Posts Tagged → iphone

Considering the Folding Phone

Ben Lovejoy at 9to5 Mac has an interesting story about Apple experimenting with a folding iPhone and links to a video with some interesting renders from ADR Studio Design. (below) This topic came up on our recent MPU episode with Austin Evans. Austin, who has played with all the folding phones so far, argues that the regular-sized phone folded down to half size is better than the full-sized iPhone that folds up to iPad mini size.

I’ve not used any of the current crop of folding phones, but I can’t help but think I’d prefer that second category. I’d rather have an iPhone that can grow into something like an iPad mini and keep the whole kit in my pocket. The more I think about it, however, the more I’m convinced that if Apple were to ship a folding iPhone, it’d be like one in the video, where it folds down to a smaller phone. That just seems so much more along the lines of Apple’s genetic bent toward smaller and lighter. Regardless, I expect that a product like this from Apple (if it ever ships) will be years from now.

iPhone Video vs. Dedicated Camera Video

I’ve spent a lot of time shooting videos with the iPhone lately. I made this video when the iPhone 13 Pro was first released, but I’ve also been using the iPhone a lot for MacSparky Labs videos and nearly exclusively for DLR Field Guide content.

My evolving preference for the iPhone over a more dedicated camera results from competing tradeoffs.

The dedicated camera has a better sensor and can have interchangeable lenses. That produces noticeably better video than video out of the iPhone. But for shooting video on the move, as we do with the DLR Field Guide videos, that regular camera comes at a cost. First, it’s heavy to carry around and awkward to wield. Second, and more importantly to me, is stabilization. My regular camera (a Sony) cannot hold a candle to the iPhone video stabilization, even with in-body stabilization, shooting with the Sony takes a ton of post-production effort to get stable where I can use iPhone footage pretty much “as is”.

Potato Jet (one of my favorite camera guys on YouTube) made his own comparison recently and came up with a similar conclusion. I’m not saying that they should shoot the next Star Wars movie with an iPhone, but for much of the stuff I do, the iPhone is plenty enough camera. So for now you need to choose your poison, slightly worse video, or deal with bulk and stability challenges.

The bigger question is where this is heading. If mobile phones continue at their current clip, exactly how long will it be before nobody can tell the difference?

15 Years Since the iPhone Announcement

Fifteen years ago yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and had a really good day. Granted back then the “figure out what Apple is making next” business wasn’t nearly so sophisticated, but he was truly able to pull a revolution out of his pocket.

Watching the Keynote again just reminds me how Steve was at the top of his game that day. The voice infections and the use of pauses and questions to create tension and then the release of that tension are all worthy of study if you speak in front of groups.

Every time I watch this Keynote, I also think of the Apple engineers in the audience that were doing shots of Scotch as their apps were demoed successfully (and didn’t crash). I wish we had video of that.

It also helps that the product he introduced was about to turn the world upside down.

A Few Notes on the iOS 15.2 Release

Apple released a new update to iOS that’s got some noteworthy features. Here are a few points of note:

Legacy Contact

This is my favorite new feature. You can now set a person as your legacy contact. That gives them a secret access key so that they can (upon proof of your death) access your data. I made a video explaining how to do this. I know it’s morbid, but you should do it today.

Hide My Email

You can now create one-time email addresses in the Apple Mail app. You can only use this feature when sending to a single recipient since the random email is tied to that person.

Macro Mode Manual Control

There is now a setting to let you disable macro mode if you don’t want it to automatically kick in. It’s located at Settings > Camera > Macro Control.

Music Upgrades

You can now search for a specific song from within a playlist. Amen. They also launched the Apple Music Voice Plan, for which I am pretty skeptical.

iPad Gesture Update

You can now set separate actions for a swipe from lower-right and lower-left corners. I’ve got Quick Notes in the lower right and Screenshot in the lower left. Just go to Settings > General > Gestures.

iPhone Parts and Service History

You can now see the service and part history for your device under Settings > General > About.

App Privacy Report

The App Privacy Report (located at Settings > Privacy > App Privacy Report) got a serious upgrade. You can now see exactly what your apps are up to and when. This will make sussing out offending apps very easy. I want this now for the Mac.

A Few Observations on Today’s Apple Event

More than Hardware

As we all come to grips with the fact that Apple is becoming more of a services company, it was interesting to see they kicked off the event with a discussion of the television and gaming subscription services. I think the pricing on the gaming service, $5 a month, seems about right. I had no idea what to think about the television content pricing going in. It feels to me like Disney has disrupted everyone with excellent pricing for a massive amount of new and old content. In contrast, Apple is going to launch with just a few shows. Had they charged $10 a month, I would’ve felt like it was dead on arrival. Five dollars a month feels better but still strange for such a limited number of shows. The fact that they are going to bundle 12 free months with the purchase of any Apple hardware makes a ton of sense. I guess now it is up to Apple to make good programming.

Camera improvements

There was no surprise about the additional third lens on the iPhone 11 Pro. The interesting part of this presentation was the explanation of what they intend to do with that extra lens through software. The new features look cool, but I need to see them in action. I think Apple gets the fact that camera improvements drive phone sales and I don’t think they’ll lose sight of that any time soon.

Battery Life FTW

One of the announcements concerning the new iPhones was improved battery life of four hours for the small one and an additional five hours for the big one. That is a significant increase. I suspect it has a lot to do with the improvements to the processor and the way it is so aggressive with battery management. If these improvements are real, a lot of iPhone owners are going to be happy. Indeed, that may be the killer feature with the new phones if it weren’t for that slow-motion selfie camera, because …

The Slow Motion Selfie Camera is a Bigger Deal than their Nerds Think It Is

As someone who spends too much time at Disneyland, I can tell you that a lot of people take more pictures with the lens on the front of their phone than the one on the back. Those folks are going to love a slow-motion selfie. This feature will sell iPhones.

Pro Max, Really?

I like the new naming conventions of the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro. I hope that the “S” days are behind us and next year sees an iPhone 12. I do wish they had come up with something other than “Pro Max” for the big one.

Presenter Diversity

There was plenty of diversity and new faces among the presenters, and they all did great. I have to think that after Craig Federighi’s first presentation, Apple instituted some training program for their presenters. They’ve all been so reliable since, and of course, Federighi is now amazing at it. I do still have a soft spot for Phil Schiller when he gets to talk about the iPhone camera. Here’s a guy that likes talking about mobile photography … and pixel density.

That $329 iPad

A common complaint against Apple is that they do good at the high end but don’t deliver much in terms of value pricing. I would argue that one exception to this is the iPad. That new iPad, which is just $329, includes smart connector (and Smart Keyboard) support and Apple Pencil support. It looks pretty great, and you could buy three of them for what I paid for my iPad Pro. There are a lot of people that could get by just fine with this new iPad and the new iPadOS, particularly with the improvements to Safari.

Apple Can Still Surprise

Because today was a hardware event, I didn’t expect many surprises. Nevertheless, Apple delivered. The new iPhone Pro line got a new color, midnight green. (I love it, and I’m going to buy one.) It was also a surprise to me that the back on these new iPhones is a matte finish. I prefer that. Hopefully, it’s a bit more grippy and makes the phone feel less like a bar of soap.

An even bigger surprise was the fact that the new Apple Watch, Series 5 features an always-on watch face. I thought that was several years away and I am delighted that we can now get it. I had no intention of upgrading my Apple Watch this year, but now I’m in.

The iOS 13 Release Date

While it is always fun watching an Apple event, I had some low-level anxiety throughout this one. I am very nearly done with the new Shortcuts Field Guide, and I wanted to make sure it was available on day one of the iOS 13 release. They never explained in the keynote when iOS 13 is going to release, but an Apple press release sets the date as September 19, next Thursday. That’s a few more days than I was expecting, and I’ll take that. Speaking of which, the new Shortcuts Field Guide will be my biggest yet, and it is coming out great. Stay tuned.

The New Apple iPhone Battery Cases


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Today Apple released battery cases (in black or white) for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.

It has been a long time since I used a battery case on my iPhone. (I am pretty sure my last battery case fig my iPhone 3GS.) The reason I gave up on them is that when you get a new phone, the battery case is of no further use to you.

Nevertheless, I ordered one of these. I’ve got a lot of travel over the next six months, and it sure would be nice to carry an extra charge when I am out of town. With the iPhone XS Max model, this new battery gives you talk time up to 37 hours, Internet use up to 20 hours and video playback of up to 25 hours. The other way I justified it is that when I ultimately hand this phone down to someone in my family, they will inevitably be less interested in charging their phone than I am. This battery will serve them well.

A nice feature of this battery is that it is Qi-certified. That way I can set it on my Qi charger and charge the battery while it is in the case. Ultimately, I expect this will be the battery I use for trips to Disneyland and trips out of town, but not my everyday case. If you are wondering, after way too much consideration, I bought the black one. I think a MacSparky sticker will look nice on the back.

The (Red) iPhone


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The new Product (Red) iPhone looks pretty nice. I like the black bezel much better than last year’s version with the white bezel. Still, a few thoughts occur to me.

1. Why is this only on iPhone 8? It seems it would have been easy to make a red glass panel for the iPhone X, right?

2. Why in April after all the true believers bought their new phones months ago? I wish they would have released this back with the initial iPhone 8/X launch.

Someday I’d like to hear the story why Apple doesn’t do more iPhone colors in general. They used to regularly sale iPods with a lot more color options than they sell the iPhone and I always thought the iPhone would eventually get there, but after ten years, I’m assuming the lack of color options is a deliberate choice.

64 and 256

I recently spent some time in the Apple Store looking at the iPhone 8. There’s a lot to like about the new iPhone. It’s substantially better than its predecessor, and the glass back makes more of a difference than I thought it would. It’s silly but one the thing that pleased me is the memory configurations of the new iPhone. By making just two options at 64GB and 256GB, Apple is correcting what I think has been a problem for years. No longer does someone buying an entry-level iPhone get a handicapped device. For so long, Apple was selling the entry-level iPhone at 16GB, which was not enough. Apple raised the entry-level iPhone to 32GB last year, but this new dual option policy where a user can get either 64GB (which is just fine for most people) or 256GB (which is just fine for the power users) makes a lot more sense.

No longer do I have to watch somebody buying a brand new 16GB iPhone in the Apple Store and restrain myself from telling a complete stranger they’re making a mistake. I’m glad Apple has made this right.

The End of the Line for Windows Phone

Microsoft’s head of mobile business, Joe Belviore recently tweeted that Windows Phone will get no new features.

Ack.

I actually liked Windows Phone as a different take from the iPhone. It seems to me they were just too late to the market to ever get a foothold.

Regardless, I can’t help but think of the funeral Microsoft threw for the iPhone a few years ago. They had a hearse, pallbearers, and even bagpipes. Bagpipes! Looks like they were wrong about that.


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Bluetooth 5.0 and the New iPhones


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One thing I haven’t seen much written about is the addition of Bluetooth 5.0 to iPhone 8 and iPhone X. According to the Bluetooth standards commission, the big change with version 5.0 is increased range. (The last few updates have focused on reduced battery usage.) With Bluetooth 5.0, the range is now supposed to be up to 800 feet (240 meters).

Bluetooth 5.0 also has increased bandwidth, allowing you to have a Bluetooth connection to two devices at one time. In theory you’d be able to send your music to two different Bluetooth speakers or two sets of headphones.

To me, however, the biggest deal is the increased range. Hopefully that translates to the Apple Watch and AirPods. I’m looking forward to testing this out when I get my new iPhone X.