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Apple’s boring hardware updates
- jonknee 16y agoMoving to a longer cycle also has the benefit of being friendly to people who purchase the iPhone with a service contract. It's tough to be in a two-year deal for a one-year device.
- liamk 16y agoIt's even worse if you're in a 3-year contract (common in Canada). With that said, it's not to difficult to delay gratification and hold upgrades off for a few years.
- querulous 16y agodo any of the canadian carriers not allow upgrades at the two year mark (with a three year contract extension, of course)? i know rogers and telus both do (did).
- ugh 16y agoSo the iPhone self-destructs now after twelve months? Devilish what Apple is coming up with these days. Normal people don't buy a new iPhone every year. And even nerds should know that the market is moving at such a speed that it will be nearly impossible for them to own the latest and greatest at any point in time. All iPhones were at least 24 month devices.
- jonknee 16y agoI think the point was more of a focus on software. Where we are today I think the iPhone 4 stands up in hardware, but is lagging in software (notification UI, reliance on iTunes, etc). An extra four months for some more RAM and maybe faster data access isn't going to bother most people.
- matthew-wegner 16y agoAT&T has been fairly generous with upgrade amnesty, allowing iPhone upgrades while under contract (which resets your two-year timer, of course). IIRC, they allowed anyone to upgrade to a 3GS and cut off ~6 months for an iPhone 4, in addition to special iPhone 4 pricing for those under longer remaining contracts. But yes, I imagine Apple has lost some leverage here now that AT&T is no longer exclusive.
- ROFISH 16y agoI wouldn't be surprised if AT&T still did it to band-aid hemorrhaging to Verizon.
- dvdhsu 16y ago> Or an LTE chipset > Would any of those justify an event? Yes. LTE would be deserving of an event, especially if the launch of the iPhone coincides with the launch of LTE from ATT.
- zdw 16y agoAgreed, but the timing might not be this summer. Apple has been known to wait until the chipset hits their power envelope requirements - witness the original Edge-only 2G iPhone when cheap phones of the same vintage were already 3G.
- zdw 16y agoMy wager for this summer/fall is an "iPhone 4S" with the A5 processor, with almost no other hardware changes. Plus a launch of iOS 5, with a revamped notification system, more developer API's, and possibly some UI reworks (iOS is looking pretty long in the tooth compared to things like Windows Phone 7)
- joshzayin 16y agoI would tend to doubt that the changes will be that small, considering the massive negative media attention 'antennagate' got--I think it's likely that they'll at least move the antenna to eliminate that problem, which would seem to necessitate some appearance redesigns as well. They might not, but it would somewhat surprise me.
- ugh 16y agoYou mean that antenna stuff nobody cares about anymore?
- barefoot 16y agoI know a few people who have the money to buy an iPhone 4 that will not simply because of the "consumer reports" iPhone antenna review. It's nonsensical for sure but I wouldn't be surprised if it would help apple to put the issue to bed for good.
- twodayslate 16y agoI never have a problem with my antenna. If it does drop... it is unnoticeable.
- wdewind 16y agoMine too, but the current VZW iPhone doesn't support 4g/LTE, so my bet would be for that.
- twodayslate 16y agoI was hoping for dual cores and iOS5 (notification feature mainly). My brother is saying they will be integrating a credit card system. That could be possible.
- mcav 16y agoThe iPhone doesn't need to get any smaller, and the display won't need any more increases in resolution. That's practically it's only noticeable physical feature. Anything they add to it at this point will be hard to notice unless it adds substantial new functionality. They can always improve on speed, camera resolution, and storage; they could add LTE and NFC, but I can't think of much else that would even need hardware support that they couldn't add in software.
- kenjackson 16y agoA 4" display would be a pretty big deal. As would 3D support.
- laujen 16y agoApple's events are almost always an hour. With that in mind, it is hard to see how any of these hardware announcements, event LTE, would take up an hour long presentation.
- jad 16y agoIt's important to keep in mind that for Apple, hardware and software are not independent products. The software, as great as it often is on its own, exists to sell the hardware. Most of the iPhone's most compelling features, judging from what Apple chooses to promote, come in the form of software that takes advantage of new hardware. Think FaceTime with the iPhone 4, or video recording with the iPhone 3GS. These aren't the kind of big splash features that can typically come with just a software update. Also consider the significant fact that new iPhones come with huge public exposure. Usually glowing stories on The Today Show and Good Morning America, articles in The New York Times, etc. This is publicity you can't buy. Free iOS updates, even if they have major version numbers attached to them, just don't have the same sex appeal with the public. New hardware just seems to focus the customer's mind in a way that I'm not sure software can.
- jsz0 16y agoI'm not sure we're at that point yet but it will happen eventually. Once the iPhone gets a multi-core processor, much faster GPU, and 4G what else is really left for a yearly update? I doubt we'll see an octo-core iPhone 6 with 4 cameras, 2K display and 5G radios in 2013. The possible delay for the iPhone 5 seems more about re-aligning the product release schedule. It doesn't really matter when the iPhone is released. Most people only buy a new phone with they are eligible for a subsidized upgrade. The iPad, and iPod Touch, are the items that need a big back-to-school/x-mas production push. It must be difficult (or at least expensive) for Apple to release the iPhone mid-year and 2 months later gear up for the iPad/iPod rush. I think we'll probably see the iPad 2 get an extended shelf life too. The rumors of an iPad release in September were probably correct they just got the year wrong -- it'll be 2012. The last piece of this is they may move to more frequent, but minor, OS updates. This has already started to happen with 4.x where each release brought some significant features. Perhaps all the bundled apps will be updated through the App Store instead of OS updates as part of this.
- bigfudge 16y ago256k should be enough for anybody.
- jrockway 16y ago... LTE chipset (which currently has coverage almost nowhere) Whoa! Marco is beginning to sound more annoying than Gruber. The Apple fanbois make statements like this all the time -- Apple doesn't support something, so therefore it's irrelevant? LTE is available in NYC, LA, and Chicago (and 20 other cities), which are the three biggest markets in the US. That's not "nowhere", that's "a good chunk of the population". Let me know when you can buy a Thunderbolt peripheral :)
- chrisbolt 16y agoHow good is that LTE coverage though, even within those cities? Granted, I'm on AT&T, but today I was on the sunset strip in Hollywood and my iPhone dropped to EDGE. The sunset strip doesn't even have 3G and I'm supposed to get excited about 4G?
- joebadmo 16y agoI don't understand your logic or why you are getting upvotes. You're comparing Verizon's LTE (for which the reviews are generally amazing) to ATT's notoriously bad 3G, especially on the iPhone.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- beaumartinez 16y agoOkay, in the US it has some coverage. But globally?
- blub 16y ago"The Apple fanbois make statements like this all the time" Yes, I find that to be the case also. While it's true that Apple builds good products, the fans generally try to make them look more innovative and to put the competition in a bad light. This can be explained by cognitive dissonance.
- tinotopia 16y ago
- vl 16y agoMy bet is on a larger screen: resolution is high enough to support larger screen and competition has nice large screens already.
- eelco 16y agoiOS and all the apps are build for a specific _physical_ size. A larger screen would mean apps would need to scale (or run in an awkward smaller size) which would look terrible and be awkward to use (very large buttons). The alternative would be to ask developers to make another, slightly larger version of their apps. Not going to happen ;)
- allwein 16y agoThe apps are built for a specific resolution. As long as the screen resolution is 320x480 or 640x960, the actual physical dimensions of the screen are irrelevant.
- bzbarsky 16y ago.. or 960x1440!
- oleganza 16y agoIf you mean that developers adjust pixels sizes for the finger (like "button should be no less than 40x40 points"), then it's not that strict. iPad has less points per inch than iPhone, but the standard buttons all have the same logical sizes on both devices. If iPhone 5(6,7) has a bigger physical screen, then all the controls will simply become a little bit bigger (but still smaller than on iPad, btw) and retina display resolution will still be high enough to have sharp text and graphics. The only apps that rely on physical size are some sort of virtual rulers. When pixel size is changed, they need to be modified to adjust to that.
- Flow 16y agoWhat a silly person. The hardware is magic! :)
- aufreak3 16y agoThere is still a lot of scope for significant hardware changes in the device space. A couple of my favourites - a) Pen input on iPad category devices (great for schools!) and b) camera embedded within the display (so you can look at the other in the eye).
- daimyoyo 16y agoI was really surprised that Apple chose to unveil thunderbolt in a press release rather than at an event. They'd been working with Intel for years and at the end all it garnered was "oh by the way the new MB pros will have lightpeak I/O ports built in and we're calling it thunderbolt." Couldn't they have waited the few weeks until the iPad announcement and unveiled it then? Apple missed a huge opportunity for free press(they were already there for the iPad, why not tell them about your revolutionary new I/O technology?) but oh well. Guess even Apple drops the ball from time to time.
- dot 16y agothe ipad 2 was on the front page of thousands of free daily commuter papers across the globe. nobody cares about a new port. event or not.
- djhworld 16y agoWhile I really like the idea of 10GB/s transfer speeds, I can't help but think Thunderbolt will go down the path of Firewire. It's called Unviersal Serial Bus for many reasons, but I still think USB will remain king, regardless of transfer speeds
- DougBTX 16y agoYou could look at it the other way around: they were getting good press for the iPad2, why dilute it with news about a port update?
- efields 16y agoLightpeak is impressive, but there's barely any hardware out there for it. What could they do to show it off? Show it transfering gigs of movies between some $500 lacie drive in seconds? It might be impressive to us, but until lightpeak hardware drops to a consumer-friendly pricepoint, its really nothing that will help sell products to the average consumer.
- gnok 16y agoNot really. It would look extremely awkward to announce a new port standard and then announce a brand new device that does not have that port, nor comes with a dongle to convert. No ball dropped here.
- Enlightenment 16y agoPeople eventually see-through the fruity-ass brainwashing and discover that what they currently own is good enough and they don't need the latest magical fruity-ass product.
- Enlightenment 16y agoThe magical fairy dust eventually loses its luster, and people discover their current fruity-ass product is good enough. The next magical unicorn is not that much more magical than the last one.
- tomkarlo 16y agoApple isn't a hardware vendor: it isn't building its strategy off continually trying to get people to switch to the "latest and greatest." Instead, it's focusing on making it's money off the app store / itunes platform, and doing that makes it more important to keep their existing customers happy and on the phones they've already bought. That's why you see them being so consistent about upgrades, etc and support for the older units than other manufacturers. Continual planned obsolescence is great for hardware sales but tends to make your customers feel a little sour about the product they bought from you last year. If you really want them to be loyal, buying apps and staying with the brand, it seems like a better plan to keep them happy through as much of the product cycle as possible by reducing hardware churn and focusing on software upgrades you can use for marketing but also distribute to your existing base.