Some things from the updates USB-C. Nice, but not that important in the grand scheme of things. For the Pro models, you get USB 3.0 speeds, which doesn't matter to most people, but at least the...
Some things from the updates
USB-C. Nice, but not that important in the grand scheme of things. For the Pro models, you get USB 3.0 speeds, which doesn't matter to most people, but at least the proposition of filming in RAW isn't as absurd when you're supposed to... airdrop them to your mac?
iPhone 15 is the 14 Pro, basically
Pro has titanium. Actually kinda important since it's significantly lighter
Camera updates. Have to see how they pan out. Must say, though, I'm not a big fan of 24mm, esp for everything, so having 35mm on the main camera is nice. 48 MP images is kind of a meme, there's no way the lens on there can resolve that to anything of use.
Faster processor. Always nice, I suppose
Action button. Apple usage stats probably show that most people don't use the silent toggle, so making it more generic is nice. I imagine many people will set it to launch camera.
Will be getting the 15 pro at some point, but I'm going to try and finagle an international version so I can have my sim card slot.
The silent toggle is going to be sad to go for me. It's one of the small touches I really liked about the iPhone design. On Android handsets I just kind of gave up on switching silent mode because...
The silent toggle is going to be sad to go for me. It's one of the small touches I really liked about the iPhone design. On Android handsets I just kind of gave up on switching silent mode because it was never quite as easy as it should be because it was constantly shifting around. On the other hand having it on Control Center actually makes a bit more logical sense since that's where the other controls are.
USB-C is something I'd been waiting for for a while. Lighting was annoying to me because it was basically only for iPhone and I couldn't use it on anything else. But now I don't want to make the change simply because I'll need to get a different headphone adapter.
I wasn't really planning on buying this iteration, but it is nice to know that I'm not missing out on anything major.
I remapped the toggle to orientation lock a while ago. I actually have had my phone defaulted to silent and cannot think of any circumstances where I'd want it any other way. Part of this is...
I remapped the toggle to orientation lock a while ago. I actually have had my phone defaulted to silent and cannot think of any circumstances where I'd want it any other way.
Part of this is because I'm deep in the Apple ecosystem so if my phone isn't ringing either my iPad, my Mac, or my Apple Watch is buzzing to tell me I have a call. I don't really need the phone to alert me.
At first I was sad about the silent toggle, but reading these comments made me realize I never actually switch my phone off of silent. So having a button for different functions might actually be...
At first I was sad about the silent toggle, but reading these comments made me realize I never actually switch my phone off of silent. So having a button for different functions might actually be a plus.
Though my main concern will be battery life, the iPhone 14 has been the first iPhone in a while I can recall worrying about running out of battery after a day of use.
I have a fairly complex usage, and I don't even use it. I almost always keep my phone on silent with vibration, and have my watch on as well I use Sleep focus to not vibrate my phone or watch when...
I have a fairly complex usage, and I don't even use it.
I almost always keep my phone on silent with vibration, and have my watch on as well
I use Sleep focus to not vibrate my phone or watch when I'm asleep
On certain weeks, I'm on-call and have a pager app that needs to override all of these settings and play a loud alert at any time of day or night. (This is handled through the Priority Notifications system that only certain apps implement.)
Oops I was thinking of what I remapped on the iPad. It turns out I so rarely care about orientation locking my phone that I never noticed that's not what it does.
Oops I was thinking of what I remapped on the iPad. It turns out I so rarely care about orientation locking my phone that I never noticed that's not what it does.
It's only shifting around if you're using something like Samsung or similar where they heavily modify Android. If you're using a device that sticks to the true intention of Android like the Pixel...
because it was constantly shifting around
It's only shifting around if you're using something like Samsung or similar where they heavily modify Android. If you're using a device that sticks to the true intention of Android like the Pixel series then there hasn't been any change for toggling from sound to vibrate in quite some time. You just click up or down on the volume buttons and then you can click the button on screen to toggle sound/vibrate.
So many people will complain about having to change over their cables and accessories. I think it will genuinely surprise many of the tech folks who have been like "Just change over already!" I'm...
USB-C. Nice, but not that important in the grand scheme of things. For the Pro models, you get USB 3.0 speeds, which doesn't matter to most people, but at least the proposition of filming in RAW isn't as absurd when you're supposed to... airdrop them to your mac?
So many people will complain about having to change over their cables and accessories. I think it will genuinely surprise many of the tech folks who have been like "Just change over already!"
Pro has titanium. Actually kinda important since it's significantly lighter
I'm curious how "sticky" it will be. I find the iPhone 11 I have to feel kind of slippery on my fingertips, which is the only reason I put it in a case. I'd like to go caseless with a titanium one if I feel comfortable doing so. But now that I have a toddler in the house that may be an unrealistic fantasy.
I'm upgrading from an iPhone 11 so even minor incremental changes will be a big improvement for me.
I'm pretty sure it won't. The EU regulation pretty explicitly states that devices MUST follow the USB-PD specification. Gating fast charging behind MFI definitely isn't in the PD spec.
I'm pretty sure it won't. The EU regulation pretty explicitly states that devices MUST follow the USB-PD specification.
Gating fast charging behind MFI definitely isn't in the PD spec.
People I know don't even have the ringtone enabled on their phones. When I get a new iPhone, I just slap it on silent with the switch and never touch it again. If it rings close to me I can hear...
People I know don't even have the ringtone enabled on their phones. When I get a new iPhone, I just slap it on silent with the switch and never touch it again.
If it rings close to me I can hear or feel the vibration. If it's farther away, my watch will tell me it's ringing.
And nobody calls me anyway, it's all just telemarketers with a few random official calls interspersed.
The old silent toggle was cool, but it had some pretty serious downsides. Having any kind of automation on silent means the toggle will be out of sync with reality, and the fact that most people...
The old silent toggle was cool, but it had some pretty serious downsides. Having any kind of automation on silent means the toggle will be out of sync with reality, and the fact that most people just don't toggle silent that much.
Button works pretty well for everyone. And you could have multiple actions with single click, double click, and hold.
Just a correction - titanium is not lighter than aluminium, it's roughly 4500 vs. 2700kg/m^3. Titanium is sturdier/harder butnot actually lighter. It is still light compared to steel. EDIT: It...
Just a correction - titanium is not lighter than aluminium, it's roughly 4500 vs. 2700kg/m^3. Titanium is sturdier/harder butnot actually lighter. It is still light compared to steel.
EDIT: It could be lighter if they used less metal due to its sturdiness. I mean they can probably shave a bit here and there to make the phone lighter, while preserving (but probably not improving) the durability of the case.
I think the comparison material for a "more lightweight" claim is actually stainless steel, not aluminum, which had been used for the previous few "Pro" models. Steel is apparently at around...
Just a correction - titanium is not lighter than aluminium, it's roughly 4500 vs. 2700kg/m^3. Titanium is sturdier/harder butnot actually lighter. It is still light compared to steel.
EDIT: It could be lighter if they used less metal due to its sturdiness. I mean they can probably shave a bit here and there to make the phone lighter, while preserving (but probably not improving) the durability of the case.
I think the comparison material for a "more lightweight" claim is actually stainless steel, not aluminum, which had been used for the previous few "Pro" models.
Steel is apparently at around 8000kg/m³, so significantly more.
I watched the presentation for work (mobile dev) and besides the USB-C upgrades, it doesn't seem like a huge upgrade. The dynamic island is super beautiful though. I like Apple's focus on...
I watched the presentation for work (mobile dev) and besides the USB-C upgrades, it doesn't seem like a huge upgrade. The dynamic island is super beautiful though.
I like Apple's focus on environmentalism. It rings a bit empty from corporations, but given Apple's pull in the social space, I hope it inspires other corpos to do the same. It'll be a net positive if other people decide to adopt that messaging.
The Pro Max upgrades look really interesting, especially with the console games being released on iPhone. I'm personally not a mobile gamer but it's an interesting thing to see.
I also liked pointing out that the iPhone 15 is using an A16 chip and running iOS17.
Earlier, my initial thought was a touch cynical and dismissive. But then as I dwelled on it, I realized that it's a big step in the right direction. It's extremely difficult and requires...
I like Apple's focus on environmentalism. It rings a bit empty from corporations, but given Apple's pull in the social space, I hope it inspires other corpos to do the same. It'll be a net positive if other people decide to adopt that messaging.
Earlier, my initial thought was a touch cynical and dismissive. But then as I dwelled on it, I realized that it's a big step in the right direction. It's extremely difficult and requires unfathomable infrastructure to make a product recyclable from end to end: from sourcing renewable materials to having robots and workers dismantle products at end-of-life and recycling the components. Huge kudos to Apple for trying to do that.
They didn't have to do it. Almost all companies will simply make products and put them out in the world with zero concrete plans to take them out of the world: they'll just end up in landfills.
As a side note, though the main point still stands (which would be ), since I think it's somewhat important to keep the distinction: What they presented were carbon-neutral products, not fully...
It's extremely difficult and requires unfathomable infrastructure to make a product recyclable from end to end: from sourcing renewable materials to having robots and workers dismantle products at end-of-life and recycling the components. Huge kudos to Apple for trying to do that.
As a side note, though the main point still stands (which would be
But then as I dwelled on it, I realized that it's a big step in the right direction.
), since I think it's somewhat important to keep the distinction:
What they presented were carbon-neutral products, not fully recyclable/recycled products, even if those two areas probably share some good amount of overlap.
And as I'm not an expert in this area by any any stretch of the imagination, I couldn't tell which is the feat that requires more effort for a firm to achieve. Full recycling probably needs to dig very, very deep into materials sciences; and carbon neutrality requires extrem knowledge and control even about things like suppliers/logistics and shipping chains that're probably hard to obtain if your name isn't Apple.
But either accomplishment is an incredibly inspiring (and probably damn difficult) achievement they can truly be proud of.
They didn't have to do it.
That is the truly astonishing part to me. Maybe there is still hope after all that we could one day live in a world where the companies being frowned upon by consumer households, governments and other businesses aren't the ones reducing – on paper, at first – their profits, but the ones who haven't yet introduced and massively acted upon a Carbon-neutrality and recycling plan like these.
I'm not gonna lie, despite very likely upgrading my 4-or-so year old phone to one of the newer models, which I've been holding out from doing so far (USB-C!), this part of the presentation was probably honestly my favorite.
It has the potential to be amazing but my bet is that it will be squandered by 1) the closed nature of iPhones 2) old games not natively running on Arm 3) Apple fundamentally not understanding...
The Pro Max upgrades look really interesting, especially with the console games being released on iPhone. I'm personally not a mobile gamer but it's an interesting thing to see.
It has the potential to be amazing but my bet is that it will be squandered by 1) the closed nature of iPhones 2) old games not natively running on Arm 3) Apple fundamentally not understanding what fun is 4) apps needing to support lower tier devices as well.
When something like the Steam Deck exists I don't understand why someone would buy a newer iPhone for gaming when they could buy an iPhone SE + a Steam Deck for the same price as only buying an iPhone 15 (not even looking at the pro). I know people don't really think logically about this kind of stuff and they'll just buy the new iPhone and subsidize it on a contract... but NOBODY is upgrading for the gaming experience.
For one, that's a fairly western view of mobile gaming. I'd note that Genshin Impact alone has 2x the annual revenue of Ubisoft in it's entirety. Mobile gaming is very commonly the only form of...
For one, that's a fairly western view of mobile gaming. I'd note that Genshin Impact alone has 2x the annual revenue of Ubisoft in it's entirety. Mobile gaming is very commonly the only form of gaming in China and Japan, and those are some of Apple's biggest markets.
This also comes up with the camera: no, the iPhones camera is not going to be better than like a RX100. It's the cherry on top. It sweetens the deal. Gaming isn't going to be the sole reason anyone in the west will upgrade their iphone, but it's another weight on the scale. And I can really see it for heavy mobile gaming - Genshin will thermally throttle on the iPhone currently.
An iPhone SE + a Steam Deck may be the better gaming experience, but, y'know, the phone part sucks and that's the most important part for most people still. Something doesn't need to be >50% of the reason you buy a device for it to be important in a hyper competitive market like smartphones.
Yeah, during the gaming portion they literally had a guy speaking Chinese, then a guy with a Japanese accent, so it's pretty obvious what audience they're targeting on the gaming front.
Yeah, during the gaming portion they literally had a guy speaking Chinese, then a guy with a Japanese accent, so it's pretty obvious what audience they're targeting on the gaming front.
I guess I should add, I AM absolutely out of touch with mobile gaming and I understand that. Me buying the SD + finally moving away from Macs towards a Linux PC has brought me back into gaming...
I guess I should add, I AM absolutely out of touch with mobile gaming and I understand that. Me buying the SD + finally moving away from Macs towards a Linux PC has brought me back into gaming where before it was either consoles or only the most basic of mobile games.
I still strongly stand by a bunch of my points though and point 4) is especially relevant; developers still need to develop their games for lower spec phones as a baseline.
What I would really like to see Apple do is push using your phone as a mobile PC. The iPad sort if let's you plug in a monitor and use it like a computer... make that better/more open and put it on the iPhone. Then I can have a more interesting gaming experience docked with a TV or plugged into a monitor + mouse + keyboard.
An iPhone SE + a Steam Deck may be the better gaming experience, but, y'know, the phone part sucks
I've been saying it for a while, the new phones aren't good enough VS something like the SE to justify the extra money. Its not like the difference when there was the 5c vs the 5s; tech isn't improving as fast and some of us don't care about the camera.
That's really a different strokes for different folks thing. What you have to realize is that for many people in the US, and even more people abroad, their phone is their ONLY computer. That's...
Exemplary
I've been saying it for a while, the new phones aren't good enough VS something like the SE to justify the extra money.
That's really a different strokes for different folks thing. What you have to realize is that for many people in the US, and even more people abroad, their phone is their ONLY computer. That's right, their only computer. No laptop, tablets, or desktops.
Their phone is how they file their taxes, look at their bank statements, get to work, watch netflix, and entertain themselves. As a result, the incremental upgrades in each area of a phone magnifies itself way more than if it's merely an communications-oriented auxiliary device to their laptop or desktop as many internet residents use it as.
This is also why the screen size element befuddles so many people on Reddit and the like - "why don't small phones sell!? I like small phones!". It's because a bigger screen matters a lot more when it's your only computer. Using an SE, with it's big bezels and small screen, is a significant QoL decrease when you're trying to fill out TurboTax on it. Not if you just text on it every three days.
Some people don't really use their phone all that much - that's fine. Not everything needs to be for everyone.
developers still need to develop their games for lower spec phones as a baseline.
This already happens in other markets. Genshin, Star Rail, PUBG: Mobile, Mobile Legends are bigger games by playerbase and revenue than any single game from a traditional publisher, and it's not close. Bringing over games like Death Stranding is more like a tech demo - it shows what's possible. The multitude of mobile oriented developers, whose revenue in aggregate far eclipses the "traditional" gaming market, will take its cues from those examples.
Mobile gaming is huge and breaking out of casual “Fruit Ninja” gameplay. I play a lot of mobile League of Legends, and I’m in a very active LGBT guild. Our members even visit each other in other...
Mobile gaming is huge and breaking out of casual “Fruit Ninja” gameplay.
I play a lot of mobile League of Legends, and I’m in a very active LGBT guild. Our members even visit each other in other cities to hang out and play together, and we’re closely knit. There are lots of other very active guilds too.
The demo of Death Stranding running natively on the 15 was very exciting to me! We’re going to see a flood of PS4-tier games on mobile soon.
AFAIK iPhones do support Bluetooth accessories including gamepads and keyboards (not sure about mice), and while I don’t know if they support outputting video via a cable they do support Airplay...
AFAIK iPhones do support Bluetooth accessories including gamepads and keyboards (not sure about mice), and while I don’t know if they support outputting video via a cable they do support Airplay which is fairly good IMHO.
I am aware of this... also their old phones did support video out, not sure if they will via USB-c. The issue is that the experience when plugging the phone into a screen is basically broken in my...
I am aware of this... also their old phones did support video out, not sure if they will via USB-c. The issue is that the experience when plugging the phone into a screen is basically broken in my experience, let alone supporting a desktop like experience.
Oh, I missed the whole “mobile pc” part somehow. I thought you were talking about games. I think you’ll find there aren’t many people who want to use their phones as computers. They would rather...
Oh, I missed the whole “mobile pc” part somehow. I thought you were talking about games.
I think you’ll find there aren’t many people who want to use their phones as computers. They would rather have the things they want to do shrunk to have it work on their phones. And while they do support it on the iPad to a degree, they have publicly stated that they have made many of those features for other use case scenarios (I.e. mouse support for accessibility).
I guess the whole mobile PC concept is already dead on arrival. Ubuntu sort of tried to do it years ago but they lacked the hardware and UX resources of Google or Apple to be able to pull it off,...
I guess the whole mobile PC concept is already dead on arrival. Ubuntu sort of tried to do it years ago but they lacked the hardware and UX resources of Google or Apple to be able to pull it off, also not enough people cared.
I still thing using a phone as a console type box you hook up to a TV would work though.
So many consumer devices use USB-C for video there is literally no technical reason they couldn't. If it doesn't, its either gross incompetence or an anti-consumer business plan.
So many consumer devices use USB-C for video there is literally no technical reason they couldn't.
If it doesn't, its either gross incompetence or an anti-consumer business plan.
It's one less thing to pack and charge. And you look like less of a goofball pulling it out on the subway.
When something like the Steam Deck exists I don't understand why someone would buy a newer iPhone for gaming when they could buy an iPhone SE + a Steam Deck for the same price as only buying an iPhone 15 (not even looking at the pro).
It's one less thing to pack and charge. And you look like less of a goofball pulling it out on the subway.
The Steam Deck is incredible for the library it has access to, but it's rather mediocre in other ways: Screen is middling at best Battery life sits between bad and just ok, depending on titles...
The Steam Deck is incredible for the library it has access to, but it's rather mediocre in other ways:
Screen is middling at best
Battery life sits between bad and just ok, depending on titles played and performance target
Has a high pitched fan that likes to spin up
In fact, because of these things I'm going to try to hold off on buying a Deck until a future iteration comes about with a better screen, reduced heat and power consumption, and ideally no fan.
I am envious of anyone who has a life where they can play on the Deck longer than the battery lasts =) I do get stints like that, but then I'm at my couch at home where the nearest USB-C plug is...
Battery life sits between bad and just ok, depending on titles played and performance target
I am envious of anyone who has a life where they can play on the Deck longer than the battery lasts =)
I do get stints like that, but then I'm at my couch at home where the nearest USB-C plug is like 50cm away from me tops.
It’s not that I have long stints and more that I want it to be a lot like a tablet: ready to go whenever I grab it with infrequent charging, enabled by great battery life and even better standby...
It’s not that I have long stints and more that I want it to be a lot like a tablet: ready to go whenever I grab it with infrequent charging, enabled by great battery life and even better standby times. There’s nothing worse than grabbing a gadget in anticipation of a leisure time activity only to have your hopes dashed because you forgot to plug it in last time.
And while it’s true that you can play tethered, that’s kinda awkward and potentially a nonstarter if you have a critter that likes to chew on cables in your lap frequently (like my cat).
I set the max TDP to 10w and turn down settings until I get a usable frame rate, this way I get effectively no fan noise, better battery life, and less heat. Some games play ok at 30fps, some...
I set the max TDP to 10w and turn down settings until I get a usable frame rate, this way I get effectively no fan noise, better battery life, and less heat. Some games play ok at 30fps, some games hickup too much at 30fps so I target 45+.
The ROG ally is supposed to have very quiet fans even at higher TDP so I don't think removing fans is necessary, just improving the thermal design + fans used.
The screen really is the weak point, I think its a victim of valve trying to keep the price down.
This isn't specifically aimed at you, but who even uses the Deck's speakers? It's like listening music over the phone. Fan noise should be unnoticeable with even the cheapest buds.
This isn't specifically aimed at you, but who even uses the Deck's speakers? It's like listening music over the phone. Fan noise should be unnoticeable with even the cheapest buds.
Headphones deals with the noise for me, but not for those around me, plus if the fans are that audible the device is probably toasty which can usually be felt. I don’t know if it’s a problem with...
Headphones deals with the noise for me, but not for those around me, plus if the fans are that audible the device is probably toasty which can usually be felt. I don’t know if it’s a problem with the Deck but with many laptops you can also feel subtle vibration of the fans.
Aside from that, it might sound silly but I don’t like the feeling of pushing my hardware that close to its thermal limits, which is why I replaced my gaming laptop with a tower with overkill cooling two or three years back.
I don't think it sounds silly, I always worry a bit I may melt the inside if I let it be too hot for too long. Can you tell I owned a PS3? And yeah, good point. My wife never seems to mind too...
I don't think it sounds silly, I always worry a bit I may melt the inside if I let it be too hot for too long. Can you tell I owned a PS3?
And yeah, good point. My wife never seems to mind too much but I can imagine people may find it annoying.
Yeah I thought it was kinda weird that they were focusing so much on gaming for the Pro model, I don't think anyone would upgrade to the Pro for just gaming purely, it seemed like a weird...
Yeah I thought it was kinda weird that they were focusing so much on gaming for the Pro model, I don't think anyone would upgrade to the Pro for just gaming purely, it seemed like a weird direction to go to. A bit biased though because I love RE4 lol but even then I'm not switching + upgrading for that.
I love their focus on environmentalism. While yes of course there is caveats to it, imagine if every corporation acted as they are. We’d be in a much better place. Perhaps they can set the tone...
I love their focus on environmentalism. While yes of course there is caveats to it, imagine if every corporation acted as they are. We’d be in a much better place.
Perhaps they can set the tone and influence others to follow their lead.
I take a cynical approach here. It's easy to "care" about the environment when you have billions of cash reserves built on the back of Foxconn's pollution. The young generation Apple is hoping to...
I take a cynical approach here. It's easy to "care" about the environment when you have billions of cash reserves built on the back of Foxconn's pollution.
The young generation Apple is hoping to get hooked on their services is also the generation that cares most about the environment.
Corporations don't do the right thing. There is always an angle to make more money. Always follow the money.
Yes you’re definitely correct. It is 100% a marketing ploy to sell more products. They are in a unique position to do it. I agree with your assessment that companies almost never operate out of...
Yes you’re definitely correct. It is 100% a marketing ploy to sell more products. They are in a unique position to do it. I agree with your assessment that companies almost never operate out of the goodness of their heart.
It’s an interesting thought experiment though isn’t it? Even though this is profit motivated, it is REAL. They are actually doing these things. So the question is… if other companies see that this “marketing tactic” works to sell more products, should that not incentivize them to also lean into environmental activism as a method for their capitalism?
Imagine if companies started to aggressively compete on just how carbon negative they are in order to sell more products?
I am all for environmental activism in the name of profits, it’s way better than the alternative (ahem Exxon, etc)
Despite their commercial motivations, the subsidiary output of environmental benefits may just be pretty great, no?
We can certainly hope so. Our governments are unwilling and unable to bring large corporations to heel so our only hope really is that more and more start to believe that being carbon...
We can certainly hope so. Our governments are unwilling and unable to bring large corporations to heel so our only hope really is that more and more start to believe that being carbon neutral/negative can be profitable.
It does seem to be that more research is being done on this topic and starting to suggest that being carbon neutral can help a companies bottom line like this article.
I hate to be that guy, but I will always scoff in the face of Apple's Environmentalism updates until the fix their reparability practices. The first 'R' in the 3R's is reduce - to reduce the waste...
I hate to be that guy, but I will always scoff in the face of Apple's Environmentalism updates until the fix their reparability practices.
The first 'R' in the 3R's is reduce - to reduce the waste you create, then the 2nd 'R' is reuse ie: giving or selling your old device away to someone who will use it for longer. Apple's pricing for their own repairs are designed to sell new products and convince people to toss away the old ones with easily fixable issues. Just because Apple created a robot to the last 'R' - recycle, does not excuse their own policies from making the other 2 R's difficult.
Apple actively and purposely locks out 3rd party repair efforts to increase their own profits. A few examples:
Apple signs deals with chipmakers (like Texas Instruments) to not sell certain chips to any other party (Just watch a few of Louis Rossman's videos, he'll tell you all about it).
Replace Battery -> lose battery health settings
Replace Screen -> lose True Tone
Touch-ID Sensor and Face-ID Sensor are entirely not replaceable by anyone other than Apple without losing their functionality due to software locks.
When I can replace the parts in a device I OWN without Apple disabling features, I will start taking their environmental promises seriously. Apple saying stuff like "We are going to be carbon neutral by 2030!" while also doing stuff like this is disingenuous at best.
I’d also add my skepticism that Apple is improving their environmental impact when they burnt my existing goodwill by dubiously claiming that they removed charging blocks and EarPods to reduce...
I’d also add my skepticism that Apple is improving their environmental impact when they burnt my existing goodwill by dubiously claiming that they removed charging blocks and EarPods to reduce their environmental impact.
Meanwhile, they’ve had the ability to introduce USB-C charging ports on iPhones for years. When they led the laptop market by adopting USB-C on the MacBook Pro, they removed all other ports in defense of the versatility and utility of USB-C. Yet here we all are celebrating this brave obvious change that could have reduced all the e-waste produced by their lightning cables far earlier. Cables whose easily-frayed design that was copied, with minimal improvements, since the first iPhone had spawned a cottage industry of cable replacements and adaptors on Amazon/Alibaba.
Much how their posturing around data privacy is likely a strategic play for their nascent ad business, I suspect this environmentally friendly play is more intended to recoup production costs. Isn’t it odd that in an inflationary environment the most profitable company in the world didn’t increase the price of its flagship product? I assume the profit margin was still maintained somewhere.
This is the same Apple that was “shocked” at Foxconn suicides due to a working environment they created/demanded. Apple’s choice to diversify outside of China over 10 years later was likely a hedge prompted by Covid and not some moral impetus (they’re still using Foxconn in India). The small share of Indian production cannot justify the lack of global iPhone price increases, either (although India unseating China’s population advantage may eventually command a lower wage for its factory workers).
Now, I won’t let perfect be the enemy of the good and say that the changes Apple is making aren’t a net-positive, but i don’t want to pretend Apple did this out of the goodness of their heart, either. Both this USB-C shift and allowing right-to-repair (which Apple made prohibitively expensive for end users), were forced onto them by years of demand for consumer-friendly legislation (that Apple fought against for years as well). Yes, Apple recently supported a proposed California right-to-repair law, but the writing has been on the wall at this point and their actions appear more like virtue signaling than keeping the consumer’s interests at heart.
I say this as someone who works in data privacy and whose personal smartphone has been an iPhone ever since the original. Is Apple as evil as other public companies? Maybe not, but they aren’t some bastion of progressive ideals either (their backpedaling of CSAM scanning shows a lack of foresight in business strategy). I like the changes, but a company with the clout of Apple could be driving far wider industry changes by just taking a firm stance on important issues. They seem to be incrementally doing what doesn’t harm the bottom line, and that itself feels feeble-minded given the climate crisis we are all facing.
I think not having USB 3.0 on the non-pro is just an unnecessary corner to cut. I know it's probably not even going to be used heavily but something about that just rubs me the wrong way (and...
I think not having USB 3.0 on the non-pro is just an unnecessary corner to cut. I know it's probably not even going to be used heavily but something about that just rubs me the wrong way (and feels very Apple). I say this as an Apple user.
It's more of a facet of the fact that Apple makes their own chips. We tend to think of features as "bundled" with each price tier because that's how products made to be sold work. It's why a lot...
It's more of a facet of the fact that Apple makes their own chips. We tend to think of features as "bundled" with each price tier because that's how products made to be sold work. It's why a lot of devices, like the original nook, that didn't support bluetooth officially, actually had a bluetooth antenna.
But since Apple designs their chips directly, they selectively pick out what they do and don't need. The SoC used for the iPhone 14 Pro did not support a USB 3.0 connection because lightning doesn't support it - there would be no reason to. And since the iPhone 15 inherits the iPhone 14 chip, it inherits this limitation.
Then, It would defy the whole point of having the regular iPhone use the Pro hand-me-downs if you threw away all the iPhone 14 Pro chips just to get USB 3.0 support when almost no one uses it.
I'd imagine that the iPhone 16 would get USB 3.0, as it will have the iPhone 15 Pro's hand-me-downs.
That is to say, rather than product segmentation, this is a manifestation of the regular iPhone getting the old Pro's SoC.
Yeah I get it, it's just that all of that doesn't make me feel any better about it. Maybe they should stop releasing phone hardware updates so quickly if they're just going to use old chips.
Yeah I get it, it's just that all of that doesn't make me feel any better about it.
Maybe they should stop releasing phone hardware updates so quickly if they're just going to use old chips.
“Old chip” being last years chip? It’s not that old. Phones are crazy fast nowadays, people don’t need an upgrade every year (or two). It’s a shame though. iPhones have had the worst USB speed of...
“Old chip” being last years chip? It’s not that old. Phones are crazy fast nowadays, people don’t need an upgrade every year (or two).
It’s a shame though. iPhones have had the worst USB speed of all phones and now Apple improved it only for the top models.
Completely agree with everything you said above, but I still think it's ridiculous that it took over a decade for Apple to implement USB 3 on an iPhone. Especially when you consider that USB 3...
Completely agree with everything you said above, but I still think it's ridiculous that it took over a decade for Apple to implement USB 3 on an iPhone. Especially when you consider that USB 3 predates the lightning connector by several years.
Is there a benefit for 90% of iPhone users to have USB 3.0? Most of the people I know using iPhone only ever plug in a charger while in a car, every other time it's "wireless" charging.
Is there a benefit for 90% of iPhone users to have USB 3.0? Most of the people I know using iPhone only ever plug in a charger while in a car, every other time it's "wireless" charging.
Easier to borrow a charging cable, might let you worry about fewer cables when traveling, access to USB C accessories, higher data speed transfers for those who care about that, and I'd guess...
Easier to borrow a charging cable, might let you worry about fewer cables when traveling, access to USB C accessories, higher data speed transfers for those who care about that, and I'd guess eventually faster charging. But really, it just seems like a huge win to me to have everything be USB C... Having that shared between so many devices is awesome.
I'll agree that it's a small up front benefit for most people, but I think it's a really nice change and will be better for the whole ecosystem of devices.
USB 3.0 != USB C. C is the port type, 3.0 is the data transfer protocol. Whether it’s USB 2.0 or 3.0 will only change what kind, and how fast, you can move bits between the devices connected with USB.
USB 3.0 != USB C. C is the port type, 3.0 is the data transfer protocol. Whether it’s USB 2.0 or 3.0 will only change what kind, and how fast, you can move bits between the devices connected with USB.
Oh, right, for some reason I thought I was replying to a USB C post. In that case yeah... Most people probably don't care about the USB 3.<whatever> data speeds tooooo much because the average...
Oh, right, for some reason I thought I was replying to a USB C post. In that case yeah... Most people probably don't care about the USB 3.<whatever> data speeds tooooo much because the average person isn't doing much data transfer with their phone with a cable, but people might care for larger video files... Still, eventually when the chips change... Why not have it? USB C is a huge change, though.
I don't know the details, so I could be wrong, but I assume with USB 2.0 you don't get any of the modern power delivery stuff...? Or is that completely separate?
Unfortunately, not on the base 15. Lightning only supported USB 2.0 (the slow standard from 2000) so the A16 chip was limited to that, even though it's now working with a connector that can...
higher data speed transfers for those who care about that
Unfortunately, not on the base 15. Lightning only supported USB 2.0 (the slow standard from 2000) so the A16 chip was limited to that, even though it's now working with a connector that can technically do faster speeds. They only added USB 3.0 (the faster modern standard) in the Pro lineup's A17 chip.
Yep, but I expect this will trickle down once the chips do! I should have been more clear in the post, but I didn't want to muddy it too much. (And apparently I got confused and thought I was...
Yep, but I expect this will trickle down once the chips do! I should have been more clear in the post, but I didn't want to muddy it too much. (And apparently I got confused and thought I was responding to a USB C comment not a USB 3.0 comment anyway, haha)
File transfer will be nice. There is currently no great way to bulk transfer photos off your phone into something else. It’s probably not an issue for most people, but I have all my family photos...
File transfer will be nice. There is currently no great way to bulk transfer photos off your phone into something else. It’s probably not an issue for most people, but I have all my family photos on a synology but the iPhone to Synology transfer process is cumbersome and spotty. If I can just plug it into my Mac and pass it straight through without all the iCloud indexing and syncing business it’ll be very handy.
The Pro is aiming for more professional uses, and one of those is shooting video, so these sorts of things might be a bigger factor for that market.
Plus, once the capacity exists people figure out stuff to do with it. Who knows what folks will come up with. For one, they already say the phone will support output to a 4K display. That could be huge for live presentations, especially with some sort of AR/VR demos.
It's about transferring the large files the newer cameras capture or quick backups and not charging. USB 2.0 is really slow in the age of 4K60 video at 400MB/min, or 48MP ProRAW photos at 75MB...
It's about transferring the large files the newer cameras capture or quick backups and not charging. USB 2.0 is really slow in the age of 4K60 video at 400MB/min, or 48MP ProRAW photos at 75MB each.
The 15 pro maxes out at 1TB storage, which would take 5.5 hours to do a full backup with USB 2.0 while only 30min via USB 3.0. That's an extreme example, but transferring a couple min video would go from several minutes to several seconds instead.
Probably not, which is why I suspect this choice was less a deliberate product segmentation strategy and more a result of Apple's non-Pro phones using last year's flagship SoCs. The A16 only has a...
Probably not, which is why I suspect this choice was less a deliberate product segmentation strategy and more a result of Apple's non-Pro phones using last year's flagship SoCs. The A16 only has a USB 2.0 controller. I will not be surprised if next year's base model iPhones support USB 3.1 when they get the A17.
Particularly also notable is the inclusion of spatial video recording. If Vision does take off, this ability to be able to take 3d video non-obstructively could be so clutch. Just like in the...
Particularly also notable is the inclusion of spatial video recording. If Vision does take off, this ability to be able to take 3d video non-obstructively could be so clutch. Just like in the keynote, if you could take a 3d video of some beautiful hike with just the press of a button, that seems worth it.
This is their long game. The Spatial Video thing will start tricking down the line over the years. First it'll only be used by early adopters with the Vision Pro. BUT in 5 years or so we'll get...
This is their long game. The Spatial Video thing will start tricking down the line over the years. First it'll only be used by early adopters with the Vision Pro.
BUT in 5 years or so we'll get the Vision Regular and all new iPhones support spatial video along with a sizeable number of pre-owned ones.
I just need to register fir the Big AI: I love my mini, and am super sad they have discontinued it. The bigger phones don’t fit easily in my pocket, I can’t use them with one hand, they’re...
I just need to register fir the Big AI: I love my mini, and am super sad they have discontinued it. The bigger phones don’t fit easily in my pocket, I can’t use them with one hand, they’re heavier, and don’t add anything to my experience.
I have striven all my life to be special, bit this is not the payoff i was hoping for. I’m clearly in a small, small minority, and I thank Apple for taking the chance on me, and hope they will again by the time my 13 mini finally dies.
Just another comment (sorry!) but did anyone else think it was crazy that Apple casually dropped the fact that they have 3nm transistors? I thought that was just a TSMC thing, not too familiar...
Just another comment (sorry!) but did anyone else think it was crazy that Apple casually dropped the fact that they have 3nm transistors? I thought that was just a TSMC thing, not too familiar with the components anymore but it seemed like a relatively big deal.
This is what Tim Cook brought to the table AFAIK. The man is a logistics genius. Basically he uses Apples insane cash reserves to dump a mountain of money on a company's front lawn and says "build...
This is what Tim Cook brought to the table AFAIK. The man is a logistics genius.
Basically he uses Apples insane cash reserves to dump a mountain of money on a company's front lawn and says "build a factory to do X, we'll buy 100% of your production for the next X years".
Supply chain issues: solved. You just buy the FastPass :D
The story I heard was that when Tim Cook told his boss at Compaq that he was leaving for Apple, his boss told him he would retire early and vacate the COO spot for Cook. His reasoning was that the...
The story I heard was that when Tim Cook told his boss at Compaq that he was leaving for Apple, his boss told him he would retire early and vacate the COO spot for Cook. His reasoning was that the value Cook added would make him richer (as a shareholder in the company) than continuing to work there would.
Cook still left for Apple. And Compaq is. . . well. . .nowhere
Apple pays (paid) for exclusive access to TSMC's EUV process nodes. It's likely that they are already discussing 2nm and beyond for exclusive initial access.
Apple pays (paid) for exclusive access to TSMC's EUV process nodes. It's likely that they are already discussing 2nm and beyond for exclusive initial access.
I've had Androids my whole life. This may be my first iPhone because of the USB C connector. Any gotchas I should be worried about? Can I still store all my photos in Google Photos?
I've had Androids my whole life. This may be my first iPhone because of the USB C connector.
Any gotchas I should be worried about? Can I still store all my photos in Google Photos?
Google stuff generally works with iOS as well, and sometimes iOS versions of Google apps get updates/features before their Android counterparts do, ironically. Photos is no exception. Integration...
Google stuff generally works with iOS as well, and sometimes iOS versions of Google apps get updates/features before their Android counterparts do, ironically. Photos is no exception.
Integration obviously won't be as deep in some cases, which is the main tradeoff. In the case of Photos, as I understand it'll sync from the iOS camera roll instead of duplicating everything locally.
Yes, the app doesn’t get the first-class treatment with little things like the preview in the camera app still opening the iOS Photos app, but Google Photos can definitely do its thing. I’ve...
Can I still store all my photos in Google Photos
Yes, the app doesn’t get the first-class treatment with little things like the preview in the camera app still opening the iOS Photos app, but Google Photos can definitely do its thing. I’ve noticed that most Google apps on iOS wind up more polished or on a faster release cycle than their android counterparts- ha!
Be prepared to swap some apps you currently use out for others. There are lots of good quality apps on the App Store, but it’s hard to beat what you’re used to. Probably the number one reason I see people switch back is they really really liked a particular Android app.
If you like to dig really deep into your phone’s configuration it’s probably a non-starter. Most things have only one way to do them, the “apple way,” and it’s usually quite elegant and polished. But if you don’t like that way you’re SOL. I run betas and adjust pretty fast to things like that so it’s never bothered me.
The ecosystem for free / open source apps is worse on iOS. Easier to get system-wide ad blocking on Android, and you can have add-ons and stuff in Firefox on Android. Those are probably the...
The ecosystem for free / open source apps is worse on iOS. Easier to get system-wide ad blocking on Android, and you can have add-ons and stuff in Firefox on Android. Those are probably the biggest complaints I have from switching a while ago.
Probably one of the less important details, but does anyone else find it funny that they’ve gone for rounded edges? As someone who prefers the squared off design - I was so pleased when it...
Probably one of the less important details, but does anyone else find it funny that they’ve gone for rounded edges? As someone who prefers the squared off design - I was so pleased when it returned with the 12, my current phone - I do wonder if it’s just change for the sake of change. Perhaps we’re just going to see iPhones cycling between more rounded and more squared designs indefinitely.
I have the 13 Pro and I feel the same way. Gotta say, it's pretty great that I don't feel the need to upgrade my phone as often as I used to. I'm hoping that the time between upgrades increases...
I have the 13 Pro and I feel the same way. Gotta say, it's pretty great that I don't feel the need to upgrade my phone as often as I used to. I'm hoping that the time between upgrades increases more and more in the future.
Ideally smartphones get to be such a solved problem that they become like typewriters were before computers. You just bought the nicest one you could afford when you needed one and then used it...
Ideally smartphones get to be such a solved problem that they become like typewriters were before computers. You just bought the nicest one you could afford when you needed one and then used it until it broke. At some point even the mid-range models were reliable enough that they were more than good enough for everyone’s needs.
The only deal with phones is that chemical batteries are wear items so, no matter what, they’ll need to be serviced. But that would put them about on par with a quartz watch if that’s all you ever need to do for one.
I think there's another decade or so until smartphones are solved. There are a few next big leaps that are inevitable: Introduction of a processor that can handle a low-power, on-board, always-on...
I think there's another decade or so until smartphones are solved. There are a few next big leaps that are inevitable:
Introduction of a processor that can handle a low-power, on-board, always-on LLM agent. So a not-dumb Siri that's interpreting intent, processing context, and carrying out tasks autonomously.
PS5-level video gaming. The iPhone 15 Pro can run a PS4 game, which was once unimaginable years ago. Mobile gaming is rapidly transforming from simple casual gameplay to more complex, serious gameplay.
Spatial interface integration with personal computers, VR headsets, smart home devices, and other devices. So imagine a smartphone being aware of its exact position in space relative to your other personal devices. I think this is the natural evolutionary HCI endgame: instead of selecting devices from some abstract list, you just point or gesture your phone at whatever thing you want to manipulate, and presto.
I mentioned in another comment, but I think by the time we have a native interface that fully integrates AI/LLM capabilities as well as spatial computing then we're basically dealing with a...
I mentioned in another comment, but I think by the time we have a native interface that fully integrates AI/LLM capabilities as well as spatial computing then we're basically dealing with a different class of device from a smartphone. We probably won't even call them "phones" anymore since that name barely makes sense for them as they are now.
That will never happen so long as the main thing phones do be to connect to the internet. Connection to the internet is what makes software updates a must. Typewriters and quartz watches work...
That will never happen so long as the main thing phones do be to connect to the internet. Connection to the internet is what makes software updates a must. Typewriters and quartz watches work forever because they don’t need to communicate with a network of computers as their main functionality.
Functionally there isn't that much that has changed about what we do on the internet over the past half-decade. I think we're getting pretty close to that being solved as well. There's a lot of...
Functionally there isn't that much that has changed about what we do on the internet over the past half-decade. I think we're getting pretty close to that being solved as well. There's a lot of security vulnerabilities involved, and a decent number of changes that I'd think of as societal or infrastructural (like a better, more universal standard system for identity and auth). But aside from that the phone itself is just displaying stuff. And I think there's room to think in terms of modular components that are more replaceable around a core that stays the same to address some of that.
Internet connectivity on desktop computers is, more or less, basically solved at this point as well. There's kernel and software changes, but in terms of hardware and interaction paradigms very little has changed and if all you use your computer for is as an internet machine then you can get by with a very cheap laptop that barely runs anything (e.g. Chromebooks).
The big X factors are AR and chatbot/vocal interfaces. But I think once we really start to integrate those then we're basically dealing with a different class of devices than how we think of smartphones now.
I'm thinking along the same line...there isn't much going on with the 15 Pro that would benefit me over the 14 Pro, so it feels like an incredibly expensive incremental upgrade.
I'm thinking along the same line...there isn't much going on with the 15 Pro that would benefit me over the 14 Pro, so it feels like an incredibly expensive incremental upgrade.
Some things from the updates
USB-C. Nice, but not that important in the grand scheme of things. For the Pro models, you get USB 3.0 speeds, which doesn't matter to most people, but at least the proposition of filming in RAW isn't as absurd when you're supposed to... airdrop them to your mac?
iPhone 15 is the 14 Pro, basically
Pro has titanium. Actually kinda important since it's significantly lighter
Camera updates. Have to see how they pan out. Must say, though, I'm not a big fan of 24mm, esp for everything, so having 35mm on the main camera is nice. 48 MP images is kind of a meme, there's no way the lens on there can resolve that to anything of use.
Faster processor. Always nice, I suppose
Action button. Apple usage stats probably show that most people don't use the silent toggle, so making it more generic is nice. I imagine many people will set it to launch camera.
Will be getting the 15 pro at some point, but I'm going to try and finagle an international version so I can have my sim card slot.
The silent toggle is going to be sad to go for me. It's one of the small touches I really liked about the iPhone design. On Android handsets I just kind of gave up on switching silent mode because it was never quite as easy as it should be because it was constantly shifting around. On the other hand having it on Control Center actually makes a bit more logical sense since that's where the other controls are.
USB-C is something I'd been waiting for for a while. Lighting was annoying to me because it was basically only for iPhone and I couldn't use it on anything else. But now I don't want to make the change simply because I'll need to get a different headphone adapter.
I wasn't really planning on buying this iteration, but it is nice to know that I'm not missing out on anything major.
I remapped the toggle to orientation lock a while ago. I actually have had my phone defaulted to silent and cannot think of any circumstances where I'd want it any other way.
Part of this is because I'm deep in the Apple ecosystem so if my phone isn't ringing either my iPad, my Mac, or my Apple Watch is buzzing to tell me I have a call. I don't really need the phone to alert me.
At first I was sad about the silent toggle, but reading these comments made me realize I never actually switch my phone off of silent. So having a button for different functions might actually be a plus.
Though my main concern will be battery life, the iPhone 14 has been the first iPhone in a while I can recall worrying about running out of battery after a day of use.
I have a fairly complex usage, and I don't even use it.
I almost always keep my phone on silent with vibration, and have my watch on as well
I use Sleep focus to not vibrate my phone or watch when I'm asleep
On certain weeks, I'm on-call and have a pager app that needs to override all of these settings and play a loud alert at any time of day or night. (This is handled through the Priority Notifications system that only certain apps implement.)
How do you remap it on iOS? I thought it was only possible on ipads
You can remap the silent toggle?
Oops I was thinking of what I remapped on the iPad. It turns out I so rarely care about orientation locking my phone that I never noticed that's not what it does.
It's only shifting around if you're using something like Samsung or similar where they heavily modify Android. If you're using a device that sticks to the true intention of Android like the Pixel series then there hasn't been any change for toggling from sound to vibrate in quite some time. You just click up or down on the volume buttons and then you can click the button on screen to toggle sound/vibrate.
So many people will complain about having to change over their cables and accessories. I think it will genuinely surprise many of the tech folks who have been like "Just change over already!"
I'm curious how "sticky" it will be. I find the iPhone 11 I have to feel kind of slippery on my fingertips, which is the only reason I put it in a case. I'd like to go caseless with a titanium one if I feel comfortable doing so. But now that I have a toddler in the house that may be an unrealistic fantasy.
I'm upgrading from an iPhone 11 so even minor incremental changes will be a big improvement for me.
At least they can't complain about "expensive Apple proprietary cables", when they can grab any cable and it'll work.
Fast charging will be gated by mfi I think
Unlikely, most recent leaks say no MFI. The EU started making noise when the rumors about MFI surfaced; they even threatened to ban iPhone sales.
I'm pretty sure it won't. The EU regulation pretty explicitly states that devices MUST follow the USB-PD specification.
Gating fast charging behind MFI definitely isn't in the PD spec.
People I know don't even have the ringtone enabled on their phones. When I get a new iPhone, I just slap it on silent with the switch and never touch it again.
If it rings close to me I can hear or feel the vibration. If it's farther away, my watch will tell me it's ringing.
And nobody calls me anyway, it's all just telemarketers with a few random official calls interspersed.
The old silent toggle was cool, but it had some pretty serious downsides. Having any kind of automation on silent means the toggle will be out of sync with reality, and the fact that most people just don't toggle silent that much.
Button works pretty well for everyone. And you could have multiple actions with single click, double click, and hold.
Just a correction - titanium is not lighter than aluminium, it's roughly 4500 vs. 2700kg/m^3. Titanium is sturdier/harder butnot actually lighter. It is still light compared to steel.
EDIT: It could be lighter if they used less metal due to its sturdiness. I mean they can probably shave a bit here and there to make the phone lighter, while preserving (but probably not improving) the durability of the case.
I think the comparison material for a "more lightweight" claim is actually stainless steel, not aluminum, which had been used for the previous few "Pro" models.
Steel is apparently at around 8000kg/m³, so significantly more.
Edit: has → had
Ah, my bad. I didn't know they made stainless iPhones. I had alwwys thought they are all aluminium. Sorry about that.
I watched the presentation for work (mobile dev) and besides the USB-C upgrades, it doesn't seem like a huge upgrade. The dynamic island is super beautiful though.
I like Apple's focus on environmentalism. It rings a bit empty from corporations, but given Apple's pull in the social space, I hope it inspires other corpos to do the same. It'll be a net positive if other people decide to adopt that messaging.
The Pro Max upgrades look really interesting, especially with the console games being released on iPhone. I'm personally not a mobile gamer but it's an interesting thing to see.
I also liked pointing out that the iPhone 15 is using an A16 chip and running iOS17.
Earlier, my initial thought was a touch cynical and dismissive. But then as I dwelled on it, I realized that it's a big step in the right direction. It's extremely difficult and requires unfathomable infrastructure to make a product recyclable from end to end: from sourcing renewable materials to having robots and workers dismantle products at end-of-life and recycling the components. Huge kudos to Apple for trying to do that.
They didn't have to do it. Almost all companies will simply make products and put them out in the world with zero concrete plans to take them out of the world: they'll just end up in landfills.
As a side note, though the main point still stands (which would be
), since I think it's somewhat important to keep the distinction:
What they presented were carbon-neutral products, not fully recyclable/recycled products, even if those two areas probably share some good amount of overlap.
And as I'm not an expert in this area by any any stretch of the imagination, I couldn't tell which is the feat that requires more effort for a firm to achieve. Full recycling probably needs to dig very, very deep into materials sciences; and carbon neutrality requires extrem knowledge and control even about things like suppliers/logistics and shipping chains that're probably hard to obtain if your name isn't Apple.
But either accomplishment is an incredibly inspiring (and probably damn difficult) achievement they can truly be proud of.
That is the truly astonishing part to me. Maybe there is still hope after all that we could one day live in a world where the companies being frowned upon by consumer households, governments and other businesses aren't the ones reducing – on paper, at first – their profits, but the ones who haven't yet introduced and massively acted upon a Carbon-neutrality and recycling plan like these.
I'm not gonna lie, despite very likely upgrading my 4-or-so year old phone to one of the newer models, which I've been holding out from doing so far (USB-C!), this part of the presentation was probably honestly my favorite.
It has the potential to be amazing but my bet is that it will be squandered by 1) the closed nature of iPhones 2) old games not natively running on Arm 3) Apple fundamentally not understanding what fun is 4) apps needing to support lower tier devices as well.
When something like the Steam Deck exists I don't understand why someone would buy a newer iPhone for gaming when they could buy an iPhone SE + a Steam Deck for the same price as only buying an iPhone 15 (not even looking at the pro). I know people don't really think logically about this kind of stuff and they'll just buy the new iPhone and subsidize it on a contract... but NOBODY is upgrading for the gaming experience.
For one, that's a fairly western view of mobile gaming. I'd note that Genshin Impact alone has 2x the annual revenue of Ubisoft in it's entirety. Mobile gaming is very commonly the only form of gaming in China and Japan, and those are some of Apple's biggest markets.
This also comes up with the camera: no, the iPhones camera is not going to be better than like a RX100. It's the cherry on top. It sweetens the deal. Gaming isn't going to be the sole reason anyone in the west will upgrade their iphone, but it's another weight on the scale. And I can really see it for heavy mobile gaming - Genshin will thermally throttle on the iPhone currently.
An iPhone SE + a Steam Deck may be the better gaming experience, but, y'know, the phone part sucks and that's the most important part for most people still. Something doesn't need to be >50% of the reason you buy a device for it to be important in a hyper competitive market like smartphones.
Yeah, during the gaming portion they literally had a guy speaking Chinese, then a guy with a Japanese accent, so it's pretty obvious what audience they're targeting on the gaming front.
I guess I should add, I AM absolutely out of touch with mobile gaming and I understand that. Me buying the SD + finally moving away from Macs towards a Linux PC has brought me back into gaming where before it was either consoles or only the most basic of mobile games.
I still strongly stand by a bunch of my points though and point 4) is especially relevant; developers still need to develop their games for lower spec phones as a baseline.
What I would really like to see Apple do is push using your phone as a mobile PC. The iPad sort if let's you plug in a monitor and use it like a computer... make that better/more open and put it on the iPhone. Then I can have a more interesting gaming experience docked with a TV or plugged into a monitor + mouse + keyboard.
I've been saying it for a while, the new phones aren't good enough VS something like the SE to justify the extra money. Its not like the difference when there was the 5c vs the 5s; tech isn't improving as fast and some of us don't care about the camera.
That's really a different strokes for different folks thing. What you have to realize is that for many people in the US, and even more people abroad, their phone is their ONLY computer. That's right, their only computer. No laptop, tablets, or desktops.
Their phone is how they file their taxes, look at their bank statements, get to work, watch netflix, and entertain themselves. As a result, the incremental upgrades in each area of a phone magnifies itself way more than if it's merely an communications-oriented auxiliary device to their laptop or desktop as many internet residents use it as.
This is also why the screen size element befuddles so many people on Reddit and the like - "why don't small phones sell!? I like small phones!". It's because a bigger screen matters a lot more when it's your only computer. Using an SE, with it's big bezels and small screen, is a significant QoL decrease when you're trying to fill out TurboTax on it. Not if you just text on it every three days.
Some people don't really use their phone all that much - that's fine. Not everything needs to be for everyone.
This already happens in other markets. Genshin, Star Rail, PUBG: Mobile, Mobile Legends are bigger games by playerbase and revenue than any single game from a traditional publisher, and it's not close. Bringing over games like Death Stranding is more like a tech demo - it shows what's possible. The multitude of mobile oriented developers, whose revenue in aggregate far eclipses the "traditional" gaming market, will take its cues from those examples.
Mobile gaming is huge and breaking out of casual “Fruit Ninja” gameplay.
I play a lot of mobile League of Legends, and I’m in a very active LGBT guild. Our members even visit each other in other cities to hang out and play together, and we’re closely knit. There are lots of other very active guilds too.
The demo of Death Stranding running natively on the 15 was very exciting to me! We’re going to see a flood of PS4-tier games on mobile soon.
AFAIK iPhones do support Bluetooth accessories including gamepads and keyboards (not sure about mice), and while I don’t know if they support outputting video via a cable they do support Airplay which is fairly good IMHO.
I am aware of this... also their old phones did support video out, not sure if they will via USB-c. The issue is that the experience when plugging the phone into a screen is basically broken in my experience, let alone supporting a desktop like experience.
Oh, I missed the whole “mobile pc” part somehow. I thought you were talking about games.
I think you’ll find there aren’t many people who want to use their phones as computers. They would rather have the things they want to do shrunk to have it work on their phones. And while they do support it on the iPad to a degree, they have publicly stated that they have made many of those features for other use case scenarios (I.e. mouse support for accessibility).
I guess the whole mobile PC concept is already dead on arrival. Ubuntu sort of tried to do it years ago but they lacked the hardware and UX resources of Google or Apple to be able to pull it off, also not enough people cared.
I still thing using a phone as a console type box you hook up to a TV would work though.
So many consumer devices use USB-C for video there is literally no technical reason they couldn't.
If it doesn't, its either gross incompetence or an anti-consumer business plan.
It's one less thing to pack and charge. And you look like less of a goofball pulling it out on the subway.
Well... ya...
The Steam Deck is incredible for the library it has access to, but it's rather mediocre in other ways:
In fact, because of these things I'm going to try to hold off on buying a Deck until a future iteration comes about with a better screen, reduced heat and power consumption, and ideally no fan.
I am envious of anyone who has a life where they can play on the Deck longer than the battery lasts =)
I do get stints like that, but then I'm at my couch at home where the nearest USB-C plug is like 50cm away from me tops.
It’s not that I have long stints and more that I want it to be a lot like a tablet: ready to go whenever I grab it with infrequent charging, enabled by great battery life and even better standby times. There’s nothing worse than grabbing a gadget in anticipation of a leisure time activity only to have your hopes dashed because you forgot to plug it in last time.
And while it’s true that you can play tethered, that’s kinda awkward and potentially a nonstarter if you have a critter that likes to chew on cables in your lap frequently (like my cat).
I set the max TDP to 10w and turn down settings until I get a usable frame rate, this way I get effectively no fan noise, better battery life, and less heat. Some games play ok at 30fps, some games hickup too much at 30fps so I target 45+.
The ROG ally is supposed to have very quiet fans even at higher TDP so I don't think removing fans is necessary, just improving the thermal design + fans used.
The screen really is the weak point, I think its a victim of valve trying to keep the price down.
Admittedly, I don't play any AAA titles on it, but after checking the "use new fan profile" toggle I almost never notice the fan noise.
This isn't specifically aimed at you, but who even uses the Deck's speakers? It's like listening music over the phone. Fan noise should be unnoticeable with even the cheapest buds.
Headphones deals with the noise for me, but not for those around me, plus if the fans are that audible the device is probably toasty which can usually be felt. I don’t know if it’s a problem with the Deck but with many laptops you can also feel subtle vibration of the fans.
Aside from that, it might sound silly but I don’t like the feeling of pushing my hardware that close to its thermal limits, which is why I replaced my gaming laptop with a tower with overkill cooling two or three years back.
I don't think it sounds silly, I always worry a bit I may melt the inside if I let it be too hot for too long. Can you tell I owned a PS3?
And yeah, good point. My wife never seems to mind too much but I can imagine people may find it annoying.
Yeah I thought it was kinda weird that they were focusing so much on gaming for the Pro model, I don't think anyone would upgrade to the Pro for just gaming purely, it seemed like a weird direction to go to. A bit biased though because I love RE4 lol but even then I'm not switching + upgrading for that.
I love their focus on environmentalism. While yes of course there is caveats to it, imagine if every corporation acted as they are. We’d be in a much better place.
Perhaps they can set the tone and influence others to follow their lead.
I take a cynical approach here. It's easy to "care" about the environment when you have billions of cash reserves built on the back of Foxconn's pollution.
The young generation Apple is hoping to get hooked on their services is also the generation that cares most about the environment.
Corporations don't do the right thing. There is always an angle to make more money. Always follow the money.
Yes you’re definitely correct. It is 100% a marketing ploy to sell more products. They are in a unique position to do it. I agree with your assessment that companies almost never operate out of the goodness of their heart.
It’s an interesting thought experiment though isn’t it? Even though this is profit motivated, it is REAL. They are actually doing these things. So the question is… if other companies see that this “marketing tactic” works to sell more products, should that not incentivize them to also lean into environmental activism as a method for their capitalism?
Imagine if companies started to aggressively compete on just how carbon negative they are in order to sell more products?
I am all for environmental activism in the name of profits, it’s way better than the alternative (ahem Exxon, etc)
Despite their commercial motivations, the subsidiary output of environmental benefits may just be pretty great, no?
We can certainly hope so. Our governments are unwilling and unable to bring large corporations to heel so our only hope really is that more and more start to believe that being carbon neutral/negative can be profitable.
It does seem to be that more research is being done on this topic and starting to suggest that being carbon neutral can help a companies bottom line like this article.
I hate to be that guy, but I will always scoff in the face of Apple's Environmentalism updates until the fix their reparability practices.
The first 'R' in the 3R's is reduce - to reduce the waste you create, then the 2nd 'R' is reuse ie: giving or selling your old device away to someone who will use it for longer. Apple's pricing for their own repairs are designed to sell new products and convince people to toss away the old ones with easily fixable issues. Just because Apple created a robot to the last 'R' - recycle, does not excuse their own policies from making the other 2 R's difficult.
Apple actively and purposely locks out 3rd party repair efforts to increase their own profits. A few examples:
When I can replace the parts in a device I OWN without Apple disabling features, I will start taking their environmental promises seriously. Apple saying stuff like "We are going to be carbon neutral by 2030!" while also doing stuff like this is disingenuous at best.
I’d also add my skepticism that Apple is improving their environmental impact when they burnt my existing goodwill by dubiously claiming that they removed charging blocks and EarPods to reduce their environmental impact.
Meanwhile, they’ve had the ability to introduce USB-C charging ports on iPhones for years. When they led the laptop market by adopting USB-C on the MacBook Pro, they removed all other ports in defense of the versatility and utility of USB-C. Yet here we all are celebrating this
braveobvious change that could have reduced all the e-waste produced by their lightning cables far earlier. Cables whose easily-frayed design that was copied, with minimal improvements, since the first iPhone had spawned a cottage industry of cable replacements and adaptors on Amazon/Alibaba.Much how their posturing around data privacy is likely a strategic play for their nascent ad business, I suspect this environmentally friendly play is more intended to recoup production costs. Isn’t it odd that in an inflationary environment the most profitable company in the world didn’t increase the price of its flagship product? I assume the profit margin was still maintained somewhere.
This is the same Apple that was “shocked” at Foxconn suicides due to a working environment they created/demanded. Apple’s choice to diversify outside of China over 10 years later was likely a hedge prompted by Covid and not some moral impetus (they’re still using Foxconn in India). The small share of Indian production cannot justify the lack of global iPhone price increases, either (although India unseating China’s population advantage may eventually command a lower wage for its factory workers).
Now, I won’t let perfect be the enemy of the good and say that the changes Apple is making aren’t a net-positive, but i don’t want to pretend Apple did this out of the goodness of their heart, either. Both this USB-C shift and allowing right-to-repair (which Apple made prohibitively expensive for end users), were forced onto them by years of demand for consumer-friendly legislation (that Apple fought against for years as well). Yes, Apple recently supported a proposed California right-to-repair law, but the writing has been on the wall at this point and their actions appear more like virtue signaling than keeping the consumer’s interests at heart.
I say this as someone who works in data privacy and whose personal smartphone has been an iPhone ever since the original. Is Apple as evil as other public companies? Maybe not, but they aren’t some bastion of progressive ideals either (their backpedaling of CSAM scanning shows a lack of foresight in business strategy). I like the changes, but a company with the clout of Apple could be driving far wider industry changes by just taking a firm stance on important issues. They seem to be incrementally doing what doesn’t harm the bottom line, and that itself feels feeble-minded given the climate crisis we are all facing.
I think not having USB 3.0 on the non-pro is just an unnecessary corner to cut. I know it's probably not even going to be used heavily but something about that just rubs me the wrong way (and feels very Apple). I say this as an Apple user.
It's more of a facet of the fact that Apple makes their own chips. We tend to think of features as "bundled" with each price tier because that's how products made to be sold work. It's why a lot of devices, like the original nook, that didn't support bluetooth officially, actually had a bluetooth antenna.
But since Apple designs their chips directly, they selectively pick out what they do and don't need. The SoC used for the iPhone 14 Pro did not support a USB 3.0 connection because lightning doesn't support it - there would be no reason to. And since the iPhone 15 inherits the iPhone 14 chip, it inherits this limitation.
Then, It would defy the whole point of having the regular iPhone use the Pro hand-me-downs if you threw away all the iPhone 14 Pro chips just to get USB 3.0 support when almost no one uses it.
I'd imagine that the iPhone 16 would get USB 3.0, as it will have the iPhone 15 Pro's hand-me-downs.
That is to say, rather than product segmentation, this is a manifestation of the regular iPhone getting the old Pro's SoC.
Yeah I get it, it's just that all of that doesn't make me feel any better about it.
Maybe they should stop releasing phone hardware updates so quickly if they're just going to use old chips.
“Old chip” being last years chip? It’s not that old. Phones are crazy fast nowadays, people don’t need an upgrade every year (or two).
It’s a shame though. iPhones have had the worst USB speed of all phones and now Apple improved it only for the top models.
Completely agree with everything you said above, but I still think it's ridiculous that it took over a decade for Apple to implement USB 3 on an iPhone. Especially when you consider that USB 3 predates the lightning connector by several years.
Is there a benefit for 90% of iPhone users to have USB 3.0? Most of the people I know using iPhone only ever plug in a charger while in a car, every other time it's "wireless" charging.
Easier to borrow a charging cable, might let you worry about fewer cables when traveling, access to USB C accessories, higher data speed transfers for those who care about that, and I'd guess eventually faster charging. But really, it just seems like a huge win to me to have everything be USB C... Having that shared between so many devices is awesome.
I'll agree that it's a small up front benefit for most people, but I think it's a really nice change and will be better for the whole ecosystem of devices.
USB 3.0 != USB C. C is the port type, 3.0 is the data transfer protocol. Whether it’s USB 2.0 or 3.0 will only change what kind, and how fast, you can move bits between the devices connected with USB.
Oh, right, for some reason I thought I was replying to a USB C post. In that case yeah... Most people probably don't care about the USB 3.<whatever> data speeds tooooo much because the average person isn't doing much data transfer with their phone with a cable, but people might care for larger video files... Still, eventually when the chips change... Why not have it? USB C is a huge change, though.
I don't know the details, so I could be wrong, but I assume with USB 2.0 you don't get any of the modern power delivery stuff...? Or is that completely separate?
Unfortunately, not on the base 15. Lightning only supported USB 2.0 (the slow standard from 2000) so the A16 chip was limited to that, even though it's now working with a connector that can technically do faster speeds. They only added USB 3.0 (the faster modern standard) in the Pro lineup's A17 chip.
Yep, but I expect this will trickle down once the chips do! I should have been more clear in the post, but I didn't want to muddy it too much. (And apparently I got confused and thought I was responding to a USB C comment not a USB 3.0 comment anyway, haha)
File transfer will be nice. There is currently no great way to bulk transfer photos off your phone into something else. It’s probably not an issue for most people, but I have all my family photos on a synology but the iPhone to Synology transfer process is cumbersome and spotty. If I can just plug it into my Mac and pass it straight through without all the iCloud indexing and syncing business it’ll be very handy.
The Pro is aiming for more professional uses, and one of those is shooting video, so these sorts of things might be a bigger factor for that market.
Plus, once the capacity exists people figure out stuff to do with it. Who knows what folks will come up with. For one, they already say the phone will support output to a 4K display. That could be huge for live presentations, especially with some sort of AR/VR demos.
It's about transferring the large files the newer cameras capture or quick backups and not charging. USB 2.0 is really slow in the age of 4K60 video at 400MB/min, or 48MP ProRAW photos at 75MB each.
The 15 pro maxes out at 1TB storage, which would take 5.5 hours to do a full backup with USB 2.0 while only 30min via USB 3.0. That's an extreme example, but transferring a couple min video would go from several minutes to several seconds instead.
Probably not, which is why I suspect this choice was less a deliberate product segmentation strategy and more a result of Apple's non-Pro phones using last year's flagship SoCs. The A16 only has a USB 2.0 controller. I will not be surprised if next year's base model iPhones support USB 3.1 when they get the A17.
I'm confident it's about making a false premium and not about saving money in this case.
You are correct, even though this is still incredibly shitty.
Particularly also notable is the inclusion of spatial video recording. If Vision does take off, this ability to be able to take 3d video non-obstructively could be so clutch. Just like in the keynote, if you could take a 3d video of some beautiful hike with just the press of a button, that seems worth it.
This is their long game. The Spatial Video thing will start tricking down the line over the years. First it'll only be used by early adopters with the Vision Pro.
BUT in 5 years or so we'll get the Vision Regular and all new iPhones support spatial video along with a sizeable number of pre-owned ones.
I just need to register fir the Big AI: I love my mini, and am super sad they have discontinued it. The bigger phones don’t fit easily in my pocket, I can’t use them with one hand, they’re heavier, and don’t add anything to my experience.
I have striven all my life to be special, bit this is not the payoff i was hoping for. I’m clearly in a small, small minority, and I thank Apple for taking the chance on me, and hope they will again by the time my 13 mini finally dies.
Just another comment (sorry!) but did anyone else think it was crazy that Apple casually dropped the fact that they have 3nm transistors? I thought that was just a TSMC thing, not too familiar with the components anymore but it seemed like a relatively big deal.
AFAIK Apple Silicon is exclusively made by TSMC, and whenever they get an improved process running Apple buys out their capacity to monopolize on it.
This is what Tim Cook brought to the table AFAIK. The man is a logistics genius.
Basically he uses Apples insane cash reserves to dump a mountain of money on a company's front lawn and says "build a factory to do X, we'll buy 100% of your production for the next X years".
Supply chain issues: solved. You just buy the FastPass :D
The story I heard was that when Tim Cook told his boss at Compaq that he was leaving for Apple, his boss told him he would retire early and vacate the COO spot for Cook. His reasoning was that the value Cook added would make him richer (as a shareholder in the company) than continuing to work there would.
Cook still left for Apple. And Compaq is. . . well. . .nowhere
Ah that makes sense! I didn't know that actually, good to know!
Apple pays (paid) for exclusive access to TSMC's EUV process nodes. It's likely that they are already discussing 2nm and beyond for exclusive initial access.
I've had Androids my whole life. This may be my first iPhone because of the USB C connector.
Any gotchas I should be worried about? Can I still store all my photos in Google Photos?
Google stuff generally works with iOS as well, and sometimes iOS versions of Google apps get updates/features before their Android counterparts do, ironically. Photos is no exception.
Integration obviously won't be as deep in some cases, which is the main tradeoff. In the case of Photos, as I understand it'll sync from the iOS camera roll instead of duplicating everything locally.
Yes, the app doesn’t get the first-class treatment with little things like the preview in the camera app still opening the iOS Photos app, but Google Photos can definitely do its thing. I’ve noticed that most Google apps on iOS wind up more polished or on a faster release cycle than their android counterparts- ha!
Be prepared to swap some apps you currently use out for others. There are lots of good quality apps on the App Store, but it’s hard to beat what you’re used to. Probably the number one reason I see people switch back is they really really liked a particular Android app.
If you like to dig really deep into your phone’s configuration it’s probably a non-starter. Most things have only one way to do them, the “apple way,” and it’s usually quite elegant and polished. But if you don’t like that way you’re SOL. I run betas and adjust pretty fast to things like that so it’s never bothered me.
The ecosystem for free / open source apps is worse on iOS. Easier to get system-wide ad blocking on Android, and you can have add-ons and stuff in Firefox on Android. Those are probably the biggest complaints I have from switching a while ago.
Probably one of the less important details, but does anyone else find it funny that they’ve gone for rounded edges? As someone who prefers the squared off design - I was so pleased when it returned with the 12, my current phone - I do wonder if it’s just change for the sake of change. Perhaps we’re just going to see iPhones cycling between more rounded and more squared designs indefinitely.
I’m currently on an iPhone 14 Pro, and it’s working out just fine. Think I’m going to pass on upgrading to the 15 Pro this time around.
I have the 13 Pro and I feel the same way. Gotta say, it's pretty great that I don't feel the need to upgrade my phone as often as I used to. I'm hoping that the time between upgrades increases more and more in the future.
Ideally smartphones get to be such a solved problem that they become like typewriters were before computers. You just bought the nicest one you could afford when you needed one and then used it until it broke. At some point even the mid-range models were reliable enough that they were more than good enough for everyone’s needs.
The only deal with phones is that chemical batteries are wear items so, no matter what, they’ll need to be serviced. But that would put them about on par with a quartz watch if that’s all you ever need to do for one.
I think there's another decade or so until smartphones are solved. There are a few next big leaps that are inevitable:
I mentioned in another comment, but I think by the time we have a native interface that fully integrates AI/LLM capabilities as well as spatial computing then we're basically dealing with a different class of device from a smartphone. We probably won't even call them "phones" anymore since that name barely makes sense for them as they are now.
Funny enough, I think the name Personal Computer works very well for a personal device that handles so much of your life.
That will never happen so long as the main thing phones do be to connect to the internet. Connection to the internet is what makes software updates a must. Typewriters and quartz watches work forever because they don’t need to communicate with a network of computers as their main functionality.
Functionally there isn't that much that has changed about what we do on the internet over the past half-decade. I think we're getting pretty close to that being solved as well. There's a lot of security vulnerabilities involved, and a decent number of changes that I'd think of as societal or infrastructural (like a better, more universal standard system for identity and auth). But aside from that the phone itself is just displaying stuff. And I think there's room to think in terms of modular components that are more replaceable around a core that stays the same to address some of that.
Internet connectivity on desktop computers is, more or less, basically solved at this point as well. There's kernel and software changes, but in terms of hardware and interaction paradigms very little has changed and if all you use your computer for is as an internet machine then you can get by with a very cheap laptop that barely runs anything (e.g. Chromebooks).
The big X factors are AR and chatbot/vocal interfaces. But I think once we really start to integrate those then we're basically dealing with a different class of devices than how we think of smartphones now.
I'm thinking along the same line...there isn't much going on with the 15 Pro that would benefit me over the 14 Pro, so it feels like an incredibly expensive incremental upgrade.
Damn, I'm good.