Apple iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
apple.com
apple.com
They made a point of saying that the GPU had been completely ground-up re-designed, and I assume they're intending to keep scaling that up over the next few iterations.
They didn't talk about it for very long, but that the phone is able to convincingly run AAA games, even at playable if not great frame-rates, is really impressive. This puts the iPhone up against devices like the Switch and Steam Deck for a lot of users. Granted, they don't have Nintendo's games, and they don't have Steam's massive back catalogue, but looking forward it does make a dedicated handheld gaming system harder to justify, or at least makes the phone easier to justify if you're not buying both.
It also makes me really interested to see where Apple is going with Apple TV and the Mac. With the game porting toolkit already announced (and the results people are already getting just using it directly to run Windows games), it seems like Apple really could eat at least some portion of the gaming market by already having a handheld (phone), console (Apple TV), and gaming PC (Mac) ready to go in the next few years.
I'm expecting the new M3 Macs next month to lean really heavily into discussing the GPU advances and (hopefully) announce a lot more support from big studios to bring more games to the Mac.
Developers simply do not have the incentive to build any other kinds of games when the current crop of addictive shovelware is so damn profitable. The sad part is that Apple encourages this practice because it is easy money for them (via their 30% cut). The problem needs to be fixed by better quality control and transaction/gambling rules, not a faster processor.
But then predatory freemium games like Clash of Clans and newer replacements for Angry Birds and Plants vs Zombies burned me out. They eliminated any desire I had to invest time or money or attention into mobile games. Popular freemium games in the App Store now bury any new gems. It's quite disappointing.
A better GPU isn't going to help the situation.
Unfortunately that isn't just true for games but also for apps. I wish Apple had focused more on building a healthier App Store ecosystem.
My list of games is basically the same. I think they are legitimately rare, and we believe at the time that they are not. It's like YouTube. You find one 3blue1brown or Adam Neely and you think there are a hundred more. There aren't.
I don't think there's a mobile game out there that has given me more entertainment.
These weren't hidden gems either, these were front and center promoted links in the App Store. I'm sure it's possible to find experiences like these in modern games, but I've given up hope long ago. I don't have time to sift through the trash.
There is no way 1 generation of games can "take over and destroy" the "promise of gaming" because there are no restrictions on what future innovators can do with the tools and the platforms. The existence of some bad games doesn't preclude future good games.
As an example, my favorite mobile game is Slay the Spire
We already have beautiful mobile games, like Monument Valley. But that's not what the market is about. The very term "mobile game" reeks of low quality at this point. I don't see it changing.
What exactly is it that you are after? It seems like you are not content simply getting the games you want, such as Monument Valley. You also need everyone else to live their life a certain way?
Why not simply conclude that the market is big enough for everyone to coexist. And as long as there's games for you, you don't have to lament other people sitting around enjoying candy crush.
Outside of small, niche indie games (which are great and do well within their own respect), free-to-play gacha games is the 'state of the art.
Smartphones have existed for a long time now, and the games absolutely suck, except the extremely rare high quality indie game port like Papers Please or Slay the Spire.
If some new policy changed this, I think we’d see a whole new wave of higher quality games
Maybe we need a pornography-like definition ("I know it when I see it") but I think there is certainly a continuum from high-quality DLC / expansions to existing games (which can be basically a new game) down to crystals which allow you to instantly buy something which you'd have got anyway if you had waited.
So, consider a basic, Mario-kart like racing game - which of these are OK, and which are micro-transactions?
- buying additional courses,
- buying additional characters (drivers), vehicles, or components of vehicle (e.g. wheels, engines, bodies),
- buying purely cosmetic changes (e.g. driver outfits, vehicle colours),
- buying permanent upgrades to your vehicle(s) (i.e. more speed, better acceleration, better handling)
- buying one-off power-ups that last for a single race, or are time-limited (+50% acceleration for 1 hour)
- buying 'cheats' - obvious play-to-win items (e.g. needing to complete 1 fewer lap than your opponent),
- buying regular game-progression; e.g. maybe 100 races/wins/hours of play are normally required to unlock all courses, but this can also be instantly purchased.
- any of the above options, but not bought directly, but rather via purchasing 'crystals' which can be exchanged for the above.
- any of the above options, but in a 'gatcha' style (i.e. loot boxes; you cannot choose which upgrade you want),
I think I'd be totally OK with the top three, maybe OK with buying permanent upgrades, and unlocking game progression (in this case), but the others are too far for me.
“You earn $3 and then you update it for the next 10 years. If you’re making free-to-play games, if you keep earning money with a game, yeah, that’s a great model because you can make more money by updating.”
Ismail pointed to Vlambeer’s “Ridiculous Fishing,” which won a number of awards from gaming publications and Apple.
“‘Ridiculous Fishing’ is never going to make more money,” he said. “Yeah, some new people might buy it, but we made our money with ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ in 2013 and that money is spent, It’s spent on ‘Luftrausers.’ It’s spent on ‘Nuclear Throne.’ If somebody upgrades their phones to the new iPhone. Yeah. You have ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ in your account, Yeah you paid $3 for it. Yeah, it’s broken.”
That’s what caused the last major update Vlambeer did for the game. A major change by Apple in 2017 that switched from 32-bit to 64-bit apps, breaking a slew of content on their phones … including “Ridiculous Fishing.”
“All games broke,” he said, “Every game that wasn’t programmed for it broke. We updated ‘Ridiculous Fishing’ then but it feels like a mistake almost. It feels like, OK it’s 2018 and this game that we made money with that somebody bought in 2013 is now broken outside of our fault. We didn’t change anything. We didn’t break the game. We didn’t introduce a bug, but this continuous ecosystem that Apple has created, that comes with you with every new phone, broke it. “
Ismail said that either Apple has to start designing for backward compatibility support on their end or that people are going to have to get used to the idea of games dying and disappearing.
“Some of the best ios games from 2010 are gone,” he said. “Those developers, they don’t exist anymore. They went out of business. They split up. They started a new thing and they just don’t have the money or time to do it.”
https://variety.com/2019/gaming/features/android-ios-apple-g...
Wasn't that a reaction to users who refused to pay for games and just sideloaded them instead?
I can remember there being five dollar games in the early days of iOS that sold well. I can also remember developers trying games that had ads until you paid to remove them.
If a game gets content updates every other month, re-downloading a pirated game, and possibly losing all progress, meh.
If a game is going to go on sale for $20 (or $10) after awhile, why bother pirating it, just wait.
And Steam is absurdly convenient. Built in voice chat, collectables, and forums, means playing games on Steam is better than playing pirated games.
Ever hear of DRM? How about consoles that brick themselves if they detect that they've been modified?
No. That was a minuscule number of people.
It was a reaction to Candy Crush making insane amounts of money using casino mechanics.
I can certainly remember developers of early popular games that you paid for up front saying that they tracked how many copies of their game were out there, and only a minuscule percentage of those games had been paid for,
My impression at the time was that the supply of games in the app store was just too great, with hundreds of casual games being released every day. Thus driving down prices.
And Apple was more than happy to commoditise their complement; if 20 developers decided to clone Flappy Bird that was fine with Apple.
People were willing to pay up front on iOS, but Android users just sideloaded, leading to Skinner box free-to-play games being the most reliable way to monetize.
Not so when all the big gaming mobile companies are assigning their top talent to building stuff like Clash of Kings. And why wouldn't they, when they can make so much more money doing so than working on a quality prestige game that no one will pay for.
> the premium game market still exists and still is going strong, no reason it couldn't live on mobile devices also.
It's actually the opposite. Mobile-style microtransactions are slowly taking over the premium PC/console gaming market.
If you look at the numbers on mobile, it makes no sense from a business perspective to create non-F2P games on this platform.
You can still make money with so-called "premium" games, that were simply normal games before Apple poisoned the well, but the potential is considerably lower.
I agree... but there isn't one. And I don't think it's because of an underpowered GPU.
Personally, I don’t have the incentive because 1) paid mobile gaming isn’t a big market (see: top paid apps being the exact same years-old, curated Apple apps not having many reviews/downloads), 2) there aren’t many options to develop games targeting iOS which also target Android and Windows/Linux (at least if you want to use Swift), and 3) Apple could remove my game at any notice and I don’t get 30% of the revenue.
If Apple introduces a way to easily port desktop games to iOS, or even develop entirely new games which can run on Linux and mac and iPhone, I think we’d see a lot more iOS games. Maybe the new GPU isn’t only faster but also supports Vulkan/wgpu better?
Legitimately asking. I'm not up to speed on the subject.
1. https://developer.apple.com/games/planning/#bring-games-to-a...
It so absurd: We need to carry the device anyway since its a phone, it has a great GPU and there are thousands of existing great games that have been created that the device can easily run. The only problem has always been the stupidity of the code not being available to run on this device. :/
- sn30 pro
- lite 2
- zero
- micro
The latter two are comically miniscule. In my opinion the sn30 pro is the sweet spot between portability and actually being able to play comfortably.
Apple has fueled a race-to-the-bottom followed by an almost forced transition to f2p, and they benefited immensely in the process (30%), but I think that most gamers and indie devs are not satisfied.
I've been watching people around me and the amount of time everyone seems to spend tapping away at a phone, head down, is like something out of a dystopian movie.
The game addiction market must be worth billions to Apple. For all the environmental and other ad copy, there doesn't seem to be any concern about the mental and psychological effects of creating an ecosystem that knowingly relies on exploitative behaviour modification.
I also think the colour scheme is quite cynical. Pastel shades on the base model for the - let's say - less technically-oriented users. Strong blacks, whites, and metallics for the hard-core performance nerds who want that Pro tag.
There's something regressive about it all.
At the same time, the advent of a professional easy to access camera in everyones pocket transformed the world: Arab spring, George Floyd, everything we are witnessing in Ukraine. Made possible thanks to the ubiquity of the same device that causes a lot of harm.
>I also think the colour scheme is quite cynical. Pastel shades on the base model for the - let's say - less technically-oriented users. Strong blacks, whites, and metallics for the hard-core performance nerds who want that Pro tag.
I think they do pastels every other year no? And a lot of people buy Pros: all the "influencers" treat it as a tool to earn income so of course they prefer the best device of them all, I dont think they are actually looking at the specs though.
I though the hard core nerds buy things like the Pixel phones or the ASUS ROG type phones?
I'll second another comment, that another big challenge is the simple lack of ergonomics on any phone.
And also (mostly) the ergonomics.
Comparing a phone whose main purpose is definitely not gaming (at least the iPhone, I know there are some gaming-first phones) to a handheld console will always make the former look pathetic for this use-case.
The problem with touchscreen-only is that it doesn’t feel very good, and also any sort of control scheme will mean at least temporarily reducing usable area for UX since you can’t see through your hands.
That seems to be where their concern for gaming stops. There is Apple Arcade, but it feels like the least amount they could do for the size of their company.
I do think they care about it over the longer-term, particularly in light Vision Pro and their overall AR strategy.
What you're forgetting, and pushing aside, is that the mobile gaming market is as big as the traditional gaming market. All the phone games make as much money as all the consoles and PC gaming together. Apple, with its command of all the valuable phone customers, is pulling an estimated 14 billion dollars in 2021 in mobile gaming. So Apple is very dumb if they don't care about 14 billion in annual services revenue.
What you're thinking is that traditional gaming is big-boy gaming and where the big bucks are. The growth market is mobile gaming, with the other segments being stagnant outside of big hits. The reality is that Apple is a bigger gaming company, by revenue, than Microsoft or Sony, is controlling the growth sector, and is thinking accordingly. They have financed all on their own a new GPU generation for their phone and justified it as a need for gaming and gaming alone. Those other companies need partners, like AMD or Nvidia, to make them GPUs.
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...
The "reality" is that Apple still has to pay other studios to port games to their systems. We spent 8 tragic years watching them wheel out Tomb Raider demos each keynote as if it was a shiny new release. Larian Studios came, Blizzard Studios went, but nobody changed the tide of gaming on iPhone or Mac. The fact that Boom Beach is more profitable than dear esther is not exactly an allegorical victory for Apple.
So... here we are. A world where a $300, 20nm Nintendo Switch is a better gaming console than a shiny new $800 3nm iPhone. Apple's service revenue isn't driven by good games, so they have no incentive to build a better system. The entire iOS runtime is an antitrust meltdown waiting to happen.
In the end it's a business, whoever makes the most money is the market leader. Until the government steps in. You are right that antitrust action is the most credible threat to Apple's positon in gaming. The fact the leadership at Apple has not moved an inch to satisfy governments will be Tim Cook's black mark on his tenure.
You can only pay-to-play Bejeweled so many times, after all.
It's a digital company that is trying to increase revenue with services instead of just hardware.
How can you ignore gaming whilst offering your own streaming service? The gaming market is many multiples in size of all of Hollywood.
I would imagine that they don’t think they have much to bring to the table that would leaps and bounds get them over the current competition; their entry point would probably look like a premium Steam Deck or maybe the Vision Pro for AR gaming, but is that an Apple-sized market to sink their teeth into? Particularly when none of their other devices are traditional-gaming oriented.
Apple tried to counteract it with Apple Arcade, but that hasn't worked out.
With my Steam catalog I can download something I bought in 2004 and still be confident I can play it. I spent $20 on Monster Hunter for iPhone and one day iOS updated and it just didn’t work anymore.
My Switch games will assumably work until the console dies.
Another reason I completely stopped buying games on iOS was when The Binding of Isaac was suddenly delisted from the App Store. I never got a refund or anything, and because of this new versions of Binding of Isaac aren’t compatible with Macs either. I have hundreds of hours played in that game and it’s ridiculous that Apple censored it as “depicting child abuse”.
I’m super curious to see what they’ve done with this current–gen, mainline Assassin‘s Creed game coming to iPhone: there is no way the core gameplay of that franchise could translate to touch controls, so either Apple dropped the requirement, some poor team had the doomed project of building an abysmal fallback touch control scheme, or they implemented some kind of semi-automated scheme for touch that makes traversal and combat less interactive.
I mean.....millions of people play proper console games on their phones now using various streaming services and touch controls.....turns out playing games using shitty touch controls is preferable to not playing them at all I guess. So yeah, I imagine it's just a simple touch overlay, like the one used for XCloud.
To my knowledge you've always been allowed to provide optional game controller support, as long as you supported a touch interface too.
A dedicated device has the benefit of having a sole purpose: gaming. If I kill the battery, I just can't play anymore games. I can still take calls, browse the web, and text my partner.
Every once in a while I do, but it's usually a really basic game that uses hardly any resources to run, like a simple board game app.
Even people who wanted to play during Covid couldn't because it would just eat the battery to death.
I'm not really a gamer but I get Arcade as part of a bundle and it doesn't really wow me. I sometimes look at "Best of..." lists and try a few out on a plane flight and I'm mostly meh.
Maybe even making deals to compete with emulators + pirated ROMs.
Just fantasizing a bit here... thinking of Apple-approved N64, GameCube, GBA, PSP, even PS4 emulators with licensed games for a somewhat medium to high price tag - why not?
The bright side is that if you are on a yearly release cadence then you don’t let one thing slip the whole SOC (assuming, as Apple does, that you have a risk on and risk off design going simultaneously).
Your are right on that the Vision Pro will have a M3 not M2.
Where did you read about this? Is there some publication that publishes insights into things like this?
It's been publicly announced as using M2 but I assume they just plan to say "we made it even faster" and launch with M3 then?
Once the A17 makes its way to the iPad mini, that'll be even closer.
So some people are seriously playing it with no physical controls. =)
For "serious" mobile gamers there are devices like the Razer Kishi: https://www.razer.com/mobile-controllers/razer-kishi-v2
On this site people tend to forget that there actually are people under 30 whose only computing device is a phone. They use it for everything.
The touch screen is one of the least-used parts of the Switch. Which is a little disappointing, since it was so heavily and well used on the DS/3DS lines. But so many of the ways Nintendo intends you to use the system, the touchscreen isn't accessible. So games aren't built around it in the same way that it was for their previous handhelds.
And it wouldn't be their first attempt at such hardware:
https://lowendmac.com/2006/apples-pippin-and-bandais-world-m...
The most exciting thing for Mac gaming is probably the Game porting toolkit.
My faith is placed in the fact that they have been pouring resources that amount close to billions on making gaming a thing on iPhones and Macs.
As a long time Mac and iPhone gamer, I have seen slow and steady incremental progress. I'm personally excited for the new GPU.
Besides, I think they get the benefit of the doubt at this point. This is Apple, not Google, after all.
These two together seem to be very much about enhancing AI and Siri to be mostly on-device (something which they already started on).
A frequent complaint I read on HN is "why aren't there LLM based assistants as yet from any vendor" - but the answer to this is straightforward, it's not realistic to deploy cloud-based LLM at Siri-size user bases. Most queries also don't need LLM-style responses. (Also the rapid development of the field means that processing requirements are rapidly decreasing.)
In a prior keynote Apple noted that Siri was the most used assistant in the world. I don't have 3rd party data to support that, but it's a big enough claim that we could take their word on it just for conjecture purposes about the processing power needed to deploy LLM-based Siri.
So if we're going to see LLM-based usability enhancements to Siri, both in the types of data it's allowed to work with and enabling natural, context-driven interactions. That will have to be fully on device, and ultimately that will be a better experience for users as internet connectivity is an unreasonable barrier for such interactions (especially as it can stutter natural-language conversations).
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On the gaming topic: Look at the newly released Hello Kitty Island Adventure on Apple Arcade. It is an exclusive and playable across iPad/iPhone/Mac/AppleTV. The quality of this game is unusual, it delivers an experience that equals/exceeds Nintendo's wildly popular Animal Crossing. This signals that Apple are refocusing on gaming in a new way: bringing popular game paradigms to Arcade in a compelling, exclusive way, and this perhaps forms an extension of Arcade bringing ad-free versions of the App Store's most popular titles. So while I think we're far off Apple's hardware being a destination for gaming enthusiasts, we're now definitely past the point of Apple pushing people with an itch for gaming onto other platforms.
Baldur's Gate 3, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, some amazing remakes (Metroid Prime: Remastered, Resident Evil 4, Dead Space), Street Fighter 6 (which was loved by the community upon release unlike SF5, which had to be iterated on for a bit of time before becoming decent), Hi-Fi Rush, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Pikmin 4, Armored Core 6, Blasphemous 2, Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. I even ommitted quite a few that are a bit controversial or not "amazing", like Starfield or Hogwarts Legacy.
And that's only off the top of my head, with a good chunk of the year left to go with hitters like Alan Wake 2, Cyberpunk rework+expansion, Spiderman 2, MGS Collection vol1, and Cities Skylines 2 on the horizon.
There is no shame in losing interest in gaming, but claiming that "most AAA titles are so shit lately", all while I don't even remember the last time we had a year so chock full of amazing games, is a bit questionable.
Not all, but tried out most of them, beat some of them, others are still in progress, and some were just not my cup of tea (even though it was obvious they were great games).
> Which ones would you recommend if I were to only buy 1 or 2?
It depends on what type of games you are into, so it is kind of difficult to just give a general rec without knowing what you are into. I will try to explain my points for some of them, hopefully it helps.
* Resident Evil 4 Remake[completed], Dead Space Remake[completed] - action-horror games. Great remakes, especially RE4 (modernized the game in all the best ways possible, while still preserving the charm of the original). If you enjoyed the originals or wanted to experience them (but never got to it back when they came out), I heavily recommend. Or if you are into atmospheric third person action games. I am not a fan of horror games at all, but enjoyed those two greatly (given that it was more action that horror).
* Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom [played for a while, not completed] - an evolution of and a step up from the previous entry, Breath of the Wild. Very creative and free-form gameplay, open-world, heavily encouraging the player to experiment with building functional contraptions and exploration. Warning: Switch is greatly limiting the experience here, as the scale and physics of the game are clearly pushing the console to its max. 30fps and some graphical jankiness, but the art style and direction are great.
* Street Fighter 6 [still play online matches on a regular basis]- if you are into fighting games, this is a must-have, nothing more to say. They made this entry extremely approachable to newcomers, with amazing training modes and tutorials, as well as the "modern control scheme" option that makes things a bit easier for totally new people. If you aren't into fighting games as a genre though, I don't recommend.
* Hi-Fi Rush [in progress, about 25% way through] - reminds me of jet set radio aesthetically, really fun action-rpg game with a funky soundtrack, universe, and a fun gameplay. Kind of cheesy at times, but that's intentional.
* Bomb Rush Cyberfunk [almost finished it, about 85% done] - one of my personal favorite hidden gems this year. A spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio, some of the tracks were composed by the original composer of JSR. Platforming/light action game. I recommend watching a couple of videos and seeing if the vibe appeals to you. I have not played the original Jet Set Radio (but was aware of it), and I loved this game. If you enjoyed JSR in any capacity or if you like the vibe of the game (based on trailers and such), I recommend. Very off-beat and fun. If you want something unlike anything else out there, this is pretty much it. The only game that is even similar to it is the original Jet Set Radio.
* Blasphemous 2 [on the last boss at the moment] - indie metroidvania with some great atmosphere and a tight gameplay loop. If you are into 2d metroidvanias at all or liked the first game, this is a no-brainer. It is somewhat difficult and punishing, but not anywhere close to Dark Souls levels, very doable.
* Star Wars: Jedi Survivor [about halfway finished] - typical big budget western AAA game in Star Wars universe. Feels like a souls-like lite, making it more accessible. If you like star wars, or enjoyed the first game, or looking for something like Dark Souls but way more approachable, you will like this.
* Armored Core 6 [finished the main story, on new game+ right now] - mecha action game, made by Dark Souls devs. Combat is decent, but the star of the show is the garage/assembly mechanic. If you like tinkering with builds and managing all of that, or if you just like giant robots, this one is for you. Builds are easy to swap, no grind mechanics like in tons of RPGs, and the game has so much room to experiment with the builds, it is insane.
* Starfield [started, haven't played much], Hogwarts Legacy [90% done with the main story] - generally great games that would appeal to most people. Starfield is a typical massive open-world Bethesda RPG ala Skyrim. Hogwarts Legacy is a blockbuster open-world Harry Potter game. The aesthetics and vibes of Hogwarts Legacy are great, even for someone like me who hasn't finished all the books and isn't super into HP universe. Without knowing someone's general preferences for games, these two are the ones I would recommend to try out for most people (even though they aren't my two personal favorites out of this list).
* Baldur's Gate 3 [just started recently] - D&D system RPG game done incredibly well. A bit of a learning curve if you aren't familiar with D&D (I am not), and it might get a bit intense in terms of understanding the mechanics. However, this is a true love letter to D&D, and it is done incredibly well. If you have even some passing interest in D&D, or if you like complex RPG systems, this would be my #1 rec. I am personally a bit overwhelmed by it, but it is still an incredible game.
* Pikmin 4, Metroid Prime: Remastered - haven't played.
TLDR: General top recs without knowing anything about your preferences - RE4, Dead Space, Starfield, Hogwarts Legacy. For a more comprehensive explanation, see the details above. My personal biased favorites - RE4, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Blasphemous 2, and Street Fighter 6 (I am more of a Tekken player, but SF6 is just so good, it should have no issues sustaining me until Tekken 8 is out early next year).
It is a ceaseless source of bafflement for me how people continually treat Apple as though it’s not already one of the biggest players in the gaming world with an utterly massive library of games you can’t find on any console or on Steam.
Apple has recently made some real strides with making it easier to port games recently because of the need to port VR games to the Apple Vision Pro.
Also they are already making the mobile gaming money which is already lucrative. Are they also committing enough to the 'conventional' gaming?
And it's justified, because it's really not that important in money making in grand scheme of things.
You'll be able to play the same AAA games on your desktop Mac, your Macbook, your iPhone, your iPad, and your Apple Vision Pro (on a virtual gigantic screen), locally on the device with no WAN streaming required. That will be a relatively large market of people with money to spend, hard to ignore.
Didn't Nintendo appear on stage at the 2016 keynote event to announce Nintendo's foray into mobile gaming (on 3rd party hardware, anyway) with Super Mario Run? And didn't Apple add native support for the Switch Pro and Joycon controllers to iOS 16 last year? Nintendo has always hated being in the hardware business...
Relying on touch controls limits gaming to low pace, imprecise casual/idle games.
Be interesting to see how the new iPhone 15 Pro benchmarks on single-core and GPU.
That should be a leading indicator on what we can expect from the new M3!
I'll believe their GPU is decent when I see it
Assuming the trend of iPhone Ax chips showing up in Macs holds up, this would be late 2024 / early 2025 Macs and M4, not M3.
M2 is based based on A15, M3 is expected to be based on A16, M4 would be A17.
One of the reasons stadia failed is that gamers that spend the most do not want to keep rebuying games. Apple seems to expect people to also keep rebuying games. Just. No.
hmmm... i want an app that uses geolocation to have my iPhone start to mine bitcoin whenever it's plugged in to a charger that's not in a location where I pay for the electricity
"mind if I charge my phone?"
"you again!? get out!"
Looking forward (assuming it will work like the iPad Pro) to not carrying a laptop with me when I know there is a USB-C or HDMI (with an adapter) screen available at my destination. Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and I'm set. No more syncing with the phone - I am using the phone itself.
That sounds about as productive as the never ending stream of “I tried switching to an iPad for dev” blogs
I doubt they would sneak in such a feature without at least mentioning it. I expect this to be even more limited, perhaps just tethered airplay for better resolution.
What they will do is allow you to record video directly to storage devices and preview photos on large displays as they are taken.
LOL - I have to get my Apple news from tidbits in comments nowadays as I cannot stand to watch the saccharine overproduced videos that Apple make.
I used to love an Apple Keynote... but now, they are a huge turnoff.
I highly doubt the 15 Pro can drive a display. In the unlikely case that it can, you'll be limited to very low res. Why would they limit USB to 10gbps if the PHY can push the ~32gbps eDP bandwidth required for a modern display?
There are precisely two freemium games that take advantage of the power of the Apple Silicon chips: Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail, which were coincidently the two released games highlighted. (it may be interesting to see what Ubisoft and Capcom put out but the I suspect they'll price their games too high)
It bodes well for a M3 Pro chip for the next MacBook Pros, though.
They use the same GPU core design from handheld to desktop, so the improvement will apply everywhere as chips are updated.
I think their strategy is that iOS makes too much money for gaming companies to ignore, which means those companies are going to have an easy time reworking iOS games to target a mouse/keyboard/gamepad UI on Macs, since the two existing platforms (and even their upcoming AR/VR platform) have common APIs and CPU/GPU cores.
Gaming is an easily marketable profit funnel that directly relates with all the necessary advancements needed to pursue the Vision Pro/Visual Compute/LLM side of things. In my opinion, anyway.
Stuff that was added today will pay of in 3-4 years after it has trickled down to enough users. Like the spatial camera, now it's a curiosity on the top-end model, but in 5 years it might be a standard feature in phones with great synergy with the Apple Vision non-pro model they just happen to release when there are enough devices to produce content for it.
If Valve gets the opportunity to gain a foothold on iOS, the landscape could change very quickly.
It does raytracing because it has raw power. What you use this power for is another story. It can easily augment the neural engine for example.
Guessing it’s important for an eventual vision pro integration
There is absolutely no excuse when we're talking about a device at this price point and this age.
It doesn't matter that it wouldn't be fully exercised by most users. These are premium products at a premium price point. It's insulting that they would cheap out like that.
On iPads, the "base" iPad is on USB2 speeds, the mini supports 5Gbps, the air 10, and only the pro supports 40Gb USB4. And while SoC differences could explain differences between the iPad (A14) and Mini (A15), the 5th gen Air uses the same SoC as the 5th gen Pro which already did support 40Gb USB4. So it's not an SoC limitation.
Although they ended up putting the 48MP main camera on the non-pro and I thought that'd remain pro-exclusive as well so...
Maybe most won't care, but I still think it's disgusting and pathetic for a company this size with products this expensive to cheap out by using USB 2.0.
It also says "The included USB‑C Charge Cable is compatible with AirPods Pro (2nd generation) with MagSafe Charging Case (USB‑C)."
That's a notoriously difficult weld to make: https://doi.org/10.1177/14644207211010839
I would love to know what process they're using and how they've got it reliable!
Choices of cables we've had for the whole existence of the iPhone:
• Apple cables, $20-30, not even nice, cheap plastic with poor strain relief, work reliably until they succumb easily to damage
• Licensed (like Belkin), $20-30, nicer, work reliably
• 1,000 brands on Amazon, etc. Not licensed, 10% DOA rate, sometimes just stop working. Physically nearly always nicer than Apple. $3-12.
I'm really excited to be able to just have many of the same charging cables everywhere, and to buy them for $5 or less. Even buying cheap cables, I've never once had a USB-C (or even the terrible micro-B) cable fail to work.
Note: I actually feel just as strongly even though I only even use a cable in the car, and charge with "Magsafe" everywhere else. I just hate Lightning that much. Also, I could easily afford the Apple cables, but it would physically pain me to waste that much money knowing it's purely additional margin for Apple.
One cable might only support power, one might only be for data and one supports USB-PD up to 120W. How can you know? By trying them all!
I must be the only consumer who despises the thin edges on my current iPhone 14 pro. I'd like to be able to hold my phone and not randomly trigger edge-sensitive gestures like "scroll to top" (that you can't disable!).
But tiny bezels on tablets? Oof. Like the lates Galaxy Tab. How are you supposed to hold it without pressing at least 5 icons accidentally?
"iPhone 15 pro features a more advanced 48MP main camera, with an even larger sensor than iPhone 15 [and therefore iPhone 14 Pro]. The camera includes a new nanoscale coating to reduce lens flare."
See here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ZiP1l7jlIIA?si=FFSYTVqY0unVRSqu...
They also mention it enabling new focal lengths and better low light performance.
It seems like other vendors have been going the "push performance no matter what it does to power draw and heat" route for a long time now.
We will have to see. They have a 10% performance increase and I am betting there will be 5% coming from Clock Speed.
And it is not like Apple could push power draw any further as they have maxed out single core power draw. Unlike other competitor ( ARM / Snapdragon ) which has a much lower single core power draw figures and hence they try to push as much as possible.
That's Apple actually undercutting their own storage upgrades... what is going on?
Also, they kinda had to announce _something_ new this phone could do.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37485290
The back panel is made of glass. This is a user-hostile design choice. Apple tries to gas-light us, claiming that it's a "Durable Design". This is deception. I hope FTC sues them for false advertising.
A real durable design would have a durable back (metal, plastic, or composite) and a raised lip around the screen. I would buy such an iPhone immediately and gleefully use it without a case.
(1) https://www.theonion.com/new-iphone-geared-towards-college-a...
Having hardware which lasts is good, but they also need to make sure the software lasts. A phone is hardware + software, both need to last for the phone to last.
I know Apple is much better at this than Android, but still, they could be even better. My iPhone X does everything I need, physically it's still in pristine condition (so well done to Apple for that), but they're going to drop software support soon. Meaning no security updates, and apps will eventually stop supporting the old OS and thus the phone.
- Any browser engine allowed - 3rd party "app stores" allowed - Allowed to simulate iPhone without owning or having to use a Mac
before switching from Android
2 is going to happen eventually thanks to the EU
3 never going to happen
Today is a hardware day.
WWDC (June) is their software day.
I hate holding anything since iPhone 12 in my hands, the edges are sharp and cut into your fingers.
Every time I take iPhone X I'm just amazed how comfortable it is and what a step back was the iPhone 12 design.
I was very happy when they abandoned the 10/11 design with the rounded edges.
I have very soft hands, and "cut into your fingers" seems pretty hyperbolic. The current 14 Pro edge design (typing this on one) seems perfectly adequate to me.
(The sharp points at the edges of the finger slot in the middle of the MBPs always surprised me with their pointyness, however. The last Intel MBP was particularly sharp, however the points have been softened a lot in M1/M2 land.)
What I really want is a Pro Mini. I bought a 12 mini because that year the hardware gap between Pro and not was very small. The battery sucked ass but it was a dream to hold.
I figured the size would be an issue, and I definitely didn't like it as much as the 12 mini. But the worst part I didn't even foresee was the weight. It was SUPER uncomfortable to use one-handed, I was constantly terrified it would fall out of my hand. I ended up returning it and buying a 13 mini.
The switch to titanium is a good move. Even barring the weight, while the stainless steel is certainly eye-catching and looks great out of the box, as soon as you use the thing it's covered in smudges, and infamously is prone to getting covered in scratches over time.
iPhone 15 Pro weight: 188g
8.7%
Finally. I mean, 2TB is enough for me for now, but I know people with 5 people in their Apple Family with the 2TB tier absolutely maxed out.
Out of interest, I picked a random car to compare with. Based on the figures made available on the website, the base model was $39,347. The fully-loaded model was $49,243. That's the same ~25% difference Apple is using here.
Whether or not it is meaningful, it does seem to be in the realm of being typical.
Seems like on the latest generations, they dropped this feature as well, so it's interesting to see Apple revive it.
The biggest problem with this "innovation" is going to be teaching my parents how to use it and that "pressing the button doesn't always put the phone in silent anymore"
So you can spend $100 on a 1TB external drive (rather than $100 on another 128gb of internal storage) and you're way better off. If you're use case is 4k60 ProRes, this makes WAY more sense than recording locally.
They should have first turned the volume buttons to action button. I dont use the volume button.
That's one of the few remaining reasons for carrying around a laptop when going on vacations with family (to dump photos from the phones when they fill up).
1. USB-C. Yay!
2. New colors. Apple repeatedly refers to the colors as "stunning," but they look like regular colors to me.
3. Incremental hardware and software improvements. Pretty much what you expect every year. (Yes, we're all spoiled.)
Low power mode helps but a cpu limiter like when jailbroken would be good.
edit: oh, neat, yeah I missed it at first but it's right in the linked press release:
> Coming later this year, iPhone 15 Pro will add a new dimension to video capture with the ability to record spatial video for Apple Vision Pro.
But the part where they compared their new GPU accelerated ray-tracing to be 4x faster than software ray-tracing was the most hilarious part. I thought software rendering was a thing that mostly stayed in the 90s, but apparently I was wrong enough that even deserved to be mentioned in a multi-million dollar Apple presentation.
New iPhone, better than the old one. OK cool.
240g -> 221g for the Pro Max
There is barely anything different this time and an S year would have made sense.
The big standouts are camera enhancements and (significant) GPU enhancements for gaming.
> Now you can connect USB‑C gear like thumb drives, fast external storage, 4K displays, and microphones. And you can charge Apple Watch or AirPods from your iPhone.9
> Charge up to 50% in around 30 minutes10 with the 20W USB‑C Power Adapter (sold separately).
Seems like totally bog standard USB-C, just like the rest of their devices.