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Apple 09/09/14 Special Event - iPhone 6 and Apple Watch


Ze Frias

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The live event via web it was a fiasco.

 

Yeah that was a little messy. Probably demand was too high. That's why Apple stopped live streaming keynotes for a long time. It had nothing to do with Steve Jobs being a control freak, as people that don't understand the technology assumed. They did it in the 90s when most people didn't have broadband (we used to all watch on an old beige Mac at my University), then for a while only beamed it to Apple stores with auditoriums. I'm glad they started live streaming it again, and I am sure they learned a lot yesterday. There are not a ton of people that can handle that kind of viewership, and it's something Apple would only use once or twice a year (at this point). 

I did see that people think YouTube could handle the traffic, but Google burned that bridge. As per usual, Apple posted the keynote a few hours later and inserts the graphics instead of a camera filming a screen with the stuff projected on it. They also live blogged their own event at Apple.com/live, probably anticipating the bandwidth issues. They had all the graphics reworked for the web and ready to go along the way. 

 

New iPhone. If you're an Apple fan then you are probably psyched. I am. I know a few people that went to Android 100% for big screen size (mostly camera people). They had been saying all along "If Apple makes a screen this big, I will toss this and go back to iOS". The 6plus is bigger than I want to carry, but there is definitely a market for it. I'm very much looking forward to Apple Pay. That's needed in this country. As somebody that had to toss credit cards that were used at Target last year, I am sold. 

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New iPhone. If you're an Apple fan then you are probably psyched. I am. I know a few people that went to Android 100% for big screen size (mostly camera people). They had been saying all along "If Apple makes a screen this big, I will toss this and go back to iOS". The 6plus is bigger than I want to carry, but there is definitely a market for it. I'm very much looking forward to Apple Pay. That's needed in this country. As somebody that had to toss credit cards that were used at Target last year, I am sold. 

 

The two most appealing features to me were Apple Pay and Wifi calling. I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy, but do enjoy some of their products (laptop and phone). I'm up for a phone upgrade in a few weeks, I think I will get the new iPhone 6.

 

The watch, though it has cool features, I don't think is for me. I'm more of a classic timepiece wearer myself.

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I'll be keeping my trusty iPhone 4 till induction charging comes along.

 

I was (long shot) hoping for "splash resistant" phones. Supposedly the lightning connector spec is that it's waterproof. I'm sure it's something Apple considered at some point. The fact that the phone is sealed up (in terms of battery swaps) makes you wonder how hard it would be to do. 

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Apple will continue to make lots of money by finessing things others have already developed - and releasing them in their own captive market.

As opposed to google inventing the smartphone?

I know apple didn't invent the smart phone, but effectively everything that existed before the iPhone has withered and died. Microsoft is a big enough company that they could reinvent their phone OS and not be bankrupted by the process.

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I know apple didn't invent the smart phone, but effectively everything that existed before the iPhone has withered and died.

 

The previous generation of "smartphones" were PDAs and Palm phones, which weren't really smart at all. I think iPhone was the first iteration of what we consider a "smartphone" now, which are essentially mini computers in your pockets.

 

Same thing for tablets, there may have a generation of "tablets" before, but the iPad was the first to truly define the category that we now consider tablets.

 

The watch, however, is a different story. There's definitely been a lot of smart watches out there, Apple just decided that it was time to get into that market and do a better job at it. Only time will tell.

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I don't think I'll be buying iPhones anymore. The latest version has this "great feature" that allows you to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone. So now the phones are tracking fingerprints along with audio and video. 

 

That's not true.

The fingerprint is stored in the phone itself and not uploaded to Apple's servers. That's been confirmed by 3rd parties. If you drop your phone in the ocean, you need to teach the new phone your fingerprints. They don't download with your apps and email settings. The iPhone 5s had the fingerprint sensor, so people have had a year to examine this. 

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That's not true.

The fingerprint is stored in the phone itself and not uploaded to Apple's servers. That's been confirmed by 3rd parties. If you drop your phone in the ocean, you need to teach the new phone your fingerprints. They don't download with your apps and email settings. The iPhone 5s had the fingerprint sensor, so people have had a year to examine this.

Are you POSITIVE, that there is absolutely ZERO chance that an iphone could be hacked, by... I don't know, lets say, a government agency of some sort, or any other organization, or even a lone hacker, and steal/view/ fingerprint information?

I won't be buying any tech with this so called "feature" either.

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900€ for an iPhone 6 Plus. Really?

Am I the only one around here who is outside from the train and using the mobile just to take a phone or to send a message?

:ph34r:

Most people in the US get a phone subsidized with a 2 year contract. Offhand Verizon offered me $200 for my iPhone 5, so I could have gotten the 16 GB iPhone 6 "free" (with 2 year contract).

That same phone is $649 contract free. That's the cheapest 6, but still a 6. The 5s is a lot less now. The 5 is free with contract here, and a great phone. Not sure what they flat out cost now without contract.

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There will always be cheaper android smart phones than what Apple sells. That's the nature of android being sort of open source. Some manufacturers compete on price more than anything else, and the OS is free. It's pretty brilliant. It gets a lot more people on smartphones, which in some markets is the personal computer for many people. It's also a camera in everyone's pocket that has the ability to share those photos. I think that's mostly good for the world.

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Are you POSITIVE, that there is absolutely ZERO chance that an iphone could be hacked, by... I don't know, lets say, a government agency of some sort, or any other organization, or even a lone hacker, and steal/view/ fingerprint information?

I won't be buying any tech with this so called "feature" either.

 

They scan your fingerprints when you go through customs. I've seen plenty of banks that fingerprint their customers (not sure what that was about). It would be easier for the government to get my fingerprints from another government agency than to send a hit squad after me to steal, then hack, my iPhone. If a super spy wanted to steal my fingerprints, they could follow me to dinner and grab a water glass I drank out of. 

I currently have a 5, so no fingerprint reader, but IIRC the fingerprint reading is optional in place of a password. For old time's sake, Apple still will sell the 5c for another year and that lacks a fingerprint reader. Not that many Android phones have fingerprint readers yet, so again there are plenty of options to avoid this technology. 

 

A quick Google search only seemed to produce articles from last year when the 5s debuted. 

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/11/apple-new-iphone-not-storing-fingerprints-doesnt-like-sweat/

 

If it stresses you out, don't use it. That's the simple answer. 

Also, the recent iCloud photo theft should be a lesson to use better passwords. That wasn't a hack of the system itself, it was hacking specific people's passwords. That's all the more reason to use a fingerprint to unlock your phone, and a longer and more secure actual password when you have to type it in. 

As somebody that has had credit card numbers lifted (so have my Mother and Sister), I like the idea of touching my iPhone to a pad and using my fingerprint than handing my card to somebody in a restaurant that then walks away with it for a few minutes. I also had to replace my credit card because I shopped at Target last year. Now the same thing happened to Home Depot. Everyone that shopped there had their credit card info stolen and it's just a matter of time till those are decrypted.

Apple sorted that out with ApplePay. They don't give Target (or any other store) your actual card number, but a single use transaction code. I'm sure hackers are going to go after Apple for those credit cards, but I bet they are going full throttle on security. 

http://www.apple.com/apple-pay/?cid=wwa-us-kwg-features-com 

 

Apple is making a super easy way to use this with many stores, but eventually every major retailer will support it. All stores in the USA are being pressured to start supporting NFC chips in their credit card readers in the near future. Basically your next credit card can (or will?) have a chip in it. The idea being the chip is much more secure than the magnetic strip. Retailers have been told by the credit card companies that if they don't upgrade to chip reading credit card scanners, the store will be liable for credit card fraud (and not Visa or Mastercard). Those modern chip readers can read the chip in your phone (iPhone 6, many Android phones, many Windows phones) as well as the chip in your card. It's optional to use a phone in place of a plastic credit card, but the infrastructure will be there anyway. This isn't a "what stores will go through hoops to support Apple", this is an evolution of technology that Apple is jumping on board with. 

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