Apple: Our stores are your 'town square' and a $1,000 iPhone is your 'future' Apple has summoned friendly press to its new Cupertino campus to christen the Steve Jobs Theater with the introduction of a new set of products to hit the shelves this Fall. CEO Tim Cook used the occasion to showcase updates to the AppleTV and Watch lines, while a new, eye-wateringly expensive iPhone model stole the show. …
£1,000 is a small price to pay for an Apple phone. From the Apple marketing material I've read, it's clear to me that the iPhone X will literally be the best phone in the world, until Apple bring out the iPhone Xs. And consider all the technology in this phone that literally hasn't been seen on any other phone ever: facial recognition, 3d touch, near edge-to-edge screen, Super Retina OLED, wireless charging, no physical home button. Then look at iOS, the best-in-class operating system ever made by far. This has so many technical capabilities never before seen in a consumer device, that listing them is almost an exercise in futility. Google must be wondering where they went wrong.
I'm literally crying tears from my eyes for those of you who I'll never meet who don't own iPhones. I can't imagine how grey and empty your lives must be - it's like you're staring at the blasted plains of your emptiness, unaware that Apple's sun is kissing your shoulders. Every time you look at your phone you must sigh within. Whereas every time I look at my iPhone, I smile and laugh. I'm doing it now. I wish you could see me.
I'll certainly be buying a couple of X's as soon as I can - £2,000 is a small price to pay for riding the crest of the wave of the future in the present. Apple should've priced this phone higher. I suspect that no other firms will sell a single phone in the coming year. Apple has the entire mobile phone market captured, and I for one, am excited to be a proud foot soldier in Apple's army! Lead on, General Cook, lead on!
For a phone - that is bloody stupid money!
For a top-of-the-range miniaturised portable computer/entertainment device that can also make phone calls, I don’t think it is a totally unreasonable price.
If you don’t use it as such, dont get upset, just don’t buy one.
However, I use my 6S+ 128GB to carry endless ‘stacks’ of PDF’s and tech manuals that I need for my job (better than lugging around a 1kg laptop!), but sadly that is way too rich for me.
The way things are going, job-wise, I’d need the 256GB to carry everything - I’m not made of money. I’ll have to keep using my trusty 500GB Satellite drive as auxiliary storage then.
Fanboi or not, it’s a nice COMPUTER: if you can afford it.
On a fucking phone? Sell the I-Phone, go Android and get an e-reader with good PDF support and save your eyes!
I agree, I've tried that too and it's far from ideal. I also tried it with a Kindle Paperwhite, but the search and doc management on that is rubbish (it's the 21st century and we still cannot group categories of files together? WTF?). It's a shame because its very low power needs would have been useful.
In the end I settled on an iPad with a file manager (I use FileApp, but there are plenty more), and I expect that an Android based tablet will get you there even cheaper.
"6S+ 128GB"
Why did you feel the need to exactly specify which phone you were using?
Why not just say "I use my iPhone to....."
The only time I ever refer to the make / model of a phone is when I'm differentiating it from the one I'm currently using in conversation...
IE "Well, I had a sammy and it didn't do *thing* but this one *holding up my mobey* does"
I'm genuinely curious
Why did you feel the need to exactly specify which phone you were using?
Maybe a somewhat clumsy way to illustrate just how many docs he's lugging along in that phone? iPhones lack a decent file manager so you'd need an app unless you use the built-in reader thing, and it's actually quite a job to work out how much space something takes.
Alternatively it is to show off, of course, but that sort of p*ssing contest always ends up with discovering someone else who can throw more money at it. I'm willing to bet there are already a tonne of people drooling to get the iPhone X for no other reason that they can show off with it, not because it can do some amazing things (I'd be quite interested to see what else I could do with the facial recognition, but I have better use for such a lump of money, like getting an LG 43UD79 monitor :) ).
"I'd be quite interested to see what else I could do with the facial recognition"
It's just a random thought but if it recognises faces, why not other body parts? Such as, for an example plucked at random, the bits girls on the Internet so dearly love getting images of.
It may make paying for stuff a little iffy but your security would be better.
I have a £180 Moto G4 Plus which as a fingerprint sensor. I leave it on my desk and occasionally put a finger on the sensor to check texts, emails etc (and the time, more often than I realise) - But the phone is facing the ceiliing and my face is not in its filed of view - so a face based unlock would not work and would require me picking the wretched thing up and pointing it at me.
Also, I realise that usually I've unlocked the phone in the time from getting it out of my pocket and in front of me, because I can feel where the sensor is and have already got one of the three registered thumbs/fingers on it.
This move is, as someone above said, purely form over function. How far can they push people before they realise they are playing for beautiful* junk?
*Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you are willing to drop £1k for this, you'd better think it's beautiful...
Getting rid of the fingerprint reader is just a stop-gap solution until an under-screen sensor is perfected. Samsung had a similar issue on the Galaxy 8, and so clumsily placed the fingerprint reader next to the rear camera.
The X is just to take some money off the people who want exotica - like the Mii Mix. And hey, why not? Samsung are struggling to get yields up on the iPhone X's screen, so supplies are limited... Apple don't have that many to sell.
Others can choose other models.
I still find it amazing how people who don't care for Apple stuff still take the time to talk about how much they hate Apple, recycle the same Tim Cook and Steve Jobs jokes, talk of lack of innovation blah blah.
We all know Apple is a corporation that make overpriced stuff, some of which is good, whilst some of it is garbage. Same as any other large organisation really.
What I really don't get is why people get so upset about the price, and then have to list all the features that their super duper XYZ phone has and the iPhone doesn't, and then point out their phone only costs the same as a packet of crisps.
Apple are a premium brand that charge eye watering prices, it's nothing new...is it justified? Well, that's subjective of course depending on your financial position and your list of feature requirements.
I would actually not use the facial unlock, but that's because I don't like biometrics in general (nor will I use NFC based payment systems, but I'm just picky that way).
Facial unlock in not the only thing this phone offers, though, but it is IMHO FAR too early to buy one. I would not even consider buying this phone until at least half a year has passed and all the hardware and software bugs have been shaken out. Apple generally does a good job on new kit, but I think it's just good practice.
In addition, it means less queueing :).
The NEXT iPhone will be so thin you'll be able to shave with it. (feature!) It will come with a glove like falconers use to prevent injury, and for an extra $200, the iStrop to keep it cutting edge. Airports will ban it.
Seriously though... $1K for a phone? And damn, it looks fragile. I'm sure a lot of people that need therapy IMHO will buy it, but you can get a pretty decent tablet PC for that. Or a drivable used car. Or a couple of months rent in an okay apartment. Or 200 pints of good beer, which will probably bring you enjoyment for longer than takes for buyer's remorse to set in for iPhoneX customers.
Facial recognition to unlock? I've no doubt they've improved it somewhat, but my Galaxy S5 had that in 2013. While it worked reasonably well, you looked like an idiot staring at your phone to unlock. It's like a selfie passport photo every time you need to access your phone.
Yes, it deserves the poo emoji for that alone.
I mean, it's a phone. It's a highly clever, technical device that has lots of crafty new ideas and then they have to add that sh*te, and worse, even boast about it? If I had bothered to develop this at all I would have quietly stuck it for people to find, not get tech leaders to make fools of themselves with it.
I'm interested in the new tech they have in the X, but the facial logon is problematic for me. I am willing to be surprised, but I have a feeling that won't work quite as fluid as they sought to demonstrate. If I spend that sort of money (well, let's be honest, it's more "if I find a way to write it off") I'll try it, but I suspect I'd soon be back to using a 6 digit PIN like I have now (not using TouchID either).
Not being a ten year old Japanese girl, I don't have any use for emojis. I've never had to see one in an actual attempted communication until a week or two ago, when one of the commenters on a tech site sprinkled a bunch of them in instead of actual words (which would have worked even better-- the damned message looked like a rebus). My browser and Windows happily cooperated, displaying the idiotic things in color (but thankfully not animated).
The first impulse I had was to get... this... crap... out... of... my... computer. I found it offensive that Mozilla and Microsoft thought it appropriate to transmit this idiotic buffoonery to me without any optiion to turn it off.
Upon a quick google (using it that way because Google said it was bad, heh), I found tons of people asking the same thing, yet there's no simple way to do it in newer Windows versions. You WILL have emojis, damn you!
I found that by substituting fonts in the registry, I was able to vanquish the color ones at the very least, replacing them with less annoying text glyphs. Trying to go further than that resulted in "unknown character" boxes all over the place in Windows, replacing many UI elements. Overkill, I think. At least the color ones are gone, and I've used .css to replace emojis with the unknown character boxes while browsing. If a person wants to use stupid little pictures to try to be cute while communicating, I'd rather see a bunch of meaningless boxes and move on to the next message.
So... yeah, Apple, big swing and miss with this one, for me at least. Same for the face recognition... I would need to use a pin or password to authenticate anyway, and that being the case, I would rather have a fingerprint reader as the second factor. Instead of a password or pin... no way.
Still just displays the time, and even needs constant movement to work at all.
Is it a bad deal ?... maybe not for those who appreciate the skill required to build it, and the statement it makes.
People spending $ 1000 on an iPhone may have the same incentives as somebody spending $ 50,000 on an object which has the same functionality as one that can be bought for $ 50.
The fact that the $ 50 watch exists, doesn't make the Da Vinci a bad watch, it is just different.
So now
1. everytime someone uses this they need to selfie themselves. wtf
2. want access to your partners phone ? fine, just point it at there sleeping face.
3. lets see how it's gonna work with burkas.
what a load of emperors new clothes mince. My S7 has higher res, a finger print scanner that works, and an SDcard slot. Oh.. and cost be 350 quid.
1. Only you are not taking a selfie. And everyone keeps telling me android has done this for years (so we must already be living in this hell - as I'm also told Android is far more popular).
2. Because you couldn't touch the phone against their finger as they sleep? And... if that worries you, turn on the attention feature - unless you sleep with your eyes open you should be ok.
3. About as well as touch id with gloves. Sometimes you may need to use pin/password. Live with it.
Enjoy your phone. I'll enjoy mine, without the need to mock others for their choices. Personally having used Android, it's not for me (inconsistent interface - perhaps due to carrier/manufacturers bolt ons, etc. but I like keyboards to be consistent, have things in the same place, etc, not to change based on where I am in the interface), but that's my opinion, and I feel no need to impose it on you - but reserve the right to call you out for inaccuracies and a need to force your opinion on others.
I think in some ways we can all believe Apple are one of the new companies who can get away with the price they're asking for this 'X' thing. They actually seem to believe they're invincible, and feed on their own hype and marketing. In reality, it's all a very carefully stage-managed con job, but Apple are very good at it, and the faithfull believe it completely. The X will sell, but the 8 (a tweaked iPhone 7) is the fall back device. The X is really nothing more than Apple testing the market to see how far they can push prices before consumers push back. If this is successful, they'll just increase from there, and still cream 50%+ profit per handset.
Me, I'm happy with my Moto G5 Plus - £200 thankyou very much. Very fast, great screen, good camera, 2+ day battery life. Apple can shove 'X' where the sun don't shine.
I think in some ways we can all believe Apple are one of the new companies who can get away with the price they're asking for this 'X' thing. They actually seem to believe they're invincible, and feed on their own hype and marketing. In reality, it's all a very carefully stage-managed con job, but Apple are very good at it, and the faithfull believe it completely.
Yes, they strongly remind me of UK's Psion in its heyday. Those things were also seriously overpriced but they got away with it because there was initially nil competition. Later you had things like the Agenda, but that's where the userfriendliness of the internal software came to the fore.
As far as I can tell from the demo you are required to actually look at it. In other words, if someone tries to lift your phone, you have just shown them that you have it :). Worse, you may have just managed an unlock, but you cannot change the locking facilities without that face again, or the PIN.
In other words, you either get yourself a Mission Impossible mask made of the owner or it remains a problem.
Apple might want us to think that iPhone X is pronounced iPhone 10, but I wonder how many people will follow that instruction? There's no context to indicate that X is a roman 10 and no "tradition" of the use of roman numerals other than OSX (which I invariably hear pronounced by most people as "Oh Es Ecks" anyway)
Was OS 9 ever called OS "icks" (South Africans talking about OSX aside :-)) Will the next OS or iPhone be XI, pronounced chi or eleven? Greek or Chinese pronunciation of Xi?
"no "tradition" of the use of roman numerals other than OSX (which I invariably hear pronounced by most people as "Oh Es Ecks" anyway)"
You mean that's not right? I've always thought that was how it was pronounced (not being an Apple user, I don't really have much reason to pronounce it or hear it pronounced; most of my exposure to it is in written form), and it sounds a lot slicker than "Oh ess ten." I mean, if you don't want it to be "oh ess ecks," why write it that way? "OS10" is only one more keypress. They picked "OSX" because it looks cooler, so it follows that the pronunciation matches the text.
"They picked "OSX" because it looks cooler, so it follows that the pronunciation matches the text."
FYI, I've also always, and still do, call it Oh Ess Ecks, but that, apparently, is incorrect.
A rough BTE calculation about
75 Apple iPhone X = 1 Tesla Model X
Or another way an all electric SUV with shit hot performance and genuine innovative design or a cardboard box of phones that double as mediocre pocket computers.
I can't afford either, but I know which I'd have if I could, and it wouldn't have a half eaten fruit on the back.
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