4 ms·

All the friggin' shaders we have to run to waste GPU cycles, just to get those blobs pretending to refract light. Don't even get me started about the ever-incre

All the friggin' shaders we have to run to waste GPU cycles, just to get those blobs pretending to refract light. Don't even get me started about the ever-increasing border radii!?

abujazar 1y ago
Those huge rounded corners do waste a lot of screen estate.
notfried 1y ago
This rounded corner change feels very off. Since Apple has that same radius across all its products (software and hardware), it could be signaling a broader upcoming shift in their hardware, perhaps driven by industrial design needs for future AR/VR/MR glasses.
terhechte 1y ago
What I find comical is that the same people praising this on various networks are often the same that hate on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or AI because of the energy usage. Apple has 1bio devices out there, if each of them consumes 10% more energy due to this change, that's a massive energy consumption increase - and this change offers no functional benefit at all.
- crinkly 1y ago
  I’d just like to state my hatred of all those things is logically consistent on that basis.
- furyofantares 1y ago
  This doesn't check out. Bitcoin uses 100-150 TWh per year. Charging 1 billion phones 365 times uses 3-4 TWh, so a 10% change here would be .3-.4 TWh. The idea that this change would consume 10% more energy seems completely unrealistic too.
- filoeleven 1y ago
  Big if.
Aurornis 1y ago
> All the friggin' shaders we have to run to waste GPU cycles, The GPU compute used by this is trivial for modern SoCs. There is so much power and efficiency in a modern iPhone processor that these simple shaders are entirely negligible.
- dgrin91 1y ago
  It would be an interesting napkin problem to do. Yes it's relatively trivial, but multiply it by 1B smartphones running for many hours every day and how many cities worth of power are you wasting on extraneous shader cycles?
  - atonse 1y ago
    It’s still very little energy. Probably way way less than a bedside lamp per phone. Phones aren’t a good place to try to save aggregate energy use at a population level. They already use vanishingly small amounts of energy compared to just about anything in your house.
- SirMaster 1y ago
  Then why is battery life terrible on iOS 26 and the device is heating up just doing basic stuff with the UI. And it stutters a lot too in places even with a 16 Pro.
  - crazygringo 1y ago
    Because it's a beta. That's normal. It's often been the case. The stuff gets optimized by the actual release. Betas aren't meant for use on your main phone where you want reliability and battery life.
    - jq-r 1y ago
      I'll bet you a dollar that a bit older phones will definitely get slower and get a battery life hit. Definitely helps Apple with the upgrade cycles.
- 1y ago
WorldMaker 1y ago
One could suppose that they need to justify the GPU/NPU hardware bloat originally intended for "Apple Intelligence" now that "Apple Intelligence" seems overblown and under-delivered. Though they'd need a lot more shaders beyond just "glass" to really make a dent in the cycles available from all that hardware.

All the friggin' shaders we have to run to waste GPU cycles, just to get those blobs pretending to refract light. Don't even get me started about the ever-increasing border radii!?

abujazar 1y ago

Those huge rounded corners do waste a lot of screen estate.

notfried 1y ago

This rounded corner change feels very off. Since Apple has that same radius across all its products (software and hardware), it could be signaling a broader upcoming shift in their hardware, perhaps driven by industrial design needs for future AR/VR/MR glasses.

terhechte 1y ago

What I find comical is that the same people praising this on various networks are often the same that hate on cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin or AI because of the energy usage. Apple has 1bio devices out there, if each of them consumes 10% more energy due to this change, that's a massive energy consumption increase - and this change offers no functional benefit at all.

crinkly 1y ago
I’d just like to state my hatred of all those things is logically consistent on that basis.
furyofantares 1y ago
This doesn't check out. Bitcoin uses 100-150 TWh per year. Charging 1 billion phones 365 times uses 3-4 TWh, so a 10% change here would be .3-.4 TWh. The idea that this change would consume 10% more energy seems completely unrealistic too.
filoeleven 1y ago
Big if.

Aurornis 1y ago

> All the friggin' shaders we have to run to waste GPU cycles, The GPU compute used by this is trivial for modern SoCs. There is so much power and efficiency in a modern iPhone processor that these simple shaders are entirely negligible.

dgrin91 1y ago
It would be an interesting napkin problem to do. Yes it's relatively trivial, but multiply it by 1B smartphones running for many hours every day and how many cities worth of power are you wasting on extraneous shader cycles?
- atonse 1y ago
  It’s still very little energy. Probably way way less than a bedside lamp per phone. Phones aren’t a good place to try to save aggregate energy use at a population level. They already use vanishingly small amounts of energy compared to just about anything in your house.
SirMaster 1y ago
Then why is battery life terrible on iOS 26 and the device is heating up just doing basic stuff with the UI. And it stutters a lot too in places even with a 16 Pro.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  Because it's a beta. That's normal. It's often been the case. The stuff gets optimized by the actual release. Betas aren't meant for use on your main phone where you want reliability and battery life.
  - jq-r 1y ago
    I'll bet you a dollar that a bit older phones will definitely get slower and get a battery life hit. Definitely helps Apple with the upgrade cycles.
1y ago

WorldMaker 1y ago

One could suppose that they need to justify the GPU/NPU hardware bloat originally intended for "Apple Intelligence" now that "Apple Intelligence" seems overblown and under-delivered. Though they'd need a lot more shaders beyond just "glass" to really make a dent in the cycles available from all that hardware.