The iPhone 5S and 5C
daringfireball.net
daringfireball.net
One interesting thing I've discovered about Gruber's columns is that you often have to read between the lines and get accustomed to how he presents his narrative. Praise for Apple is freely handed out, weaknesses are noted, and praise for other companies is guarded (when said company is in competition with Apple). For example, he notes the weaknesses of Siri in a generally positive sentence, and states that "Google Now is faster." I think he would agree that Google Now is not only faster, but also provides better results with better comprehension, and really the only downside is that you can't access it with a long-hold on the home button. That's not something I'd expect Gruber to say. However, once I recognized how he couches his concerns, I've found that he has some of the most insightful, nuanced and thoroughly processed views about Apple overall.
It fits in my front jeans pocket (much to surprise of many people; just barely, but it does), and I can sit comfortably with it there (for more than a few hours, I do take it out).
It can't be fully used with 1 hand (like when standing in a bus), although it can used partially (scrolling a web page, switching tabs in Chrome, scrolling twitter).
I primarily use iMessages/SMS and email for communication, but I do have a VOIP that I can make and receive calls at. You can use a headset with it, so there's no need to bring it up to your head. FaceTime, Skype, etc. I'm a developer, so I don't talk on my phone 24/7, hence it's enough to get by.
There are a few advantages over an iPhone. Infinite battery life, essentially. Much cheaper monthly plan. I pay $30 for 3 GB of data. No contracts (came in handy when I moved from Canada to US recently). No long distance, roaming... if you travel and get on wi-fi, you have the same (VOIP) number and everything. Huge screen, I use it for browsing all the time instead of a laptop. It's an iPad mini, enough said.
One other limitation is it doesn't have a vibrating motor, unfortunately, so when you put it in silent mode, you'll have no way of knowing about incoming calls or text messages. So I either have sounds on, or leave it on a table so I can see the screen light up (instead of keeping it in pocket).
It's still unusual enough for people to talk to me about it. I don't do this just to be different, I do it for the practical value. I wanted a bigger screen and I don't want 2 iOS devices (it'd be a hassle to keep them in sync). It's been around a year and I'm still extremely happy with it. It may not work for everyone, but it's a lot more viable than most people would expect.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/07/31/samsung-sma...
Plus gloves do often come as one size only. Depends on the glove type, material and manufacturer.
Not because he's wrong, because he's usually right.
Not because he's shallow, because he's usually very deep and insightful.
Not because he's rude, because he's polite even when dismissing other's stupid observations.
It's in spite of all this.
I think it's because I know before reading a Gruber piece what its conclusion will be, namely "Apple did something great, amazing and innovative. Here's how and why."
There's no surprise in his conclusions. If it's about an Apple product or decision, I know what the ending will be.
P.S. Sure there may be a few times when Gruber has criticized Apple, but to me they feel statistically insignificant.
For example the cameras in the early iPhones were very deliberately below par specifically so that they could ramp up the camera quality with each new model as an incentive for owners to upgrade. Imperfect by specification, but perfect business execution. I say this as someone who bought into iPhones with the 3G and never regretted it, but it's the truth.
With screen sizes, I would prefer a slightly larger screen size on my current iPhone 5. I do think Apple will eventually go to a greater screen size, but if so they will do it because they need it as a differentiating factor for a new model. I was half expecting them to do it this time because I couldn't think of a compelling new feature that the next model would need, but I didn't know about the move to 64bit, TouchID and M7. This time they had enough new features that they didn't need to move to a bigger screen.
Yet.
That’s quite an accusation you’re making. Do you have any sources to back that up? I read a lot of tech news and I’ve never come across anything like it.
I don’t think that was the case at all. The original iPhone had a better camera than my high-end SonyEricsson smartphone did at the time.
Also, the camera on the iPhone 3G was exactly the same as the camera on the original iPhone, so it couldn’t have been used as a way to people to upgrade their phones.
Apple tries to get people to upgrade every two years, not every year. The difference in photo quality between an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4S or an iPhone 4 and an iPhone 5 is immense. However, all of those models were among the top camera phones when they were new.
"..it's still a lousy sensor by even ultra low-end dedicated camera standards, so we'd recommend this not be used in the field for anything but the occasional candid shot"
Ars Technica compared it semi-favourably to low end camera phones, but:
"..Another glaring omission is the lack of video capabilities in the iPhone's camera: something that many very basic (and much cheaper) handsets can do"
It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't anything special, lacked many features found on much cheaper phones and again wasn't upgraded for two full years. By that time it's camera capabilities were woefully behind even the most basic camera phones. Here's what Macworld said about the 3G:
"For a product as on the cutting edge as the iPhone, its built-in camera is an embarrassment"
IMHO the reason they didn't upgrade the camera on the 3G was that they didn't have to. They were selling as many of them as they could make and being in a class of their own had essentially no competition. As I said, they kept improving this feature in reserve for when they needed it. This isn't really a criticism, I loved my 3G, but this is Apple's modus opperandi.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/03/iphone-review-part-3-apps...
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/07/iphone-review/11/
http://www.macworld.com/article/1134482/iphone3g_review.html...
Both the original iPhone reviews you linked to are positive about the iPhone camera’s photo quality compared to other phones. They mention the quality was bad compared to point-and-shoot cameras, but that was the case with all camera phones.
At the time the iPhone was announced, I had just bought a SonyEricsson P990. It was SE’s top-of-the-line product and it cost Euro 700. It had a 2MP camera, just like the iPhone, but the photos it took were terrible compared to those taken on an iPhone.
But the rest, I agree with Gruber 100% that it is apparent that Apple does not play the specs game like other companies simply to have a nice spec sheet you can read off like a Baseball trading card. They put in their devices things that are "fast enough" to achieve what they want to achieve. And it is apparent they are very good at that seeing as what kind of performance and thus resulting user experience they can get out of the hardware they use.
I still remember the times Android fans were raving just how much faster their phones were compared to iPhones just because it said so in the spec sheets. But when you actually used them, you would have a hard time not to laugh at just how jittery and overall unpleasant it was navigating through the Android UI. It was no contest compared to the iPhones back then.
If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer!
Their software is easy and intuitive to use but is too much rigid for my tastes.
IMHO he speaks like if people with my opinion shouldn't exist.
He does bash Apple for their services frequently.
His articles read like he is constructing a narrative to fit a particular conclusion and world view. The people that I know in advertising/marketing all know that a lot of what they say is bullshit. I imagine its the same with Gruber - I dont think even Gruber believes Gruber.
Eventually Apple is going to strike out with a major release but, at as far as phones go, this wasn't the year.
If Apple was judged on its merits, instead of through the reality distortion field, and managed to hit it out of the park every time, that would be one thing. But that's not how it works.
Apple has its cadre of reviewers, Gruber included, that manage to find something good to say no matter what Apple does, generally ignoring or whitewashing over the negatives.
Remember Apple Maps? It was a disaster. People got fired over it. Yet, Gruber found a way to write positively about it.
Who Benefits From iOS 6’s Crappy Maps?
Seems pretty clear the new Maps is going to be the biggest problem with iOS 6...
Could well just be arrogance on Apple’s part, too...
What if Google doesn’t ever release a Google Maps app, to paint iOS as the platform with crappy maps?
... the maps experience in iOS 6 is a downgrade. Users shouldn’t (and won’t) give a rip about behind the scenes negotiations.
And so was Titanic, Avatar, etc...
You should read the Life of Pi. Storytelling is very powerful.
It's annoying however how he dismisses as "Apple bashers" whoever does not agree with his opinion (and I speak as an iPhone/iPad/Macbook owner).
A true revolation would be a phone that could last days without needing a charge. To my mind it's one of the great features of the iPads, you can leave it on playing video for literally 10 hours, it lasts days with average use.
For all the improvements on processors, screens and cameras we get very little inovation in battery technology and it's stifling the industry.
However, with the growth of smart phones, it seems that companies are focusing on one-upping each other on specs other than battery life. Most launches have always worked hard to keep the battery life at roughly 8 hours, no more no less, and spend any excess juice on more features. I'm pretty sure that the reason for this is the assumption that people will charge their phones at least once a day anyways, which would be a perfectly fine assumption IF the phones actually DO last 8-10 hours on normal use... but sadly for me, most of these phones usually last 5 hours with the level of intensive use that I put my phone through everyday.
Therefore I have to charge at work and then it will last until I go to sleep.
Surprise; Apple made a great device. Gruber loves it, everybody who counters that argument is a 'Jackass' making 'Claim Chowder' and so the world keeps turning.
When a tech writer posts a prediction that’s bearish on Apple or bullish on one of its competitors, Gruber might quote him and ‘file it for future claim chowder’. That means that Gruber will revisit the claim later and make chowder out of it.
I think thats a little silly. There clearly is a difference between an incremental update of a product from a 5th to 6th generation (which is also hard, important and can be impressive or unimpressive) and a release or update that is a Big Deal in the way the iphone 1 was a big deal.
The reality is that under Jobs, Apple did some big things. Macs (which you you might call several big things). ipods, iphones, ipads. These all had very big impacts on technology, economy & culture. You can't expect these kinds of things to keep coming every three years. Maybe they would have stopped even with Jobs. But, at some point, a post Jobs Big Thing needs to happen.
I saw needs to happen and that's a little harsh. Realistically, Apple are an enormous company. Several very successful product lines that can carry them a long way, perhaps through several successful CEOs. Incremental improvement on those product lines is not the end of the world. There's no reason the iphones and ipads can't last as long as macs.
I guess that in the maybe category then :) (I haven't used one myself).
For Apple.
"And what is stored in that secure location are not fingerprint images, but cryptographically hashed values, unique both to your finger’s biometric data and the device itself on which you scanned it. Even if someone does figure out how to obtain the fingerprint data from the secure storage on your iPhone, that fingerprint data should prove useless anywhere but on the unique Touch ID sensor on the iPhone itself"
Always thought it will be done this way. But "security experts" just assumed it will be stored on disk in "consumable" form and warned not to use it ever.
If what is said holds true, the absolute worst case scenario that could happen is that the thief actually hacks the device and gains access to the storage place of the encrypted hashes that should only be accessible by the sensor itself. He then somehow reverses this hash into a form that the iOS system would expect to come from the sensor. Then, he would be able to forego to fingerprint sensor and send the spoofed fingerprint signal to the system, making it seem like the owner touched the sensor. And since he now has access to my phone, he can do everything someone can do with an unlocked iPhone plus make purchases with my iTunesID.
This spoofed signal should be useless anywhere else outside the iOS system. I very much doubt that someone could re-factor this hash into an actual image of a fingerprint.
And if I get my phone stolen, TouchID or not, I would of course go and a) remote wipe the device which I hope includes the deletion of these encrypted fingerprint hashes and b) Maybe cancel the credit card attached to the iTunes account.
Whether or not you want to do that is entirely up to you. The overwhelming majority of people wouldn't think twice about trusting Apple. But, as has been has revealed, government influences are powerful and are already deeply (and secretly) entwined with private enterprise. To snidely dismiss people warning you about who to really, truly trust with things as fundamentally identifiable of you as your fingerprint is doing yourself, and them, a disservice in the post-Snowden era.
In what way — or by whom — has this been ignored?
Of course, this might be a calculated move to move away from exclusivity, in which case those things make sense. But that would be a little baffling in itself, given the huge profit margins a premium brand commands (while still having huge market share in Apple's case) compared to any old mass market device.
How so? People were already using cases that camouflage the device somewhat.
>cheaper models kill the exclusiveness of the brand
This is the thing, there have already been "cheaper models". With every year when a new version comes out, the old ones got cheaper. Don't they give out the 4 or 4S for free with a contract right now?
You might also have heard bickering that the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone" everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced not nearly anywhere you would call "cheap".
Instead of continuing this behavior of simply keeping last years version of the phone around and selling them cheaper, Apple now decided to not do that this year and instead try and vamp up the old phone a bit so as to not just go "yeah, this is our new phone and of course the old one you already know but now, it gets a little cheaper"
It's more about the actual offering - the iPhone - that Apple makes. The more crisp this idea is in the head of consumers, the better the positioning. It is more difficult for a product to be iconic the more variations of it there are.
> the old ones get cheaper
Again, it is about what Apple's offering is. I don't think selling out old inventory interferes with the idea of what their current offering is. In fact the better defined each model is, the easier to distinguish last year's model from the current one.
> the 5C is not the "cheap iPhone" everybody expected. Seeing as it is priced not nearly anywhere you would call "cheap".
It is still cheaper, so now the iPhone I show off only signals that I spent whatever the cheapest model costs. Might not be a huge difference but I still believe it hurts important signaling value that used to be attached to the iPhone.
Isn't it the other way around? Under the old system, you bought a "high end" 4S. Then Apple introduce the iPhone 5, drop the 4S to a low price, and now your 4S is suddenly the "cheap" iPhone. Under this new system, you bought an iPhone 5, they introduce the 5C, drop the iPhone 5, and your iPhone 5 is still recognizable as the high end model.
Cheaper sure, but not cheap. At least in Sweden even the old 8GB iPhone 4 costs more than the Samsung SIII.
> Of course, this might be a calculated move to move away from exclusivity, in which case those things make sense. But that would be a little baffling in itself, given the huge profit margins a premium brand commands (while still having huge market share in Apple's case) compared to any old mass market device.
On the one hand, it seems the smartphone market has now matured to the point where Apple can't just charge the same margins and hope to maintain the same sales and ("Developers! Developers! Developers!") market share. Probably because the remaining big growth in smartphones is now in developing economies, especially in China. Tim Cook talked quite a lot about China at the iPhone 5S/C launch. (Meanwhile many US and other saturated-economy consumers are probably a bit more price-sensitive now too, aware of decent Android 4.x alternatives at lowish prices.) The consumer/"pro" split allows the cheaper, more-mass-market iPhone to have a design and a branding which makes it desirable in its own right, allows it to look up-to-date rather than stuck on whatever was fashionable 18 or 24 months ago, and makes it less obviously a hand-me-down product. Meanwhile, the high-end iPhone can maintain its price premium and its halo of desirability - in fact it its image can now be more clearly exclusive than before. (So matching the increasing "one-percentisation" of society: two birds with one stone.) Yes, this means there are now two iPhone sub-brands rather than just one, but two is not excessively many: it worked rather well for the Mac, after all.
There's also the claims you hear that many Asian markets rather like big, splashy colours, and that they didn't really love the iPhone's relative sombreness. I can't say how true that actually is, but it would stand to reason that in markets where the iPhone was never all that huge the customers would not be all that sold on the mystique of the One True Phone and its unmatchable design, and would quite like Apple to meet them halfway on appearance as well as price.
That said, from Anandtech's article, it looks like most of the speed boost is from microarchitectural improvements, rather than use of the new ISA; ARMv7 code shows most of the speedup.
> Apple is a normal company. Why does the public constantly expect them do the impossible?
Great line!
The hype around Apple products fuels both sides of the fence.
I guess same is the case with iPhone 5C. it might have same features as the iPhone 5 in the inside, but on the outside it has a new colors. And that give completely different feel to the consumer. I am not in favor/against this kind of thing. But we have to learn that new is always better.
Thats what yahoo is trying to do. they haven't made any new product now. They have just change the feel of their product and i guess its working pretty well for them.
So my fellow entrepreneurs, even though you don't make a new improved product in some time, do change its "feel". Everyone loves change. because it make people curious. And change is the only thing that will never change.
Put the case on it. Turn it over, look at the position of the Apple logo, and the "iPhone" brand.
Hint: It looks like crap.
That sort of detail wouldn't have escaped Steve Jobs.
However, I prefer when somebody already acknowledge his position and preferences than when pretend (or worst, truly believe) is more "open minded and fact based". I think is better contrast two opposite positions than two almost-equal ones, but fighting for a narrative, after all.
Is better to start with a clear understanding of our own position then push to improve things.
This guy is really awesome predicting years in advance what Apple's competitors will do.
I wouldn't be so sure, especially after reading this http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow...
Well I'm glad it not slippery like all those cheap plastic phones everyone else makes.
But hold on a minute, doesn't slick mean "slippery"?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/slick
The other meanings are strangely apposite too.
Also, odd that Gruber doesn't mention graphics, and likelihood that this has an Imagination series 6 "Rogue" GPU.
Yes. There's only one ISA from ARM (ARMv8), and it looks like it'll be adopted; Apple has already made ARMv8 devices, and a number of other companies have said they will in late 2014/early 2015.