But instead I end up triggering a 3D Touch when I want to delete an app.
If the OSK can distinguish a finger resting from a finger pressing, then you get closer to that of a physical keyboard.
Especially if the resting part can be tied in with the vibration engine to give a slight nudge to indicate edges of keys, or some such.
the keyboard is of a known layout, and by marking by feel when you move from one key to the next you know where you are.
This allows the keyboard to be operated without looking, much like how most people use a ordinary keyboard today once they are past the hunt-and-peck stage.
A big reason for touch screens being a problem in many situations is that you have to actually look at it to operate it. Physical buttons, switches and knobs can be operated by touch alone.
Frankly way too much of modern computing relies on sight and sight alone.
Also, allowing someone to rest on the keyboard is why long typing sessions are not such a strain on the hands. Without it, the writs has to carry the weight of the fingers continually.
Also this "vibration" thing you're talking about--it's obvious you haven't thought deeply about this because if you took at least a couple of hours thinking more about how this would work you would realize vibration itself has nothing to do with this". I have had a phone that gave you nice tactile feedback using vibration (Prada phone), and while it does feel nice, it doesn't do anything in terms of letting me know my input was correct.
Anyway this all doesn't mean anything if you don't really believe me. So let me ask you a rhetorical question: Do you think you will be able to type into a blackberry absolutely without looking at the keyboard? Also, when exactly would you be typing while NOT looking at a mobile screen? Even on a blackberry people have to look at the screen to make sure they didn't mistype something (Even with all that tactile feedback). On a desktop computer typing without looking makes sense because that's the mode in which people use the device (whereas on a mobile phone the screen and the keyboard are attached so looking at the screen means also looking at the keyboard)
Anyway if you really believe in these ideas, you should at least try an MVP or any simple experiment (or maybe even some thought experiment) before being so sure about it.
Combine with pressure detection and you can make Swype / SwiftKey provide a sense of where you're dragging your finger when swipe typing, plus that you can put emphasis on the right letters easily when swiping across groups of letters that would make for different words, making for better precision in the word suggestions.
It would also be much easier to implement gesture support by having areas much easier to target that you start gestures from or end them in. You'd also instantly get tactile feedback telling you if you made the gesture right or not, like for switching character sets or for moving the cursor.
Lots of gestures could be supported, where you'd essentially be "asked" with tactile feedback to push harder after making the gesture to activate the particular action. Suddenly you solved both accessibility, discoverability and precision, while reducing the error rate.
As I mentioned above, I explored into building a mobile device that you can type into without looking, and my first hypothesis was "tactile feedback is key". And turns out there are many many other factors at play. Even if Apple built something like you say, that won't make more people buy iPhones, it's just an incremental innovation that doesn't significantly change any user behavior for the better.
I'll have to think a bit longer to come up with good examples.
Edit: non-scrolling swipe gestures are where this is the most valuable.
Improved Google Photos app image selection: a hard press would start selection, and as you continously to drag to select it would provide tactile feedback for where the image borders are, making accidental selection less likely and quicker to detect. Selection would stop on release (to make scrolling easy). Hard press and swipe again to continue the selection.
A surface that can "project" arbitary tactile shapes with different strengths of feedback can let you orientate without looking. In fact it can even do Braille for the blind if the resolution was high enough!
The touch screen keyboards are more practical in many ways but they can never truly replicate a physical keyboard.
(I long ago traded the fidelity of the actual keyboard for the convenience of a touch keyboard.)
'Most people'? I must have had really bad luck in a number of financial/tech companies, as a disturbing majority don't touch type.
Note, my experience is with people aged 30-50. It's possible that this doesn't apply to millennials, but they certainly aren't the majority still.
Wow, that is poor discoverability. Also, thanks so much -- I've been wanting that for ages. I never knew about it.
Are you saying this as someone who actually uses the feature? Because in my experience a long press and 3D are very distinct. In fact 3D touch makes it quite difficult to long press on home screen icons to delete them.
BTW, thanks for the tip on the iMessage timestamps, their "seeming" absence was an obnoxious nitpick when I switched to an iPhone.
What's the point in getting a really nice theme and then ruining it with AccuWeather's horrible widget and a calendar that looks like an HTML iframe?
Now how to turn it off...
Having said that, 3D touch is far from the only improvement on the 6S. If it didn't have 3D touch I'd still recommend the extra $100 to get MUCH better internals (processor, cameras, touch ID sensor) and a stronger body too.
http://wccftech.com/turn-keyboard-trackpad-3d-touch-iphone-6...
However the internals are largely the same as the iPhone SE
The only consistent use case though, completely useless beyond.
Photos shows a little icon to indicate that a long press will do something. It is discoverable. No other area where this UI element exists.
EDIT -- I also use the keyboard trackpad thing. Not often though.
Wasn't this why Apple was quietly introducting the "iPhone Upgrade Program"?
http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program
Seems like Apple realized the future will be a place where everyone just leases their equipment on a monthly basis and switches stuff in-and-out as they need to...including the carrier (gasp!)
This reduction in churn and corresponding reduction in new device sales is great for consumers, which is why all of the large companies (MS, Apple) are trying to push the subscription model, to try and safeguard their revenue streams.
Obviously it would be a very small amount, but still overall superior to paying cash, definitely better than using credit.
Here in QC/Canada it's basically "90$/month for the 2 year upgrade" or "65$/month for BYOD".
But prepaid is pretty good here. I haven't been on a contract for years now. I just buy my phones.
> It's $79 for us to fix an iPhone 5/5C/5S screen right now
Interesting, since I have a 5s with a broken screen glass that I haven't bothered getting fixed yet. :)
It used to be quite a bit more, I think? Have you figured out how to separate the glass (etc) from the actual display, or have replacement display+glass packages just gotten cheaper?
(If you are replacing the display - is there any significant performance difference between the stock display and the replacement display?)
The backlight, LCD, digitizer (touch "web"), and top glass are all one piece. They come bonded from the factory. I never recommend glass-only repairs, and they're nearly impossible to do yourself. Some shops will do them, but realistically, with the 5 series screen cost so low right now, there's no reason to risk digitizer issues with a glass-only repair. (It's very difficult to replace only the glass without breaking the delicate digitizer "web" right below it.)
From what we can tell, there is very little difference between an OEM display and the ones repair shops sell. The 6 model is slightly thicker. On a 5, you probably won't notice it.
It is all about the warranty if you choose to get it replaced from a shop--some percentage of the screens are just going to have issues, and you want a shop that stands behind their work. (No repair shop warranty will cover if you drop or break the screen, though!)
I burned by this, all was looking good till I try to used with my polarized sunglasses, it was probably cheap screen, with wrong polarization, which you see nothing with glasses.
The whole electronics repair business seems rather immature and shady compared to something like car repair. For a car make, you can easily get the software manufacturers give to repair shops which has all sorts of exploded assembly views, instructions and part lists.
The main way screens appear in the repair business is from companies in China that buy back screens with broken glass but functional LCD. They then replace the glass with new glass. Most of the screen is OEM, but not the top glass. They then ship these to repair shops and distributors, who use them to replace screens.
That's why I mentioned in a previous comment that it's all about the warranty with a repair shop. No shop will warranty a cracked or broken screen, but most decent shops will warranty digitizer (touch) issues as long as there's no physical damage to the screen. That type of warranty is a must-have--there are only a small percentage of screens that go bad after a few days or weeks of use, but it really sucks if you get one and the shop refuses to replace it.
> The whole electronics repair business seems rather immature and shady compared to something like car repair.
Well, both are shady (plenty of YouTube exposes on oil change places that upsell services, charge for them, and don't perform them.) Honestly, one of the reasons I came into this industry was I was aware of the huge need for a non-shady repair shop in Austin, TX (where I live.) We're the highest-rated independent repair shop in Austin, and we take that pretty seriously, since there are so many horror stories of bad computer/game console/phone repair shops out there. We do our best to do right by our customers.
That's really interesting. I had assumed these were being manufactured somewhere to fit into apple devices, but instead there're huge operations that are buying tons of broken screens and essentially refurbishing them? Is that for legal reasons or cost reasons or other?
I'm curious: what does the supply chain look like?
A) Person breaks their screen, how much do they get from one of those shops that buy broken phones? Does that firm then break it down and sell the parts? Like a smart phone chop shop?
B) If so, who are they selling to? Surely not the refurb factories themselves, the factories wouldn't want to deal with that many individual people. So are people aggregating these and then selling in bulk to manufacturers? Any idea on the pricing around that? Does there seem to be a dominant player in the market or are there many people doing this?
C) After refurb, how much does the new screen then go for? You mentioned it's like a market--what's the range been in the last few years vs today?
And what about Android?
Calibration is only necessary on a glass-only repair; it realigns the digitizer "touch web" with the top glass that you're actually touching. That's why we don't perform nor recommend glass-only repairs.
When we repair a screen, we test every part of the digitizer before giving it back to the customer. We type on the keyboard, open apps, etc. If we find a dead spot, we replace it on-site. If by chance there's something we missed on our test, that's why our warranty exists.
If a customer finds a dead spot or the digitizer starts glitching, that's covered under our warranty. And that's why I recommend you find a shop with a good warranty. Most of them don't test as thoroughly as we do, but even with testing, a small percentage of digitizers will still have issues a few days to a few weeks after the repair. A warranty will get you a no-hassle replacement as long as you haven't cracked the screen.
> "I recommend buying a refurbished 6 over any of the 6S line"
I would not, upgrading to "S" was the biggest performance boost I've had, compared to regular 6 - it's blazing fast and on top of that I can't imagine myself without 3D touch app switching, live photos and text navigation, those do help a lot at least to me and most of the people I know.
It really depends on the location of the shop. There are a ton of people who don't live anywhere close to an Apple Store.
An example:
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pcs-lot-Mobile-Phone-LCD-Di...
US $215.00/lot 10 pieces/lot, US $21.50/piece
Also, considering probably the vast majority of servicing of iPhones happens at an Apple genius bar, I'd say your (very informative) views of the population have some selection bias.
http://www.cultofmac.com/278978/apple-stores-usa/
Repairs are probably orders of magnitude more common outside of Apple stores.
That may not be the case for display replacements. From what I've seen, the Geniuses won't attempt to replace a screen if the phone's chassis is even slightly deformed. But the local fixit shops will.
The question then becomes, "How random is the subset of people who get thrown out of the Genius Bar for screwing up their phone really badly?" The wealthiest of those will just buy a new phone, so that's one potential source of bias, I suppose.
Personally, I think Steve Jobs rolls in his grave every time yet another crappy iOS update gets issued. It's led to a general distrust of anything "forward-moving", and that's led to a distrust in the newer phones too.
Would your customers agree?
I don't have much to say about the software side, though one of the biggest problems we see is that people constantly run out of space on the lower-end 16GB phones, and the way Apple handles that is completely unintuitive.
If Apple is going to continue to sell phones with such limited storage, they really need a better way to manage that storage and allow people to move items to the cloud or delete them more easily than just scrolling through a seemingly-infinite list of photos and videos.
My poor iPad 2 is so slow on iOS9 that its unbearable to use for any length of time. A5's are unbearable, A6's are not far behind.
There is a method to go back to iOS6 if you have a jailbroken device, but its complex.
That's been the only "killer" for phones for me. With a decent case I feel like they otherwise last forever.
My personal upgrade cycle usually involves someone else's (ex: spouse or parent) phone breaking, giving them mine, and buying a new one. Otherwise I'd probably still be on an iPhone 4.
Easiest way to know you need a battery replacement: Your phone gets to 40% or 20% and suddenly just dies on you. That means at least one cell in your battery is dead, and it's time to replace the whole battery.
Also, if your screen is edging up on the left side but isn't cracked or broken, that's a sign of an exploded or "puffy" battery. Usually people have the first issue for a while, don't realize what's happening, and then eventually it goes puffy and explodes. It can even break the screen when it does that.
As with other repairs, if you get a battery replacement at a repair shop, ask about the warranty. Replacement batteries can have real issues, and some runs of them have high defect rates. No big deal if the shop you work with has a good warranty and will just swap it out if it stops working.
Since I was out of warranty anyway I opted to self-replace the battery.
Wait, why cant the OS tell the user that something is wrong with the battery.
If I'm going to spend > $600, I expect my life to improve a little bit. I'll probably upgrade to the 7, mostly because I've gone without a case and have had some dings that do impact functionality, but I hope to go 4 or even 5 years with my next phone.
If there was any way to dramatically increase power efficiency or battery capacity it would be a huge draw for consumers.
Feel free to email me if you want more info--my contact info is in my profile.
Is it possible you mean to compare the iPhones 6S and 6S Plus, which actually differ in size?
We hear a few things consistently:
1) Providers have switched from "free upgrades every 2 years" to a plan cost and a monthly phone cost, so people now really know how much their phone costs--and many would rather save the $30 a month than upgrade their phone. This started with T-Mobile a few years ago and now is how most phone plans work. This is having a huge impact on people's desire to buy new phones.
2) iPhone 5/5C/5S users have no desire to upgrade to a larger phone. The SE is going to solve some of this, but it'll more likely be a scenario of "I dropped my 5S in the toilet and it's completely dead, so I'll upgrade to a SE instead of dealing with the hassle of finding a legit used 5S." I don't expect to see a huge push toward the SE from current iPhone 5 users.
3) Repairs are so cheap, so easy and so effective. It's $79 for us to fix an iPhone 5/5C/5S screen right now, and we can fix it in less than 30 minutes typically. No reason to upgrade when your old one works just fine and you can get it fixed cheaply.
Interestingly, the SE screen is 1:1 compatible with the 5S screen, so the SE is coming out of the gate being cheap and easy to repair as well. I'm typically recommending the SE if people really want a new phone.
We also ask customers about 3D Touch (the new feature on the 6S/6S+) and if they're using it if they have a 6S. 99% of people have no idea what it is or how to use it. They bought a 6S/6S+ because it was pink. Yep, most of the 6S phones we see are rose gold, and that seems to be the #1 factor driving sales of that line. If they don't care about the pink and ask me what phone I recommend, I recommend buying a refurbished 6 over any of the 6S line. (We don't sell phones, so I have no horse in that race at all.)