Tag: iphone

Everything [I have determined that] you need to know about Apples 2017 announcements

Apple announced stuff. Here is that stuff and what it means.

THE STEVEN JOBS THEATER
– a nice tribute to the late Apple founder

First event to be held on the Apple Park campus in the 1,000 seat theater named after the dude who started the company and then came back to make it what it is today.

I would have done it differently, but who cares. Thought the extended voice-over with no visuals was more odd than it was tributary but it was all nice enough. Technically, the Steve Jobs Theater was the first new product unveiled at this event.

Now on to the stuff you can buy:

APPLE WATCH 3
– Cellular data option and a heart monitor feature


LTE on Apple Watch is $10 addition to existing cell plan. that’s just approachable enough for me to not dismiss it out of hand and also ridiculous enough for me to scoff. It’s cool to be able to have a device on your wrist that can communicate with satellites and not need the proximity of another device to get data to it but I don’t see a user outside of athletes that would use the feature. A runner, swimmer, surfer, or sport team member training Rocky style who wants to be able to receive calls and/or listen to music while doing their activity without having their phone on them makes sense but virtually no other scenario outside of sport activity is imaginable to me. Apple also announced that the watch will monitor your heart and notify its wearer of any cardiac arrhythmia. Also, the digital crown is a red dot for some reason now instead of the same metalic covering as the rest of the watch.

APPLE TV
– Now with 4K (and nothing else added)


Notice the difference between the image above and the previous Apple TV? Thats because there isn’t one. Same exact body, same exact remote, and it has the same exact software. No big crime I guess. Underwhelming for something I think should be a much bigger focus by Apple but the current device is suitable enough and the addition of 4k video is… something… to some people. Makes me feel better about buying my parents an Apple TV two weeks ago, knowing this new version with 4k and who-knows-what-other-upgrades would be announced. I needed to get them to cord-cut their cable service before the next billing cycle so I had to buy it and was pre-annoyed that a new model was coming out in just a couple weeks, but today Apple announced the only new thing in the next version of the device is that it supports 4K video. They, nor I, have a 4K display, so this is a non-feature for us.

iPHONE 8
– Wireless charging & it’s a little faster and takes better pictures

The iPhone & iPhone 8+ look much like the 7. It’s got a faster processor (A11 chip they’re calling “Bionic” that has six cores) and better camera (same megapixels as its predecessor but now has a new sensor with optical stabilization), as every new iPhone does. The iPhone 8 Plus will have a better more powerful camera with a dual sensor so it looks like I’ll be shelling out $800 for one of those ($700 for the regular 8). Wireless charging is the only other discernable feature anyone would probably care about. Just enough to make the new product an unexciting but desired upgrade.

iPHONE X
– Same as iPhone 8 but a bigger screen & face ID instead of fingerprint ID


Steve Jobs would end his presentations with “one more thing” and then announce something cool and that’s what Apple was mirroring when they announced “one more thing” and revealed the iPhone X, which Apple pronounces as 10 (“ten”), not “ex” (same as their OSX operating system). There’s no more home button, dashing my concept that the new Apple Park campus building’s “spaceship” design was intended to represent a giant home button – which it still may well have been since it was designed when both Steve Jobs and the home button were alive and planning to go on living for awhile – and instead unlocks by scanning your face since there is no more fingerprint pad, as the screen is borderless.

The camera appears to be the same as the iPhone 8 with a double vertical sensor of 12 megapixels but something slightly different about “optical stabilization”. As reported in leaks and rumors before the announcement, the new phone will be a thousand bucks. $300 more than the iPhone 8 just for facial recognition instead of fingerprint scan and a borderless screen? I can pass on both since neither feature is particularly attractive to me.

Siri is Siri-souly kewl

The iPhone 4S has a new digital assistant in it that understands speech. so you can talk to it like a person instead of trying to use buzz words like a machine. instead of stupid things like “command: dial number” you can just say “call my drug dealer” or “whats the weather like in Bangalore?” or “where can I hide a body“. No joke…

People are calling it Skynet (Terminator) but I see Siri as more of a HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Not cool enough for you? Microsoft is working on interactive holograms…

Westboro Hate Cult Announces (via iPhone) that they will protest Steve Jobs funeral

I’m still hoping the Phelps family (the hate cult that hates everything and calls themselves a church – best known for the “God hates fags” and “thank God for dead soldiers” wings of their multi-tier platform) will all die in some kind of natural disaster, the type of which is traditionally reported as “an act of God”.

Earlier today Margie Phelps announced on Twitter that her minions will be picketing Steve Jobs’ funeral because he didn’t give God glory (he was Buddhist) and “taught sin”. The tweet was made via her iPhone…

A friend fantasized about how fun the exposition would be if it were revealed that the leader of the cult was gay and had been hooking up with male prostitutes, Ted Haggard style. That’d be fun, but highly doubtful. I dont buy the theory that most or even a lot of these gay bashers are actually gay boinkers. It’s a popular response and explanation but I don’t think it’s valid beyond simple mockery. People hate what is different than them more than internal struggles they might be ashamed of. Haggard wasnt hateful toward gays so his problems were only funny cuz people like to snicker when religious leaders slip up.

I think it’s more likely that the Westboro cult is actually a hardcore committed anti-religious satire by an improv group who has dedicated their life to mocking religious families.

In a classic case of “the good die young”:

Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro cult, is 81.
Steve Jobs, the found of Apple Computers, died at 56.

Stewart calls Apple “Appholes” over lost iPhone response

An Apple employee lost a prototype for the new iPhone, which is kind of a big deal to them and soon after came the headline/news: Per Apple Request, Police Questioning Gizmodo’s iPhone Scoop. RespondingiIn a segment titled “Appholes”, John Stewart went off (though gently) on Apple for handling the Gizmodo iPhone leak poorly, most notably observing that Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one, but now Apple is busting down doors in Palo Alto while Bill Gates rids the world of mosquitoes. Everything is upside down!

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Appholes
www.thedailyshow.com
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Commenter Durox on the Daily Show website rebuts:

1. the guy has a case# from the Apple’s support team, he contacted them but they had no idea that a ‘secret iPhone’ was lost, so they decided it was a joke (Apple also said in the begining that it’s not a prototype …) 2. the blogger paid for an iPhone; he took a chance; it might have been a joke, a replica, etc, but he considered the risks and got it. when asked to return it, he sent it back to Apple. the whole thing took days to develop, and that seems to me like a publicity stunt… Jobs’ own secrecy regarding the product, turns out to be the cause why they didn’t get the iPhone back before it made it on the news. if the support team were updated, if Jobs would not have been so paranoid, the phone would have been returned to Apple. IMO it’s like this: you buy a used bike on a garage sale. the guy says he found it on the side of the road.. you give him the money, and take the bike to a ride. someone stops you and demands that he left the bike on the street, and he wants it back. you give it back.. now, what’s going on w/ your money, what’s going on when the police arrives? ;] ps Apple has the argument that the new iPhone is top secret and the competitors might steal its ‘secrets’! come on Jobs, we are in 2010 and the iPhone still doesn’t multitask. it took several upgrades to film, and other expensive jokes like these ;]. don’t give us this BS, with the secrect technology, iPhone’s only thing is its applications. w/o them it simply blows!

and commenter Go Zi An created some buzz on the videos comments with a few along these lines:

But John Gruber actually has a fair and balanced take on this issue, unlike Jon Stewart. Steward [sic] is misrepresenting facts, leaving out important details like the prototype was stolen, and whoever found it never informed anyone at all for 3 weeks, despite knowing the identity of the Apple engineer since he could access his Facebook app on the iPhone prototype. And Gizmodo paid for the prototype, is that even ethical journalism (something Stewart himself always raves about?) Jon Stewart it’s time you actually went to journalism school to learn the basics on reporting facts.