amarkap

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. 

dewme said:

Not sure why some folks are working themselves into a lather about a product that few ordinary consumers fully understand. It's not like people are sitting around wondering how they can possibly get through one more day, much less a couple more months (OMG!!!), without being able to talk to their speakers. If there's not a clear need or demand (outside of hard core Apple geeks) why does it being delayed by a couple of months really matter? Amazon's been pushing these things out for years with the expressed purpose of getting people to buy more crap on Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah they throw out some toy apps and gadgetry to make you feel a little better about having an Amazon sales dude listening in on your household conversations, but the "why" part of Echo's existence is exactly to make it easier for you to buy more stuff more often on Amazon.  Apple is very big on "whys" but I'm not totally clear on the "why" for HomePod. I think it might be about music and the attention to detail they've given to HomePod bears this out to some degree. But there has to be more because Apple could simply build a kickass speaker system if audio quality was their only goal.

I believe the HomePod is just one more piece of the puzzle for Apple to advance towards an Apple product & services enabled ambient intelligence (AmI) environment. Apple's primary computing devices are quickly (or slowly depending on your expectations) migrating from stationary -> mobile -> handheld -> worn -> ? (embedded?) while still scaling upwards in processing and sensory capabilities. The sum of computing/intelligence is what matters, not just the computing/intelligence of single devices. The "why" of Apple's product initiatives is to move you, the customer, towards an AmI environment that is is structured around the things that matter to you in your life, like music, interaction, and knowledge discovery.  All built around Apple and Apple partner products & services - of course. Everything Apple does must complement their ecosystem.

What Amazon is doing is somewhat similar, but the end game for Amazon is not an AmI environment structured around you and your life experiences, but an AmI environment structured around a global marketplace/bazaar for discovering, acquiring, and consuming products (and everything on the supply side as well). And there's nothing wrong with Amazon's approach. At all. It's a great thing for buyers and sellers and fills a huge consumer need. It's probably an easier goal for Amazon to achieve than what Apple is trying to do because Amazon is further along, is incredibly focused, has a salient vision, and is damn good at what they do - at scale. Apple has loftier goals that are more abstract, softer, emotional, and and human centric. All that intersection of art and science stuff. Not that Amazon doesn't understand human emotions, like greed, lust, and retail therapy, but that's another story. 

When all is said and done, the HomePod slipping a couple of months is like a few pixels being delayed in a much bigger picture that Apple is painting. It also make no difference in Apple's "response" to whatever Amazon and Google are doing with smart speakers. Apple is playing an entirely different game.

cpsro said:

paisleydisco said:

cpsro said:

Have you used an X? Because you can swipe up to reveal the app cards and, if you don't hold on the cards, the minus signs don't appear. But you can still then swipe the cards up and they disappear (every app if you wish, until no more cards are shown), but the apps aren't actually killed and if you leave the card view and come back, the app cards are all still there and in the same order.  That's totally unexpected, because swiping up on every other iOS device kills the app.  Unexpected behavior => BUG

Furthermore, I don't believe I've ever accidentally killed an app while merely trying to switch. On the X, swiping into card mode doesn't let the user swipe a card up in the same motion--it's necessary to lift the finger from the display. In other words, accidentally killing is still very difficult. And accidentally killing beyond the first app would be ridiculously difficult.

yes, you are correct. we now have to tap and hold for half a second to generate the minus sign in order to log out of the app when swiping up. otherwise it doesn't log out.

LOL it's not a bug just because you didn't expect the behavior 'unexpected behavior' 

"because swiping up on every other iOS device kills the app" welcome to the iPhone X (and the future of an all screen iOS). no more home button means a rethinking of how to interact with the device.

Swiping up on the iPhone X eliminates the app card, but otherwise does nothing. That's new. That's unexpected and inconsistent with every other iOS device. And in the world of developers, that's a bug. So it doesn't destroy your device... it's not a terribly serious bug, but it's still a bug. In the world of marketing, it might be called a feature. I guess you're in the marketing camp. Wahoo, one more reason to buy an X!

It is weird to swipe up app cards to see them disappear, only to find out later that none of the apps were killed. It's rather akin to the iOS 11 behavior of "turning off" Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in Control Center, when it doesn't actually turn off BT or Wi-Fi, it only disconnects them. Except in the case of the app cards, swiping up seems to do absolutely nothing. And if it does nothing, why is Apple playing a game of letting users swipe up to see the cards disappear? My guess is it's another inside joke at Apple, because they're so heartbroken about users killing apps because it wastes energy (in their opinion).

Just for fun, I'll conjecture that the limited-functionality Bluetooth and Wi-Fi controls in Control Center and the fake killing of apps (on the iPhone X) are intended to allow tracking of users to continue when it otherwise wouldn't if the controls worked absolutely and if apps were actually killed.