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Apple Planning iPhones With Touchless Gesture Controls and Curved Screens to Launch Within Three Years

alexgowers said:
They just need to remove the notch entirely and go back to 16:9 and they'll be cool. Sorry but the current gen of iPhones is pure trash. Also remove the need for pressure sensitivity, it adds to costs and brings almost zero benefit. All this curved nonsense is not needed, edge to edge screens with a pop up camera or something is the way to go.
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Except for the fact that the notch is actually rather nice, the 2:1 screen ratio allows for big screens on little phones, and 3D Touch/Force Touch is really useful and used constantly.

A pop up camera is a dumb idea. I don't care if Essential's Andy Ruben came up with it and patented it. That's asking for unnecessary mechanical complexity and a water/dirt ingress point.
 
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The smartphone design is coming to a peak, the near border-less slab of glass is here, what we need is improvements in battery life and charging times. It's like the computer with a mouse and keyboard, it hasn't changed for decades because it works...the rest of this stuff are gimmicks.
 
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Try hovering your finger above the screen and not touching it, performing gestures like scrolling through webpages or scroll wheel gestures.

Notice how hard it is to maintain the constant distance and not touching the screen?

Isn't it easier to just, you know, touch the screen?
 
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WWPD said:
The smartphone design is coming to a peak, the near border-less slab of glass is here, what we need is improvements in battery life and charging times. It's like the computer with a mouse and keyboard, it hasn't changed for decades because it works...the rest of this stuff are gimmicks.
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Great points. I think (Eventually) long range wireless charging with extended battery life will be here, Micro-Led displays, and Facial recognition improvements Is the future of the iPhone. Gesture controls is an interesting aspect as well.
 
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Toucheless gestures have been present since the galaxy s4 in 2013. Nothing innovative.
 
Fender2112 said:
What's the big deal with curved edges and edge to edge displays. There seems to be a lot of hype about these but I don't get it. I actually like having edges where I have something to hold. I don't envision people lining up iPhones to create a large screen effect.
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The outside dimensions of my SE are just right for me. But a bigger screen would be nice. A small bezel is fine with me as well. Basically the X in the overall size of the SE. If possible with no notch but not a deal breaker.
 
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belvdr said:
They'll put so many notches on it that it will have a sawtooth effect. LOL

Except when your hands are dirty. For example, I use my phone sometimes while working on our equipment. It would be nice not having to get someone to help with the phone or clean my hands every time I need to wake up the display or scroll. A poster above mentioned cooking as another example.
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What if the phones themselves wouldn't have a screen that big, but a concave glass that would expand the display to look as big as the phone while there is a small micro LED display powering it up beneath. At that point, these touch less gestures would be needed because even when you do touch the screen, it wouldn't mean touch-screen the way it means today.

Think about it. Too futuristic... I know. I've always fantasized the phone to be a simple glass brick that is almost see through. I know that's impossible. But given how expensive MicroLED they claim to be, may be this way they could get it to work on phones with a smaller footprint of the actual display panel and use curved glass display to create an illusion of a full screen display.

An early in the day Tech Fiction :D
 
Quote: The company is said to be looking at how it can differentiate its flagship product in a smartphone market that's becoming increasingly saturated with devices.

More and more, Apple reminds me of the Detroit in the early 1960s, when automakers tried to "differentiate" their cars with silly ideas like tail fins rather than making substantial and useful improvements such as more safety, better gas mileage and ample room without an outlandish size. That's why Asian and European companies beat the socks off them in the 1970s.

Apple is doing the same. I can't imagine "touchless gestures being as effective as touched ones. It's a difference without a real difference. What Apple needs to do is make iPhones better in ways that matter. That includes:

1. An in-the-iOS way to filter out spam messages and phone calls.
2. Global TV and radio reception using a custom SDR chip.
3. The ability to receive and record over-the-air sporting events and TV shows broadcast over digital TV channels.
4. The ability to subscribe to services, including videos and news, sent via digital TV subchannels.

All would require viewing an iPhone as a serious device for working adults not, as Apple now does, as a toy for overaged preschoolers.
 
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LG flex and Samsung galaxy round come to mind. No thank you.

If people found rocking on a flat surface with a protruding camera annoying, I can't wait for the complaints to come due to the curvature of the phone.

Hopefully this is just....a rumor.
 
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Relentless Power said:
Great points. I think (Eventually) long range wireless charging with extended battery life will be here, Micro-Led displays, and Facial recognition improvements Is the future of the iPhone. Gesture controls is an interesting aspect as well.
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I think touchless gestures and AR will be the next step. It won’t be a one sided thing. They go together. I feel these analysts only know half the story and are assuming they know what they’re talking about.
 
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Gorms said:
My first thought is VR/AR.
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That would actually pose a significant benefit. While I'm not sure people with iPhones strapped on their faces is part of Apples grand vision for AR, the benefits of curving the display when it's that close to your face and attempting to fill your field of view, & minimize distortion, would be significant. Perhaps whatever glasses they do eventually build will share some elements of the curved iPhones tech & content... hm.
 
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I7guy said:
Samsung also had a finger print reader before Apple and look how that turned out. Not to mention the differences between Apple Face ID and the competitors.
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Took a couple years for Apple to catch up and leap past Samsung with finger print and face scanning id. Yes Apples method is better now but it took a while to get there and they had to copy. The implementation is different but the idea is the same.

What makes you think Samsung can't leap past Apple in a couple years? Samsung has also had touchless guestures for a very long time (wave arcoss the screen to screenshot, flip phone over to mute, using your eyes or tilting the phone to scroll, keeping the display on if it detects your face).

And Samsung is so classy they let Apple copy without lawsuits, unlike Apple that will send in the lawyers for rounded corners.
 
Elijen said:
Because Tim Cook is an incompetent idiot, that's why.
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Tim Cook is 7 year CEO of Apple, 20 year veteran on Steve Jobs executive leadership team.

You, some random poster on an Apple website wearing clown makeup.

Exactly who is the incompetent one again?
 
macfacts said:
Took a couple years for Apple to catch up and leap past Samsung with finger print and face scanning id. Yes Apples method is better now but it took a while to get there and they had to copy. The implementation is different but the idea is the same.

What makes you think Samsung can't leap past Apple in a couple years? Samsung has also had touchless guestures for a very long time (wave arcoss the screen to screenshot, flip phone over to mute, using your eyes or tilting the phone to scroll, keeping the display on if it detects your face).

And Samsung is so classy they let Apple copy without lawsuits, unlike Apple that will send in the lawyers for rounded corners.
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See things in this prespective... If Apple didn't copy those things from them, Samsung would probably keep them as they are or even remove most of them just like they removed most functions and sensors from the S3 and S5. Now it's good that a company copies the idea but makes it work better and more reliably so that the technology industry can mature and move foward and make the idea creator do the same aswell, instead of keeping the feature they created "handicapped". Copying isn't always a bad thing, the bad thing is talking bad about a "feature" and then copying it like this:
161004124902-google-iphone-7-diss-780x439.png


Google-Pixel-2-headphone-jack-adapter-840x560.jpg
 
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I hope when they think curved glass they design with the recognition that the phone will end up in a case for most of its useful life for most its users.
 
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Quote from the article: The company is also working on an update to the iPhone X's size...

I hope that means they’ll shrink it down a little and get the aspect ratio dialed in or whatever. With the X+ and 6.1 LCD models coming they can afford to go down in overall size for the regular X.
 
bbednarz said:
Everyone wants "change" and "innovation" but when they change something (or even rumor to) everyone loses their minds..

ex: faceID, these rumors.

I ask this again, what innovation do you want to see in a phone at this point?
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I want practical innovation, even if it means the phone isn’t that sexy.

I want a phone with a tough flat display that limits glare. Basically Apple already has this. Get rid of the 2D edges and make it even flatter like it is on the iPhone SE and the phone could be a real tank.

I want good clear call quality even on the road. (Something which I’ve been able to get on certain other phones I have but not consistently on an iPhone yet, though my X wasn’t too bad).

I want a tough but decently attractive chassis that can survive drops and bumps without needing a case. I’d be willing to compromise and accept the need for a clear skin for scratch protection, but basically I just want to avoid having to shell out a few hundred dollars for insurance. Speaking of which, I’d appreciate an internal design that doesn’t cost so much to repair or swap out defective parts.

I want Siri to work well enough that I can simply ask her to scroll my display or navigate my phone when my hands are dirty. I want the ability to totally control my phone with my voice when I choose to do this.

I want both Touch ID AND Face ID.

I want the ability to record my videos with immersive stereo audio (which I can already do on a number of smartphones).

I want to see concrete investment and improvement in battery technology and to see these innovations come to my iPhone.

I want my headphone jack back.

Since Samsung does already offer it and I’ve had fun with it, it would be nice to have a heart rate sensor and an FM radio, but I don’t need these things. I just know they’re feasible, so what the heck, stick them on the list if they can fit.

I don’t want goldfish bowl displays. I don’t want unicorns and pixies. I just want a phone that’s tough and super easy to use and gives me back a few choices that already exist instead of stripping them down to someone’s vanity idea of what I should have.
 
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