Yes. Converting it into fractional inches 0.2 mm is about 1/125 of an inch, or approximately 0.008 thousandths. And actually 0.2 mm is equal to 0.007874 thousandths. Can that be measured? Yes. Could anyone physically see that height difference? I seriously doubt it, not with the naked eye.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 13 Pro Rumored to Be Thicker and Feature Larger Rear Camera System
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yes. Converting it into fractional inches 0.2 mm is about 1/125 of an inch, or approximately 0.008 thousandths. And actually 0.2 mm is equal to 0.007874 thousandths. Can that be measured? Yes. Could anyone physically see that height difference? I seriously doubt it, not with the naked eye.
Hopefully not to much as that would increase the weight. Battery life is excellent and these days most smartphones are being charged all the time. Home, Office, car.
Out of control? No. Most of us want better and better cameras each year. The low light performance still isn't great, so it requires bigger sensors & lenses to capture more light. And optical zoom is still rubbish, so that requires more space to sort that out.
Quite frankly, does it matter what the lenses look like on the back of the device? It just does not matter. At all.
I'm sure some of you spend more time looking at the devices rather than using them. They are just tools & not items of jewellery.
I'm doubtful the diameter of the "lens" is even real. Looking at my 12Pro there's a huge ring of black nothing just under them. It's all for style and increasing lens flare. Great.
Look at how absolutely tiny the camera on the original Google Pixel was, and that took great photos for it's time. Personally I think cameras flush to the back glass look so damn good (SE 2016) compared to a table rocking bump.
Look at how absolutely tiny the camera on the original Google Pixel was, and that took great photos for it's time. Personally I think cameras flush to the back glass look so damn good (SE 2016) compared to a table rocking bump.
My upgrade schedule is extending out to about every 4 years, but when I do, it’s often to the flagship model. I protect my devices carefully between purchases. I also no longer think of them as a phone. Rather they are astounding, pocket-sized computers with decent point/shoot cameras, phone and audio recording.
Framing the issue this way, I can justify spending $1,000 for the latest and greatest. While I’m significantly invested in the Apple ecosystem, I upgrade my “pocket computer” most frequently. If they make the devise a little thicker that’s fine as long as they also:
(1) significantly improve battery life
(2) make stand-alone point and shoot cameras redundant and improve the front facing camera.
(3) make the internals more robust to handle minor but frequent small drops.
(4) noticeably improve speed and performance so I can hold on it for another 5 years.
Do this and I’m first in line. Don’t do this and I’m cool with waiting another year. I save my cheddar faster than the prices increase.
With all this in mind, I’m grateful that Apple continues to include older models in the OS updates.
Framing the issue this way, I can justify spending $1,000 for the latest and greatest. While I’m significantly invested in the Apple ecosystem, I upgrade my “pocket computer” most frequently. If they make the devise a little thicker that’s fine as long as they also:
(1) significantly improve battery life
(2) make stand-alone point and shoot cameras redundant and improve the front facing camera.
(3) make the internals more robust to handle minor but frequent small drops.
(4) noticeably improve speed and performance so I can hold on it for another 5 years.
Do this and I’m first in line. Don’t do this and I’m cool with waiting another year. I save my cheddar faster than the prices increase.
With all this in mind, I’m grateful that Apple continues to include older models in the OS updates.
If the battery is the same shape and dimensions except for battery thickness I doubt that making it 0.008” thicker is enough to provide a significant increase in battery life.
If Apple make this year's phones thicker, that's it. I'm ditching my IP12PM and I'm dusting off my Nokia 3310 which has a baddery life of 67 years between charges.
Planned obsolescence is a weird complaint to lob at iPhones in particular. Compared to other smartphone vendors, iPhones tend to be supported and remain usable for longer, while retaining their value better. You might be thinking of psychological obsolescence, something Apple definitely does. They don't purposefully cripple old devices, they make you think the new device is much better and a must have (even if the features are only marginally better).
Didn’t Apple get into trouble for doing exactly that? They were crippling devices via software,.
Yes, as a first week XS buyer (first time I ever did as much for a phone release), I felt the XS design + overall package value (more ram, battery life, etc) was fantastic. The 11 was odd to me. 12... Just overall not worth the ceramic shield due to the ergonomic disaster, and the temperatures emanating from the glass are absurd, like I'm ****ing making pottery while browsing with LTE.
It's also odd Apple keep effing cyclically increasing the dimensions on annual half-upgrades once realizing they overshot their target and were left with overheated iPhones short on battery life. Is it too much to ask to do a genuine internal-only upgrade and keep the lineup's aesthetics largely consistent over a half decade for once?
They basically could've tightened up the XS's bezels and called it a day short of color options, waterproofing and USB-C IMO. Basically, allocate the design foci into iPad Mini's, Apple Watch devices, and Macbook bezels, not iPhones at this rate.
Not quite. They were managing the power spikes such that devices with aging lithium-ion batteries didn't suffer from premature shutdowns at peak demands that they were ill-equipped to handle. Now, sure, on average, probably this was a crude solution to a degree, and I doubt had a ton of granularity - but the user experience hit from aging batteries prompting sporadic system shutdowns is no joke so they lent a fat haircut to devices below ~ 80% of their factory rated mAh battery capacity.
What Apple should have done differently is more pertinent to informing consumers ahead of time & offering optionality (do you want to risk the peak demands' possible shutdowns in exchange for generally superior performance, etc), which they did not do whatsoever initially. This is the real criticism.
But they weren't just engaging in some kind of brazen device crippling ponzi-scheme, no.
It just had happy/coincidental effect of spurring users to upgrade when there wasn’t an actual need to, with Apple being the beneficiary. The same Apple who paid out $500M in settlements on the class action suit related to it.
Because Apple knows what people care about even if you don’t.I simply don’t understand that all smartphone makers are mostly preoccupied with camera upgrades. There are so many other useful features to invest in. Will the back of the iPhone eventually be a few large lenses
Exactly. Saying that looks don’t matter on devices in excess of $1000 is just ludicrous. Apple devices have always had a sense of differentiation due to the premium looks and cosmetics. For Apple to abandon that cosmetic appeal would probably be the dumbest thing they could do.
Maybe you haven’t read the comments. I’m not the only one who feels that way. It just feels like Apple is playing the me too game with how large their camera system is.
It was an example of Apple PR being really stupid and thinking it was better to not advertise a problem. I think the throttling solution was a genuine attempt by their engineers to ease random shutdowns caused by aged batteries. If PR decided to be more transparent, issue a notice to customers, and create a battery replacement program on their own, that lawsuit wouldn't have succeeded. So I'm glad they got kicked in the balls for that, but it's annoying to see it used as an example of planned obsolescence.
I think it's entirely feasible they did it to improve the user experience. I remember being in the reddit threads where people posted their Geekbench scores before and after a battery replacement. The throttling was tied to battery health, not just the phone being old; new battery, no more throttling. In addition, when compared to the speed of similar flagships released around the same time (like a Galaxy S5 vs. an iPhone 6), the throttled iPhones were still outperforming normally functioning Androids.
Last edited:
