robjn

I just changed the battery in my wife’s iPhone 5. Her battery was only lasting a few hours.

A couple of years ago she had some random shutdowns but then that problem went away - so it seems her phone was affected by this.

Now after using the new battery for a few days I ask her if her phone feels faster - she does not notice any difference in the speed.

If her phone had been randomly shutting down for the past two years - we would certainly have bought a new phone by now. So it seems to me that Apple’s policy of slightly slowing the phones with worn batteries is more likely to result in people keeping the device for longer. In our case we got two more years out of the iPhone 5 and will now get yet another year out of it with the new battery. Thank you Apple!

The simple fact is this:
The random shutdown problem is far more crippling than a slight slowdown!

You write:
Kuo, who has a strong track record in predicting Apple's future product plans, was the first to report back in April that the iPhone X would boast a two-cell, L-shaped battery design.

This is is not exactly true, Kuo revealed the battery would be L-shaped but said nothing about it being “two-cell”. Actually, he gave the impression it was a new technology single cell L-shape. This is what was expected until the tear-down revealed it is just two regular batteries stuck together.

Kuo was, as usual, only half right and pushed his single-cell L-shape battery prediction back to next year.

This article states: Like HomePod, the Samsung’s speaker does not include a touch screen, but instead features a visual feedback system composed of lights located on top on it’s chassis.

I think it is technically accurate to call it a “touch screen”.

Consider:
It is a low resolution display 272x340. So you say it ‘just has lights on top’ but there are no less than 92,480 LEDs. That’s a display albeit a rudimentary one.

Plus it IS touch sensitive.

From Apple’s website:
Tap the top of HomePod to play, pause, or adjust the volume. The top also shows you when Siri is listening, with an LED waveform that animates with your every word.

T-Mobile gave openly criticized conventional TV delivery infrastructure and insisted that the future is wireless. We are also at a point now where many people are finding they have faster internet on their phone than on their home wifi.

I expect adding TV will be a case of adding an additional line of service to your cell phone plan.

I can’t wait to listen to HomePod. This is groundbreaking speaker design - it has 8 amplifiers, a driver arrangement that will radiate sound like the theoretically perfect ideal audiophiles dream of, and takes computational audio to a new level. I wondering how it will compare to a Devialet - you can buy 4 HomePods for the price of one Devialet - so even if one HomePod is not as loud as a Devialet it could be a bargain.

Who cares about what Siri on it can or can’t do? It promises to be best sounding speaker. And you can control it without Siri - it has touch controls on top. It will also work without Apple Music as any other AirPlay speaker does.