Apple Keynote video for iPhone5 introduction is live | Hacker News Reader

Apple Keynote video for iPhone5 introduction is live

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38 pointsMikeCapone50 comments

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Ok so just to recap the differences with the iPhone 4S:

-taller screen

-4g lte connection

-better camera

-better earphones

-better graphics

-new connector: no backwards compatiblity

-new software: no jb for a while, apple maps still less reliable than google maps, apple youtube app removed and the new google one can't play videos in the background

-no nfc

no backwards compatibility on the connector as shipped, but adapters available ($29)

Just a heads up, new lines requires double line breaks on HN.

you're missing some of the more notable changes:

- %20 lighter (under 4 oz is actually pretty stunning) - 2x as fast CPU - more microphones (and, it sounds like improved software) for better call quality - HD front facing camera

On paper, it's kind of boring, but I think it will seem insanely light and fast compared to everything on the market when you have it "in hand" at an Apple store.

I think what will make it a success or not is not a list of stats but rather if users like it significantly more than the previous model.

I believe they will.

Yes but I can't believe that this is the phone J. spent the last months of his life co-designing. This product has a "more of the same" feel to me, I would call it iPhone4SS actually.

ps.if you prefer android just read the name in a l33t way.

Well, the iPod hasn't exactly been completely reinvented over the past decade. The first version is usually the breakthrough, and then it gets refined.

Same with the iPad.

I'm not sure what people were expecting with the iPhone after all this time..

nfc maybe?

I'm not really impressed with the new phone. It seems like Apple will need to come up with more cool features if they want people to keep buying iphones. I'm not sure if I'm going to get the Galaxy SIII or the iphone 5 at this point. I need a new phone and was expecting to go with the iphone. But, I'm sort of underwhelmed at this point.

>I'm not really impressed with the new phone. It seems like Apple will need to come up with more cool features if they want people to keep buying iphones.

I think they need more cool features for people to say that they are really impressed with the new phone. But they don't need to iterate more than they have been to keep people buying them.

Apple had its paradigm shift with the phone. You can't just have those every year. Outside of the initial introduction of the iPhone, and then allowing apps, it's really just iterating, and I don't see how one could expect much different. Their competitors certainly aren't shifting any paradigms with their competing offerings. I think the biggest splash Apple (or others) will be able to get for a bit will have to come from a stylistic redesign (Lumina got many nods for this). Outside of that, it's just the march of the features, apps, and ecosystem.

I guess I'm not really talking about a paradigm shift. I'm just talking about cool features. For instance, I would consider Siri a cool feature. Even though it isn't really anything new and on Ice Cream Sandwich you're basically getting the same functionality sans some nice cute NLP stuff. A parad would be if you could plug your iphone into a monitor and use a bluetooth keyboard and have a partially functioning desktop. I think this probably where we're heading. It would be nice if Apple or someone made a convincing product that did this. I think there is going to be a Ubuntu version that runs on android phones and basically does this if I remember correctly.

Out of curiosity, what makes the Galaxy S III more compelling than the iPhone 5? Or, to turn the question around, what is the iPhone 5 missing that makes it so underwhelming?

On paper, the S III has a larger screen, NFC, a slightly higher MP front-facing camera, a barometer, and access to more Google services, like Maps, Play Store and Now (assuming the majority of Galaxy S III owners ever upgrade to Android 4.1).

For me, personally, none of those are remotely compelling. But then I'm heavily tied to Apple's services and love the App Store, so I'm quite biased.

Regarding hardware, aside from new enclosures, I don't expect any major changes in the near term. I doubt they'll add NFC any time soon, if ever. Why bother? The 4S and 5 support Bluetooth 4, which offers many NFC like features, and there's no compelling reason to add explicit NFC support now or anytime soon. Likewise, I bet it'll be a while before induction charging makes an appearance – again, if it ever does. Induction charging just adds bulk and isn't a huge step forward for most users; placing your phone on a charging pad is effectively equivalent to docking it.

The "cool new features" will probably continue coming from software, just as has been happening with Macs. Most Macs are only evolutionary improvements over their predecessors, with the occasional enclosure redesign. That hasn't harmed Mac sales in the least.

The problem with Apple's approach is that all innovations in iOS software and hardware have to come from Apple and Apple alone. So it's not enough to just keep releasing incremental and obvious improvements.

In order for Apple to maintain its unprecedented brand recognition and profit margins it's not good enough to match the competition. They have to be unambiguously better than the Android alternatives and they just aren't right now.

In order for Apple to maintain its unprecedented brand recognition and profit margins it's not good enough to match the competition. They have to be unambiguously better than the Android alternatives and they just aren't right now.

I disagree… are Macs unambiguously better than the alternatives? I'd say they aren't, but they still give Apple unprecedented brand recognition and profit margins. Ditto for iPods. For years, Macs and iPods often only saw incremental and obvious improvement.

Innovations don't always need to come from Apple; as is eagerly pointed out here, Apple's quite happy to let others pioneer tech (like, say, NFC) and only adopt it when it makes sense for Apple's product story.

Apple creates a superior story, a superior experience. That's it. Macs, iTunes, iPods, Apple Stores, and iOS devices all play together to offer clear and obvious benefits to consumers. Apple only needs to innovate when nothing currently on the market meets their product goals. Otherwise, they're focused on improving and refining the tech they're already shipping.

Ryan, I disagree. I just got an iPhone 4s. Actually it was given to me for free. It was a major downgrade from Samsung Nexus (naked latest Android), actually it felt like traveling backwards in time. Heck, in many respects it's not even up to the original Nexus One!

iPhone simply feels outdated because it's not as "online" as Androids are. The notion of "syncing" reminds me of my decade-old Nokia, the maps are barely useful (I use google maps via browser instead), the address book, the mail app, the way you use it is just ughh... old school: everything lives on an island which needs to be "synced". You can't even put a music on it without the iTunes, still. And even basic UX is plain wrong in many places, for example why does it keep beeping when receiving SMS messages while I'm typing??? Sorry, but this is a phone from 5 years ago. The world has moved on.

Interesting perspective and, like I said, one with which I'm not familiar. I've used a few Android devices (basically, I've played with all of the Nexus devices because we have them around for work), but only for a day or so at a time.

Personally, iCloud solves all of my syncing issues; the device is basically always online and all of my data's always up to date without manually syncing. All of my media is in iCloud, so I never need to sync my music, movies or TV shows. Likewise, I can purchase all of that media from the iTunes store on the device. Maps on iOS 6 is hugely improved with an enormous (and potentially disastrous) regression – there are no transit directions. And I've never noticed the beeps from Messages when I'm typing a response… I must have internalized and learned to ignore those. ;-)

I think it may really come down to: I can't use Android because I'm so tied to iCloud/iTunes and some of my favorite apps (Tweetbot and Reeder are probably the big ones) haven't been ported to Android. Also, the lack of polish on Android (even in 4.1) and in all Android apps drives me nuts. Maybe I'm too brainwashed by iOS. Every time I use an Android device, I feel like I've picked up an unusable and barely functional rip-off of iOS.

Likewise, perhaps iOS isn't usable to you because you're so tied to Google's ecosystem, and you're accustomed to Android and Android apps. And because you're used to the way everything works in that universe, iOS feels like the backwards, decrepit OS.

Yea, that's the problem. I was hoping that the iphone would be a clear winner in the SIII v iphone competition. That doesn't seem to be the case. SIII basically is a little better on all the technical details. And then you have the different OS's which is another story. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. I guess I'm probably asking too much, but I was hoping to be a little more excited about the next iphone.

I used to like watching the keynotes. Mr. Jobs is gone. Without, his salesmanship, the keynotes are not as interesting. That might not be the right word. I actually can not put my finger on it.

> I actually can not put my finger on it.

I think it's exactly that reason that made him such an interesting person

Jobs had an infectious, natural enthusiasm for his products.

Tim Cook just sounds like he's giving a rehearsed performance, no real emotion. It's fairly dull to watch.

For the first 12 minutes, Tim Cook sounds like he's trying really hard to mimic Jobs's style, albeit unsuccessfully.

I came here to post exactly that and was wondering if anyone else felt that. I wish Tim Cook would speak in his natural style, whatever that is. On the flip side, other companies' announcements are similarly boring, so that's not saying much.

yeah, its too bad. Cook is a genius in his own right, but maybe there's a better person to give keynotes

How embarrassing, Apple still requires QuickTime

Most undersold new thing is finally revamping iTunes.

Hopefully it's actually faster now too.

Amen to that! This revamp is long overdue.

Plus, you never know, some rogue developer might have given in and added FLAC support.

Sure feels like skating to where the puck is already.

I think they're skating to where the profit is.

Apple made its new fortune by being at least one step ahead of everybody else.

Quicktime eh? not this man.

It's the end of 2012. Use a proper media player, Apple, either Flash or a h.264 one. Just something that actually works in a browser. This is ridiculous. And if you want as many people to actually watch this, you may want to even consider uploading it to Youtube.

I'm not sure how to get VLC to work with the browser, but Apple's using an HTML5 video tag that embeds this url: http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/129opiygabsdvibsdfobsd....

If you open that in VLC, it plays fine.

Here's the relevant HTML:

Here is a list of clients that support HTTP Live Streaming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming#Clients

> Just something that actually works in a browser.

Working fine in my browser.

What a throwback to the days of "Best viewed in Internet Explorer 5" that held the web back.

Apple, of course, is using the new fancy HTML5 <video> tag!

But its referencing some QuickTime playlist, with a bunch of extra magic attributes. That shit is not one inch better than <embed>.

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 and I can't get this to work.

Why is it that just about every company on the planet can happily stream video to me, but the only ones who seem to consistently fail at it are technology companies?

Streaming video requires Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, Safari on iOS 3 or later, or QuickTime 7 on Windows.

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

Anybody know how I can watch it from Linux (Mint - Cinnamon)?

You could always install OS X as a Virtualbox instance.... ;-)

Wait a couple hours until it gets transcoded and uploaded to YouTube?

Nopal suggests opening this in VLC: http://qthttp.apple.com.edgesuite.net/129opiygabsdvibsdfobsd...

1. No information about the price of the iPhone 5 (I think they'll ask $650 like the old 4S price -- the 4S is now announced to cost $550).

2. They say there's a multi-standard radio in each phone but Apple lists three different incompatible models for USA, CDMA, and Germany/Japan carriers.

3. The iPod Touch upgrade looks really good. It's even more impressive than the iPhone 5 it's based on. (Still no GPS, though)

1. The prices are on the apple website. They are the same prices as the 4S was.

Those prices on the apple site only include carrier subsidized carrier-locked prices. The real prices are not listed anywhere yet.

On the .ca site it says:

"From $699"

http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph...

> The iPod Touch upgrade looks really good. It's even more impressive than the iPhone 5 it's based on. (Still no GPS, though)

Yeah, I'm most glad they upgraded the ipod touch—I find the idea of an independent device which has some the neat features of the iphone without being tied to my phone contract, or incurring sometimes-scary phone charges, pretty appealing. The old ipod touch was pretty nice, but had some big flaws, like the fairly lame camera. The new one not only seems to have a decent camera, but despite having a larger screen, is actually lighter than the already-featherweight ipod touch 4!

Everybody I've mentioned this to has said "oh they'll probably get rid of the touch anyway, they want everybody to buy the iphone instead" which made me sad—but apparently it's not true! :]

Lack of GPS is a shame though. Even cheapo phones have GPS these days, so it wouldn't appear to be a cost issue; I guess they are still trying to push the iphone...

[An android version might be even nicer, but as far as I've seen, Apple's the only one even attempting to address this niche...]

My favorite part BY FAR was when Tim Cook introduced the Foo Fighters like they were an Apple product.

Skip to the end if you haven't seen it. Definitely worth it. I couldn't stop laughing.

I really dislike the two tone backs on the iPhone. Having gloss and the matte looks pretty terrible. Why couldn't they make the entire back matte like the iPod?

Why don't they allow controls on the video?

OK, I tested this. No video controls in Safari or Chrome (Mac), but I get them in Firefox. How profoundly stupid that I cannot pause the video in Apple’s browser, I have to use Firefox to do that. But the video quality is reduced in that browser.

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