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Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

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Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#771
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: removing Hypervisor API from iOS 16, ostensibly to prevent iPads from cannibalizing MacBooks.

Or MacBooks not having touch screens, or iPads being unable to run macOS / macOS apps even if you buy the $350 keyboard that gives it the same exact inputs as a MacBook, or iPads with modems being unable to place calls. There's all sorts of limitations that seem less like thoughtful design and more like holding back the devices just that bit to make you want another device. You can't just want an iPad Pro, how will y…

>Or MacBooks not having touch screens

I hope they never do that, it was a disaster on Windows 8.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#772
post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only things left to compete on are the camera and frame construction, maybe it's time for the non-pro line to go away.

There should never have been a "Pro" line in the first place. It's all about creating desire through marketing to make people spend more on the ladder. The iPhone 4 had stainless steel frame, yet they made a big deal of it with the X and subsequent "Pro" generation when it was a standard "feature" that set them appart for success in the first place. It's crazy how much bullshit Apple have been selling since their fin…

>It's crazy how much bullshit Apple have been selling since their financiarisation.

Have you seen what cars people buy?

Welcome to the modern world.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#773
post #92

The point here is to replace iPhone 15 which doesn't support Apple Intelligence without raising the lowest price point for an iPhone. Apple has made a bit of a blunder by selling hardware with such limited memory for so long, which gives them a large install base that doesn't support gen-ai tech. Of course, the urgency of upgrading depends on how bullish you are on gen-ai.

I'm not sure if running any local model on smartphones make sense right now for most of the people. I played with many tiny llm models on ollama and only 14b models can feel to be usable - otherwise why not just run any app that do inference in cloud and run SOTA models? Even o4-mini feels more usable than those tiny models on smartphones - apple would have to ship iphones with 24GB RAM but inference would still be slower than those in the cloud. Paying $200 yearly subscription for chatgpt/claude/perplexity/gemini still seems cheaper than buying new iPhone just for that.

I wish though they would ship some beefy apple tv/mac mini/router with 32GB RAM that can work not only as private llm but also private iCloud, vpn, router, pihole, etc

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#774

It seems that this will cannibalize iPhone 16 sales - it's $200 cheaper, same form factor and internals, with the only difference being the camera, which if you care about you go for the Pro model. However, the price makes for a much more appealing upgrade for anyone who has an older iPhone

Deciding between the vanilla iPhone 16 and the 16e here. I don't see much in favor of the vanilla iPhone 16. Is the extra camera lens useful for anything beyond portrait mode?

it's probably better to get iPhone 15 Pro even if second hand but good condition. On swappa you can get it for $550 and iPhone 15 Pro still support apple intelligence.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#775
post #432

The death of Touch ID. Also huge.

Nothing like grabbing your phone by the button in your pocket and having it unlocked and open before you even lay eyes on it. As fast as they advertise faceid being it will never beat the fact you can engage touchid as soon as you lay a finger on the phone.

even better when you are app developer or your phone is just laying down on table - it was nice when you didn't have to pick it up to unlock it and put it down.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UTM and others use that code to this day. They could fix the bug and re-enable.

Yes but of course they don’t actually consider this to be something they want to support

Eventually they did allow UTM SE into the App Store in July 2024, https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/07/15/app-store-utm-s....

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#777
post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO somebody just made that up based on it sharing the outer dimensions of the iPhone 14 which also happens to have exactly 3279 mAh. I can't really figure out what "larger battery" could mean in their release video if it isn't larger than at least the 14 if not the 16.

I can’t understand how someone can say with certainty the capacity down to a single digit (327 9 ). There would be manufacturing differences that would induce at least some variation from phone-to-phone.

Well it could be that the capacity is 3200-3349, and they publish the number that is in the center of confidence interval. Rounding up would be received badly, and rounding down suggests it has less capacity than it really does (on average)

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#778
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I'd add is that Apple often achieves what it does by doing less. People assume that because Apple makes great things that they can make a lot of different great things. But that's where a lot of other companies falter: they make too many different things to really make a few great things. Small phones are also difficult. Memory, processors, and batteries don't shrink. For an iPhone mini, they're going to be…

If small phones are difficult, why are phones getting larger as battery and semiconductor tech continues to improve? Advances in tech should allow phones to be smaller than ever for the same capabilities, or more capabilities for the same size than ever before.

Expectations have changed. You can't ship a phone now that has the same capabilities as the iPhone 3GS.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its been a long slog for Apple, they have been working on this since 2018, and they had to keep extending its supply agreements with Qualcomm... "Inside Apple’s Spectacular Failure to Build a Key Part for Its New iPhones" >The 2018 marching orders from Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook to design and build a modem chip—a part that connects iPhones to wireless carriers—led to the hiring of thousands of engineers. The goal…

Apple managed to design its own state-of-the-art CPUs. I wouldn't have imagined that designing its own modem would be such a difficult challenge?

M chips are ARM so while they designed their particular architecture for it they were still building on some pretty solid foundations.

A modem, well nobody's going to help them build one of those; it'd put them out of business - ARM's business _is_ selling access to its body of work.

Re: Apple Debuts iPhone 16e

#780
post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the modem codebase inherited from Intel?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-16/apple-pro... ( https://archive.ph/A2UUI ) > One major development snag involves the software used to power the modem, some of which was acquired from Intel. The Intel code wasn’t up to the task, and most of it had to be rewritten from scratch, people involved in the project said. As Apple engineers sought to add new features, existing capabilities would break, and th…

Let the Apple C++ vs Qualcomm C++ zero day defense games begin!
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