Apple Event 9/7/16 - iPhones and Pokemons!

I don’t click the plus to save as it just add a lot of stuff to the Library. I prefer to just file them into Playlist. If it learned due to the number of times I played a song or what’s in my playlist, that’s great. I will have to give it a couple of weeks to see how good it learns. Thanks!

That’s debatable. It’s obviously a lot of spin too. Specifically mentioning the water resistant feature is a bit of a cop-out since there are phones with 3.5mm jacks that are water resistant to IP6 and IP8 ratings already out there.

I totally believe them when they say they prioritized the taptic home button. Look at that thing! It’s huge! I’m sure that’s a plus for some people, but it’s a poor substitute to the jack for me.

I find that the lightning cable jack tends to fail fairly often (two of my six family members had problems with the jack no longer working after a time). Though this may be more of a problem of things getting into the jack and my boys use their pocket to hold their phone (my wife and daughter keep their phone in the purses and have never had an issue.).

With the lightning jack being used more by people to plug their 3.5 devices in I wonder if this will exacerbate the problem since there will be more wear and tear on the lightning jack.

I don’t follow Android hardware, so not sure how prevalent waterproof phones are with them, but as linked in this thread, Consumer Reports found the S7 to fail in its tests. Maybe the jack was a weak point in testing? Or maybe a waterproof jack required even more space that they found didn’t make it worth it?

I am just not buying that one of the biggest most successful companies in the world is blindly doing this just to make an extra buck. In fact I think they might be expecting to lose ground since they said today they won’t be releasing preorder sales numbers for the 7. Either that or their supply chain is really lacking.

To current iPhone users who are angry about the loss of the jack, the 7 isn’t much of an improvement, and they have already suggested that they are going to a 3 year upgrade cycle with the next major improvement next year. If people prefer iOS, there is no reason to jump ship yet. It will be interesting to see where we are in a year though.

It certainly takes a while to settle in. You may get some recommendations that make no sense for a while. I really like it, though - it’s a great mix of the familiar and the new, and some weeks it’s just a delightful trove of new music I’d never have heard of but is right up my alley.

The Verge did a long article on it a while back, though it’s quite possible the algorithm has developed since then.

Not really. I plug my iPhone into my car stereo via the Lightning port several times a day. It’s far superior to using the headphone jack (which, on my car stereo, is already broken).

If you’re talking about children and teens? Yes, they will certainly find ways to destroy the lightning port, and everything else.

The S7 Active failed. The S7 and S7 Edge models passed.

[quote]
The Active is one of three versions of the Samsung Galaxy S7, and it was the only one to fail our water-immersion test. The standard Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge claim the same level of water-resistance, and both of those models passed.[/quote]

On top of that, as early as 2014, Consumer Reports passed the Sony Xperia Z1S.

[quote]
This attractive phone is actually a better swimmer than the Galaxy S 5, since it’s the first phone we’ve seen that’s built to handle a 30-minute immersion in up to 5 feet of water…[/quote]

Hmm, interesting. I will be interested to see the iFixit tear down to see if they find anything interesting.

Fair point on the adapter, but surely I’ve tossed my “ancient” 3.5mm headphones because of the clearly superior wireless technology. /smarm

And there’s no real angst for me here, and I have no dog in this very particular fight because I am not an iPhone user. My main lament is that once Apple ditches it, it’s likely that other manufacturers will follow suit, and headphones will go from a fairly straightforward purchase to a nightmare of fractured adapters and/or wireless interfaces. I haven’t purchased a new set of earbuds for myself in probably 10 years (thanks in part to the 3.5mm jack), but a family member wanted a set of bluetooth earbuds last Christmas and it was a bit of a challenge. Whereas the typical problem with 3.5mm earbuds is fit, the bluetooth/wireless ones had issues with fit, balance, battery life, sound quality, staying connected, and delay.

I get that it’s the future, and in 5-10 years no one will remember the day they took our jack away, but I really just don’t look forward to the transition phase. And I really wish we were doing a simple swap from wired + analog to wireless + digital without losing the ease of use, quality, and single standard format.

That’s likely true. Apple’s schtick for years has pretty much been “you have other options that may have more variety but if you buy into our walled garden, we can guarantee you that products you buy from us will work without hassle.” They’ve dropped the ball on that with changes to various power adapters, etc., but for the most part, if you buy into they’re ecosystem and stay within it, things work relatively smoothly. That says nothing, of course, about the downside of being in their ecosystem.

The main looming problem with this switch is DRM. It’s entirely possible that Apple, with the new W1 chip, will now have the ability to refuse to play DRM’d music wirelessly to devices that may be used to copy that music. It’s likely they’ll only license the chip to manufacturers that aren’t using the protocol to allow copying. I can easily see Google and others following that trend if it happens.

I was just poking around the iPhone 7 specs page and it notes that the new stereo speakers are 2x louder than those on the 6s. According to this page, iPhones have gotten progressively louder with each generation. Perhaps the speakers would be sufficient now, depending on which model you were using.

My boys are in their early twenties and it has more to do with their jobs (factory and warehouse work and what can end up in their pockets). :)

Of course a good case should help with the problem by protecting the port but even then the lightning jack gets messed up (the 3.5 jack not so much).

Psst: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-play-music/fahmaaghhglfmonjliepjlchgpgfmobi

I don’t remember if I had to manually configure it to accept media keys in the extensions menu, but it works perfectly.

Neato! Wonder if it runs in a separate window or not. That’d be handy.

Don’t use Chrome at home (and it’s not my primary at work, either, but as my “fucking around” browser, it’s also where Play Music lives, so this’ll be perfect there!), so I’ll check it out at work in a bit. Thanks!

There’s a little micro-window version that I have in the corner of my screen at work sometimes.

Ack, how long has this been out? I remember looking for something similar when I first signed up for GPM and everything was some hackish bit that didn’t work 90% of the time. I didn’t need to do anything to get this to work. It didn’t even interrupt the song that was playing. And it responds to my G110’s keys just fine.

Separate window:

YASSSSSS

Okay, we can now continue with the regularly scheduled Ten Minutes Hate on Apple!

Oh, I thought it was Apple’s hate on the consumer! Silly me! :)

Mpow’s wireless earphones are on for $13 today via a Gizmodo code MVDC6Q2F. Battery life is longer than Apple’s, and user reviews are generally positive about the durability and audio quality, at least in the scope of sub $40 earbuds.

https://www.amazon.com/Mpow-Bluetooth-Headphones-Wireless-Cancelling/dp/B017I50T0K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473360786&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=mpow+bluetooth+headphones&psc=1

AAPL is getting hammered today, guess investors didn’t like what they saw yesterday. Or they don’t like that they aren’t going to be releasing preorder sales like they usually do. Who knows with the stock market?

That said, for the first time in a while I am not a shareholder. I sold my stock today because I need the cash, not because of the company itself.