toddzrx
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New photos of alleged Lightning EarPods for Apple's 'iPhone 7' match recent leak
That's like me saying I'd be president if only I got elected. Well, no $hit!repressthis said:
Inductive charging would be an awesome addition.boltsfan17 said:I'm wondering that too. You probably can't charge at the same time unless Apple plans on adding wireless charging.
Reasonable speculation: so Apple might finally ditch the AUX connector. I'm sure Apple has been planning for this transition for longer than "experts" have expected, likely waiting till an emerging technology could be thoughtfully implemented into the EarPods as a result of going fully digital with Lightning. To show the world there is a technical reason for all digital and a thus the appropriate design decision to give up the analog AUX. This undefined feature would punctuate Apple's justification to do so. The narrative would be the world now gets feature X as a result. Instead of the world complaining that Apple f*#ked up. Apple has had plenty of time to make this transition a victory, not a failure.
Now, what this emerging technology must be is beyond me. Ask Apple, or wait till Fall...
iPhones have now been around long enough, and have a broad enough consumer base, that they've been "integrated" into the way people go about their day. The novelty has worn off for most everyone, and at this point eliminating a jack that is common to every audio component on the planet will be seen by most consumers as an interruption to how they operate as opposed to a significant advance.
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Apple's Mac sheds marketshare in Q2, sinks to 5th place amid worldwide sales slowdown
Here's a no-brainer, being that Apple touts itself as the company that delivers the best computing experience in their products: Retina-quality screens (for those products that include them) and SSD's in all base configurations across the board. So get rid of the non-Retina iMacs and MacBook Air. Get rid of spinning hard drives in the base config, or at least make the base config an option between a pure SSD and a respectable Fusion Drive (as in no rinky-dink 24GB SSD paired with the HD). And after they do that, get rid of the terms "Air" and "Retina". "Air" lost its meaning with the release of the new MacBook, and Retina will if everything they sell has a Retina screen.blastdoor said:
The thing that strikes me as particularly bizarre about the Mac situation is that there seems to be a lot of low-hanging fruit -- changes they could make and products they could introduce that don't require any huge breakthrough. They didn't *have* to move the Mac Mini to a form factor so small that it can't support a quad core CPU, for example. It would not violate the laws of physics to have a version of the Mac Pro with two CPUs and one GPU, or to update the Mac Pro more often than every 3 years. Just by offering a little bit more model diversity -- and keeping those models up to date with CPU and GPU -- they could probably have been flat this past quarter rather than down.
Beyond model diversity, there's also some fairly non-earth-shattering improvements they could make. How about TouchID for Macs? How about a more complete line of hardware for time machine backups? How about external fusion drives that connect via thunderbolt? 5k external display?
One thing that will be great once it's done is the new file system, if for no other reason that it means an end to the spinning beach ball when an external hard drive spins up for a time machine backup. But sheesh -- that should have been done forever ago.
Btw, you assume incorrectly when you say that I'm a PC guy. I own a 2009 Mac Pro, a 2014 iMac, an iPad Air, an iPhone 6+, and an Apple Watch. My first Apple computer was an Apple IIe in 1983. I have long used and appreciated Apple products. Perhaps you are a blind follower, but I'm not -- I love Apple, but that doesn't mean I ignore problems.
I get that Moore's Law has been overtaken by the laws of physics, which is impacting CPU and GPU performance. But it seems to me there are a lot of simple design decisions Apple could make outside of the CPU and GPU that would send their machines back into the limelight and give customers the feeling they are getting a good value for what they're paying. A 4K iMac with a 5500RPM hard drive does not proffer a sense of value, and Apple just looks greedy when they charge you more for the "upgrade" to a crappy (24GB) Fusion Drive. And those low-budget components like HD's and non-Retina screens do impact the user experience.
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Two-thirds of US iPhone owners have a 2+ year old device, are prime for upgrades
I don't think it's the removal of the headphone jack alone that might make this fall's release a disappointment, but it'll certainly be a contributing factor.CoboRodRegas said:If there's no headphone jack there will be no sale to me. You can do all the mental gymnastics you want and make whatever decision you want. For me and millions like me, a new phone without a headphone jack is less useful than an old phone with one.
There are several things that are different this year compared to the last several. First, most of the carriers don't do the legacy 2-year contract anymore and instead have separated the phone purchase from the monthly service charge. Second, Apple released a "budget phone" that basically packs in the same capabilities of the 6S, just in a smaller package, and it's selling well. Third, the "iPhone 7" is supposed to look just like the 6 and 6S. Fourth, what's the killer feature?
I think when the typical smart phone customer sees the iPhone 7, and compares it to what they already have, the motivation to upgrade just won't be there. When you combine the absence of a headphone jack, it'll be one more reason to not renew.
Knowing what we know right now, I'm baffled that Apple is deleting the headphone jack this fall, on a legacy chassis, instead of waiting until next year when they release a whole new chassis. It seems to me it would be much easier to "sell" the headphone jack absence on that than on a phone that looks just like the ones Apple's been selling the last 2 years.
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Sketchy 'iPhone 7' pricing rumor points to 'Pro' models, 32 & 256GB capacities
But 16GB is enough and 32 will just cut into Apple's margins!!!
/s
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This year's 'iPhone 7' will lack major design changes as Apple awaits improved technology - report
I find Apple's strategy here interesting, if these reports are to be believed. First, what we do know is that the iPhone SE was just released, and it's selling better than Apple management thought it would. So there's obviously a market for a solid performing "value" iPhone that doesn't have all the newest bells and whistles, nor the biggest screen.As an Apple investor, this is a disappointment. With the loss of carrier phone subsidies, it was going to be a challenge just to maintain the 2-year upgrade cycle status quo, to say nothing about trying to get users to upgrade annually. Apple needed to deliver an impressive model at least every 2 years, or enough to substantially differentiate from one's 2-year old previous model. Now with this news of a 3-year cycle, many people will hold off unless there are some extremely compelling features under the hood of the 2016 model that we don't yet know about. Being thinner (will I have to yet again buy a new case?) and having no headphone jack don't incentivize me to go for the 2016 model, but rather the opposite: to wait for the 2017 major refresh. We could therefore see iPhone sales continue to fall through 3Q of 2017 (or worse, see defections to Android). Wall Street was hoping the sales slump would end in 3Q 2016, but I don't see that happening if this news holds to be true. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
Looking forward, what's the incentive for buying this fall's new iPhone? It'll have a new processor, but processor gains are starting to enter the realm of being an abstract number (a la Geekbench) rather than something the user actually experiences. Moreover, it'll be the same chassis as the current 6S, with the one significant change being the removal of the headphone jack. Why? How does that attract buyers when nearly everyone uses headphones that have the normal jack? I might be inclined to buy a new iPhone without a headphone jack because it has a new look, more storage, more RAM, etc. But if the only big news is no headphone jack, I see that as a disincentive. Why not save the deletion of the headphone jack for the all-new iPhone in 2017?
These points, combined with better than expected iPhone SE sales, portent slow sales this fall, IMHO.
