Same here. Apple just can't win with the fandroid fvcktard anal-systs. What does Apple know? They just build stuff instead of acting like experts. I'm so shocked that these jerks want to condemn an American company that does well for once for the benefit of cheaters and liars, but then that's exactly what they are also. The same idiots say they don't care about privacy, until something happens when they wish they had it. These complete morons seem to forget about what has happened in humanities history every time people blindly forfeit their inalienable rights. Their incompetence makes me sick. The same morons that complained you "can't patent a shape" when the Apple vs Samsung trial was happening then complain when Apple isn't going to change the shape they mocked just earlier?! They are short sighted idiots and can cram it and go to hell with their ostrich with it's head stuck in sand rhetoric.
I wonder how many of the trolls on AppleInsider and other pro-Apple blogs and websites are just paid shills working for Samsung, Google and others. Probably more than anyone could imagine since that's the only way anyone would be exposed to their false claims and ignorant accusations since they know Apple sites are the only ones getting any views because Apple users stay informed while the fandroids get lead by the nose like the sheep they accuse Apple users of being. Stupid aholes.
So many words and still iphone 7 will be to iPhone 6s what iPhone 6s was to iPhone 6. Everything's improved but nothing will be really new and desirable. And we all knew how iPhone 6s turned out. I have been using iPhone 6 Plus for two years and I should be upgrading but I'm not. I bet there will be many iPhone 6 users like me.
Exactly what I was thinking ... So much effort to justify nothing.
You're the expert on wasting effort to justify nothing, registered and reading and commentary on an Apple site, aren't you fandroid?
Well, another interesting, but flawed, article by one of our most interesting, but one sided, authors.
...
i think that running iOS and macOS apps would work well. I have no doubt that Apple software people could figure out how to manage that well.
Thank you for the reality check, @melgross. I know I will be ostracised to 'Dislike' land for saying so, but the article reads like a copious rant of an angry shill. In fact, there's so much logical fallacy it would make Siri facepalm.
Let me just say:
No, it's not that "Apple hasn't innovated since 2007", or that the tepid news about iPhone 7's form factor are mere slander by tech-blog meanies. Apple's product cycles indeed feel like slowing to a grind. Apple is established in collective memory for routinely redefining things. Sure, the Macbook Air is a real life successful case of meticulous evolution over years. But is that what Apple is famous for? If yes, then tech bloggers must be delusional en masse. But for argument's sake, let's say Apple is famous for jaw-droppers like the iMac G5, the MacBook Air and Retina MBP, the iPod Touch and original iPhone, then an iPhone 4 that was so jam packed with innovation it made the audience yelp, and yes, even the trashcan Mac Pro that was like it was pulled from a Stanley Kubrick set. Quantum leaps of stupendous design and hardware engineering that would frankly make a user disregard flaws and price tag and want them anyway.
What about now? Yes, people do expect Apple to pull an "iPhone 4" every two years. Because we've seen it happen before, and we want to see it happen again. I refuse to believe that we've hit such a "peak" in product design that it makes it inevitable for Apple to offer all but lazy rehashes as new products. Case in point: Apple had the great challenge to redefine the 4-incher smartphone and instead they released the iPhone SE. Could have named it iPhone MEH and call it a day. And the Mac family? No serious updates in years for multiple product lines, making the disparity between price and features absolutely nonsensical. The new MacBook is yet to convincingly balance preciosity with actual usefulness, and OS-wise we're holding a candle that Apple will unroll the next Snow Leopard. Actually, I'm pissed to witness all those "Macs are overpriced garbage" lifelong haters being partly vindicated thanks to the Mac's apparent state of neglect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, bloggers of the great internets can be mean. The iPhone 4 e.g. received unfair derision by the ton for its "antennagate" pseudo-scandal, almost as much as the iPhone 6 did for its "Bendgate" exaggerations. Scandals wane, but people remember what a company is great for. And it's not 30+ Siri languages (besides, according to a poll by Intelligent Voice, 15% of iPhone users have used Siri, and I presume they are even less outside the US).
And here's another point of view. When most of Apple's show-defining new services in recent memory are purely a US-focused privilege, they mean next to nothing for the international customerbase. I ordered the iPhone 6 days after its announcement, and still haven't managed to use Apple Pay. Why? It simply hasn't been made available in the Netherlands two years down the road. Do Siri improvements matter to me? Not particularly, when even after all these years she gets half my spoken phrases wrong (I assure you, my english is terrific), and a great deal of functionality is still not available in the NL. So, in turn, I ask for something I can work with and on par with my expectations from Apple. Groundbreaking design, a smooth OS experience, and a bit of a WOW factor to remind us that hey -this is Apple after all.
I can't put my finger on who's the pundit. The state of the industry? Consumers' expectations as shaped by formerly incredible products? Apple's stewardship and focus? Apple is obviously enjoying a financial peak under Cook, but I'm afraid to admit the peak of its cultural and creative influence (let alone innovation frequency) that occurred under Jobs is now fading.
DED, your sources are accurate, but your subjectivity is deafening. E.g. CNET does call the Galaxy S7 a smudge magnet - but also lauds it on the polished design. What did Apple do in the same regard? They offered the same device in rose gold. *sad trombone sound*
In short: consumers have every right to feel agitated. And no amount of online apologist preaching will fix that.
I just spent all of yesterday troubleshooting a Windows 10 machine and was reminded that the true beauty of Apple products is the investment they've made in top-to-bottom simplicity. While the Apple lineup is far from perfect, I've simply never spent hours upon hours in front of a Mac or iOS product trying to untangle draconian complexity just to solve basic problems like I did yesterday. The fact that the rest of the technology world is so brutal will continue to act in Apple's favor -- I think the user-friendliness that (most of) their ecosystem offers is unparalleled and will trump any weak hardware cycle sales in the long run. Unfortunately, that is not easily quantified by Wall Street or bloggers, and gets lost on many when trying to pinpoint value. It doesn't help that some of Apple's recent software sloppiness proves that even they can take their eye off the ball if they're focused to much on launching and not enough on experience (I'm looking at you Music, tvOS and iCloud).
That being said, hardware updates *are* fun and compelling and I am absolutely devastated that they are only bringing their dual-lens option to the giant phone. This seems like an odd approach in terms of giving the iPhone 7 generation a clear, cohesive reason for upgrade. "Amazing new camera...er...but only if you like giant phones."
As a photography enthusiast, I love the potential that a dual camera may bring, namely proper bokeh (shallow depth of field from a large aperture with big sensors). Properly spaced, you can even recreate and move your focal point like the lycos camera.
Bokeh is not 'shallow depth of field', it is the particular patterns that form in the highly out of focus area on a shallow depth of field. Two lenses can have identically shallow depth of field if they have the same focal length and and aperture, but they can have elegant bokeh or ugly bokeh. And the biggest effect on bokeh is the pattern made by the aperture blades.
I just don't think that the display technology improvements are going to really drive iPhone sales . (lets hear some number on how the iPad Pros are selling compared to the iPad Air and Air 2 when they came out to see if it increase; probably not ; probably decreased because of the price increate).
IPad volumes were inflated a surge of cheap minis. iPad Pro is clearly outselling iPad Air 2.
Getting rid of the audio jack will just make things worse (unless they both give you lightning ear buds and a lightning to 3.5 mm adapter in case you have your own headphones). They probably should have come out with the lightning buds last year to convince people that lightning based audit is better and is the future.
Ok? Lots of advice for the leading tech company. Offer some brilliant thoughts on Google, Microsoft or Samsung and let's see everyone prosper!
DED wrote a similar article back on June 9, 2016, "WWDC 2016: Apple's Siri and the future of voice vs. Amazon's Alexa Echo, Google Now, Microsoft Cortana" talking about how SIRI is better than the rest and just wait, just wait for WWDC to be wowed by the SIRI announcements where Apple will soar to the top. I wasn't in any way impressed. In this article DED doesn't herald coming SIRI improvements as the next big thing which is both disappointing probably painfully prophetic that no signification improvements to SIRI will come a part of iPhone 7.
Did you notice what Apple said at WWDC about Siri? Were you under a large rock?
Voice AI interfaces to computing is the next big thing because it has the potential to sweep away any legacy UI - its not writing on an iPad with a stylus/pencil, its not pressing harder on a screen to popup a menus, its not drawing characters on a watch, and its not a brighter, sharper, better screen than the year before.
Wow you literally know everything.
So so many people walking down the street talking to their smartphones everyday. Oh wait. No, that's not really happening at all. But you have managed to fall for moron talking points.
Of course the can probably score some big sales in 2017Q1 (Jan 2017-Mar 2017) if they release an iPhone 7 the thickness of the 5S with a bigger battery and correspondingly battery life of 2 days. iPhone 7XL. And there would be room to return the headphone jack too.
There's no doubt a populist uprising will also bring CD drives to MacBooks too. And then floppy drives. And a then 1990s serial ports, because legacy and innovation are two sides of the same coin!
For example, he talks about iPhone sales this year as though everything is fine. It's not. Last quarters' iPhones sales fell by 16%. No matter how it's spun, that's just not ok. Sales were expected to be flat, not significantly down. He talks as thought they were, in fact, flat. Whether we like it or not, the new features of the 6S and 6S+ weren't considered to be all that interesting by the general buying public, and that includes many iPhone owners.
The mistake that you're making here, and in some other points, is drawing the conclusion that a sales drop is primarily due to the features/innovation. You don't actually know that. Nobody knows that. In fact, if you look at the flagship smartphone market as a whole, it's unlikely that's the case. Samsung has basically resorted to 2 for 1 deals to increase S7 sales volume. That doesn't exactly show confidence from Samsung in regards to any new hardware/software features they might include vs. the iPhone.
Are you kidding me?!!
Theyre giving away VR headsets and TVs with every purchase too!!!! I'd say they're a lot more desperate than "buy one get one free".
Thanks again DED...i am beginning to think that a lot of tech writers are guilty of some sort of payola-scheme with google and/or samsung...their articles are so poorly thought and conceived, their ignorance of recent tech history is gobsmacking.
YOU PEOPLE pretending to know what the iPhone 7 is are a bunch of IDIOTS!!
i keep reading "I won't upgrade to the 7" "it doesn't offer enough innovation" "iPhone 7 hardware isn't so great" "can't believe Apple is only offering dual lense in the 7Plus model"
You guys sounds like a bunch of MONKEYS to me. The lack of intelligence and logic is beyond my scope of understanding. I can't believe people as stupid as you live and breathe.
Every fu**ing year it's the same sh**. "I can't think of anything innovative so neither can the engineers at Apple."
My beef with lightning headphones is the physical design itself doesn't seem advanced enough to warrant an upgrade. also the comparisons with CD-ROM drives etc. aren't great considering all had better options at the time(digital music for example).
Here are some quick hardware revisions I'd rather see first: I wish Apple would wait until they can decrease the size a bit.
IF Apple does remove the headphone jack the "stupid Beats deal" will instantly become GENIUS.
Apple could convert the biggest most influential headphone brand in the world to lightning on launch day. Imagine the entire Beats line offering lightning versions on iPhone 7's release day?? Add in some Bose and other headphone company deals and adoption would be smooth.
But yeah. So easy to spot the Google / Samsung shills in the media these days. Google and Samsung have huge marketing budgets. We're seeing where the payola is going.
That's what columnists like to say, particularly when comparing against a fixed voice appliance like the Echo. But it's not true. Siri has improved significantly every year.....
Cute Daniel but the fact remains Siri IS a distant competitor behind the Echo/Alexa & Google Now. Until I can get the same accurate results with Siri that I get with Google Now & Alexa then I'll use Siri. Til then it's Google Now. And quite honestly the "Added 30+ languages" is a red herring when you can't get accurate results in English
Hello? Read reply above. These are carriers trying to lull customers with bogo deals not the OEMs
And how do you or anyone else know if the BOGO offer is from the carrier or the OEM?
Apple has NEVER offered BOGO deals. With their stinginess I don't think they ever will either.
P.S. No one knows how to stir the pot like DED!! The Apple haters are coming out the woodwork!! DED brings up arguments their small minds never considered and they're battling back!!
And how do you or anyone else know if the BOGO offer is from the carrier or the OEM?
Apple has NEVER offered BOGO deals. With their stinginess I don't think they ever will either.
P.S. No one knows how to stir the pot like DED!! The Apple haters are coming out the woodwork!! DED brings up arguments their small minds never considered and they're battling back!!
Has anyone ever been able to buy a phone directly from Samsung or any other OEM with a BOGO offer? All BOGO offers come from the carrier. One has to purchase both phones or at the very least start payments on both phones to then receive a check/gift card in the amount for the second phone.
Wow, someone is on a roll, that’s not so short article!
Just want to point out that coming out with a new physical design is not an easy thing to do when you already reached the pinnacle, the perfect shape of smartphone, in which every other manufacturers are replicating. Not to mention the risk is very high that they will copy it once again.
And as the article suggest, innovation happens most of the time in the things that you don’t see from outside.
The mistake that you're making here, and in some other points, is drawing the conclusion that a sales drop is primarily due to the features/innovation. You don't actually know that. Nobody knows that. In fact, if you look at the flagship smartphone market as a whole, it's unlikely that's the case. Samsung has basically resorted to 2 for 1 deals to increase S7 sales volume. That doesn't exactly show confidence from Samsung in regards to any new hardware/software features they might include vs. the iPhone.
You really can't go by Samsung these days. The last time they had a sales increase in their "S" series line was with the S4. It's been downhill every since.
Smartphones sales have been flat this year. But Apple's was down 16% last quarter YoY. That's more than just from a flat market. So it's not that difficult to see that with Apple coming off a major change with the original 6 series that the 6S series failed to excite. While the feature set for the S series is nice, certainly, it's just not exciting, as going to bigger screens, and a new case, was.
This year, with a minor case change, will the rest of the feature set change that ho hum thinking? I don't particularly care, because as I said, we're on a two year upgrade plan. So we'll buy anyway. That's a whole three phones, but not enough to to move the needle.
If it's true that Apple will be making major changes next year, that will be exciting, assuming that what we are reading is mostly true. Major new case, OLED screen. Those alone can up sales more than a bit. And we'll see other upgrades as well, of course. Will we buy? Probably not, as we'll wait until the next year.
Anecdotes and promoting the theory that new iPhone sales are only due to excitement?
- This analysis or better described reaction fails to see a couple of things imo.
1. The iPhone SE has been a great success. Why? Irrational excitement? No.
iPhone SE sales are driven by the desire for features. With this item, smaller size combined with flagship features.
2. The iPhone 6 delivered a feature which many iPhone buyers wanted, bigger screen size.
It's hard to beat that feature in later iPhone models. Many iPhone owners have what they want in terms of features.
3. Why don't iPhone buyers blindly upgrade to the latest iPhone? Becasue the vast majority of US buyers now are not on a two year upgrade plan. Why? Because the old US phone contract system (which included the price of a phone) is pretty much dead.
- That was a T-Mobile innovation which the rest of the US carrier industry has adopted.
- The cost of the plan now has been separated from the cost of the phone.
More buyers are now asking; 'do I really need to pay for a new phone? Maybe this one can last me 3, 4 or even 5 years?'
I've been an Android user all of my life. But I'm tired of the Android phone manufactures' lack of OS support for the phone they make. If I'm lucky I might get one Android full update. If I'm lucky I might get bug and vulnerability updates every 3 months or so. If I want the latest OS I should just buy a new phone. Don't blame us...its your phone company preventing you OS updates. You may say I'd be overpaying for an iPhone but at least Apple supports it. Apple has consistently supported the iPhone for 3+ years. I usually buy higher end flagship Android phones so its not that much more expensive for me to buy an iPhone. This Fall I will be buying a new phone. It seems like the only real challenger to the iPhone is Google's Nexus line. I'll be considering it but at this point Google will have to win my business and give me a reason to not jump ship.
Comments
I wonder how many of the trolls on AppleInsider and other pro-Apple blogs and websites are just paid shills working for Samsung, Google and others. Probably more than anyone could imagine since that's the only way anyone would be exposed to their false claims and ignorant accusations since they know Apple sites are the only ones getting any views because Apple users stay informed while the fandroids get lead by the nose like the sheep they accuse Apple users of being. Stupid aholes.
Let me just say:
What about now? Yes, people do expect Apple to pull an "iPhone 4" every two years. Because we've seen it happen before, and we want to see it happen again. I refuse to believe that we've hit such a "peak" in product design that it makes it inevitable for Apple to offer all but lazy rehashes as new products. Case in point: Apple had the great challenge to redefine the 4-incher smartphone and instead they released the iPhone SE. Could have named it iPhone MEH and call it a day. And the Mac family? No serious updates in years for multiple product lines, making the disparity between price and features absolutely nonsensical. The new MacBook is yet to convincingly balance preciosity with actual usefulness, and OS-wise we're holding a candle that Apple will unroll the next Snow Leopard. Actually, I'm pissed to witness all those "Macs are overpriced garbage" lifelong haters being partly vindicated thanks to the Mac's apparent state of neglect. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, bloggers of the great internets can be mean. The iPhone 4 e.g. received unfair derision by the ton for its "antennagate" pseudo-scandal, almost as much as the iPhone 6 did for its "Bendgate" exaggerations. Scandals wane, but people remember what a company is great for. And it's not 30+ Siri languages (besides, according to a poll by Intelligent Voice, 15% of iPhone users have used Siri, and I presume they are even less outside the US).
And here's another point of view. When most of Apple's show-defining new services in recent memory are purely a US-focused privilege, they mean next to nothing for the international customerbase. I ordered the iPhone 6 days after its announcement, and still haven't managed to use Apple Pay. Why? It simply hasn't been made available in the Netherlands two years down the road. Do Siri improvements matter to me? Not particularly, when even after all these years she gets half my spoken phrases wrong (I assure you, my english is terrific), and a great deal of functionality is still not available in the NL. So, in turn, I ask for something I can work with and on par with my expectations from Apple. Groundbreaking design, a smooth OS experience, and a bit of a WOW factor to remind us that hey -this is Apple after all.
I can't put my finger on who's the pundit. The state of the industry? Consumers' expectations as shaped by formerly incredible products? Apple's stewardship and focus? Apple is obviously enjoying a financial peak under Cook, but I'm afraid to admit the peak of its cultural and creative influence (let alone innovation frequency) that occurred under Jobs is now fading.
DED, your sources are accurate, but your subjectivity is deafening. E.g. CNET does call the Galaxy S7 a smudge magnet - but also lauds it on the polished design. What did Apple do in the same regard? They offered the same device in rose gold. *sad trombone sound*
In short: consumers have every right to feel agitated. And no amount of online apologist preaching will fix that.
That being said, hardware updates *are* fun and compelling and I am absolutely devastated that they are only bringing their dual-lens option to the giant phone. This seems like an odd approach in terms of giving the iPhone 7 generation a clear, cohesive reason for upgrade. "Amazing new camera...er...but only if you like giant phones."
Bokeh is not 'shallow depth of field', it is the particular patterns that form in the highly out of focus area on a shallow depth of field. Two lenses can have identically shallow depth of field if they have the same focal length and and aperture, but they can have elegant bokeh or ugly bokeh. And the biggest effect on bokeh is the pattern made by the aperture blades.
Theyre giving away VR headsets and TVs with every purchase too!!!!
I'd say they're a lot more desperate than "buy one get one free".
YOU PEOPLE pretending to know what the iPhone 7 is are a bunch of IDIOTS!!
i keep reading "I won't upgrade to the 7"
"it doesn't offer enough innovation"
"iPhone 7 hardware isn't so great"
"can't believe Apple is only offering dual lense in the 7Plus model"
You guys sounds like a bunch of MONKEYS to me. The lack of intelligence and logic is beyond my scope of understanding. I can't believe people as stupid as you live and breathe.
Every fu**ing year it's the same sh**.
"I can't think of anything innovative so neither can the engineers at Apple."
My beef with lightning headphones is the physical design itself doesn't seem advanced enough to warrant an upgrade.
also the comparisons with CD-ROM drives etc. aren't great considering all had better options at the time(digital music for example).
Here are some quick hardware revisions I'd rather see first:
I wish Apple would wait until they can decrease the size a bit.
IF Apple does remove the headphone jack the "stupid Beats deal" will instantly become GENIUS.
Apple could convert the biggest most influential headphone brand in the world to lightning on launch day.
Imagine the entire Beats line offering lightning versions on iPhone 7's release day??
Add in some Bose and other headphone company deals and adoption would be smooth.
But yeah.
So easy to spot the Google / Samsung shills in the media these days.
Google and Samsung have huge marketing budgets.
We're seeing where the payola is going.
P.S. No one knows how to stir the pot like DED!!
The Apple haters are coming out the woodwork!!
DED brings up arguments their small minds never considered and they're battling back!!
There were 280 million Android phones sold last quarter. How many of them do you think were Nexus phones?
Nexus may get a lot of press on tech blogs... but I don't really think they are a "challenger" to the iPhone. My opinion, of course.