rare comment

I've thought about creating apps that target older phones to use as single purpose devices (although that feels inefficient for a general purpose computer, it's still a better use than sitting in a drawer). DED's idea fills out and addresses some of the obstacles I've seen - in particular: (i) limitations created for battery life; (ii) limitations create for security; (iii) simple lack of support for older devices; etc. The prior commenters are of course correct that older phones work nicely as wifi-only devices but I think DED is contemplating something deeper - taking advantage of iPhone as a nice package of sensors, size, connectivity, and computing power. By stripping out the default apps (calendar, contacts, etc.), older devices can gain a lot of headroom and, more importantly, could ease many security concerns (no risk of stealing contacts when there is no contact information stored onboard). Another way to think of it is to recall how speedily old iPhones ran when new and how they got burdened as iOS advanced. A fully up-to-date iOSR (for security, etc.) but stripped down (for speed) would really give new life to a lot of powerful electronics that currently sit in drawers or are just dumb media players (this is what six of our phones do in the house).

AppleTV is a strange effort:

- very buggy - especially when using the headline feature of siri. Not because Siri doesn't recognize the command but because, for example, fast forwarding through Siri seems to be treated differently from fast forwarding with the buttons. And so the system will hang-up or "lose its place".

- as everyone has noted and has noted since the rule was announced - making siri remote compatibility a requirement has hamstrung game developers.

- the bizarre "long string of letters" data entry method is frustrating. even with siri support this should be replaced promptly with a normal system. hunt and peck is bad but why make it worse?

- controller orientation is difficult/impossible to figure out in the dark. This problem is exacerbated by having a highly sensitive touch portion that is easily triggered.

We bought two controllers (my mistake) and the higher spec storage (my mistake). I was waiting for years for an improved apple tv (see this: http://q10a1.blogspot.com/2014/05/appletv-and-gaming.html) but, after buying it at launch, have found that I use it pretty much the same way I use our other apple tvs. It gets heavy use but I could have gotten the same functionality for one-quarter (less with controllers) of the price.



To note some good things:

1) HDMI-CDC is great. Being able to control the TV volume and power with the apple remote is seamless for us.

2) Responsive. It is much faster than our old Apple TV, especially at pulling up our purchased movie library.

3) When siri works, it is convenient. It would be nice if I didn't have to hunt for the button though - how about a center location if we are really supposed to use it for everything? Or just Alexa style? There has to be enough horsepower in the new box to support that.

Just a small correction - I think it should say: "number one competitor and CUSTOMER: Apple"?

I tried a Galaxy S6 in the store the other day and had the following thoughts:

1) it is a very slick, smooth and attractive phone
2) but it is weaker than the iPhone on some fronts.  not hugely but noticeably.  it's also ahead on some others.
3) but, given true pricing (taking into account resale value) and (likely related to pricing, but not entirely) smaller market share
4) Apple's remarkable and idiosyncratic focus on a handful of products (which, because they all leverage each other, might be counted as few as 4 meaningful products) means that the normal advantages of economies of scale are exaggerated (in the positive sense, not negative) and thus must be severely painful to Samsung.   Against a normal competitor, a nearly-as-good product should capture similar market shares and profit (or even more with good marketing).  Here,  because of network effects and economies of scale, market share is different and profit differences are massive.

derrickdoingit said:

sog35 said:

Amazing.  200 new games each week.

Give it 3 years and AppleTV will outsell Xbox/PS/Nintendo.

As long as Apple forces developers to develop their games with the Siri Remote it's not going to be taken as a serious platform for gaming. It's like a Wii, no one took that console as a serious gaming machine.

I fear derrickdoingit is exactly right on the first part: the Siri Remote doesn't work well for even simple games, let alone complicated ones so the requirement is a real handicap to developers who want players to feel like they are getting their money's and time's worth.

I didn't quite understand the second sentence - I'd be interested in hearing more about this (I thought the Wii was VERY successful and that those who didn't take it seriously were quite surprised when it did so well).  In fact, my hope was that Apple TV would be very similar to the Wii and show that gameplay didn't require power (it can't really compete on power, I think). 

I just hope it doesn't slow the watch down any further.  I find that opening Weather and Maps both take forever.  I'd also like a little more precision in selecting length of timers (the Digital Crown is a bit too sensitive for one-by-one adjustments).  Lastly, I would love to see one feature in the Workout App: the ability to "trim" the duration of workouts for those times that I forget to end the session.  For more on this last, see: http://q10a1.blogspot.com/2015/09/watch-os-workout-app-idea.html