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Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

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Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#41

Post by Eric_WVGG »

sabertoothed wrote: post #27

I found that keynote terribly disappointing and uninspired. I had really hoped for Apple that they show something new and innovative - instead of two smaller versions of existing products. EDIT: I did not mean that in an Apple-bashing way. But I wonder what Elon Musk would come up with if he had time and - let's say - 100 billion USD at his disposal.

Right? Like last year's fall keynote where they just released a faster version of the previous years’ product, and the 2014 fall keynote where they just released bigger versions of the previous year’s products, and…

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#42

Post by TD-Linux »

elsurudo wrote: post #23
marklawrutgers wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use some sort of proprietary streaming .hls that for some reason doesn't support third-party browsers (DRM?) and Microsoft supports it but only wants it to be available in their Edge browser.

It's not that proprietary. FFMpeg supports creating these streams – I once created an encoding pipeline using HLS for a gig. The idea behind the tech is pretty good. But yeah, browser support is very poor – I had to use a Flash fallback for browsers that didn't support it (which was basically everything but Safari at the time... looks like that sadly still hasn't changed). At the time it was the best thing for the jo…

You can still use it via Javascript that repackages the MPEG-TS into MP4 files. However, DASH or a similar home-rolled solution could potentially avoid the repackaging.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#43

Post by kbenson »

elsurudo wrote: post #23
marklawrutgers wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use some sort of proprietary streaming .hls that for some reason doesn't support third-party browsers (DRM?) and Microsoft supports it but only wants it to be available in their Edge browser.

It's not that proprietary. FFMpeg supports creating these streams – I once created an encoding pipeline using HLS for a gig. The idea behind the tech is pretty good. But yeah, browser support is very poor – I had to use a Flash fallback for browsers that didn't support it (which was basically everything but Safari at the time... looks like that sadly still hasn't changed). At the time it was the best thing for the jo…

Yeah, HLS is really just an extension to the .m3u streaming MP3 playlist format. It's not hard to reason about or understand.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#45

Post by Alex3917 »

projct wrote: post #32
JonCox wrote: post #28

No updated MacBook Pro? That's annoying. I was rather hoping for a small refresh to include the new Skylake processors, it's certainly due one: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

Sometimes minor updates are done without announcing them. Check the store when it comes back up.

The speculation I've seen is that they're waiting for the new 14nm graphics cards to be released this summer, since the current generation is 3 years old. I'm also due for a new MBP, but if this is true then I'm fine waiting another 3 months.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#46

Post by emdowling »

masklinn wrote: post #21
inspector-g wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is showing another benefit of focusing on a smaller number of products and controlling their development from (virtually) top-to-bottom. Apple has such a limited number of products that they can build robots to disassemble said products piece-by-piece, which is arguably a more efficient manner to recycle individual parts. Other companies that have a zillion products would likely find it difficult to achi…

OTOH a great way to reduce waste is to make products repairable and upgradable, which is something Apple keeps moving away from, especially on popular products.

Not really. The products aren't upgradable or repairable by the end user, but as they demonstrated today, they are upgradeable (to brand new things like solar panels) and repairable by Apple themselves. I for one hate the idea of an end-user upgradeable smart phone. That sounds like a minefield of driver issues and the like that I just don't want. Its why I moved away from Windows in the first place.

I think it makes a great deal of sense to consolidate the upgrades and repairs - they can do it far more efficiently at scale.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#47

Post by jonpaine »

riscy wrote: post #40

I cringed every time they kept trying to emphasize the night hue mode as if it is innovative... they explicitly removed two apps from the store that added the feature in the past just to try and profit from an old idea.

A big part of Apple's product appeal is the ecosystem, and a big part of the ecosystem is that amazing features simply work, and work well. They don't have to be configured or hunted for. Taken a step further, the problems some of these new features solve don't even have to be fully apparent to the user.

To that end, Apple improves their ecosystem by making good features standard. Tim Cook mentioned that there were 1 billion Apple devices in circulation. How many of those do you think have users that were even aware of the existence of those two apps? Or even the problem that they address?

I'm not a fan of any bigCo squashing innovative software (and I'm certainly not defending it), but there's no question that in cases like this bringing that feature into the fold leads to a better user experience across the board. To those of us who knew the circumstances it might be cringeworthy, but for the other 98% of users it's just another advance in a progression of features that keeps the ecosystem's user-experience better than any other.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#48

Post by 100k »

JonCox wrote: post #28

No updated MacBook Pro? That's annoying. I was rather hoping for a small refresh to include the new Skylake processors, it's certainly due one: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

I have a mid-2010 MBP that is in dire need of replacement. I was disappointed to see rumors that the 15" Skylake MBP might not come out until September!

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#49

Post by phaser »

twoodfin wrote: post #30
JonCox wrote: post #28

No updated MacBook Pro? That's annoying. I was rather hoping for a small refresh to include the new Skylake processors, it's certainly due one: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#Mac

I think one of two things is true: - There's no big redesign planned this year, and the Macbook and Macbook Pro will see press-release releases with updated guts (most notably Skylake) before too long. - There is a significant redesign of the Macbook Pro coming up, and it'll be announced at WWDC.

I hope number 2 ends up to be true, but most likely number one. Phil Schiller described the ipad pro as "The ultimate replacement for the PC", and that means Apple is all-in for replacing the laptop in the mass market, while also very convenient for profits since their closed hardware will only run an OS and Apps signed by Apple, with only one store to buy Software.

They don't have an incentive to support open computing, and for the first time in years IBM and Microsoft have better products (Carbon X1, Surface book) while OSX haven't seen a major update and MacBook Pros that once were the best professional laptops are really past generation hardware and software.

Re: Apple March 2016 Keynote – 10am PDT

#50

Post by snowwrestler »

sabertoothed wrote: post #27

I found that keynote terribly disappointing and uninspired. I had really hoped for Apple that they show something new and innovative - instead of two smaller versions of existing products. EDIT: I did not mean that in an Apple-bashing way. But I wonder what Elon Musk would come up with if he had time and - let's say - 100 billion USD at his disposal.

I think if we were to go back through Apple keynotes--say, the last decade or maybe 15 years--we would find that the vast majority of keynotes were incremental in nature.

There were a few major innovations--some of which, like the iPod, have an impact that is only visible in retrospect (it was met largely with question marks at the time). Others, like the iPad or watch, have a mixed record since then.

But in terms of groundbreaking, huge, obvious innovation, I think there are probably only a couple keynotes that meet that bar: the iMac, and the iPhone. The former rescued the company and set them on a new path; the latter transformed the entire mobile computing market.

For me, the biggest announcement today was the health stuff. It feels like a thin wedge under the huge load often known as "health IT." I think it's fair to say that so far, the promise of technology to revolutionize health care is mostly unfulfilled. And who knows whether Apple will have a real impact. But the work they are doing now seems to be connecting good technology with the right people.

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