Dan_Dilger

dedgecko said:

Isn’t the iPhone OLED displays already a foldable screen? And this would be a future iPhone prototype. Once those pass muster, then their may be a future iPhone model. Semantics one may argue, but this is how Apple’s designers work if the stories are true.

Yes, Apple tapped Samsung’s flexible OLED panels to deliver the slim bezels of iPhone X a long time ago, folding the display over itself to create a thin, dramatic design that sold massive volumes of ultra premium smartphones. Samsung has never similarly made any high volume phone from its own flexible technology, despite many attempts including the limited run fad of Edge models and the ridiculous $2000+ hinge book fablets 

pontavignon said:

Does this recently-announced Android ability to measure AR depth with a single camera and no other tech signal that superior software enablements are allowing them to catch up to Apple in the field without resorting to more sophisticated and expensive tools? I have no idea how fast the Android method works, and what is the relative level of its precision. What say DED, or anyone else who knows more than me. 

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2020/06/google-arcore-depth-api-single-camera-ar-public-launch.html

Google has delivered its own version of a variety of Apple's APIs, from CarPlay to Apple Pay to wearables support. It also has debuted a variety of its own clever ideas, which Apple has copied (like App Clips, Look Around, and Visual location). But think about the commercial relevance of Google Play and apps development. Sure there may be some simple AR experiences that use non-LiDAR/TrueDepth depth to deliver free promotional ad/demo/branding stuff like Snapchat filters, but there's no real commercial force driving apps on cheap commodity phones. The installed base of Samsung phones with ToF is negligible. So it's hard to imagine how Google will retain its interest in AR long enough to matter. It already threw in the towel on VR, after all that Cardboard went nowhere. 

ihatescreennames said:

AppleInsider said:

So, we’re 3 years into ARKit. Developers have had all that time to give us “experiences that large number of real-world users can experience”, but where are they?

I fully believe Apple is working on glasses and most of these advancements are aimed at that. While true about Apple immediately have the largest AR platform I don’t think, currently, that really means anything. Has there been anyone ever that was excited enough about ARKit that it compelled them to upgrade their phone? I doubt it. However, I personally know several people who have upgraded due to camera enhancements.

I think you should first read:  https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/05/23/how-tim-cooks-augmented-reality-vision-paid-off-for-apple
because that seems to answer your questions. 

jdb8167 said:

This makes it pretty clear that the developer transition kit isn't a Mac mini outfitted with an Apple Silicon SoC, but rather an iPad Pro logic board hooked up to multiple USB ports, Ethernet, and HDMI for convenience. It sports the same Bluetooth 5.0 and 802.11ac WiFi, and can attach to an SSD for storage using USB-C.

This jumped out at me. The 2020 iPad Pro does not have 802.11ac WiFi but instead the latest standard 802.11ax WiFi 6. It is weird that this Developer Transition Kit doesn't support WiFi 6 when clearly Apple has the silicon to support it. It must be a driver problem. They have an iOS driver for whatever chipset they are using but not a macOS 11 driver.

Obviously, this isn't a serious lack on the DTK. I just found it interesting.

Yes - Apple just added WiFi 6 (80211.ax) support to iPhone 11 a few months ago, and to the A12Z this year. No Macs support it it yet. But beyond support in the SoC, WiFi 6 also needs the right supporting hardware and antennas to actually call itself WiFi 6. If the DTKit is just a temporary hack to enable non-public development for a few months, that would certainly explain why Apple shipped it with only "802.11ac" even if the SoC itself could support ax. Why would Apple develop and certify a temporary Mac Mini design it will never ship just to slightly improve WiFi on a test box that most developers will be using over Ethernet anyway?   

MplsP said:

In another thread people were discussing the significance of the absence of thunderbolt On the developer Mac mini. My initial assumption was that Apple surely would be including it since leaving it off would be too big of a compromise In functionality, but as I’m reading this story I’m wondering about it again - if the Mac mini is meant for developers to get their software going, doesn’t the absence of TB hamstring that goal? Of perhaps it’s just because they ‘crammed an iPad into a mini box’ because that’s all they have ready right now? 

As the article states, Apple's SoCs don't and can't support PCIe or Thunderbolt 3. They are Intel-licensed technologies that require special hardware, and neither has made sense on an iOS device. The article points out that TB3 is leaving Intel's proprietary control to become a feature optionally supported in USB 4. So at some point, Apple Silicon Macs and other iOS/iPadOS devices could deliver TB3 functionality using Apple's SoCs. But existing chips don't, so there's no way to put TB3 ports on an Apple SoC Mac right now.