1) People and investors want Apple to repeat its success with the "wow factor" of the original iPhone.
That's never going to happen. The original iPhone's wow factor resulted from a perfect storm of radical hardware & software design, brilliant execution, and flawless timing in a competitive landscape that was a wasteland of stagnation and mediocrity.
With so much investment and talent focused on smartphones today, it's impossible for Apple to dazzle the market with perfectly executed new technology before lesser competitors release less polished versions of the same technology. Apple still has the better implementation and the better product, but premature release of new tech by competitors steals all their thunder.
Mmm...
That's never going to happen is a pretty high threshold!
Circa 2005-6, KDDI the Japanese Telecom had a series of videos on their web site called "Knock! Knock! Ubiquitous".
The videos showed integration of mobile video devices containing: chat, telephony, GPS, mapping, etc, into the daily lives of average users... from buying lunch from a food truck; making ride reservations and purchasing "tickets" to an amusement (including transportation to the park and notification when the ride lines were small); buying "virtual" real-time golf lessons with a pro (combining your TV as output and your mobile device as input for swing analysis; finding nearby store that had that certain product for sale, getting directions to the store, buying it and scheduling delivery...
I wish those videos were available today -- as every futuristic concept is coming true...
One thing that really stands out in my memory was the mobile device -- It was about the size of the new Sammy 6.3" phone but was used like a tablet (mostly in landscape mode). It was a completely transparent rectangle slab -- with, maybe, a thin black border on each end (1/4 inch wide at most).
It, and the services it provided, were ubiquitous!
IMO, Apple is the only company in the world with the financial resources to accomplish this -- and it already has most of the hardware and supporting infrastructure in place.
My point here, is that while much of what was shown (before the iPhone) has come true -- much has not -- there's a lot of wow left come from this little slab of a computer...
The potential to detect/monitor/prevent diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, etc. -- is a whole 'nother knock, knock!
Apple has been uncharacteristically verbose about future plans
No, they haven't announced the "iPhone 8," but they have been very obviously pointing to a big selling point of the device.
But for the first time, Apple is talking about future technologies of great interest to the company, declaring a focus on specific user segments, and in some cases hammering the point home on multiple occasions. Technology for the "iPhone 8" is no exception.
In an interview in February, Apple CEO Tim Cook heralded augmented reality as a "big idea," right up there next to the smartphone itself.
"The smartphone is for everyone, we don't have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country or vertical market: it's for everyone. I think AR is that big, it's huge," Cook said. "I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives. And be entertaining."
Cook made similar comments with equal enthusiasm in past interviews, suggesting Apple is looking to market an AR or mixed reality system in the future.
Technologies surrounding perfected implementation of AR are expensive. Why not include them in a phone that may or may not cost in excess of $1000?
What a very odd connection to make.
Yes... If a company has revolutionary tech, why not make it available to as many as possible -- spreading the cost over a larger base and capturing the market.
I often wonder what the world would have looked like if the Mac had been released in, say, 1982.
The S8 multi-core performance is actually very slightly better than the iPhone 7, even though the difference is tiny, so you could say they're on equal footing there. Its single core performance where the iPhone 7 is still the king by quite a considerable margin.
Even though they may claim not to be cheating now, you will never know unless the benchmark changes it's benching algorithm process with every version.
Which brings me to the other half of the performance claim. iOS software is 100% C/C++/OBJC/Swift. They are compiled to native code. Android devices are a mixture of Java and native code. Even if you could run Android on an iOS device, it would perform worse than iOS with the same software because there is this entire Java problem to deal with.
You can see this with games developed in Unity. The game on iOS, works like a charm, low loading time, etc. Same game on Android on equivalent hardware, long loading times, lots of render stutter, OS native UI stuff is slow and ugly, etc.
Like, there is no way in hell I would buy an Android device for that reason alone. You need 20% more "phone" just to make up for Android inefficiency, and that is reflected in synthetic benchmarks which perform non-UI computations. If you were to actually test the responsiveness of a phone on the same software, the iOS software actually is responsive, where as Android is sluggish. There is just no getting around this. I've never seen a game perform identically on an iOS phone and a Samsung phone. The Samsung phone is always kneecapped by Android.
I wouldn't mind at all a 7S but not with the same Al back with antenna lines, a durable plastic one I would like. I have no interest for no bezels and curved edge to edge screen. I even prefer the colour reproduction of LCD screens. Just put in 4gb ram, next processor, etc.
Can you expand on the 4GB RAM request? What do you do today with your current iPhone that its current memory is not handling?
They're going to release both because the iPhone 8 will be more expensive and they'll use it as an upsell device. That's why they created the iPad Pro vs. putting all that technology into the iPad Air and raising the price $100 (or more). The iPhone 8 will be the phone everyone wants, the 7S will be the right price point and Schiller's job will be to convince people to spend more money and get an 8. Apple has no problem making product lines complex in the service of upselling.
No. The "It's decoy product line!" is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories I've ever heard about Apple. Almost as bad as claiming they cause intentional supply constraint to drive up hype by not selling when they could be selling. The reality is, different products exist at different price tiers because they offer different features and thus different values to (wait for it) different customers. Not every customer needs every feature.
Going thru all the design, engineering, manufacturing, and logistic challenges to produce a new product just as a decoy -- i.e., to not sell it -- doesnt make any sense whatsoever. It's the stuff that people who don't actually produce things dream up in their heads, perhaps to make themselves feel better about buying lower-tier products or something, who knows. But it's not logical, that's for sure.
I don't think you understood my post. I'm not saying it's a decoy or something Apple doesn't want to sell. I'm saying they don't want to look like they're increase prices on an existing product so they create a new one with a new name where they can charge a higher price and hopefully be able to upsell people to the more expensive product. Apple didn't upgrade the iPad Air 2 with keyboard and pencil support for the same $499. They created a new iPad, stuck the name "Pro" after it and raised the price $100. And this is during a time when iPad sales are flat to falling. The fact that this year they released a new-ish iPad at a lower price indicates they're trying to get growth moving in the right direction again. Another example is storage. Storage was 16 > 64 > 128 and then 32 > 128 > 256. The only reason to do storage like that is so Apple can say for only $100 more you get 4x the storage! Again it's all about the upsell. And Apple knows once you're in the mid-tier or upper tier it's very unlikely you'll downgrade. The only reason they increased all tiers last year is because had they not Phil Schiller would've been laughed off the stage.
People here keep obsessing over profits but companies have to hit the right balance. Obviously the iPad Apple just released is an admission that they need a cheaper offering to juice sales.
If AR comes to the iPhone 8 this fall, it will mean that Apple feels they perfected it. It won't just be exciting; it will be a game changer.
Apple doesn't necessarily wait for perfection any longer. When they released Maps, it was far from perfect. When they released Siri, they called it a "Beta". They've done that with a few other offerings as well.
Having said that, I do believe that Apple will bring us something good with AR, and if it isn't perfect right away, it will at least be better than their rivals' and will become the game changer in time.
This. The article didn't really explain why, other than "reasons". From a marketing and sales perspective why release an iphone 7s and 8? "Because technologies" isn't a reason.
The technology for the iPhone 8, is probably severely constrained. Apple probably is releasing an iPhone 7s and along with a redesigned iPhone to ease bottleneck from the oled
They can't decide to release two entirely different models last minute to alleviate supply constraint. These things are planned well in advance.
They have known well in advance that supply of OLED screens will be difficult to ramp up to the level that an iPhone with it would need.
Look, there absolutely positively has to be a real cool iPhone this year. Because otherwise tim cook's product pipeline will have rusted away entirely through oxidation due to nothing moving through it. Maybe some fibre is needed.
Ridiculous. There may be something amazing, but there 'has to be'? Not at all. Apple can easily afford to put an incremental upgrade without doing a Jesus phone.
The thing I don't understand about this is, who would buy the 7S if the 8 is also available (or is going to be shortly after)? I get there a budget conscious people, but wouldn't they just opt for a iphone 6S or 6 on a deep discount or even an iPhone SE?
The thing I don't understand is how you can make such a nonsensical statement without knowing what features, what price points, and what compromises each will have, and what every potential buyer will want in a phone and want to pay for it. I also don't understand why so many people think what they want is what everybody else wants or should want. (Ok, I actually do understand their malfunctions.)
The thing I don't understand about this is, who would buy the 7S if the 8 is also available (or is going to be shortly after)? I get there a budget conscious people, but wouldn't they just opt for a iphone 6S or 6 on a deep discount or even an iPhone SE?
I thought the same thing until I heard he price for the 8 would be over a thousand dollars. That's gonna be the difference. Over a 200 dollar difference if the 7s is closer to how much the 7 is.
What was the point of this piece? Seems to me like a rehash of everything that's been repeated ad nauseam, without any new information or insights whatsoever.
As a reminder, not every article on AI is intended for the AI faithful. We do get a significant amount of "drive-by" traffic.
They're going to release both because the iPhone 8 will be more expensive and they'll use it as an upsell device. That's why they created the iPad Pro vs. putting all that technology into the iPad Air and raising the price $100 (or more). The iPhone 8 will be the phone everyone wants, the 7S will be the right price point and Schiller's job will be to convince people to spend more money and get an 8. Apple has no problem making product lines complex in the service of upselling.
No. The "It's decoy product line!" is one of the dumbest conspiracy theories I've ever heard about Apple. Almost as bad as claiming they cause intentional supply constraint to drive up hype by not selling when they could be selling. The reality is, different products exist at different price tiers because they offer different features and thus different values to (wait for it) different customers. Not every customer needs every feature.
Going thru all the design, engineering, manufacturing, and logistic challenges to produce a new product just as a decoy -- i.e., to not sell it -- doesnt make any sense whatsoever. It's the stuff that people who don't actually produce things dream up in their heads, perhaps to make themselves feel better about buying lower-tier products or something, who knows. But it's not logical, that's for sure.
I don't think you understood my post. I'm not saying it's a decoy or something Apple doesn't want to sell. I'm saying they don't want to look like they're increase prices on an existing product so they create a new one with a new name where they can charge a higher price and hopefully be able to upsell people to the more expensive product. Apple didn't upgrade the iPad Air 2 with keyboard and pencil support for the same $499. They created a new iPad, stuck the name "Pro" after it and raised the price $100. And this is during a time when iPad sales are flat to falling. The fact that this year they released a new-ish iPad at a lower price indicates they're trying to get growth moving in the right direction again. Another example is storage. Storage was 16 > 64 > 128 and then 32 > 128 > 256. The only reason to do storage like that is so Apple can say for only $100 more you get 4x the storage! Again it's all about the upsell. And Apple knows once you're in the mid-tier or upper tier it's very unlikely you'll downgrade. The only reason they increased all tiers last year is because had they not Phil Schiller would've been laughed off the stage.
You make it sound as if devising new products with increased features for an increased price is something other than completely normal. That's business, man. Even my health insurance company does it -- bronze, silver, gold insurance products to choose from.
Yes, for $100 more you get 4x the storage. And? If that offers value to you, great invest in it. If it does not then don't. Again this is completely normal. Trying to suggest it's a mustache-twirling conspiracy from your consumer goods nemesis Schiller just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
If AR comes to the iPhone 8 this fall, it will mean that Apple feels they perfected it. It won't just be exciting; it will be a game changer.
Apple doesn't necessarily wait for perfection any longer. When they released Maps, it was far from perfect. When they released Siri, they called it a "Beta". They've done that with a few other offerings as well.
That's the nostalgia trope. "Things used to be better!" etc. They weren't. They were never perfect because humans aren't perfect. The original Mac had issues and complaints too. Ive said one of the things he likes about hardware is the chance to do it better on the next iteration. Iterative improvement is the name of the game, always has been.
Great stories about development on the original Mac from the guys in he room here:
I kind of like the emergence of a triple debut/update strategy.
Coming this year: 8, 7s, 7 or 8, 7s and 6se Next year: 9, 8s, 7s or 7se Year after, 10, 9s, 8s or 8se
The above assumes a major design tick every year which would break precedent but the strict 2-year tic-toc major design change precedent has already been mostly broken with semi-static major design updates in the 6/6s to 7 design relationship. It seems like we have a mini cycle running inside a major cycle, like this: Cycle 1: Tick (tic1,toc1,tic2), i.e. 6(6,6s,7,7s) Year 1: Tick-tic1, i.e. 6,5s,5se Year 2: Tick-toc1, i.e. 6s,6,5se Year 3: Tick-tic2, i.e. 7,6s,6,5se Year 4: Tock (tic1,toc1,tic2), i.e. 8(8,8s,9,9s) Year 4: Tock-tic1, i.e. 8,7s,7,6se Year 5: Tock-toc1, i.e. 8s,8,7,6se Year 6: Tock-tic2, i.e. 9,8s,8,7se
I'm trying to imagine a design/manufacturing strategy that makes use of an amortized previous generation manufacturing line like the iPhone SE does.
In the current case, by slowing down major design iteration from every other year, to every 3 or 4 years for the flagship phone, just doing reprogramming of cutting tools for antenna bands and trying not to scramble internal components too much, Apple could save on its own and supplier ED&T and line and tooling costs. It could also have two teams developing phones, the larger better resourced team-A developing the all new models and the iteration team-B developing the "step" models.
Im not saying this is how it is, I'm just trying to imagine how Apple might go about producing an affordable entry level phone on a semi retired production line as the do with the 5 SE (which I see as a Step Extension) on the iPhone 5 line.
I don't have time to refine and correct the model against where the SE fits in or if an SE1, SE2, etc might replace one of the older models in the chain, so let it serve as a discussion point.
If the 8 does come out this year then next year will have the 8S and 8SPlus. It well may be that there is only a single lens in the 8 and we will have to wait for the Plus next year to get the dual lens with Telephoto.
January of last year we saw the actual production displays leak. We knew the headphone jack was gone. By early March we had accurate cases leak out.
It's mid April this year and nada. Just a badly drawn "schematic" that is not in any way shape or form a production drawing, of any kind.
So I don't k kw what to say, other than double down and say we will not be seeing anything but a 7s. Which is not a bad thing at all. I'm sure like the 7, that it will be the best mobile phone on the market.
The thing I don't understand about this is, who would buy the 7S if the 8 is also available (or is going to be shortly after)? I get there a budget conscious people, but wouldn't they just opt for a iphone 6S or 6 on a deep discount or even an iPhone SE?
This. The article didn't really explain why, other than "reasons". From a marketing and sales perspective why release an iphone 7s and 8? "Because technologies" isn't a reason.
Because no OLED screen maker would be able to meet Apple's demand for screens if they updated both 7s and 7s+ to OLED. If they produce a limited edition, more expensive 8 model with OLED, new materials, and new tech it won't kill the supply chain. By fall of 2018 they would be able to go all OLED on all models.
Comments
Mmm...
That's never going to happen is a pretty high threshold!
My point here, is that while much of what was shown (before the iPhone) has come true -- much has not -- there's a lot of wow left come from this little slab of a computer...
The potential to detect/monitor/prevent diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, etc. -- is a whole 'nother knock, knock!
I often wonder what the world would have looked like if the Mac had been released in, say, 1982.
https://www.xda-developers.com/benchmark-cheating-strikes-back-how-oneplus-and-others-got-caught-red-handed-and-what-theyve-done-about-it/
Even though they may claim not to be cheating now, you will never know unless the benchmark changes it's benching algorithm process with every version.
Which brings me to the other half of the performance claim. iOS software is 100% C/C++/OBJC/Swift. They are compiled to native code. Android devices are a mixture of Java and native code. Even if you could run Android on an iOS device, it would perform worse than iOS with the same software because there is this entire Java problem to deal with.
You can see this with games developed in Unity. The game on iOS, works like a charm, low loading time, etc. Same game on Android on equivalent hardware, long loading times, lots of render stutter, OS native UI stuff is slow and ugly, etc.
Like, there is no way in hell I would buy an Android device for that reason alone. You need 20% more "phone" just to make up for Android inefficiency, and that is reflected in synthetic benchmarks which perform non-UI computations. If you were to actually test the responsiveness of a phone on the same software, the iOS software actually is responsive, where as Android is sluggish. There is just no getting around this. I've never seen a game perform identically on an iOS phone and a Samsung phone. The Samsung phone is always kneecapped by Android.
Can you expand on the 4GB RAM request? What do you do today with your current iPhone that its current memory is not handling?
People here keep obsessing over profits but companies have to hit the right balance. Obviously the iPad Apple just released is an admission that they need a cheaper offering to juice sales.
Having said that, I do believe that Apple will bring us something good with AR, and if it isn't perfect right away, it will at least be better than their rivals' and will become the game changer in time.
The thing I don't understand is how you can make such a nonsensical statement without knowing what features, what price points, and what compromises each will have, and what every potential buyer will want in a phone and want to pay for it. I also don't understand why so many people think what they want is what everybody else wants or should want. (Ok, I actually do understand their malfunctions.)
Yes, for $100 more you get 4x the storage. And? If that offers value to you, great invest in it. If it does not then don't. Again this is completely normal. Trying to suggest it's a mustache-twirling conspiracy from your consumer goods nemesis Schiller just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
That's the nostalgia trope. "Things used to be better!" etc. They weren't. They were never perfect because humans aren't perfect. The original Mac had issues and complaints too. Ive said one of the things he likes about hardware is the chance to do it better on the next iteration. Iterative improvement is the name of the game, always has been.
Great stories about development on the original Mac from the guys in he room here:
http://www.folklore.org/
Or MSM, or a video camera, or even copy & paste. Clearly was not perfect. But it was good, and the iterative improvements made it great.
Just a reminder of what the iPhone started...
Gone are public telephones, home telephones, telephone books...
By early March we had accurate cases leak out.
It's mid April this year and nada. Just a badly drawn "schematic" that is not in any way shape or form a production drawing, of any kind.
So I don't k kw what to say, other than double down and say we will not be seeing anything but a 7s.
Which is not a bad thing at all. I'm sure like the 7, that it will be the best mobile phone on the market.