4 ms·

A silly, trivial article with major errors or questionable fudges in basically every paragraph. The writer says the phone can be summed up by an extra row of h

by Bud 14y ago

A silly, trivial article with major errors or questionable fudges in basically every paragraph. The writer says the phone can be summed up by an extra row of home icons; there are in fact improvements to many hardware and software facets of the device. One may not think the improvements are major, but denying their existence temporarily to make an argument is silliness. He then gripes for two paragraphs about his own personal impressions about how Apple presents products, including one paragraph griping about a guy who is now dead, and thus presumably not responsible for the presentation in question, i.e., the iPhone 5 presentation. In the next paragraph, more whining about presentation, plus a blatant lie, saying "Apple tried to convince us that it had stolen a 16:9 display from the gods". Apple did no such thing. I watched the entire 2-hour event. There is not a single boast about Apple magically creating 16:9, originating 16:9, or any other such nonsense. In fact, 16:9 was barely mentioned. At all. The writer is simply making it up. Then griping about a Jony Ive video. Then silliness about how "Thin and light smartphones were an exciting concept a couple of years ago"; perhaps the writer hasn't noticed, but thin and light has ALWAYS been a driving concept in smartphones and basically every other kind of portable (and even non-portable) tech design. It has always been an issue and will always be an issue. So when someone makes something circa 20% thinner and lighter, yes, that is noteworthy. It will not change the course of planetary history single-handedly, but it is notable. He then lies about the hardware, saying that "you would be hard stretched to find any new features except for the single-chip GSM/CDMA/LTE radio". But that's not true either. The CPU is reported to use A15 cores, which would make Apple first to market, but all the writer can do about that is boast of some vaporware product using the A15. The writer ignores the camera upgrades, the speaker upgrade, addition of an extra mic, etc., etc. Later in the article, he gets the software wrong too, talking about how iOS will use the additional screen space: "Rather than do something interesting with this space, though, Apple will simply letterbox all 3:2 apps". That's already untrue; Apple has already redesigned the OS and its own apps to do interesting things with that space, and third parties who make major apps will of course do full redesigns in most cases too. The author then makes a hilariously bad statement about why Apple made the phone thinner: "It seems like Apple felt compelled to increase the iPhone’s screen size, but at the same time it couldn’t summon up the marketing cojones to introduce a phone that was both larger and heavier than the iPhone 4S." Yeah, that's right. The author is actually saying that the phone is lighter and thinner because of Apple's lack of "marketing cojones". It's just hilariously bad writing and control of the facts, all the way through.

stanleydrew 14y ago
It's an opinion piece. I don't think there's any reason to get too upset. We may not agree with it, but I wouldn't say it's bad writing just because I don't agree. People are allowed to gripe. Some people don't think this iPhone is a significant improvement over the last. That's fine. You probably can't convince those people otherwise.
- mikeash 14y ago
  The author is allowed to have his own opinions, but not his own facts. The post you're replying to seems to be complaining about incorrect facts, not just different opinions.
  - stanleydrew 14y ago
    It's a stretch to say that the author made up facts. I'll respond to OP's complaints one by one. > ...a blatant lie, saying "Apple tried to convince us that it had stolen a 16:9 display from the gods". This is clearly an opinion. It's weird to call an opinion a lie. > He then lies about the hardware, saying that "you would be hard stretched to find any new features except for the single-chip GSM/CDMA/LTE radio". Again I wouldn't call this a lie. It's the author's opinion that the most significant new feature is the radio. You could (and OP does) make the argument that the author is willfully ignoring the other feature updates. I still wouldn't call it a lie. > Later in the article, he gets the software wrong too, talking about how iOS will use the additional screen space: "Rather than do something interesting with this space, though, Apple will simply letterbox all 3:2 apps". That's already untrue; I think OP is stretching here. It is true that iOS will letterbox 3:2 apps right? Just because Apple and some developers will update their apps before launch doesn't make it untrue. To my reading those are the only places where OP complains about incorrect facts. As outlined above I don't find the complaints very compelling.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      It's an opinion that Apple tried to convince us that it had stolen a 16:9 display from the gods? I grant that there's some subjectivity there, but it's not an opinion. Either Apple tried to convince us of that, or they didn't. As for the new features, the author didn't say the single-chip radio was the most significant new feature. The author said it would be hard to find any other new features. Now, I think he's trying to say that you'd have a hard time finding iPhone 5 features that don't already exist on other smartphones, in which case I believe that's accurate. But it's very easy to read it as saying you'd have a hard time finding new features on the 5 that weren't in the 4S, which is obviously wrong. The letterboxing is misleading and I think I can make the case that it's outright false. First, it says that all 700,000 apps in the App Store will be letterboxed. This is simply false, as at least some third-party apps will be available in 16:9 on launch day. It goes on to say that Apple has been "very quiet" on the question of what happens if you try to use a 16:9 app on a 3:2 device, and whether developers will have to maintain multiple versions. that's simply wrong: the natural way of developing apps will be to use a flexible layout that supports both aspect ratios, developers won't need multiple versions, and it's not difficult to discover this information.

by Bud 14y ago

stanleydrew 14y ago

It's an opinion piece. I don't think there's any reason to get too upset. We may not agree with it, but I wouldn't say it's bad writing just because I don't agree. People are allowed to gripe. Some people don't think this iPhone is a significant improvement over the last. That's fine. You probably can't convince those people otherwise.

mikeash 14y ago
The author is allowed to have his own opinions, but not his own facts. The post you're replying to seems to be complaining about incorrect facts, not just different opinions.
- stanleydrew 14y ago
  It's a stretch to say that the author made up facts. I'll respond to OP's complaints one by one. > ...a blatant lie, saying "Apple tried to convince us that it had stolen a 16:9 display from the gods". This is clearly an opinion. It's weird to call an opinion a lie. > He then lies about the hardware, saying that "you would be hard stretched to find any new features except for the single-chip GSM/CDMA/LTE radio". Again I wouldn't call this a lie. It's the author's opinion that the most significant new feature is the radio. You could (and OP does) make the argument that the author is willfully ignoring the other feature updates. I still wouldn't call it a lie. > Later in the article, he gets the software wrong too, talking about how iOS will use the additional screen space: "Rather than do something interesting with this space, though, Apple will simply letterbox all 3:2 apps". That's already untrue; I think OP is stretching here. It is true that iOS will letterbox 3:2 apps right? Just because Apple and some developers will update their apps before launch doesn't make it untrue. To my reading those are the only places where OP complains about incorrect facts. As outlined above I don't find the complaints very compelling.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    It's an opinion that Apple tried to convince us that it had stolen a 16:9 display from the gods? I grant that there's some subjectivity there, but it's not an opinion. Either Apple tried to convince us of that, or they didn't. As for the new features, the author didn't say the single-chip radio was the most significant new feature. The author said it would be hard to find any other new features. Now, I think he's trying to say that you'd have a hard time finding iPhone 5 features that don't already exist on other smartphones, in which case I believe that's accurate. But it's very easy to read it as saying you'd have a hard time finding new features on the 5 that weren't in the 4S, which is obviously wrong. The letterboxing is misleading and I think I can make the case that it's outright false. First, it says that all 700,000 apps in the App Store will be letterboxed. This is simply false, as at least some third-party apps will be available in 16:9 on launch day. It goes on to say that Apple has been "very quiet" on the question of what happens if you try to use a 16:9 app on a 3:2 device, and whether developers will have to maintain multiple versions. that's simply wrong: the natural way of developing apps will be to use a flexible layout that supports both aspect ratios, developers won't need multiple versions, and it's not difficult to discover this information.