cfc

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cfc
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  • Editorial: Apple survived 2016's onslaught of fake news and failed competitors

    Like a previous commenter I felt slightly uncomfortable reading this.  I am a big fan of Apple and have been for a very long time, but I thought that 2016 was a very poor year for them.  There were more disappointments than positives: a non-S iPhone with few improvements; no desktop Macs; a MacBook Pro that can’t handle 32Gb; dongles required to connect the latest iPhone to the latest laptop etc.

    There were highlights too, such as AirPods, but generally their core products were either given only minor improvements or none at all.  The only exception was the MacBook Pro, and that seems to have been rushed out too soon.

    I have high hopes for 2017 for all the reasons that Daniel mentions: good underlying technology; lack of decent competition; etc.  However, in terms of actual products released (which is the key metric for me) I think that 2016 was the worst year for Apple in a very long time. 
    netmagepscooter63StrangeDaysai46magman1979Notsofastradarthekat
  • Apple denies imminent iPhone 6 battery exchange program in the works

    There are definitely battery-related problems with the iPhone 6, particularly regarding the estimated percentage.  My other half’s phone seems to randomly jump around, losing massive amounts in a small period of time, but when you restart it then the percentage goes back to what it was.

    It seems more like a software issue than a hardware one, and it has only happened since I upgraded her phone to iOS10, which seems to back that up.  I doubt a new battery would help, but maybe it is a combination of a failing battery and over-sensitive software in iOS10?

    There are lots of complaints on Apple’s forums about it but no response from Apple.
    jaribbsGeorgeBMac
  • Editorial: Apple survived 2016's onslaught of fake news and failed competitors

    cfc said:
    Like a previous commenter I felt slightly uncomfortable reading this.  I am a big fan of Apple and have been for a very long time, but I thought that 2016 was a very poor year for them.  There were more disappointments than positives: a non-S iPhone with few improvements; no desktop Macs; a MacBook Pro that can’t handle 32Gb; dongles required to connect the latest iPhone to the latest laptop etc.

    There were highlights too, such as AirPods, but generally their core products were either given only minor improvements or none at all.  The only exception was the MacBook Pro, and that seems to have been rushed out too soon.

    I have high hopes for 2017 for all the reasons that Daniel mentions: good underlying technology; lack of decent competition; etc.  However, in terms of actual products released (which is the key metric for me) I think that 2016 was the worst year for Apple in a very long time

    - the 7 had many improvements
    - a dongle isn't needed to connect a 7 to the MBP, just the proper cable
    - real life users have shown the 16gb on the MBP is not a problem, just a story
    - 2016 was a great year for Apple
    The 7 did not have the usual major improvements that a non-S iPhone usually has.  In this case a much needed new form factor with smaller bezels.  It looks like that is coming next year, which is fair enough if that’s how the timing works, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that the 7 was less of a step forward than usual for a non-S year.  Especially if, like me, you didn’t want the bigger version with the twin cameras.

    You need to buy an extra component (a dongle or a cable or whatever) in order to connect the latest iPhone to the latest MacBook Pro.  This goes completely against the “it just works” philosophy that I usually love about Apple.  I don’t mind them using the latest USB-C standards to be as future proof as possible, but at least try and ease the pain by including a dongle with the MBP.

    When you say "real-life" users don’t need 32Gb I assume that you mean most users don’t need 32Gb, which is probably true (at the moment).  However this is supposed to be a Pro machine and a lot of Pro users (myself included) need 32Gb for some tasks.  We will have to stick to using desktop Macs for such tasks, which is why it is a bit worrying that none of them were replaced in 2016.

    I understand Apple’s reasoning for all these things (apart from no dongle with the MacBook Pro).  Basically the components weren’t available for desktop Macs, and for 32Gb in the MBP, and OLED screens weren’t available in enough quantities yet for a new OLED iPhone. However the end result was a set of relatively disappointing products (IMHO).  

    I don’t think that Apple has any long term problems.  Quite the reverse in fact because I think that 2017 is looking like it could be one of Apple’s best years in ages.  I just feel that 2016 was a poor year by their standards.
    magman1979Notsofastbrucemc
  • Editorial: Apple survived 2016's onslaught of fake news and failed competitors

    I still think that it only had a few improvements but I probably should have qualified that by saying “relative to previous non-S iPhones, and to most users’ expectations”.  Apple have taught people to expect more from an iPhone with a new number.  It looks like at least one of this year’s models will deliver on that front though, so it will be interesting to see what they call it.

    The posters of these forums certainly seem more pro-Apple than most other places.  I usually find myself defending Apple on other forums, but here I was on the receiving end!
    watto_cobrapropod
  • Strava adds support for iPhone-free running & biking with GPS on Apple Watch Series 2

    Can any app developers help me understand why it would take 6 months to add this feature? It seems like it wouldn't be a huge transition to pull data from the watch GPS instead of the phone GPS.  



    The watch automatically uses its GPS receiver if the phone isn't present, so there is very little change needed by the developer to handle that.  

    My guess would be that the design of the watch app previously relied on the phone being present and doing some of processing.  This was quite a common approach because the first version of watchOS didn't even allow the app to run on the watch - most of the app had to run on the phone and pass data to the watch.  With watchOS 2 and 3 the app does run on the watch but not all of the functionality available in iOS is available in watchOS, so it is often still easier to leave some of the processing on the iPhone and send it to the watch.  Rewriting this functionality to run on the watch could be what has taken them so long.  It could have entailed a change to the fundamental architecture of the app from being split across the iPhone and the watch to running exclusively on the watch.

    However this is all just guesswork as I know nothing about the Strava app!
    GeorgeBMac