After reading a lot of your posts, I get this feeling that you are old enough and you should know better.
You should know better that articles like that aren't news;
You should know better about the fact that Apple's strategy of not trying to sell the most potatoes but rather the best potatoes will always confuse the less informed;
You should know better about the fact that Apple's strategy will always leave the door open for rumors;
You should know better about the fact that just like Ali realized that people would pay more to see him lose, because he was so good and successful, people will click more to see if Apple loses. That's where that article comes from.
Things like that article are harmless. They only matter for stock price and the opinion of the uninformed joe. Both are irrelevant to Apple's success and the quality of their devices. Just get over that crap, already. Let the NYT and any other publication spell doom and gloom, as always. So what? It's their opinion and/or their strategy to have more clicks. Blame people's stupidity and the webzzzz economics.
Rogifan is a concern troll with a Type E (as in Eeyore) personality. 90% of all posts are either negative on Apple, or express an almost paranoid fear of what people are saying about Apple.
There is at least one other way Apple could have gained the space they freed up by removing the headphone jack: make the phone a quarter of a millimetre thicker. I don't recall anyone who used an iPhone 4 complaining that it was just too damn THICK!
The iPhone 4 series had a 3.5" screen, vs. the 4.7" or 5.5" in current series. That is substantially more surface area, and phones would be much heavier and unwieldy if they were the thickness of the 4.
To those who say that it doesn't matter that charging and audio output share a connector:
My car has a 3.5mm input for outboard audio. No CarPlay, no Bluetooth. It's an integrated system so replacing the head unit means also having to replace a custom multi-channel amp. Maybe the speakers too, but I don't know that for sure yet. That's a lot of hassle and expense to accommodate a phone.
The alternative is to use the included adapter to feed the 3.5mm Aux input on the existing head unit, but then I can't recharge it.
At some point I'm sure someone will (or maybe already does) offer a Lightning splitter/Y-adapter which will allow this to work, but then I've got a Y-cable and Lightning-3.5mm adapter added to the mess of cable hanging over my dashboard like spilled spaghetti. Obviously not a deal-breaker but certainly less than elegant.
This use case doesn't seem particularly unique or esoteric, so I would argue that there is at least one example of how removing the 3.5mm jack has a downside. That's without mentioning all my fellow corporate drones who charge their phones at their desks while listening who now are either going to have to come up with a similar adapter solution or buy wireless cans that will then also require recharging. Again, not the end of the world, but an unwelcome added hassle.
I understand the issue. But is your view that the connector should remain forever? Or that it should go, but just not now? At least the battery life got a boost with the iPhone 7, so slightly reducing the problem for some?
Rumours have next year (perhaps) being a substantial case/design update, and so I think that Apple wanted to get this "over with" by then.
Apple has always done things that have "irked" a lot of people, but hindsight has generally shown it to be the right decision. Only time will tell if they were right here, but they have earned some benefit of the doubt. The market is reaching a tipping point where wireless headphones are soon to be selling more than wired (already lead in $$$ spent).
1. Two hour longer battery life. And probably 4 hours longer now since your battery is 2 years old 2. CPU/GPU that is 200% faster than the 6 3. Force touch 4. Far superior camera. Just as good as DLSR for the majority of users. I own a DLSR and they are complicated 5. Double the storage space 6. New Black finishes 7. Better speakers, Waterproof, cleaner design 8. Solid state home button with 3D touch 9. Brighter display, wider color gamut
So that's enough?
although these may be minor, don't forget:
10. Series 7000 aluminum for extra rigidity 11. MIMO added to WiFi 12. Support for LTE advanced 13. Better motion coprocessor 14. Faster Touch ID 15. In the photo category, besides better still camera, live photos, 4K video @60fps, Retina Flash, etc.
These were added just for 6 -> 6S. Definitely enough compelling features to get me to retire the 6. Water resistance alone can save the cost of having insurance which often covers glass breakage + theft, but not water damage which is often totals the phone.
Indeed. While a small % upgrade every year, majority are on 2-3 year upgrade cycles (my phone is a company unit, so it has tended to be every 3 years). Despite what the media-blogosphere-of-doom writes about, it is really about enticing the 6 series and earlier models to upgrade, and bringing in new blood / switchers. As noted in the two posts above, there are clearly huge benefits to a 6 series person to upgrade, if they are in the market for it.
Good point about the water resistance - this can save money down the road. My son just dropped his in the pool, and was lucky that it recovered on its own. Would have been an expensive lesson.
For those that say they are content with their 6 series (or 5s) phones - that is great. Shows Apple's quality. You save money - it can be a smart decision. But please don't claim that there are no compelling new features. Just about everything is better across the board, top to bottom.
In the end, what Apple has been doing for decades now is building a brand that people trust and will stay with. I don't know when I will upgrade my iMac, but when I do, it will be to buy another Mac. When I upgrade my iPhone, regardless if the cycle is every 2 years or 4 years, I am likely to get the latest iPhone. It isn't about any one feature, or 6s vs. 7, but that when I am ready to upgrade, I know there will be a phone with great features to purchase.
[...] is your view that the connector should remain forever? Or that it should go, but just not now?
I think an argument could be made for keeping it forever but if it has to go I believe it could be done gradually.
At least two of Apple's arguments for removing the jack -- enhancing the wireless experience and providing a path for downstream digital -- make no sense because they could be accomplished whether the jack stayed or not. They could have kept the jack, perhaps with a bump like the camera bump, while also extolling the virtues of the new, cooler wireless approach. That would have two benefits: giving users and third party suppliers time to acclimate to the new paradigm, and sparking outrage over the bump so they'd have an "excuse" to get rid of it!
Another argument is that they needed the space. Part of me thinks that if your design is such that the only way to add features is to remove a fundamental, universally accepted connection, maybe the problem isn't the connector but the design. I might prefer a connector bump similar to the camera bump or a slightly thicker device (keeping in mind your comment about screen size earlier in the thread) than have no connector at all. Of course I understand that others may not feel that way though.
Obviously there are compromises that Apple could make to accommodate the headphone jack, but maybe that's not the point. Maybe Apple has a vision of a wireless world and really, truly wants wired connections to go away completely. Maybe they think the only way to get people to follow the desired path is to lock the gates to other routes. Maybe they're right!
The dual-camera system is also capable of simulating shallow depth of field, or "Bokeh." It uses machine learning to recognize people and faces, then creates a depth map to keep people in focus while the background is blurry.
I have a couple questions about this feature, to which I can't seem to find answers: 1. Does it work only on facial portraits? Why not just use the twin cameras to create a depth map, then apply greater blur to the deeper parts? Why would facial recognition have anything to do with it? 2. "Bokeh" doesn't actually mean shallow-depth-of-field; rather it's a particular kind of blur, in which every point in the unblurred image becomes a flat disc in the blurred image. (Actually, though this shape often is a disc, it's really the shape of the camera's iris, which could be a pentagon, a triangle, anything.) You can clearly see these flat discs in Apple's event-invite image. But in the example images in the keynote, it looks like Gaussian blur, not bokeh blur, is being used. Perhaps this is because gaussian blur is GPU-supported, whereas bokeh isn't? It'd be a real shame if bokeh blur is not actually supported in the new Portrait feature — it looks really good.
The dual-camera system is also capable of simulating shallow depth of field, or "Bokeh." It uses machine learning to recognize people and faces, then creates a depth map to keep people in focus while the background is blurry.
I have a couple questions about this feature, to which I can't seem to find answers: 1. Does it work only on facial portraits? Why not just use the twin cameras to create a depth map, then apply greater blur to the deeper parts? Why would facial recognition have anything to do with it? 2. "Bokeh" doesn't actually mean shallow-depth-of-field; rather it's a particular kind of blur, in which every point in the unblurred image becomes a flat disc in the blurred image. (Actually, though this shape often is a disc, it's really the shape of the camera's iris, which could be a pentagon, a triangle, anything.) You can clearly see these flat discs in Apple's event-invite image. But in the example images in the keynote, it looks like Gaussian blur, not bokeh blur, is being used. Perhaps this is because gaussian blur is GPU-supported, whereas bokeh isn't? It'd be a real shame if bokeh blur is not actually supported in the new Portrait feature — it looks really good.
Bokeh in it's original meaning referred to the 'quality' of the rendering of out of focus areas. The bokeh quality a lens renders derives from several factors related to a lenses construction; from coatings, element design and number, to the number and shape of the aperture blades. It's not a fixed quality; adjectives are often used to denote the characteristic of bokeh, such as smooth, busy, harsh, jarring, pleasing. Out of focus highlights that appear as discs are just that. You can use the word bokeh to describe their quality but they don't in themselves constitute bokeh.
What Apple has done is very clever and is a real improvement in subject isolation and simulating a shallower depth of field than the tiny sensors in phones and their lenses are capable of achieving optically. I don't see how you can computationally mimic the bokeh and shallow depth of field you get using a large sensor and large aperture. Getting image processing to mimic a smooth focus transition with images from a tiny sensor is going to be difficult.
Comments
90% of all posts are either negative on Apple, or express an almost paranoid fear of what people are saying about Apple.
The iPhone 4 series had a 3.5" screen, vs. the 4.7" or 5.5" in current series. That is substantially more surface area, and phones would be much heavier and unwieldy if they were the thickness of the 4.
I understand the issue. But is your view that the connector should remain forever? Or that it should go, but just not now? At least the battery life got a boost with the iPhone 7, so slightly reducing the problem for some?
Apple has always done things that have "irked" a lot of people, but hindsight has generally shown it to be the right decision. Only time will tell if they were right here, but they have earned some benefit of the doubt. The market is reaching a tipping point where wireless headphones are soon to be selling more than wired (already lead in $$$ spent).
Good point about the water resistance - this can save money down the road. My son just dropped his in the pool, and was lucky that it recovered on its own. Would have been an expensive lesson.
For those that say they are content with their 6 series (or 5s) phones - that is great. Shows Apple's quality. You save money - it can be a smart decision. But please don't claim that there are no compelling new features. Just about everything is better across the board, top to bottom.
In the end, what Apple has been doing for decades now is building a brand that people trust and will stay with. I don't know when I will upgrade my iMac, but when I do, it will be to buy another Mac. When I upgrade my iPhone, regardless if the cycle is every 2 years or 4 years, I am likely to get the latest iPhone. It isn't about any one feature, or 6s vs. 7, but that when I am ready to upgrade, I know there will be a phone with great features to purchase.
I think an argument could be made for keeping it forever but if it has to go I believe it could be done gradually.
At least two of Apple's arguments for removing the jack -- enhancing the wireless experience and providing a path for downstream digital -- make no sense because they could be accomplished whether the jack stayed or not. They could have kept the jack, perhaps with a bump like the camera bump, while also extolling the virtues of the new, cooler wireless approach. That would have two benefits: giving users and third party suppliers time to acclimate to the new paradigm, and sparking outrage over the bump so they'd have an "excuse" to get rid of it!
Another argument is that they needed the space. Part of me thinks that if your design is such that the only way to add features is to remove a fundamental, universally accepted connection, maybe the problem isn't the connector but the design. I might prefer a connector bump similar to the camera bump or a slightly thicker device (keeping in mind your comment about screen size earlier in the thread) than have no connector at all. Of course I understand that others may not feel that way though.
Obviously there are compromises that Apple could make to accommodate the headphone jack, but maybe that's not the point. Maybe Apple has a vision of a wireless world and really, truly wants wired connections to go away completely. Maybe they think the only way to get people to follow the desired path is to lock the gates to other routes. Maybe they're right!
1. Does it work only on facial portraits? Why not just use the twin cameras to create a depth map, then apply greater blur to the deeper parts? Why would facial recognition have anything to do with it?
2. "Bokeh" doesn't actually mean shallow-depth-of-field; rather it's a particular kind of blur, in which every point in the unblurred image becomes a flat disc in the blurred image. (Actually, though this shape often is a disc, it's really the shape of the camera's iris, which could be a pentagon, a triangle, anything.) You can clearly see these flat discs in Apple's event-invite image. But in the example images in the keynote, it looks like Gaussian blur, not bokeh blur, is being used. Perhaps this is because gaussian blur is GPU-supported, whereas bokeh isn't? It'd be a real shame if bokeh blur is not actually supported in the new Portrait feature — it looks really good.
What Apple has done is very clever and is a real improvement in subject isolation and simulating a shallower depth of field than the tiny sensors in phones and their lenses are capable of achieving optically. I don't see how you can computationally mimic the bokeh and shallow depth of field you get using a large sensor and large aperture. Getting image processing to mimic a smooth focus transition with images from a tiny sensor is going to be difficult.