Benedict Evans: “How do you segment without fragmenting? Apple achieved this pretty easily with the iPod by varying the storage, but that wouldn’t be meaningful for the iPhone. The cheap one has to run the apps, but people still have to have a reason to buy the expensive one. What you can do is vary the Apple supplied features, without varying the hardware and API platform that your third-party developers are targeting.” Like I said: iOS 6 Starter, iOS6 Home, iOS 6 Professional, and iOS 6 Ultimate. Microsoft got blasted for confusing and arbitrary segmentation – rightfully so – but as usual, Apple gets a free pass when it does the exact same thing. At least Microsoft uses different names and forces OEMs to be clear about what they’re shipping. I’ve said it before: I find calling all these different versions “iOS 6” without modifiers pretty scummy and misleading.
The reason Apple gets a pass is that most people look at the device not the “Software features” so you know if you get a lower cost device (Like if you buy a cheap Samsung smart phone) you gonna get less features. Thats with everything. If you buy a Honda Civic it’s not gonna have everything an Accord does.
With Microsoft all the names is what throw everyone off. You have all different types of computers and then all different types of Windows. Confusing. With the iPhone you have New, old and older and you know with older or lower end you get less features normally.
Pretty easy for anyone to get. Thats the marketing gimmic Apple has and it works.
..but isn’t the point that various of the iphone/ipod touch/ipad family will “be able” to be upgraded to IOS6 …….but in name only, it won’t actually have the same set or subset or (software) features enabled!
that’s surely what’s misleading ; you’re right that people will naturally simply assume that older device have less (hardware) features available or have slower CPUs etc but when they see they are ‘allowed’ to upgrade to the latest (i)OS they will expect to received all of that software’s new features too -at least those features that aren’t hardware specific. The fact they won’t quite get such a straight foward honest implementation (without the OS titular modifiers Thom mentioned) is the dupe.
I do appreciate from Apple’s point of view that perhaps some new feature may not deliver the requisite desired service level on older devices with less processing power and therefore may have been omitted partly for that reason, i.e. to deliver the feature well or not at all, rather than perhaps solely as differentiating artifice — just to be devil’s advocate.
Of course, the fact that a couple of features aren’t making it onto older models could not possibly be the result older hardware which simply cannot handle the additional load of 3D mapping data or much slower wifi or cellular access
It’s reasonable that Siri didn’t make it on earlier versions of the iPhone because the CPUs are older generations which are slower & less likely to be able to handle the higher data processing needs for a natural language assistant. Remember, there’s more updates coming to Siri, so it’s likely that Apple is taking that into consideration. Otherwise, they have to fork development of Siri for the abilities of each CPU. That would be a major mistake. Could also have something to do with the iPhone4S’ speedier wireless data over previous generations
The same is true for 3D mapping tech, which older CPUs & graphics chips & slower wireless data would make that feature useless as the older iPhones come to a standstill trying to process all that additional data
Of course it’s a complete fallacy that Apple restricts some features to sell newer models:
• Apple still sells the previous 2 gens of iPhones, so they still make them money. With their R&D as well as marketing paid off, the older iPhones are Apple’s cash cows
• If that were the case, then the new 3D maps feature wouldn’t be supported by the iPhone 4S, because the next gen iPhone will likely be released around the time that iOS 6 goes public. So why offer a new feature to the 4S ?
Where OS upgrades are kept from users to get them to upgrade to newer devices is Android. While an iPhone will receive FREE OS updates for years, Android devices are fortunate to receive 1 upgrade. The most popular Android OS is @ ver 2.x, the most current is 4.x.
The iPhone 4S has technology on board to separate your voice from background noise. The iPhone 3GS and 4 don’t have this, meaning it would make it more difficult for Siri to understand you resulting in an frustrating experience.
So what you’re saying is that iphone 4 and earlier sort of suck for voice calls because they lack the second microphone that were included in the cheapest of feature phones five years ago?
Or is it a magical microphone that does more than separate your voice from back ground noise?
I’m not sure you actually understand what I wrote and are mixing stuff up, but I was referring to this:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57371624-264/why-apples-a5-is-so-…
“Apple’s A5 processor includes noise-reduction circuitry licensed from a start-up called Audience, and a chip analyst believes that fact resolves an iPhone 4S mystery and explains why the iPhone 4 lacks the Siri voice-control system.”
And yet, Siri runs just fine on earlier hardware, despite this so-called additional tech.
I don’t know, I haven’t tried it. I tried some alternatives and they kind of worked in a quiet environment, not very well at all when there was noise.
Even if it doesn’t work as well as on an iPhone 4S I think Apple should have a least give us the option of judging it for ourselves.
Does it really? Or does it more or less work? The noise cancelling does an awful lot to help the 4s. My iPhone 4 is pretty useless at all voice recognition I’ve tried (Vlingo, Dragon, Google etc) It’s usually the background noise that kills it.
That sounds a bit ridiculous, WRT to any impact on size. And anyway, audio processing is not that demanding “even” versus the CPU power of the 4, could be done as required in software …either locally, or on the servers (since Siri is already server-side)
Are you friggin’ kidding me? How are things like an email VIP list or an offline reading list could be limited by hardware? Some features could be a hardware-limited limitation, but i think most of them are marketing BS by Apple.
You forget that the Siri app, before it was bought by Apple, ran on the iPhone 4 (not sure about the 3GS). Since Apple bought it, though, it’s only available on the 4S.
I believe it runs fine on the iPhone 4 and maybe even the 3GS… Through Cydia.
Yeah, I don’t think new features missing on older hardware could be considered fragmentation. Otherwise, the newest version of Adobe CS not being able to run on one of those old, monochrome IBM PC’s from the 80’s would be considered fragmentation
I mean, where would you draw the line?
Fragmentation is more like two identical (or nearly identical) pieces of hardware not being able to run the same software. You know, like 8 months after ICS is out, Android devices are still shipping with Gingerbread.
Think again. If I were a software developer that wanted to target iOS 6 I could either go for the lowest common denominator and have my application run on anything from the the 3GS to the 4S, or use some of the new APIs and have my application run only on a subset of the iPhones out there.
Another example: the screen size might be the same, but the hardware inside isn’t and writing a game would be even more problematic if I wanted to offer the same level of performance.
Now, how can anyone say that this is not fragmentation and keep a straight face?
RT.
This kind of scenario, where the newest devices get all of the latest bells and whistles while the older ones don’t is called obsolescence, either forced by the limitations of the hardware or the profit motive of the company. I’m not here to argue whether this is a good or bad thing, but fragmentation it is not.
In the iOS universe, you can always be assured that as long as you have the latest and greatest, you will have all the newest shit. With Android, you could buy a top-of-the-line flagship phone or tablet, and have the OS be outdated right out of the box, with no official upgrade path on the horizon. THAT is fragmentation. Could you imagine if there were top-of-the-line PCs still being sold with Windows Vista? There would be rioting in the streets, and for good reason.
Edited 2012-06-27 08:11 UTC
Only from the point of view of the end user. Yes, everybody will be able to get iOS 6 on the same day (which is commendable) but not everybody will be able to take full advantage of it and the developer will have to decide what features to support and whether to send away some of his potential customers.
In other words, by talking about obsolescence (planned or otherwise) instead of fragmentation you (not you in particular, of course) are just shifting the emphasis around and ultimately ignoring the truth: Apple is a hardware company that wants to sell as many gadgets as possible; the developer, on the other hand, wants to sell as much software as possible and, as I see it, his job isn’t getting any easier.
RT.
And what features are missing for developers to take advantage of? I know things like Siri are missing in older devices, but (AFAIK) Siri doesn’t yet have any exposed APIs for developers to use anyway (which is a real shame). I don’t know if the maps app does or not. But I’m curious to know what features devs are missing out on, and how the situation would be any different if Apple had said ‘Well, iOS6 won’t be supported at all on these older devices.’ I mean, the original iPad only has 256mb of RAM, so there’s only so much they can cram in there, but at least SOMETHING is better than nothing.
The issue at hand is that you have Fandroids looking at this situation and saying, ‘See? It’s fragmentation… the same thing that’s happening on Android!’ Ummm, no it isn’t.
Not necessarily when the manufacturer actively promotes, pushes all those devices on consumers at the same time (and for a long time), presenting them under the same umbrella of iPhone / iOS …with small prints here and there.
Bullshit. Siri is entirely server-side. The only thing the phone does is send the voice data to Apple’s servers, then execute the resulting commands sent back to the device. The device itself does absolutely zero natural language processing. While I agree with some of your arguments, you might want to put in a bit of research before making these claims. That’s not to say I object. It’s Apple’s product, and they have every right to do what they see fit within legal bounds. If you don’t like it, there are other products one can buy. Is it a marketing move, to limit Siri to new devices? Damn straight it is.
In addition to the rubbish others pointed out… slower data transfer standards of older devices limit processing, are you for real? The conditions of local (radio) ~environment overrule that, you virtually never reach hypothetical maximums of latest models.
“Fallacy” – you just provided an argument for artificial segmentation. I mean, they could retire the obsolete 3GS and push down prices of 4 and still get a nice profit …not such nice, though.
3GS will likely be dropped from OS upgrades only few months after end of its large scale sales and active push on consumers.
I think maybe we should substitute it with something like “bait for Apple fanboys” or some such…
(well, I was hooked anyway 😉
Anyway, to a point I agree with you Thom. When you buy an iPhone 4 or 3GS you might presume you are getting all the features of the 4S. I can’t see very easily on the advertising that this is otherwise, when I put iOS 6 on my iPhone 4 I didn’t really know what would work and what wouldn’t (there’s a new update I have to install by the way 🙂
I don’t have a problem with Apple giving the 4S extra features (as much as I’d like them on my iPhone 4), but I do have a problem with how Apple is letting future buyers know what they are actually getting.
MS at least made this pretty clear. Personally I believe MS should never have gone down this path, but they have a very different way of selling an OS than others do, so I’ll forgive them.
I think the average customer doesn’t even know what features are introduced from iOS to 3 to 4 to 5, or which are dropped on older iPhones. My wife probably can’t name a single thing I have on my iPhone 4 that she hasn’t on her 3GS. Apart from Siri I can’t say either what I’m missing compared to an iPhone 4S. Well, perhaps that’s the only thing, I don’t know.
What the average customer cares about is installing app X and most apps work if iOS.version => <something>.
The problem with Android fragmentation is that app X doesn’t work, even though you might the right OS version. It’s not really Android’s fault, but the fault of manufactures and carriers that only care about selling phones/contracts and once you bought one you’re on your own.
BMW works very hard to ensure that the design for its cars changes very slightly year on year. Part of this is to ensure that people who bought a BMW the previous year still feel “special”. You bought last year’s model, but you’re still fashionable. If you bought last year’s model and the BMW changed significantly, it would hurt you socially. In order to protect your investment in a BMW, you have to ensure that BMW doesn’t change models significantly.
Don’t get me wrong, the savvy user could still look at a BMW and say “oh that’s last year’s model; it doesn’t have X” but that sounds a bit nerdy, so no one does it. A BMW is a BMW and it comes with the status and fashion that comes with it. The tech is beside the point.
Apple is the same. Their new strategy of not even differentiating models of iPad (now “the new iPad” instead of “iPad 3”) makes it harder for people to tell which iPad you have. I’m guessing they’ll do the same for the new iPhone, and that it’ll look much the same. All phones will get iOS6 but some will be limited. Sure you could identify the differences between the models and the features, but that would be a bit nerdy.
So you can get an iPhone, and protect your fashion investment and social standing over the years. However the lack of features will make you feel slowly more socially inept until you are forced to upgrade. The tech is beside the point.
Isn’t it the other way around ?
They don’t want to change to much between versions so fanboys who want the latest thing need to buy more devices ?
Incremental changes sells more devices.
For example I believe companies like Sony already had more advanced technologies when the DVD was first released.
They just needed to get payed for all the development cost of the DVD.
Microsoft is forced to differentiate between the different tiers of Windows by adding a qualifier to the name. How else do you sell software?
If Microsoft sold devices, they would do the same. It’s easier for the public to grasp the concept of different devices having different capabilities as opposed to different OS flavours having different capabilities.
There is a difference between segmentation and fragmentation, as the article suggests. Can’t all the Apple iPhones sold today run the latest iOS? Apple sells the 3GS, 4, and 4S right now and I think they all can run the latest version of iOS, though an individual model might not support all the functions that are, say, in the iPhone 4S. This is an illustration of segmentation.
Can all Android phones sold today run ICS? Can ICS be installed on every Android phone sold today? Not all Android phones have the same functions and capabilities built into them, same as with Apple phones, but can the OS be installed on all of them? I think the answer is no. Are the carriers preventing this? Are the individual manufacturers preventing this? Regardless of which is at fault, this is an example of fragmentation, keeping the OS completely off a model, rather than segmentation, allowing the OS to be installed but with fewer functions on that specific model of phone.
Edited 2012-06-27 10:47 UTC
Thom keeps harping on about version numbers.. here you go:
iOS 6 for iPhone 3GS
iOS 6 for iPhone 4
iOS 6 for iPad 2
iOS 6 for iPhone 4s
iOS 6 for iPad (“new”)
iOS 6 for iPhone (“new”)
So, what we have here is a self levelling playing field. The phone dictates the version, not vice versa. Ca we now stop whining about there not being version numbers?
The point is that there is a version number, but it’s hidden in the fine print at http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/.
Call me picky, but for all intents and purposes the iPhone 3GS won’t be really running the same OS as the 4S or its yet unannounced successor. Maybe you don’t have a problem with it and that’s fine, but talking about fragmentation versus segmentation seems like hair splitting to me.
RT.
Won’t be running the same OS? So you think, then, that a 3GS will be running a different OS. Do you also think Windows 7 Ultimate is a different OS from Windows 7 Home? ……..No, it is not a different OS, and neither is what a 3GS will be running.
Why is it people always go with extremes here over the rational and common sense?
Does the owner of a 3GS get the same features? No.
Can a developer count on the same features being available across the devices supported by iOS 6? No.
That’s the “for all intents and purposes” part that, apparently, went completely over your head.
RT.
That’s not your argument though. Your argument is that they won’t be running the same OS, they will… Features of the user land are not the OS.
Though mobile device marketing pretty much equals OS version with features, not the libraries or kernel.
Yes, it does.
An operating system is defined through the APIs it is exposing and through the kernel it is using. All iPhones that are using iOS 6 run the *same* kernel and provide the *same* APIs.
It doesn’t make it a different operating system when doesn’t support some *user* features on certain platforms. It’s the same with Windows 7, no matter what hardware it runs on, it is always the same kernel and APIs, although you won’t be able to use certain features if the hardware doesn’t support it.
Windows Phone 7.8 – on the other hand – is fundamentally different from Windows Phone 8. It uses a *different* set of APIs and a *different* kernel, hence it would be a blatant lie to have the old, Windows-CE-based WP and the new, NT-based WP using the *same* version number. Heck, they shouldn’t even be using the *same* names, it’s a completely different operating system.
@Thom:
Why are you linking such a non-sense article? From a website that calls itself *OS*news, I expect a minimum grasp of what the building blocks of an operating system are!
Adrian
Edited 2012-06-27 19:11 UTC
But OTOH, if you look at announcements from Apple, marketing, or product pages …kernel and APIs are hardly present in them. The craze around new versions is all about user features (with small print WRT support across devices)