Apple Is Finally Willing To Make Gadgets Thicker So They Work Better (cnbc.com) 75
Apple has started to make its products thicker in an effort to give people what they want: functionality over form. This is a good thing. There are two recent examples: this year's iPhones and the new 16-inch MacBook Pro. Todd Haselton writes via CNBC: This is a theory, but it seems this may be that there are some design changes being made after the departure of Apple's former chief design officer Jony Ive. Ive was known for creating gorgeous products but, sometimes as we've seen with the older MacBook keyboard, perhaps at the cost of functionality. Form over function, as they say. [...] If you look back at the iPhone 8, for example, the phone measured just 7.3-mm thick, an example of Apple's seeming obsession with creating devices that were as thin as possible but often at the cost of battery life. But this year, Apple put a huge focus on battery life because it knows that's one of top things people want from their phones (along with great cameras). As a result of the larger battery, this year's iPhone 11 is slightly fatter at 8.3-mm thick. It's barely noticeable but shows that Apple knows people are willing to sacrifice on thinness for a phone that lasts all day.
Then there's the 16-inch MacBook Pro that was announced on Wednesday. It's less than 1-mm thicker than the 15-inch MacBook Pro that it replaces, and it weighs 4.3 pounds instead of 4 pounds in the prior model. It's 2% larger than the 15-inch MacBook Pro, too. All of this helps Apple include what people want in a similar but slightly bigger form factor: a keyboard with keys that you can actually tap into and that works, instead of one that's practically flat with very little key travel. The flat so-called butterfly keyboard was prone to exposure to dust and debris, which could lead to keys not registering or repeating themselves and, ultimately, lots of typos. Apple also focused on battery life in its new laptop. It lasts an hour longer than last year's model and charges fully in just 2.5 hours. That's partly because Apple was able to increase the battery size, something that likely contributed to the larger and heavier form factor.
Then there's the 16-inch MacBook Pro that was announced on Wednesday. It's less than 1-mm thicker than the 15-inch MacBook Pro that it replaces, and it weighs 4.3 pounds instead of 4 pounds in the prior model. It's 2% larger than the 15-inch MacBook Pro, too. All of this helps Apple include what people want in a similar but slightly bigger form factor: a keyboard with keys that you can actually tap into and that works, instead of one that's practically flat with very little key travel. The flat so-called butterfly keyboard was prone to exposure to dust and debris, which could lead to keys not registering or repeating themselves and, ultimately, lots of typos. Apple also focused on battery life in its new laptop. It lasts an hour longer than last year's model and charges fully in just 2.5 hours. That's partly because Apple was able to increase the battery size, something that likely contributed to the larger and heavier form factor.
This is outrage! (Score:5, Funny)
How will I slice my cold cuts now??
Will there at least be an iPad for "boom box" arm amputations?
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: So... (Score:2)
Battery life is obvious. The obsession with crazy multispec cameras is just marketing.
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Do people really want continuously better cameras?
I don't know, but the camera is why my wife upgrades to the new iPhone whenever one comes out. I still use a 6S and she probably would too if not for the camera upgrades.
Newer camera abilities are pretty magical (Score:5, Insightful)
Do people really want continuously better cameras?
The other night I was able to capture a really good image of a city skyline, with the full moon illuminating clouds. This is with the iPhone 11.
Similarily all of the technology that makes photo fusion possible, means more practical things as well - I can capture much sharper images of slides from a projector.
The camera improvements have always been useful to many people, way beyond the marking of that aspect, Most people lean on cell phones more heavily for photos than anything else,
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like how my BMW doesn't have a dipstick.
Sure it does, its behind the steering wheel that drove this bad analogy off the road. A dipstick simply measures oil level and rough contamination level if you have some training, it's a replacement for the function. No removable battery, no external memory (while overcharging 10x for internal), no standard charge/data port, no headphone jack - these are obviously important user needs but Apple actively suppresses with no replacement.
The battery registration in BMWs is a scam for dealer revenue. Plenty of smart battery systems can easily test the battery on the fly (voltage drop/amp), test cell internal resistance at rest, gas gauge amp hours/voltage drop, monitor external battery temperature, and much much more with robust electronics for a few dollars of parts all without the need for additional cost down the road. This practice of screwing the customer on right to repair is very much like apple and a good analogy. Finally, the worst part about a BMW is the same as an apple product, people assume you're an asshole, no stereotypes broken yet today.
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Now, you might say, "I don't keep a car that long" and that's great. But someone likely is gonna own that car after you trade it in, well beyond 200,000km and they're gonna bemoan the lack of such a fundamental tool to measure something so critical as engine oil. In my 6-s
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Don't worry, with the sealed transmission that BMW will be hitting the junkyard well before 200,000 km. BMW likes to make all sorts of claims about their sealed transmissions, but reality is it's no different than any other transmission except you can't change the fluid. And you'll experience exactly what will happen if you never change the fluid in a transmission.
Granted, you can go for quite a while - it's long enough that the car is no longer worth the eye-watered cost of a transmission replacement, so
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No humor, jeez.
You're really confused about the battery issue. That's not what I'm talking about. I install my own batteries, but I have a fancy scan tool that resets the voltage regulator on the alternator. If you install a new battery on a BMW/Mini without doing the reset, your alternator will output too much power. It's not a scam, it's a more efficient system that allows your battery/charging system to last longer.
No removable battery, no external memory (while overcharging 10x for internal), no standard charge/data port, no headphone jack - these are obviously important user needs but Apple actively suppresses with no replacement.
If they were important user needs then Apple wouldn't sell so many devices.
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How is that possible? Some sort of tire pressure monitoring system has been mandatory on all vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds manufactured for sale in the U.S. since September of 2007....
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They have had TPMS since around the mid-2000s. I did, however, consider using the spare tire analogy but pretty much every car manufacturer does that now. They just include some Fix-a-Flat and a small compressor instead of a spare. I replaced my run-flat tires with regular ones because the run-flats really suck.
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The entire back panel of a smart phone should be the battery, so you replace back panel and battery at the same time. This way the structural strength of the back panel becomes a proper casing for the battery and a far more effective heat sink.
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Another bonus is that multiple battery sizes/thicknesses become an option.
Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
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True. However, every single iPhone generation since around the 6 or 6S have been thicker than the previous year.
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The iphone has induction charging, glass on the bottom side, higher battery life and faster processor. They couldn't make the iphone thinner.
Actually, Apple has been steadily increasing the thickness of iPhones for several years now.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/... [idownloadblog.com]
https://www.howtogeek.com/3963... [howtogeek.com]
IOW, that meme has sailed.
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It would be better if it was thicker. They have a camera bump anyway so it can't sit flat on a surface. There really is no reason not to make it uniformly thick. The extra fraction of a millimetre isn't going to affect ergonomics.
They could install a bigger battery and a back that has a bit of grip to it instead of being slippery glass, for example.
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I have to agree, the camera bump is super annoying if you're using it without a case unless you're holding it. And the damn things are so slippery that they'll slide right off of any hard surface that's not perfectly level, which is made worse with the camera bump because now you have less surface area touching when it's laying down because the stupid thing doesn't sit flat. A case is completely mandatory now, which negates any thinness advantage. At least you can use iPhone 5 without a case.
I really don
too little too late (Score:2)
Obligatory Futurama (Score:2)
So long, Jony. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ASS PRINTS ON MY NEW DOOR!
imac pro needs an ram door! (Score:5, Informative)
imac pro needs an ram door!
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Seconded. Also an M.2 drive slot. And not just the Pro models, every desktop and laptop should have field replaceable memory and drives.
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I'm surprised that they made it so difficult to upgrade the RAM on the iMac Pro. Usually the Mac Pro models have been easy to upgrade and the iMacs have had the door to easily access the RAM. But changing the RAM on the iMac Pro is harder than changing the hard drive on the older iMac (something I've done).
Courage (Score:5, Insightful)
Now this is courage. Putting function over form at Apple. May we have some more please.
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Will the courage jack makes a return? Now's that's bravery!
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Now this is courage. Putting function over form at Apple. May we have some more please.
Now if we can just persuade them to go the rest of the way back to the 2 inch thick laptops of the 1990s ...
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It's interesting that they have hit the limit on the battery size now. At 100Wh it's the maximum you can take on a plane these days. The battery is only going to get smaller now due to improvements in chemistry, because they can't add capacity without getting it banned from aircraft.
If they could just add a USB-A port, headphone jack, and HDMI that would be great. They could even give the keys a decent amount of travel and some tactility.
A phone battery that lasts an entire day? Wow! (Score:2)
Really guys, the battery will last an entire day? Now I am impressed.
I ditched my Apple phone years ago and bought a Somin phone - its battery will last 1 to 2 WEEKS, depending on my GPS usage. I generally leave the GPS functions off.
I would gladly trade phone thickness for battery any day. My Sonim is about 22.2mm thick, and it's built solid. It's water proof to about 3m. If I hit you with it it would hurt. A lot. So it doubles as a weapon as needed.
I'm interested (Score:3)
I've been waiting for a new keyboard design before purchasing a new MacBook. While I'm interested, I'm hesitant to purchase one because they might switch to ARM next year and I'd rather have one of those.
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Yeah, my x86 computer is way too fast. I'm hoping for a much slower ARM one next year.
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A 2020 ARM-based MacBoor Air would probably be faster than the 2014 x86-based model. The ARM chips that Apple puts in the iPad Pro is already extremely powerful, I imagine one made for a laptop (bigger case, more room for heatsinks and fans, bigger battery) could be at least twice as powerful.
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If they make an ARM laptop it will probably be a new line, not a MacBook Pro. They push the MacBook Pro as a workstation capable of doing stuff like video encoding and sustained processing (there was a bit of a fuss when the last model thermal throttled which they issued a patch for).
An ARM machine will be for lower end stuff, more like a Chromebook. It just won't have the power for demanding apps or games. Also it won't have the full range of apps available initially, not until developers release ARM versi
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Really? [bgr.com] On a per-watt basis, the CPU in an iPhone is already better than even an intel i7. Now imagine a version of that same Apple ARM CPU. but designed for the power and cooling capacities of a laptop.
The x86 era is coming to an end.
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Better on a per watt basis, but that doesn't mean you can just add more watts and somehow it's faster than an i7.
x86 will stick around not just for compatibility but because it's almost like bytecode at this point. No modern x86 CPU executes it directly, it gets broken down into RISC instructions that then get reordered on the fly. ARM, being RISC already, is more restrictive and it's not clear if it will ever be able to reach x86 levels of performance simply because the CPU has less opportunity to optimize
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That's exactly what it means. Add more ARM CPUs until you match the power requirements of the i7.
Apple A12 = 3.64W
Intel i7 6700k = 18.97W
That means you can put five (5.21153846153846) A12 in a laptop and they'll draw the same power as the i7. Intel and AMD are both increasing the number of cores in their CPUs, Apple can do the same.
In terms of computing performance, let's take Spec_Int 2006, 456
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Even if Apple does introduce ARM-based laptops, the MacBook Pro probably won't get it right away. As we have seen with Microsoft's Surface Pro X, and as we saw earlier when Apple transitioned from PowerPC to Intel, the performance of the new ARM-based systems will be poor in any application that needs to run under emulation. That will be a compromise that the professional users who are the primary target of the MBP will be unwilling to live with.
ARM will start with an updated Air, with the Pro following a y
Is the RAM and SSD still soldered in? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Apple upgrade is buying new again soon.
Bollocks ... but it's always fun seeing people who've never used an Apple device pulling authoritative statements about Apple devices out of their ***. MacBooks for example normall last at least five years before they start showing their age and that is, or was, usually because the screen hinges started to wear out but I haven't had that problem since I parked my MacBook Air, seven years ago. People normally use MacBooks anything up to 4-5 years before buying a new one and even then they can be fairly easil
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Parts that just cant be exported, sold, imported, used, found... allowed to be sold... then its time to buy new again and again.
Re 'authoritative statements" re the export and import of parts that "work" and are ready for the OS?
Back in the days of 2006 PC part laptops... 2011 PC parts?
2006 PC hardware is not the 2019 Apple design anymore.
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Thats was years ago... how long will approved hardware last? Parts that just cant be exported, sold, imported, used, found... allowed to be sold... then its time to buy new again and again. Re 'authoritative statements" re the export and import of parts that "work" and are ready for the OS? Back in the days of 2006 PC part laptops... 2011 PC parts? 2006 PC hardware is not the 2019 Apple design anymore.
There is no reason to believe the Apple hardware of today will do any worse over the next 15 years than the Apple hardware of 2006 has done up until today. If you have any proof to the contrary that consists of more that:”I hate Apple and therefore...” please do not hesitate to post it.
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There's one big reason - the battery. There's no way the battery is going to last 15 years. With the 2006 Macbook, you can replace the battery. Now, it's glued in and not meant to replaced. You'll get a few ye
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One of the Windows laptops that I still use regularly is over TEN years old. It runs the current version of Windows (actually, it's running the 1H20 Insider Preview, so the NEXT version of Windows), something that cannot be said about any ten year old Mac unless you use third party patches. It has had a RAM upgrade and a replacement of the original hard drive with an SSD, things that are impossible to do with current Mac laptops. (Yes, those new Macs already have an SSD. But when you wear it out, as you may
I can't tell how thin my iPhones have been (Score:3)
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iPhone haven't gotten thinner in 5 years.
Innovators indeed! (Score:1)
We are innovating!!!!!
Still have my 2010 Macbook Pro (Score:3)
And yet, the camera bump... (Score:3)
If Apple - or anyone else - really wanted to give people the battery life they want, they would bulk out the phones just enough so that there is no longer a camera bump.
Please bring back modular components (Score:2)
I've been holding out on upgrades, because new systems have SSD and RAM SOLDERED to the board --- which is ridiculous.
That last "all day"? (Score:1)
Innovations (Score:1)