[drewprops]

The news broke on Tuesday that Apple has released a humpback battery pack!!

I stand corrected. Apple is innovating like a.... vendor.







...

[kieran]

I don't really understand the shitstorm that has risen about this.

Yes, it's not what we have come to imagine from Apple with design, but it's a god damn battery pack. I doubt that they expect people to have it on all of the time, which is partly why it's designed this way. (Partly also because of the patents that other companies have on battery packs)

It's just something that can be useful for a lot of people, but everyone seems to be hating all over this thing.

[709]

I like it. It seems like a very logical design. *shrug*

[Frank777]

Yeah, this is totally worth pulling engineers and designers away from the next Mac upgrade.

[709]

Because the Mac engineers and designers would definitely be the people to work this incredible feat of engineering/design out.

More likely, Ive drew it on a napkin and gave it to his junior team, who then gave it to Apple's case manufacturer. It's an extra battery, ffs. I'd rather they lump it on the back so I can still hold it normally. That's just me, I guess.

Apple can't win in this situation. It's either lump and center the battery on the back, which gets eye-rolled, or spread the battery pack over a full case, which would get slammed like 'oh hay Apple admits thin is out by introducing fat battery case'. Both of those comments are already happening en masse, so really, it's not even worth arguing.

We can argue design, sure. It's utility. As I said before, I like it. But it's a contentious thing for sure.

[PB PM]

It's not beautiful, and apparently a pain to take on and off (6S), but it is cheaper than some competitors case battery offerings. Wow, never thought I'd see something from Apple that was less expensive than third parties.

Personally I'd rather have a phone that was slightly thicker than buy add-on battery packs, but I don't think the built in battery is that bad. I guess if you are one of those face in screen all day types this would be nice.

[Eugene]

It's a functional design which allows the silicone at the end to bend freely for insertion/removal. Thankfully the hump is flat so it won't rock when lying on flat surfaces.

The only problem I have is the extra chin at the bottom. Hopefully the iPhone 7 introduces inductive charging so the case can charge the phone battery wirelessly while also being charged on a pad. That would be in addition to both being chargeable via the iPhone's Lightning port.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by PB PM It's not beautiful, and apparently a pain to take on and off (6S), but it is cheaper than some competitors case battery offerings. Wow, never thought I'd see something from Apple that was less expensive than third parties. Personally I'd rather have a phone that was slightly thicker than buy add-on battery packs, but I don't think the built in battery is that bad. I guess if you are one of those face in screen all day types this would be nice.

http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Anker-...6+battery+case

$40, #1 best selling battery case on Amazon, 625 reviews averaging 4.3 stars, 2850 mAh (1000 mAh more than the Apple one). There are many others that are similar in price and features on Amazon. If you don't like that one, get another.

The one thing this case has is the built in Lightning charging instead of having to convert to micro USB. It's a nice feature but I'm not sure it's worth more than double the cost.

I think the criticism is a bit overblown - some people will definitely benefit from a battery case. As far as design goes, of course it's bulky, making things thick is how you make room for big batteries. The main criticisms seem to be high cost and a larger shot at Apple for making their phones too thin and then selling a bulky case to make up for it. I think a lot of people would be fine with a phone that is 3-4 mm thicker if it had 50-100% more battery life.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by PB PM Personally I'd rather have a phone that was slightly thicker than buy add-on battery packs...

Originally Posted by Luca I think a lot of people would be fine with a phone that is 3-4 mm thicker if it had 50-100% more battery life.

That's all some of us have been saying for a good while now.

I think Apple has reached a nice "okay, knock it off..." point on their phone thinness. "Innovation", at this point, should be focused - and achieved - elsewhere, IMO (battery life, display, audio, etc.).

Dear Apple, We're all good on the thinness of the 6/6s (hell, we were even okay with the 5/5s, truth be told). You can relax now. Thanks! Sincerely, Everybody on the planet

You have to admit...chasing ever-thinner iPhones (which nobody has really been asking for), only to turn around and "solve" the battery dilemma (for some) by offering a pricey, bulky (and unattractive, by Apple standards) accessory - which adds way more thickness/weight than a phone that wasn't obsessed with thinness-over-all-else to begin with - is a bit dickheaded and troll-ish of them.

PS - Look at the positives: it eliminates that protruding camera ring wobble/issue! Suddenly that doesn't seem like such a big deal. What's a 1mm metal ring when you can have an extra half inch!

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Luca http://www.amazon.com/Battery-Anker-...6+battery+case $40, #1 best selling battery case on Amazon, 625 reviews averaging 4.3 stars, 2850 mAh (1000 mAh more than the Apple one). There are many others that are similar in price and features on Amazon. If you don't like that one, get another. The one thing this case has is the built in Lightning charging instead of having to convert to micro USB. It's a nice feature but I'm not sure it's worth more than double the cost. I think the criticism is a bit overblown - some people will definitely benefit from a battery case. As far as design goes, of course it's bulky, making things thick is how you make room for big batteries. The main criticisms seem to be high cost and a larger shot at Apple for making their phones too thin and then selling a bulky case to make up for it. I think a lot of people would be fine with a phone that is 3-4 mm thicker if it had 50-100% more battery life.

Guess it's been awhile since I looked closely at prices. Last time I looked, 2-3 years ago admittedly, they were all well over $100.

[drewprops]

You all can keep on yappin' if you wanna, but Ima lay this one right HERE...

What happened to Apple design? (Unapologetically Bad)

I am not going to back down on this issue, folks.

Apple's bad design decisions are stacking up, and it's because there's no asshole dictator like Jobs screaming at people to STOP BEING FUCKING LAZY and to GODDAMN THINK ABOUT HOW THIS COULD BE BETTER.

It's Tim Cook saying "our shipping efficiencies are at a record high, and we just released the iHump for iPhone"..... for crap's sake.

If I'm the only asshole left on this board pointing out how Apple has strayed from its former skills then so be it.

Enjoy your weaksauce, J.J. Ives – you were better with Steve pushing you, and you know it.




...

[Luca]

In defense of the iHump, someone wrote about his today and he said the hump actually makes it easier to hold than other battery cases that go for a sleeker look. The hump sits in the palm of your hand where thickness matters the least. You only really feel the relative thickness of your phone at the edges anyway.

The other thing about it is, even though it is more expensive than competing products, it does have some advantages. The Lightning port carries data as well, so you don't have to take the thing off to plug it into your computer. And you know that it's high quality.

In typical Apple fashion, it's more expensive and lighter on the spec sheet than its competitors, but it's also a higher quality product. It also acts more like a true battery extension, always draining the case first and making sure your phone's battery is fully charged in case you need to remove the case. The whole process is seamless... that may be true for other cases but I'm not sure.

The one un-Apple-like thing about it is the shape. It's truly a function over form type of thing, which is at odds with Apple's usual designs.

[drewprops]

One of the design professors back in college was a coke-crazed Chinese man who would glower at his students work and growl "Do Ovah".

I hear Professor Chen's voice saying that every time I see this thing.

...

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by Luca It's truly a function over form type of thing, which is at odds with Apple's usual designs.

True. Put the guy in charge of this case in charge of the iMac. And the Mini. And the Mac Pro...

[Luca]

Originally Posted by Frank777 True. Put the guy in charge of this case in charge of the iMac. And the Mini. And the Mac Pro...

Maybe we can go back to the old, expandable Mac Pro design? Please?

[drewprops]

Nailed it.



...

[PB PM]

Yup, it's show piece vs useful, well designed work machine. Apple used to know how to bring those two areas together, but now days not so much.

[Eugene]

I find that image a dishonest comparison. These days a pro has no need for optical media and those three external drives would be replaced by a single high-end DAS or NAS. The HDMI breakout box is also completely unnecessary.

[Matsu]

How good or bad is the battery life on iPhone 6s+ or 6+. My wife has been eyeing one for the last few months. She has a daily commute and will probably surf a fair bit on it, hence the larger screen preference. I drive, so my phone is just fine for now.

I kinda liked the look of Apple's battery case. Looks pretty low profile in form and function compared to some of the 3rd parties, which need two plugs, and as far as I can tell aren't automated in their charge re-charge cycles...

[kieran]

My 6S+ is a beast. Way better than my wife's 6S. I really like the bigger screen, but the bigger battery is nice to have as well.

[Matsu]

Do the 6+ and 6s+ pack larger batteries on account of their footprint, and as a result have better batter life than the 6(s) models? It's curious that they would make a battery pack for the larger phone and not the smaller one...

I don't know, I haven't followed any iPhone related news in 3 years - I'm fairly happy with my iPhone5...

[kieran]

The new Apple battery pack is only available for the 6/6s, not the Plus models.

[Matsu]

Doh, that makes more sense...

[Chinney]

I think that a better strategy would be if Apple released the iPhone 'Thik'. Apple obviously has had success in making its mobile products thin. Underlyng this thinness and the increased processor power of its devices is, I assume, impressive efficiency gains, especially since battery life has actually improved quite a bit (despite the griping). So I assume that a fairly small increase in thickness in a new iPhone Thik would lead to a substantial battery life increase. For those who really need/want it, and who would accept a slightly heftier phone to get it.

[Matsu]

I kind of like this smart battery case idea. I think they should apply it to all their current phones and even iPads. It's only going to get easier to implement once they have inductive charging. They could then offer a range of battery skins.

[drewprops]

I think that Tim Cook is not an innovator.


I hate that I seem to be trolling our forum, but I'm serious: investors are impatiently watching Apple for innovation, like southerners expecting their favorite college football coach to bring them a winning season — ready to lovingly trade that beloved coach in for a new one if he fails to take them to a bowl game.

The iHump ain't gonna feed the bulldawg*.



...
* using a local example**
** the Bulldawgs are an inferior competing college to my beloved alma mater


....

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by drewprops I think that Tim Cook is not an innovator. I hate that I seem to be trolling our forum, but I'm serious: investors are impatiently watching Apple for innovation, like southerners expecting their favorite college football coach to bring them a winning season — ready to lovingly trade that beloved coach in for a new one if he fails to take them to a bowl game. The iHump ain't gonna feed the bulldawg*. ... * using a local example** ** the Bulldawgs are an inferior competing college to my beloved alma mater ....

I think it's more that he's just enamoured with the shiny consumer stuff (the Watch, Music, Beats, TV etc.) I understand that Intel's delays have been damaging to the Mac business, but I use my Macs to get real work done and the past year has been very disappointing.

[Luca]

Originally Posted by Frank777 I think it's more that he's just enamoured with the shiny consumer stuff (the Watch, Music, Beats, TV etc.) I understand that Intel's delays have been damaging to the Mac business, but I use my Macs to get real work done and the past year has been very disappointing.

That's where the money is. People with more money than sense paying $300 for mediocre Beats headphones. Buying a $1600 laptop to browse Facebook. High-end hardware that is used for getting actual work done costs money to make, and the people who use it are smart with their money. There's no reason for a platform-agnostic person to go with a Mac Pro over a competing workstation, especially when you combine the languishing hardware with how Apple has abandoned all their pro software.

It's much cheaper and more lucrative to make thinner, flashier versions of your existing products with whiz-bang features and then market the crap out of them.

[addabox]

Eh, I'm pretty leery of the old "getting actual work done" caveat. The fact is that modern hardware, even ostensibly "underpowered" modern hardware, is more than capable enough to do 99% of what anyone wants to do on a computer. There are always edge cases that can soak up anything you throw at it and ask for more (4k video editing, complex system modeling, etc) but does anyone deny that spreadsheets and Photoshop and sound editing and Office and email and yes, web surfing, are "real work"?

That being the case, I don't think the average Mac buyer is unduly concerned with paying too much for too little, because it's not too little. Even Mac buyers who have bigger fish to fry than to "browse Facebook."

Instead, the metric is perceived quality, fit and finish, longevity, support, etc. On those counts, it's not some kind of vanity nonsense for a given computer buyer to opt for something like the current MacBook, which is thin, light, very nicely constructed, will be attended to at the local Apple Store (which if nothing else is going to beat the shit out of the tender mercies of the Geek Squad) and is less likely to simply fail than a cheap NetBook, or whatever they're calling that neck of the woods these days.

I agree that if I'm doing extremely intensive work a Mac Pro isn't much of a value proposition, but that's a different matter. Apple's lack of interest in certain pro areas doesn't obviate the desirability of their "lesser" hardware, because for the vast majority of customers it's more than enough.

[Frank777]

Originally Posted by addabox Eh, I'm pretty leery of the old "getting actual work done" caveat. The fact is that modern hardware, even ostensibly "underpowered" modern hardware, is more than capable enough to do 99% of what anyone wants to do on a computer. There are always edge cases that can soak up anything you throw at it and ask for more (4k video editing, complex system modeling, etc) but does anyone deny that spreadsheets and Photoshop and sound editing and Office and email and yes, web surfing, are "real work"?

Yeah, but let's be real, "it's good enough" has never quite been Apple's rallying cry.

It's definitely true that I could buy a current 15" MacBook Pro and do what I need to do. But I'm not buying another 15" without Skylake, Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 because it's a once-in-four-years purchase and I don't feel like being stuck with yesterday's model three years from now.

I think a lot of us are just concerned that Apple is on the verge of letting the Pro Mac market wither on the vine to focus resources on iOS. After abandoning Aperture, it would be nice to see Apple do something special for Pros using the Mac. Anything to show they still valued the Pro market. Even if they bought Quark Xpress and dropped the price to Final Cut Pro's $299, just to mess with Adobe.