New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

I'm not a great believer in the psychological benefits of "waiting fr the right moment". If your 3G is driving you demented, just buy the 4.

thanks for the advice. Good advice all around.

when I got the 4 after a couple of years with the 3G I honestly couldn't believe how much of a jump it was. Really fulfilled the promise of a pocket computer. It's probably my primary browsing/emailing/consuming computer now fwiw.

Am waiting for the 5 to upgrade this 3Gs. (had used a work 4 for a while tho).

Rumour and ~noises~ say that the 5 isn't a 4s but is an all-new design because they want to get far away from the "hur it has broken antenna so not getting one" perception.

Yeah I have a 3GS and have zero problems with it, it's great. Well, the speaker broke and I had to replace the front glass at one point and did kind of a bad job so now there's dust trapped underneath it everywhere but uh.... aside from those things I don't feel any sort of screaming need to improve it.

In fact I sort of like the broken speaker. I never have to hear those stock ringtones or SMS alerts (at least not from my own phone).

does anyone else using a 3G have problems with the maps app? specifically that its insanely slow?

Yeah, can't use it any more. Type in a letter, stand lost in the middle of the street getting in everyone's way, think 'What the hell am I doing, just ask someone already'. Ask someone. Blank looks. Go home.

Yep, same problem for me in the last month or so.

Maps is too slow on all iphones but yeah, disastrous on the 3G.

Rumour and ~noises~ say that the 5 isn't a 4s but is an all-new design because they want to get far away from the "hur it has broken antenna so not getting one" perception.

― stet, Saturday, 5 March 2011 23:56 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Rumours about this new ipad said it was getting a retina display and that it would be out in the US in January, then February, then delayed to June, then September, then the first week of April. Um.

There's a case for redesigning in the wake of ANTENNAGATE OH NO but that whole issue does feel reasonably overblown. I'm not in America obv but I know stacks of people with a 4 on different networks and not a single one can even force it to happen. I've gone to some effort to reproduce it on 850 MHz and 2100 MHz networks and can't make it lose a single bar.

The new CDMA iphone 4 is almost exactly the same design btw, just with a slight CDMA-specific tweak to the metal bit. Feels like a lot of effort through the whole design and manufacturing chain just for a few months but obv I'm probably wrong.

I never heard anyone seriously suggesting the iPad 2 would have a retina display, to be fair. It was more like a mooted "it would be cool" straw man of a rumour that everyone could jump on to show how they knew it was too expensive and too much of a battery drain at the moment.

Yeah, but for a while there were also the 'omz they're increasing res by 20%' type rumours which make sod-all sense in an iOS context. I've seen so many duff rumours recently that I'm disinclined to believe anything that (a) doesn't make 100% complete sense and (b) isn't backed up by about a dozen unit/case photos from different sources (not that I'm saying a redesigned iphone 5 isn't sensible).

Antennagate seemed more a result of much-hyped product = much-hyped problem that wasn't such a big problem after all. Hasn't the 4 been a huge success? Aren't other phones susceptible to the same problem?

Everything I've read suggests that the 4 took a long time and a lot of money to develop, so it seems unlikely they would cut the model life short, especially when the pattern seems to be a two year lifespan. Most of the rumors I've seen center around a processor boost, including a possible switch to dual core. The bigger screen rumor is definitely out there, but my impression is that it's basically speculation based on some random mock-ups lifted from random Chinese websites.

I guess the relative success of the Android phones might change Apple's calculations, but based on what I've read (though I am hardly well-informed in the real sense), the probable hardware update will be a performance boost and not a redesign.

In any case, I am beginning to despise the tec rumor business and particularly despise Apple's cynical use of the mania to hype its products. At some point, Apple's customers are going to get sick of being dicked around. Or not?

oh and the ipad 2 retina rumours were at fever pitch for about a week until some people realised nobody can make displays like that yet xp

Maybe I must listen to filtered rumour sources.

just listen to, rather.

The bigger screen rumor is definitely out there, but my impression is that it's basically speculation based on some random mock-ups lifted from random Chinese websites.

Yeah. It's a possibility, but considering the iphone 4's display has basically set the ultimate benchmark for phones (outside AMOLED) there's certainly no need for that to happen this year.

Based on this new ipad I have a feeling the design of this year's iphone will be almost identical (perhaps slightly thinner) and that next year's iphone will be insanely thin.

xp yeah, I sift through all of them but it's more for lolz than anything.

When you say "two year lifespan" to a model, are you really talking about the industrial design of it then, Supercub? Is that the big thing? A whole new look is unlikely this year, yes.

Yeah, basically the external hardware, including design. Is form factor the right term? As best i understand, the internals are kind of on a two-year cycle, and the design is on a two-year cycle, but the two don't align. Meaning the internals of the 3Gs are closer to the 4, than the 3. But the design of the 3Gs more closely resembles the 3. So the 5 would look like the 4, but maybe have a new processor and possibly a RAM boost(?).

I would need someone more technically clued in to confirm this impression though.

That's what I think will happen, yeah.

oh except the internals of the 4 are quite different in that Apple's own chip (A4) is in the 4 but some old third party chip was in the 3GS iirc.

My view of iPhone upgrades is informed by my experience with the 3G. I got the 3G in the February following its release. The 3Gs came out a few months later. I was pretty okay with having the older version, because the design was similar. I didn't really concentrate on the performance boost, because the 3G seemed like such a dramatic upgrade from my previous phone. Now though, my 3G is getting kind of horrible and the 3Gs seems still to be a solid performer.

oh and the 4's screen has 4x the pixels of the 3GS xp

Yeah the 3GS is solid mainly because it has twice the memory of the 3G. The processor bump helped too, but I think memory is the main problem with the 3G. 128 Mb RAM is sort of ridiculous.

http://foodcourtlunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/nerd.jpg

me, this morning

Debating selling my 'late 09' 27" iMac i7 for one of the new 15-inchers and an external monitor (pretty much an even trade of iMac to MBP, external monitor would be extra). Thunderbolt would make external HDs much less of a PITA.

I still find having to unmount the external HD before "undocking" from external HD a bit of a PITA, especially when it turns out iTunes is using it. Thunderbolt won't solve that, though one day perhaps there will only be one cable connection to unplug.

(when you've got your MacBook hooked up to external display etc, as I do)

timoreilly Tim O'Reilly
If iPads are “post-pc devices” why must I sync with iTunes before I can use one? http://bit.ly/ijLp2K
27 minutes ago

this^^ i feel like is a result of the fact that apple isnt as good at the internet as it should be - rumored me.com/itunes overhaul still hasnt arrived - basically there needs to be a free automatic aspect of yr ios device that lives in the cloud - imo biggest problem w/the whole situation

Maybe wireless providers are concerned about network overload

xp yep, 'post-PC' is 100% marking wank and irrelevant unless it actually happens. You can't show a tablet being a guitar and say 'LOOK THE DEATH OF PCS' yet every second tech blog has swallowed the slogan hook line and sinker.

this^^ i feel like is a result of the fact that apple isnt as good at the internet as it should be - rumored me.com/itunes overhaul still hasnt arrived - basically there needs to be a free automatic aspect of yr ios device that lives in the cloud - imo biggest problem w/the whole situation

nobody is as good at the internet as they should be for this to happen. see tons of people running super outdated versions of android bcz the "last mile" ISP (read: cell phone company) hasn't bothered to push updates (takes up $$$ bandwidth)

Apple's in the best position to force that though. All it has to do is announce it's shoving itunes in a cloud and suddenly telcos will scramble to make sure they don't lose all their business. No Android manufacturer has that clout.

yeah obvs isps are terrible at the internet but if apple showered half the love and attention on teh net as they do on their devices we would already be living in an irl post pc utopia

i mean w/e this im sure is what their lol hueg new data center is for and itll all be done soon but still

Apple's just not very good at services and social imo, I mean look at Ping. Mobileme is ridiculous and has been for years and itunes is pulsing vomit.

Maybe they'll bring back ecards for iOS 5. Fukwits.

Don't think this two-year cycle thing is solid yet. When they were under pressure with G4s they churned out new cases every 18 months. iPods went even quicker iirc.

I've gone to some effort to reproduce it on 850 MHz and 2100 MHz networks and can't make it lose a single bar.

Also this isn't hard to do on every 4 I've seen. Better after the upgrade, but still possible to kill signal, especially in low reception areas. Don't think it's a huge issue (much better reception than 3GS) but all the butthurt Applers screaming on Twitter that it was totally impossible and only affected three ppl neway were way off.

how would they swing a bigger screen on the iphone 5 - wouldn't they have to lower the DPI in order to maintain compatibility with iOS? I know nothing of displays, btw

Yeah if it was physically bigger they'd have to lower the dpi. Don't see them making it bigger.

fred wilson is p otm abt re the superiority of androids notification approach http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/mobile-notifications.html

seems like that sort of thing just isnt in line w/apples vision for what ios is all abt tho idk

otm post. Whatever Apple does it has to get rid of the disgusting pop-ups that obliterate everything you're doing.

Last week I saw a hacky iOS prototype showing a bar that sort of hangs from the top of the screen. The problem with that is that it hangs in front of the top row of apps on the home screen, which you can't access until you acknowledge/clear the notification(s). There's no way in hell Apple would implement such a thing but it's roughly 28,000 times better than the current 'solution'.

Well unless you enlarge the screen specifically for notifications and multitask icons

i don't know, call me crazy but i prefer not to be notified at all and just look at the badge numbers

^^^ 1000 x this. I HATE being hassled every time I receive a bloody text. The whole point of a text is that you get to it when you're ready, not for it to stop you doing what you're doing.

Then you hit "close" and not "view" right?

Or do you really get pissed off when your phone stops doing EVERYTHING when a call comes in?

a phone call is not a text

Well yeah, but they're both phone-styled communications that people think have some importance.

I think there should be a "don't notify on new text message" option, though. I think of email and facebook messages and so on as more deferred, but I guess for many, text messages are deferrable.

people text me important shit all the time

btw--i fixed the slowness in the maps app by turning off location sharing for it.

Then you hit "close" and not "view" right?

Every single time.

Or do you really get pissed off when your phone stops doing EVERYTHING when a call comes in?

YES. Bloody thing needs to have a bar at the top or something (like the tethering bar) that says 'yu0 has a phoen call' that you can ignore.

Single best thing about ipads is that they don't do phone calls or texts therefore you can choose to be never interrupted by anything ever.

oh and max, if you're getting texts that must be answered RIGHT AWAY then your acquaintances are doing it wrong.