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iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

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Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#491
post #418

Of note: the iPhone 12 mini appears to be slightly smaller and lighter than the (current) iPhone SE (2), so is basically the phone those of us who prefer phone-sized phones have been asking for for years. The price differential of $300 seems reasonable (in Apple-adjusted numbers); if I hadn't bought an SE this past month (unfortunate toddler-related water incident!) then I'd be right in there.

I just bought an SE about a month ago too. Damn.

Same. They are kings of curating their marketing timeline to extract every single dollar out of you.

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#492
post #303
post #177

"Across the iPhone family, we’re removing the power adapter and EarPods that often go unused, but including the fast-charging USB‑C to Lightning cable that most people need." Ouch. Do most people really not use the power adapter?

To be honest, this move by Apple is good for first world countries where many people may keep their older devices and power adapters, but will raise the costs in other countries where people usually sell their phones (with accessories) and replace those with new ones. Oh wait, people in first world countries do trade-ins too. I think a minuscule number of people won’t mind this. For the rest, these phones are going t…

You're right, but to add a datapoint, I've done a few phone trade-ins that never included power adapters/accessories. Just the handset itself.

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know what program they use for their presentations?

They supposedly use Keynote, but I think with these presentations it's more likely custom motion graphics in After Effects or possibly Final Cut Pro if Apple is imposing in-house software.

Apple have an in house team that specialize in just these kind of keynote slides. I imagine it's worked up mostly in keynote, maybe with a bit of extra software like After Effects on the side.

They employ an outside company to do the bigger CG graphics, promo introductions and renders of the devices

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an iPhone 5 advertisement about that exact feature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af0gtsjfy7E

I think I'm the only person who likes iOS's reachability gesture. The only annoying thing about it is sometimes it will trigger touchUpInside for buttons along the bottom of the screen, navigating me away from the screen I was on.

I actually set reachability to that new backtap feature in ios 14 and it's game changing.

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is hard at times to determine if the background you see is computer generated or not. I am not sure that difficult in distinction is a good trend

I was wondering how they'd done the house with open sides. Looked really realistic but even apple don't have enough money to burn on stripping the side wall of a house off for a 10 minute segment... or do they?

It's just a film set. Pretty simple to make, probably put that together in about 5 days plus planning!

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#496

It's the annual incremental improvement, and many will like the smaller form factor too I'm guessing. But the whole 5G hype is lost on me. Specifically, none of the carriers or handset makers are telling me how much the data will cost . Maybe I'm a little price-focused, but that determines for me whether I'm excited about it. If I'm just burning through my existing data limit faster, what's the point? What's the pric…

I had the misfortune of charging my iPhone via usb connected to my laptop while working. This triggered the 4G tethering, so i spent an afternoon working on my cellular data plan... schlepping multi-gb csv files around. I didn't even notice anything, until my data plan ran out. I honestly wouldn't mind slower than 4G speeds. With 4G it's already bordering on ridiculous how quickly you can burn up a data plan.

Your laptop chose to override an existing WiFi/LAN connection to use a tethered phone USB connection? That seems highly unusual. I plug my phone into my laptop all of the time, and the tether has never overridden my WiFi. I've never had to use it, but macOS allows you to order the available networks according to your preference. Did you perhaps do this and forgot about it?

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#497
post #464

I noticed that the new iphone 12 has a f/2.0 aperture telephoto lens whereas my existing iphone XS has a f/2.4 aperture telephoto lens. What are the implications of this? I always understood that for a telephoto lens you wanted the f-stop number to be higher, so that the image is clearer since the subject is at a greater distance. My gut instinct is that the iphone XS/XR lens might capture a sharper initial image, bu…

The aperture doesn't necessarily have a theoretical effect on image quality, though it will certainly impact the depth of field, and will be shallower at higher focal lengths for the same f-stop. Also, in practice, due to impurities and imperfections in glass and other inefficiencies, there will be effects, though they can definitely be managed and are always trade-offs. Usually with aperture it's well worth it to increase the aperture.

What you'll find with professional glass lenses, with variable apertures, is that sometimes you do need to decrease the aperture (higher f-stop) to get the sharpest possible image from the lens. At wider apertures you're collecting more light, from closer to the edges of the glass, at higher refractory angles, travelling through more glass, and thus sharpness goes down. The other side of the aperture though, aside from DOF, is that it lets more light through, so you will also get more flexibility in general on trading off proper exposure time vs motion blur, which is great for low light handheld photography.

I would expect for mobile lenses, though, since they know it's a fixed aperture, they've done their best to mitigate those effects, aside from the fact that your DOF is definitely fixed since there's no variable aperture on your phone camera lens. Honestly the only way to know for sure is wait for somebody like DPReview to run the camera through their test suite and get some objective numbers/photos to see what, if any, impact there is from the wider aperture.

A DOF calculator can be a helpful resource to get a gut feel for the relationship between the various inputs that affect DOF. e.g. https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#498
I'm surprised that Apple didn't add a fix or workaround to unlock the phone while wearing a face mask. Should be plenty of features to recognize a person or the mask can be added.

It's really annoying to loose the unlock with your face feature and go back to entering the code while outside.

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#499
post #161

The most disappointing aspect to me is that the difference between the Pro and the Pro Max is no longer just the size. I'm quite fond of the size of my 11 Pro and I don't really want to be upsold to the Pro Max if I want the best.

Welcome to the lives of people that prefer smaller phones.

Re: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

#500
I don't know if this has been remarked upon, but I kind of appreciate the diversity in the presentation. It's not showy or contrived; Apple doesn't make a huge deal out of it, but it's nice to see a wide variety of genders and races.
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