While the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus aren’t supposed to start arriving to pre-order customers until this Friday, at least one lucky AT&T customer got a surprise today. A Twitter user by the name of @MoonshineDesign based in San Diego today received her iPhone 6s in the new Rose Gold color variant. According to her tweets, she ordered the device through AT&T.
The user shared a variety of images of the device as she unboxed it and set it up. The device shipped in the same packaging that we’ve seen leaked several times already. In addition to images of the device itself, Geekbench results from the device were shared, as well. In a single-core Geekbench test, the iPhone 6s scored a 2413, beating out the Retina iPad mini, iPad mini 3, and even the iPad Air 2. The multi-core score of the device was 4293. The Geekbench results also confirmed that the device features 2GB of RAM.
For once, it’s nice to find that person who gets their Apple product early and knows how to do benchmarks and take non-blurry photos. Seriously, that Geekbench score is insane. That’s a 33% improvement over an iPad Air 2 on the single-core test and very close to how the 13-inch MacBook Air scores. I can’t wait to see how the iPad Pro does with its A9X internals.
Apple has created specific requirements you must follow for any game that supports game controllers. These requirements are designed to make sure that games are always playable.
Your game must support the Apple TV remote. Your game may not require the use of a controller.
Despite full Game Controller support in the SDK and originally claiming that controller-only games were okay, Apple now says that all Apple TV games must be playable with the Siri Remote.
The policy yields a natural lowest-common denominator scenario where game designers are required to limit their creativity to games with control schemes that are compatible with the Siri Remote. Although the Apple TV technically supports console-style controllers (with dedicated D-Pad and dual analog sticks) the unique advantages of those input methods will never be considered by game developers if this rule goes through.
They’ll have to base the game design around the features offered by the Siri Remote, as that’s the requirement. Any game that can’t be played with a touchpad and some buttons will not be made. Traditional console titles like first-person shooters, which rely on dual analog sticks, are suddenly out of bounds. Moreover, games that are made will only support MFI controllers half-heartedly — it will just be a port of the Siri Remote control scheme.
Apple should definitely stand down here and backtrack. As long as games clearly marked in the App Store that they need additional accessories, I see no reason why Apple shouldn’t let devs make games that need other hardware to function. iPhone apps are allowed to do exactly that … you don’t see any negative complaints about it. On iOS, apps are allowed to be tied to specific hardware given that they are clear about the prerequisite hardware in their App Store listing. The Apple TV should have similar rules.
But the biggest problem is the platform. Apps on iOS sell for unsustainably low prices due to the lack of trials. We cannot port Sketch to the iPad if we have no reasonable expectation of earning back on our investment. Maintaining an application on two different platforms and provide one of them for a 10th of it’s value won’t work, and iPad volumes are low enough to disqualify the “make it up in volume” argument.
I believe Sketch would do well on the iPad. Their success would be driven by their reputation and loyal user base from the Mac, not because the iOS App Store is a platform conducive to professional apps. Pixelmator took their Mac app to iPad and iPhone and now do really well on iOS. Vendors like Microsoft Office and Adobe can comfortably bring their apps to the iPad because they know their user base will carry them. The root problems of the App Store affect new apps made by new developers, not the incumbents.
Sketch may face longer term revenue growth from iOS due to the (lack of) upgrade model but I think a decent 1.0 iPad Sketch app would recoup its investments costs easily, making it a low risk bet.
This post is not about the protracted existence of 16 GB phones. Myself and others have voiced the problems with this many times. It doesn’t need repeating again. The point of this post is something more general I’ve noticed that potentially affects all of Apple’s products going forward. That being said, let’s start with an anecdote about 16 GB phones.
My mum has finally decided she is due for a new phone. Her current 16 GB iPhone 4s is always full, even with iCloud Photo Library optimising photos, the OS is constantly complaining that its out of space. She wants an iPhone 6s Plus, easy decision. She has the money to buy any of the variants but what does she pick? The base 16 GB model.
She knows her current phone is always out of space, she has the money to buy a higher end model, but she doesn’t. I ask her why: ‘64 GB is way more than I need’. The product SKUs are forcing her to make bad decisions. It isn’t just about the base model. If Apple offered more choice, for instance a midway 32 GB model between 16 and 64, she would buy that and be happier.
In the iPhone case, it’s a problem of granularity. Another example is the new iPad Pro. If you want cellular, you have to get the 128 GB model. You have to pay for storage you don’t need just to get the feature that you do want, mobile data. With an example budget of $900, I believe prospective customers wanting a new cellular iPad now face an unwinnable compromise: take a cellular 9.7 inch iPad or take a 32 GB WiFi iPad Pro. Both cases the customer loses. They either get a desirable iPad (forgoing cellular) or resort to buying an iPad model they don’t really want but are essentially forced into picking because Apple doesn’t offer uniform SKUs of the different features.
In the lineup of the Retina MacBook Pro, there are several SKUs with varying hardware specs but only one configuration, the most expensive with the highest margins no doubt, includes a dedicated GPU. A build-to-order option for that GPU is ‘conveniently’ not available.
There are logistics problems obviously by adding more SKUs, like in the iPhone example. A better solution for that case is probably to just remove 16 GB model entirely. What really triggered this post was the newly announced iPad Pro offerings.
Every previous iPad has offered cellular at every size. The lack of cellular on the 32 GB was immediately conspicuous. It just seems like Apple is trying to artificially inflate (upsell) the average selling price of the product by requiring people to pay a lot more for cellular service. The iPad Pro also lacks a 64 GB SKU, a natural fit between the $799 and $949. It’s hard for me to not see this as a quick trick to bump the ASP higher than if they sold a 64 GB model for $899.
Perhaps there are ulterior reasons for this that I simply can’t see. I guess what I’m getting at is I don’t want Apple to purposefully exclude combinations of product features for profit maximisation. It feels icky and exclusionary. In raw shot term profits, this kind of strategic pricing will improve the bottom line but it has to be detrimental to buyer happiness (customer satisfaction).
There are obviously limits to what Apple can and should offer as customisation. I’m not asking for anything crazy — just the normal expected set of options. Crucially, I don’t want product SKUs that should be available not be because of business objectives. Make the products, then price accordingly. Even if you can discount my other examples, the newly announced iPad Pro lineup clearly signifies a decision dominated by business motives. Personally, I don’t want to see this become a trend.
Apple shared today that the upcoming iOS 9 software update for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch will be released to everyone in one week on September 16th. Alongside the official iOS 9 release date, Apple also introduced new price tiers for iCloud storage upgrades.
Currently in the United States, upgrading from the free 5GB iCloud adds 20GB to 1TB depending on the tiers which range from 99¢ to $20:
With the upgraded iCloud storage prices, Apple is offering 50GB of data for 99¢, 200GB for $2.99, and 1TB for $9.99.
What I read from this: Apple realises its devices rely on iCloud more than ever and its current iCloud storage pricing was very high. Unfortunately, the free tier remains the same at 5 GB. This is the tier that the vast majority of users have, so most users will see no change and continue to be unhappy. Thanks Apple.
People don’t want to sign up to subscription plans and I don’t think they should be expected to do so. Even if the base iCloud Storage tier was 1 terabyte for $0.99, most iOS users would not budge and would continue hurting themselves. It isn’t the price that is a barrier, it’s the principle of paying a non-zero amount for something non tangible. Subscription have a stigma attached that they are ‘bad’.
The best way for Apple to improve the quality of service of iCloud would be to raise the amount of storage given to users on the free tier. Whether that be 20 GB, 50 GB or 10 GB per iOS device, I don’t really care. It just needs to go up.
The state of play is not going to change when these new prices come into effect because the free tier is the same. Hence, people will continue to run out of space and continue to be upset.
Reading your Timeline should be a great experience on any iOS device, no matter the screen size or orientation. For this reason, we must consider different devices and their characteristics. So we built our own responsive system, starting with the typographic elements that make a great reading experience, and built from there.
The post sounds quite encouraging when you read it. It’s when you check out the “redesigned” app in the flesh that you just to start to reconsider the meaning of every word. Was it all just satire? I’d love to find a designer at Twitter who can call this a responsive UI with a straight face.
This is basic, basic stuff. Landscape timeline iPad apps are naturally suited to two-column static layouts. You don’t even have to do design work. Just copy the appearance of Twitter.com, an already established first-party client with a two-column layout. To rub more salt in the wound, it’s also responsive. Dragging the page width adds and removes columns. If Twitter was blind to external design themes, at least draw on your own website for inspiration on the native apps.
They are at least a year late to making their app adaptive. The blog post says they have now done so but from a user perspective you can’t really tell. Although the internal coding may be better now, they haven’t improved anything for the customer experience. The app still looks like the iPhone design linearly scaled on every device that isn’t an iPhone.
The best version of Twitter for iPad is still the first version, made by Brichter. It came out about three months into the life of the iPad and took advantage of the weird iPad screen dimensions more than most apps do today. All I can visualise when I look at this pitiful attempt is how good three-column slideable UI’s are. Brichter’s interpretation got so much so right so early on. With such a good base, they had an easier path than most to be a flagship app of the iPad. That’s not what happened. I don’t know if Twitter for iPad will ever be as good as version 1.0 again.
The current Apple TV design, first released in late 2010, has 8GB of internal storage for caching media, and the fourth-generation boxes in testing surprisingly range from 8GB to 16GB of storage. We are told that Apple has considered two pricing strategies: the simultaneous release of a $149 base model with 8GB of storage alongside a $199 16GB model, or the release of the 16GB Apple TV alone at $149. In either case, Apple will offer a $149 Apple TV.
I hate to sound like a broken record but what I am supposed to do when Apple repeats the same stupid decisions. Rather than iPhone, its Apple TV. My vision of a good TV experience does not include weighing up the relative advantages of 8 and 16 GB of storage.
Post-PC is about getting rid of legacy, thereby getting rid of the problems which inherently plague traditional laptops and desktops. iOS devices are in many ways magical, they do just work, but needing to manage storage space is one of those things thats zaps you firmly back into the painful reality of what these devices actually are. Computers. I am so disappointed that Apple is opening this can of worms with the TV too.
Gurman’s post says Apple is considering two strategies, one with storage tiers and one without, so it’s possible Apple makes the right choice when it launches the new box. The fact they are even considering the former option is pretty stupid. There should be no debate about this. The constraints of 16 GB of space is bad enough: it is laughable that an 8 GB option is even under consideration.
The “iPad Pro” (which is actually the planned name of the device) is currently scheduled to hit retail outlets in November, following a pre-order campaign that will launch toward the end of October, sources indicate. While whispers within Apple point to the MacBook-sized tablet making its debut on next week’s stage, it is possible that Apple could still hold back the larger iPad for an early October event given the currently planned November ship date. Following recent announcements of Apple iOS enterprise collaborations with Cisco and IBM, sufficient component availability to meet anticipated year-end demand appears to be the only question mark at this point.
Announcing early in September for a November launch sounds weird the first time you read it, but does make a lot of sense. It gives developers time to adapt to the new features of the iPad Pro such as adoption of pressure-sensitive drawing. At the most basic level, apps will need reworking to take advantage of a larger ~12 inch canvas.
As the iPad Pro is the first in its line, there’s no Osbourne effect at play. Announcing the iPad Pro early is unlikely to affect Apple sales in the interim period. It also gives Apple a window to start promoting the iPad Pro to businesses before they go on general sale. Enterprise purchase have lead times: it’s not like the consumer market where there will be people ready to buy the new iPhone as soon as its available.
I can see why they want to announce now but it comes at a cost. Its another thing they have to talk about in their presentation, something that was already expected to be jam-packed. Gurman says his sources describe at as an “unprecedented blitz of product announcements”. The way I read that, its a kinder way of saying that there will be rushed announcements.
I really wish Apple would spread out their announcements more. They have an entire year to play with but shove eighty percent of their new products into two months of the year. I’m not suggesting they should host an event every month. Even just adding one more regular event to the schedule in say, January, would help relieve the pressures of the fall lineup.
“Our project is the next generation of retail store that we’re rolling out, and that’s the design concept that we have – and we’re really excited because this is going to be one of the first, if it’s approved, that we build,” Millitello told the commission. “So we’re really excited to expand in Germantown and we’re excited to see the result of all the work that we’ve put in to develop this design.”
Other aspects of the design, according to Millitello, include a matte granite reinforced panel on the exterior as well as natural oak tables inside. The store will also feature a changeable display that will include living plants at times, TV displays that change and artwork, among other things.
Funny that these details were spilled in an innocuous planning application to Memphis. Granite walls will be an interesting change.
Worth noting that the Regent Street Apple Store in London is currently undergoing renovation works, so I assume it will also be getting a ‘next-gen’ makeover soon. Maybe Apple will talk about this new initiative at its event next week — we are overdue for an update on Apple Retail.
I asked Doktor Lucifer if it would also be possible to do some sort of spell that could make Apple reveal the products I wanted them to reveal (self-driving car? A real full TV?). “If they already have plans that they’ve been working on for years, a spell can’t change that,” Docktor Lucifer explained. “Real spellcasting works in the realm of reality. It can’t change natural laws. It’s not hocus-pocus.”
But he promised to look into things, and the next morning he sent me a cryptic email: “I see now. I can tell u.”
“???” I replied, being on my phone, and in a hurry.
“Smart Tv,” he replied simply. It’s actually not such a bad prediction. I also asked him to make Eddy Cue dance. We’ll see, but if things work out I’m definitely converting to voodoo. Hail Satan.
Funny, but stupid, piece from Buzzfeed where they ask professional psychics to read into the Apple invite image. By the sounds of his prediction, Doctor Lucifer is Gene Munster in disguise.
You don’t have to take my word for it that AirPlay needs some love: just go searching for newly-launched AirPlay speaker systems. The only company we could find showing one at CES this year was Moshi (watch out for a review by Zac Hall shortly).
Whether it’s manufacturers deciding that AirPlay is too unreliable to invest, or consumers unwilling to pay the price premium for a protocol that doesn’t give them everything they want, clearly there’s an issue. Apple needs to fix the reliability issues that appear to stem from flaws in the protocol itself, license it to manufacturers at a reasonable price and then give it enough PR that mass-market consumers get to know about it.
The AirPlay audio streaming technology is based on old protocols reaching back into the AirTunes days … it needs a revamp. The official Apple answer is to buy your own speakers and hook up an AirPort Express which is both clunky and prohibitively expensive.
The success of portable Bluetooth speakers says to me that there is a consumer desire for wireless music streaming in the home. I think Apple should re-engineer AirPlay as a WiFi protocol that requires an internet connection. This means it could also sync up with HomeKit and be controlled remotely, outside of the home network. Essentially, each AirPlay receiver would stream music from an iCloud / Apple Music server. This means individual devices do not have to manage the streaming work locally. A friend could stream a playlist at your house and leave with his iPhone in his pocket without interrupting the music. It’s the Chromecast model.
Making things based around an internet model simplifies so much. Apple could do some really intelligent things, like automatically silence speakers when you leave home. Couple a reworked protocol with some pretty speakers and you’ve got something good.
With this Apple Store refresh next week, Apple will be pulling these aging iPad 2s from most of its stores. Instead of Smart Signs, Apple will begin pre-loading price information and product details onto display iPhones, iPads, and Macs themselves. Apple will use the new space to install more devices that potential customers can test on the show floor. The recently launched iPad mini displays for the Apple Watch will not be going away. Apple will also showcase iPhones with redesigned white display docks.
Some larger Apple Stores will retain a few Smart Signs as Apple conducts this transition. Sources say that, beyond the desire to feature more products on store tables and to replace the aging iPad 2s, Apple is removing Smart Signs because it found that the setup is confusing for some customers. Retail employees note that some customers were unaware that the Smart Signs were simply informational items and became confused when they could not fully use the device as a demo iPad.
The Smart Signs were a concept that sounded a lot cooler than how they were realised in stores. The information they provided wasn’t very smart, like a static microsite of some product specs. In contrast, the iPads that are attached to Apple Watch display units are truly smart with the second-display information keeping in sync with the current views on the Watch. These plaque displays are not going away.
The Smart Signs were also flawed by their physical dimensions, iPads are not that small. They are pretty big. It made the Apple Store look cluttered and tied up space that could be instead used for more real demo devices. Having a Smart Sign iPad accompanying an actual iPad was comical. Per Gurman’s report, Apple’s new solution is boring but in the end achieves the same result without the downsides, all things considered.
The biggest change to this new design is the decision to remove the Store link from the main navigation bar at the top of the screen. The bar had become crowded in recent months with the addition of the Watch, but it’s an interesting decision to remove that store rather than one of the other products.
Instead, the ability to shop for Apple gear has been integrated into each product page. As before, a “buy now” button appears on the page for each model. A shopping bag button has been added beside the search button to allow customers to quickly manage their bag, favorite items, Apple Store account, and more.
I had rather embarrassingly ignored the separation between Apple’s online website and its online store. I had always overlooked the amusing inelegance of a fragmented website for a company that prides itself on integration and simplicity.
Anyway, with no fanfare, Apple updated its site on Thursday to bring both parts together into one site. When you go to buy something now, you don’t get carted off into the ‘store’ subdomain to actually make a purchase. Everything happens from the same combined interface which means your basket is now visible from any page too, in the header. Neat and tidy.
On Twitter I quipped about what happens to the website on keynote day. How does the store go down when the whole site is the store? There’s a part of me that thinks this transition means the iconic ritual of ‘We’ll be back soon’ on new product day will never happen again. I can see how Ahrendts would think it was dumb and can it.
If you know you’re in my Skype contacts list feel free to park in front of my house with your Windows 10 PC. But you’ll have to bring your own Wi-Fi, because Wi-Fi Sense won’t let you connect to my network. That option is off by default for every network, as you can see by the Not Shared status message under each one.
And you have to very consciously enable sharing for a network. It’s not something you’ll do by accident.
For those not clued in, WiFi Sense is a feature in Windows 10 that shares WiFi network passwords with friends if you explicitly request to share the password of a particular network. WiFi Sense has been part of Windows Phone for a while but, naturally, nobody cared.
In his piece, Bott correctly addresses the fact that the sharing service does not happen without permission as some tech sites misreported when this blew up. However, it does have a security hole.
The person who gives permission does not have to be the WiFi network owner. Any person who is (or has) connected to the network can enable the sharing. This is the opening for abuse as the control of the setting is heavily diluted amongst clients. It might not be obvious why this is a problem.
A mostly harmless example is a coffee shop that gives the WiFi password when you buy something. With WiFi Sense, it is incredibly easy for someone to accidentally enable sharing and then all Windows users can free-ride on the internet without paying the cafe a cent. Similarly, in a residential setting, a hypothetical friend comes round to use my WiFi on his Windows 10 laptop. My entire block can now access my internet without ever talking to me without me even being told it was happening. It’s not out of the question that this then blows through my monthly data cap and I get foot with a costly bill. I’m sure you can extrapolate to find some more criminal examples.
There are limits to who receives the shared password, usually limited to the person’s Skype or Facebook friends, so it’s not like the whole world can suddenly join in. Still though, it’s the principle. It’s just weird that the network owner does not get ultimate control over this.
Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are reuniting to create an all-new car show, exclusively for Amazon Prime. The show will be produced by the trio’s long time executive producer Andy Wilman. On working with Amazon, Jeremy Clarkson said “I feel like I’ve climbed out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship.” The first show will go into production shortly and arrive exclusively on Amazon Prime in 2016.
Not a surprise that Clarkson, Hammond and May made a deal with an online network for a new series … but signing with Amazon is an unexpected twist. I really thought Netflix would want Top Gear as a flagship new media programme. Really interested to see whether this turns out to be good or not, I would guess Amazon can give them an even bigger budget than what the BBC could. Hopefully, it’ll be the same show I know and love to watch, albeit dropping the Top Gear brand.
So in the coming months, a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google. YouTube will be one of the first products to make this change, and you can learn more on their blog. As always, your underlying Google Account won’t be searchable or followable, unlike public Google+ profiles. And for people who already created Google+ profiles but don’t plan to use Google+ itself, we’ll offer better options for managing and removing those public profiles.
You’ll see these changes roll out in stages over several months. While they won’t happen overnight, they’re right for Google’s users—both the people who are on Google+ every single day, and the people who aren’t.
The only way I can read this is as an admission Google+ didn’t take off in the way it wanted it to, despite being mandatory to use other popular Google products, namely YouTube. Google now focusing Plus on the small niche discussion communities where it is doing well (which are good) and leaving things like YouTube as independent, separate, products.
Although the company has been discretely signalling this transition for a while, like Google Photos being positioned as a standalone offering, this blog post is confirmation that the dream of Plus as the persistent glue that connects your Google life together is indeed over.