davidmalcolm

Honestly if 5 bucks a month saves iOS from being the pure freemium hell that it's devolved into, I'm down for that! Also if Family Sharing is a thing, sign me up! I'm planning on getting a new iPad Pro in the fall, and my Dad likes iOS games but he doesn't like paying for them and thankfully hasn't gotten into freemium games. If this means he can play with my old iPad Pro and have fun in a few strategy games, five bucks a month is totally worth it. I just hope they have some cool strategy games, or sudoku or something.

Ceramic is one of those things where it seems cool except nobody knows it's ceramic aside from you and a few major Apple nerds. Only reason I could see to do it would be if they wanted to use it for different colours. But again they can already use aluminum for that. I still think they should make a low end model with a white polycarbonite case.

The only iPhone Pro feature that could make me consider buying one is pencil support. Other than that I don't need the speakers on my phone to sound amazing, I have a HomePod and AirPods and Sony headphones if I need to listen to music. I don't need the screen to be mind blowing, I have Thunderbolt monitors for graphic design work, and a 70 inch 4K TV for watching movies and TV. I kinda care about the camera, but I honestly don't even take many photos anymore. Realistically professionals who are on their phone all day for the most part don't need the iPhone's most impressive features outside of battery life and screen size. Nobody in their right mind is editing large video projects or doing graphic design on their phones. Maybe MAYBE on an iPad Pro, but on the iPhone? Unless you're gonna let me plug that iPhone Pro into an external monitor and hook it up to a legit keyboard, what do I even need an iPhone past the iPhone 7 for these days? (Don't get me wrong I have a XR, but I got it because FaceID is awesome and my SE was getting old.) Apple needs to figure out something that people could need a more powerful phone for. AR is one thing, but the market for that is mostly people who have tons of time to sit around playing games that are largely targeted at kids. I don't think your pro market is 12 year olds. Sure they're working on pushing gaming with Apple Arcade, but they also plan on making all of those games work on the Apple TV and Apple TV 4K (at which point your games need to be able to run on an A8 processor) so that service isn't likely to PUSH the limits as opposed to just providing a better experience with newer hardware. The iPad Pro has room to grow in terms of doing more on your phone. But the reason somebody will be upgrading to a new iPhone for the next few years is probably mostly going to centre on them being sick of their old device and just wanting a new one, wanting one that is a different colour, or that they've broken their old phone. Especially now that phone companies are moving away from subsidizing devices. Apple would be wise to push the high end but keep around a very capable and value focused model like the XR. Because while I used to be the one who would buy the highest end iPhone, I'd probably be entirely happy to move from my XR back to an SE if I needed to.

AnotherBrick said:

There is one sentence that will prevent me from buying a HomePod: “Apple's HomePod is a fantastic home speaker. It connects solely over Wi-Fi and streams Apple Music natively, but nothing else.”

A device which claims to be an audiophile grade speaker that only plays mp3 quality music and cannot accept other sources unless that source has AirPlay, which probably eliminates turntables for people who are vinyl purists, absolutely killed my interest in the device. I wanted something that could play the highest quality bit rate for digital and could play my high end vinyl collection as well.

Any 'audiophile' already has a sound system that they're not looking to replace. Also, audiophile is much more useful as a term to identify those who are self deluded, rather than those who actually appreciate music quality. Apple streams a very high quality version of the music files to the HomePod, the HomePod then uses machine learning to then do things to the file to bring out aspects of the music that you wouldn't hear with a normal set up. It delivers a refined and evocative sound that is unlike most other audio systems on the market (And pairing a few of them together will enhance that).

This is like saying that you'd rather prefer film over a high end DSLR or over a modern iPhone camera. Feel free to, but shut up if you don't realize all the reasons someone living in 2019 might want this. Vinyl might be worthwhile for people who only want to listen to old records that were recorded on magnetic tapes. But for most music made in the last twenty five years, whatever is on a vinyl record is going to be pressed from a digital recording.

Apple sold music long before Spotify existed. Spotify is free to make their own phone ecosystem. Frankly Spotify isn’t in much of a place to claim that Apple is anti competitive given that Spotify is the market leader, and the HomePod is a niche device. 

As as far as the sole control over apps sold thing. This has always been about ensuring that malware stays off the platform. Apple’s 30 percent cut was widely known when Spotify was being made. Besides they’re currently the market leader and don’t allow people to sign up through their app anymore. 

Apple wants to keep a thousand different apps from constantly begging for your credit card information, and that’s a good thing!

Also the App Store doesn’t drive up prices for consumers. They’d just need to point to Procreate verses Photoshop. You can get apps for insanely cheap on the iPhone and iPad. Far cheaper than you can when they’re sold directly from the developer.