Tag: iphone

The iPhone is obviously more than a phone

It’s a handheld mobile platform that does so much more than make phone calls after all, so using the phone aspect as the primary designation of the device when it’s probably among the least used function seems like a misnomer.

The moniker was probably the easiest one to go with back in the day. Apple wanted to distinguish the device from the iPod, which was still a strong seller in 2007, and people associated cellular devices with nothing else other than phones, at least back then, so it made sense to call it the iPhone even when it’s “an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator.”

It’s easy to see why Louie Mantia thinks the iPhone name is not a good fit but after 17 years the name has cemented itself as one of the strongest brands that has ever existed. The iPod seems like a more logical name for a multipurpose device and might have been great had Apple not felt the need to introduce the iPhone brand but I think that ship has sailed. The iPhone name has taken just as strong of a hold and recognition as the iPod in roughly the same amount of time, bland as it may be.

In four years the iPhone will be as old as the iPod was when it was retired in 2022. The iPod as a product category lasted 21 years. It doesn’t seem like Apple is a company that would make such a change after all these years and we don’t even know if the iPhone as a product category will still exist five years from now (probably will).

Might Apple resurrect the iPod name? Who knows, they resurrected the iBook name once (and retired it again in favor of Apple Books) but they no longer follow the i- convention of naming products so chances of that happening is probably pretty slim.

The iPod was a great name and its legacy lives on in podcast and AirPods and if the rumors of a touchscreen AirPods case ever come true, I’ve a feeling they’ll still be called AirPods.

iPhone Design Chief Joins Jony Ive’s LoveFrom

Losing 20 designers to Jony Ive must be a significant blow to Apple but it’s certainly a testament to Ive’s leadership as a design executive. And now the tech giant loses another senior design executive. 

What Ive and his team built at Apple are unquestionably iconic, from the groundbreaking original iMac and its weird puck mouse to the oddly designed Magic Mouse and Lightning Apple Pencil, but with Ive’s and his former team members’ departures, Apple has to rebuilt the design team with new leadership and direction.

With almost none of Ive’s former charges left in the company, Apple’s award winning Ive era is over and if they want to return to that level, it’s going to take a lot of work.

It’s unfortunate that Apple is no longer a design focused company the way it used to be in the 90s to the 2010s having reorganized the team under Operations instead of its own vertical under the CEO but they’ve decided to take this path following Ive’s departure.

This is already a new era at Apple where product design is more iterative and functional than inspirational and if they aim to reclaim their crown as one of the most iconic industrial design companies, it will require a new batch of outstanding designers and design leadership.

iOS default icons throughout the years

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Android and iPhone

Apple announced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on 9 September and this happened:

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and then a response

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Heh.

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Something to get used to for iPhone 6 owners

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double tap the home button to drop the screen down, double press (as usual) to quit apps

iPhone 6 screens demystified

if you’re an application designer or developer making apps for the iPhone, this guide to pixel rendering on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus would be of great help

iPhone 6 screens demystified

XL Axiata pulled its iPhone 5S/C price page

Last night I was tipped that XL Axiata had published its iPhone 5S/C pricing schemes. Suspecting that it was leaked early, I took screenshots and published both the link and the shot. I was later informed that it was indeed leaked and a few hours later the page was taken down.

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Apparently people at XL hadn’t realized the page was already published so it looked like that they scrambled as quick as they could late Saturday night to remove the page, probably gave it a different URL instead of taking it down completely.

As I said last night, the pricing plans for postpaid are almost identical to the US pricing which is excellent but the prepaid prices were a big step up. Turns out, the they were about 25% higher which I suppose isn’t too bad but is shocking nonetheless because it brings the 5S very close into MacBook Air territory.

The Rupiah’s fall against the greenback is perhaps the biggest contribution to the high prepaid prices (although if you go with the postpaid option, the total cost of ownership after 12 months would be within the same ballpark) and if the exchange rate had remained in the 9500-10500 per dollar, I’m sure the iPhones would be a bit more affordable.

Something in my head tells me that this was a set up though. That I was leaked the page specifically to gauge reaction to the prices. It just so happened that the tip came after I had tweeted asking whether people would buy an iPhone 5S if it were to start at Rp 9 million for prepaid. It ended up being 10.5 million and the 5C started at 8.7 million.

Will XL make changes now that it’s all been leaked?

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Update: it’s live, no change

– Read on Path.

If it weren’t for iBox’s aggressive promotion for the iPhone 4 I probably wouldn’t have come across this clean piece of case for the 4S. They didn’t have cases for older iPhones anymore when I checked last month but this time they’ve got a few models out. Glad they’ve got this classy one picked out. There’s a black version too.

For 200k it’s not a bad deal. It’s gonna be filthy within days since it’s all white but at least the iPhone won’t get more bumps and bruises. Hopefully.

Kinda wish they left out a gap for the SIM card slot tough.

I want iOS to be modernized a bit more

The lack of gesture support on the iPod touch and iPhone makes for an awkward moment when you’re far more used to using the iPad which has a greater range of gesture recognition.

Not being able to do things like switching between apps simply by swiping from the side edges of the screen as opposed to a four finger swipe on the iPad or closing the app by pushing up from the bottom of the screen makes these tall screen devices feel rather quaint and underdeveloped.

I realize that Apple can be both revolutionary and conservative with regards to introducing interface features but after more than five and a half years of iOS, it needs a little more of the modern abilities not just to compete with offerings from other platform providers but also as a milestone in its own software development roadmap.

As it stands, the iPhone remains a safe bet for consumers who don’t want to have to learn too many new things as its comes with arguably the easiest and simplest mobile OS to learn and use.

I’ve got high hopes for Jony Ive to reboot iOS. – Read on Path.

There’s something about these phones…