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Apple |OT| TV/Arcade/iPad/mac/iPhone

dottme

dottme

Member
It looks ok and they try to add details. But yes, the next generation is going to be more interested as it looks like the PS5 and the XSX follow 2 different philosophy.
 
dottme

dottme

Member
Bitmap Frogs said:
I don't think Apple is interested in turning the iPhone into a mini computer, Android style.

That experimentation is happening on the iPad.
Click to expand...
That’s a shame. Now that they are slowly getting MacOS to run on Apple Silicon, I’m really looking to some day where I can boot in MacOS from my iPhone after I plug it to a screen/keyboard/mouse.
I think what Samsung is doing with Samsung DEX is interesting, but there isn’t any ecosystem for Android desktop.
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
So, hey. The new Pro Max is getting a wide camera sensor close-ish to the RX100 sensor... wowza.

For those who aren't aware, the RX100 is the most succesful of the so called 1-inch sensor cameras that have essentially become the de-facto "compact-cam for serious users".

Obviously the RX100 will still be the better tool, but damn Apple is about to put a serious tool in those pro max phones.
 
Suicide King

Suicide King

Neo Member
I started playing The Survivalists and Yaga after I renewed my Arcade subscription (mostly to play Crossy Road Castle with my girlfriend) and I'm amazed at how well they still run on an iPhone 8. But now I kinda want a 12. Performance will probably be even more insane, but damn, that camera is probably good enough to make me stop carrying my mirrorless camera everywhere.
 
Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Got a base 12 with 128gb storage. Not arriving until Nov 10th. Went with the wireless charger, case, and wallet.

Edit: Weird, the checkout said Nov 10, but my confirmation email still says Oct 23rd. I guess I will have to wait and see which is correct.
 
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diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
I think there is some sort of odd-even thing with iOS, as, iOS 13 was pretty lame and a real buggy piece of shit,. but I think ios14 is great. Even on iPad- I can use the whole thing with a stylus now. I wrote this whole post with the Apple Pencil in the text box. The recognition is not perfect but it seems to be getting better. I wish the iPhone would support it Galaxy note style. Of course Android fans are going to laugh at this but the Home Screen make the interface much more useful and change the way I use it.
 
Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
Loving the 12 so far. It is certainly a nice upgrade from the 8. I’ve only really just begun to mess around with the cameras but I am impressed so far.
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Still waiting on the 12 Mini. Anyone here grab a red 12? I’d be interested to see photos.
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Maiden Voyage said:
Some influencers got one, notably MKBHD. It looks more coral than 'red'.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I did see this video and do prefer coral over red. Was hoping others had photos of their own phones. I dislike the Product Red logo on the back.
 
Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Just got my 12 Pro over a week earlier than they estimated. Restoring from iTunes backup now. Holy shit I forgot how big these were after being on a 7 for months.
 
dottme

dottme

Member
Thaedolus said:
Just got my 12 Pro over a week earlier than they estimated. Restoring from iTunes backup now. Holy shit I forgot how big these were after being on a 7 for months.
Click to expand...
I know some friend complaining the 11 Pro max being too heavy. I’m waiting for the mini to replace my iPhone X.
 
Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Yeah I’m actually glad I didn’t get the max even though I’m sure I’ll get used to the size really quickly.

So far VZW 5G test at my house blows, 4mb up and 2 down. LTE was always really slow here too, but I’d expect 5G with 4 bars to be better than that. I’ll have to check it around town tomorrow in some spots I know to be reliable on LTE. On WiFi or not network-dependent stuff the thing loads stuff up damn near instantly. There’s snappiness and then there’s this, I’m super impressed.
 
RoyalLaFlame

RoyalLaFlame

Banned
I'm still wondering if I should buy the PS5 or the iPhone 12 next month. I've been enjoying more or less Apple Arcade (still missing some more mature looking games), and here in China works pretty great with my portuguese account. I'm just worried about if I want to use a portuguese account on my chinese PS5.

Anyway, I hope Apple doubles down on Arcade. It has the potential to be a game changer on mobile gaming.
 
MaestroMike

MaestroMike

Gold Member
Apple develops alternative to Google search

iPhone maker pushes to build its own search tools as ties to Google come under antitrust scrutiny

Apple is stepping up efforts to develop its own search technology as US antitrust authorities threaten multibillion-dollar payments that Google makes to secure prime placement of its engine on the iPhone.

In a little-noticed change to the latest version of the iPhone operating system, iOS 14, Apple has begun to show its own search results and link directly to websites when users type queries from its home screen.

That web search capability marks an important advance in Apple’s in-house development and could form the foundation of a fuller attack on Google, according to several people in the industry.

The Silicon Valley company is notoriously secretive about its internal projects, but the move adds to growing evidence that it is working to build a rival to Google’s search engine.

Two and a half years ago, Apple poached Google’s head of search, John Giannandrea. The hire was ostensibly to boost its artificial intelligence capabilities and its Siri virtual assistant, but also brought eight years of experience running the world’s most popular search engine.

The company’s growing in-house search capability gives it an alternative if regulators block its lucrative partnership with Google. When the US Department of Justice launched a case last week, over payments that Google makes to Apple to be the iPhone’s default search tool, urgency was added to the initiative.

“They [Apple] have a credible team that I think has the experience and the depth, if they wanted to, to build a more general search engine,” said Bill Coughran, Google’s former engineering chief, who is now a partner at Silicon Valley investor Sequoia Capital.

Apple’s frequent job advertisements for search engineers are not short on ambition, inviting candidates to “define and implement the architecture of Apple’s groundbreaking search technology”.

Search marketing experts also point to increased activity from Applebot, the iPhone maker’s once-obscure web crawler, which is used to build the vast database of online material that forms the foundation of any search engine.

Suganthan Mohanadasan, a digital marketing consultant, said Applebot has shown up “a ridiculous number of times” on his clients’ websites in recent weeks. “When the crawl rate increases, that tells us they are trying to gather more information.”

Most significantly, iOS 14 nudged aside Google for certain search functions. Queries made in the search window accessed by swiping right from the iPhone’s home screen — which Apple calls the “Today View” — show an Apple-generated list of search suggestions rather than Google results. These results include “autocomplete”-style suggestions generated by Apple, showing that it is learning from its 1bn users’ most common queries.

Apple declined to comment.

Building a true rival to Google’s search engine could take years. But with profits this year predicted to exceed $55bn and $81bn of net cash reserves at the last count, Apple can afford to make long-term investments.

Apple has historically tried to own and control the most important components of its products, from the custom chips that power everything from the iPhone to its AirPods and Watch accessories, to the tight integration between its software and hardware.

Yet Apple has stuck with Google as the iPhone’s default search engine for more than a decade.

Now, however, Apple has a growing incentive to change that, as regulators force it to choose between defending its relationship with Google or turning against its longstanding partner in search.

The US DoJ has put Google’s estimated $8bn-12bn annual payments to be the iPhone’s default search engine at the centre of its antitrust case against the internet group.

Sharis Pozen, co-head of the global antitrust practice at law firm Clifford Chance and a former acting assistant attorney-general at the DoJ, said the case “opens up another front for Apple” alongside legal fights with Epic Games and others over its role as App Store gatekeeper. “Apple will be central here,” she said, adding that it must “walk a fine line” in explaining why it took billions of dollars from Google.

The DoJ could demand an end to the exclusive agreement, she said, allowing others equal access to the iPhone’s search defaults.

Apple has stumbled in creating a rival to Google before. When Apple Maps first launched in 2012, it was so prone to errors that Scott Forstall, one of the company’s top lieutenants to late co-founder Steve Jobs, was forced to resign.

But Apple is one of the few companies that have the resources to index the web from scratch. Most of Google’s smaller rivals license their index from Microsoft’s Bing, including DuckDuckGo, a privacy-focused company that Apple already offers as an alternative to Google in its Safari browser, and Neeva, a Silicon Valley start-up founded by two former Google executives.

“Apple’s position is very unique because it has the iPhone and iOS. It controls the default browser,” said Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva’s co-founder and Google’s former head of advertising. Expanding in search “feels natural” for Apple, he said, as it has the ability to gather data and learn from user behaviour at large scale.

More than 20 years after Google was founded, building a search engine today is “still technically very difficult but it’s not as hard as it used to be”, said Mr Coughran, who was among the investors to put $35m into Neeva. That is in part thanks to the cheaper cloud computing infrastructure and open-source tools that are available to both Apple and start-ups such as Neeva.

Still, the sheer scale of the problem is daunting. “Any reasonable search engine has to have 20bn-50bn pages in its active index,” Mr Ramaswamy said. When a user runs a query, the retrieval system must sift through vast troves of data then rank them in milliseconds.

Some observers still dismiss the idea of Apple creating a complete search rival to Google.

Dan Wang, associate professor of business at Columbia Business School, said it would be “extremely difficult” for Apple ever to catch up.

“Google’s advantage comes from scale,” he said, as the endless user feedback helps to tune results and identify areas of improvement. “Google gets hundreds of millions of queries every minute from users all over the world — that’s an enormous advantage when it comes to data.”
Click to expand...

 
TBiddy

TBiddy

Member
Are there any news regarding an updated Apple TV? I'm considering upgrading my 4th gen to 4K, but if there's a new just around the corner, I'll wait it out.
 
Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
TBiddy said:
Are there any news regarding an updated Apple TV? I'm considering upgrading my 4th gen to 4K, but if there's a new just around the corner, I'll wait it out.
Click to expand...

Rumors have been swirling all year. I doubt it will happen before the end of the year though.
 
Celcius

Celcius

°Temp. member
Just got my pacific blue 12 pro today, it was originally estimated to arrive nov 3 - 6.
I thought my old phone (iphone 8) was still plenty fast, but the new one seems even quicker/snappier. Nice to have my first oled screen as well. Very happy with the upgrade.
 
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Flying Toaster

Flying Toaster

Member
Celcius said:
Just got my pacific blue 12 pro today, it was originally estimated to arrive nov 3 - 6.
I thought my old phone (iphone 8) was still plenty fast, but the new one seems even quicker/snappier. Nice to have my first oled screen as well. Very happy with the upgrade.
Click to expand...

How do you like the Pro? I have a base 11 and I am waiting for the mini as I want a smaller phone but I won't lie those pro's look nifty.
 
Javthusiast

Javthusiast

Banned
Already used the 7 day apple tv+ trial weeks ago. But now that Apple One subscription is available I got a month long free trial.

Gonna binge their entire content for free baby. xD

Also thinking of finally upgrading from my Ipad pro 9.7 to the pro 11 inch 2020 model.
 
dottme

dottme

Member
Javthusiast said:
Already used the 7 day apple tv+ trial weeks ago. But now that Apple One subscription is available I got a month long free trial.

Gonna binge their entire content for free baby. xD

Also thinking of finally upgrading from my Ipad pro 9.7 to the pro 11 inch 2020 model.
Click to expand...
I liked their documentaries. The Elephant Queen and Tiny World were quite good.
 
Celcius

Celcius

°Temp. member
My iphone 12 Pro has been my favorite purchase of 2020. It's a huge upgrade from my iphone 8.
I just finished watching Avengers Inifinity War and I expected to be blown away by the HDR (which I was) but what really surprised me was how great the audio was. It was amazing that all that sound was coming out of my phone.

These silicone cases seem like a slight step down from what I'm used to though. The material is a little I guess slicker than the more rubbery feel of the old ones, and now that it covers the bottom of the phone then once or twice I've taken my phone out of my pocket and put it down on the table and one of the corners of the phone wasn't pushed down all the way into the case anymore, but nothing a half second doesn't fix. The older silicone cases seemed to fit slightly better though.
 
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Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
appleinsider.com

Amazon launches $194 AirPods Pro sale ahead of Black Friday | AppleInsider

A $55 discount, Amazon's $194 AirPods Pro promotion sits alongside its $99 AirPods with Charging Case deal, delivering the best prices leading up to Black Friday.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com

I am tempted to jump on this, but the rumors for AirPods Studio being announced next week has me waiting.

There's also a steal on the Momentum 2.0 Over-Ears for $200 on Amazon.
 
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Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Celcius said:
My iphone 12 Pro has been my favorite purchase of 2020. It's a huge upgrade from my iphone 8.
Click to expand...

I'm torn between a pro and a pro max.

I'm coming from a S9+ and the pro is smaller than the galaxy while the pro max is bigger. The galaxy is my ideal size, I can still one hand (barely, but I can) while getting maximum screen real state.
 
Celcius

Celcius

°Temp. member
Bitmap Frogs said:
I'm torn between a pro and a pro max.

I'm coming from a S9+ and the pro is smaller than the galaxy while the pro max is bigger. The galaxy is my ideal size, I can still one hand (barely, but I can) while getting maximum screen real state.
Click to expand...
I'd go for the regular Pro... the Max is huge and I often stick my phone in my pocket
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
If anyone is interested on a new M1 Air, be warned they come with 8gb of ram and going to 16gb is a 200$ wallet-smashing charge.
 
RoyalLaFlame

RoyalLaFlame

Banned
Thinking on grabbing a new iPhone this weekend. I'm coming from an 8, and I've been loving what I've seen from the 12 mini, but that battery life looks below average.


I basically use my phone a lot (as in listening to music, catching up to NeoGaf and some news and some light gaming sometimes) when commuting and at home, more or less (but at home I can always put it on the charger). During work I basically leave my phone charging and barely touch it as I do everything on my Mac. I do play some Apple Arcade from time to time (NeoCab is fucking awesome by the way)

Still trying to decide between the 12 mini and the 12, or maybe even the 11. What do you guys think?
 
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Maiden Voyage

Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
RoyalLaFlame said:
Thinking on grabbing a new iPhone this weekend. I'm coming from an 8, and I've been loving what I've seen from the 12 mini, but that battery life looks below average.


I basically use my phone a lot (as in listening to music, catching up to NeoGaf and some news and some light gaming sometimes) when commuting and at home, more or less (but at home I can always put it on the charger). During work I basically leave my phone charging and barely touch it as I do everything on my Mac. I do play some Apple Arcade from time to time (NeoCab is fucking awesome by the way)

Still trying to decide between the 12 mini and the 12, or maybe even the 11. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

You won't be disappointed whatever route you go, to be honest. Unless the 11 has a great discount, you should go for either the 12 or 12 Mini.
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Grabbed today a 12 pro max in gold. Thing is sweet.

This square design is quite dope,the entire phone neatly contained within the frame is super cool.

Coming from 5 years in Android, the way things are coherent throughout the OS and 3rd party apps included is a sight. Granted I can’t customize much of it tho, but that’s the way things are with Apple.

Oh, the cameras are beast mode!
 
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Soodanim

Soodanim

Gold Member
Bitmap Frogs said:
Grabbed today a 12 pro max in gold. Thing is sweet.

This square design is quite dope,the entire phone neatly contained within the frame is super cool.

Coming from 5 years in Android, the way things are coherent throughout the OS and 3rd party apps included is a sight. Granted I can’t customize much of it tho, but that’s the way things are with Apple.

Oh, the cameras are beast mode!
Click to expand...
That’s how I felt when I switched from Android to my XR. There’s a few things I miss from Android, like being able to install non-store apps like YouTube Vanced, how Shortcuts often have to be confirmed before they run, and there’s a few quirks with the UI like how pulling down the notifications will pause a game instead of displaying over the top, but the stock apps are so solid that the phone is good to go from day one.

I’m not sure what things are like on Android now, but on my last Moto the stock (everything) was something I wanted to or did switch out. And it’s all integrated into the OS in a stronger way, or at least it feels that way.

If they lost the notch and some of the weight (which is the case in newer models, I know) they’d be fine.

It was also nice not getting any shit like Facebook pre-installed.
 
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Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Soodanim said:
That’s how I felt when I switched from Android to my XR. There’s a few things I miss from Android, like being able to install non-store apps like YouTube Vanced, how Shortcuts often have to be confirmed before they run, and there’s a few quirks with the UI like how pulling down the notifications will pause a game instead of displaying over the top, but the stock apps are so solid that the phone is good to go from day one.

I’m not sure what things are like on Android now, but on my last Moto the stock (everything) was something I wanted to or did switch out. And it’s all integrated into the OS in a stronger way, or at least it feels that way.

If they lost the notch and some of the weight (which is the case in newer models, I know) they’d be fine.

It was also nice not getting any shit like Facebook pre-installed.
Click to expand...

Yeah, preinstalled software on android is a bitch. Even buying a thousand dollar flagship won't save you from bloatware... Android is and has been for a while a usable OS, it's just things inevitably end up turning meh with enough time and cruff. The phone I replaced was a S9+, granted a model from 2018 but a flagship tier and yet the battery was toast and stutters cropped up here and there. Honestly, the lack of a real firefox is a fucking kick in the balls but I am done for now tolerating android's follies.
 
TTOOLL

TTOOLL

Member
Didn’t know about this thread, nice!
Finally jumped the android ship a couple of weeks ago and what a difference! I had planning this for a while and decided to get a regular iPhone 11 because of price and battery life which is really amazing.

The “it just works” saying is mostly true. I’m impressed. My gf also has an 11 and yesterday while she was trying to connect to a wifi network I was already in my phone just prompted me to share the password with her without us doing anything. It blew our minds.
 
Bitmap Frogs

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
TTOOLL said:
The “it just works” saying is mostly true. I’m impressed. My gf also has an 11 and yesterday while she was trying to connect to a wifi network I was already in my phone just prompted me to share the password with her without us doing anything. It blew our minds.
Click to expand...

Holy shit that’s neat.
 
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