Wait, wait, don't tell me -- some people are gonna think that Apple's lost it's touch and $AAPL will plummet ("Gold? Plastic? Are you serious?"), some people are going to think its an unparalleled technical achievement ("The 64bit processor solidifies Apple's position as the engineer of the greatest phones, let alone personal computers."), and everything sells like hotcakes regardless.
I believe you have just summarized, at least, the next month of news stories from various sites designed to maximize ad revenue. I consider these announcements like miniature gold-rushes for the news sites and ad networks. Unfortunately, I have yet to think of a way to "sell shovels" to them.
I think the way to do it is to make a program the generates "controversial apple articles" through a little natural language processing and a bank of commonly-used vocabulary. It could totally be done, hah
"...but Apple is adding a gold (or "champagne") color option for those of you who want to project an even greater air of affluence and privilege when you're poking at your hand-sized computer."
So, for $40 I can make my gorgeous, elegant new iPhone 5s as ugly as a 5C? I'm sorry, but those cases look absolutely terrible.
I was actually pretty excited about the prospect of an affordable iPhone, but it appears that the 5C, which is essentially an iPhone 5 that's cheaper to produce, is still going to cost at least $400-500 without a contract. There simply isn't $400 worth of technology in the iPhone 5C.
Edit: It's even worse than I expected. The 5C is available unlocked for $549 only through T-Mobile. At $649, the 5S is a reasonably priced luxury, but at just $100 less, the 5C is a ripoff.
It's disingenuous to pretend that a phone is cheap because it's $100 on-contract. If I signed that contract the phone would cost me $1300 more than what I pay using a Galaxy Nexus on the same towers that AT&T subscribers use. So basically, Apple is telling consumers that an ugly lump of plastic and glass containing last year's technology is worth more than a 13" Macbook Air 2013.
Apple has refined their ability to continuously improve these products in ways that don't at first appear impressive, but in fact dramatically improve the user experience. Each time this happens I'm inclined to be underwhelmed, but them am in fact impressed once I get my hands on a device.
What I can't help but wonder is, am I ever going to be truly surprised or excited by one of these?
I used to get super excited about these because something new, bigger (and smaller) and nicer looking would get announced. The 5 and now the 5s announcements were more like looking at update notes on an app.
-Improved Security
-Increased Speed
-Updated to version 7
I'm sure the fingerprint scanning will be great from a UX point of view, but I was really hoping for an edge to edge screen, a built in 3D printer, or something that makes me go "wow, I didn't think you could do that".
I don't see the huge benefit yet of using a 64-bit CPU in a phone. Sure, it may be useful computations on 64-bit numbers and I assume that it'll have more registers. But if pointers are also 64-bit, it's a bit of a waste of memory.
Memory and '64bit math' aren't really the drivers here, 64bit archs generally have a lot more registers and allow better packing of SIMD instructions. Both can give large performance increases, particularly the later when a lot of what you plan to use that power for are things like image manipulation.
More broadly this is probably a move from ARMv7 to ARMv8, which brings about a bunch of performance improvements besides 64-bit-ness: more registers, double-precision floating-point SIMD, hardware AES and SHA extensions, etc. This probably mostly opens up performance improvement potential for games, but things like SSL could also get faster.
I imagine it also helps them deal with doing the h264 encoding and such that they need to get the lightning connector to do the hdmi output that they built. The added SIMD stuff in ARMv8 was also largely targeting video encoding also I believe.
Seems a bit crazy now for a phone, today, but the new consoles have 8GB and the iPhone is vastly more powerful than the original Xbox. The 5S is probably on par with the 360 now.
Shifting to 64-bit makes a lot of sense for future-proofing.
Historically, Apple is only above specs when the specs they're talking about are inferior to the rest of the market. When they've got something better, there's no end to the bragging.
That's why I put the yet in between. I don't expect that the 5S has more than 4GB RAM.
Of course, it is possible to address more than 4GB in a 32-bit operating system with processor extensions, if you limit the address space of processes to 4GB (see e.g. PAE). I don't expect that we'll see many applications needing more than that soon. Maybe games?
Address space isn't just about ram. Memory mapped files are used extensively in iOS, 64 bit means basically no limits on memory mapping size from file in flash.
I know. I still don't believe that iPhone Apps have such requirements in the near future. Except for possibly games. But currently it would not be very attractive for studios to target the 5S only. So, I assume that your sibling is right, it is more of a preparation for the future (apart from the benefits of a new ARM version).
This is what bothers me about iOS devices the most.
Unlike the Mac OSX upgrades, iOS upgrades seem to slow down the devices. iOS upgrades turned my 3G into an unusable mess. The same happened with my iPad 1.
My iPhone 4 slowed down noticeably with iOS 6.0, and even though I stopped upgrading after 6.0.1, it's been getting progressively slower-- and 95% of what I do on my phone is email, rss and browsing.
I have a 3 year "recycle" policy with my own hardware. My iPad 1 became unusable in less than 3 years. It doesn't feel good to spend ~$800 (a 64gb wifi with taxes in) on a device only to have it ruined by OS upgrades.
If Apple let you downgrade the OS easily, I probably wouldn't be nearly as pissed about it.
--edit-- In retrospect, I feel like a fool for plunking the extra $ for the 64GB model, thinking that it would help 'future proof' my purchase.
Nobody said that. Apple can "advance" software for the newer devices and just patch the security holes for the older ones. Nobody's asking for downgrades.
Your 3GS has nothing to do with the iPhone 5S. iOS 7 was probably designed with the iPhone 5 in mind. The 3GS probably had support hacked together.
I think that at this point, you can stop using a 4 year old phone. Or, if you insist on using it, you shouldn't complain if modern software doesn't run 100% on it.
> I think that at this point, you can stop using a 4 year old phone.
You sound like an Apple salesman. Who the hell says 4 years is old? It worked PERFECTLY WELL.
> Or, if you insist on using it, you shouldn't complain if modern software doesn't run 100% on it.
It's Apple who pushes consumers the whole time with "upgrades". Besides, all the consumer is asking for is security patches. If "upgrades" do effectively downgrade the product, then why do the produce this "modern software"? Because the want to sell the latest iPhone.
Well then, let's stop advancing technology now because you think it's fine where it is. Let's stop writing more feature-packed programs because hey, features cost resources. I'm sure you're using a recycled computer running Puppy Linux or something else ridiculously resource effective but lacking in features, am I right? I doubt it. But if you are, you're in the MINORITY.
What do you want from Apple? For them to support every single phone in different ways? Security patches for the first iPhone but no new features? Same for the 3GS? And if customers with the 3GS complain about having no new features, well then, let's do ANOTHER fork and do security patches + features. Why then, let's do that for every single model.
Four years is old. That's the difference between having a kid and watching them go off to school. If you can't buy a new phone after 4 years, then don't. But quit bitching that it isn't rainbows for you.
> let's stop advancing technology now because you think it's fine where it is
Nobody ever said that.
> What do you want from Apple?
What is that question? I said what needs to be done: Stop downgrading my product with so-called "upgrades". It's just common sense, really.
> Four years is old.
Yes, for rich people who don't care about resources because they are not affected by the scarcity. A phone is old when it doesn't fulfill the consumer's needs.
1. That phone is NOT old. Who says we should buy a new phone every time some company wants to make some cash? The thing worked great and there was absolutely nothing that needed to be changed.
2. I do NOT want to be part of a throw-away society that benefits nobody but some company. Our planet does NOT have unlimited resources, yet we keep throwing away electronics like there's no tomorrow.
Then don't upgrade the software on your phone either. You consume energy every time you upgrade, further depleting our planet of its finite supply of resources.
The consumer is damned lucky that Apple even bothers to support phones beyond the last two generations.
If they did what they probably should have done, your phone would have reported, "Sorry, this update is not supported by your device," when you tried to install the latest iOS version. Then we'd be treated to even more wailing and gnashing of teeth from people who feel entitled to perpetual updates. Apple literally can't win here.
Edit: I will agree that they could 'win' by the simple expedient of permitting OS downgrades. There's no reason they couldn't let you revert to the last version you were happy with.
FYI: the 3GS was sold until September last year. I have non-techie friends who bought one. Probably in the reasonable expectation that a phone that is still being sold (and not in the aftermarket) gets updates for a while.
I really don't think fingerprint as personal key is a good idea. It's not as private as your personal passphrase. A lot others might have it. (e.g. US Visa Office took my fingerprints when I was applying a Visa). If it's not private, how could it be used as private key or master password?
But your personal passphrase is only secure until someone watches you enter it from afar. None of these solutions are perfect, but the fingerprinting is significantly better.
The sensor is complex enough that I very much doubt you could just use a printout of a fingerprint to fool it.
You are right. But passphrase can be reset; fingerprint is permanent...
EDIT: as to sensor complexity, if it can be built into a home button, it'll be implemented on other fingerprint readers. Before long, people would be collecting fingerprints using this kind of advanced sensors..
I saw a Mythbusters episode where they defeated a fingerprint scanner with a home printer copy of a fingerprint they lifted off a CD case with superglue.
It is sub-epidermal, so maybe it is really more complex then just pressing photocopy of a fingerprint in front. Also, I think the steel ring around the button detects capacitance. Pretty sure, these cases have been evaluated by their engineers.
Afterall, Apple will know about it, their ipad was used in MI to get into Kremlin. Ha.
Although imperfect, it does need to be offered for people like myself who hate dealing with passwords, don't want to goof around with password storage apps, and aren't paranoid about someone lifting their fingerprints.
Ah, the NSA doesn't need the internet for these things. They will have a custom backdoor that slurps up the fingerprint as soon as you plug in your phone to sync.
fingerprints are a means of identifying you. I don't know about the laws where you are but in my country the police and state do not have fingerprints of every citizen, just the ones with criminal records. In case of a crime the police matches prints in the scene with the ones in the db of usual suspects plus the people who have a motive for the particular case. If they had a database of everyone's fingerprints I can't imagine how many times innocents would be wrongfully incriminated.. and you know with USA security agencies who can make foreigners disappear and end up on Guantanamo bay.. this is scary.
Sorry, it's not scary, and mentioning Guantanamo Bay is extremely paranoid and way out of line. If they're really out to get you they don't need your fingerprint.
The thing I'm most excited about is the multi-color flash. Having a mismatch between flash and ambient color temperature is one of the big things that makes flash photography look bad.
Pro-photographers will put color gels on their flash to correct for this, and it's not something that can be easily fixed in software after the fact.
I am sure that phone will be a good experience, with great greaphics, the biometrics and nice camera. I am just 100% distrustful of Apple at this point.
Even the NSA called apple "Big Brother" and they called Apple customers "Zombies"
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I mean, if the NSA is calling it out for us in their slides... and this thing is now tracking all motion data - along with health-app tie-ins.... the NSA may as well offer medical insurance.
Funny time to announce a phone with a fingerprint sensor - soon after it comes out, it will get cold outside and people will realize that they need to take off their gloves in order to use the fingerprint sensor.
Because those are the parts of the world where Apple makes most of its sales. Oh wait, no, outside of NA, EU, and Japan, their marketshare is now minuscule compared to Android.
But wait, there's a new "cheap" iPhone that's targeted at those other markets, right? Oh nevermind, that one doesn't have a fingerprint sensor.
... you realize there are large parts of the US itself where gloves aren't a thing during winter time, right? Shit, I grew up above the 49th parallel and didn't wear gloves regularly throughout the year.
And so the people who are currently not using a lock screen because it's too much trouble are going to instead set up their phones so that they have to either use their fingerprint or enter a password, based on whether they have gloves on? I don't think so. They'll probably just turn this off and use the swipe-to-unlock method (which is quite confusing and unintuitive in iOS 7, by the way: http://cdn.andrewmunsell.com/img/articles/ios7-design/xlock....).
My laptop lets me enter a password, or use a fingerscan. 99% of the time I use a fingerscan, but I have had it malfunction (the driver died or something) in which case I used the password. I very much imagine the iPhone 5S will try to drive a similar use.
It's "too much trouble" with a screen code when you have to do it every single time you grab your device. If you have a fingerprint alternative for the overwhelming majority of cases, yes it would make security more likely.
You clearly don't understand the target audience. An either-or setup for unlocking their phone is already way too complicated, especially for the average iPhone user. Steve Jobs would have never allowed such a gimmicky feature.
You are being overly cynical. The notion that a screenlock is onerous is entirely based upon the idea that doing it every time you want to use your device quickly becomes a major PITA: I despise the fact that I have to do a screen pattern over and over and over again, and honestly would disable it if I weren't forced to keep it on by an ActiveSync policy.
If I could bypass it with a quick fingerprint scan that would be brilliant, and that is what Apple is going for. I'm going to guess they do okay in the whole glove situation.
64-bit, and yet it will probably use no more than 2 GB of RAM.
Either way, this shows how committed Apple is to making its own ARM CPU's, and dismiss any rumors that Apple would use Intel's chips in iPhones or iPads in the future (which was a very unlikely and crazy idea to begin with). If anything, Apple would start making $700 Air-like machines with 64-bit chips soon (maybe next year), and still be as profitable as they are with the real $1,000 Air (since Intel is charging them about $300 for the Haswell CPU).
The fingerprint is kept locally only. Presumably when it uses it to authenticate a purchase it's actually validating locally and sending up your password (or other auth token) rather than sending the biometrics directly.
REAL mobile payments, not gimmicks or old mag stripe. I'm talking EMV specification transactions on real merchant networks - you either need a smart card contact chip or NFC.
Mag stripe is dead, I don't support payment technologies that continue to promote it - Square, Shopify POS, etc. The USA is way behind on implementing EMV. (I know, Shopify is Canadian)
I should have clarified that my original comment was from the perspective of a consumer - making payments using NFC, not accepting them.
Mag stripe is horribly insecure and developing new technologies around it because of easy to perform a transaction will only allow fraud to continue to exist. In Canada, I question every merchant that does not support chip technology.
USA merchants are reluctant to change. The rest of the world is moving on with or without them.
Copy/paste from article: Pretty much every other developed country got rid of magnetic stripe cards years ago, and many countries are multiple generations beyond that tech. In the UK and much of Europe, the "chip and PIN" card, properly called the EMV (for "Europay, MasterCard and Visa"), is dominant; it's a regular plastic card, but it's embedded with a tiny computer chip that serves as authentication in conjunction with a regular four-digit PIN. The EMV system is much more secure than the magnetic stripe card; when it was introduced to France, the country saw an 80% reduction in card fraud. (It was introduced in 1992, by the way. The France of 20 years ago was more advanced than the US is now.) The benefits: authentication is far more sophisticated than reading a simple magnetized strip; it incorporates actual encryption protocols like DES, the Data Encryption Standard.
The chief vulnerability of the EMV system? IT STILL HAS MAGNETIC STRIPES. EMV cards have a magnetic stripe so they can be used in dumber, slower countries, like the US, which can't read the chips. The only real hack of the EMV system relies on transferring information from the magnetic stripe, rather than the chip.
I am not sure this is a good example. It was two-part attack. First, they compromised account information at the debit card issuer. Second, they linked new cards to these accounts (mag stripes makes this simple). How hard it is to program a 'blank' chip card (or a phone with NFC) to link to the compromised account?
This is a great example, I'll give you the details:
If USA had adopted EMV technologies, when the criminals attempted to perform a transaction with their mag stripe fraudulent cards, the system would recognize it as an EMV enabled card based on the mag stripe track data. The fraudster would be forced to use the chip on the card, and their whole scheme fails.
In short: Because the EMV wasn't accepted at these machines, mag stripe is used as a backup. If they had used EMV, they would have forced that option and not accepted mag stripe.
The two-part attack is only how they stole the cards in such a mass manner and increased their limits - They could have stolen all the mag stripe data with skimmers and cameras.
Even though others are working hard to protect payment technologies, it does nothing to help countries who fall behind.
EDIT: Program a BLANK CARD? I'm sorry, are you suggesting that it would be easy to obtain encryption keys from Visa/Mastercard/Interac etc? Do you know what you're suggesting?
I am not suggesting, I am asking. Banks issue chip & pin cards all the time. These guys already breached a bank. I'd guess programming chip & pin cards will cost thieves more than magstripe cards, but is doable.
Also, you keep insisting that if USA adopted EMV, this would not have happened. But this operation was global, thieves used ATMs in Russia, Japan, Britain, and Canada among others.
Not every machine has enabled it yet, but the merchant services provider is responsible for the damages of not facilitating the chip card. This operation would not have been as successful if the only ATMs available were the off-branded machines found in the corner of bars.
To answer your question though, I guess it would be possible, but they would need to skim the card data RIGHT at the time of card production in the personalization machine as it holds the proper encryption keys - nearly impossible. Banks typically don't do their own manufacturing (I don't know of any bank that does) and these systems are typically disconnected. This is worlds apart from what they actually did - dumping or generating mag stripe data, including the PIN Offset and writing the data onto cards like library cards, or hotel room cards.
In addition, with EMV, the card is encrypted and verified using the issuer's public key, as well as the Certificate Authority's public key. Even further, Visa/Mastercard have their own multi-tier encryption that gets applied to the cards.
I'm really getting over my head in the manufacturing process, but it is incredibly more complicated and secure than the old mag stripe days.
at this point flagship phones are differentiating on software innovation rather than hardware. look at what samsung is adding to android for example. to the average consumer 64bit means nothing, but show them a few gimmick software features and they are sold.
Consumer can also be sold by meaningless buzzwords, like 64-bit on a phone with less than 4 gigabytes of memory, particularly if they trying really hard to be sold.
the nice thing about android is that being used on devices from multiple manufacturers who try to compete with each other means that there's a larger number of think tanks coming up with new features. all google needs to do is pick the good ideas from OEMs, standardize them and release them in the next iteration of android.
But there are people lined up at the local Apple store to get a marginal upgrade to a increasingly uninteresting non-status smartphone product so what do I know?
