones is long gone. While some do, the numbers I’ve seen suggest that most people keep their phones for around 3 years. At that point, a new phone has enough new features to be worth an upgrade.
I have a ton of photos, taken with high megapixel cameras and not just the phone - thus if you want those with you (not even talking about the propagated 4K and up videos from drones, phones and dslrs) it only starts to get interesting at 521GB+ (for the ones you keep).
If there’s ways of offloading video footage (lightroom for photos does work ok as a buffer) for editing-apps i’m more than happy to hear about alternatives other than adding it to your photos library or files.
Photos do not have to all be downloaded to the device. It will manage the storage and mainly keep more recent photos on device. It will download others as needed. That may not be perfect for you but it does help offset the storage situation.
I have an iPad Prod with 256GB of storage and it is currently only using 70GB.
Everyone commenting about bezels being huge :-/ people, bezels are there so you can hold the tablet more comfortably.
Anyone who made extended usage of tablets with and without bezels can quickly figure this out. It is more ergonomic, it reduces accidental touching and screen occlusion.
Others did have trouble with holding the older minis. The phone is different as you generally hold it with the back and sides. With the iPad you often need to hold it between fingers while touching the front.
Probably the biggest news is the death of the Lightning connector. USB-C now paves the way for connecting anything, across different hardware platforms.
I can't see any mention of a headphone jack, does this mean they've removed it?
I ditched my iPhone because of the lack of something this basic, I'm glad I bought an iPad mini last year while they still have this functionality.
N.B.
(1) I can't use in-ear ear-buds
(2) I have high quality wired headphones I want to use
(3) I want to use it in my car which although it has bluetooth, does not work with music, only with phone calls
But I have good quality wired headphones that I like.
A headphone jack is pennies. I don’t want to buy, possibly charge and generally carry around something else when this is a solved problem that Apple has broken.
I also like being able to charge my device AND listen to it at the same time.
That's exactly what I needed. I want to replace my Moleskine, and a smaller iPad with USB-C and Apple Pencil 2 support is precisely the device I wanted.
I tried a Microsoft Surface Go 2, but it turned out to be a mediocre art device and a mediocre Macbook replacement.
I am happy with this announcement I traded in my iPad Pro V2 to order a new iPad mini today. I can use it in my overlanding rig and read books when I get to the camp site. This product announcement fits my specific needs well.
This looks really good, but my mini 5 is still plenty powerful for what I use it for. I do like the TouchID placement and wish they would bring that to iPhones.
I have just noticed that they say “iPhone” not “the iPhone”, “the iPad”, “my iPad”. It’s as if they were talking about a person, such as “I’m using Hal”.
> Here's the essence of Apple's grammar rules: its product names should be entirely unadorned. You didn't buy "an iPhone," you bought iPhone. You don't own two iPads, you own two iPad. (Editor's note: Apple hates articles, both definite and indefinite. It definitely is going to hate this article, too.)
The name of the band is 'Pixies', but it's simply easier from a sentence-formation POV to refer to them as "The Pixies". Much as it may chagrin the purists.
Do people say "On the Windows 11 we ..." or do they say "On Windows 11 ..."? It's a name, you don't have to put "the" in front of a name, the laurent92 (of course, the Ohio State University would disagree with that idea).
This has been the case since 2007 with "iPhone"...which mimicked the naming for "iPod" since 2001 [0]...which mimicked the naming of "iMac" since 1998 [1].
All of these, of course, go back to Steve Jobs' introduction of "Macintosh" in 1984 [2].
It is? “The Mustang has a new engine this year” “I’m going to take the Mustang today” - those sentences sound very strange without “the”. Yet Apple does this consistently, referring to each product as a singular proper name (which sounds weird because, like cars, there are millions of them with many variations over the years all with the same name).
”We have redesigned the Volvo XC60” is absolutely a normal way to talk. You are specifying a particular model from a line of models. “Volvos are some of the safest cars” is the way I would expect one to talk about Volvo’s cars in general. Companies don’t want their products to become generic names, that’s why they make these nonsense rules.
Huh? I’ve never heard anyone refer to a car model without an article. If you purchased a Mustang you’d say “I got a Mustang”, not “I got Mustang.” Even when talking about the model in general rather than a specific car, it’s “The Mustang gets 30 MPG”, not “Mustang gets 30 MPG.”
(I’m from the PNW, in case it’s a regional thing.)
We use our (really mine, but hey...) Mini 5 for reading PDFs, reading ebooks (when I can't find my kindle), a quick terminal session to my server to check stuff, menus at restaurants for take-out, and really just keep it laying around to look stuff up as we need to (recipes, school schedules, etc.). It's pretty handy to just have it easily accessible.
I just tried it for fun as I was watching it, and my iPad mini fits the back pocket on my shorts. I wouldn't carry it there though as it would be uncomfortable and I'd look stupid.
I love how everything has to be a "revolutionary breakthrough" with apple. Wow the 73rd version of the 19th variation of the ipad gets better performance. What a break though.
Every single company that sells things does this. You are talking about an Apple event and promo page where they are quite literally giving a sales pitch for their new products. That they (over)hype their own products is not only not notable or interesting, it's entirely expected.
It is a bit bizarre that your comment, or variations of it, appears for every single Apple release. For those people so jaded and annoyed at the existence of Apple, why not just skip those threads?
There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors, however (seriously -- just look at the comments! What a junkyard of noise). It's a bit like a thread about the Super Bowl having hundreds of comments by people announcing that they aren't interested in the Super Bowl. Neat.
You are right that it's just sales language, but people, tech folks in particular, don't have to like it and it's nothing wrong to voice their complaints. In fact it would be quite freshing today if some company start talking down to earth languages, like "hey we are giving you basically the same phone as last year with slightly better camera etc. It's useful though."
Fairphone did exactly this with the Fairphone 3+: they emphasised that they were just upgrading two components of the Fairphone 3 that had attracted criticism (the camera and speaker) and otherwise didn't want to change anything about their super-easy-to-repair phone with promises that replacement parts would be available for many years.
Fairphone's marketing is rather unusual in the marketplace in this respect.
It's interesting you mention that because I went to their website today and they are running a secret product campaign at the moment:
> The ...............* that can change a whole industry
> *Coming soon. Subscribe for updates and a chance to win big!
So it may be a laptop, a fairphone 4, a DIY geosync satellite. Or simply the old trick that tickles curiosity and get them subscribers to their newsletter. Not that unusual. And as a techie I say "fine, keep your secrets then" though.
> You are right that it's just sales language, but people, tech folks in particular, don't have to like it and it's nothing wrong to voice their complaints.
Except it gets old real fast. These comments read like "first".
No signal, all noise.
Same thing with the PHP, electron and Facebook topics for instance. First top comments have been saying the same thing for years.
Yeah, I don't think those statements would seen positive by the shareholders. I imagine shareholders would interpret them as lack of innovation and would probably trigger a sell on stocks.
yes, an underappreciated aspect, splashy advertising has mutliple audiences, not the least of which are (potential) shareholders. tim's (and many others') comp literally depends on it.
honestly, as someone who has lived in over 20 countries and on 5 continents, I would say the US has more restrained tastes in marketing than most cultures. Western Europe is generally more low key than ours though. Almost everywhere else I have been has a more aggressive sales/advertising culture.
What cultures are they not common in? I know you aren't talking about China, at least. Definitely not Japan, not most of East Asia. Probably not western Europe either, and it's pretty common in North America.
I was literally just watching a video the other day from an amish buggy producer. they were going over the different options and prices. 7k for the top of the line model
What? Yes it definitely is. Look at every single traditional market in every single European country, or in South America. You’ll find people screaming about the worlds best this and world best that. If you walk down a random street in England you see 14 of the world best beers and 7 of them will be the worlds oldest pub.
Naturally all the commercials are the same.
You’d have to be a recluse to think that overhyping in sales pitches is not normal.
I am not sure what culture you are referring to, but as someone who has lived in four very different cultures for a long time each, this is very normal, human behavior. Every tech company does this too, not just Apple. And every other company too, not just tech. And artists, and hollywood, and... humans.
Ouch, true, underhyped even. I had this simple, stylish enough for me, just heavy enough watch, sold with 10 years battery. Not only did it take lots of damage (daily driver, never removed it but for cleaning) but the battery lasted 15 years then died a bit later. That was 100eur well spent.
Well, when things like superbowl or similar events are happening the overspill tends to get inacceptable.
Rave and rant all you want about it on appleinsiders, mac rumors, or whatever.
Regarding the expected (over)hyping, why is that an exuse?
It's like the commercials for washing powder/liquid, toothpaste and all the countless other non-sense.
In other words a lie, or euphemistic reality distortion field.
> Every single company that sells things does this.
Software companies moving from update releases to subscription models are a great counter-example. There's plenty of bad sides to a subscription model, but at least PR and marketing departments can be much more honest about slow and incremental updates.
We're allowed to point out hyperbole! Comment threads always have criticisms of everything. What's bizarre is Apple defenders that always show up feeling personally slighted somehow.
If Apple didn't do it above and beyond not just what is normal but what is reasonable without an eye roll, then it wouldn't appear in every announcement, would it?
Everyone overhypes their product releases. But the reality is that most of us just don't pay attention to them. Microsoft talking about Windows? Eh. Samsung announcing something? Neat.
Apple announces something, however, and the detractors just have to flood in and give their hot takes. I suppose that speaks to the influence of Apple now.
Yes, they are allowed, of course... but being "unimpressed with Apple's marketing speak", a topic having been thoroughly traversed, seems counter to Hacker News's stated desire for comments that substantiate new thought, or create new or interesting discussions.
That's fair, I agree that it has sparked interesting discussions. Looks like we can't write off topics just because we think it's been thoroughly discussed already.
How "new" are the discussions though? Maybe we should try to find a previous thread where someone said the same thing and compare the discussion there?
They really don't. most of them make a bad commercial with a attractive people using the product and call it a day. Maybe list some features. I can't really think of any other company who's brand is to self label that every thing it does is some breakthrough for humanity. Segway?
> Every single company that sells things does this.
Nope.
> It is a bit bizarre that your comment, or variations of it, appears for every single Apple release. For those people so jaded and annoyed at the existence of Apple, why not just skip those threads?
For those people so jaded and annoyed at people critiquing apple - why not just skip those threads?
> There's something unique about Apple that draws in the detractors, however (seriously -- just look at the comments! What a junkyard of noise).
Maybe the only unique thing here is your need to defend apple with no arguments other than your own annoyance at apple being criticised?
In fairness to the size thing, until last year I was still using the older se and had that form factor since my first smart phone, the iPhone 4.
When I got the 4 it was great. By the time I finally changed the form factor last October, the world had changed and by that I mean much of the web was unusable due to the screen size and how no one optimized for non-phablets.
What’s perfect one year may not be perfect the next because things change. Accounting for an allowance of standard marketing hyperbole on top of that, i don’t see anything particularly wrong with that one claim.
> Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched.
He generally made specific claims which were true — for example, when they added AltiVec they talked about media processing and other SIMD-friendly tasks — and then let the press/fanboys generalize that. Towards the end they also started talking about things like battery life or software features when there simply wasn't a compelling comparison like that.
> Steve Jobs with his distortion field used to say RISC was better than Intel right up until they switched to Intel, then the story switched.
What are you talking about? He never changed his story about RISC, and guess what Apple is using now? The only reason they switched to intel was because nobody else was manufacturing a chip that was competitive.
And each release is "our best camera yet" or "fastest processor yet" or "best battery yet". I mean, yeah, you're probably not going to release an update that has worse performance.
Apple is the master at emphasizing things like this.
Would you, as a company CEO go on stage and announce "this camera is pretty much on par with the one last year and the CPU is the same too and actually we kinda lost a bit of battery life"? :D
And what will I be able to do with that performance bump? I use a tablet mostly for taking notes, email and looking at websites. I can’t see how the former can get any quicker. The latter is slow mostly because of the websites themselves. Will games or office apps get faster or have new possibilities?
Apple has kind of disappointed me with the software situation on iPads. I have an iPad Pro that I use as a laptop, but the reality is that the processing power available is underused. It has a 120Hz screen, but websites can't render to the canvas at 120Hz. There is no CAD software (which is nice when you design something and head to your makerspace to actually manufacture it -- I just print plans out on paper, but it's annoying if you need to change something while you're working). There is no software development software. (iSH is neat, but TestFlight-only, and probably something Apple doesn't like. I assume it will be removed from my device at any moment.) I can kind of download pictures from my digital camera and edit them, but the experience isn't great.
I think Apple's problem here is that they don't want to cannibalize OS X sales with tablets, and they don't want to cannibalize App Store revenue by letting people type in code to solve their problems.
Anyway, I've been relatively happy with the crippled mobile device model for a while, but it doesn't seem sustainable. I'm waiting for someone, anyone, to produce a 5nm ARM chip that anyone can buy, and then just having a Linux laptop like a normal person. As it stands, nobody other than Apple seems to be able to produce a decent mobile chip. This is very bad for the field of computing in general.
> they don't want to cannibalize App Store revenue by letting people type in code to solve their problems.
This seems implausible as a reason for keeping dev tools off iDevices, because 1) what percentage of their users would do that in the first place, beyond using spreadsheets, which are already available? Would it even be 1%? 0.1%?, and 2) they've made moves to add features like Shortcuts that enable that sort of thing, but which productivity-nerd non-programmer project managers and such are able and willing (and eager) to use, unlike dev tools—and those aren't just toys, they can absolutely replace certain kinds of what might could have been paid apps, before.
I think it's more likely that it's hard to add them without opening up security holes and making it easy to bypass the App Store and/or offer a 3rd party store, without making the tools so crippled that they're insufficient for actually developing & deploying serious software for oneself (in fact they've already released something so-crippled, in Playgrounds), coupled with their expecting extra sales of iDevices from adding dev tools to be tiny (so, not worth the cost & risk).
I agree in general, but it really depends. The iPad port of Clip Studio for example is literally, 100% the desktop version. I mean exactly, it has the top bar menu (file/edit etc) and everything.
Most of the other painting applications like Procreate have no real desktop equivalent either. From an art perspective, the iPad is at or ahead of the desktop experience. There are digital artists right now who have had 100% of their career on an iPad.
I completely agree with your point but just wanted to note that iSH is available on the App Store (and hasn't been booted out as of now by some miracle) and love it to bits.
The M1 is neat but it's not worth it for me. I hate everything about OS X. BSD command-line tools, a slow-as-most-glaciers Terminal.app, constant nagging about some menial task I need to perform for the computer. Nope, nope, nope. ("But if you just screw around with it for 20 years, then it will be just perfect." I already spent 20 years screwing around with Linux, so that cost is sunk. Sorry.)
I really don't like doing "computery" stuff on more than one machine, and I already have a 32 core desktop workstation for normal work. That will never go away, which means the laptop can't be at all "computery". I want to touch an app with my finger and have the app start up. Every time, no matter what. (And to be fair, the iPad Pro absolutely delivers on that.) To me, a laptop will always be the second fiddle, something I use once a month or so. I find that if I don't screw around with my computer for a month, everything has stopped working -- but with a tablet, it just turns on and all is well. So you just throw the thing into your backpack for a trip, then when you get to the airport it turns on and 4G connects to the cell network, and everything is great. You have a computer, not computer problems.
(Other laptops I've used in the past... Surface Pro 4. Left it turned on on my desk, went to get it ready for a trip... BAM brand new version of Windows and everything was broken. I didn't take it on the trip and just used my phone to browse the Internet at night. Chromebook Pixel: basically no problems, but just as limited as an iPad. Various Linux laptops: honestly, most of my vacation memories involve wpa_supplicant.conf, and a lot of problems 10 minutes before whatever conference talk I was giving. Not sure if conference WiFi or Linux bugs, but it wasn't pleasant.)
We all know that there have been no functional improvements to software enabled by processor speed increases since the 8081. Everything since then has been programmers slowly using up their "wait()" calls placed in code in the 70s to fake it.
"The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry."
Generally better battery life. Mobile devices are generally get task done, go to sleep or wind down whatever cores/systems possible. So by doing it faster, it’s generally using less power for the same task. This is often spent in areas like smaller systems, lighter, brighter screens or radio’s though as they work towards a battery life as the budget.
I wouldn't say that slow websites are because of slow network traffic in most cases now, though. I think this will make the web much quicker on this new edition, and that's a useful thing in itself.
Gaming performance and capabilities should be very much improved. Whether you will use or notice the improvements is an entirely different question, of course.
People who say this obviously don't remember watching the screen slowly draw itself on old text terminals when you hit page down.
Now, we complain when it drops from 60fps to 40fps while rapidly slinging high resolution text + images with our fingers, and also that this is somehow "slower".
Its amazing how much our expectations have changed.
Do you have a source for the claim that they use the A15 in the iPad mini? It stood out to me that they left the details of the SoC out of the announcement.
Reminds me of that scene in Transcendence [1] where the super intelligent AI person announces another breakthrough and the AI / person's wife says "oh great honey". At a certain point, incremental innovation loses its wonder.
It's amazing how Apple was able to get general public to be excited about things like "20% brighter display". Benefits of being rockstar I guess. But all rockstars get out of fashion...
Also "iPad mini features an all-screen design" while immediate picture underneath still shows significant bezels. Turns out they are just talking about the home button.
>With iPadOS 15, powerful new ML features include Live Text, which uses on-device intelligence
The chip enabling this has recently turned out to be used as an on-device intelligence agency, that reports estimates of crimes back to the mothership and could go very wrong in some countries.
You make it sound like Apple won't spend billions in advertising that 20% brighter display. People don't get excited for no reason. Someone somewhere is engineering that nudge from apathy to interest.
Apple is such a massive company, it's easy to forget that each of these variations sells millions of units to customers who want that one product.
For example, many pilots have an iPad Mini for maps and charts. In a cramped cockpit, the regular iPad is too big. With much faster graphics and support for Pencil 2 it's a big upgrade, so I fully expect this to be the #1 choice for that crowd.
The funny thing is this actually is one of the most substantial upgrades they’ve done on any of their iPads. The performance stuff sure whatever that always happens, but the form factor + pencil support is significantly better. If I were looking at iPads anytime in the last 5 years the mini wouldn’t have been on my list, but now it would.
It's incredible how CRINGE these over-produced events have become. Everything is totally cliche and looks like some Hollywood idealized view of the world garbage.
Making an Apple Watch that can actually download sync with an Audible book.
And since they have this huge fitness push now, I'd like to be able to set custom Run Walk Run intervals when I do an Apple Running workout on my watch.
Being able to set the shutter speed or aperture when taking pictures like Samsung phones can.
A better system of defense for robo calls.
A built in audio program to make my own custom ringtones for people.
An easy way to put the phone in "Minimalist" mode, so that it only had the Apps I absolutely need. Like the "Lite Phone" https://www.thelightphone.com/
Premium Apple News content that isn't just click bait articles.
A way to "permanently" disable Air Tag stalker warnings every time I borrow someone's keys who isn't in my 'family sharing group'.
Damn bro, get out of here with this logic. Cue the Ryan from the office nodding and pointing gif right here. Trying to put a ringtone on an iPhone is hilarious. And the airtag alert burned me so good. I have 4 of them and they are all chirping and alerting on my wife's phone. I'm gonna have to sell them at a loss after they made them so much more annoying.
I'd also like to add someone to a group Text and have a way everyone could agree to give them permission to see the old messages from that group chat. That way it isn't as hard to catch people up or bring them into a group conversation.
It’s very important for the planet and us that big companies make these bold public claims. It means we can (attempt to) hold them accountable; that other companies will try to follow; that people like you will get annoyed an push harder for more material changes through your wallet, lobbying or action. Apple will do _some_ work in this arena and it will shift the needle less than we need at first glance, but it is phenomenal marketing for the movement.
Despite the 30% commission for apps, it's an incredibly vibrant ecosystem. So much new and interesting software appears on iOS and (to a lesser extent) macOS.
It seems like the more free the platform is, the less interesting it is for users. I'm thinking about iOS, Windows, macOS, Android, game consoles, Linux, and the web.
I think everyone admits most of the ecosystem is games. Games where you are constantly pumping more and more money in to obtain whatever instant gratification that particular game offers.
I don't see why people are ok with kids playing these games while at the same time acknowledge things like gambling are bad for kids.
In general, I don't think people are okay with it. Didn't Apple recently reveal that their massive game revenue comes from a pretty small set of whales?
I think the web of today fits my thesis as well. So much of it is built on spying and surveillance and is filled with dark patterns and abusive practices.
The web of 20-25 years ago was pretty interesting though.
Everything looks nice, but I really don't mind these devices if I can't install my own desktop software on them. Seems nice for things like casual content consumption though
iPads are good companions for making music, for making art, for non-casual content consumption like reading textbooks or reference manuals, drilling flash cards, watching lectures, et c. The mini's maybe not as good for the latter as an 11.9" Pro (great size for reading textbook PDFs, even large enough to do two pages at a time if you have good eyesight), but still. With an external wireless keyboard, they can be better than a laptop for writing, because you can position the screen separately from the keyboard (without having to wastefully carry around a whole attached keyboard that you're not using) and you can draw (e.g. diagrams) directly on them if you want to, plus the semi-modal operation is great for focus.
