6 ms·

Apple is more excited about the iPhone 5C and so am I.

19 points by astrojams 13y ago

coin 13y ago
> For practical purposes, 64-bit means that the processor in the phone can address more than 4GB of RAM. The 5S has 2GB of ram so it isn’t even taking advantage of it. Interesting observation on the 64-bit processor. From an enduser's point of view, what advantage does a 64-bit CPU have?
- jws 13y ago
  In this case, twice the registers for less memory bandwidth pressure and a rearchitected instruction set. Some day 64 bit addressing may even be useful.
- oakwhiz 13y ago
  A 64 bit CPU is possibly faster in terms of integer manipulation. Given a 32 bit CPU and equivalent 64 bit version of the same CPU, with the same pipeline lengths, a 64 bit math operation takes up fewer pipeline stages on the 64 bit CPU (since the operation isn't broken up into 32 bit pieces) which possibly improves things like branch prediction.
  - ComputerGuru 13y ago
    ...at the cost of (usually) doubling the amount of memory it takes to store all of your pointers.
- corresation 13y ago
  It is the naive observation that is far too common. The A7 is about ARMv8, which is an evolutionary step over ARMv7. The 4GB thing is the least relevant aspect of it right now.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Apple isn't talking about ARMv8 though, they are talking about 64 bit.
    - corresation 13y ago
      They are talking about improving the processor, and ARMv8 is a (or rather the) 64-bit ARM instruction set. Should Apple have instead talked about registers and wider SIMD, better double floating point, etc? 64-bit is just shorthand for that.
      - derefr 13y ago
        Exactly. We went through this exact same marketing with game consoles, years ago. The N64 was a 64-bit game console! What did that mean? Who cares, it's four times as much as a SNES, and twice as much as a Playstation!
  - astrojams 13y ago
    It might be true that the A7 is a significant upgrade, but Apple chose to highlight the 64-bit nature of the chip which to my point isn't too exciting today.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  I've heard it suggested that as OSX is now 64bit only, running the iPhone on a 64bit CPU will allow a more unified codebase, which the end user will appreciate in the abstract form of fewer bugs and faster release times.
- jobu 13y ago
  Aside from marketing, it doesn't appear that 64-bit architecture would have any significant benefit (right now). I haven't seen much other technical information about the A7 core, but it's likely this chip will be used in upcoming iPads, so perhaps there are other significant improvements. Does anyone else know more about this?
jeffgreco 13y ago
I’m really happy with my iPhone 5 running iOS 7. It is plenty fast, has great battery life, takes great photos and runs all of my favorite apps. Put those phone guts into a much more exciting shell, make it more comfortable to hold, increase its battery life and you’ve got a good upgrade. Or, spend ten bucks and get a blue plastic case.
- thex86 13y ago
  I think with most Apple products and Apple "fan boys", they try hard to justify Apple's overpriced new products, which usually have features that are way behind other phones. Every year a new phone is released, which has marginal improvements over the previous ones. But you know what? People will still buy it and Apple knows that very well.
  - jshen 13y ago
    The iPhone has many features that best android phones, and I'll give you the most significant in my eyes. My iPhone gets OS updates when the newest version is released. This is not true of the vast vast majority of android phones.
    - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
      Please point me in the direction to a cost-comparative (to the iPhone) Android device to an iPhone that has not received updates. At least Android devices give you the option to upgrade. I've been forced into iOS upgrades on devices we use in the enterprise that have been made obsolete because of new bloat we didn't need (nor can we downgrade).
      - woofyman 13y ago
        How were you forced to upgrade ? It's neither mandatory nor automatic.
      - jshen 13y ago
        I had a droid x2 and it didn't get 3.0 despite being priced similar to an iPhone and it was less than a year old when 3.0 was released. This is very common with android phones.
cliffu 13y ago
I'll be excited about an iPhone as soon as I am able to sideload an app, install a white/blacklist. I'd be quite excited if I were also allowed to run arbitrary apps in the background (listening to sockets even when not VoIP), and add arbitrary interactive views to the Notification Center. A plastic colored body does not appeal to me in the least.
- epochwolf 13y ago
  Congratulations, you are not the target market! You may now choose from the many available models of android and windows phones instead of making impotent comments on social networks. :)
  - cliffu 13y ago
    No, I like making comments about it on social networks. If I get even one person on board with freedom it's a win. If I get enough people on board that Apple feels pressure and I can use unjailbroken iOS without these restrictions that would be great, I actually like iOS when it's jailbroken. I know that's a pipe dream but whatever.
    - Nerdfest 13y ago
      Inform enough people and Apple will be forced to open up or go out of business, with either being an acceptable option. A couple of more years the way the market is going and they're going to be driven to irrelevance, which is also acceptable.
slowdown 13y ago
This is more of a fanboy ejaculatism than anything else. Why is this even on the frontpage?
BadassFractal 13y ago
I find it really difficult to care about the iPhone when a wonderful fully-unlocked Nexus 4 can be acquired for $199.
- rys 13y ago
  I find it really difficult to care about the Nexus 4 when it doesn't run iOS apps. For me, personally, that's worth paying extra money for, discounting all other differences at the hardware level, and it seems to be worth it for millions of other people too. You have to understand that there are people in the world that make a solid value judgement that the iPhone is what they want and they can afford it, it's not bad value for their money, they want iOS, they don't mind being locked in to Apple's world _and_ that those are very sane choices to make. That reasoning works, even in the face of a $199 unlocked Nexus 4.
hackaflocka 13y ago
Why do people revel in broadcasting their ignorance and shallowness?
- ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
  ...kind of like your post?
iancw 13y ago
> I disable the flash on every piece of camera equipment I own. In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. I think the fact that you (and I) don't trust current camera flashes to make photos worth keeping is actually an argument that it's a problem worth fixing. It remains to be seen how successful the 5S flash will be, but I think it's cool they're trying. I'm also glad Apple made the sensor elements larger rather than cramming in more mega pixels. Normally that's a concern of the geeky DSLR consumers, and point & shooters suffer with noisy low-light performance and more pixels than they need.
- pcl 13y ago
  The coolest use I've seen for the iPhone's flash is the Azumio heart rate app¹. It uses the flash to illuminate your finger, which you place over the lens of the camera. And then they do some fantastic image processing (presumably comparing shades of red) to detect your pulse. ¹ http://www.azumio.com/apps/heart-rate/index.html http://www.azumio.com/apps/heart-rate/index.html
- zippergz 13y ago
  I welcome improvements in the iPhone flash, because there are cases in which I'm forced to use it. But the biggest problem is also the hardest to solve: the flash is too close to the lens. A flash right next to the lens will always look bad, no matter what you do. Being able to pivot and bounce it is even better, but just moving it a few inches away makes a big difference. Unfortunately, all of those things are fairly incompatible with the need to make phones that fit easily in peoples' pockets.
  - plorkyeran 13y ago
    Moving it a few inches away isn't inherently impossible, since you could put the flash at the other end of the phone from the lens. At the minimum it'd be a lot more awkward to use, though.
derefr 13y ago
Yes, Apple want you to buy a 5C, not a 5S. This way, they get to use the 5S as the limited-first-run of the parts that will go into the 6C (when we'll have a 6S that's a limited-first-run of the 7C, and so on.) Let me just quote my previous post, it's equally applicable here: > Apple has never been able to make enough iPhones of each successive generation for people to get their hands on during the first few months after release. Whereas, once they've ramped up production, they tend to have all these parts left over in the pipeline that they have to sell off as N-1 gen hardware to price-sensitive late adopters. (This is also why the iPod Touch was originally created, to serve as a sink for N-2-gen parts.) > Now, Apple are trying to shift the purchase frenzy to the N-1 gen, and position their new gen-N tech -- whose production hasn't yet been ramped up -- as something for early-adopters only. In other words, to switch from an (N-1, N) view of the world, to an (N, N+1) view. > Everything in the S will filter down to the C of the next gen. They'll get their pipelines saturated with 5S parts just in time to wrap them in plastic and call them 6C parts. As long as more people buy Cs than Ss, this works out perfectly. This is their strategy, working out perfectly.
- digikata 13y ago
  Another aspect of the 5C is that the iphone is about to be officially introduced to a lot of markets, most notably China. If you want to calibrate the curve of a demand model, you can opt to start the first year with high pricing, picking off the customers with the most disposable income. That avoids shortages, protects Apples reputation as a premium product. It also gives you forward information, both in pricing and volume, for your strategy in the next model release.
- yaeger 13y ago
  You talk about the "S" and "C" iterations but what about the "normal" phones? What about next year? The iPhone6 is supposed to come out. I still wonder how they will position themselves now. Before, they had it simple. Last years model and the new one. And the new one was divided into "This year the spec bump of the old model, next year a brand new phone" But now, they canned the "old model" and went with the "C" variant. So right now, there is the 5C and 5S. So what'll it be next year? Do they then use a 3 device line up? Will it be: 5C,5S and 6? And the year after that: 5S, 6C and 6S?
yeukhon 13y ago
To me, I think Apple is trying to move into smart house industry.
beloch 13y ago
Apple made a lot of compromises in designing the 5C to make it cheaper, but they completely failed to make it cheap! It's still more than two and a half times the price of a Nexus 4 unlocked. Unlocked sales for the 5C will be pitiful. Under a multi-year contract the 5C isn't substantially cheaper than the 5S, so people who want the best phone will shun it. The iPhone 5C is going to fail utterly in the market segment it's designed for. However, I do see a couple of possible markets where the 5C may succeed. There's the Hello Kitty "anything in pastels is squeeeeee" crowd. This market includes little girls, people buying phones for little girls, and Josh Kerr apparently. IF the 5C proves more durable than the 5S it might also capture the tough-wear crowd that wants a phone that doesn't have to be hidden inside a giant blob of silicone to survive a 6" fall onto concrete. Let's face it, not many people are going to want the cases Apple is trying to sell for the 5C. I'm just speculating about the 5C's durability though. Plastic phones might not feel as nice in the hand, but if they use high quality plastic and are well built they do tend to survive better than phones made entirely out of metal and glass. Will it sell? Never underestimate the Hello Kitty crowd!
- adventured 13y ago
  Apple's primary value is in its brand + premium products. If their 5C is aimed at the hello kitty crowd, their iPhone brand will be demolished as a premium must-have phone. The 5C will take down the rest of the iPhone brand. The only thing worse than having 5% of the smart phone market in the future, would be having a terrible brand that only owns the hello kitty crowd. Kiss those hyper margins goodbye and nothing could be less cool than the hello kitty crowd (cool being a critical element of what Apple depends upon to sell very expensive consumer electronics).
- cmelbye 13y ago
  I'm curious, what compromises did they make? The only compromise I can think of is the plastic shell, which I think will actually attract a lot more people with the bright colors vs. silver/black.
- reginaldjcooper 13y ago
  I wish you could have written this without the ad hom implication that men who like certain colors are necessarily both effeminate and puerile. If Josh Kerr fucking loves pastels that doesn't make him any less of a man.
wavesum 13y ago
"The iPhone 5C ships with iOS 7 pre-configured to use background wallpaper that matches the color of the Phone. Little touches like this really differentiate Apple’s products from its competitors" Have you heard of Lumias?
crystaln 13y ago
This makes no sense. Why would Jony Ive, supposedly one of the greatest industrial designers, and Apple, one of the greatest consumer products companies, be so darn excited about rereleasing a 1 year old product in 5 colors for 15% less? Do people care about the color of their phone? Not enough color choice is not something I've heard as a complaint about the iPhone 5. Are the millions of cases available not a reasonable solution for those who care about color? Would I really buy an iPhone instead of an Android because I can get it in yellow and it ships with a yellow background screen? The more likely explanation for the marketing difference is the lack of production capacity for the 5S and/or lower margins.
raldi 13y ago
> I disable the flash on every piece of camera equipment I own. In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. That's about 90% bathwater and 10% baby. Yes, the vast majority of the time ordinary people use their flash, they really shouldn't be. But there are genuine situations where even snobs like us to need to just suck it up and break the no-flash streak. The most obvious is when you're not trying to take a beautiful photo; you're just trying to take an accurate one -- like inside a crawlspace where something needs to be repaired. And then there are the times when you only get one chance to capture something amazing, and there's not going to be time to set a long exposure and pray for no-blur. This happens a lot when children or animals are involved: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2281710004/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2281710004/sizes/z... But even in broad daylight with relatively still scenes, there are still flashworthy situations. For example, when all the light is behind the subject: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2408341744/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2408341744/sizes/z... (That one is from the days before HDR -- if the flash hadn't fired, either the subjects' faces would have been underexposed, or the sunny background would have been overexposed.) Now, just to give equal time to the opposing side, this non-flash photo would have been absolutely ruined if the flash had been used: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2407218105/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2407218105/sizes/z...
- coin 13y ago
  I agree. Furthermore, it's better to use the flash than not capture the moment at all. > In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. Statements like this reminds me of audiophiles that refuse to listen to music on "substandard" audio gear. Real music lovers enjoy the content, and would rather have poor quality than no music at all. They love the music and not the equipment. The same applies here. No photo vs photo with suboptimal lighting, I'll take the latter.
pocketstar 13y ago
No black iPhone5C, Jony I am disappoint.
yapcguy 13y ago
> I think the iPhone 5C is the perfect realization of hardware and software running harmoniously on a single device. Wow, really? The iPhone 5C hasn't even shipped yet!
dibbsonline 13y ago
Apple also touted the G5 as the first 64 bit workstation but neglected to see that many of us were running 64 bit SPARC workstations at the time. Not to mention SGI boxen.
jemeshsu 13y ago
I don't get iPhone 5C at that price, too close to 5S. Even if you don't use the Touch ID and camera flash, the improved camera sensor size/aperture and processor speed in iPhone 5S is enough to justified the price difference.
vinceguidry 13y ago
I will buy a 5S for the fingerprint sensor, as soon as its functionality gets exposed to LastPass, and assuming it's as secure as Apple says it is. Apple all but enforcing weak password security has made browsing on iOS unworkable for everything except quick Wikipedia lookups. It was to the point that I would have switched to Android otherwise. As it is I'm skipping the iPad Mini and getting a Nexus. Unless Apple suddenly comes out with one tomorrow with both Retina and fingerprint sensor the Mini is useless for everything but as a Kindle reader. I am less worried about the NSA having my fingerprint as I am about crackers getting my passwords. If I was worried about that I'd go all Snowden and keep my phone in the freezer. But if even one instance of fingerprint information leaking out of the box Apple's keeping it in on the CPU surfaces, I may never trust Apple with that information.

19 points by astrojams 13y ago

coin 13y ago

> For practical purposes, 64-bit means that the processor in the phone can address more than 4GB of RAM. The 5S has 2GB of ram so it isn’t even taking advantage of it. Interesting observation on the 64-bit processor. From an enduser's point of view, what advantage does a 64-bit CPU have?

jws 13y ago
In this case, twice the registers for less memory bandwidth pressure and a rearchitected instruction set. Some day 64 bit addressing may even be useful.
oakwhiz 13y ago
A 64 bit CPU is possibly faster in terms of integer manipulation. Given a 32 bit CPU and equivalent 64 bit version of the same CPU, with the same pipeline lengths, a 64 bit math operation takes up fewer pipeline stages on the 64 bit CPU (since the operation isn't broken up into 32 bit pieces) which possibly improves things like branch prediction.
- ComputerGuru 13y ago
  ...at the cost of (usually) doubling the amount of memory it takes to store all of your pointers.
corresation 13y ago
It is the naive observation that is far too common. The A7 is about ARMv8, which is an evolutionary step over ARMv7. The 4GB thing is the least relevant aspect of it right now.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Apple isn't talking about ARMv8 though, they are talking about 64 bit.
  - corresation 13y ago
    They are talking about improving the processor, and ARMv8 is a (or rather the) 64-bit ARM instruction set. Should Apple have instead talked about registers and wider SIMD, better double floating point, etc? 64-bit is just shorthand for that.
    - derefr 13y ago
      Exactly. We went through this exact same marketing with game consoles, years ago. The N64 was a 64-bit game console! What did that mean? Who cares, it's four times as much as a SNES, and twice as much as a Playstation!
- astrojams 13y ago
  It might be true that the A7 is a significant upgrade, but Apple chose to highlight the 64-bit nature of the chip which to my point isn't too exciting today.
sliverstorm 13y ago
I've heard it suggested that as OSX is now 64bit only, running the iPhone on a 64bit CPU will allow a more unified codebase, which the end user will appreciate in the abstract form of fewer bugs and faster release times.
jobu 13y ago
Aside from marketing, it doesn't appear that 64-bit architecture would have any significant benefit (right now). I haven't seen much other technical information about the A7 core, but it's likely this chip will be used in upcoming iPads, so perhaps there are other significant improvements. Does anyone else know more about this?

jeffgreco 13y ago

I’m really happy with my iPhone 5 running iOS 7. It is plenty fast, has great battery life, takes great photos and runs all of my favorite apps. Put those phone guts into a much more exciting shell, make it more comfortable to hold, increase its battery life and you’ve got a good upgrade. Or, spend ten bucks and get a blue plastic case.

thex86 13y ago
I think with most Apple products and Apple "fan boys", they try hard to justify Apple's overpriced new products, which usually have features that are way behind other phones. Every year a new phone is released, which has marginal improvements over the previous ones. But you know what? People will still buy it and Apple knows that very well.
- jshen 13y ago
  The iPhone has many features that best android phones, and I'll give you the most significant in my eyes. My iPhone gets OS updates when the newest version is released. This is not true of the vast vast majority of android phones.
  - ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
    Please point me in the direction to a cost-comparative (to the iPhone) Android device to an iPhone that has not received updates. At least Android devices give you the option to upgrade. I've been forced into iOS upgrades on devices we use in the enterprise that have been made obsolete because of new bloat we didn't need (nor can we downgrade).
    - woofyman 13y ago
      How were you forced to upgrade ? It's neither mandatory nor automatic.
    - jshen 13y ago
      I had a droid x2 and it didn't get 3.0 despite being priced similar to an iPhone and it was less than a year old when 3.0 was released. This is very common with android phones.

cliffu 13y ago

I'll be excited about an iPhone as soon as I am able to sideload an app, install a white/blacklist. I'd be quite excited if I were also allowed to run arbitrary apps in the background (listening to sockets even when not VoIP), and add arbitrary interactive views to the Notification Center. A plastic colored body does not appeal to me in the least.

epochwolf 13y ago
Congratulations, you are not the target market! You may now choose from the many available models of android and windows phones instead of making impotent comments on social networks. :)
- cliffu 13y ago
  No, I like making comments about it on social networks. If I get even one person on board with freedom it's a win. If I get enough people on board that Apple feels pressure and I can use unjailbroken iOS without these restrictions that would be great, I actually like iOS when it's jailbroken. I know that's a pipe dream but whatever.
  - Nerdfest 13y ago
    Inform enough people and Apple will be forced to open up or go out of business, with either being an acceptable option. A couple of more years the way the market is going and they're going to be driven to irrelevance, which is also acceptable.

slowdown 13y ago

This is more of a fanboy ejaculatism than anything else. Why is this even on the frontpage?

BadassFractal 13y ago

I find it really difficult to care about the iPhone when a wonderful fully-unlocked Nexus 4 can be acquired for $199.

rys 13y ago
I find it really difficult to care about the Nexus 4 when it doesn't run iOS apps. For me, personally, that's worth paying extra money for, discounting all other differences at the hardware level, and it seems to be worth it for millions of other people too. You have to understand that there are people in the world that make a solid value judgement that the iPhone is what they want and they can afford it, it's not bad value for their money, they want iOS, they don't mind being locked in to Apple's world _and_ that those are very sane choices to make. That reasoning works, even in the face of a $199 unlocked Nexus 4.

hackaflocka 13y ago

Why do people revel in broadcasting their ignorance and shallowness?

ChikkaChiChi 13y ago
...kind of like your post?

iancw 13y ago

> I disable the flash on every piece of camera equipment I own. In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. I think the fact that you (and I) don't trust current camera flashes to make photos worth keeping is actually an argument that it's a problem worth fixing. It remains to be seen how successful the 5S flash will be, but I think it's cool they're trying. I'm also glad Apple made the sensor elements larger rather than cramming in more mega pixels. Normally that's a concern of the geeky DSLR consumers, and point & shooters suffer with noisy low-light performance and more pixels than they need.

pcl 13y ago
The coolest use I've seen for the iPhone's flash is the Azumio heart rate app¹. It uses the flash to illuminate your finger, which you place over the lens of the camera. And then they do some fantastic image processing (presumably comparing shades of red) to detect your pulse. ¹ http://www.azumio.com/apps/heart-rate/index.html http://www.azumio.com/apps/heart-rate/index.html
zippergz 13y ago
I welcome improvements in the iPhone flash, because there are cases in which I'm forced to use it. But the biggest problem is also the hardest to solve: the flash is too close to the lens. A flash right next to the lens will always look bad, no matter what you do. Being able to pivot and bounce it is even better, but just moving it a few inches away makes a big difference. Unfortunately, all of those things are fairly incompatible with the need to make phones that fit easily in peoples' pockets.
- plorkyeran 13y ago
  Moving it a few inches away isn't inherently impossible, since you could put the flash at the other end of the phone from the lens. At the minimum it'd be a lot more awkward to use, though.

derefr 13y ago

Yes, Apple want you to buy a 5C, not a 5S. This way, they get to use the 5S as the limited-first-run of the parts that will go into the 6C (when we'll have a 6S that's a limited-first-run of the 7C, and so on.) Let me just quote my previous post, it's equally applicable here: > Apple has never been able to make enough iPhones of each successive generation for people to get their hands on during the first few months after release. Whereas, once they've ramped up production, they tend to have all these parts left over in the pipeline that they have to sell off as N-1 gen hardware to price-sensitive late adopters. (This is also why the iPod Touch was originally created, to serve as a sink for N-2-gen parts.) > Now, Apple are trying to shift the purchase frenzy to the N-1 gen, and position their new gen-N tech -- whose production hasn't yet been ramped up -- as something for early-adopters only. In other words, to switch from an (N-1, N) view of the world, to an (N, N+1) view. > Everything in the S will filter down to the C of the next gen. They'll get their pipelines saturated with 5S parts just in time to wrap them in plastic and call them 6C parts. As long as more people buy Cs than Ss, this works out perfectly. This is their strategy, working out perfectly.

digikata 13y ago
Another aspect of the 5C is that the iphone is about to be officially introduced to a lot of markets, most notably China. If you want to calibrate the curve of a demand model, you can opt to start the first year with high pricing, picking off the customers with the most disposable income. That avoids shortages, protects Apples reputation as a premium product. It also gives you forward information, both in pricing and volume, for your strategy in the next model release.
yaeger 13y ago
You talk about the "S" and "C" iterations but what about the "normal" phones? What about next year? The iPhone6 is supposed to come out. I still wonder how they will position themselves now. Before, they had it simple. Last years model and the new one. And the new one was divided into "This year the spec bump of the old model, next year a brand new phone" But now, they canned the "old model" and went with the "C" variant. So right now, there is the 5C and 5S. So what'll it be next year? Do they then use a 3 device line up? Will it be: 5C,5S and 6? And the year after that: 5S, 6C and 6S?

yeukhon 13y ago

To me, I think Apple is trying to move into smart house industry.

beloch 13y ago

Apple made a lot of compromises in designing the 5C to make it cheaper, but they completely failed to make it cheap! It's still more than two and a half times the price of a Nexus 4 unlocked. Unlocked sales for the 5C will be pitiful. Under a multi-year contract the 5C isn't substantially cheaper than the 5S, so people who want the best phone will shun it. The iPhone 5C is going to fail utterly in the market segment it's designed for. However, I do see a couple of possible markets where the 5C may succeed. There's the Hello Kitty "anything in pastels is squeeeeee" crowd. This market includes little girls, people buying phones for little girls, and Josh Kerr apparently. IF the 5C proves more durable than the 5S it might also capture the tough-wear crowd that wants a phone that doesn't have to be hidden inside a giant blob of silicone to survive a 6" fall onto concrete. Let's face it, not many people are going to want the cases Apple is trying to sell for the 5C. I'm just speculating about the 5C's durability though. Plastic phones might not feel as nice in the hand, but if they use high quality plastic and are well built they do tend to survive better than phones made entirely out of metal and glass. Will it sell? Never underestimate the Hello Kitty crowd!

adventured 13y ago
Apple's primary value is in its brand + premium products. If their 5C is aimed at the hello kitty crowd, their iPhone brand will be demolished as a premium must-have phone. The 5C will take down the rest of the iPhone brand. The only thing worse than having 5% of the smart phone market in the future, would be having a terrible brand that only owns the hello kitty crowd. Kiss those hyper margins goodbye and nothing could be less cool than the hello kitty crowd (cool being a critical element of what Apple depends upon to sell very expensive consumer electronics).
cmelbye 13y ago
I'm curious, what compromises did they make? The only compromise I can think of is the plastic shell, which I think will actually attract a lot more people with the bright colors vs. silver/black.
reginaldjcooper 13y ago
I wish you could have written this without the ad hom implication that men who like certain colors are necessarily both effeminate and puerile. If Josh Kerr fucking loves pastels that doesn't make him any less of a man.

wavesum 13y ago

"The iPhone 5C ships with iOS 7 pre-configured to use background wallpaper that matches the color of the Phone. Little touches like this really differentiate Apple’s products from its competitors" Have you heard of Lumias?

crystaln 13y ago

This makes no sense. Why would Jony Ive, supposedly one of the greatest industrial designers, and Apple, one of the greatest consumer products companies, be so darn excited about rereleasing a 1 year old product in 5 colors for 15% less? Do people care about the color of their phone? Not enough color choice is not something I've heard as a complaint about the iPhone 5. Are the millions of cases available not a reasonable solution for those who care about color? Would I really buy an iPhone instead of an Android because I can get it in yellow and it ships with a yellow background screen? The more likely explanation for the marketing difference is the lack of production capacity for the 5S and/or lower margins.

raldi 13y ago

> I disable the flash on every piece of camera equipment I own. In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. That's about 90% bathwater and 10% baby. Yes, the vast majority of the time ordinary people use their flash, they really shouldn't be. But there are genuine situations where even snobs like us to need to just suck it up and break the no-flash streak. The most obvious is when you're not trying to take a beautiful photo; you're just trying to take an accurate one -- like inside a crawlspace where something needs to be repaired. And then there are the times when you only get one chance to capture something amazing, and there's not going to be time to set a long exposure and pray for no-blur. This happens a lot when children or animals are involved: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2281710004/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2281710004/sizes/z... But even in broad daylight with relatively still scenes, there are still flashworthy situations. For example, when all the light is behind the subject: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2408341744/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2408341744/sizes/z... (That one is from the days before HDR -- if the flash hadn't fired, either the subjects' faces would have been underexposed, or the sunny background would have been overexposed.) Now, just to give equal time to the opposing side, this non-flash photo would have been absolutely ruined if the flash had been used: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2407218105/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/18575617@N03/2407218105/sizes/z...

coin 13y ago
I agree. Furthermore, it's better to use the flash than not capture the moment at all. > In my book, there is never a scenario where it is okay to use a flash, if it is too dark to take the photo, then don’t take it. Statements like this reminds me of audiophiles that refuse to listen to music on "substandard" audio gear. Real music lovers enjoy the content, and would rather have poor quality than no music at all. They love the music and not the equipment. The same applies here. No photo vs photo with suboptimal lighting, I'll take the latter.

pocketstar 13y ago

No black iPhone5C, Jony I am disappoint.

yapcguy 13y ago

> I think the iPhone 5C is the perfect realization of hardware and software running harmoniously on a single device. Wow, really? The iPhone 5C hasn't even shipped yet!

dibbsonline 13y ago

Apple also touted the G5 as the first 64 bit workstation but neglected to see that many of us were running 64 bit SPARC workstations at the time. Not to mention SGI boxen.

jemeshsu 13y ago

I don't get iPhone 5C at that price, too close to 5S. Even if you don't use the Touch ID and camera flash, the improved camera sensor size/aperture and processor speed in iPhone 5S is enough to justified the price difference.

vinceguidry 13y ago

I will buy a 5S for the fingerprint sensor, as soon as its functionality gets exposed to LastPass, and assuming it's as secure as Apple says it is. Apple all but enforcing weak password security has made browsing on iOS unworkable for everything except quick Wikipedia lookups. It was to the point that I would have switched to Android otherwise. As it is I'm skipping the iPad Mini and getting a Nexus. Unless Apple suddenly comes out with one tomorrow with both Retina and fingerprint sensor the Mini is useless for everything but as a Kindle reader. I am less worried about the NSA having my fingerprint as I am about crackers getting my passwords. If I was worried about that I'd go all Snowden and keep my phone in the freezer. But if even one instance of fingerprint information leaking out of the box Apple's keeping it in on the CPU surfaces, I may never trust Apple with that information.