Tag Archives: iphone

2018 iPhone Line-up
Thoughts

Tim Cook says iPhones are justifiably expensive

In an interview on “Good Morning America”, Tim Cook said the following when asked about the prices of the new iPhones, which have grown well above the $1,000 mark: “it’s the most advanced device we’ve ever done… [and]… replaces every other gadget consumers might need“.

Dear Tim, I would like to propose a challenge to you.

If the new iPhones are indeed a replacement for most other devices we might need, then please make it a substitute for the laptop and desktop computer. Please justify their cost with one more worthwhile argument. Notice I did not say a “replacement“, because I also have a desktop and laptop and tablet and I don’t foresee giving them up, especially not my desktop. A substitute is sorely needed though. 

As I’m sure you’re well aware, the smartphone has become the only computing device for a lot of people throughout the world. And those people have to squint at a small screen and type on a non-existent virtual keyboard and poke around the (small, albeit now bigger) screen with their fingers whenever they need to do something important. It would be so much easier to plug it into a small device and be able to use it properly, as most of us have done, growing up using regular computers.

The iPhone is, as you say, a powerful and advanced device. Why not open up that power to the traditional users of a computer? I’m talking about a keyboard, a mouse and a monitor, of course, so we can use and work with email, word processing, spreadsheets and presentations on a bigger screen (these apps may be boring but they’re still the ones that run the world of business). It feels like you have deliberately held this option back from the consumers so it wouldn’t eat into your other lines (tablets, laptops, etc.). I can’t see another reason for it. I can’t imagine that you did not know that Samsung has been working on the Dex for years. It’s even been on the market for a couple of years now. It’s good. It’s so good it’s got me thinking I should buy a Samsung phone.

My request isn’t new. I’ve talked about it before. And no, the iPad isn’t the answer to my needs and those of many other people. 

Will you please do this? 

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Thoughts

My thoughts on Apple’s iPhone CPU throttling

Updated 12/29/17: Apple has posted an official response to this issue on their website. It’s the right response.

Everyone’s chiming in on this issue so I’m not going to rehash it, but I do have a practical suggestion that addresses it. You know what’s going on: older iPhones with older batteries tend to run slow (see this post). I noticed it as well and thought, like most people, that we (my wife and I) need to replace our iPhones, because they’re getting too old to handle the iOS upgrades and respective upgrades to the mobile apps we use.

As it turns out, Apple has been quietly throttling the CPU speeds of our iPhones in order to compensate for the fact that older Li-Ion batteries can’t sustain the voltages needed for those higher speeds. It was watching out for us, but without explaining it. And as it turns out in life, a lack of communication will cause problems. They only offered the explanation after people got upset — so upset that now several lawsuits have been filed against them (see this post). Only two lawsuits are mentioned in that post, but in another story I read today, the total went up to eight.

I’m not feeling sorry for Apple. They’re big boys, they have plenty of money to handle the lawsuits and their “we know better” attitude toward the customers, as well as their closed system approach to everything they develop, has always engendered a certain amount of anger from its customers. What they can and should do now is to suck it up and offer a good defense in court.

All of this could have been avoided if they’d simply done something similar to the “Low Power Mode” option that’s already offered on iPhones. That is an elegant and caring solution to a problem that users encounter every day.

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Something like this, let’s call it a “Battery Lifespan Advisory”, could be a feature launched with the next incremental upgrade to iOS 11, and it might let us toggle the “Automatic CPU Throttling” on or off when the battery nears the end of its projected lifespan. We could get a message on our screens, just like when Low Battery Mode is recommended, that would take us directly to the screen where we read an explanation and get to manage this option.

And that’s about all I have to say on this.

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Thoughts

Mobile phones as desktop and laptop replacements

Video

It’s high time we were able to come home and place our mobile phones in a dock that’s connected to a display, keyboard and mouse, and have it turn into a full-fledged desktop and laptop replacement. Mobile phones have sufficient computing power for most of our needs, they have the apps most of us use on desktops as well, and there are incredible energy savings to be had. Hardware manufacturers need to start making sincere, concerted efforts toward this end.

You may also want to read through this post of mine, where I tried my best to use a tablet (an iPad) as my main computer, only to be frustrated to no end by the lack of common ammenities and functionalities we’ve come to expect on desktops and laptops, simple things such as the use of a mouse, drag-and-drop functionality between folders, a finder/file explorer and the ability to easily access drives and files on the network.

I realize that people who engage in heavy computing on a daily basis, such as 4K video editing, 3D graphics and 3D video rendering, large-scale CAD projects, serious coding that requires powerful compilers and other such tasks, will still need very powerful desktop computers and even small server farms in order to do their jobs and I am in no way suggesting that they start using mobile phones to do their work.

We simply have to acknowledge that the majority of the population that uses computers can do just fine with the computing power of a mobile phone. I’m talking about the people who mostly check their email, use social networking sites and apps for social networking sites, plus some online banking and take casual photos and videos. What if all those people were able to use their mobiles phones as replacement desktops or replacement laptops? Wouldn’t that be a significant cost savings to them?

Looking at the greater picture, if all those people, or at least a significant portion of them did this, wouldn’t that translate into significant energy savings for cities, counties, states and countries? Aren’t we always talking about reducing our carbon footprint? Well, instead of using a laptop that consumes about 60W when plugged in, or a desktop that eats up about 200W, give or take, why not use a mobile phone that consumes 3-5W when plugged in?

Reviews

CableJive dockBoss air

I have this little gadget and I love it. It allows me to play my iPhone’s music to my Bose Sounddock, untethered, via Bluetooth. It’s super convenient and easy to use.

Wireless Bluetooth Music Receiver for audio docks made for iPhone 4/4S including, iHome, Bose, Logitech, JBL, Phillips, Sony, 30-pin iPod/iPhone speaker dock. Wireless range 33 feet, 10+ meters (free space). No batteries, no maintenance. Powered by the dock you connect it to. Uses the Bluetooth A2DP protocol to easily stream your audio.

Buy it here: CableJive Wireless Bluetooth Music Receiver Adapter for Bose SoundDock and other iPod and iPhone Audio Docks including iHome, Bose SoundDock, JBL, Logitech, Sony and other 30-Pin Audio Docks for Wireless music. Connect dockBoss air adapter to your speaker dock and control your music from your phone up to 30 ft. away.

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Thoughts

A way to make Shuffle better in iTunes and on iPhones and iPods

iTunes

I don’t know about you but I’ve listened to all of the songs in my iTunes library. Repeatedly. Over and over and over. I keep buying new ones but inevitably, the play counts add up. And the ones I didn’t want to listen to, I skipped over. Repeatedly. Over and over and over. And therein lies the answer to making Shuffle better, both in iTunes and on our iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Apple, please tweak the Shuffle algorithm so that if a song is skipped over more than once, it won’t play it during Shuffle mode at all, at least not for a while. The auto-skip period can be tweaked in the settings (in iTunes and on our portable devices). And we should also be able to decide whether we want these songs to sync to our devices at all, sort of like putting them in hibernation. Maybe even create a special section in the Library where a smart list will display these pariah songs when needed.

Some of the songs I bought have started to annoy me so much that I deleted them altogether. I suppose you can’t help that with music. You like it, then you don’t. You need a break from it. But when your iPod or iPhone keeps shoving it in your face, particularly when you’re driving and you don’t want to be bothered with skipping over songs, then that song begins to annoy you enough so that you get home and delete it from your iTunes library, just so you won’t hear it again.

And Apple, please don’t do this only in iTunes. Make sure you do it for iPhones and iPods as well, and for the older models, too. I still have a 1st gen iPod Touch that I use from time to time, and its software hasn’t been updated in years. It’d be nice to get some extra life out of it once the new Shuffle is brought out.

Thanks in advance!

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