While getting hammered by Wall Street and the press for not innovating, they stick to their guns and keep evolving in incremental steps, and laying the ground for the innovation they want to do in the future.
For example, current iPhone battery life isn't the greatest compared to some of the larger phones out there that are packing much more battery.
But they keep making small efficiency improvements, over and over, so that if (when?) release a device with a larger battery, it will be like the MacBook Air situation, where the MBA gets staggering battery life on the next hardware iteration compared to competitors that have just adequate battery life, basically being carried by the hardware.
I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting).
I think Google has the ability to continue competing with them if they remain focused.
I have my doubts about any of the other Android manufacturers, though Xiaomi could be interesting in the future, due to their focus on services.
The iPad 3 is a counter-example; retina display almost for the sake of it, and the hardware suffered. The fact that Apple pushed out the iPad 4 so quickly thereafter can, IMO, be chalked up to the fact that the iPad 3 was either a stopgap device or immediately regretted internally and caused the schedule of the iPad 4 to be bumped up.
And did I mention that I don't have to use new charging cables? My family uses MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPod, iPad2, and iPad3 and I am happy I have to use the same cables for each.
I'll take iPad3 over iPad4 any day (at least for the next few years)
On it's own, it's certainly fine. However it's clear that there were trade-offs when moving from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3.
This is a nice phone, but I'm sorry - if you think Apple "remains in total control of the industry" with sub 20% marketshare and shrinking you are delusional.
Whatever you may think of the theorerical advantages that Apple has, its not working for them outside of the US.
BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."
I think VW Group and Mercedes-Benz might argue with that.
Of course, it depends how you define "luxury" but with Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Audi brands, VW Group seem to be doing pretty well.
Except it doesn't: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/07/26/samsung-dethrones-app...
You Apple fanboys are constantly moving the goalposts. First it was who sells more devices, then it was who had more revenue. Now you've lost the "who has more profits" argument as well. What's it going to be next? Who uses more aluminum in their devices?
But thanks for the link, I'll be using these statistics in future debates against the iCult.
Now don't get me wrong, a number of Apple-users are rational beings. They actually argue to me that they get huge value from iDevices, and I'm fine with that. If its your cup of tea, yes, go on and get it. (And I won't call these guys part of the iCult. Rational Apple-users are indeed... rational).
However, people like you argue that high margins are a good thing. NO THEY'RE NOT. Margins are: * Cost of the device MINUS cost that Apple spent to create the device
The larger the margin, the more Apple is screwing you out of your money. Period. No rational consumer should EVER be happy about being conned out of tons and tons of money.
And to see these idiotic members of the iCult, so proud... so happy to waste money, and BRAG about the margins that Apple is stealing from them... it really is enough to make me lose faith in the free market.
Remember, in a free-market with perfect competition, profits approach zero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition / http://www.economicprofit.org/Zero-Economic-Profit.html. Consumers in a free market should NEVER be pleased when they learn that the products they buy are leading to record-breaking profits on top of record-breaking margins for a company.
The iCult doesn't exist, you are just trying to justify your own buying decisions. But go ahead and keep thinking otherwise, I really don't care.
But as long as you "brag" about Apple's profits, you are masochistically accepting punishment from a company that you hold dear. You are bragging about how much Apple manages to take your money away from you...
And that just isn't right.
So IMO, keep the arguments against Android, argue about why other systems are bad. But whatever you do, do NOT pretend like Apple's huge profits are a good thing for you as a consumer.
As long as we aren't forced to buy Apple products, i.e. we have a free market, Apple's huge profits don't matter to consumers. Perhaps Apple has a monopoly on smartphones that don't suck balls, but until the DOJ sees it necessary to break them up for it, I reserve judgement.
BTW, I happily use a Nokia 920, not an iPhone, but I'm tired of these Apple cultists economics-ignorant conspiracy theories. The cult argument is usually used by people who just can't understand free markets.
Profit margins are irrelevant to the discussion.
It may keep the shareholders happy, but ultimately it means nothing to anyone else. I don't see why people keep brining up this retarded meme.
And a new one from HTC probably in Q4 http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobil...
I doubt that the scanner will be on the front, because it will take valuable screen space (there are no hardware buttons on android)
I also doubt the apart from a bunch of phones there will be many using this technology. It didn't catch with the motorola phone because the sensor was prone to errors.
Apple bought a fingerprint scanner company last year http://www.macworld.com/article/1167917/apple_acquires_finge... and had a good chance to create a good quality sensor, I don't think others will have the same technology available.
How exactly is putting a little scanner inside a button going to be meaningfully better? Like face unlock, it's at best a cute trick. Apple's past genius has been about finding new fundamental ways to use technology. Slightly easier protection against spousal snooping doesn't qualify, sorry.
Touch ID takes what you would have done anyways (thumb on home button to wake and then type in PIN) and makes it even faster. Now you still put your thumb on and eliminate the typing pin part.
I haven't used Touch ID yet but I wake my phone a lot during the day, so this seems like a nice (but not absolutely necessary) feature for me. Something small that makes the experience that much better.
For a phone, it's a poor fit. Variance in light levels is too high.
Fingerprint login is something I've had on my laptop for what seems like a decade. It's a gimmick there. But I anticipate that fingerprint unlock could be about as good as face unlock. It has the advantage of working in the dark.
Touch ID could have widespread application. Think e-commerce, banking/finance, physical access control, etc.
I have face unlock turned on, and so apparently, no, the natural way of picking it up doesn't perfectly center my mug.
Net effect is having waited however long to try to center and recognize my face, I end up having to realize it didn't work, so an exception case action is needed, and type in a pin and enter.
The implementation is unfortunate.
I, for one, open the phone and look at it a slight angle, not with the camera centered on my face as if I'm about to take a selfie.
Whereas Apple focuses on a few core features to improve on and communicate with each phone, and they're overwhelmingly cautious - like only integrating Touch ID with a few spots of the phone at first. But they nail the initial execution, and the communication. So their phones are still the absolute centre of the market. And no other company can inspire product lust to the degree they can.
I think Apple is in a unique place because they are beholden to no upstream provider (either hardware or software), retailer (they own their own stores) or component manufacturer (in the case of x64 chips, they flirt with AMD enough to keep Intel in check - for ARM solutions they run the show). They have volumes that can command suppliers' compliance.
Lenovo is hobbled by Windows, and the margins in that space are small enough that it's honestly not worth their time to simply "make it work right" w/r/t their drivers, which is why my Thinkpad fingerprint scanner never got used after about day 3.
Instead Apple's competition has fallen over themselves to try and chase every short-term opportunity, leading to constant reinvention, total lack of focus, and squandered potential. Frankly, it's embarrassing - you would think that enough people outside of Apple recognise the scale of the challenge Apple poses and decide to respond. Instead these companies come off looking like cheap idiots.
Lenovo bought IBM's business because IBM (who essentially made Microsoft who they were) decided it's a loser's game to depend on Microsoft. They are structurally incapable of meeting Apple's capabilities. If they do something novel, it will be reverse-engineered by Dell or HP and become commoditized (I would support that clandestine type of sharing if I were Microsoft).
About the only exception might be Samsung because of their dominant position supplying memory/disk/processors for Apple and other smartphone manufacturers. Apple is worried about Samsung, but Google should be as well.
He has been spouting rubbish like this all over the thread.
If he was just saying that Apple make great hardware, I dont think anyone would be disagreeing with him.
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/07/26/samsung-dethrones-app....
The supposed "failure" Samsung seem to be doing pretty well.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/27/samsung-has-not-de...
Apple didn't start out making phones. Their computing business is still a fortune 100 company in it's own right.
If some company hade made a really good and well integrated fingerprint sensor, it might well have seen more widespread use.
I'm not implying that Apple can't make mistakes - it's clear they can with Maps and Siri - but a) it would be extremely uncharitable to judge them on version 1.0 of Maps and Siri, both ridiculously complex features, and most importantly b) their overall product strategy is still the best in the business. Doesn't matter how much people kick and scream about the newest Apple mistake - does anyone even remember Antennagate? Tech people cling to these memories, but normal people forgive and forget.
1. In other contexts, the sheer perfection of their 1.0 products are exactly what Apple is judged so successful by. As with the commentary on the fingerprint scanner: the praise is that while other manufacturers deliver buggy, incomplete features, Apple gets things right on the first try.
2. While it's true that everyone makes mistakes, Siri and Maps were arguably the highest profile features on the 4S and the 5, respectively.
I think when parent(s) were remarking on execution mattering they were implying: 'Execution is key ... to the success of the feature (and consequently) the brand'. My experience is very few people know what Google Now is. Your preference of it does not demonstrate an example of that sort of success-due-to-execution that other posters are suggesting Apple's products exemplify.
I've even found myself thinking 'Siri, where's my phone?' when I can't locate it in my flat. Siri is addictive if you learn to use the tool.
I also use for "what's the weather like today"
very convenient, give it a try, it's great
I hope touch id proves to be successful, but I'm really interested to see what happens if it's not. How do you save face and stop investing in a technology, while also weaving a story that convinces customers they don't need it anymore?
While they may have implemented Touch ID really well, it's still just yet another way of unlocking the device. Strategically it has little benefit to Apple.
How much would you pay for Touch ID? It offers little security benefit, only allowing you to log in a tiny bit faster. I can log in with my passcode fairly quickly and often without even looking at the screen. Maybe $5? $10 at a stretch. Definitely not worth getting locked into Apple's platform for another generation.
Edit: It will be extremely telling of the politics of touch ID internally within apple when we see the uptake of this stuff on non-iPhone hardware. Does the entire company believe in this technology? Will we see it on the iPad, iPad Mini? On Macbooks? Once we see deeper integration of touch ID across the rest of Apple's hardware devices and software services would a moat start being formed, but it would require a stern guiding hand within Apple to make it happen.
Uh, how many times a day do you perform some type of authentication of your identity? I have a feeling this will be one of those foot-in-mouth statements.
If this tech remains an iPhone (or even just iDevice) only tech, it's a (albeit impressive) party trick. Nothing provided by touch ID can't be eventually replicated by a competitor, patents notwithstanding.
No other OEM is positioned like Apple is to pull this off, but it won't be easy to elevate touch id to how we today perceive something like retina.
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Secure-Enclave/What-is-Apple%E2%8...
Apple bought a company that made fingerprint scanners (like the one in the Motorola Atrix HD) and put the secure info in the secure area of the ARM chip, which ARM designed for putting secure info in.
Except make that sound like the moon landing, SpaceX, Tesla and the Oceans 11 heist all rolled into one.
Are we still allowed to call Apple a cult? Or are they a full blown religion now?
-No, the Touch ID scanner is not like the one in the Motorola Atrix, at all. Totally different and superior technology. The Motorola uses the standard, inferior, straight-line fingerprint sensor that you have to swipe your finger across. These are easily fooled by many methods, including a lifted print or a mold of the user's finger.
-No, it's not an ARM chip; Apple designed the chip. Not ARM. Apple also designed the secure area of the chip; not ARM. It does use ARM CPU cores, yes. Which is different.
Are we allowed to call you a troll yet? Or just content-free and annoying?
Apple hasn't "made it sound" like anything except a fingerprint sensor with good convenience and very good security. Which is what it apparently is. So pipe down, mister.
That link also claims that Apple uses a "version of TrustZone" from ARM, which seems highly likely. We'll not hear about it from Apple just like Nuance aren't allowed to talk about the fact that they make the voice for Siri, and just like Samsung screen prints little Apple logos on the chips it makes for them.
But since you're so sure it's not, what's your source?
What was the point of that?
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/apple-stimulates-brains-reli...
I guess this isn't true just for Apple, but for other major brands as well.
No, it's not.
It has two properties that are very important:
1) It's very secure (not like Face unlock, which could be fooled by a photograph or fail to work depening on poor lighting etc).
2) It's very natural (you already press the home button to open the phone anyway, you don't need good light, you don't need to hold it so that the camera centers your face etc). So people will use it, unlike Face unlock which is usually discarded.
Why are both of those things important? Because it means it can be used a authentication mechanism for buying stuff. In fact, Apple has already integrated it with iTunes IIRC.
BOOM, you don't even have to add your Apple ID password anymore!
Add Bluetooth 4, Passbook, camera for scanning codes and stuff, and half a billion iTunes accounts, and you have an "mobile payments" winner.
If Apple ever starts offering payment services through iTunes (using NFC or some other technology), authenticated payments can be done in an instant instead of "just wait a bit while I enter my password".
If you're an iPhone user and I took away your iPhone and replaced it with an Android phone, would the first thing you complain about be touch id?
Build quality, accessories, apps (maybe?) are all things that Apple has going for it with the iPhone that at the moment are more strategically important than touch id.
It's like free samples at Costco. They're awesome, you miss them when you shop at a different grocery store, but at the end of the day there are other reasons why you shop at Costco and if you decided you needed to go to a different grocery store, those free samples aren't going to sway you to come back.
Huh? Apple isn't a bunch of fiefdoms with competing and disparate product silos. Apple as a whole is completely behind this technology, and the fact that you don't understand that renders your opinion fairly moot.
See, that's exactly what the OP means. I tried to use face unlock on my Nexus 7 - it's just noot good enough. Too slow, too unreliable, especially in bad light conditions. I obviously haven't had the change to play with the iPhone 5s yet, but I'm quite confident that after getting used to keeping the thumb on the home button after turning it on, you won't event notice the fingerprint scanner.
But the most important thing is that it's a BS procedure, to have to look into the camera and get it to capture your face. Not the natural way to hold the phone when casually unlocking it (I, for example, as lots of people, do it casually at an angle to my face).
Putting your finger on the home button, on the other hand, is something you have to do anyway to open it, and you can even do it while the phone's getting out of your pocket.
Don't Android manufactures/users defending this see these OBVIOUS flaws?
I don't know whether that applies here, though. I have no experience with either the 'old' and the 'current' technology, and this review does not give much info, either.
You know, there were lots of mp3 players before the iPod too. If you wanted a bulky, crappily assembled gadget with a frustrating UI (and FM radio!).
Now consider that an attacker with physical access to your phone can either lift your fingerprint from the screen (you have been touching the screen, haven't you?), or can retrieve the software image of your fingerprint by plugging your iphone into their computer.
"As well as" == fine
"Instead of" == run!
The cynical part of me thinks that the proliferation of mobile devices + the close proximity of these new devices to danger (danger being people who would quite like you to give them access at every opportunity it seems. e.g. employees of an increasingly privacy-hostile government, such as the police) in the hands of users who don't know the implications is the biggest change/problem.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/08/03/android-jelly-beans-...
Touch ID is a capacitive fingerprint sensor embedded behind a sapphire crystal cover. The sensor works by forming a capacitor with your finger/thumb. The sensor applies a voltage to one plate of a capacitor, using your finger as the other plate. The resulting electric field between your dermis (layer right below your outward facing skin) and the Touch ID sensor maps out the ridges and valleys of your fingerprint.
They're so cheap to manufacture that you can sell them for $1 and still make a profit.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/325177895/High_Performance...
That's exactly the point. It doesn't matter whether it's really hi-tech or unique or not. It's Apple's ability to present these things in a way which just makes you salivate that matters. This is a point which seems so hard for tech people to understand... it doesn't matter if you think people should see through Apple's claims, the spoils go to Apple because they know, as seemingly no other company on earth does, how to entrance people. A few key features, lavish, presentation, a feeling of luxury... that's what builds anticipation and excitement. Apple's closest equivalent are food companies, who have mastered the dramatic, salivatory description of products.
This ad campaign illustrates the point.
http://scoopertino.com/apple-blasts-into-supermarkets-with-r...
The only thing that is relevant is whether it works. Everything else is irrelevant.
http://www.citeworld.com/security/22399/iphone-fingerprint-s...
(Though it may work for a very short period of time if you were alive when they cut it off, but not for long)
Quoting from the article: "Apple's Touch ID was the biggest surprise for me. I found it very well executed and a nice part of the overall experience. When between the 5s and the 5/5c, I immediately miss Touch ID."
Coming from someone as respectable as Anand, I would call that reasonable grounds to call TouchID "meaningfully better".
Maybe you can point to something similar for face unlock?
I think it's these sorts of practical considerations that really make Apple products special. I feel like there is someone at Apple thinking through what happens when a dad carrying a baby gets a phone call. I don't feel like that's the case with say Samsung.
It doesn't.
It is about far more than that: it is about a new payment system, both more secure and more convenient. If that doesn't seem ambitious enough for you, I don't know what would.
You wouldn't trust face recognition to allow payments on stores or the Internet. Touch ID is designed so you can trust it, down to the separate secure storage for your fingerprint data.
It starts with being able to use your fingerprint to authorise payments at the App and iTunes Stores, and escalates from there.
From the review: "When [moving] between the 5s and the 5/5c, I immediately miss Touch ID."
Today it's a method to unlock your device, but there is no way that this is all Apple wants it to do. The possibilities are endless. Imagine not having to put your password into another website, instead you just touch the home button. Making a purchase on iTunes? Use the scanner instead of the password, etc.
But that's not all. This could easily be used in a retail environment, where a prompt on your screen shows up and says "Buy foobar for $5.99?". Touch ID does the rest.
1)Minor improvements get fawned over and made to seem like such a life-changing massive improvement and Apple fans gloat about how Apple is the best because of x, often when other manufacturers have had the same feature/capabilities for a long time. Doesn't matter, now Apple has it, it just sucked before.
2)Apple actually seems to regularly release just about as many new features/capabilities as the next guy, but then focuses in on the things that it's fan base promotes and is excited about, and that becomes a feedback loop regarding the 'few key features'. There was a tag-cloud image from the keynote that listed all the new stuff, and most of it you'll never hear about again. It isn't the focus on key features in every release, it's you, deciding what features are key and then telling your friends all about them, and then Apple also amplifying your message. If people latched onto iBeacons, we'd be reading about that non-stop now. The difference (and where you're correct) is that Apple focuses on these features vs. Samsung with the S4 commercial that tries to show you everything and you end up not remembering any of them. Contrast that with the MotoX ads (very well done), which are still a bit scatter-shod, but much more focused.
Question for you though, what's with the comment about "Google competing in the medium-term"?? I think you're more confident about Apple then they are ;)
Because this is very often exactly the case.
Apple get things wrong (especially when it comes to network services). But when they get things right — really right — you realise that no one else had done it properly before.
> Apple actually seems to regularly release just about as many new features/capabilities as the next guy, but then focuses in on the things that it's fan base promotes and is excited about
This is not true. Apple focuses on the features that it feels defines their products — not what their "fan base promotes." Apple didn't focus on Touch ID because everyone was clamouring for a fingerprint scanner; they focused on it because they felt it was a truly good solution to the problem of unlocking your phone (something many people didn't even consider to be a "problem").
The tag-cloud image is from WWDC. They always do this to show the new APIs and features that developers will be excited to use.
Apple focused on three features with the 5s. They did not choose to focus on these because of what people were talking.
I am not sure why you state:
> It isn't the focus on key features in every release, it's you, deciding what features are key and then telling your friends all about them, and then Apple also amplifying your message
This does not happen at all. Apple does not "amplify" what people are talking about.
No they haven't, nobody had such a fingerprint reader in the phone, all others (specifically I know of only one at the moment, do write if you know more) are "slide you finger, not too fast, not too slow, don't press the side, oops not good enough, slide it again." Having used such readers, I know they are really annoying. Not the one on iPhone 5S. You press the finger not having to care about the angle and that's it. Compared to the slide ones that reject your whole slide because it was a little to the left or to the right and where only one slide direction is allowed and it takes exact time, iPhone's is pure magic.
"Having something" is not "we can write it on the spec sheet even if it's unusable."
Also having not used the iphone 5s, you can not blindly say the solution will be market defining or very secure. Any technology like this will consistently work. Your phone will most likely ship with a backup security system that will be used when the phone can't match the finger prints. What would that mean ? Any random person can exceed the number of tries with finger print unlock and then go to the back up system that is no more secure than existing solutions.
> Apple is so far ahead of the competition it's ridiculous - maybe Google can compete in the medium-term, I'm not sure
This line just reeks of Apple fan boyism. There is literally nothing on the ios now that is ahead of android. Infact for the last couple of releases ios has been catching up with android (notifications, quick settings etc). It still does not have intents, widgets, default apps that can be replaced. But yes, live inside your own bubble and drool at everything apple.