Live data from Hacker News

The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

sixcolors.com

381–390 of 416 posts

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#381

I understand Apple’s approach to Verizon here. Just like the initial iPhone needed one carrier to get things right, 5G infrastructure testing will be like that. It is in Apple’s best interest if their users experience 5G as best as the current infrastructure allows (which isn’t great yet, because it will take a decade for a full rollout). It makes sense to have the carriers bend over backwards to see who gets to be t…

Are end-users even going to have a "5G experience"? The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE. If anything it seems like Apple is doing the wireless carriers a favor by carrying the marketing water for 5G

>The average user isn't going to really notice faster downloads or lower latency relative to good LTE.

I can assure you user will notice the lower latency even if 4G and 5G had the same download speed.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#382
post #367
post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except apple doesn't use standards. They use their own proprietary ports. Actually Apple is pretty standards compliant, sometimes excessively so. I have no illusion that they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, but the idea that they "don't use standards" is a canard. For video they long used open standards (DVI, Displayport, HDMI, now standard DisplayPort over Type C); they were one of the first to…

I think you may have overlooked the other side of those cables in your examples. While one side of the cable was FireWire or USB, the interface on the device was propriety. And that was true for over a decade worth of iPods, iPhones, and iPads.

I still have an original iPad and it had a big FireWire connector on it. It was FW on both ends. They rapidly switched to USB (w/30 pin at other end) in order to open up the PC market to the* iPod.

* I refuse to follow Apples pretentious (proprietary?) refusal to use the article “the” with the iPod and the iPhone.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With symmetric 1Gbit internet at home, I noticed that other parts of the system become a bottleneck. E.g. my laptop built in SSD simply cannot handle these speeds, something to do with the drivers. I assume phone users may see similar issues.

1Gb is 125MB/s... most SSDs benchmark at around 500MB/s... even with small files, it should be possible? Likely your wifi, nic, or switching infra and even cables would be where I’d look other than your SSD.

That’s what my SSD says on the tin, but in practice my PC completely freezes during multi GB downloads, and looking at the charts SSD or it’s drivers appear to be the bottleneck here

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#384
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With symmetric 1Gbit internet at home, I noticed that other parts of the system become a bottleneck. E.g. my laptop built in SSD simply cannot handle these speeds, something to do with the drivers. I assume phone users may see similar issues.

What speeds are you seeing? 1Gbit internet is sort of like having LAN speeds for internet access and most machines deal with that fine. 100ish megabytes/sec is something most old SATA SSD's can typically do. But that aside, if phones are fine on LANs, it seems they ought to be just fine on WANs running at LAN speeds.

I do see the 1Gbit speeds. But what I meant with my comment is to say that 5G May expose other issues with the H/W or software. It’s possible that iPhones would be tuned for it, but other manufacturers or maybe even other apps may hit the limits before fully profiting from the high speeds.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#385
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Lightning cable is Lightning->USB-C Nonsense. I have tons of USB-A to Lightning cables. They cost dollars. > since my old one's were usually beat after 2-3 years What on earth are you doing to them?

Did you watch the presentation? The new cables (if you buy an iPhone today) are Lightning at one end, and USB-C at the other. So you can't use them with your old adapter. This means a new iPhone buyer is getting a phone with no charger, and any of the old chargers they have won't be usable with this cable. And cheap USB-A Lightning cables are crap. Even expensive ones from Anker are crap. Apple made ones are okay, bu…

Use the old cable you already have. That’s the point! There’re billions of them already.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#386
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speeds are you seeing? 1Gbit internet is sort of like having LAN speeds for internet access and most machines deal with that fine. 100ish megabytes/sec is something most old SATA SSD's can typically do. But that aside, if phones are fine on LANs, it seems they ought to be just fine on WANs running at LAN speeds.

I do see the 1Gbit speeds. But what I meant with my comment is to say that 5G May expose other issues with the H/W or software. It’s possible that iPhones would be tuned for it, but other manufacturers or maybe even other apps may hit the limits before fully profiting from the high speeds.

I'm not sure I see all that much difference between a phone that works with high-speed WiFi (most higher-end phones today) and 5g.

Be that as it may, though! My Steam client is configured with with a background download rate cap of 1 MB/sec, and just a few minutes ago I noticed it downloading something and looked at the disk write rate, which the client also reports. Much of the time it's around 2 MB/s, give or take, but it can jump up to 5x, sometimes almost 10x that.

So I think you're right, something like a network installer slurping down at 1 Gbps could write saturate an SSD, not necessarily even a particularly slowpoke one.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#387
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I’m annoyed now when a device comes with a charger. To the point where I say out loud, to myself, “oh for fu...”. Nobody needs any more chargers, and if you do, they’re a fiver. It’s a preposterous waste that needs to stop. ( Totally separate from the issue of whether Apple is making money on this, which they undoubtedly are.)

The main thing that seems a bit odd to me is that they're including a cable but not the charger. Now, to be sure, there's an argument that they're providing something that goes between a proprietary connector and an industry-standard one (that Apple will increasingly use over time). But that industry-standard is still relatively new and therefore it's the "wrong" cable for a lot of people.

Cables wear out. Chargers not so much.

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#388
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "slowly transitioning" you mean "massively and publicly driving adoption of USB-C", then yes, I agree. Apple has been pushing for the interoperable USB standard for as long as it has existed. The original iPhone was either the first phone to charge from USB, or at minimum the first successful mass-market phone to do so.

Apple definitely did not lead on USB-C. Premium Android and Windows laptops standardized on USB-C long before.

Have windows laptops even standardized on USB-C now? I still see a lot of Windows laptops that come with barrel plug charging and all the legacy ports, and then have a sole USB-C port that you can also use for charging if you buy a separate charger

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning ports are not more durable than USB-C. They are extremely prone to the device-side conductor corroding. USB mini made the mistake of making the device side contain a friction wear item, but USB micro fixed that but had other endurance issues due to its flimsiness. USB C doesn’t suffer from any of those drawbacks.

Every USB-C device I’ve ever owned—including my MacBook Pro—has suffered from cables failing to “click” into place and being held in noticeably more loosely than when they were brad new. This has happened from within a few weeks to a few months. And it’s not the simply the cables wearing out: new cables with old devices produces the same behavior. And when I remove my USB-C YubiKey, the port it uses produces the sati…

I've had lots of trouble with lightning, mostly stemming from the power pin on cables corroding, which then causes arcing in any new device you use it in causing the problem to propagate

I've had my iPhone 11 Pro Max inside a Apple smart charging case since day 1, and for the past few months, the connection is really flakey, either one of the plugs is going bad. And its never left the case, the port looks very clean (no dust)

Re: The real prices of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the few criticisms I can get behind. I think Apple could deflect a lot of criticism here for a comparatively small amount of money by simply offering a standalone brick as a free accessory to anyone purchasing a new phone.

But wouldn't everyone just take one then? And wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of minimizing the e-waste?

If it's a separate box that then the buyer has the option to say "no".

Why would everyone just take one when they have perfectly functioning charging cradles, docks, clocks, and travel accessories?

I have a 5-port charger on my desk which charges all my devices and organises them neatly. When we go travelling we have a USB charging bar which plugs into mains and provides half a dozen 2.4A USB ports. We don't need vendor-provided chargers.

I expect a vast majority of the market is in a similar position.

The only people who would take the free accessory are those that need one, or have a compulsion to acquire free stuff because it's free.

Post reply on HN