Apple stuns world with Donald Trump iPhone Shy and modest Apple today unveiled a pair of small iPhones and iPads for people with itty-bitty hands. The Cupertino slinger of iStuffs summoned hacks to a brief hour-long conference in California to unveil the four-inch iPhone SE handset as well as a 9.7-inch iPad Pro slab. Both are powered by the now-available iOS 9.3 …
I've got an s5 mini, which isn't exactly mini either. I miss the size of my old HTC with a 3.7 inch screen, but for all the choice you get with Android, it's basically just choosing between one nearly identical phone or another. Flagship 4 incher, yes please. Hopefully Samsung will fire up the copy machines before I want a new one.
when I was between handsets, I had to use my HTC Desire - too small for me now, (He's 55, you know...?) if compared to my Z1Compact & now Xperia Z3 Compact, which seems to be the optimum.
It just seems to me that all iDevices are the 'wrong shape' somehow.
... skimming this article... I'll never get them back. Even the tech was promoting a empty shell.
Feeling pretty much the same as every time I hear the man's name just before some ifoolishness, iarrogance, <insert issue>.
I'll guess Shaun is getting an extra per click bonus subsidized by the Duck of Arrogant himself.
Umm.. what did you expect? There hasn't been any articles anywhere on anything seriously new regarding mobile tech in ... months. Minor jiggles, lots of "in a couple of years", but nothing new.
So whatever new product of any brand will bring is a reshuffling/resizing, half an update, and 200% more Bling/Bloat. And Hype.. Apple is the master of that..
Its called product enhancement - keep up with the marketing BS.
I kind of think that the idea of miniaturization is getting lost on Apple and the wider industry.
We used to carry around bricks (Nokia 2110 anyone ?) and everyone got bored and tired doing that. Microelectronics made it possible to make it smaller, so people did and they were generally happy.
We used to carry around big luggable computers then we miniaturized them into laptops and then into netbooks and tablets to save our backs.
Then someone had a bright idea of merging them together - a larger phone so you don't need a tablet
Then some other company decided that we need to make the computer like the phone like the tablet and tried to shoe horn it all into one, because squashing the good things together must make a great thing - right ?.
Either someone put something into the water at that point or something went horribly wrong (like Marketing started reading the same articles)
Dear Apple.
I'd like a phone that isn't huge and can go in my pocket without me looking like I'm really happy.
I'd also like a machine with a bigger screen, say around the size of a book for when I want to read stuff, like when I'm on the train.
I also want a bigger one again for when I want to do productivity stuff and I need a keyboard and to see lots of information.
One size fits nobody and there is always a compromise somewhere..
Microsoft - you might also want to consider this too as you seem to have taken the same mind bending substance with the drive to make a single operating system for different needs.
Can we please have one perfect (or even good enough) thing for each job, a bit like a screwdriver is good for screws and a hammer is good for nails. There is a reason that nobody made the HamDriver as it just doesn't work.
i give you the hammer drill (or rotary hammer as mine calls itself) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_drill
not to be confused with the impact driver... which is somewhat similar.
despite your claim, both actually work very well for their respective uses. admittedly you would never use either (in its main use mode) with a screw.
"...you would never use either (in its main use mode) with a screw."
Yes you would a manual impact driver often comes with just screwdriver bits that are made just for releasing difficult screws.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-Expert-22322-12-Piece-Screwdriver/dp/B0001K9R8U
Last week I swapped a door out for old one from our neighbors.
This involved removing hinges from both doors, and then putting the current ones on the replacement door.
The screws being removed where flatheads, been attached for 10+ years, and so not terribly amenable to being removed.
A third came out with a screwdriver and a lot of swearing. Tools used: screwdriver and molegrip
Next third came out after some persuasion from a simplified impact driver. In other words, a screwdriver being whacked by a hammer. Tools used: screwdriver and hammer.
Then the remaining bastards got drilled out. Tools used: drill on non-hammer settings.
So there you go, utilising screws using a hammer.
I also tend to drive screw+wallplug in with a hammer first, and have been known to utilise it as a brummie/polack screwdriver at times.
Mark "metal basher" Vries.
>I'd also like a machine with a bigger screen, say around the size of a book for when I want to read stuff, like when I'm on the train. ...
>Microsoft - you might also want to consider this too
The crazy thing is, Microsoft had a prototype years ago that was the size of a thin paperback that opened out to reveal two screens. It was called the 'Courier', and rumour is that Bill Gates told Ballmer to kill it. Obviously it wasn't suitable for watching films, but would have been very good at collating and annotating information, and making notes and sketches. It would also be the perfect companion to a 4" phone.
I really want a jacket-pocket sized tablet with high-end stylus for making sketches on the go (and of course, CAD allows sketches to become virtual models, force diagrams, rapid iterations, whatever). Think a iPad Mini Pro, but I don't care who makes it as long as the screen and digitiser are up to par.
It's interesting to note that Apple's Marc Newson has always recorded his initial concepts on a conventional A5 notepad (you don't need acres of space to sketch the essence of a concept - you can expand upon it later when you're back at your desk). Jony Ive isn't much of a computer user either - he prefers sketches and hand-formed materials at the initial design stage.
Of course designers have niche needs (greater than twittering or watching movies), which is why MS killed the Courier, and why Apple never bothered (before the iPad Pro) to step on Wacom's toes with something like a stylus-driven MacBook.
Interesting times.
>They will discover there is also a market for candy bars,
These are widely available and cheap.
>flip, sliders and BB style QWERTY.
Get on Kickstarter then - easy enough to test the waters. If portable text input really is your thing, a phone case incorporating a Microwriter-style chorded keyboard would be a very good solution (and cheap to prototype and manufacture). The only downside would be the learning curve, but typing speeds faster than a small QWERTY would soon be achieved. It would also be suitable for blind users, and discreet note taking.
As for a BB style keyboard... give it a year or two and see if BB's hardware IP gets licensed out.
in all seriousness Apple have traditionally used SE as "Special Edition" for quite a while
http://lowendmac.com/1987/mac-se/ (SE4/40) and later http://lowendmac.com/1999/400-mhz-imac-dv-se-late-1999/ (iMac DVSE)
the iPhoneSE on the definitions hosted at LEM should probably be iPhoneSE2000/16000
Apply is trying to make me upgrade but I carefully found a new Chinese iP5C1000/32000 on Amazon.fr >100 euros cheaper than the iPSE asking price of €450-510 in europe. That'll do me, ymmv.
"Marketing boss Phil Schiller made a point of poking fun at what he estimates to be 600 million Windows PCs that have been in use for five or more years. "That's really sad," he remarked, "these people could really benefit from an iPad Pro."
What really is sad is comments like that from marketing cockwombles. The iPad Pro offers me, and probably many others like me, absolutely nothing that I can't already do on a cheaper and older windows laptop that is a far more convenient package for my uses (my old Samsung NC10 is still in use, for work, 4 nights a week!). I was beginning to warm to Apple (well, their laptops at least) but it's comments like that, from the very people that are supposed to be seducing people like me, which make me want to dig my heels in with even greater resolve. Sell your products on their merits Phil, keep your sad little jibes to yourself.
I think apple was taking a little jibe at MS here.
They have seen a lot of people move away from windows to both Macs and iPads.
sort of just saying
When you are fed up to the back teeth with Windows, come on by and take a look at what we offer.
You are right in that there are cheaper alternatives but for the unwashed massed esp in the USA who shop at places like 'Best Buy' there is not much on offer that isn't Windows 10 or Apple. Much like PC-World really.
The reality is that many of the people who currently use a windows PC could do what they want with a tablet, be it Android or Apple.
Now, if Apple were to start putting out adverts showing this then your statement will have a lot more validity. Until then, it will probably amount to very little at all.
YMMV
"Marketing boss Phil Schiller made a point of poking fun at what he estimates to be 600 million Windows PCs that have been in use for five or more years. "That's really sad," he remarked, "these people could really benefit from an iPad Pro."
Yes indeedy Phil; everyone has a few hundred spare bucks burning a hole in their pocket. Fuck off with your distorted world view assuming everyone else is just like you (and me, for that matter) with spare cash to splash on nonessential items. If you want to help many of these people benefit from an iPad Pro perhaps you should lower the profit margins and slow the product cycle? Didn't think so.
"nonessential items" - let's face, almost everything on the tech news these days has to do with nonessential items. If you organize your work and life accordingly, even the cellphone is not essential. Incidentally, if you were to ask Phil Shiller to elaborate, I am pretty sure he can fill you in on the ways "those people" can benefit from an iPad Pro. As you know, an item is only as useful as the competency, knowledge and need of the user. Did I distort the world view further?
>Yep, 'cos my ever increasing photo collection is so easily stored on some poxy little device with only 128GB storage.
I wouldn't trust my photo collection to any one device, be it a laptop with two HDDs or a tablet. At a minimum, you should have any data you care about backed up to another device. Ideally in another building. Many routers have a USB socket for doing this on the cheap with an external HDD, and better performing NASs aren't much more - especially if you compare all the time you've invested in taking 500 GB+ of photos.
You can even configure your NAS to encrypt your data before copying it to the cloud, or get a second unit in your shed or friend's house - in case of fire or theft.
If you're that serious about your photos, you'll nip over to Anandtech and review the colour accuracy of screens from Apple, Samsung, MS, Lenovo etc. For serious workflows, local storage really isn't the chief criterion http://www.anandtech.com/show/9766/the-apple-ipad-pro-review/8
(Typed on a Dell with a 128GB spinning-rust HDD that is perfectly good for CAD and Photoshop. I'm not the only one using a 5 year old laptop, either)
@Dave 126: I already have NAS and off-site copies. My issue is with the whole cloud nonsense. As has been shown, cloud backups (or copies) are great until it turns out that there's an issue with that backup (or copy) and you don't know until you try to restore. 99.99% is great unless you're the 0.001%, if it even gets anywhere near that anyhow. rsync with checksum onto something you control, or ZFS snapshotting, is a much better option in my opinion. Especially so when you are dealing with hundreds of gigabytes. Do cloud providers even let you control those sorts of things or is it just blind trust? I looked at Crashplan at one stage because of their seed disk option but you still end up with GBs of transfer with a modern camera from even a small shoot. Never mind video.
"The iPad Pro offers me, and probably many others like me, absolutely nothing that I can't already do on a cheaper and older windows laptop"
And that is the crucial point. Apples business model is based on a fairly rapid upgrade cycle and we are currently in a phase where 5 year old tech is still adequate for the job, probably for the first time in the history of mass personal computing.
Up until now, the business model had been bigger, faster, better to get people to upgrade but the prices paid for tech was high enough that people only upgraded when the had to. Apple introduced the "upgrade because it's more shiny" model but even the fanbois are starting to realise that last years model is not only still working, but this years model is really not all that different in either looks or capabilities. MS have the same problem with Windows, hence the nagging for Win10 upgrades, marking it free and collecting marketing data instead.
if you look very closely at the Apple website, rather than spend €510 for a new shiny iPhone SE due a fading battery on the classic iPhone5, it's possible to change the iP5 battery at Apple for around 79 dollars/euros. . . that could push the iP5 to a six - year refresh cycle?- they were very well made phones.
3rdParty batteries & change-toolkits for iP5 are around $20/€25, and there's not much glue - just tiny things to deal with. http://letsunlockiphone.guru/replace-iphone-5-battery-instruction/
You're absolutely right. There used to be a saying that giving any comment on a competitor -even negative- was marketing. Not only is it weak, but it also highlights that competitor as one you actually care enough about to mention them.
I would keep that man away from any ability to make public statements. Especially someone who actually ADMITS to being in marketing let alone be "boss of" ought to know better.
Apple has to introduce something new but it is doubtful they are going to come up with anything that is a game changer like the Ipod and the Iphone. They are now a mature company and even though they want to keep the image of being young and hip they are in effect like General Motors.
Laptops/tablets and phones are commodity items now. It didn't take long for that to happen. Now it is all about either price or the selling of an imagined self tied to product ownership. It will take some time for the Apple aura to fade but it will and then all that will be left is the product itself which in terms of basic functionality (what most people use) is not that different from many others.
They have had a pretty good run and there main job now is not to lose customers. They are definitely in maintenance mode.
People have been overspending on computing functionality for decades, buying powerful machines when all they did was word processing and email, buying gargantuan word processing programs with all kinds of desktop publishing and academic paper format features when all they did was write letters and buying phones based on a huge library of apps most of which will never be downloaded even once.
Even with all creepy privacy invasion and data mining that is going on with web usage it looks like people really only need a Chromebook for those who can type, a basic tablet for those who can't and a smart phone for truly portable communication.
There will always be a market for status products and maybe that is Apple's niche but in the long run, it will not survive as a mass supplier unless they come up with something truly new that none of us knew could be done in the way they do it.
>They have had a pretty good run and there main job now is not to lose customers. They are definitely in maintenance mode.
I largely agree, though I will note that 'the next big thing' is an 'unknown unknown'.
In support of your statement, the iPhone SE is the cheapest ever new iPhone, cheaper than the plastic iPhone 5 C was at launch. For the the first time, a new iPhone with the latest internals and camera (more or less) is less than £400. This is the price range that I bought my last Android phone (Xperia Z3 Compact) just over a year ago, and until recently was full of Chinese phones with the same specs as pricey Korean flagships (though these have begun to drop to the £200 ish range, if you can find one).
It may be the "cheapest" (least expensive), but I would never call around £400 cheap for a phone.
I payed £60 for my Moto G, and peanuts for Giffgaff.
I nowadays refuse to line the pockets of Vodafone, and its buddies.Just wish I didn't have to pay BT-tax every month for a land-line that only serves as an ADSL wire.
Fair enough, but in the Apple context, would "the faithful" be acceptable?
No, for the same reasons. This whole stupid religious idiocy has no place in a reasoned debate.
Having said that, that is MY opinion. I can't impose that on others, but it reflects what I think is right in an honest debate. This whole Apple envy is really rather pathetic, I would prefer to talk about the merits of either platform so both get better. Apple is in that respect a lot further than Android because it suffers the same sort of hardware fragmentation that Microsoft has to deal with as well, and in both cases (Google/Microsoft), the focus wasn't security to start with. As far as I can tell, even now, the only reason either focus on security is because not doing so means a loss of either users (Microsoft,Google Android), or of competitive information to others (Google).
The reason Apple is ahead here is simple, and very American: it has decided that that's where the money is for hardware providers.
... were invented/decided upon by Samsung et. al. in order that they could host larger batteries to support the energy slug known as Android. It turned out that there was a market for phones with touchscreens which require two handed operation, an attribute not really on the Apple radar at the iPhone inception or any time in the following few years.
There is a clear need for "smaller" screened devices (the "compact" devices of Son, Samsung et.al. , and Apple is just upgrading it's current offerings in that space. There is not much new here, except a new device in the small screen niche that can operate with newer hardware and still have "acceptable" battery life.
The "apple haters" here are out in force, but at usual, they have lost the plot.
I don't suppose it matters much as they'll mostly end up stuck in ugly cases, but I was a bit surprised to see this new phone in an ancient (in tech terms) case.
It's the sort of thing I'd expect of a company making-do-and-mend, like Sony. (Just kidding. Sort of I have one!)
Is Jony too busy designing cars now?
> but I was a bit surprised to see this new phone in an ancient (in tech terms) case.
This iPhone 5 SE is in an old industrial design to differentiate it from the pricier 6S and 6S Plus models, with which it shares most of its critical components (SoC, camera).
The iPhone SE is cheaper at launch than even the plastic iPhone 5C. This is the first time Apple has offered a fully up-to-date iPhone at such a low (by their standards) price.
I like Sony's Xperia phone designs, and don't think they should change for change's sake, though I can't help but note that if my Z3 Compact had an aluminium bezel like the iPhone 5S/SE it wouldn't currently have a broken screen (The Z3 Compact is a great phone, but the official Sony case is rubbish, and only protects the phone on three sides... and guess which side fell against a sharp edge)
The iPhone 5/5S/SE case design is (IMHO) by far the most attractive of all iPhone case designs. Far more stylish than the rounded and bland 6 case design. I have both a 5S (old phone, now used for work) and 6S (bought to replace the 5S as personal phone) so have had plenty of time to compare the two. If I were buying a new iPhone now, it would be the SE hands down. If the iPhone 7 looks anything like the 6 design, then I probably won't be tempted to buy one.
The new phone is cheaper than previous iPhones by a very significant margin; it is around the price of a Sony Z5C (nearest Android equivalent) in the US. It looks like Apple may be starting to reduce prices in the face of the Chinese starting to think about Europe and the US.
Apple's main product differentiators may quite quickly come to be the physical shops and the delivery of updates. The latter is perhaps the most important.
I have a Z3 Compact (4.6"), and it is significantly wider than the 4" iPhone 5.
I have average-sized hands for a British male, and my thumb can easily reach 80% or so of the Sony's screen, and 100% with a slight stretch. If the dials on my use-case were twiddled so that I spent more time speaking on the phone, I might have chosen a 4" phone (if a 4" Android with fast internals existed) because it is just that little bit more secure in the hand (the hand is closer to it's relaxed, slightly curled position).
A 4" phone is like playing cards, designed to be easy to hold in a hand. A 5"+ phone is like a postcard, better for displaying a picture. All design and engineering is compromise.
>It looks like Apple may be starting to reduce prices in the face of the Chinese starting to think about Europe and the US.
Also Apple's plans regarding China and India. Don't overlook how much cheaper the new iPhone 5 SE is compared to all of Apple's previous new up-to-date (internally) iPhones.
Actually quite a sensible move by Apple. I think Smartphones have gotten as big as they practically can for now, and plenty of people want something small, easy to handle and unobtrusive that can still run all the big apps smoothly. The only issue is there are plenty of cheaper Android phones that have similar capabilities but Apple's strong points are:
1) Immediate delivery of iOS updates, although to less technical users this might be meaningless.
2) Ease of use. Android has made great strides here but I think Apple still offer and easier "pick up and go" experience.
3) Apps. Again, Android has caught up but big apps or updates still seem to hit iOS first.
I recently bought a Samsung S7 Edge but did toy with the idea of a 6S plus. While the S7 is great, you do get the confusion added by Samsung's bloatware - multiple calender and messaging apps etc. My previous LG G3 was similar with loads of unwanted guff added and multiple, non removable apps for the same purpose.
Now this cheaper Apple option has emerged it may be harder to decide against it next time I upgrade - I could live with a smaller screen for such a big price difference and a more streamlined experience!
I thought the built in SIM card idea had surfaced and died a couple of years ago.
Oh yeah, we're talking about Apple.. what's old is new again.
I think the problem last time around with built in SIM cards was that you couldn't change to another carrier after you hooked up to your initial carrier.
>I thought the built in SIM card idea had surfaced and died a couple of years ago.
Nah, the soft SIM has been present and correct in some iPads since Apple introduced them in 2014. There is still a physical SIM slot, so you can put in a locally-purchased SIM if that suits you. Obviously the negotiations with telcos were different for data iPads than voice iPhones.
"Marketing boss Phil Schiller made a point of poking fun at what he estimates to be 600 million Windows PCs that have been in use for five or more years. "That's really sad," he remarked, "these people could really benefit from an iPad Pro."
I attended a "training session" where an Apple representative held up an iPad and said "I am going to tell you 25 times; this is not a computer". If that is the case then 600 million Windows PC user would likely NOT have benefited from having an expensive "this is not a computer" thingy.
Also, Joe Cox, you still owe us 7 "This is not a computer" s from that training event.
This article is clickbait. Clear and simple. Way too easy to speed-read this into “…a pair of small iPhones and iPads for people with itty-bitty minds”, “…and M9 coprocessor, the 12MP myopic iSee One Side Only Camera, NFC I-Can-Afford-This-You-Can’t Pay capability, the "I’ll Sue You" voice input and Touch ID fingerprint deporter”.
When you said 'Donald Trump iPhone' I thought you were going to talk about a phone that:
1) Comes with 'Don': the Apple equivalent of Microsoft's 'Tay' and the evil b*stard offspring of an unholy one-time coupling between Siri and Cortana. Don is designed to simulate a disillusioned Republican in his late 30's, living in his mother's basement and spending his life on Twitter, Disqus and Candy Crush Saga. Whatever you do, don't mention Mexicans, Muslims, Europeans, Africans, Asians, Canadians or Tourists (terrorists) to Don.
2) Unlike the iPhone 6 the SE is unbendable. Not at all. Completely unyielding.
3) Comes with a yellow, furry, cover. Completely removable for washing but be aware that 'Don' may scream at you that its his real cover.
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