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A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

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Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#231

Post by totalZero »

skohan wrote: post #10
Bud wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't make the products more expensive, though. The iPhone 12 Pro series got cheaper (for the equivalent storage). They also made the charger and cable in question cheaper, for the small minority of users who actually need those items.

I have heard a lot of speculation that the move to remove the charger was motivated by Apple's desire to sell more chargers, but I suspect that they could care less about moving chargers. I believe it is profit motivated, but the real reason is the massive savings they will get on logistics by fitting almost 50% more iPhones in a shipping container by removing the charger. If they pass some of that savings onto the c…

Let's keep in mind that these products are largely going to be delivered directly to the customer. Perhaps the issue is less about how many iPhones you can fit into a shipping container, and more about how much it costs to ship an iPhone by USPS/UPS/FedEx.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#232

Post by et2o »

dheera wrote: post #189
californical wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2-3kWh seemed impossibly low to me, so I checked, and yup, that’s amazing. A phone battery at 5V and 2500mAh (probably about the average) is approximately 12.5Wh of energy storage. Even if you used the entire battery every day, we’re talking 4kW per year, costing ~60¢ in the US. Your phone battery could only power a standard 60W incandescent lightbulb for 12 minutes, but powers your phone for hours. That’s amazing!

> standard 60W incandescent lightbulb Which is why nobody uses incandescent bulbs anymore. You can get the same amount of light for 1/5 of that power with LEDs, i.e. your phone could power that amount of light for an hour.

Still doesn’t seem like very long!

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#233

Post by josephg »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #82
ProAm wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me it's an optimal experience You are a one off use case. The standard deviation for your experience is pretty large. Especially for first time iPhone buyers.

I just switched to an iphone recently and the brick would have been a non issue for me. I already have a bunch of USB C bricks from my android phones going back to the Nexus 5X

Exactly. I don't understand why nobody mentions this, but the decision to ship a USB-C to lightning cable makes a lot of sense when you think about customer segments:

- People who are upgrading an old iphone will still have a USB-A to lightning cable from their old phone, so they can charge their new iphone using their old charger and old cable

- People upgrading from android probably already have a USB-C charger, so they can use the bundled USB-C to lighting cable to charge their new iphone

- People who want to buy a new USB-C charger can do so without also needing to buy a lightning cable to go with it. (The charger can also be used for charging an ipad or magsafe puck, so it makes sense not to include a cable with the charger.)

In short, by including the USB-C to lightning cable, almost everyone who buys an iphone 12 won't need any new accessories with their new phone. (Unless you want faster charging or wireless charging and don't have other USB-C bricks floating around.)

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#234

Post by totalZero »

naosouumapessoa wrote: post #174
ogre_codes wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can plug the new iPhone cable into the MacBook Pro charger as well. Or into any of the ports in your MacBook for that matter.

You missed the point. He only need to take one cable with him to charge his pixel and MacBook (not at the same time) you’re suggesting him to take two cables. I will take the first option as I hate having to remember of multiple cables.

Two cables is far better than two bricks.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#235

Post by sudosysgen »

croddin wrote: post #224
ashtonkem wrote: post #143

I really hate arguments about how much electricity wireless phone charging wastes because it makes people feel like they’re doing something when in fact they aren’t. Charging a cell phone every day for a year consumes about 1-2 kWh per phone. The average American household consumes 10,399 kWh per year, meaning that a typical smart phone consumes one 5000th, (0.02%) of a typical home’s electricity (excl. natural gas)…

I think there is a good chance MagSafe chargers will last significantly longer. Lightning cables seem to eventually get damaged on the connector or with the cable bending if it is being used while charging. If wireless MagSafe uses more electricity it will be worth it if offsets enough need to replace broken cables and the energy used in producing those.

A single wireless charger requires multiple times more resources than a single cable. A fairer comparison would be against, say, ten cables.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#236

Post by totalZero »

jiofih wrote: post #225
jonny_eh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't support the new faster Magsafe charging in the iPhone 12.

Are you sure? Those chargers are 30W and 60W.

I don't know firsthand, but these guys say it's true:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/27/magsafe-15w-fast-...

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#237

Post by Supermancho »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #213
TeMPOraL wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This analysis completely ignores that the new shiny system is supposed to be a better experience. It doesn't ignore it, it's explicitly about it. What the article is saying is that Apple is sending out conflicting marketing messages. On the one hand, they advertise the lack of charger in an iPhone box by their environmental consciousness. On the other hand, they advertise the "full experience", in order to get whic…

Every company ever has inconsistent or BS marketing. You can almost roll your eyes at the Exxon anti-global warming ads. So what? Why do we focus so much on Apple?

> Why do we focus so much on Apple?

Apple has (like many successful companies) into a bad habit of being evil by default. Identifying where the market has born a bad actor is par for HN.

It isn't widespread knowledge that Apple is actively engaging in practices they market against. It's also interesting to note that they seem to get worse each release and people still haven't been acknowledging the reality.

The knowledge that Exxon is promoting anti-global warming hand waving is ubiquitous.

The perspective presented is to the point that it's marketing is laughably contradictory. It's good fun for both those who visit Apple stores (and didn't realize what happened) and those who don't for various reasons...like avoiding planned obsolescence.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#238

Post by kenny11 »

dbspin wrote: post #121
samatman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm indifferent. On the one hand, yeah, USB-C works great, and everything else I own takes it. On the other hand, Lightning also works great, USB-C isn't an improvement on the merits, and iPhone users have a bunch of accessories for it. Like in my car, I have a 12v charger with one USB-A port and a built-in Lightning cable, and I'd have to either junk it or just ignore the built in cable if they went USB-C. I'm prett…

USB-C depending on implementation has enormously greater throughput (USB 3.1 gen 2 is 10Gbps) than lightning (480Mbps/60MBps). This might not be relevant for your needs, but increasingly Apple are marketing the iPhone as a 'pro' device, specifically for media creation. And it is finding a home in videography and event photography and streaming for example (I work in this area). Given this, the speed available through…

The lightning port does support USB 3 speeds, the old iPad Pro (pre-USB C) models supported USB 3 over the lightning connector and Apple even released some adapters that took advantage of the speed: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MK0W2AM/A/lightning-to-us...

But for some reason Apple has never brought this support to the iPhone's lightning port.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#239

Post by Supermancho »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #71
samatman wrote: post #38

Literally every one of the existing options still works. Ok with charging at 5w? Plug your lightning-to-A cable into the little tiny cube charger they've been selling since forever. Already have a faster USB charger? It works. Ok with Qi at 7W? Works Oh, you want the new shiny MagSafe puck system? Great. Buy it. This analysis completely ignores that the new shiny system is supposed to be a better experience . It's co…

Also the fact that the described situation may occur once, but then forever after you will have both usb c and a bricks so you will be set for whatever future devices you get rather than being given a brick every single time while most go unused.

> after you will have both usb c and a bricks so you will be set for whatever future devices you get

Looking at Apple's track record, this is a ridiculous statement.

There is no future proofing planned obsolescence.

Re: A Guy Walks into an Apple Store

#240

Post by josephg »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #88
newbie578 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gahaha, this has to be a joke. Man, Apple doesn't even need a marketing department when they got fans willing to die on a hill for them. I refuse to believe that you are so obtuse to think that your device cost went down. Apple keeps increasing the price each year regardless of circumstances, their cost went down, not yours. What we should congratulate them for is to be able to skimp out on users, sell them a story a…

The value for money you get with each device keeps going up. The update support lifetime keeps going up to the point where devices are getting 6+ years of updates while the SoC gets further ahead of the snapdragon range every year. I have both android tablets and an iPad from 2014 and the ipad still feels like a modern device with the latest OS version while the android tablets are stuck on a 2015 build of android an…

I agree with this.

I bought an iphone 12 this year because my iphone 6s+ is 5 years old at this point, and I wanted to spoil myself. My new phone feels basically identical to my old phone, and despite 5 years of innovation I think it was a waste of money. Most of the improvements in iphones in the last 5 years has been in software, and the 6s (for now) still gets all the updates anyway.

There's some differences - low light photography is much better. My new phone is also physically smaller with the same screen size and much snappier. But its also missing a headphone jack, force touch and it can't be unlocked with a face mask.

I think next time I'll keep my phone until it dies - which I'm hoping will be ~6-7 years. Given that sort of longevity, the price seems pretty reasonable.

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