I'm excited to get a new phone!

One of the advantages of using an iPhone is we get to use just about everyone’s technology. Apple will be playing catch up in AI for the next few years but we can use the technology from the leaders in the field right now.

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I just learned about Perplexity and I am astonished by it. Much more useful than ChatGPT in my opinion.

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Here is an excerpt from TechCrunch:

There’s a bizarre mismatch between how commonplace these AI capabilities are becoming and how bombastic the descriptions of them are. Apple has become increasingly prone to the kind of breathless promotion it once showed up with its restraint and innovation. Monday’s event was among the least exciting in recent years, but the language was, if anything, more extravagant than usual.

Fair?

Wait what? A promotional event turns out to be all marketing! Say it ain’t so!

As the saying goes, if you got it flaunt it. And Apple has the attention so they might as well use it. Why should it just be TechCrunch et.al. with the clickbait headlines?

As I am in the market for a new phone, I’m still rockin’ the Xs, I tuned in to see what was new.

My iPhones have been original, 4, 6s (the screen on the 4 stopped working), and Xs. So …

Now I’m the guy who just retired my 20" Apple Cinema Display, and only because my company is downsizing office space and was giving away stuff, including the Dell monitor I’m now using. So I’m not sure I will upgrade as the Xs still works.

I think there is a bit of selective memory and a touch of nostalgia when it comes to Apple events. But they have always been infomercials. The did have a better MC in years past though.

And yeah, I’ll probably get the new phone.

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Yes, But I always try to carry myself with humility. :joy:

:rofl:


Unfortunately don’t see a reason to upgrade my phone. Don’t care about AI. Wish they focus back in designing cool and innovative hardware…

Apple is still the iPhone company. That one device is still responsible for more than half of their profits and, IMO, I don’t think they are ready to mess with its success. For the time being it appears they are willing to let others try new things.

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I love my AirPods, and the addition of some sort of noise cancelling is tempting. But I’ll hold off until I put them through the washing machine or battery life becomes poor.

As for the phone… I’m using an iPhone 12 Pro hand me down from my daughter who gets the latest and greatest. So my next phone will be a 15 Pro, sometime!

AI is tempting… but I would mostly use that on desktop and I can do everything I need to already, albeit with data leaving my device. Indeed, I can do much more that is relevant to me than Apple is proposing. Privacy isn’t a huge concern for the uses I’m putting it to (summarising web pages, reading articles aloud, creating transcripts, changing tone, suggesting structures.) There’s a shortcut for OpenAI which I’ve used on the phone which does nearly everything Apple Intelligence does, albeit slightly less integrated due to security limitations on the device.

And it looks like Apple Intelligence is some way off in UK/EU.

Sort of related. I found the following quote from 9to5Mac both funny and annoying. And kind of a signal of what’s wrong with consumerism.

Supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo this morning posted his latest estimates for iPhone 16 shipments, ahead of Apple’s event later today where the new iPhone 16 lineup will be finally unveiled.

Finally! Because the previous model was highly underpowered, and, mind you!, already about a year old. It’s a crazy world we’re living in.

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My impressions from the event were very “eh”
I honestly found it a bit boring and lacking any personality seen in previous ones.

I was really struck by how much resources they must have pivoted to support their AI plans.
The AirPods 4 updates are really just canabalized from older AirPod pros versions.
The updates for the AirPod pro are just software (which is ok with me- mine with fine!). The ‘updated’ Max version was insulting.
Nothing for AVP and iPhone was ‘limited’ to camera updates.
I look forward to seeing the Mac updates when they come (or are press released).

I plan to upgrade my iPhone 14 to the new 16 shortly after the device becomes available at which point I will pass my 14 on to my daughter (with a pay-as-you-go SIM) for use as 2FA when shopping online or banking.

If I didn’t have someone to hand the 14 onto i wouldn’t bother to upgrade this year but then my real excitement would be some of the announced and romoured features of iOS 18 especially the audiological stuff which could inspire me to also buy a pair of AirPod Pros.

Comment likely to irritate follows.

Your XS Max has 4GB of RAM - memory - and 64GB of storage.

I’ll get my coat.

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All right. I’m no native speaker. In German we say Arbeitsspeicher („Working Storage“) for RAM and Speicherplatz („Storage Space“) for Storage.

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It’s a common mistake among native English speakers, too. Thanks for sharing the German terms. It’s interesting that they both incorporate the word for storage.

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Product name checks out, then! :smiley:

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Be aware:

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I didn’t use Perplexity too extensively yet, but with ChatGPT I experienced a lot of „making things up“. I hoped this was less with Perplexity. The advantage of Perplexity is that you have the sources right there and can check if you are uncertain. But of course if it actually makes up stuff too often it gets just as useless.

Another reason to get excited about a new phone for me is that I actually became really annoyed by the size of my XS Max. Interestingly, it didn’t bother me in the beginning (maybe I was just too fascinated by that large screen). But for quite a while I find it really clumsy and uncomfortable to use. On the other hand I was a little worried that the small screen would be a downside. But the 16 Pro has 6.3 inches and the XS Max „only“ has 6.5 inches, so actually it won’t be that much smaller if I get the „normal“ Pro, but still be noticeably more handy.

At the end of the day, they’re all tools - allowing us to complete some task. The iPhone, iPad, and Mac are all very mature, and the hardware is generally excellent. What’s missing, in terms of excitement, is what new tasks they allow us to accomplish.

By far, the most interesting product is Apple’s portfolio is Vision Pro, but it’s even further away from being ready to be a star than the original Apple Watch was (which took, I think, 3 generations to really start to show its value?). Vision Pro has great potential, but the software and the hardware have to catch-up. My guess is that it won’t be a really big deal until it’s much less expensive, and able to function without separating people so completely from their environment. How many generations will it take to get there, and will Apple keep plugging away on it in the meantime?

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