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Apple previews iOS 11.3

45 points| uptown | 8 years ago |apple.com | reply

59 comments

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[+] mgiannopoulos|8 years ago|reply
> users can now see if the power management feature that dynamically manages maximum performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns, first introduced in iOS 10.2.1, is on and can choose to turn it off<

So I guess everyone can relax now ? No? :)

[+] MBCook|8 years ago|reply
I know they’re trying to fix some of the hate they got by giving users a ‘choice’... but I just don’t see why anyone would ever turn the throttling off.

“Sure my phone only lasts 2 hours now, but it’s fast again!”

Seems like a shoot yourself in the foot option.

Notifying people that it’s going on? Yeah that should have been there from day 1.

[+] dschuetz|8 years ago|reply
Yes. No. Batteries are still broken xD
[+] jclardy|8 years ago|reply
The vertical plane detection in ARKit is a very welcome addition. One of the main things I wanted to do with ARKit was to see how things will look hanging on my walls, before I actually put them there.
[+] MBCook|8 years ago|reply
I would love that. A little app, take pictures (measured) of a few objects, and play around with laying them out on your wall.
[+] wycy|8 years ago|reply
Still no word on iMessages in the Cloud.

I'm curious how the functionality of turning off the battery saving feature will work. Either a.) the phone constantly turns off and is unusuable, proving Apple did the right thing in the first place, or b.) the phone continues to work as it did when it was new, proving Apple lied.

[+] taf2|8 years ago|reply
Or c.) an engineer spent weeks after news broke looking into issue again and found a better solution...
[+] Yetanfou|8 years ago|reply
For Apple to do the right thing they'd have to issue a blanket free battery swap on all affected iDevices or maybe even a device swap to a model unaffected by this 'design problem'.

I can simulate the problem these devices have rather easily on my own phone, a 2011-vintage Motorola Defy. The thing was first sold as having an '800 MHz' SoC, a later model (Defy+) supposedly sported a '1000 MHz' SoC. In reality the hardware did not change all that much between those releases except for the inclusion of a high-capacity battery. The clock rate is software-defined and can be changed more or less at will. As I was one of the developers to work on porting newer releases of Android (in the guise of Cyanogenmod) to this platform I had access to a number of these devices. All of them ran without problems at the standard clock rates of 800MHz and 1000MHz, most could be overclocked to 1.1GHz. Beyond that clock rate things started to look different with some devices experiencing sudden reboots when called or in other 'active' situations. The higher the clock rate, the more devices would start failing. On the other hand, some of them could run at 1.3GHz without problems, this includes the one I'm still using. It is now almost 7 years old but still works fine on its original battery. While battery runtime has gone down from about 5 to 3 days it still works without sudden reboots.

If Motorola had clocked the Defy to 1.2GHz from the outset they'd have been in a similar situation as Apple is now with some users complaining about their devices rebooting spontaneously. They did not do so, instead they marketed the device on other features (being waterproof and rugged and such). Apple on the other hand did and marketed their devices as being 'faster than ever', i.e. they deemed the instability caused by the overly high clock rate a defensible trade-off.

[+] dusing|8 years ago|reply
It is back in 11.3 - when you first launch messages it even asks you to turn it on.
[+] newscracker|8 years ago|reply
Slightly related to battery life, all I want from Apple for iOS 11.x is to bring back an easy way to turn off my WiFi radio, not this mixed up experience that connects based on location or time. I don't want to go to Settings and turn it off. I don't want to use Siri to turn it off. These are slow and convoluted methods for that. I know some people like the iOS 11 behavior. So I'm not saying that should be completely removed.

I don't mind the Bluetooth radio being on, since I anyway use it all the time. But having WiFi on (even when disconnected from a network) does drain my battery faster, and I want the control that existed before.

I decided not to upgrade my other devices to iOS 11 until this changes. It's a sad state of affairs that I have to decide between security (not getting updates on iOS 10) and battery life and convenience (both disappeared for me on iOS 11).

I've provided feedback to Apple on this a few times since iOS 11 was released. Hope someone takes this more seriously, since I'm not the only user with this experience.

[+] blakesterz|8 years ago|reply
I don't get that Animoji thing at all. I was really surprised when watching the NFL playoffs how stupid and pointless I found the iPhone ads. To me it looked like they are so clearly trying to sell their phones to... I dunno... maybe college kids for whom a phone is a toy? Like those ads didn't sell the phone on any useful/practical features at all, while the Pixel ads did.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those ads, it just amazed me that NONE of them seemed to be aimed at adults or tried to sell the phone as being a productive computer.

I suppose Apple is just selling the brand?

[+] Spivak|8 years ago|reply
I agree, there should be no fun and childlike whimsy over the age of 22. Once you become a real adult you're only allowed to derive joy from technical manuals, high interest savings accounts, and point zero four percent productivity increases.

Pretty much any mid-tier phone these days are plenty productive and there's not much that differentiates them because businesses tasks really haven't changed.

[+] TetOn|8 years ago|reply
I see Animoji as a fun thing you can do that also demonstrates all the face recognition hardware in there that's present for FaceID, which to me, is the real killer feature of the X (and, presumably, future iPhones). Really is so much more convenient; like the good old days of using a phone that has no passcode at all.
[+] newscracker|8 years ago|reply
It's a bit goofy, and a bit cute. Maybe the novelty will wear off soon, maybe it'll stay as a way for some groups to communicate.

I'd suggest you check out YouTube for animoji videos before dismissing it completely (like "Animojis Takeover TV" and others). There's a lot of creativity being unleashed by it, IMO.

[+] mcphage|8 years ago|reply
> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those ads, it just amazed me that NONE of them seemed to be aimed at adults or tried to sell the phone as being a productive computer.

They have several different ads, selling different features, to different groups of people.

[+] ambirex|8 years ago|reply
I'm not sure that being adult excludes me from having fun with the single most used device I own. I occasionally send Animoji to my family to say something whimsical.
[+] mixmastamyk|8 years ago|reply
Are they gonna fix the horrible battery life since 11? What about the crashing lock screen?

Not interested in any features untill those are sorted. In fact, I’d like less, thank you. The iMessage app has become an abomination of mistakenly hit clutter.

[+] thinkythought|8 years ago|reply
Have you tried a clean install(IE: DFU mode restore, set up as new phone)? That's resolved it on 3 devices for me. Literally zero issues now
[+] CodeSheikh|8 years ago|reply
Would be interesting to see if "business chat" turn into customer support.
[+] valine|8 years ago|reply
The ARKit update looks good. Tracking vertical surfaces was a major missing feature.
[+] Lightbody|8 years ago|reply
“HomeKit software authentication” — sounds like they are lowering their requirements for smart home products to be more like what we’ve seen from Echo? Anyone know more about this?
[+] pilif|8 years ago|reply
AFAIK, you still need to have your devices certified with apple and you still owe them a percentage of the cost.

But you don't need to put a physical authentication chip into your devices any more.

This lowers the cost and allows for retroactive certification.

[+] alphabettsy|8 years ago|reply
You won’t have to have a HomeKit chip in the product as you do now, you will be able to use software signing and authentication.
[+] gshakir|8 years ago|reply
The business chat sounds like a great idea. There are some startups out there that are doing something similar and they are going to be affected.
[+] peatmoss|8 years ago|reply
The Lowe’s example made me go, “oh yeah, I’d use that.” Hardware stores are one area where talking to someone nominally savvy can save you heaps of time. It’s part of the reason I still go to Ace for some things.

Imagine describing some project and having some semi-retired codger tell you what you need and have it boxed and sent to you.

[+] applecrazy|8 years ago|reply
Not only that, but this makes Apple a competitor to Facebook Messenger. Ever since they added iMessage apps, animations, and Apple p2p pay, it’s clear that they’re trying to compete with fb in this space.
[+] ianhawes|8 years ago|reply
This looks great, but unfortunately like most Apple-related things, this will probably be limited to Fortune 500 companies for the next 1-2 years then silently killed.
[+] ash_gti|8 years ago|reply
It sounds like they’re going to be using the RCS standard for those communications.
[+] tzahola|8 years ago|reply
Another case of Sherlocking, you’d say?
[+] asimpletune|8 years ago|reply
I’m excited about vertical tracking for arkit.
[+] hawktheslayer|8 years ago|reply
Can anyone explain to me the draw behind the Animoji? While the underlying technology has potential, did it have to manifest itself this way?
[+] pat2man|8 years ago|reply
A lot of people like the idea of communicating via video but don’t like how hey look. Animoji gives them something in between. Snapchat masks offer something similar.
[+] notheguyouthink|8 years ago|reply
I actually love it. However for me, I like using it as a personal emoji. I don't talk, and I wish it didn't come with sound. It also wigs out pretty hard on my glasses, so I'd like to see some improvement there.

I bought the iPhoneX thinking I'd hate that feature - but after using it, it's just goofy good fun as an emoji.

[+] scarlac|8 years ago|reply
I think you got it wrong - the technology behind it did not manifest itself as Animojis. It manifested itself as Face ID.