charlesn

AppleZulu said:

Kuo is going to have problems recovering from this one. 

Sadly, no. Especially since he went out on his own a few years ago, Kuo's predictions have become far more reliably and often outrageously wrong than right, but he is never held to account. Sites like AI will continue to run stories headlined by the latest Kuo utterance, backed by the stupidity of always anonymous "supply chain sources" predicting what Apple will be doing two years from now. Because Apple so famously leaks what it's doing two years in advance. According to Kuo, under display Touch ID debuted with the iPhone 15, and we'll be getting an iPhone Fold when the 16 debuts in Sept. More recently, about a month or so back, Kuo led the charge on the "Vision Pro sales are doomed" story that was picked up everywhere, because there isn't a tech site on Earth that doesn't love an "Apple is doomed" story, An oft quoted line in the article was that sales were badly missing "market consensus." But if any site had done even casual research on Kuo's claims, it would have revealed them to be complete nonsense. 

First, due to the complexity and yield of Vision Pro production, it was estimated just before launch that Apple would be constrained to about 400K units in the first year. And Apple's own comments indicated that they expected "niche" sales from Vision Pro in 2024, hardly surprising for a $3500+ v1.0 product that introduces a whole new computing platform. 

Second, it was widely estimated--including by Kuo--that Apple sold as much as half this amount during the pre-order and first weekend sales of Vision Pro launch--which, at that point, was in the U.S. only. Let me reiterate: about half the units that Apple could produce annually were sold by the end of the first weekend that VP was on sale, and it had yet to launch anywhere in the world other than the U.S.

Third, Kuo issued very positive comments on Vision Pro sales just six weeks before his "Vision Pro is doomed" announcement. What changed over six weeks? Absolutely nothing. 

Fourth, Apple had yet to launch Vision Pro sales anywhere outside the U.S. when it was announced that sales had "dramatically slowed." Just consider the stupidity of this: what everyone knew was going to be a niche product in its first year did gangbuster sales initially--perhaps as much as half of what could be manufactured for the year--and then, 12 weeks later, came the shocking news that sales had "slowed dramatically" in the only country where it had launched to date. Wow, who would have expected that three months after all the well-heeled, early adopters had bought their Vision Pros, sales would dramatically slow down? And yes, by all means, let's declare sales are doomed before Apple has even launched Vision Pro in its largest market, which is China, not to mention the rest of the planet. Pure idiocy. 

Fifth, every article stated that Vision Pro sales were badly missing "market consensus." That was the scale of measurement against which sales were failing: "market consensus." Sure sounds authoritative, right? I mean, who would question "market consensus?" Well, guess what? There's no such thing as "market consensus" for Vision Pro sales. It literally does not exist. If you look at the brokerage house analysts who cover Apple, their first year estimates for Vision Pro sales were all over the map: from 50,000 units to 5 million units. There is no consensus--and you don't get to one by adding up these wildly varied estimates and dividing by the number of analysts. So Vision Pro sales were failing against a measurement that doesn't exist. 

chasm said:

elijahg said:

The 13 Pro's blue is so dull it is basically grey. Why the pro phones can't be "fun" colours I have no idea.

"Pros" are supposed to be serious people who don't want "fun" colours.  

Actually... and I realize you said that with a wink... what's really perplexing is that the Pro models, which are mainly distinguished by their high end camera and video features, are aimed at visual arts professionals... you know, people whose work lives revolve around color. But with the boring colors Apple gives us each year, you'd think the target market was accountants, funeral directors and actuaries. Sure, keep black, white and gray in the lineup if you want, but how about a couple of bold, exciting colors to liven up the snooze fest? Rose pink certainly isn't for me, but at least it's a fun color... and for that reason I can't imagine Apple will allow it to make the final cut. 

There is no such thing as an "optical zoom lens" in an iPhone. An optical zoom lens changes focal length based on the movement of optical elements, usually numerous and complex, within the lens. No such thing happens in an iPhone. Each of the iPhone lenses is a fixed focal length lens that covers a pre-determined zoom range. But they do not zoom optically--they achieve "zoom" via sensor cropping and computational photography. Unless you routinely shoot at 120mm and above, the tetraprism lens is a step backward for general photography. That's because the main lens now has to cover a nearly 5 to 1 ratio--24mm to 119mm--via sensor cropping and computational tricks, which compromises quality, especially in the 77mm to 119mm range, which the previous 77mm telephoto lens--still used in the regular 15 Pro--covers. If you doubt this, check AppleInsider's own reviews of the 15 Pro and Pro Max, where photos in that range are compared. The differences aren't subtle. And similar comparisons have been covered extensively elsewhere online with the same results. 

AniMill said:

I’ve been using my iPad Pro 11” Gen1 as a MBP replacement for years - for most writing, calculation, and illustration processes. I wish the new M4 version would run After Effects and C4D, but that’s really not going to happen… unless Apple surprises us with a MacMode when attached to the MagicKeyboard. Hey, it could happen.

MacMode--an excellent name for what should be possible since the M-chip is capable of booting into either OS. And with the enormous power of the M4, I can't imagine that running in MacMode would be taxing. No need to figure out how to work "touch" into MacOS... when you boot into MacMode, the screen loses touch capability and behaves like any screen on a Macbook. But there IS one major obstacle to implementing this: Apple's continuing desire to sell us two devices, not one. But if they made MacMode an iPad Pro exclusive, at least for this generation, I'd bet they'd sell like crazy, even at their considerably high price points. 

Wow. I jumped on this article when I saw it, especially with Wesley's name attached, since I've found him to reliably interrogate thoroughly any topic or piece of gear he chooses to write about. And the headline subject of this article is of extreme interest to me. Sigh. That thorough interrogation I had hoped for was not the case here. This was more of a spec sheet comparison than digging into the nitty gritty of working with each on a daily basis. How do they compare in terms of file management, window management, multitasking, printing, etc. What are the major differences to note between MacOS and iPadOS versions of widely used workhorse apps? Well, I'm hoping Wesley will write a Part 2.