mainyehc

Will someone give this man a Darwin Award Honorable Mention, STAT? xD

tshapi said:

gatorguy said:

DanielEran said:

So Apple is going to terminate production of an iPhone after it replaces it with a new model? 

Holy cow, somebody tell CNBC.

Daniel, aren't iPhone 7's still in production even tho the 8's and X are out now?

Anyway AFAIK the editor of the AI article was accurate when stating "If this is the case, it would be the first time that Apple has not retained the previous year's model..." Is there a previous instance you can think of? You know far more about Apple than I do. 

Actually the article is wrong.  Apple aced the 5. When they revealed the 5s instead they introduced the 5c. My guess has always been, the 5s’s only distinguishing feature was the Touch ID so they axed the 5 to keep people from severely cannablizing its sales.  

That is not exactly accurate. You could argue that today the iPhone 5S has more distinguishing features in relation to the iPhone 5 than the iPhone X has compared with the iPhone 8. And don’t even get me started on the 6-6S-7-8 series. You see, the simple fact that the 5S has the first 64-bit A-series processor allows it to run versions of iOS that the 5 never will, so the chasm in features (and compatible third-party app availability!) between them will only grow bigger until the former inevitably reaches vintage status.

netmage said:

flydog said:

Sad commentary on society when someone makes it a point to be thankful for a phone, rather than for our family, friends, or health. The world would certainly go on without iPhones. 

But your contact with family and friends, and many’s health would certainly have suffered without the smartphone and Watch.

^ This. Apple always had these commercials featuring FaceTime, and seeing that I maintained a long-distance relationship for a while, half of my core group of friends migrated to London and now I also have nephews growing up abroad, I can definitely relate to that sentiment.

Tim also makes a point of mentioning all the touching stories of people whose very lives were saved by iPhones and Apple Watches; we can’t really overlook those, now, can we?

Haters gonna hate, but the fact of the matter is that DED always told it like it was, from the early days of RoughlyDrafted, and, to this day, he rarely got one of his predictions or assessments wrong.

Personally, I’ve been kicking myself for not having bought Apple stock in 2004 (during the ramp up of the iPod halo effect), then in 2006 (after the switch from PowerPC to Intel), then in 2007 (after the introduction of the original iPhone), and the list goes on, and on, and on… You see, DED’s articles were one of the three or four sources of info (another notable example being John Gruber’s) that I needed to know that doing so was a good idea and a sound investment, I just lacked the capital and guts to actually go through with it.

Anyway, if I may add, amen to fixing Siri and Apple Maps search. The former still isn’t available in my native accent/variant (we’re still limited to Brazilian Portuguese, which I don’t really get why, seeing that Brazilian Siri can understand our accent just fine already and macOS features great European Portuguese voice packs, even better than the also native but crappy Maps’ GPS voice we have to put up with – I mean, what’s up with it getting tone syllables wrong in important, general purpose direction verbs like “stay”, let alone in street names? It sounds uncannily robotic *and* ridiculous), and the latter, well… to put it nicely, it sucks balls (it ignores context altogether and has a penchant to send me into streets across the country or even in Brazil if I don’t get the name *just* right – confusing “Av.” with “St.” is a surefire way to get it to make stupid assessments –, mass transit and bike lane directions are still yet to be supported and there’s a dearth of POI and business data when compared to Google Maps).

williamh said:

tshapi said:

This has happened before with Apple. Remember the iPod touch that came out with out a cut out for a camera but had no such camera?  

No, actually I don't recall that at all.

king editor the grate said:

tshapi said:

This has happened before with Apple. Remember the iPod touch that came out with out a cut out for a camera but had no such camera?  

I remember such a spot on my 2g Touch. It was purportedly an antenna hole rather than a non-camera. 

tshapi called it  a “cut-out” and you both may be thinking it was something in the exterior case, but it wasn't. There was a prototype with such a hole, yes:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/covinoandrich/3821820098/in/photostream/

… but the actual proof of the camera having been axed very late in development was found by the iFixit staff during their customary teardown:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPod+Touch+3rd+Generation+Teardown/1158#s6204

That being said, you can't really compare tentpole features, both established (TouchID) and new (3D-sensing capabilities, induction charging, etc.), in Apple's best-selling product being in complete flux just before the Keynote to… them changing their minds over a crappy camera on an iPod, which was still back then kind of a secondary device for people (mostly kids) without a data plan. Like many others here I call it BS, and it's most likely serving some traders well.