iOS, iPhone and iPad Hardware Catch All - WWDC Today at 10PST

I'm selling my iPhone 5 on Gazelle for $325 and upgrading to the 32 gig iPhone 5S for free, essentially. I don't love iOS, but I like it more than any Android phone I've ever played with.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Smart move by Apple to start moving into the cheaper area.

Except they're not "moving into the cheaper area". They gutted the 5 tossed the bits in a less expensive shell, upgraded the camera slightly and repackaged it as a new device. They've traditionally dropped the prices of the outgoing phone by $100 whenever they launched a new one (Source).

pneuman wrote:

Does the 5C really appeal to anyone?

I would recommend it to my sister next time she drops her glass-backed iPhone so the phone isn't as easily trashed in the future.

I missed the keynote entirely; was it only 5S, 5C and iOS 7?
no "one more thing" or anything else?

Malor wrote:

But that analysis doesn't apply to ARM. 64-bit is better for PCs because x86 sucks so horribly, and I'm not aware that ARM has a similarly screwed-up architecture that can be fixed with that kind of transition. It's apparently a nice, clean, easy-to-program design, so there's no low-hanging fruit to harvest.

Anandtech reckoned a 20-30% speed up for 64 bit code over 32-bit.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6420/arms-cortex-a57-and-cortex-a53-the-first-64bit-armv8-cpu-cores

No benchmarks, and that's for the A57, but's I don't think that's wildly different from Apple's Swift.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

I missed the keynote entirely; was it only 5S, 5C and iOS 7?
no "one more thing" or anything else?

I don't believe there was any "one more thing" (even bundling iWork suite with new phones was in the actual presentation). However, there is some expectation for an October event to deal with iPod, iPad mini, and maybe Macbooks.

shoptroll wrote:

Except they're not "moving into the cheaper area". They gutted the 5 tossed the bits in a less expensive shell, upgraded the camera slightly and repackaged it as a new device. They've traditionally dropped the prices of the outgoing phone by $100 whenever they launched a new one (Source).

That's the strategy shift I don't get -- I went from thinking that a "lower-cost" 5 made no sense, to expecting it to be a replacement for the 4S, so that every iPhone sold new would have a Lightning connector. But they're going to keep selling the 4S and not the 5.

So Apple's goal was just to replace the 5 with something that would cost less to make, then?

Anandtech reckoned a 20-30% speed up for 64 bit code over 32-bit.

Well, sort of, not exactly. This appears to be the salient claim in the article you linked:

The end result is up to a 20 - 30% increase in performance over the Cortex A15 while running 32-bit code. Running 64-bit code you'll see an additional performance advantage as the 64-bit register file is far simplified compared to the 32-bit RF

So the new chips are 20-30% faster, because they're better chips. Then, in addition, 64-bit mode is a little faster still, but they don't seem to say how much.

At least it's not a performance loss, which was a very real possibility.

So Apple's goal was just to replace the 5 with something that would cost less to make, then?

Apparently, that's Cook's thing, managing the supply chain and getting costs down. Pairing him with Jobs was brilliant, because Steve could come up with a crazy idea, the engineers could figure out how to make it, and Cook could figure out to make it cheap. But the marketroids kept the price high, resulting in probably the best margins of any electronics company, ever.

If Cook keeps playing to his strengths, you'll probably see more of a focus on margins and getting manufacturing costs down. But that 5C is ugly as hell, not a real good sign for a company that's about selling status symbols.

Pink plastic phones are sexy, Malor. Didn't you get the memo?

Malor wrote:
Anandtech reckoned a 20-30% speed up for 64 bit code over 32-bit.

Well, sort of, not exactly. This appears to be the salient claim in the article you linked:

The end result is up to a 20 - 30% increase in performance over the Cortex A15 while running 32-bit code. Running 64-bit code you'll see an additional performance advantage as the 64-bit register file is far simplified compared to the 32-bit RF

So the new chips are 20-30% faster, because they're better chips. Then, in addition, 64-bit mode is a little faster still, but they don't seem to say how much.

At least it's not a performance loss, which was a very real possibility.

Ha, yeah, I'd combined those two sentences in my head.

garion333 wrote:

Pink plastic phones are sexy, Malor. Didn't you get the memo?

No, I never get on the good mailing lists.

But, no matter how many memos they send out, this is not going to look good:

IMAGE(http://www.malor.com/gamerswithjobs/ugly_iphone_arstechnica.jpg)

(image mirrored from the Ars Technica article.)

It's the Fisher-PricePhone.

Malor wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Pink plastic phones are sexy, Malor. Didn't you get the memo?

No, I never get on the good mailing lists.

But, no matter how many memos they send out, this is not going to look good:

It's the Fisher-PricePhone.

Yes, the holes in the official case make for a gaudy look. If you pick those contrasting colors for yourself when you are getting your phone, then you deserve nothing less. But of couse you're free to use any case you want or none at all, and the look of the bare 5c is just fine.

shoptroll wrote:

They gutted the 5 tossed the bits in a less expensive shell, upgraded the camera slightly and repackaged it as a new device. They've traditionally dropped the prices of the outgoing phone by $100 whenever they launched a new one (Source).

The 5C is $100 less than a 5S, so I think that trend has continued. Unless what you really wanted was the metal and glass body, of course. I'll be curious to see what happens when the next round of iPhones is released and the price drops hit both the 5C and 5S.

People put all kinds of horrifying cases on their phones anyway - this kinda seems like accepting the trend.

The whole differentiation between flagship products and cheap phones makes sense, especially in off-years like this one where you can't really tell the difference between an iPhone 5 and 5s unless you get the champagne gold one.

Nothing in this update impressed me, hardware wise, but I am VERY excited for iOS 7. That said, I predicted that the iPhone 5 - arguably the last phone created by Steve Jobs - would be my last, and this seems to confirm my prediction.

complexmath wrote:

I'll be curious to see what happens when the next round of iPhones is released and the price drops hit both the 5C and 5S.

5C goes away, 5S becomes 5CS.

The pattern so far suggests that the 4S goes away, the 5S becomes the 5CS at $99, and the 5C drops to free.

The 5C won't be cheaper in China, where phones are not sold on contract yet. It'll run about $600-700 from what I've read. It looks budget but doesn't cost budget--not sure how that will fly with Chinese customers, but I still see them flocking toward the 5S.

Malor wrote:

It's the Fisher-PricePhone.

It goes great with the Fisher-PricePC!

IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/IMac_Bondi_Blue.jpg/544px-IMac_Bondi_Blue.jpg)

I dunno, I always kinda liked the Bondi Blue iMacs, though I never owned one.

I saw some later pictures on Ars of just the basic phones by themselves, and they're not as bad as that first picture made them look. One's white, and looks fairly decent, actually.

If anyone is interested in taking the iOS 7 plunge early here is how.

It's working for a lot of people and it's the official release, not the beta. I am currently downloading the files.

Edit: Got it installed and running. It's pretty fantastic.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

The 5C won't be cheaper in China, where phones are not sold on contract yet. It'll run about $600-700 from what I've read. It looks budget but doesn't cost budget--not sure how that will fly with Chinese customers, but I still see them flocking toward the 5S.

Yeah, after my inital reaction I read around a bit and I realised it was premature. The 5C isn't nearly cheap enough.

Wife set alarm and woke up at 2:00 AM (which in turn woke me up) to preorder a 5S. Found out the 5C was the only model available to preorder...she was a pissed.

Gumbie wrote:

Wife set alarm and woke up at 2:00 AM (which in turn woke me up) to preorder a 5S. Found out the 5C was the only model available to preorder...she was a pissed. :lol:

Yeah you have to wait in line for the 5S. It's pretty lame.

Some iOS 7 impressions after using it for a day:

This instant access panel that you swipe from the bottom is the most useful thing Apple has done on iOS. Already I used it for playing Downcast, flashlight, do not disturb, brightness, calculator and the camera.

The parallax background thing is kinda lame. You hardly notice it and if you didn't know it was a thing, you probably wouldn't notice.

New tones are pretty nice as well.

Safari now has a keychain which is pretty useful.

I like that folders can have multiple pages but they display less icons per page.

Lock screen is great. If you get a notification you swipe that notification and it will open the app.

Siri is still useless compared to Google voice.

TempestBlayze wrote:

Lock screen is great. If you get a notification you swipe that notification and it will open the app.

That has been the case since iOS 6, though.

My only impression of iOS 7 after using it for two hours is that it doesn't send media information over bluetooth to my car anymore so I can't see what song is playing.

psoplayer wrote:
TempestBlayze wrote:

Lock screen is great. If you get a notification you swipe that notification and it will open the app.

That has been the case since iOS 6, though.

My only impression of iOS 7 after using it for two hours is that it doesn't send media information over bluetooth to my car anymore so I can't see what song is playing. :(

Oh, yeah I suppose it was woops.

In terms of the car I guess they require "iOS in the Car" which is lame.

Was psyched to try the iOS 7 GM on at least my phone and maybe my iPad, but then saw iTunes 11.1 beta is Mac only. Didn't want to get stuck being unable to revert in case anything goes wrong, so I guess I'll wait until next week...

As the 5s and 5c did not impress, my wife and I went and got the 5 yesterday. We were both on the 4 so this is a major step up. Also, a new price drop put it to 79 bucks and several other work bonuses made it easily worth it.

TheCounselor wrote:

I'm selling my iPhone 5 on Gazelle for $325 and upgrading to the 32 gig iPhone 5S for free, essentially. I don't love iOS, but I like it more than any Android phone I've ever played with.

So I sent my 5 in for repair this week (the lock button stopped working) and Apple sent me back a brand new phone. As of this morning I'm in possession of a pristine 32gb iPhone 5. I still have a year left on my contract, but I'm wondering what I could sell my phone for? Could I potentially take advantage of the replacement and get myself a free 5s? I've never sold a phone before...

Foxua wrote:

Was psyched to try the iOS 7 GM on at least my phone and maybe my iPad, but then saw iTunes 11.1 beta is Mac only. Didn't want to get stuck being unable to revert in case anything goes wrong, so I guess I'll wait until next week...

You can revert it by putting the phone into DFU mode while it's plugged into the computer- iTunes will restore it from backup after resetting it with the current OS.

It's not just a car thing, though. It's a basic part of the bluetooth AVRCP protocol (specifically, v1.3+) that they added support for in iOS 5 and now they seem to have removed it (or accidentally broken it) in iOS 7.

Edit: it seems to be working fine now. Must have just been something weird with the first connection it established.