Massive iPhone X leak trashes Apple's 10th anniversary circus Apple apparently deploys resources comparable to the security apparatus of a repressive Cold War Balkan state to try to prevent leaks. To very little effect. And with magnificent irony, it seems to have itself to blame for the biggest leak of all. On Friday, several news outlets received a drop of what appeared to be a late …
Re the price tag.
The Samsung Note 8 is enjoying record pre-orders, despite being nearly £900. Okay, there might be some pent up demand from would-be Note 7 owners, but suggests there are people willing to pay that much.
It is more likely that people used to paying £700 for a phone will pay £1,000 for a phone than it people will jump from a £300 phone to a £700 (with so many good solid handsets at around £300, those who buy flagship phones aren't desperately price conscious).
It is rumoured that Apple's suppliers are struggling to make the cut-out screen in sufficient quantities (and are passing the cost of the low yields on to Apple), and so initial supplies of the new phone will be constrained. As such, Apple wouldn't gain additional sales by reducing the price tag.
(Sent from my Nexus 5. No immediate plans to upgrade, but watching Qualcomm's / Apple's / Google's et al AR/3D scanning efforts with interest)
While I think the implementations that require a charging pad are pretty pointless, there have been persistent rumors that Apple is working with a company called Energous that claimed to have perfected wireless charging at a distance of up to 15 feet. Apparently they signed a deal with them that gave them dibs on being the first to support their technology.
It is possible the iPhone X will have an unadvertised capability to use this and not be limited to pads, which would fit in with rumors HomePod will charge devices within a range of three feet. Three feet is still too limiting IMHO but at least it would be proof of the technology - presumably something explicitly designed for distance charging would be able to do better. I think the big win for this type of technology would be for laptops - a few such chargers in suitable locations around your home would enable you to never need to plug in your laptop!
The best feature would be the cries of anguish from all the nutty "electrosensitives" who claim they get physically sick from wifi and cellular, but somehow UHF TV broadcasts at far higher power never seemed to bother them...
"Apple's wireless charging is tipped to be incompatible"
And they'll be charging at least £50 for the charging dock which probably won't even come with it's own power supply (and will be incompatible with any power supply you currently own).
Still, someone will queue up all night to buy it, so I guess Apple must be doing something right.
I assume Apple wonn't bothering with Qi, in the same way they've not bothered with a USB charge port like ever single other manufacturer out there.
I don't just mean phone manufacturers either, practically everything I own with a battery in it uses micro USB to charge, but that's not the Apple way.
They weren't going to, as they were holding out for some magic long-range wireless tech to pop into existence. They didn't appear overly interested in actually spending any money making that happen themselves, mind. When it continued to not appear of it's own accord, they threw in the towel and signed up with the WPC.
I just thought that joining the WPC required one to hold to certain standards. What with it being a standards organization. Apparently it's not one of those standards organizations that set standards that members are expected to actually follow.
I was listening to radio last week and one of the presenters predicted the launch. When asked how he could be so sure, he explained that the battery in his current iphone always suffered degraded performance about a week before Apple launched the next version.
Pah, Red Bren! You should be ashamed of implying that Apple nobble the existing phones to "nudge" owners.
There's no need, because any true Apple owner knows when its time to upgrade, when they get that tingling feel as soon as any new i-product is launched. This also means that every Apple addict is soon going to be either a grand worse off in cold hard cash, or on the hook for £50+ a month for the next two years, and it also means that chavs on mopeds will be very interested in stealing them.
Think of the other upside. All those Fanbois will be trading in their one year old iPhones in order to fund their latest Apple Drug Fix. That means a good number of used phones becoming available.
And they'll get several years of updates.... I'll be in the market for an iPhone 7 to replace my iPhone 6.
Saves a packet of money over the years.
>> Saves a packet of money over the years.
I've never spent more then 75 quid on a phone. Currently got an iPhone 4. It may not make supermodels wet their knickers when I take it out of my pocket, like the poor mug who paid 300 quid for it new probably thought it would, but it still does what it was designed to do. I'm still not sure I understand what this new one will do that mine doesn't, other than shiny bling bling.
Have a beer - we are a bit modern what with our collection of new-fangled iPhone 5 (plain, no S) rather than 4. Bought them cheap off eBay a few years back and after spending fifteen quid on replacement batteries, they are just what you need to make phone calls, get 'on the line' and do a bit of that social media thing my children seem so interested in. Sadly the phones can't make 3D HD movies, survive deep sea diving, and the supermodel thing is no go with the 5 as well.
So fan of the Apple iPhone 5 - yes; thinking of spending £1,000 for a new one - er, they still do everything they could do, they are still getting updates 5 years on and are just damn good, reliable smartphones so why change?
Yeah, I have.
For a Motorola brick - with pull up aerial and flip out mouthpiece.
100 squid. 17 odd squid a month contract for 15 mins airtime. In 1995.
Battery life on standby of about 9 hours. At least some things don't change that much.
A good inch thick, but you could *just* stuff about half of it into your shirt pocket. And it didn't bend.
Ahh, the MR1, if you bought the "high capacity " battery it may have even lasted into the evening. Trouble was that is you could fit enough of it into your pocket, your trousers fell down. Also the battery clip was the most ill-conceived piece of shite you could imagine. If you dropped the phone, the clip would break leaving the batter free to slide off (double sided tape was the fix). At least it was the battery that broke.
Other than that the thing was indestructible, I found my old one in the loft and my kids played with it for years when they were little with out smashing it. Give a two year old a modern phone and it will be a source of shards of glass in minutes, particularly as its only use is to hit things with as there are no buttons or flappy bits!
Thats funny as mine and hers iPhone 6 batteries are exhibiting unusual rapid battery drain as of the last 2 weeks.
gone from all day surfing, whats app email etc to just a few hours.
I can't believe Apple could be doing this on purpose but it is an odd coincidence.
Go on... list what you'd spend 1k on, if you could...
I've said this before. Apple could charge 10k for a phone, and people would still buy it. It's nothing to do with how good the technology is. It's to do with how it's marketed, the hype and perception of it. You could make something technically superior, but unless the word gets out, and it's perceived as "cool" then it's a non-starter. This is how successful people make money - it's called "a business".
Other tech you could buy for a grand...
I probably wouldn't spend it on tech. I'd start off by buying a £150 phone that would fulfil all the duties I need of a smartphone and do them rather well. That leaves me with £850 for whatever purpose I want, but if I take the challenge....I'd have a £300 Acer Chromebook 14. Still got £550, what to do with that.? I could buy a decent enthusiast's camera for all of that, or get a decent compact and £200 change. And with that £200 I'd buy a halfway decent gaming graphics card to replace my ancient GTX275, and still have fifty quid to spend on booze.
Yep, 1K on a phone is stupid and some people are stupid with stupid money to spend on stupid marketing. (Are you gullible? Send £5 for our searching questionnaire.)
Last few years though, I've bought three iPhone 5 cheap second hand for the SO and offspring, and the phones do everything required of them really well and really reliably. Might not be unique and replacing the battery is a pain but they are genuinely good phones not just good marketing.
So they've cloned the S8 and bumped the price up and (presumably) removed all useful features such as microSD, headphones jack.
I will give them credit for going with facial recognition only though, that does seem like a really bold move from a security and usability perspective.
I can't wait to see all the tech journalists drooling over it tomorrow. There will probably be some edgy "Why I'm leaving the iPhone for good" articles which should be fun.
Intel had a much superior face-ID technology to that of the Lumias, and Microsoft used in some of its Surface products. It made use of an additional front-facing infra-red camera beside the existing visible-spectrum one. Having two cameras provided depth perception, while the IR one allowed the system to distinguish between a warm-blooded human face and a wax/plaster/plastic model of one.
I guess there wasn't space for yet another camera in a phone, but it does work much better than relying on a single visible-light camera.
If what I've seen touted by third parties is relevant, yes. But there's still a sweetspot, and outside it your phone won't charge, the difference from Qi is that the sweetspot is twice the area of the charging pad, the charging distance can be up to four inches of radio-transparent material (eg a thick desk or table), and you can make much larger charging pads, thus increasing the size of the sweetspot dramatically. The vendors claimed that orientation was not of significance. Having said all that, I've not seen used this technology myself, and we can be sure that the vendors will have glossed over any shortcomings.
The share price is jumping on the news and, whether you care or not, whether you’ll buy the new gewgaw or not, the world + wife will still tune in to the announcement. It’s a media circus for a reason - you already know what to expect in the big top, but you’ll still attend - just in case one of the acrobats falls off the high wire.
Sure, a little of the surprise might have gone, but the leak will have no material impact whatsoever.
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