AAPL - Apple Inc.

[Liberty]

iOS 9 will actually reduce storage space required for many apps and the OS itself (they call those technologies App slicing and App thinning).

 

http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/09/ios9-app-thinning/

 

iOS 9 will also contain a few power-saving features that will extend battery life on existing iOS devices by around 1 hour, and it'll also have a special low power mode that can extend battery life by a few more hours when you really need it.

 

I don't believe in the "planned obsolescence" conspiracy theories about batteries and such....

 

I don't believe in any conspiracy theories about battery life, but I do believe that Apple could extend the useful life of its devices by making the batteries user replaceable and by adding a memory card slot or making the flash inside user replaceable/upgradable.  Apple purposefully doesn't do this to drive people to replace their devices. I don't know if that fits the definition of "conspiracy", but it is a decision made by the company, and it seems to be working well for Apple.

 

Design is about tradeoffs. If you do these things, you make the devices thicker, uglier, and more complex. You can pack things together a lot tighter on the inside if you don't need to have a separate compartment for the battery that can be exposed to the outside, and the back of the phone can be a lot nicer (unibody metal, or inlayed glass with super tight tolerances) if it can't be opened. Even Samsung recently dropped these features on its flagship, probably because very few people actually replace their batteries and swap memory cards around much after buying the phone with a certain amount of storage (either integrated or with a card that they then never think about again).

 

I ran linux (Slackware distro) for years, I know about how fun customization can be sometimes. But 95% of people won't ever change default settings on anything, so it's a lot more important for things to be nice and useable out of the box than to have the ability for people to go DIY. If you try to please everyone, from Richard Stallman to some person who doesn't care about computers and just wants things to work, you usually end up with a mediocre product that doesn't really impress either side, so you have to make choices that will displease some people.

[merkhet]

iOS 9 will actually reduce storage space required for many apps and the OS itself (they call those technologies App slicing and App thinning).

 

http://9to5mac.com/2015/06/09/ios9-app-thinning/

 

iOS 9 will also contain a few power-saving features that will extend battery life on existing iOS devices by around 1 hour, and it'll also have a special low power mode that can extend battery life by a few more hours when you really need it.

 

I don't believe in the "planned obsolescence" conspiracy theories about batteries and such....

 

I don't believe in any conspiracy theories about battery life, but I do believe that Apple could extend the useful life of its devices by making the batteries user replaceable and by adding a memory card slot or making the flash inside user replaceable/upgradable.  Apple purposefully doesn't do this to drive people to replace their devices. I don't know if that fits the definition of "conspiracy", but it is a decision made by the company, and it seems to be working well for Apple.

 

I think it's a tradeoff of moving parts vs. durability. So, yea, they could make a battery removable by a user, but that would probably make the phone/battery break more easily. I suspect that what I wrote is the primary motive -- the fact that people have to replace their devices is an added bonus.

[Liberty]

While we're on the topic, here's a pet peeve of mine:

 

Almost every year, without fail, after new iPhones come out there's some journalist who writes a big piece about how Apple slows down old phones on purpose to make you upgrade. It goes something like: 'My 2-3 year old iPhone was working fine, and then after the new iPhones were announced it slowed down".

 

How could that be, right?

 

Oh, maybe it's because Apple releases new versions of iOS at the same time as new iPhones, and new versions of iOS target the new hardware, not for 2-3 year old hardware..? It still runs and gives you access to many new features, updated design, etc, but it'll never be as snappy as on a brand new device. Duh. If you want things to stay the same, don't upgrade your whole operating system.

 

This doesn't happen as much on Android because on most Android phones you simply can't upgrade your OS and are stuck with old, often unpatched software until you buy a new device. Apple is doing a nice thing and supporting old hardware for as long as it can, and to repay it for its efforts the media are writing negative articles about it.

 

I wonder why these journalists who don't understand technology write about Apple. Scratch that. I get it. The easiest way to get pageviews and attention is to write something negative about Apple. There's always a race for a new "gate" fake scandal. I wonder what it'll be this year.

 

I guess they wish Moore's Law would be repealed and software optimized for current hardware would run just as fast on way, way, way slower hardware from a few years ago...

 

Sorry, I had to get this rant out. :)

[oddballstocks]

 

I ran linux (Slackware distro) for years, I know about how fun customization can be sometimes. But 95% of people won't ever change default settings on anything, so it's a lot more important for things to be nice and useable out of the box than to have the ability for people to go DIY. If you try to please everyone, from Richard Stallman to some person who doesn't care about computers and just wants things to work, you usually end up with a mediocre product that doesn't really impress anyone, so you have to make choices that will displease some people.

 

Not to dive in the weeds, but I will anyways.  Wow, Slackware, brings back memories.  I ran Linux only for years, from the late 90s to about 2004.  I started on RedHat 3 on a 486.  For a period I used OpenBSD exclusively as well.  What killed it for me was the hours I spent trying to get a digital camera to work in 2001.  I spent hours re-compiling kernels and drivers to get the USB to talk to the camera.  I had some issues with a sound card as well and I remember needing to hard code memory addresses in config files.  I used Slackware for a while as well, but dumped it when the sole developer ran into health issues, the distro stagnated for a bit.

 

Eventually I purchased an old Apple to play with on the side.  I installed OS X and loved the concept of a unix with a nice UI on top that actually worked for things like sound and cameras.  The moment things clicked for me was in 2003 when I plugged in the digital camera into the Mac and voila it found it instantly.  It also found and configured a printer for me as well.  Before that I was limited in what I could print on Linux because the driver didn't support all of the printers features.

 

I'm still on OS X, and I still jump to Terminal often.  But now Linux has been relegated to our company servers that are ssh'ed into.  Nothing on the desktop.  I tried Ubuntu on an old laptop a few years ago, it was alright, and I wish I had it 15 years ago, but couldn't hold a candle to OS X.

[Liberty]

 

I ran linux (Slackware distro) for years, I know about how fun customization can be sometimes. But 95% of people won't ever change default settings on anything, so it's a lot more important for things to be nice and useable out of the box than to have the ability for people to go DIY. If you try to please everyone, from Richard Stallman to some person who doesn't care about computers and just wants things to work, you usually end up with a mediocre product that doesn't really impress anyone, so you have to make choices that will displease some people.

 

Not to dive in the weeds, but I will anyways.  Wow, Slackware, brings back memories.  I ran Linux only for years, from the late 90s to about 2004.  I started on RedHat 3 on a 486.  For a period I used OpenBSD exclusively as well.  What killed it for me was the hours I spent trying to get a digital camera to work in 2001.  I spent hours re-compiling kernels and drivers to get the USB to talk to the camera.  I had some issues with a sound card as well and I remember needing to hard code memory addresses in config files.  I used Slackware for a while as well, but dumped it when the sole developer ran into health issues, the distro stagnated for a bit.

 

Eventually I purchased an old Apple to play with on the side.  I installed OS X and loved the concept of a unix with a nice UI on top that actually worked for things like sound and cameras.  The moment things clicked for me was in 2003 when I plugged in the digital camera into the Mac and voila it found it instantly.  It also found and configured a printer for me as well.  Before that I was limited in what I could print on Linux because the driver didn't support all of the printers features.

 

I'm still on OS X, and I still jump to Terminal often.  But now Linux has been relegated to our company servers that are ssh'ed into.  Nothing on the desktop.  I tried Ubuntu on an old laptop a few years ago, it was alright, and I wish I had it 15 years ago, but couldn't hold a candle to OS X.

 

Now you are bringing back memories... I remember re-compilling my kernel all the time to try to get it as lean as possible by removing all unnecessary modules and trying different compiler flags, saving a few kbs or RAM here and there. That was fun/infuriating. But I'm certainly not under any illusions that this is the kind of stuff that interests most people.

 

There's a small class of people, who probably have the engineer gene, even if they aren't engineers, who care a lot about tools. And then most people just want to use the tools to get something done and never really think much about the tools.

[rkbabang]

 

I ran linux (Slackware distro) for years, I know about how fun customization can be sometimes. But 95% of people won't ever change default settings on anything, so it's a lot more important for things to be nice and useable out of the box than to have the ability for people to go DIY. If you try to please everyone, from Richard Stallman to some person who doesn't care about computers and just wants things to work, you usually end up with a mediocre product that doesn't really impress anyone, so you have to make choices that will displease some people.

 

Not to dive in the weeds, but I will anyways.  Wow, Slackware, brings back memories.  I ran Linux only for years, from the late 90s to about 2004.  I started on RedHat 3 on a 486.  For a period I used OpenBSD exclusively as well.  What killed it for me was the hours I spent trying to get a digital camera to work in 2001.  I spent hours re-compiling kernels and drivers to get the USB to talk to the camera.  I had some issues with a sound card as well and I remember needing to hard code memory addresses in config files.  I used Slackware for a while as well, but dumped it when the sole developer ran into health issues, the distro stagnated for a bit.

 

Eventually I purchased an old Apple to play with on the side.  I installed OS X and loved the concept of a unix with a nice UI on top that actually worked for things like sound and cameras.  The moment things clicked for me was in 2003 when I plugged in the digital camera into the Mac and voila it found it instantly.  It also found and configured a printer for me as well.  Before that I was limited in what I could print on Linux because the driver didn't support all of the printers features.

 

I'm still on OS X, and I still jump to Terminal often.  But now Linux has been relegated to our company servers that are ssh'ed into.  Nothing on the desktop.  I tried Ubuntu on an old laptop a few years ago, it was alright, and I wish I had it 15 years ago, but couldn't hold a candle to OS X.

 

I hear what you are saying.  I ran various Linux distros at home from the late 90's until about 2012-3 or so (RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, Mandrivia, then Ubuntu).  My only machine at home now is a Windows 8.1 machine and I hate it.  I've pretty much made the decision that I'm going to get an iMac 5K for my desk at home, just waiting to see if there is any update to it today. If not, I'm ordering it this afternoon.

 

I still run redhat primarily at work and love it, but then again I have a whole IT department to fall back on if something isn't working and they do all the updates to it.  I spent more time than I'd like to admit keeping my home Linux machines updated and running.  As you pointed out, device drivers are always a nightmare.

 

[Liberty]

I see you deleted your post, Wellmont. But here you go:

 

https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html

[Liberty]

I hear what you are saying.  I ran various Linux distros at home from the late 90's until about 2012-3 or so (RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, Mandrivia, then Ubuntu).  My only machine at home now is a Windows 8.1 machine and I hate it.  I've pretty much made the decision that I'm going to get an iMac 5K for my desk at home, just waiting to see if there is any update to it today. If not, I'm ordering it this afternoon.

 

My primary desktop computer is still a 2008 Mac Pro (8 Nehalem-gen cores, 12 gigs of RAM, now with a SSD -- per year I'm sure it cost me less than if I had bought a DELL piece of crap and had to replace it every few years..).  When that dies, I also want an iMac 5K. Amazing screen, very fast machine, and takes almost no space (just the monitor, basically). I'd wait for the Skylake update from Intel before ordering, though.

[rkbabang]

I hear what you are saying.  I ran various Linux distros at home from the late 90's until about 2012-3 or so (RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, Mandrivia, then Ubuntu).  My only machine at home now is a Windows 8.1 machine and I hate it.  I've pretty much made the decision that I'm going to get an iMac 5K for my desk at home, just waiting to see if there is any update to it today. If not, I'm ordering it this afternoon.

 

My primary desktop computer is still a 2008 Mac Pro (8 Nehalem-gen cores, 12 gigs of RAM, now with a SSD -- per year I'm sure it cost me less than if I had bought a DELL piece of crap and had to replace it every few years..).  When that dies, I also want an iMac 5K. Amazing screen, very fast machine, and takes almost no space (just the monitor, basically). I'd want for the Skylake update from Intel before ordering, though.

I'm sure it has.  I've been buying a new motherboard, processor, RAM, etc about every 3 years for about a decade.  In the early 90's/2000's it was about every year and a half. And of course every few upgrades you need new harddrives or SSDs/case/power supply as well.  It doesn't look like Skylake is going to be a huge performance boost from the current i7-4790K iMac.  If they announce it today to be shipped relatively soon, fine, but I'm not waiting until the end of the year.

 

 

[Liberty]

Yeah, Skylake doesn't seem like a huge deal (especially on a desktop -- on a laptop, the power-efficiency might be worth it). I just like to be on the latest generation when I update out of principle, but functionally, you probably wouldn't notice much of a difference unless you are constantly pushing your machine.

[Palantir]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

[boilermaker75]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

I love my iPad. It is a staple for me when teaching. (Such as to pull up figures that I can write on.) My only complaint is how poorly it works with a stylus. I will buy this new iPad immediately.

[rkbabang]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

I love my iPad. It is a staple for me when teaching. (Such as to pull up figures that I can write on.) My only complaint is how poorly it works with a stylus. I will buy this new iPad immediately.

 

$799 for 32GB, 128GB is $949, 128GB with LTE is $1079

plus $169 for a keyboard cover and $99 for the "Apple Pencil".

 

[boilermaker75]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

I love my iPad. It is a staple for me when teaching. (Such as to pull up figures that I can write on.) My only complaint is how poorly it works with a stylus. I will buy this new iPad immediately.

 

$799 for 32GB, 128GB is $949, 128GB with LTE is $1079

plus $169 for a keyboard cover and $99 for the "Apple Pencil".

 

Not available till November :(

[boilermaker75]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

I love my iPad. It is a staple for me when teaching. (Such as to pull up figures that I can write on.) My only complaint is how poorly it works with a stylus. I will buy this new iPad immediately.

 

$799 for 32GB, 128GB is $949, 128GB with LTE is $1079

plus $169 for a keyboard cover and $99 for the "Apple Pencil".

 

$99 sounds like a lot for the pencil, but I have spent more than that trying to find an acceptable stylus for my iPad.

 

The stylus that I found is an order of magnitude better than the rest is the Maglus with the microfibre tip. It does not seem to wear out, that is to start to stick on the screen as you write. All others start catching as you are trying to write within a couple of weeks.

[rkbabang]

One interesting option from the event today.  "Starting at" $32/month you can get the latest unlocked iPhone and a new one every year with AppleCare+ included.  You can always have the latest iPhone for $384/year.

 

[TheAiGuy]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

So, that's just utter... it's about design incentives, not a specific product. In the early days, a stylus was a crutch that facilitated bad design, i.e., extending the desktop metaphor to a smaller screen. Those days are gone, and sometimes a stylus is useful. Apple should have released one years ago.

[DCG]

A lot of realy good things about this event.

 

 

-I still don't understand how the iPhone can still start at only 16GB though.

[kfh227]

One interesting option from the event today.  "Starting at" $32/month you can get the latest unlocked iPhone and a new one every year with AppleCare+ included.  You can always have the latest iPhone for $384/year.

 

Interesting seeing how a new smartphone can cost as little as $100.  These things n 2 years will be the price of a high end calculator

[Liberty]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

Yeah, sure, and while we're looking at things at their most meaningless superficial level, Windows Phones are the same as iPhones, right? Consumers should like Windows Phones just as much, and it should be as successful, right?

 

When Apple criticizes something, they usually criticize a particular implementation of an idea (ie. something that isn't a great laptop and isn't a great tablet because of both the software and hardware), they're not saying that the idea can't possibly be made to work ever (ie. they didn't want to make a large phone before they could make it thin enough for it to be a good experience. A phone the size of an iPhone 6 plus but the thickness of an iPhone 4 would've been a brick..).

[rkbabang]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

Yeah, sure, and while we're looking at things at their most meaningless superficial level, Windows Phones are the same as iPhones, right? Consumers should like Windows Phones just as much, and it should be as successful, right?

 

When Apple criticizes something, they usually criticize a particular implementation of an idea (ie. something that isn't a great laptop and isn't a great tablet because of both the software and hardware), they're not saying that the idea can't possibly be made to work ever (ie. they didn't want to make a large phone before they could make it thin enough for it to be a good experience. A phone the size of an iPhone 6 plus but the thickness of an iPhone 4 would've been a brick..).

 

Exactly.  Making a touchscreen Windows laptop sans keyboard, to make a large tablet is not the same as an iPad Pro.

 

[Liberty]

Looks like my prediction from a few years ago that Apple TV would become an app-based gaming console with physical controllers was pretty close. They didn't have time to talk about it too much, but I bet these third-party MFi controllers will be popular for more avid gamers, while using the remote and iphones/ipod touches will be fine for more casual gamers:

 

http://www.apple.com/tv/games-and-more/

 

Hardcore gamers will stick with PCs and more expensive consoles. But I suspect there's a kind of 'mid-market' above casual gamers who are fine with games on mobile devices and below those hardcore gamers that would mostly buy Apple TVs for Netflix and other content apps, as well as whatever other deals Apple makes with cable companies later, but would also buy a bunch of games despite not being hardcore enough to get a dedicated console.

 

I think Nintendo glimpsed this mid-market with the original Wii, but they dropped the ball over time and never had the developer support and hardware to keep it going. Apple could take that under-served spot.

 

Also nice that Apple TV games will mostly be universal across devices, so buy it once and play on iPhone, iPad, TV..

 

A potentially interesting effect: Consoles have very slow upgrade cycles. Each generation lasts for 6+ years. If Apple updates the Apple TV hardware more often than that, it could just about match console performance during the back part of that cycle, but at a much lower price.

[Liberty]

So basically Apple just released a Surface with a stylus to boot. So much for Apple being innovative. I remember when Cookie Monster was mocking companies merging laptops and tablets.  Changed his mind.

 

Yeah, sure, and while we're looking at things at their most meaningless superficial level, Windows Phones are the same as iPhones, right? Consumers should like Windows Phones just as much, and it should be as successful, right?

 

When Apple criticizes something, they usually criticize a particular implementation of an idea (ie. something that isn't a great laptop and isn't a great tablet because of both the software and hardware), they're not saying that the idea can't possibly be made to work ever (ie. they didn't want to make a large phone before they could make it thin enough for it to be a good experience. A phone the size of an iPhone 6 plus but the thickness of an iPhone 4 would've been a brick..).

 

Exactly.  Making a touchscreen Windows laptop sans keyboard, to make a large tablet is not the same as an iPad Pro.

 

That's the problem with the approach, IMO. The Surface is basically a laptop that tries to be a tablet (they still want you to run a lot of desktop software on it and there are a lot of mixed UI metaphors). The iPad Pro is definitely a tablet, but it has a few peripherals that make it more laptop-like for when you want to do work. iOS is still a mobile OS, it is just getting more powerful with more interaction metaphors and more multi-tasking. Windows is trying to be everything to everyone, but the strengths of a good mobile OS are different from the strengths of a good desktop OS, and Windows mostly falls somewhere in the middle on lots of things...

 

Not to mention that iOS gives you access to all the iOS apps and developer ecosystem. With a Windows tablet, you mostly have to use desktop software that wasn't optimized for a tablet, giving you a bad experience, or you have access to a very limited number of software optimized for the Surface because it's a relatively small market and developers would rather work on iOS and Android.

[DCG]

So is the long-press functionality an iOS9 feature or is it only available on the 6S?

[adesigar]

So is the long-press functionality an iOS9 feature or is it only available on the 6S?

 

Only 6S