iPhone 5S Said to Feature Upgraded Rear Camera, iPad Mini Update Targeted for October

[irDigital0l]

iOS 7.

Change.

 

[468837]

No Mini Retina for most of 2013?

If true, thats disappointing. The screen is the only thing really holding me back from a Mini right now, and my iPad 3 is just so dang heavy after using my cousin's mini over Christmas.

But I bet in Apple's eyes, its hard to move forward on an upgrade on it now since its still selling well enough to be at 3-5 shipping days on the Apple.com store. But if 2013 is an entire year of speculation about the next models, I can't see the stock price going higher.

My consumer perspective:
--Phone upgrade eligible, but the 5 is almost "old news" now
--I want a Mini; needs Retina.
--Ready for an Air; should be close to a refresh cycle

See my point? Hesitant to buy anything because "what's right around the corner?" Apple threw us a loop moving the entire iOS refresh to the fall, and I do think the competition is moving fast enough that yearly refreshes are too long of a timeframe, so since we're already at 3 months out, my take is: wait. Hopefully in 3 more months there will be some refreshes to talk about.

 

[Zerilos]

Completely agree w/ this. Whoever thinks that one size fits all and other size is stupid, just look at all the POTENTIAL profits that apple DID miss by not offering multiple sizes and therefore drove down stock price to nil.. Do you have any idea how big of a loss apple took?

IF iphone 5s comes out, watch out... WATCH out.. apple is gonna hit the bottom.

I don't think there is anything wrong with an incremental hardware upgrade coupled with a legit OS upgrade. The 4" will always have a market imho but its not enough of the market. I love my 5, but Im not ignorant to the desires of others.

 

[aperry]

If this is true then it suggests Apple will go at least 3 years without a notable innovation in the iPhone. It's no wonder Android is eating their lunch.

 

[musicloverz3]

Let me get this right; if rumours are to be believed, Samsung will launch the galaxy 4S around march/April with a glorious 5" screen, improved camera, wireless charging, further advanced OS, NFC, eight core processor and no doubt as thin as **** with a host of other goodies. Apples response ... Upgrade the camera!

WTF is going on at Apple. Once an innovative company, these days they can't even innovate a cardboard box (although if they did, they'd prioritise making it so thin it couldn't hold anything, include no lid and charge twice as much for it!)

Seems all Apple are good for these days is bringing out duff, boring products with reduced features ... no doubt as they're too busy resting on their laurels, in court trying to sue others instead of actually designing and bringing out great products

Buy the Galaxy S4 then... end of story!

 

[jvmxtra]

Buy the Galaxy S4 then... end of story!

I am not sure what the hell kind of response is that.. We all love apple products here.. but what they are doing is crime.. There is nobody on apple who actually care about making a great products that consumer truly wants.. It really SUCKS. I WANT iphone w/ 5 inch 1080 screen.. what's wrong w/ that???

 

[SmileyBlast!]

Boring OS = yawn. Look at Ubuntu, or even the new BB OS. They are so much more advanced...

iOS is too plain and boring.. heck my MOM uses it now.

Apple has tried to cater to the less sophisticated user.
"The computer for the rest of us" crowd.
Hence, it's expected that your Mom could use it and want to use it.

 

[WilliamLondon]

Disagreed. I'm occasionally seeing some people with Samsung Galaxies lately. They look like such losers with phones so huge. Like, get a life. Using a phone all day is not a life.

Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public, and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets, my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.

 

[SmileyBlast!]

I am not sure what the hell kind of response is that.. We all love apple products here.. but what they are doing is crime.. There is nobody on apple who actually care about making a great products that consumer truly wants.. It really SUCKS. I WANT iphone w/ 5 inch 1080 screen.. what's wrong w/ that???

I thought the rumors were that we were getting 3 iPhones this year. One has 4.8 inch screen. Then there is the iPhone 5S and then the emerging markets phone for India, China and Brazil to compete with the low end Android phones.

One of those should be right for you, no?

 

[SeaFox]

I am beginning to think the S versions are the skip versions now.

You could also think of them as the Second Edition versions. As in, they fixed all the bugs from the first release.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

New rear camera?
...
There won't be much to see on the iPhone 5s.

I notice everything! ;-)

 

[SmileyBlast!]

Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public, and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets, my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.

You mean like this?

 

[MRU]

And in its place!!!

I suspect we will see a March / April release for an updated Apple TV and an emphasis on MACINTOSH software for a change. Apple has neglected the software side of things on Mac for much too long. What happened to yearly updates on iLife suite and iWork just on the consumer end.

We have had incremental software updates to iWork 09 but nothing major.
ILife has been increasingly made irrelevant with disappearance of both iDVD and iWeb, leaving just GarageBand (because obviously more people make music than ever burn a dvd) iPhoto and iMovie.

Taking away software without giving us anything new isn't progression, its recession.

Logic Pro 9 is looking a little long in the tooth, and Final Cut Studio X, the last major pro software release whilst improved over its initial release is still woefully lacking in some areas.

Aperture 4 is needed with a stronger focus on album management and a speedy GUI overhaul because it can be laggy with large photo libraries.


So a March announcement of new software with teases of OSX9 and iOS7 and a teaser of the forthcoming MacPro with hopefully a radical re-design (what was one magnificent design is getting a little mundane) would be enough MAC love from Apple to appease consumers, professionals and the stock market...


But we will see.

 

[MikBe]

Here's an artist's rendition of what the iPad will look like with a tiny bezel.

Notice how your thumbs cover the screen?

 

[MRU]

Here's an artist's rendition of what the iPad will look like with a tiny bezel.

Image

Notice how your thumbs cover the screen?

But does it come with these hands pre-attached ?

 

[WilliamLondon]

What innovation are you expecting? Has Apple done anything to their devices that came completely from left field?

What are people expecting this device to do? When did making something bigger suddenly become innovative? That's what those phablets are - nothing but a wonderfully small device, only bigger and fugly in use. It's like they did the shape thing, and the colour thing, and tweaked it in every way imaginable and the only thing left for them to do was to make it larger (because no one else was doing that) and lo and behold a bunch of people thought holding a plate to your face wasn't stupid looking, and they called it innovative.

What are people expecting a phone to do? The market and technology are maturing to the point there isn't really anything big left to do with this type of device, other than tweak its current attributes and characteristics, which is why all these commodity product manufacturers are jumping on the phablet bandwagon (it's all they have left to change, because the lot of them together couldn't come up with a truly innovative and original idea).

Let's return to the days when innovation was all about doing the same in a *smaller* footprint, and if you want cellular capabilities in a larger form factor, let's campaign for that (and take the telcos on directly), but for ******* sake, get a bluetooth earpiece or earphone or headphone to communicate using these devices and stop holding a tablet to the side of your face, it's so un-Star Trek like and it just looks so incredibly stupid.

 

[NewAnger]

I hope the new iPhone is at least 128GB. That's all I need.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public...

Good for you.

...and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets

I need the Note II in my daily business. I see a lot of business people with phablets, and i see only the advantage of such a device. What you wrote is meaningless in the business world.

my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.

You have created your own self fulfilling prophecy.

 

[irDigital0l]

I suspect we will see a March / April release for an updated Apple TV and an emphasis on MACINTOSH software for a change. Apple has neglected the software side of things on Mac for much too long. What happened to yearly updates on iLife suite and iWork just on the consumer end.

We have had incremental software updates to iWork 09 but nothing major.
ILife has been increasingly made irrelevant with disappearance of both iDVD and iWeb, leaving just GarageBand (because obviously more people make music than ever burn a dvd) iPhoto and iMovie.

Taking away software without giving us anything new isn't progression, its recession.

Logic Pro 9 is looking a little long in the tooth, and Final Cut Studio X, the last major pro software release whilst improved over its initial release is still woefully lacking in some areas.

Aperture 4 is needed with a stronger focus on album management and a speedy GUI overhaul because it can be laggy with large photo libraries.


So a March announcement of new software with teases of OSX9 and iOS7 and a teaser of the forthcoming MacPro with hopefully a radical re-design (what was one magnificent design is getting a little mundane) would be enough MAC love from Apple to appease consumers, professionals and the stock market...


But we will see.

Apple just redesigned the MacBooks last year...

 

[AidenShaw]

personal anecdotes are worthless

Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public, and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets, my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.

Funny, then, since at my (Fortune 500) company the initial smartphone rollout was a bit more than two years ago.

An amazing number of Galaxy III's are replacing two year old Apple phones. The HTC DNA is also common.

I don't know if you consider these to be "phablets", but screens around 5" aren't "stupid looking" - they're much better for app/internet use, without being unwieldy for phone use.

Stupid looking is

(click to enlarge)​

 

[Zerilos]

Apple has tried to cater to the less sophisticated user.
"The computer for the rest of us" crowd.
Hence, it's expected that your Mom could use it and want to use it.

The aim of iOS development has been to provide a user friendly experience that is also stable and battery efficient. To that end I think they have done a great job; however there is a large number of people looking for the ability to customize their experience far more than possible on an iOS device and these people are willing to accept sacrifices in the area of battery life and stability. Honestly, I don't believe that OS is the primary factor for most smartphone buyers. Size, price and ecosystem is what drives sales.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

I think Android has plenty of cool features, but its also buggy as hell and chews through battery.

Not on the Note II (non-LTE version).

 

[WilliamLondon]

Good for you.

I need the Note II in my daily business. I see a lot of business people with phablets, and i see only the advantage of such a device. What you wrote is meaningless in the business world.

You have created your own self fulfilling prophecy.

So that was *you* I saw yesterday.

 

[Snowshiro]

Yesterday I saw a phablet for the second time in public, and before I realised what it was I had already gasped aloud and said to my friends, "what a moron, the device that idiot is holding to his ear is ENORMOUS and looks so stupid." Then I realised it was one of those phablets, my initial reaction was thus validated and my friends just laughed and all agreed he looked utterly ridiculous holding that enormous thing to the side of his head.

Some of us would prefer to choose the technology that gets the job done best, rather than worry about what a bunch of sniggering 13-year-olds think. I don't have a phablet, but it's becoming clear that as people try to do more and more things on their phones, little screens like the iPhone has just don't cut it.

 

[Four oF NINE]

Apple is making quality phones for people that appreciate a good user experience and long battery life.
We're very content and happy with that.

Those of you that want giant screens and a buggy OS should get something else.