Truly impressive. Smaller, yet faster than the competition. Surprising how many of the chips are now internal Apple components:
1. CPU/GPU
2. Auxiliary Machine Learning/AI chip
3. NAND controller
4. IR Deapth sensor & signal processing chip
5. Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!)
Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine.
A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show
> A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show
FWIW Google has put a lot of effort in the hardware of their datacenters, and in that sense they're a hardware giant as well. Compared to their datacenter projects, Pixel is a funny hobbby for Google.
Not working for Google, but I think it's for multiple reasons.
- hardware has gotten a lot faster, which helps the second reason.
- Google giving away free GGC nodes to ISPs (if you meet their requirements). The distribution of these nodes has gotten a lot wider since container days.
- Google is building more smaller scale (a dozen racks or so) traditional data centers closer to ISPs.
I don't think shipping container design was never a very good idea, to begin with - it was an interesting experiment that didn't scale as well as they thought it would.
there isn't as much exotic "stuff" as you might think. they have the same ODMs build switches and line cards to their specifications, with chips from the same vendors (Broadcom, Cavium, etc) only they can easily hire a team and sign the NDA and write/optimize/perfect the forwarding plane and control plane implementations.
hell, the IS-IS implementation in Quagga is usable because of Google :)
Disclaimer: I'm an SRE at Google, my opinions are my own.
We actually release a decent amount of information, see [0]. I particularly recommend "Jupiter Rising: A Decade of Clos Topologies and Centralized Control in Google's Datacenter Network" [1].
Absolutely. The servers in their production racks are nearly 100% custom down to the silicon and involve serious amounts of engineering to make happen.
Sorry but I have to disagree. They are custom but that kind of customization is not all that difficult. Essentially it's using same HW as everyone else in a way that supports their scale better. That's it.
Now I really don't know anything about this, but I remember quite a while ago when configuring a Linux kernel build that there was an entire section dedicated to Google's server hardware. If it's really all that normal, why would it be Google-specific/why wouldn't there be other large vendors present as well? Talking about the GOOGLE_FIRMWARE menu.
But many of us don't buy Apple for the hardware, but because we want to stay in their software ecosystem. I'd rather use a Nexus running iOS than an iPhone X running Android, and I'm even more invested in macOS. That Apple builds nice hardware is a bonus for me (but I'd honestly prefer better software right now).
I mean, on paper Apple is making more money from hardware than from software, but how do you measure hardware sales that only happened because of the software?
I'm the inverse of you I guess. I'm not a huge fan of macOS or iOS (iOS's notification story is an absolute nightmare), but their hardware is always among the best, if not the best. Apple might not appear to be the best if you're just comparing line items on a spec sheet, but the whole package always seems more solid than their competition.
I'll never buy a non-Apple laptop anymore after dealing with flaky PC laptops for years, and the only reason I haven't bailed on Android is because of how bought into the ecosystem I am... but I'd buy an iPhone in a heartbeat if I could reliably run Android on it.
Apple has been very serious about how they’re a hardware company vs a software company for like 30+ years now. Literally the first thing SPJ did after coming back was kill the Mac clones program. They’re obsessed with the feel of the hardware in every way. The software is just a platform.
They're successful because of the software only because the hardware is ancillary to their software ecosystem. Their hardware makes their software run much more effectively than most of their competitors, and therefore acts as a major barrier to entry. I don't think there's a single tech company more completely integrated and whole than Apple. That's why they can emphasize on experience rather than just specs as they're selling more than just software, or hardware.
At least it's not Windows. I'm amazed at how something as basic as Bluetooth has been completely fucked for me since I got a PC. On no other platform have my Bose QC35s, AirPods, or wireless Logitech headset had issues. On Windows 10, they hardly work at all. Ironically the only device that works for longer than a few seconds before losing audio is my AirPods, which I still have to reconnect frequently to get the audio o actually come through.
At least it's not Android, either. I don't use Windows, but for me the Android OTA upgrade to Oreo on my Nexus 6P has been disastrous for use with the QC35s. I have to reboot the awful thing several times a day to get consistent BT audio, and it will happily chew through the battery several times a day too, unless I leave it on charge for periods. Been with Android since the G1, but I'm seriously thinking about switching to iOS because I'm just so frustrated on a daily basis with this awful release, which seems barely tested. I do wonder at which point I switched from the optimist's "oh yay, an update!" to the pessimist's "oh shit, here comes a boatload of careless regressions".
Thats the problem with Windows - it still does not carry a decent Bluetooth stack and depends on the vendor shipping one. And all of them I have seen so far are more or less crap.
Linux on the other hand is exclusively Bluez which works fine... but god forbid you want to do something like BLE communications or more complex sound stuff, the docs are horrid.
The OS X BT stack is... well I dont have any issues with it per se but it, too, lacks features like a file explorer or an easy way to send files via BT.
Hmm, I've got both Bluetooth File Exchange.app and Bluetooth Explorer.app on my mac which are both from Apple and I think what you're looking for. Not sure if they came default or when I downloaded the bluetooth dev kit years ago. I remember using it to transfer mp3s onto a ZTE bar phone back in the day.
So basically, bluetooth is still a PITA nowadays :/.
If I turn the key in my car, get the electricity running though the circuit, then the phone gets connected to the car. If I turn the key one more time to ignite the engine the car system lose the bt connection and I have to manually force the connection with the phone.
> But many of us don't buy Apple for the hardware, but because we want to stay in their software ecosystem. I'd rather use a Nexus running iOS than an iPhone X running Android
Afraid I'm completely different. I have an iphone but my computer runs linux. The reason I have an iphone is because the hardware is top-notch, and the OS is rather constricting -- I would much rather have an iphone running android than one running ios.
I'm similar, I would love to buy Apple hardware and have the freedom to put my own software on it. I'd also be happy to buy a new laptop and install 10.6.8, or buy a new iPhone and install iOS 6.
But I despise Android--I want a real Unix. I feel like Android was architected by complete idiots. Oh how I wish WebOS won instead of Android.
I'll have random daydreams of some sort of way webOS would be a distant third place, but in a decent spot with say 10% market share. I'll think of some weird merger of BB switching to webOS, Microsoft and Nokia backing webOS. Shit. WebOS was likely doomed no matter what. But it came out at the right time and was so good.
I'd prob still use it on and off if HP didn't take the store down.
Apple is making buttload of money on hardware because it does not sell any software anymore. I mean, in the mass consumer market – and they are cutting off the Pro software (which is sad). But remember the hardware sales pay for the software, too. So basically people say Apple is making $$$ on an iPhone price minus manufacturing costs and R&D but great slice of the zillion $$$ is the software part.
Anyway, not sure who said what exaclty, but Steve Jobs repeatedly said that Apple is great because of the tight interconnection between sw and hw. So Apple is not a hw company. It is not a sw company either. They do both and the result is greater than just a combination of the two.
I see Apple, and the way they present their products supports it, as an appliance company. It's harder and harder to repair their devices and the software is more and more integrated with the hardware – examples: force touch and feedback, Touch/Face ID, all the camera magic, Apple Pay, MBP Touch Bar etc. So basically the sw and hw are more and more inseparable unless you lose "half" the features.
iOS is a toy OS. The notifications alone make it useless for office productivity. The limitations on background processing break, say, Plex or Netflix sync. You can't watch a YouTube video while doing something else. Apps like FB Messenger can't display useful overlays on the screen. You can't even do basic things like set a system-wide default browser.
> The limitations on background processing break, say, Plex or Netflix
You can quit e easily watch Plex (can’t remember if Netflix bothered) in the background while doing other shut with the PIP.
> you can’t watch a YouTube video either.
Which is YouTube’s fault ENTITELY. They are pushing YouTube red to allow for this (which isn’t even available in a lot of countries they advertise it in....)
The limitations on background processing are exactly why I prefer iOS. When something is acting funny, the foreground app is always the culprit, and killing it fixes the problem. I don't want to do any more complicated debugging than that on a four inch touchscreen.
1) The limitations on background processing are deliberate to prevent applications from needlessly consuming battery life/mobile data.
2) It is Google's fault that you can't watch YouTube whilst doing something else. Apple provided an API which third party YouTube clients already support.
You can debate whether Android O is better or not. But I would hardly call iOS a toy just because it doesn't allow for rich notifications.
That is something I don’t miss at all from Android after abandoning Android for iOS 3 years ago (Samsung started locking down their phones with the Galaxy S5, decided I wanted no more part of Samsung bloatware and losing the ability to rid myself of it).
The reply-in-notifications go away after I've replied, they don't hang around and cover a portion of the screen all the time. And if I don't want to read them right away, then I've got this thing hanging around on my screen with a angry red number that I don't want to deal with.
They're intrusive, they're obnoxious, they cause performance hiccups on occasion. They're not a superior version of anything.
The notifications you are complaining about can be easily, and completely, disabled. In a few seconds. I don't think you've used iOS 11 on a recent iPad, either.
Of course it doesn't, but Android already does the aggregation for me so that I don't miss important notifications from other apps. It's just a better way of working.
I do think it, along with all the other ways iOS is deficient, is a deal breaker. I finally switched to Android after years on iPhone and I can't believe how much of an idiot I was for not switching earlier.
At least I wasn't enough of an idiot to use iMessage and get locked into the Apple ecosystem.
I'm typing this from an Android right now, but it definitely feels like iOS is the majority of the high end market and Android completely owns mid to low end. Apples chosen their niche and fills it well, they shouldn't be compared to a generalist in terms of who is best
It's a very subjective thing, really. I actually like my Windows phone, it's the only Windows I have.
Someone above concluded they are a product company and I was thinking 'appliance.' That's not a negative, they make devices fit for function and they, Apple, are remarkably good at it.
I can't think of an Apple product, and I type this on an iPad, that is truly the best in every aspect. However, they surely aren't the worst and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, I think.
I think appliance fits for apple if you use it with the connontations that word had pre 70s. They we're amazing time saving devices and well built enough that they seemed magical. Ive talked to my grandparents and their reaction to using a TV was similar to my reaction to a smart phone for the first time. My gushing over how much time my Roomba saved me also reminded my grandmother of getting a dishwasher
Android dominates because Apple refuses to sell $50 iPhones. iOS app revenues still outpace Google Play, Android is the OS of choice for people who use it like a feature phone.
I've seen that revenue stat mentioned before, but never any evidence that this isn't due to something like Android having free options available for functionality that only paid apps have on iOS.
Name one bit of useful Android functionality that is only available paid on ios. There isn’t any. The average Android users pay far less for their phones, and spend far less on apps, that’s been true forever.
Apple targets only the top end of the market. I’m a mobile developer and that’s why native apps are almost always iOS first. We know our iOS sales will be higher, and these are proprietary apps, not system features.
I don't think Android market share is enough of a metric to determine the quality of iOS. There are so many different cheap android phones to choose from, and people do not buy them because Android is a better mobile OS.
Does Apple actually manufacture anything itself? I thought it was all outsourced. That would make them a software and hardware-design company, but not really a manufacturer.
Not doing the final assembly yourself does not somehow disqualify you from being a hardware company. There is no company in the world that possesses the manufacturing prowesss of Apple, yet they all have access to the same final assembly shop (Foxconn, basically).
The component manufacture is outsourced too isn't it? It seems they have been setting up or buying some chip fabrication facilities, but does any current Apple product contain anything built in an Apple factory?
I don’t get it. Apple makes the best mobile processors in the world. They routinely introduce low volume manufacturing techniques to the iPhone, which they then scale to 100+ million units per year. How are they somehow not a hardware company?
> Power management IC (surprising that Apple is doing Analog IC design too!)
Have you seen the tear down of the old MacBook power bricks? Check it out if you haven’t. There’s a lot of tech in there to improve efficiency (ie keep that tiny brick from melting)
And despite all that engineering their reliability was terrible due to various plug design problems with the predecessor to MagSafe or the cords getting damaged from point stress. Meanwhile, Dell and HP make mediocre stuff that somehow hardly has such a problem by using much thicker gauge wiring and tougher rubber / plastics.
I'll take a skinny MagSafe plug over a Dell or HP plug any day. A power brick costs ~$80 to replace, a laptop costs much more.
The main issue with Apple's power brick is that people wind the cord too tightly and don't leave slack. HP/Dell's main problem is that the female power adapter inside the laptop takes a lot of stress. In college, I had two roommates that broke their laptops due to the power connector.
Yea, clearly these people have never supported dell laptops in an office environment. I have more dead bricks than i can mail back, especially from older machines. Fail in the exact same way as the apple ones
No you are completely 100% wrong. This was one that came with a MacBook Pro from the Apple Store actually in the sealed box when I bought it. Don't assume I'm stupid. I'm actually a qualified electrical engineer and I know switching power supply topologies and design very well.
Don't assume that because 90% of the charger is well designed, the rest of the 10% is.
There is no or insufficient inrush protection in the charger. This results in a hefty current flowing the charge the primary DC cap in the switching power supply when you plug it into the wall (step response of a capacitor at DC is high instantaneous current if the source impedance is low such as rectified AC - derived from I=C(dV/dt), dv=350, dt -> 0, C~10mF, I->infinity in an idea model ignoring parasitics and series resistance of capacitor). This damages the pins and stresses the diodes terribly reducing the time to failure. Google inrush current protection.
You do NOT get this on decent industrial switching power supplies that actually cost less. They either have NTCs or pre-charge.
The Chinese ones are a whole different story. Some of those are absolutely abysmal and are in no way even comparable to the Apple ones.
The Apple ones certainly don't rank that high really in the scale of things, regardless of all the love spread over the Internet. If you're comparing them to a lowest bidding turd from China, then of course they're going to look good.
It did sound a lot like you were describing the common issues with the knock offs though - however with the extra detail it really cleared it up, thanks for that.
It's a reasonably complex pre-rectification stage for a consumer device. It's certainly not AC->rectifier->DC cap.
I can't explain the burn marks in the image -- stunning for a British plug. None of mine with Australian or European plugs show any significant burns. I see sparking when I plug it in, but that's standard for pretty much any SMPS.
PFC is required under EU law and is a good idea anyway from an efficiency and harmonic reduction POV. It doesn’t however establish or change startup currents.
There’s sparking when you plug it in and there’s this which is like a small explosion. Either way the sparking is entirely avoidable as well with a trivial. Little startup circuit or a couple of NTCs.
I’ve tried it on a sample of three chargers now (we have three MBPs in the house of differing ages and original chargers) and they all have it.
I’ve got a Lamba 12v 5A unit here as well which isn’t much bigger with a chopped off IEC lead on it. Nothing when you plug it in at all.
No from the Apple store. See my other post. This is poor design, regardless of where it came from. There should be a hefty NTC or inrush current limiter in the charger.
There's a lot to be said for "if you want something done properly, do it yourself". Hard to do in a connected ecosystem but Apple has the level of platform control that they can do whatever they feel they need to do without having to consider partners, competitors or exogenous forces.
Typing this from a Pixel 2 XL after having been a happy Pixel XL owner. The 2 is truly the greatest phone I've ever owned, and that includes iphones along the way. If this is what you get with a software company building hardware, I'd say keep it up.
Meanwhile the Pixel 2 XL issues with build quality and screen have been well documented. A friend of mine already RMAed his because the proximity sensor stopped working. If Google wants to charge premium flagship pricing, they need to build premium phones.
Also typing from a Pixel 2 XL after having been a moderately satisfied Pixel 1 XL owner. The Pixel 2 XL screen gamut is totally washed out with blacks. Its horrendous for watching any show or cinema. Yes, I know that each app has to have the right gamut set in the Android app manifest -- but not even Google updated their apps or launcher yet!! And they expect others to do it? At least give us the option to force a higher gamut per app... Simple solution for such an eclectic decision on a new flagship.
Totally agree on the Pixel 2 XL. The best smartphone I have ever used and I am old and switch phones a lot. People need to be careful listening to random people online and go try the phone for yourself.
If iPhones ran today's Android, they would lead the pack; but because they run iOS, they're pretty MOR in terms of everyday performance and responsiveness (and perhaps especially disappointing WRT battery life). This is quite a role reversal from the situation five years ago.
Compare last year's Samsung Galaxy to whatever iPhone was available at the time, and you'll find that the Samsung loads equivalent applications (preferably the same or same function) faster, retains them for longer, and lasts considerably longer on battery, all while charging faster.
It's not that hard, I'm sure somebody's done this on video, do the test yourself if you're not convinced, I don't have an iPhone 7 Plus and 20 hours of time on my hands.
iOS is a hog, and the A series chips are clearly not competitive in idle power consumption as configured by iOS.
I think this personification of companies as people is misleading. Whose "focus?"
Do you mean you think that the same people within Apple are working on both hardware and software, and are focusing more on hardware? Or that you think many people who write software have been re-educated, re-assigned, and are now working on hardware?
I assume that the size of Apple's teams working on iPhone are limited by more than resources, and the recruitment pools are totally separate, so it's not like they're spending too much on hardware engineers and can't afford enough software engineers, right?
I just don't really know how you can conceive of such a massive company as having an obviously zero-sum "focus" like a person has.
Quality comes from feedback control systems. Quality of design comes from management oversight and correction. Fan-in is a concern. Orphaned teams become a concern at a tenth Apple’s scale. Informal networks and approval based on trust of people rather than examination of product is a concern. Executive attention is expensive.
The hardware engineering is much more deliberate and well planned/orchestrated than the software.
IMO it’s less “focus” and more having to rely on third party manufacturers who will push back due to liability.
iOS 11 is a beta quality product. One org that I’m familiar with has a 5x increase in help desk calls and replacements, mostly around the voice phone components failing.
Most iOS updates are smooth and trouble free. Still the far best mobile platform in terms of actually receiving software updates and new features. In the case of iOS 11 I would guess all the software changes required for the iPhone X has caused a temporary a dip in quality. I don't think it's representative of the quality of iOS updates overall. Things could be a little bit rocky going forward though as Apple will continue support pre-iPhone X era hardware for the next 3-5 years. I believe this is the first time they've had to support two distinctively different flavors of iOS UI in this way at least since the iOS6->7 days.
A company absolutely has a zero-sum 'focus' just like a person. You dismiss the idea that resources are the limiting factor, but that is absolutely what the limiting factor is.
You really think that with unlimited money they couldn't have better software? They could, but they don't because it does not have enough of a return on investment. They 'focus' their resources on areas that will return them profit.
You're casually insulting everyone who is working hard on the software. Consider that the team sizes are surprisingly small. Consider that throwing more people at a project does not scale, and famously just slows things down after a certain, fairly small threshold. Consider that software is still really really freaking hard to do. Unlimited money does not solve all problems, contrary to what you may think. You can't easily buy your way out of technical debt, time limits, or legacy architectural decisions.
Ascribing the bugs to malice or carelessness rather than the fact that this shit is difficult is very unkind. Source: know many people who have spent last few months feverishly working nights and weekends.
Wait, what? How was I insulting the people working on the software? I am saying they aren't getting the resources they need to do everything they want to do.
I am a developer on a team, too, and I know that sometimes you can't do everything you want because you simply don't have enough time, money, and developers to get it done.
I know it is hard, that is why I was saying it is a company resource issue, not a 'bad developers' issue. Even the best developer in the world can't complete a huge project by themselves in a short amount of time. You need company support, which means ample developers, QA, support, and time.
Not sure where you ever got 'malice' or 'carelessness' from.
I am sorry if I misconstrued your comment. I thought that you said that bugs and issues are caused by the people working there caring more about return on investment than quality, and not caring about fixing issues, which implies carelessness. By extension, people developing slap-dash product to rip off users without care for how things impact them implies malice.
It felt insulting because people I know personally do deeply care, and do spend a lot of effort for things that do not necessarily have a lot of return on investment (just for one example, iOS accessibility features for visually and hearing impaired are designed deep into the system and still have no equal). Aside from that, fixing bugs and improving stability does offer return on investment by building customer loyalty (case in point, after each major release I still see people mentioning Snow Leopard, an OS release dedicated exclusively to stability and performance improvements).
I’m not saying that things couldn’t be better, they always could, but I don’t think that all problems are as easily solved as you think. To take a classic counter example, Microsoft employs at conservative estimate twice the number of engineers compared to Apple, but still has not yet made a product twice as good or with half the bugs, imho. At a certain point, the system complexity just gets too great, and we need better architectures, tools and processes to get beyond that level.
Again, I am not saying you were intending to insult anyone, and apologies if I misunderstood something in your post. It’s just how it came across to me.
I think it would be easier to have a conversation that cares about human emotions and get results, than to insult others and lose perspective of those involved. The recent flak over Node COC is a extremely good example about how "having an honest conversation even if it hurts people," is extremely destructive. [1]
This bug has been annoying me, my family and friends for several days now. Nearly everyone I️ know with an iPhone. And the suggestion is to break predictive text to fix it. I️ really wish I️ would have bought an Android.
It'll probably be fixed in a week or two at most and you'll forget it ever happened except when recounting stories of the good ole days of technology 20 years from now.
I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware.
On the other hand Google seems to be more of a software company, which reflects in their general culture and hiring practices.
> I think Apple is a Design company, as in that's their main value add. Like Steve Jobs said, design is not just how their products look but how they work - something that requires both software and hardware.
That's just word redefining. And I have an old iMac 20 that has all its USB ports on the back and every time I have to twist my wrist to plug something I am reminded how Apple isn't that good at functional design. The thing is pretty though.
those macs had a target user of designers/creative industry professionals. For these people the aesthetics is pretty much a part of the function. Apple's biggest innovation is probably the realization that "normal" people care about very different things than engineers, when it comes to computers.
I think Apple explicitly position themselves as the combination of hardware and software and want as much vertical integration as possible... the more hardware they control the better they can make software to run on it.
Who thinks Apple is a software company? Because they're wrong. Apple started off making hardware and they've always made hardware. They make software to compliment their hardware.
I buy Apple products because they run Apple software. I like the Apple hardware I have, but if it ran easily and bug free on other hardware, I suspect I’d end up with cheaper knock offs for the hardware itself.
Indeed, Apple is excellent at integration. But at the system level, that leaves them with fewer partners who can help with the business side of things. They had to become excellent in operations, strategy and sales, which they did as well.
Strategically, I think Apple has made a right move by internalising all the hardware designs. That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.
Well shit, this thread didn't prepare me for this big a goalpost move
Edit:
That was overly sarcastic but it went from talking about italian cars, to Ferrari specifically, to implying that the Italian brand is fine as long as it has Italian owners. Discussions are pointless if everyone's going to be arguing different points
I am sorry, but I think you didn't follow properly the discussion.
The first quote I answered was exactly: "Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian."
So, as everyone can see, the discussion was specifically around high end Italian cars, unless I'm missing some tricky and specific nuance of the English language in this context. In that case please enlighten me instead of writing sarcastic comments, it will be appreciated much more.
Ferrari, if I'm not mistaken, is the archetype of high end Italian cars.
And then when someone starts bubbling about the abysmal quality of 1998 Lamborghini I duly make it clear that they were not Italian for a long time at that point and they have been just acquired by a German automaker.
I honestly can't see any contradiction in this very linear reasoning.
Please let me know what I'm missing.
The point I found missing was why ferarri was brought up if you could point to 1998 as the time is was no longer high end for a legitimate reason, the foreign ownership. Someone could have conceived a child after that point in time and the child would be able to vote by now, why use it as an example?
It seemed like either you knew what the other poster meant by Italian high end cars, the Ferrari brand, and chose to defend it despite knowing that it was bad for other reasons. Or you thought he was discussing Italian owned Italian brands when it turns out some famous Italian brands are not Italian owned.
Either way that looks like you two were using different definitions for the same words to my third party view
Ehm..
Are you aware that Lamborghini and Ferrari are two completely different car brands right?
Ferrari is Italian, Lamborghini was Italian and was sold to different parties since the 80's or something like that.
From 1998 Lamborghini is German.
In my original comment I said that I would be very surprised to find a Ferrari with a shit finish, and another user said that Lamborghini from 1998 to 2011 had abysmal paint quality.
So I don't see any contradiction in my comments.
I just re-read the thread, completely missed that 'serf replied with Lamborghini when you spoke about Ferrari. My apologies for the snark, it was uncalled for
Land Rovers are designed, manufactured and (around the corner from me in Herefordshire) tested in the UK. Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata. Does that make them Indian cars?
I've driven ferraris in las vegas racetracks. Affordable experience. The fit and finish was far below any luxury vehicle by far. The R8 was miles ahead in comfort and luxury details, but then those cars are not not designed as a luxury vehicle.
You haven’t used faceid yet are not convinced... Maybe wait until you’ve used it? I am using it right now, and so far there are very few times I’ve missed touchid, and I’ve been reminded of all the times that Touch ID would fail, like getting out of the shower etc...
I don’t understand the longing for an underscreen finger print scanner, does the computer in Star Trek require thumb print? Does the UI in minority report? If you imagine futuristic computer interfaces the computers just know who is using them, this is one of the first steps along that road...
As to the price, Apple price there phones where they want to price them to make sure they have high profit margins. I’m not sure why people complain about this. If they don’t do this they don’t make as much money. I do believe this phone costs significantly more to make than others, and the price fairly reflects that, though it is only £200 premium over the 8+...
How do you think Apple should price there products? A lower overall cost?
Got it today. I have to say, faceid is pretty cool. The screen however is disappointment; the hue/color temperature changes significantly to be distracting with tiny changes to viewing angle.
>That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.
FaceID is a huge leap and affects how people use their phones. The phone can behave differently if you are looking at it. For example: showing sensitive info only if you're looking at it, and not playing notification sounds as loud (or at all) if you see the notification as it comes in.
1. Samsung was a semiconductor maker, that successfully moved up to make phones. Apple was a integrator of third party chips that successfully went down to own many of the chips.
2. Apple's chips are significantly better than the competition. Partly because the chip division has a captive customer whose requirements are more apparent, plus no middlemen thanks to the vertical integration
3. Samsung's components need to serve multiple segments of the phone market, and other external customers. Apple only builds for Apple's specs
4. Every new breakthrough on the iPhone has been because of a chip that Apple alone had. From the very first iPhone's capacitive touch sensors to the new IR sensor system, no one else has the access for a couple phone cycles. Apple put out a 64 bit ARM processor even before arm had finalized the instruction set
4. Is absolutely wrong in every aspect. Most "innovation" was bought tech (primesense, for instance). The ARMv8 ISA was finalized ages before the chips got designed. Middle of 2011 IIRC.
Having the foresight and capabilities to make the right acquisitions at the right times is just good business. Splitting hairs over whether the technology was internally developed or purchased is irrelevant to the point being made about the exclusivity of the hardware.
True - They bought 3rd party companies with the tech. Still doesn't change the observation that they made it better, and tailored it specifically for the iPhone. None of those sensors have drop in replacements. And Apple put out the 64bit proc prior to ARM having IP --> FACt
Samsung has a problem with adding features to their devices that are simply not well executed.
For instance, from the NY Times review of the Galaxy Note 8:
>Some of the biometrics, including the ability to unlock your phone by scanning your face or irises, are so poorly executed that they feel like marketing gimmicks as opposed to actual security features.
Samsung's screens are excellent, but their CPU/GPU performance is a generation (or more) behind Apple. Plus they are way behind in integrated functionality such as motion coprocessor, ai processing, and secure enclave.
I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones, in color fidelity especially. Partly because of Apple's attention to detail, but also because Samsung's flagship phones ship in much higher volume than the X is expected to.
>>> I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones
I can't believe that. I just can't.
All iPhone X reviews mention the screen tech difference, all of them say how they don't notice a difference.
Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity. Jon Gruber was just talking about how Google spent the time/effort to make the colors of the Pixel display more accurate and natural, and then people complain they don't "pop" and look as good as the super-saturated colors on other android phones.
The colour reproduction on Samsung phones is just awful after spending so much time on MacBooks and iPhones. Over saturated and as you increase brightness it washes everything out.
I spent time with the iPhone X today so can comment on the screen first hand.
What makes the screen different is that the colours aren't oversaturated like Android phones. It was identical to the iPhone 8 screen (LED) only significantly brighter.
From what I've read what makes it better are things like the reduced blue-shift that occurs when moving the phone and the significant reduction in burn-in effect. But what most people will think is that it is the colours that make it better. Even though that could largely be software.
I can believe it. The quality is all about cost. What level of rejected units can you accept for price $X? If Apple can pay more (due to cost, scale, or just where the price of the phone is allocated between parts) they can buy a better screen.
Yeah the S8 and S8 Plus had (has?) significant top/side edge colour shift.
(Speaking as the owner of the Plus, who has his first replaced and the second is somewhat better but not perfect. Wife's S8 is also affected but she doesn't see it or doesn't care. I would still take that slight imperfection over the horrid notch though).
Basically, yeah, they don't make the OS. I think the parent comment was more aimed at software companies. Though, you could look at it from the opposite point of view as well.
Axiom in the tech world is that "Apple is a software company that builds hardware". Above is ample evidence of Apple being a hardware-heavy innovation machine.
A software company building hardware is Google, and it's Pixel phones show