iPhone 8
apple.com
apple.com
Also, for those who have USB-C laptops, it would mean one-cable to rule them all -- even if they don't plug the phone into the laptop itself.
I imagine they're hoping to get rid of the charging port altogether, so don't see the point of changing now. I would prefer one standard also though. That said, I imagine this is some time off, given Qi's charging speeds.
That said, they should give you a choice of cables.
I bet Apple will switch after they feel they've had the lightning connector out for long enough that they can say it was time.
Here's another one trick Apple might want to pick up on: I own both an iPhone 7 and a Nexus 6P, and the fingerprint sensor being in the middle of the back on 6P is unquestionably a better choice (Samsung messes up the placement). You can pick up the phone, unlock, and pull down the notification shade in one single natural motion. Maybe a few years from now...
- On my iPhone, I just pinch it with my thumb on the home button while I pull it out.
- On my Pixel, I have to take it out and then unlock it.
Also, when the phone is resting on a table, I can just unlock my iPhone by touching the home button. With the Pixel, I have to turn it over first. When all I wanted to do was read a message I just received, possibly with dirty hands.
So putting the unlock on the back of the phone doesn't seem very well thought out at all.
This isn't my experience at all. By the time it's out of my pocket, my index finger is right on the scanner and the phone is unlocked.
Might be a function of the size of the pocket or of the hand, though.
With a correctly located rear fingerprint sensor, it becomes an automatic motion without thinking rather than having to consciously find and press a button.
It's an oh so common use case.
Which is to say, although the rear position may not work well for you personally, this may be a question of user preference with no generally superior solution.
And I think we can all be grateful Apple decided to go with the Qi standard here rather than roll their own! What a mess that would have been...
I do half-suspect Apple probably tried coming up with a better solution (e.g. one not involving a charging mat), but ran into technical (probably laws-of-physics) challenges and went with Qi instead, because otherwise there's really no reason they couldn't have done this earlier. Or perhaps they just needed the time to re-tool for a glass case, who knows.
Wow and Google got rid of it probably because the iphone didn't have it. I wish the hardware team at google would stop trying to copy apple and just do the things that make sense. Wireless charging and a headphone jack makes sense.
once again, probably because apple did it.
McDonalds and Starbucks _will_ have Qi charging tables by the end of next year.
I have never been able to charge my Nexus devices which only have Qi at Starbucks, however my new Galaxy S8 which supports both Qi and PMA work at Starbucks just fine!
This does unfortunately mean that new iPhone won't work at Starbucks locations unless they replace the hardware.
It was really cool to be able to go into a Starbucks and, while waiting for a drink, drop my Android on the table in front of me and let it charge. Now we just need to get laptops on board with this.
In NYC and San Francisco, sure. Technology rolls out to the flyover states a little slower, though. Apple helps accelerate it a bit more.
I'm willing to bet if I asked about Qi charging in the McDonalds in Brodhead Wisconsin, they would not have it. A year from now, though, is a far better chance.
I've been very happy with the fingerprint reader positioning on the Sony Xperia Z5 Compact: as a part of the power button, along the edge of the device.
It's exactly where my right thumb naturally rests when holding my phone. (And lines up nicely with my left middle finger rests, if I'm holding it in my left hand.)
Side view: https://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/file...
I like that the charging bay is long so you can charge multiple devices. That's cool.
It's like an electric car. Yes, it's slow to charge. But in practice it's always charged when you're ready to leave in the morning, so in daily use it's more convenient than spending 5 minutes at a fuel pump during your trip.
Not really - My phone sits on my desk next to me throughout the day. If it were charging every time I put it down, even 5-10 minutes at a shot, that would basically add up to a fully charged phone by the time I left my desk.
Right now I have to plug it in to do that, and I only do that if I know I'm going to be there a while - otherwise it's a hassle. With a mat, it's the same effort to put it down as it is without the mat.
My iPhone 6s often lasts through the day and half way through the next, when I'm not doing much other than playing Spotify and using a bit of WhatsApp. If I'm actively using it, though, I have to plug it in towards the end of the day.
They do cheat with ridiculous background app-killing "features" though (I've tweaked it to my liking and now prefer it)
when i'm out, and if i know i will be out for a long time, i'll bring a battery along.
at night, it charges on the bay when i'm asleep.
There's some competing standards like AirFuel (nee A4WP), which might be better. Doesn't matter if nobody uses them.
Some EE major can correct me, but I think the slower you charge a battery, the better it is for its overall life. (So even for non wireless charging, if possible, it's better to use a 1 amp charger overnight than a 2 amp)
I had a Lumia phone that I charged wirelessly from 2012 to 2017, on its last day, the battery life was around 80% as good as its first day, much better than my friends' phones.
The only use case for me would be to put my phone at night when its battery was less than 20%.
Another thing I read about batteries is that it's better to charge them once a day[1] (so before nighttime) rather than many times during the day. Some people here comment that you always put your phone on the charging plate, I'm not sure this would be good for battery life.
Finally the best 'feature' I noticed is that it's really inconvenient to use your phone while it's charging on its plate, so you're less tempted to use it when going to sleep.
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/battery-charge-l...
This is arguably not too relevant any more -- the current Apple flagship phone replaced TouchID with FaceID, and that's probably the direction they're headed in for future phones too.
As you point out, it could have been done earlier but I'm guessing they waited because the utility is so small. Whereas Android manufacturers seem to want the most features, the most checks on the list, even if they don't necessarily work too well.
I'm on a Pixel XL now, and I greatly miss the convenience of simply having a couple charging pads laying out throughout the house/office. It feels like a chore to remember to plug in the phone every night. I won't buy another phone w/o Qi charging support.
It was never that way with PCs. A lot of things about phones are unfortunately not like it was with PCs. I'm amazed to say it, but I've come to view IBM and Microsoft as fantastic drivers of open technology during the PC area.
I just did. Found three or four modern motherboards with serial ports with much effort.
I'm often not at my desk at work, so when I am, I want wired so it charges as fast as possible. Additionally, both for during the day and at night, charging with a wire has the big convenience advantage of being able to use the phone while charging it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/iphon...
iOS 11 has cop mode at least.
http://gizmodo.com/a-hidden-trick-in-the-ios-11-beta-lets-yo...
Biometric/facial ID/etc. are conveniences for the masses. They're not ever going to stop the secret police, and bringing up that they won't stop the secret police is not a useful objection, since nothing you can do will stop sufficiently-motivated secret police from being able to force you to access something you have access to.
The "questionable constitutionality" of it is irrelevant since in practice until there is a higher ruling on this, if you don't want to go to jail, you must give up your passcode.
But it will work with sunglasses too? I find it hard to believe. Just slap some sunglasses on the perp and unlock his phone. easy peezy.
1. Be at border.
2. CBP officer requests to unlock my phone.
3. He/She holds it up to my face to trigger the unlock.
4. I close my eyes to prevent the unlock.
5. The officer presses the end of his/her gun on my head and tells me to open my eyes within the next five seconds.
6. I comply to avoid having my brains splattered on the pavement.
7. ???
8. iPhone is unlocked.
Or, you know, anyone else who wants to unlock it (cybercriminals, pickpockets, etc) can simply threaten your life over a phone (since, let's be real, people have died for less in the first world).
If your point is no lock is safe from someone saying "I will kill you if you don't unlock this" then yeah, that's true.
So no, printing a photo found on social media won't work. 3D printing a perfect model of a face might, we'll see.
I said this in another thread, but it really doesn't seem unreasonable to require your attention to unlock your phone, since it requires your attention in order to use it!
It really is the speed that will make or break this feature. If it's slow, forget it, if it's quicker than it takes you to move your thumb to the screen, then it probably won't matter to most people.
Likewise if I'm checking the time or a text message, I'll hit the button with my finger while the phone is laying flat on the table. But that use case doesn't exist anymore either.
Unlike a computer screen, phones are not always pointed directly at our faces all day. It'd work fine to unlock my Macbook, but not my iPhone.
Touchid is a killer feature for me.
My 5S is slowly dying -- but I can't find a good replacement (new or used) that can be jailbroken. For me its the perfect phone, but I'm an extremely light phone user (email, phone, imessage, Simon Tatham's Net and Galaxy puzzles).
I guess I was hoping that they'd update the SE.
Dear Google, please build a native desktop client for one of your many SMS apps. -
A week or two ago a few dead spots started happening with my 5S. I can do most things, but I can't use the delete button when entering a phone number, and a certain row in Net can't be moved (this is my main concern...)
Now, if I can only find one on 9.3.3 I will be in paradise.
edit: to add the date of release.
I also tried MightyText, but they kept adding useless junk to the already bulky interface. The service itself also wasn't consistent.
Overall, I'm surprised that Google hasn't flat-out copied iMessage.
I wish the SE was part of the regular refresh schedule.
Yeah, I think waiting for Apple to give you that is probably some misplaced hope.
When I was using an Android phone it was handy because I could get the tablet UI for most apps.
I'm pretty careful with my phone, but I've dropped it in a way that I'm sure would have done serious damage if I hadn't had a case. Three times that I recall off-hand. So there is no way I'd not have a case on this.
Which bugs me because my 6s+ is still awe inspiring when I take it out of the case... but my case is a bit rugged, and the feel and thinness of the phone are completely lost with it. Yet I feel compelled to use it... too much risk of serious damage otherwise.
In my car I hate dealing with cables.
And even if they were somehow mutually exclusive, I'd still take a non-fragile back over the ability to wirelessly charge.
Back when phones were hand-sized they were a lot harder to drop.
It's funny how Apple is calling this an all-new glass design when other phones on the market have a similar design and Apple themselves had this design five years ago.
It's technically true, it is all new. No other phone was the same (just very very damn similar). Yes, it's a cheap marketing phrase that's meaningless, kinda par for the course with an Apple keynote.
The SE should be part of the yearly refresh.
I'd actually switched over to Android after the iPhone 4S, to an Xperia Z3 compact from fall 2014. That was competing against the iPhone 6 when Apple had apparently abandoned what I consider to be comfortably sized phones.
With the iPhone SE I was happy to come back.
still does it really matter? how many phones are not in cases?
Not saying there is anything wrong with that... my moto x had a faux leather back. really cheap, but the phone was nice.
No way Apple would put plastic or rubber bodies in their devices.
So I'm willing to trust that Apple knows what they do. Of course they will know what they do....until they don't :)
Coming from such a country(India). Its also treated as a sign of recklessness.
Heck its the same in US too. Remember that politician who chided people for having money for a $1000 iPhone every year but no money to buy insurance?
So very sad. Generally you see this with people that can afford it the least. $999 for the base model is just ridiculous. Next year Apple will offer the "first ever", "incredible" 10 year amortization on the iPhone XI. Soon they will reach price parity with the MBP and one could have apple gear or a down payment on a nice house Phoenix.
Why? It's not the "base model" it's the lowest capacity of the absolute highest end phone in the lineup, which now comprises five different phones at much more reasonable price points.
So your argument is basically that no phone should be that expensive? I can't speak for anyone else but I hate that. What is wrong with a super-premium phone? If anything phones are frustratingly constrained by their price point.
People use them in the way they used laptops 10 years ago, they're your central communication hub and for many people their secondary or even primary computer. What's wrong with having a high end option for those that use their phone more than everything else.
I'm buying the iPhone X day one. Why wouldn't I? I haven't upgraded my desktop, laptop, gaming PC, tablet, or smartwatch in 2-4 years, but that's because I don't use any of those things even close to as much as I use my phone.
If I'm spending multiple hours a day every day using something, you'd better believe it should be the best one available. If you don't feel that way, there are four other iPhone options and countless Android options at your disposal.
Yikes.
They may not be the only offenders but it bugs me that the tech specs don't tell you the battery capacity in mAH. Instead they give a relative number of hours and compare to previous phones. Those aren't tech specs, they're claims-- which they can say in fine print are unreliable.
It's not like you can compare battery life between an iPhone and a JoJoMe $20 android phone based on mAH - that would be even less useful than an estimate of battery life.
Switching to OLED (as Apple did) also increases battery life.
However since it was released in March many Apple-watchers expect any updated version to also be released in the Spring as well. (This seems more likely now since Apple didn't kill the iPhone SE)
Solid upgrade. I'll hang onto my 6s and my wired headphone ways a bit longer though.
I imagine 4K video at 60fps would eat up a lot of that 64GB.
- Thin, symmetrical bezels (Samsung S8, LG V30)
- Notch at top (iPhone X, Essential Phone)
- Big bezel at bottom (Xiaomi Mi Mix & Mi Mix 2)
It does seem an oversight that they don't just black out the space on full screen video and apps, though. That works fine on the essential phone, and it still looks cool in the launcher which has proper support.
For what it's worth, my last phone with Qi was a Blackberry Priv with an Otterbox Defender case, and it charged just fine. I'd be very surprised if Apple didn't make allowances for something that common.
The fact that this post is on the front page pretty strongly implies that people care, doesn't it? We live with our phones with us practically 24/7. If you're a dev, surely that's still exciting.
Needlessly locking customers to Apple-only ecosystem of hardware since iPhone 7, Apple now signals clueless consumption rather than high-status to me.
Will be interesting to see what happens with the upcoming arrival of Pixel2.
Edit Why the downvotes? If you disagree I'd prefer (and be interested) to hear how I'm wrong, rather than drive-by downvotes with no communication.
iPhone sales have been mostly fine, right? It's not like the removal of the headphone jack cratered sales or anything.
>Needlessly locking customers to Apple-only ecosystem of hardware since iPhone 7
Pretty sure non-Apple Bluetooth headsets work with the 7.
>Apple now signals clueless consumption rather than high-status to me
Anyone here with an iPhone might not like being called clueless; might have led to a downvote or two.
I upvoted you, but the idea of techies being "trend setters" is a ship that sailed long ago. People know I'm a tech geek, and up until 2010 or so, they'd ask me advice about what to buy. Today, nobody asks. My wife actually berates me every time I try a non-Apple product.
2) if you prefer wired headphones, they just work too using the contents of the box your phone came in.
Seriously, you act like Apple released a smartphone without a screen. Grow up!
I wrote them off immediately because they look identical to the pack-in iphone earbuds, and those are unbearably painful for me to wear.
Guess you don't have an Apple Store nearby?
That said, if the regular Apple EarPods were as painful as you describe, then you'll hate the AirPods. They are almost identical fit wise.
They look very similar, but something about how their weighted changes the fit.
And all the Apple ones with the W1 chip "just work" when pairing.
Shit, even the 20€ chinese Bluetooth FM transmitter in my car "just works".
I believe Android phones are starting to abandon the headphone jack as well.
Oh. Wait.
I miss the days when Android imitated apple...
What Apple (and Microsoft via Hello) are doing is a little more interesting, and they're actually capturing a 3D model of the face, using an IR projector that works a bit like the Kinect did. They feed that model into an on-device hardware accelerated machine learning engine to do the recognition, and the results are substantially more robust than the traditional 2D versions.
Personally, I'm still not entirely sold on using any kind of biometrics to unlock my device, but this does represent an interesting improvement.
I'm more interested in just having that machine learning hardware readily available and built into every new phone, it will be really interesting to see what devs do with it.
If your threat model includes state actors, then you shouldn't be using any of these. Also start to toughen up your body for rubber hose crypto :)