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IMO, this was a pretty weak announcement. They spent so long talking about environmental stuff, like getting rid of leather, that it felt like they were trying
by gnicholas 3y ago
IMO, this was a pretty weak announcement. They spent so long talking about environmental stuff, like getting rid of leather, that it felt like they were trying to pad the presentation to reach a reasonable length. There were a few new things (more optical zoom, slightly smaller bezels), but these were all leaked in advance.
I was also disappointed to hear that the satellite stuff is limited to 2 years. Is it going to be yet another subscription after that?
- kmlx 3y ago> They spent so long talking about environmental stuff, like getting rid of leather which reminds me, i need to buy extra leather cases. in any case, this is what happens when you've got nothing to present.
- gnicholas 3y agoThey won't fit new iPhones, IIUC. Third parties will still make them, but they won't be available as rapidly as Apple's cases. I'm curious how much they're charging for this 'premium' new FineWoven material, which they pitch as a replacement for leather. Will they price it the same? Will people be willing to pay that much?
- kmlx 3y ago> They won't fit new iPhones no, i'll be buying them for my current iphone.
- gnicholas 3y agoHow many leather cases do you go through per phone? I think they just said they're not making any new leather products, not immediately killing all existing ones. I'm sure the sales channels will eventually dry up though.
- kmlx 3y ago> How many leather cases do you go through per phone? one every 3 to 6 months, depends on how long i'm travelling for (as that's when i usually drop/scratch/etc my case the most).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pb7 3y agoYou should take better care of your things. A leather case every 3 months is unbelievably wasteful. This type of careless behavior is killing our planet.
- gnicholas 3y agoI appreciate that you rephrased this from your original comment, which was incredibly dismissive. But this is still condescending and hyperbolic. I'm as surprised as the next guy that anyone would go through multiple iPhone cases per year, but I don't know anything about him, his family/habits/clumsiness, so I would not make such judgmental remarks. And from a practical perspective, you will win zero converts by telling strangers on the internet that they are "killing our planet".
- callalex 3y agoI don’t personally use leather, but I have been lead to believe that it is the longest-lasting and most repairable material. Are those people just lying to justify their purchasing habits?
- r00fus 3y agoInteresting. I still have my iPhone6 leather case (been meaning to throw it out) - it's a bit worn around the edges but it still holds and isn't gummy. Currently I find otterbox cases are fantastic grip/slide ratio that I prefer to my old leather case.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- zikduruqe 3y agoThe new-er leather cases are no where near the quality of the X, Xs series leather cases. My 5 year old Xs leather case was like a baseball glove from my youth. These newer ones, like the one on my iPhone 14 just doesn't wear the same.
- gnicholas 3y agoI haven't had a case since the 6, which was nice. I could imagine that as time went on and volume went up, they had to source lousier leather. The cynic in me also wonders if they didn't keep their leather products as nice so that people wouldn't miss it as much after it's replaced by FakeLeather, or whatever they're calling it.
- jamiedumont 3y agoSmall (anec)data point, but I got invited last week by my local Apple Store to attend the event there and upgrade on the day. Never had that happen before, and have a history (that Apple surely knows) of buying 6 months after launch and then holding for 4-7 years. I get the impression — admittedly having not watched the event — that Apple feel the need to work hard and drum up interest for this release.
- lozenge 3y agoBut it isn't even shipping for ten more days! Anybody who accepted that invite must be going home disappointed.
- gnicholas 3y agoSuper weird. I've had iPhones since day 1, but never gotten such an invite. They must know that demand will be weak. I was thinking I'd upgrade my 13 mini, but after seeing this lineup I may stay on the sidelines for now. I expect there will be some sales coming in a couple months, at least through carriers.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI bought a 13mini yesterday based on rumors that it would be discontinued today. Was waiting to see if they had a new mini, and obviously they do not so glad I grabbed it. Xs, 13, 14, 15, it’s all the same to me except a mini feels so much easier to handle.
- cduzz 3y agoI recently switched from android to the iphone ecosystem; I had a 3a and then a 4a, and recently updated to a 7a, but it never really clicked with me -- just too big. Got a 13 mini; I kinda don't like a bunch of aspects of the iphone ecosystem, but the mini form factor is really perfect. Very much too bad that it's now dead.
- gnicholas 3y agoI liked my 11 Pro before the mini, but if I'm going to go back to a non-mini phone I'll have to toss some of my jeans, whose pockets are too small for non-mini phones. I do find typing on the 11 Pro to be easier than on the mini, since the keyboard is wider. But I love to swipe-type on the mini.
- jbm 3y agoOn one hand they talk about getting rid of leather, then they talk about getting something with a "suede" feeling. I hope we aren't replacing leather with microplastics-infused future garbage.
- gnicholas 3y agoOf course that's what's happening. How else would Apple reduce its microplastic footprint come 2035, if they didn't stealthily increase it in 2023? Perhaps they'll cut down on microplastic pollution with a return to 'natural' materials. I wonder if leather might fit the bill?
- scrollaway 3y ago[flagged]
- noknownsender 3y agoSome of us are really just that cynical.
- Arn_Thor 3y agoArtificial leather is mostly fungus based these days
- Klonoar 3y agoThere exist leather alternatives that use no plastic. ;P
- abraxas 3y agoI wonder how much worse accidental UI interactions will be due to smaller bezels. I alredy despise phones that I have to pick up _really_ carefully not to engage some completely unwanted gesture.
- Octoth0rpe 3y agoThe best part about smaller bezels is that you can always buy a protective case that adds more bezel. Inversely, large bezels never get smaller.
- gnicholas 3y agoYep, I see pretty much zero reason to go with the 15 Pro, other than to avoid the terrible colors of the 15. The Pro Max gets the better camera, but the smaller Pro seems like a lousy deal — especially if the smaller bezels result in more accidental touches.
- zetazzed 3y agoWoah, fairly confusing. Looks like the base Pro gets the same "pro camera" according to this: https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/ https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/ But the zoom options are different so it's clearly not the same.
- gnicholas 3y agoThey also talked confusingly about optical-quality zoom, or some such thing, on the lower end phones. They made it sound like you can either take a 48MP photo or a zoomed 24MP photo. Sounds like digital zoom to me...
- drexlspivey 3y agoI love the "This is our best $PRODUCT yet", duh is there a company making worse products every iteration?
- hkgjjgjfjfjfjf 3y agoFord
- gnicholas 3y agoI believe you mean GM, which is getting rid of CarPlay and Android Auto.
- twobitshifter 3y agoFord https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MUkFsuilVD0&t=2s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MUkFsuilVD0&t=2s
- mr_toad 3y agoA car manufacturer forcing you to buy a particular model of car stereo used to be a textbook example of anti-competitive bundling.
- thatguy0900 3y agoThere's a lot of instances of brands being bought just to slowly milk into the ground by the new owners
- jcrash 3y agoMicrosoft
- TylerE 3y agoThere are a lot of days I'd be strongly tempted to answer that with "Google", but that's unfair since they usually just kill the product rather than actively making it worse.
- 3y ago
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoI didn't see the announcement, but I saw this blurb on Engadget: > The company noted that while leather is popular for things like watch straps, it has a serious impact on the environment, particularly at Apple's scale. Is that actually true? I remember reading a few years ago that there was actually a big glut of leather: people still eat steak and hamburgers, and without a market for the cow hides then that material is wasted. That is, I thought the leather market was largely a byproduct of the beef market, and that reducing leather usage won't have a measurable impact on reducing the number of slaughtered cows.
- AlanYx 3y agoIt's hard to know for sure. The most common analysis, following the PEFCR standard, takes the carbon impact of cows and then divides it up in a certain ratio between flesh and leather products, then adds the tanning and production steps. Arguably it would be fairer to treat leather as purely a byproduct, which would dramatically reduce the resulting carbon footprint numbers for leather.
- Solvate8441 3y agoWould the price of meat go up without the sale of leather? If so, I think it's more fair to call it a coproduct rather than a byproduct.
- saiya-jin 3y agoReplace killing cows with micro plastic pollution, slap Apple price on it and call it an eco improvement. In few years full reverse, cleaning up the planet while supporting free range happy lives of cows. Really, who actually buys this in-your-face bullshit? There are proper technical improvements to talk about.
- notJim 3y agoI learned recently that microplastics are primarily from fabrics. Our polyester/synthetic workout clothes shed them in the washer and they end up everywhere. Plastics also generally have a pretty low carbon footprint, ironically.
- BonoboIO 3y agoI m stunned that a company like Apple sold leather cases for a premium price with a quality that you can only call trash. Every 10 dollar knockoff from AliExpress had better quality than this. Not selling these anymore is not a big loss.
- armchairhacker 3y agoIn their defense, iPhones haven’t changed much, and IMO that’s a good thing. I still use an iPhone SE and haven’t experienced any issues. I have a much older iPhone which i stopped using a couple years ago but it was the same, and I suspect it might still even support the latest OS and apps
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoI have recently been led to believe that people eat so much beef that so a ton of potential cow hide goes to waste instead of being turned into leather because there isn't enough demand for leather (compared to beef). Is this true or false? If it's true - then how is leather bad for the environment? I don't eat beef - but it's interesting to me how many people eat hamburgers and then look at someone with a leather bag like they're the devil. As with a lot of things environmental - this seems purely idealist and not realist.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y agoThey are imagining it like an elephant killed just for its tusks. For some leather goods made from certain animals this might be true, but today almost all parts of the animal usually have a buyer and end up getting used in some way, even if it's just ground up into dogfood.
- 9dev 3y agoInstead of supposing something, how about you take Google for a stroll and figure out the (very interesting) answer to this yourself. Spoiler: leather actually has a profoundly grave impact, and it’s not just a „free“ by-product of meat.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoGoogling can also tell you the opposite. YMMV. The main answer I get is that leather is a by-product of meat, but some claim it is a co-product.
- lofaszvanitt 3y agoThis satellite thing... carriers around the world gonna love it when Apple decides its time to leave them out from the equation and will use Musk's satellites.
- thorncorona 3y agoDon’t believe satellites have enough bandwidth for dense urban areas
- lofaszvanitt 3y ago!
- jonplackett 3y agoWeakest announcement in years. The watch was also devoid of any new features. This is borderline 'should have been a press release' territory.
- delfinom 3y agoApple struggling to cope their products have reached maturity heh
- gnicholas 3y agoIMO, it's not mature if the battery life is one day. The product it is seeking to replace (a "watch") can last for years on a single battery. Most people wouldn't mind charging once every week or two, but a "watch" that has to be charged every day is not a mature product in my book. It's especially embarrassing because Garmin and various Chinese companies (Amazfit) have sleeker watches that run for weeks. Apple could sell a lot more watches if they upped their battery life game. I guess they want a watch that can do a zillion things, one day at a time. I prefer a watch that can do a few things, for a couple weeks at a time.
- nomel 3y ago> Apple could sell a lot more watches if they upped their battery life game. This would certainly require a display tech change. What do you have in mind?
- gnicholas 3y agoI find the Amazfit display to be very nice, and it lasts 2 weeks on a charge. I have no idea why Apple is stuck at daily charging for the AW9. I could pay $800 to get an AWU, and then use it in low-power mode for up to 5 days, but that seems absurd. The Amazfit GTR 4 is 1/4 the price and the battery lasts 3x as long (as low-power mode AWU)
- nomel 3y ago
- nemo44x 3y agoIt’s just another way of increasing margins and justifying it with platitudes about environmentalism. Corporations co-opting things for profit. It’s why you can’t get a paper bag at many grocery stores today. Those bags cost them a lot of money that’s now going into their pockets while you are forced to buy bag after bag (because who always has a bag on them?!) that only becomes a net positive after thousands of uses. Which it never will come close to.
- skhavari 3y agoAll software teams are busy porting apps to Vision Pro
- whycome 3y agoWas it only weak because you knew about the new things in advance? The switch to USBC seems pretty significant. As well as the 3mm chip in the pro models.
- gnicholas 3y agoThe move to USB-C is a big deal for some people, but it’s hardly a headline feature for a new phone. The new manufacturing technique is nice, but only if it translates into tangible benefits for the user (which were not apparent from the presentation).
- accrual 3y ago> but these were all leaked in advance. Does being leaked in advance have anything to do with their presentation? "Oh that was leaked, I guess we shouldn't bother mentioning it".
- gnicholas 3y agoNot strictly speaking, but in this case there were hardly and exciting leaks. Some people care about USB-C (I don’t), and some people care about the new zoom levels (I do, but not enough to buy an enormous phone).
- callalex 3y agoIf they actually cared about the environment they would have spent that time describing how easy they made it to replace the screen and battery on every announced device.
- itisit 3y agoApple should have kept the S model name suffix. These half-upgrades underwhelm when the devices are marketed as fully new models.
- charlesfries 3y agoThe sales and marketing people are running the company now
- twobitshifter 3y agoI really liked the Mother Nature part. It may be greenwashing but it’s encouraging to see the world’s biggest company taking these steps. Planting forests, installing solar grids, carbon neutral offices, that all costs the company, it’s not cost savings disguised as green actions. Sure it has marketing value, but that’s hard to measure. Smaller plastic free packaging and shipping by sea on the other hand could be made to save money without care for the environment. Being able to market it as green is just an added bonus.
- baby 3y agoAnd no folding iPhone :(
- jq-r 3y agoThe only iPhone I'm actually looking forward to. I'm sure they'll produce one, but will take a few years still.