As someone who's quite withdrawn and reserved at work, I'd imagine it's quite a challenge to have to develop those skills.
And then it felt like the real Apple magic. We sat there and at every product presented we said "Wow, we want this. NOW!". While the iPhone 8 still felt quite normal, the iPhone X absolutely killed it for us. And let's not begin with the eSim-Watch... which is so SciFi that I wanted it back in 1990 when I was still 8 years old. We have to appreciate that there is more to life than revolution, Apple "simple" does evolution at a very high level and in the end, they lead the competitors. Today, we could see the stuff that Samsung and others will get right in a year or two. When Apple already presents their next evolution... It is not about having the right specs, but the right concept. I already know the friend who will come to me tomorrow that his HTC has and 8 core processor while Apple has only six. The point is: it is all useless without the whole package being perfect. And while Apple is freaking expensive upfront, the peace of mind is worth it.
"I already know the friend who will come to me tomorrow that his HTC has and 8 core processor while Apple has only six. The point is: it is all useless without the whole package being perfect."
Android, just like iOS or any other OS, requires non-crap hardware (not amazing, just well designed) and an OEM that doesn't bloat it up with tons of crap. Newer versions of iOS run like crap on older iPhones, because the OS is designed for newer hardware. Android runs beautifully on well designed hardware, even inexpensive hardware like the Moto G. It runs great without bloated skins and shovelware that "adds value".
It baffles me that Google are so bad at this.
Apparently it has, for a long time:
> The Adapt Display Mode provides real-time adaptive processing to dynamically adjust images and videos – for some applications it will vary the White Point, Color Gamut, and Color Saturation based on the image content and the color of the surrounding ambient lighting measured by the Galaxy S5 RGB Ambient Light Sensor (which measures color in addition to brightness).
I've been using the Galaxy S8+ since launch. And the Note 8 is, by any definition, as good or better than the iPhone X.
If you haven't used a Samsung phone lately, go try an S8 or Note 8. They have "the package" down. It just works, and doesn't require a PC or iTunes. I don't care about speeds and feeds. I care about how the phone operates on a daily basis.
iPhone X has FaceID and pin# to login. Samsung has face, retina, touch and pin options.
The Note 8 is cheaper, with expandable storage, a higher density display (with the same white balance adjustment), stylus, side-by-side applications, a headphone jack, samsung pay, and NFC.
(There are probably many more, but these are things I use on a daily basis, or very frequently in the real world)
The iPhone has iMessage and Facetime.
Seriously, it's worth a sniff of the other side of the pond. It took me 2 hours to transfer everything - contacts, media, apps. And another day to get the UI sorted (there's even an "ios mode" for the launcher that acts almost exactly like the ios interface). I still use an iphone often for work and it's honestly painful going back to it, there are so many little annoying papercut experiences.
Between Google knowing my porn fetishes and the increasing number of issues & bizarre bugs (severe battery degradation, performance issues during normal usage, random freezes, photos occasionally not saving properly and getting corrupted) plus no security updates after 2 years, I've just about had it.
Google/Huawei should be ashamed for the 6p.
iOS is getting worse, but it's still an order of magnitude less buggy (in terms of crashes etc)
That is exactly what non tech people want. Things that just works. There is an enormous market of people that don't want cutting edge, but reliable and long lasting tech. Apple fits that way more than Android. That is their force. It is entirely within their philosophy to not include wireless charging unless it is their own they back for a long time, or a market standard emerges. Arguably since Ikea included Qi chargers in a lot of their affordable furniture, that made Qi chargers the emergent standard.
It will be super easy to support the USB-C Macbooks out of box -- they just swap out the USB-A-to-lightning cable and charger in the box with a USB-C-to-lightning cable and charger.
This felt very different. The iPhone X is the first iPhone I've seen in a while that I want.
Same for Apple Watch. I'd written it off but the eSim makes it a very alluring buy
Carrying a device worth $1000 around with me all day would not give me peace of mind. Quite the opposite. I'd rather carry a battered hand me down and not feel sick in my stomach if it falls off arm of the couch
To be concise, if something is truly groundbreaking, leaks don't diminish their value.
In its purest form, marketing is any communication from a company. Without marketing you would not know about any products from any company. So some forms of marketing are very valuable to everyone. As with any discipline there are bad points as well.
People enjoy the keynotes for the suspense and shared joy and excitement.
Leakers of movies, shows or new device features do take away some joy from some people. For me, the fact that 99% of the features are available in some form on another phone already (unlike early iPhones) is a bigger spoiler than the leaks.
I love seeing how Apple can take existing common features and take them to 11 and it's why I've come back to iPhone.
All of the X leaks had me wondering "I hope they have more to this because this is effectively a S8;" the keynote didn't change my opinion.
Even without leaks, there's usually nothing really surprising in the keynotes. You get the usual hardware and software upgrade you would expect from a year to the next. Far from magical, I find these keynotes stereotypical. The fake enthusiasm, the marketing buzzwords and the endless flow of superlatives are sometimes painful to watch. I almost feel bad buying their products after seeing this (unfortunately they still make the best laptops!).
Are they still soldering hard drives and memory down? That pretty much permanently drove me away from their laptops.
Until Apple is able to bring much more in-house, which they can't realistically do in most cases involving manufacturing, the leaks are inevitable.
If you want to maintain the magic for yourself, though, that's simpler: don't look at Macrumors or what have you :)
Now that it's a bit in them so bad they'll probably change the way they do it, which I'm guessing they haven't thought about in a long time.
It was leaks of software images, and those revealed WAY more than case leaks ever could have.
(Aside: in France you can use Apple Pay anywhere a bank card would work up to 20€ but in shops with explicit support there is no limit, few have it though)
The S8 has AptX, which in my experience is really quite good. Once Android O drops for that phone you'll have AptX HD and LDAC as well. I've got a pair of Sony headphones. Running LDAC from my Pixel XL on Android O to them, sounds CD quality to me.
Apple sell expansive product without argumentation about the technology. People who fall in this scheme are too easy tricked. I buy because of the technology, support not because I see a keynote. What a waste of time to see Apple Keynote and how they never had real innovation that increase the price by 2.
It's 2017, almost 2018 and Apple continue to over price the storage and you all support them?
It's just a phone, what do you want magic behind a phone?
What they've shown is just fancy new technology to do the same old things - great, now I can lock my screen in a different way!
We are at peak Apple. If I may borrow a similar peak story I'd look at Microsoft and the release of Windows XP. Balmer banked on that cash cow for far too long.
Tim Cook is doing the same thing here.
They need to buy Tesla and put Musk in charge of Apple.
Everything they do these days is just another way to milk the money machine for them.
They need a world class micromanaging innovator at the helm.
Whereas if it was some geek factory making "wild bets" on not-ready-yet technologies, like the kind geeks ask to see, it would be liked by few, ignored by most (and for good reason).
If someone wants that, they can buy all those wonderful innovative products MS, Samsung and Google regularly put out... Rocking their Google Glass look and pioneering VR with their Rift.
Is that extremely hard? Yes of course, but doing that effectively is why Apple got the reputation it has.
That's not exactly Tesla (the inventor, not the company) territory, bet-wise.
Phones were one of the hottest markets already -- and they would have only gotten smarter, iPhone or not. The iPhone just brought lots of smartness and polish in concentrated form all at once -- it took around 3 years for competitors to catch up (Android wasn't released for another full year), and I guess it would have taken them like 5-6 years or so to put it all together (or course with less panache) if they iPhone had not existed at all. But still it was no wild bet (except in daring to deal with the telcos -- that was a big bet and took balls).
So, in 2017, what exactly product would you think Apple should introduce as a bet?
Plus, people don't like strangers with always-on cameras on eye level eyeing them (Glass-holes).
And people who don't need actual glasses, won't go around wearing AR ones, except if they're geeks and do it for the novelty.
Combined this makes them a non-starter.
The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company. They have the cash, talent and position to do it.
"Any and all" major challenges strikes me as kind of a recipe for (slow) disaster, unless Apple decides to set up a quasi-independent Apple Research division dedicated to moonshots. That would be kind of cool, to be sure, but it strikes me as something that isn't really in line with the kind of company Apple's been the last ~19 years.
Hololens, all the Daqri products, Meta are all in the HMD space with products that are selling. The AR HMD space is WAY PAST where the mouse and GUI were when they introduced it on the Macintosh. They could even buy Magic Leap if they wanted but could probably do better themselves. I mean I live this stuff. If Apple wanted to do AR glasses right, they could.
>I mean I live this stuff.
That's the selection bias issue. Most people don't and don't care for these technologies.
Over the last 20 years Apple has had the same kind for advice to get in to all kinds of fads that never went anywhere and technologies that were way before their actual mass market stage.
Just like the mouse and smartphone markets didn't exist previously.
You do realize that all of the majors are focusing heavily on AR right? As in, most of WWDC was dedicated to ARKit, nearly the entire Zuck Keynote was about AR etc...?
I was asked for what the next revolutionary technology would be that Apple could break out with, I gave it. It's staring everyone in the face and has been desired for the better part of 60 years - through thousands of iterations that never worked because processing, integration etc... weren't there.
Miss it at your peril.
Overblown concerns that all made the Google Glass a total non-starter failure.
>The broader point here, and this makes the point, is that Apple should be taking on any and all major challenges to keep it as a breakthrough trailblazing company.
Nope. Apple should focus on carefully selected markets that keep it as a consumer favorite, best experience, record-profitable company.
Trailblazing breakthroughs in various random "major challenges" can be left to those without commercial concerns, like Google Labs who mostly makes up for money spend in positive press PR for its non-marketable "innovations".
This is actually a conversation I have over and over with friends, family and coworkers. The OS switching cost/risks are too high although most iPhone users know the top Android devices are typically better than the iPhone the risk of not liking the OS experience is too high compared to the reward of taking slightly better photos or bigger screen or whatever Android does now that iPhone won't until XI
In some ways (and on paper), you're right. Apple's stores are a huge advantage though. Any family member that asks me what they should buy is going to be told to get an iPhone. The Genius Bar might not be perfect, but it's better than calling Verizon or posting a message on the One Plus forums.
So which phone maker fits your level of privacy?
Tim talked about Steve's legacy, but really, was SJ's dream to build a stale stagnating company? Did he prefer money over putting a dent in the universe?
Youngsters might not remember, but I've followed those keynotes and introductions since 2002 or so.
It took 4 years for the iPod to get a color screen -- and 8 years to get a video camera. Several years to get Wifi. The original iPhone wasn't 3G -- that was the next model. Those years we waited year over year for Jobs to announce some extremely incremental updates. And people cheered for them -- they were actually exciting, all the press was speculating and gushing, and it was e.g. just a few additional features on the iPod, like the touch wheel as opposed to the old click wheel.
New announcements like the iPhone and the iPad were rare under Jobs too. And those products were low hanging fruit for Apple themselves -- a mobile phone and a table. Quite basic stuff -- not some whole new product category like flying cars and whatever people expect to see.
Apple is not in the business of creating experimental stuff to dazzle geeks. It's in the business in incrementally improving mass market products.
Besides, what competitor exactly did introduce those mythical "Jobs-worthy" products that people ask from Apple to deliver? Google Glasses? Microsoft's laptop/tablet combo that failed to gain much traction and is returned like crazy? https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/14/16142490/microsoft-surfac...
What Apple did better, and affected the industry, was not innovation in the sense of some new BS product category that didn't exist ever, it was delivery. Better thought out, more polished, and with lots of innovation in the details. The kind of innovation that the iPhone models get incrementally but few can understand, but then you use a model from 2-3 years ago and it feels ancient after you've used the last one.
For such introductions of new products, the Apple Watch has been one such under Tim's, err, watch, and it does great in the market (in fact it's almost the only smartwatch people can actually see in the wild -- it outsold Samsung Galaxy watches so much in units it's not even funny).
There was no improvement on the MP3 player, only the storage, but on crap Apple storage, you don't have choice to throw away a device that have slow memory 8GB? when you can buy a SD card? Too much innovation from Apple...
Well, you might find yourself in the extreme minority on this.
It's not like non-color-screen, non wi-fi full-week-lasting mp3 players don't exist -- there are tons of such models.
It's just that the market has spoken, and most prefer to be able to also stream, plays apps, etc on their multi-purpose device than get one such.
>There was no improvement on the MP3 player, only the storage, but on crap Apple storage, you don't have choice to throw away a device that have slow memory 8GB? when you can buy a SD card?
Well, obviously companies like Apple don't cater to some small niche of music aficionados. Most people don't care for juggling cards and having different parts of their record collection on different SD cards or whatever -- they did it with CDs and such on 1999 out of necessity. Heck, most people will just stream today and be done with it.
Also not sure how "slow memory" means anything in the context of an mp3 player. Ever had problem reading mp3s from the memory quickly enough?
Musk is certainly an inportant innovator, but he’s not a Messiah.
As far as this phone goes, I am really excited to see how it stacks up to the Galaxy S8. Face ID is incredibly enticing, but Samsung Pay is much more universal. The only thing that is making me want to retreat back to an iPhone is its inferior Bluetooth audio quality.