In-depth iOS 8 review at Ars.
With this release, Apple is trying to make additions that developers and power users want without upsetting people who come to iOS specifically because of its consistency and simplicity. It’s telling that just about every major iOS 8 feature can be disabled or ignored, and that big transformative features like third-party extensions are hidden from view by default. A surface-level glance at iOS 8 suggests an operating system that isn’t all that different from iOS 7. Look just a little deeper, though, and you’ll see just how different it is.
As someone who finds Android the least crappy mobile operating system (by a very, very narrow margin), I see little in iOS 8 (or the new iPhones, for that matter) to convince me otherwise. The additions are very welcome for iOS users, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before; nothing that makes me go – yes, this gives iOS the edge it needs (for me). Not that it matters – iOS, the iPhone, and Apple are doing just fine without massive hordes of Android users making the jump.
If feels like to me the new iPhones and iOS 8 are here to consolidate their existing market – not to expand it at the cost of the competition.
11 pages? For f-k’s sake, man… why not put more on one page and use thumbnail images?
Because ars, like any other site that offers free content, gets the majority of its income from ads. If you have a paid subscription, you can choose to view the complete article on one page, and even download it as a PDF.
If you’re on Safari, using Reader view allows to read all pages without unnecessary clicking.
Bitching about the number of pages aside, I really like what Apple is doing. Release by release, they are eliminating one or two reasons why I wouldn’t use an iPhone as a daily driver. iOS 8 added custom keyboards and sharing intents. iOS7 added control center (for quick toggles) and a few other things. It has really come a long way since the days when it had no multi-tasking support at all and needed iTunes just to function. It’s still not quite there though – SOMEBODY needs to tell Apple to add a goddamn notification LED
And most important of all, iOS is still, for whatever reason, the ‘de facto’ standard for mobile devices, and based on the fact that they just sold about 4 million iPhones, I don’t see that changing any time soon. You buy an iPhone, you’re getting quality hardware, consistently one of the best cameras on a smartphone, and an OS that has the best ecosystem in the mobile space. (I was reminded of this recently when I learned of the hoops I’d have to jump through just to get Amazon Instant Video installed on Android.)
Notification LED is in General > Settings > Accessibility. Personally, I have never used it, but I see the how it would be useful. There are actually a good amount of toggles in that section that I think could (should?) be moved to a more prominent spot in the settings. My mother-in-law uses the LED, so I know it’s a thing. It’s not a dedicated LED, just the camera flash.
Hope this helps!
That is not what is generally understood of as a notification LED on android phones. They have a separate low power LED, usually on the front.
The feature you were talking about strobes the flash and is not suitable for normal every day notifications. This feature is more of an accessibility feature more than a standard day to day function.
I think that is both right and wrong.
Apple does not want to reach deep into the Android market to get a lot of people to switch to iOS. Most of the Android user base just does not interest Apple, because it consists of users who would bring little to the Apple/iOS ecosystem. User that don’t want to pay a lot for their hardware, so reaching out to them would increase revenue but lower profit rates, as well as possibly damaging the premium brand status that Apple has so carefully built. Why would Apple want to do that? It’s not as if iOS is suffering as a platform from having a numerically smaller user base, quite the contrary, by cherry picking just the best market segments Apple have created a situation where their smaller user base generates more (or at the very least equivalent) platform activity and monitisation as the larger Android user base. So Apple is under no pressure to reach out for just numbers.
However.
Apple has about half the high end handset market, and the further up the ASP chain you go the bigger the Apple slice. That’s why Apple manages to cream off about three quarters of all the profits in the global handset business. But that still leaves the other bit of the high ASP end of the market, the bit that’s still full of Android users, the bit where the only remaining Android OEM profits are being made (mostly by Samsung). Apple is also acutely aware that future growth for their global device business is going to come mostly from Asia and largely from China, and in those markets big phones (phablets) are very popular indeed.
So.
Both the changes in iOS8 and the changes in the iPhone 6 line were designed to do a number of things. These are:
– remove any reason for anyone to desert iOS for Android (“there’s nothing over there that’s not over here”)
– reach into the Android market and grab a healthy additional chunk of just those high end user that Apple really wants by removing any barriers to switchers. This is a move designed to tighten and enlarge Apple’s grip on the profitable high end high ASP segment and is a direct attack on the bit of Samsung’s handset business where Samsung is making most of it’s money.
– ensure that Apple is offering it’s premium brand in the Asian phablet markets
Apple is trying to enlarge it’s existing market but very, very selectively.
This is a very good analysis of all this.
http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/10/iphone6
This is also very good.
http://stratechery.com/2014/iphone-6-louis-vuitton-chanel/
Edited 2014-09-17 23:19 UTC
In fact, Apple just targeting for only a the high end portion of the market is a good thing for everybody IMO. That means it can’t be completely closed, and requires an environment where systems from different vendors can interoperate. Their strategy cannot thrive in a mono-culture (and that almost killed them in the past with Microsoft).
Yes, it is a walled garden. Yes, they have plenty of stuff that may lock you in. But Apple can’t ignore standard technologies trying to impose their own version as it doesn’t have the numbers… and it will need to adopt anything that becomes standard in the rest of the market to avoid bleeding users because they need something that Apple systems do not support.
No – what nearly killed them was appalling management. What’s so telling is that once Jobs returned and Apple once again began making great computing products the Apple’s PC business regained financial health and is now the most profitable PC OEM business on the planet. And in both those periods, when Apple nearly went under and when it’s PC business has thrived the Windows domination of market share has been essentially the same. Apple didn’t need to regain market share in order to have a successful PC business, what it needed was attractive, well designed PCs running a modern operating system that it sold at a profit.
You mean like being forced to include Flash on it’s devices? Apple tries to use the best technology, sometimes that means actually being the prime mover in getting a standard into mass adoption (such as with USB and with Webkit) and sometimes they do things their way because in their opinion it’s the best (the bespoke Apple connectors, 30 pin and Lightening). Apple will it’s billionth iOS device sometime in the new few weeks, it has the numbers.
Apple only started caring about open standards after NeXT takeover.
There was hardly any back in the day of NetTalk, QuickDraw, QuickDraw3D, NuBus…
As for being profitable back in the old days, I guess it depends on which markets you speak about.
In most European countries you could only see Macs in computer magazines.
Not really. Apple, like most large technology corporations of their time, was a mixed bag when it came to open vs. proprietary standards.
NetTalk? I think you meant AppleTalk or perhaps LocalTalk. QD and QD3D were high level graphics APIs which were integral to the MacOS stack, so again, it depends what you mean by “open” and “standard.”
NuBus was not an apple technology/product. It was/is actually an IEEE standard.
What the what? USB was not popularized by Apple. And Webkit is not a standard.
Please, Dear God, on behalf of all web developers, stop calling Webkit a standard.
It has become a defacto standard web engine. Although that might be deteriorating with the Chrome split. But as of very recently, the most common web engine outside IE is webkit in its various forms (and now webkit-derived chromium). However it should be clear that Apple didn’t invent webkit, it was derived from KHTML
I think you will find, if you dig in the history that it was the original Bondi Blue iMac that kick started USB adoption. The USB standard had been agreed but all PC makers still kept the old legacy ports and most shipped without USB, the result was that there were very few USB peripherals because peripheral makers knew their devies would connect without USB so why bother.
When Apple announced the original Bondi Blue iMac the two big shockers, other than the over all design, was the omission of all legacy ports in favour of just USB and the omission of a floppy disc. Both caused a great deal of adverse comments and controversy. But the iMac (and it’s multicoloured siblings) were hugely popular consumer items, for a while the iMac was the top selling PC.
The result was a flood of USB equipped peripherals onto the market and this in turn meant Wintel PC OEMs began to ship more of their computers with USB included.
What was very noticeable at the time was the really large number of these new USB peripherals were made with the same sort of translucent blue plastic as the original iMac. The spread of the Bondi blue plastic style across first the peripheral markets and then into things like office equipment was one of the first signs that Apple had got it’s design mojo back.
I think you will find this is version of history that Mac-faithful want to believe, but facts are different – ATX simply showed up; USB was popularised by the rise of ATX motherboards, which did include USB ports as standard.
The two things (launch of first iMac and real popularisation of ATX standard motherboards) happening at the same time might be what’s leading to your confusion.
Also, spread of bondi blue peripherals was perhaps partly true only in small parts of the world, where iMac was somewhat popular; I certainly never witnessed it.
And don’t equate legacy mac and pc connectors…
I think I agree in the main. If they (eventually) open up NFC access to third party applications, that would be a good start; implement wireless charging would be nice additional step ; and perhaps even do the mobile device world a favour and license their Lightning cable/port. (a) I like ubiquity in charging/data ports, which I appreciate in micro-USB – still (b) Lightning port is physically much nicer for starters.
I know they won’t… but, can anyone even imagine a scenario where Apple, didn’t make it easy, but ALLOWED, after many hurdles perhaps, unlocking the device fully.? OR if say 100,000 (maybe even 500,000) linux devotees signed up [and parted with their cash] -say $1000 a device, i.e. $0.5 Billion- on a kickstarter campaign offering an iPhone 6 Plus with Ubuntu or Sailfish or similar pre-installed. Said campaign then going to Apple with a proposal and $0.5 Billion cash in hand???
..stranger things. maybe. just.
Apple is slipping and it shows. Nothing new or innovative with the new larger iPhones; Android phones have had large screens for years. While iOS is very polished it can’t carry the game for long. But of course that’s underestimating the rabid fan base that would wait in line for days to buy an Apple gunny sack if such an item were to be released. If Apple truly intends to stay near the top of the heap then it needs to start innovating again. Bigger screens on hardware that is absurdly overpriced while also continuing to be sub par compared to competitors is not the answer.
Here’s some other innovation that matters to users
1. High quality apps that are to this day often more polished on iOS.
2. TouchID. One year later and there is still nothing as good for Android hardware. Massive in a business setting that requires strong pass codes on devices.
3. Apple Pay. NFC has been on Android for years and yet it is almost 100% useless.
4. iPhones are expensive, but part of that goes towards buying an ad-free experience. No ads in the maps, no ads in the email, etc.
I don’t care for the big screens, but many people clearly do. So now they removed that difference. Makes sense to me, and the innovation is in the other areas.
Edited 2014-09-18 01:59 UTC
NFC Payment has been useless, in the US,
Of course, you don’t count countries like Japan where NFC payment have been a standard feature for feature phone and smartphones, one of the operator issued NFC stickers for iphone and smartphone missing the feature.
Payment carried via phone could be big in the US, but in my opinion that’s putting a lot of stuff in the same basket.
Of course not. To most Apple fans, the US is the world and everywhere else might as well be pure fiction.
Apple fans only? For the entire Western Civilization US is the world.
Here in Finland even really, really small shops where you can barely fit 5 people inside seem to have NFC-payment these days and at least the bank I use doesn’t even issue non-NFC-enabled credit or debit cards anymore. The fact that Apple didn’t have NFC certainly hasn’t slowed the adoption of it down at all.
Disclaimer: I’m not implying anything wrt. Apple or iPhones, I just shared what the situation is like here.
Situation is very similar here in Canada. You can use tap to pay on your credit card in many places already. However, you can’t* use your Android phone instead of your credit card, despite the fact that the phone supports NFC.
* Or rather, you can in that some banks have their own android apps that support tap to pay, but that is missing the point entirely as it is less convenient than using the card itself.
The digital payment is coming to US by October 2015. So far its always been swipe and sign but since that deadline, this practice will be dangerous due to liability shift.
The rest of the world is massively ahead with digital payments but yes that is about to change. Apple knows it and thats why the Apple Pay and NFC
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2014/02/06/october-2015…
Edited 2014-09-18 05:45 UTC
I don’t mean to quibble, but useless isn’t the right term for NFC in the US.
Its poorly supported by retailers, and those that do “support it” really don’t. Its full of potential use. Its the other side of merchant support that is lacking.
I’m kind of doubtful Apple will succeed in this area. Its going to have to be a huge investment on merchants to upgrade all of the POS systems, and deal with the inevitable customer support when Apple Pay fails to work.
If you can’t use it, wouldn’t that make it useless? Potentially useful is a different thing entirely.
Much of the rest of the world has already done this and proven it works. I’ve been using tap to pay for at least a year here in Canada with the credit cards, so the retailer infrastructure is already in place.
Lets take a braille typewriter. I don’t know braille. It’s useless to me, but the typewriter in general is not useless. It has a use, that due to my lack of abilities cannot be used, unless I train myself to use it.
NFC in the US is a lot like that. Not useless, just difficult to use until the required knowledge and equipment is in place.
You might want to read about how Apple pay is different than existing NFC payment systems. However, for smartphone users outside Japan, the reality is they can’t pay using their smartphones (outside limited scenarios) despite the technology to make it possible being widespread in many phones. It’s an illustration of the difference between technical capability and a solution that actually works for users.
That might be true now(I have never owned an iPhone)but I think that will level out as Android gains 60% 70% 80% marketshare.
Agreed. iPhone has a very nice implementation.
Let us first see what it does outside of the US because there Apple Pay is 100% useless.
I am not sure what ads in maps en email you are referring to? But I try new free apps that often have ads and if I like the app I buy it so I don’t have ads and support the developer.
Gmail: http://www.dailytech.com/Quick+Note+Ads+Arrive+in+Androids+Gmail+Up…
Google Maps:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/8/4602828/google-maps-search-result-…
Uh? NFC is in use for payments all over the world. In Japan, banks were giving out NFC stickers for iPhones. NFC payments are all over Europe. The US might still use insecure credit cards, but the rest of the world has moved on decades ago (no joke).
What? There are no ads in Android’s Maps, mail, etc. Do you even know what you’re talking about?
Edited 2014-09-18 07:12 UTC
perhaps he meant the NFC implementation on Android in relation to payments, which i would have to agree is useless.
Here in the UK they are finally opening the public transport system which used it’s own version of NFC in the form of oyster cards. In sept/oct they are opening this up to NFC payments from misc NFC payment sources such as Bank cards and phones.
I never understood why google didn’t push harder with NFC and their wallet. The UK also has loads of the NFC terminals in lots of shops so it’s not like we don’t have the infrastructure, it seems that the tech was there but the implementation was missing.
I am looking forward to apple payments, it’ll be nice to be able to wander around places without having to take a wallet and worry about my cards.
We have the same in Canada. Credit cards with NFC work, but yet you can’t easily use your Android phone for the same. That’s the topic of discussion here.
Of course. However it was only reported on OSNews so I can see how you may have missed it.
Google Maps:
http://www.osnews.com/story/27253/Google_adds_ads_to_mobile_Maps_ap…
Gmail: http://www.osnews.com/story/27352/Ads_are_coming_to_Android_s_Gmail…
And look, this fellow named Thom was even outraged about it!
Edited 2014-09-18 19:42 UTC
The article about ads in Gmail only mentioned code that supported it – the “feature” is not yet activated. I figured I may have missed it, but as far as I can tell, it’s still not activated.
As for Maps – I knew they announced this, but as far as I can tell, these ads are never actually showing?
http://www.dailytech.com/Quick+Note+Ads+Arrive+in+Androids+Gmail+Up…
The articles that talk about the feature documented it with screenshots. So unless they removed the ads at a later date they are there. Of course it would depend on there being local advertisers which I imagine you would have fewer of outside the US.
The more important issue is simple business. Google is not in the business of making money on hardware, and yet they have to make money. So far that is primarily via advertising. Unless they switch or even offer a model where you can pay to access services ad-free, every service they offer will eventually be tied into the ad delivery business. Just like Facebook on mobile used to be ad free and now it’s littered with them. Free doesn’t exist in the long term.
The Gmail thing is interesting – it seems they only show up in the ‘Promotional’ tab, which is opt-in (at least, that’s what the Google blogs say). Hence, you never hear about this. You can only enable that through the web client, I think.
As for Maps – still not convinced it’s actually working. The only screenshots I’ve seen are the ones in the Google blog post (reposted) – the ones with “Gardening supplies”. Google image search isn’t returning anything other than that screenshot either. Google searches all link to that one, same announcement. I also cannot get the ads to trigger in any way on my Android devices (note that these ads should, according to those announcements, also work on iOS).
Did they back out of it, perhaps?
Possibly, I can’t find recent screenshots either. Then again I don’t know why people would post screenshots of this. I still think that more intrusive ads in Google’s Android services are inevitable. Just like their web properties started out ad-free or very unobtrusive ads and then migrated more and more to ads and more intrusive ones, so will their mobile services. It can’t go any other way if they keep them free and the hardware at just over break even.
Edited 2014-09-19 01:49 UTC
LOL. Not that this in any way differs from the Android “experience”. Of course, Apple also have their own advertising service for use in third-party apps, to give you even more of an “experience”.
You Apple zealots really are a dishonest bunch.
None of the core (or any that I know of) Apple services are ad supported. What’s dishonest about that?
Maybe I missed the announcement, but did Apple eventually get around to releasing a proper, working version of Apple Maps? Because anyone using iOS that I know seems to use Google Maps on their iDevice. Most of them use Gmail too, so I suspect they would get the same level of advertising as someone using the equivalent services on other devices. It’s the service that does the advertising, not the OS itself. If your email address isn’t Gmail, you won’t have to worry about Gmail advertising on any platform, and likewise for maps.
it’s getting better but it still needs some work. we have an iPhone 4 and a 5C and it just doesn’t show enough labels on either. at least half the time i use it i cuss it out and switch to google.
geographic stuff looks nice but road labels are more important. i don’t care if it’s 8-bit, please tell me the name/number of the roads i am near so i can correlate with actual signs! grr!
the now-standard overhead helicopter view is neato but not a perspective that is natural for humans while driving. i’d rather see huge clear labels than 3D graphics any day.
Someone needs to infuse the old, human way of sharing directions into these map apps. Anyone remember this:
“End of the street, take a left, then at the next light, the main intersection, thats Route 20. Get in the far right lane, go right. Take that the whole way to I-75 south (about 5 miles), which will run you right into Johnstown in 22 miles”
They should summarize those directions into a paragraph and text it to you, that simple. You should use your eyes and senses when driving, not be staring at a video game view.
I’d add best camera in generic (non strictly photography focused) flagship.
The upcoming Panasonic CM1 will of course dwarf everything on the market (including Nokia808) but it’s not mainstream smartphone.
Any data to support that? As far as I can see you are just restating the same tired, and frankly daft, ‘Apple is Doomed’ meme.
How long? How long before Apple’s sales start to decline rather grow?
Apple’s device ASP has remained fairly constant, as have it’s margins. There are no signs of erosion in either. The iOS platform remains healthier and wealthier than Android’s. Apple’s makes around three quarters of all the profits in the global handset market. What evidence is there that their business strategy is failing?
It’s only due to the fanbois my friend. Others, who are free thinkers and who evaluate Apple’s hardware specs versus competitors will choose something other than Apple. Why would a normal person pay three times the price for hardware that’s a third the specs of competing products?
Because sometimes it’s about the whole experience – some people just want a solid, reliable package of hardware, OS and ecosystem. Hardware specs alone don’t provide the “feel” of a device when in use, they just facilitate it.
Please note, I am not an iOS user, nor am I ever likely to be, but I understand there’s far more to any complex device than just the spec on paper. If it was that simple we’d all be driving Dacia Sanderos
http://www.dacia.co.uk/vehicles/sandero/
Edited 2014-09-19 10:43 UTC
I don’t know if they are slipping or not, as I haven’t purchased anything from apple for a few years now….. but see, all my major pieces of tech are apple and they all last forever.
IMHO apple’s software upgrade cycle is actually faster than their hardware requires. now that they are on Intel and designing their own ARM chips, Jony Ive has been building some of the best built slabs of aluminum ever, and unless you kill one yourself it’s going to run flawlessly for many years.
in that 3-5 year span apple will more than likely update iOS 3 major points and OSX at least 2 major point releases. the “upgrade tick” starts hitting you about 3 years in on a decent apple product, but if you are like me and like to keep things that work well you find yourself wanting to use these apple devices for 5-8 years and apple really doesn’t support you quite that long.
in the audio world you like to leave a rig alone if it’s working perfectly, and apple’s aggressive software cycles really don’t allow for that. you have to dance the OS v app version jig.
and by the way, the “rabid fan base” that you people make fun of is actually every product company’s ultimate goal – to have repeat and excited customers. the stupid words for apple customers are all based in jealousy.
there are no samsung fanbois or microsoft sheeples but boy would those companies love to have some. microsoft put up empty versions of apple stores in the US!
to clarify, about 70% of the people i know, myself included, run iOS and macs.
0% of them have ever waited in line for an apple product. the insults are manufactured.
most line people are ebay resellers or “freelancers” socializing.
in the US, millions just get a new iPhone when their carrier gives you the cheap upgrade window. buying a new iPhone takes like 10 minutes. apple definitely does retail better than the other companies too.
Apple is doing a good job catching up to Android. Still, I don’t see any reason to get a smartphone that’s more than $300.
{ “OutOfTopic”: “Still I want a BlackBerry Passport!” }
I don’t like how it looks, but I really hope it’s successful.
Yeah. I agree. Its at the point right now where I can’t really see myself being too limited by ios. I could definitely use it and be happy about it. But… The price…
Moto X /G/E seem like such a better value, without really giving anything up.
Continuity is a big deal, IMO.
Adding features slowly but surely is good, but without customizable desktop widgets I find it hard to take the OS seriously. Ever since Konfabulator I haven’t gone back to the 24/7 icon grid