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The 2020 iPhone SE

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Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#281
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Palm makes a phone that might fit what you're looking for https://palm.com/

That actually does look kind of neat. Android 8.1 and no headphone jack are worrying, though. Still maybe worth a shot.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#282

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…

> You couldn't combine the 11's CPU with the 5's battery - battery life would be laughable. Do you have a source for that? It seems like many of the times Apple upgrades their chip, they advertise greater power efficiency. E.g. for the A13 (from Wikipedia): > Apple claims the two high performance cores are 20% faster with 30% reduction in power consumption, and the four high efficiency cores are 20% faster with a 40%…

>Do you have a source for that?

Not the original poster but the iPhone 5 had a 1440 mAh battery while the iPhone 11 has more than double that with a 3110 mAh battery. For comparison, iPhone 5 was rated at 10 hours video playback while the iPhone 11 is rated at 17. So ballpark guess, that hybrid version would have ~8 hours video playback compared to the iPhone 5's 10.

Rough numbers all around, especially since battery usage is largely driven by the display, RAM, and CPU.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#283
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, relear…

Let's say Apple comes out with a phone with a perfect folding screen, a battery that holds a charge for a month, perfect offline speech recognition, and it costs $100. I still wouldn't buy it if it didn't have a headphone jack, because I'd consider it a bad design. Does that make me stupid? Perhaps. But as an engineer I'd find such a phone insulting: There's no valid engineering reason not to include a headphone jack. The only reason is for Apple to thumb its nose at people who actually care about good design by saying "We're Apple. See what we can get away with?"

It would be like Mercedes suddenly deciding cars didn't need air conditioners any more and refusing to build cars with that option. "We're Mercedes. We know best. You don't need an A/C. Open the window if you're too warm."

The whole premise just sounds insulting, and if it happened you'd never buy a Mercedes again.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#284
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no NFC, which I need for work no Qi wireless, which is really problematic with a 4h battery life. Still, I ordered got one to play with and evaluate the form factor, in the hope the next version will have both NFC and Qi

I don't get it, do people expect magic? How do people think you're gonna fit all the features from a 6" phone into a device literally half the volume. Phones are already packed to the brim. When you make a smaller phone, other than the display, everything else takes the same size and uses the same amount of power. This is the main reason phones have actually getting bigger. Not because people want huge phones, but be…

I do not need camera or high refresh rate or even bluetooth.

I need Qi charging to work around the battery life problem (just drop the phone on a qi craddle), and I need NFC for an enterprise application.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#285
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Try different phone, may be your touch screen is not calibrated properly.

If I got a different phone it would have to be one with a reasonable size or one that let me leave gcc/openssh installed for more than a few weeks at a time.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#286
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, relear…

Just the very idea of installing firmware updates on a set of headphones is completely bizarre.

It doesn't seem that bizarre to me. If something can be improved ex post facto, it seems more bizarre to me that this wasn't a thing sooner.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to make my already too large phone even bigger by adding a case?

because it breaks when you drop it? it provides a gripped texture so that it's easier to hold on to?

If we're talking about iPhones, they don't necessarily break when you drop it, especially the last few generations. You might get an unsightly scuff on the back or edge, at worst the back glass might crack — but it will do so in such a way that the phone still won't shatter.

In fact, my partner's iPhone and my previous one both broke in independent incidents when both were in cases. My new phone, I don't use a case, drop it regularly on asphalt, concrete, and it's even taken a dive into hot dishwashing water — and it's just fine.

I know somebody will come along with a story about how theirs smashed into smithereens but, for my money, Apple builds their phones to last.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#288
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

MMX was integer SIMD that re-used the FPU register file, but was not doing floating-point operations.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All or nothing, IIRC. Home button devices do have a gesture to switch directly between apps (3D touch on the left edge of the screen), but I always found it difficult to activate reliably, especially with a case on my phone.

I haven't used a home button iPhone in a long time so I'm not sure about them, but home button iPads definitely support the X gestures.

Home button iPads get some of the X gestures— they get swipe up for home and multitasking, but not the right/left gestures on the home bar (because it’s not there). The loss of those isn’t that big of a deal, though, since iPads have the four-finger multitasking gestures as well.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#290

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…

So we never get the cheaper product that similar product hasn't released as flagship or mainstream. I hope Apple releases a modern iPhone with lightweight and fingerprint auth.
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