The 2020 iPhone SE • Hacker News Board

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#191

Post by mihaaly » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:06 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #126

Compared to my first gen SE, I'd like the faster processor, better camera and better battery life. But I'm not sure I'm willing to go up in size and weight, and get the rounded edges that make it even harder to grip one-handed. For me, a bigger screen isn't a plus - after years of following the trend and being on my phone more and more, I managed to kick the habit and I'm very happy that my phone has now found its ri…

The slightly bigger body I could accommodate, the rounded edges are f* ugly but can handle that too if I must, even the dumb protruding camera may not repel me if I meditate enough but not having audio connection without some kind of adapter or adapters - considering the various use cases - is just incomprehensibly idiotic. I will never ever go for such. I rather have a granny-phone and paper+pen address book, relearn using printed maps and never carry around e-tickets than giving that amount of money for a defective product design, for an audio device without audio connection (that'd also spare me of annoying update and uninvited functionality frenzy as an extra btw.).

This functionality degradation for the sake of design mania indicates utter madness and gross incompetence!

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#192

Post by bluedino » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:12 PM UTC

notRobot wrote: post #14

> So, yes, a $400 iPhone SE bests a $3,000 top-of-the-line MacBook Pro in single-core CPU performance. This is baffling.

Don't forget that the 2020 MacBook Air is faster than the 'top of the line Macbook Pro' in single-core performance. GeekBench scores of 1047 vs 989.

So would it sound as impressive if they said the latest iPhone processor was faster than the $899 Apple laptop?

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#193

Post by cccfvgf » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:13 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #185

WildGreenLeave wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this discussion with another friend yesterday, and for 99% I agree with you. He told me about one thing that stuck with me and why I do see some value in 5G networks. He told me that 5G is able to handle more traffic (= more connections) per tower . So on some busy places like festivals or other places where there is a huge crowd 5G could help to let all those people access their internet. Of course you could m…

The million dollar question is how long it will be before huge crowds are safe again.

The expression should be upgraded to “trillion dollar question”!

For the US alone.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#194

Post by throwaway55554 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:21 PM UTC

aacid wrote: post #141

Thorentis wrote: post #6

Those benchmarks are impressive. iPhone SE beating the 2019 MBP in single core performance? That's fantastic! I wish I could comment on or know what he was talking about with the iPhone X vs "old iPhone" interaction paradigm. I personally thought the "single button" hardware interface was an incredible innovation that changed everything. Even Android relies on it. My Galaxy S9+ has a "software home button" (like most…

the real question is why we need that performance in your phone? I'm honestly asking, because with every flagship phone (no mater the brand) there is the hype about performance (X's processor is 2x quicker than Y) and it always makes me think. I don't think that in the last 10 years I ever had thought "I wish my phones CPU had higher clock speed"...

I believe Apple uses the iPhone as a test bed for its CPUs that they will eventually put into their Mac line. The Mac line doesn't make enough money to justify putting that much engineering into making a new CPU for them.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#195

Post by swiley » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:34 PM UTC

shrew wrote: post #143

m12k wrote: post #126

Compared to my first gen SE, I'd like the faster processor, better camera and better battery life. But I'm not sure I'm willing to go up in size and weight, and get the rounded edges that make it even harder to grip one-handed. For me, a bigger screen isn't a plus - after years of following the trend and being on my phone more and more, I managed to kick the habit and I'm very happy that my phone has now found its ri…

I'm with you here, I went through a period of moving to feature phones and ditching the smart watch to reduce the phone back to utility rather than a distraction. But feature phones, even those running kaiOS, just don't have the support for communication tools and things like 2fa authenticator apps. I eventually went for an iPhone SE (2016) in the last year, after it was discontinued and managed to get a boxed, new u…

My iPhone SE got destroyed and I got a 7 to replace it since they wouldn’t give me another SE. The larger screen isn’t nicer and just makes the phone harder to hold. I actually feel like I have a harder time touching things accurately as well, I think the 7 detects touches at a different place on your finger.

And of course I can’t use headphones, I ordered a dongle from newegg and waited weeks and now it hasn’t come. I’ve mostly given up on using my phone for music because of this.

The water resistance is nice though, that’s probably the only feature I’ve actually enjoyed.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#196

Post by rangibaby » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:48 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #195

shrew wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you here, I went through a period of moving to feature phones and ditching the smart watch to reduce the phone back to utility rather than a distraction. But feature phones, even those running kaiOS, just don't have the support for communication tools and things like 2fa authenticator apps. I eventually went for an iPhone SE (2016) in the last year, after it was discontinued and managed to get a boxed, new u…

My iPhone SE got destroyed and I got a 7 to replace it since they wouldn’t give me another SE. The larger screen isn’t nicer and just makes the phone harder to hold. I actually feel like I have a harder time touching things accurately as well, I think the 7 detects touches at a different place on your finger. And of course I can’t use headphones, I ordered a dongle from newegg and waited weeks and now it hasn’t come.…

I thought iPhone 7s have the dongle included

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#197

Post by dx034 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #188

captaincrowbar wrote: post #177

There's a good reason why Apple aren't making the small form factor phone lots of you are asking for: logistics. The new SE requires very little new manufacturing capacity. The case and probably battery are from the iPhone 8; the CPU/GPU/SOC and most of the rest of the electronics are from the iPhone 11; the camera still seems to be a slightly unknown quantity but the specs suggest it has a lot in common with the iPh…

All that makes sense, but forget Apple, one of the Android manufacturers should serve this market. I feel like there's a sizeable niche that could fund one small, high quality Android phone. It's really never been done; all the small phones that have come out have been compromised in some way. Sony's Xperia Compact line came the closest, but it doesn't use stock Android, which is a huge point against it. I feel like…

Even Android phones have logistic problems with this. Many of them use similar vendors. Creating a phone with vastly different size and components means a lot more sourcing and upfront cost.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#198

Post by ip26 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #160

ip26 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Floating point tends to matter for classic 'number crunching' workloads- crypto, media encoding, anything to do with modeling the physical world, image processing, AI. Phones tend towards 'control flow', e.g. display an interface, accept a user input, communicate with a server, display information... and media decoding & gps both have dedicated hardware. FP workloads can be incredibly power hungry, so it's fortunate…

Crypto doesn't do floating point. Media transcoding does SIMD, but not usually not floating point.

Fair enough wrt media. However SIMD e.g. MMX is done in the floating point unit (https://softpixel.com/~cwright/programming/simd/mmx.php)

I thought bitcoin mining was floating point, and that was why GPUs were so adept.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#199

Post by graeme » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

> I’ve used it exclusively for hours at a stretch and I never stopped expecting it to act like a post-iPhone-X device. I swipe up from the bottom to go home or multitask.

Fairly sure apple could put that interface on these phones. On home button ipads you can swipe up to go home, and swipe left/right along the bottom to switch apps.

I wish apple would add this, but I think they wanted to keep new iphones exclusive. (The more benign possibility is that there wasn’t the space to do left/right swipes without messing with some app functionality)

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#200

Post by atomi » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

m12k wrote: post #126

Compared to my first gen SE, I'd like the faster processor, better camera and better battery life. But I'm not sure I'm willing to go up in size and weight, and get the rounded edges that make it even harder to grip one-handed. For me, a bigger screen isn't a plus - after years of following the trend and being on my phone more and more, I managed to kick the habit and I'm very happy that my phone has now found its ri…

Most of us here work with workstations or laptops, daily. But generally speaking not as many people are using them in their home. A lot of folks do use their phones primarily for media watching and browsing. And that's a big chunk of Apple's market.