Quick Takes: iPhone X Clones, 5G Network Race is On, Apple Patents Dual Display Device, and More

[gvanvoor]

- Apple granted patent for a dual display device: The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today granted Apple a patent for a dual display device. As noted by Patently Apple, the description says the bottom area could be an OLED display, which could allow for a MacBook with a large digital keyboard and trackpad.

Wouldn't the nintendo DS amount to prior art?

 

[vmistery]

I often wondered whether in the quest for thin whether the traditional keyboard would be replaced by a touch screen keyboard instead. It could come with haptic feedback for each key and perhaps force touch for capitals or alternative functions. Also means not having to produce different keyboards for different markets. I imagine the cost of doing this and the fell of the keyboard might be compromised though.

 

[LinusR]

Lovely. So rather than admit to their gross mistake and get rid of the useless touch bar that replaced commonly used function keys Apple's deciding to double-down on it. smh

Admit to their gross mistake? With all due respect, only because you deem it a failure that does not mean that others might not think otherwise. I think the Touch Bar is great.

 

[dilbert99]

there is a lenovo yoga that has a touch keyboard
and prior art - acer iconia 6120 - https://www.cnet.com/products/acer-6120-dual-screen-touchbook/review/

 

[Ploki]

Heh.
I've been blabbering about that dual display config since the iPad came out. I hope they actually build the thing.

they will, it's so obvious.

they patented "feedback" a few years ago, as in, a grid underneath a screen that raises up and makes a contour of a keyboard.

(given their trend with keyboards they just might be preparing people for a "contoured" screen)

imo they're just easing us in. they have more things figured out than we give them credit for

 

[cocky jeremy]

Unlimited data is a great thing to have in this case!

#TMobileFam

 

[Cloudane]

5G so soon?! We only just got 4G here (like most of the UK) and even that is faster than I know what to do with. Can't see us getting it for a while yet - good to see a "race" though, they sure as heck weren't racing with 4G.

 

[Taipan]

The X‘s notch is only as big as it is to accomodate the additional sensors for face recognition. So unless the ZenFone has a equally well working face recognition feature, making the notch smaller is no big feat.

 

[Fandroid killer]

5G claims ridiculously fast speeds of up to 5gbit/s, to the point where other things start becoming bottlenecks. It's great, but it seems like a weird ordering of priorities when most data plans would be used up within a few seconds, and most areas still don't get the full 4G speed.

It’s not for “most areas” but the smart cities. Sorry better pack your bags and move if you’ll want it.
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Even with 5G starting to roll out, I don't see Apple releasing a 5G iPhone until 2020 at earliest.

If they do release it earlier, they’ll come out saying it cost us 0.20Cents more so we’ll charge you $200 more. Good luck paying for your $1500 phone.
[doublepost=1519822785][/doublepost]

I don't see 5G being user practical for a while.

When I read that Sprint was rolling out 5G, laughed. They need to roll out a better business model.

You must be one of those people who say 4K TVs are not user practical, you don’t need anything more than 720p.

 

[ChrisCW11]

One of the most professional alienating things Apple could do is to replace a physical button keyboard with a flat touch keyboard on any new Macbook "Pro" laptops, if that is what they are aiming for. Hopefully this is only something they will consider for their consumer Air Macbooks. No REAL pro will spend their days trying to hunt for where to press keys on some flat screen while trying to code or write articles. And I don't care how much Apple touts some haptic feed back mechanism, if you can't physically align your hands on a keyboard, it is a fail regardless of what market segment they want to target.

Most likely the only future advance I see for MacBooks is a visual touch display track pad, but even that, again, has been done before by others 5 years ago.

And most hopefully this is just one of Apple's "protectionist" patents where they just want to squash competitive innovation instead of actually coming out with a an iPad/Laptop hybrid that is completely unusable in both cases where one display is ARM based and the other is Intel based and has no basis in common sense evolution of the "pro" laptop.

 

[Unami]

Oh yes please bring us a MacBook with a digital keyboard; to hell with ergonomics.

that's what they said about the new butterfly mechanism as well. looks like it could still be worse.

 

[macduke]

Higher frequency bandwidths have less range and penetration, so you'll probably see the opposite. That's the cost of more bandwidth.

Freaking crap. What is everyone using their phones for—torrenting? YouTube and Netflix buffer instantly at most LTE sites that have decent signal strength. I don't get the speed race without increasing range, penetration, and also capacity so we can have higher data caps. Speed is useless with small capped data. At least T-Mobile gives me a pretty big chunk before being throttled—but many months I get a $10 bill credit for each line under 2GB because WiFi is so pervasive. For now I'm just looking forward to Apple supporting those newer T-Mobile spectrum bands (can't remember what they're called) that ended up missing the iPhone 8/X chipset. The building-penetrating ones with further range that they started debuting a couple years ago never made it to my area, and then T-Mobile started using the even newer ones when they finally got to my area. That's a nice thought, but hardly any phones support it yet and it didn't seem to be any better than the bands they deployed right before that.

 

[bigjnyc]

What happens if you get some dirt in there. Will it scratch the display when it’s closed?
[doublepost=1519768983][/doublepost]Or-
Shameless ripoff that looks worse.

How does it look worse? It literally looks exactly the same from the front.

Anyway this bodes well for Apple and those who like the notch. Having other manufacturers implement it just reinforces Apple's design choice. It goes from being a laughingstock to a viable trend.

 

[dogslobber]

10
36

Who writes the time like that? Are you kidding me, Android phone?

 

[ericg301]

Series One is still a great watch. And it really depends on how somebody is using the watch to appreciate all its capabilities. But It will still see support through WatchOS 5.

series 1 - maybe. but she has the ORIGINAL watch, series 0. which is what i also upgraded from. it's no longer useful.

release cadence has been:
ORIGINAL Apple Watch. - 2015
Series 1 - 2016 (which replaced the original as the entry level device)
Series 2 - 2016
Series 3 - 2017

 

[MacBH928]

They will first implement 5G in early 2019 and companies are already talking about it. It probably won't be standard until 2021 and then you have the monthly limit and slow servers from some companies. Ex.. Windows updates takes a lifetime.

 

[MoreRumors?]

"macduke" I don't give a crap about speed because it's already plenty fast for a phone, I just hope this improves T-Mobile's signal range and building penetration.

I agree with you and improving the signal coverage everywhere outside of large cities should be top on the list.

 

[jweinraub]

The only OLED i want are on actual individual keys that use the scissor mechanism. Then they can get rid of the touchbar. Then it can be an awesome Pro level macbook. I really don't care if it adds thickness, i want usefulness!

 

[and 1989 others]

I had to get a replacement device through the repair and replace service for an Apple Watch series 2 ( broken mic) and I swear to god that the display is much much better, in 99% sure it's a refurb.

 

[maxfm]

The touchscreen keyboard has already been done in the Yoga Book, which came out 1.5 years ago:

It's actual a decent niche idea for artists who want a built in space to draw on, but the whole laptop form factor is designed so that you are looking at the screen and can use the keyboard by feel and memory. Flattening the keyboard so you can't feel keys... I mean imagine if your tablet's soft keyboard folded out of view ever time you wanted to type something. It's just an absurd idea when you think about it. It's a flashy gimmick. The touch bar is a gimmick, and this would be doubling down on that gimmick.

If the tools presented on the touch bar were helpful, why not, I don't know, put them on the main screen of the laptop where people can easily see them and easily navigate to them with their trackpad, which is more precise and quicker to use than a touch screen?

Touch screens are an effective tech partly because of the emotional appeal but mostly just beacuse they allow you to make a device that is smaller than a laptop. It's like if they started selling cameras with the form factor of DSLRs but no manual focus or custom lenses. You have all the trouble of the larger form factor with none of the benefits of its flexibility. Truly form over function.

 

[Moorepheus]

Isn't there already a dual display hand held gaming system? Gameboy? NOPE, it's the Nintendo DS. How do they get a patent on this when devices already exist with dual screens in clam shell format?

 

[mi7chy]

Just proof that the patent system is still broken when they allow patent trolls to claim the obvious and ideas that have prior art.

 

[fairuz]

It’s not for “most areas” but the smart cities. Sorry better pack your bags and move if you’ll want it.

Are San Francisco and Los Angeles not considered "smart cities?" I seem to get the best reception in these areas, but the speed is still not anywhere close to what 4G claims it can do.
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why would you burn more data because the transfer is faster. if you do the same things as you do today, it will be exactly the same amount of data, just faster.

The point is you do more things with it. If I do the same things as I do today, I won't need 5G speed. Also, it would still use it more quickly because I often cancel something loading if it's trying to load some large nonsense like a 1080p advertisement.

 

[zapm]

Essential Ph-1 shipped with a notch first.
People through it was odd ball.
Now we have an iPhone with a notch and people think the following:
1. Apple was the first phone to ship with a notch. Nope.
2. It's no longer odd ball but cool.

SMH.....

Too bad the Essential Ph-1 still has a decent sized bezel at the bottom. Looks like Apple was the first to have a full screen display with a notch.

smh...

 

[neoelectronaut]

Looks like my decision was made for me as all those refurbished Series 3 watches have been snatched up. Series 1 it is!