Apple’s Sept. 7 Event

[Cmaier]

The most baffling thing to come out of the whole Dynamic Island situation has nothing to do with the name and everything to do with people's complete infatuation with the way it integrates notifications. I get it's a nice to have feature for keeping track of timers, uber rides, or whatever but there were people making threads about how it's a game changer and it alone has convinced them to upgrade. That's kind of insane to me considering when the feature was demo'd during the keynote I honestly didn't feel any sort of way about it, I barely registered it as a feature but rather a reskin of what already exists in iOS 16.

It’s sort of like putting live activities on the Home Screen, so it doesnt just exist on the lock screen. Nobody has had a chance to really play with live activities yet, but I can think of a lot of use cases where persistently-updated status or controls like that could be useful. It all depends on how you use your phone, though - in my case i tend to unlock it, do something, and turn it off. Live activities and the dynamic island would be much more interesting to me on ipad. In fact, on ipad it could also behave sort of like a modern version of the menu bar.

 

[Citysnaps]

Looking forward to picking up my 14 ProMax at the Apple Store tomorrow and using the cameras. Have a feeling I'll be pleased.

 

[Cmaier]

Looking forward to picking up my 14 ProMax at the Apple Store tomorrow and using the cameras. Have a feeling I'll be pleased.

My pro max and my wife’s pro are arriving tomorrow by UPS. I’ll probably work most of the day from home to receive them, since they are moving my office up a floor anyway tomorrow.

 

[zakarhino]

It's baffling. So much that I want to be a Sociologist in my next life to get a better understanding of what happened over the last six or seven years. Maybe someone like Seymour Lipset, a past George Mason, Berkeley, and Stanford sociology professor and political scientist who passed away in the mid-2000s.

My theory: It's a combination of trumpism and covid. It's now OK to be outraged and frothed up at the drop of a hat. trump as a whiney toddler set an example, giving people permission to act out in such a manner. For the tiniest little inconsequential mice-nuts things. Dynamic Island is an outstanding example.

Being cooped up due to covid (mostly in the past) without normal social interaction with other humans has inspired lashing out for attention to feel good and be noticed, providing a little jolt of feel-good power. The problem is that little burst of power is short-lived and needs to be replenished daily to get through life and stay charged up and happy. The other place provides a perfect breeding ground for the above.

I'm Gen Z, a lot of us grew up interacting with social media platforms where the default mode of communication is to 1) try and dunk on people by insulting them and 2) put on a false personality, almost as if you were a character in a TV show. Take a look at the average conversation between two people with different opinions on Twitter and without a doubt the person with more interactions/likes is the person being as rude, condescending, and dismissive as possible. It seems like the point of these interactions is never to find commonality or truth between people but instead to identify some kind of difference of opinion and consequently define any and all relationships by those differences. I know this isn't a universal behavior because the majority of content I consume on twitter for example is niche good faith conversations between engineers and academics. However once you venture out into the areas where the bulk of online 'discourse' happens (even around the most mundane of subjects) you quickly expose yourself to the toxicity. Just people arguing over absolutely nothing because social media exaggerates the real state of the world and distracts from what matters. No doubt I'm guilty of this too at times, especially on MR which is basically the only social media site I post on. I've tried to tone it down over time so my posts are more in line with the sort of politeness myself and others in my world convey in person. This becomes easier the more time you spend actually interacting with real people that spend their time constructing the world around them rather than constantly complaining about it. Still, that snarky dismissive behavior I mentioned, that particular brand of hatred and nihilism, is slowly branded within you from day one of using these platforms. You don't necessarily do it consciously, you do it because that's what everyone around you is doing.

All this to say there used to be a separation: you were rude online but toned it down in person. Now for some, especially a selection of young Gen Z'ers and terminally online jaded Millennials, that acidic attitude and tone has made its way into the real world, whether you're interacting with complete strangers or family members. The behavior is reinforced by friend groups (more appropriately in some cases: 'cliques') emulating that behavior and justifying it via a false sense of superiority over everyone around them; like they're the only ones that 'get it' and everyone else is a stupid rube. Some of those friend groups don't even exist in reality, but rather as a group in the online world. It's tribalism on steroids that is disconnected from material reality -- all of it supercharged by the attention economy of social media, YouTube 'influencers,' and media that idolizes being as degenerate and attention seeking as possible. This is where the real problems start, when the facade of the internet world starts to have real consequences in the real material world -- I'm sure I don't need to post examples of this.

The archetype of the moody, rude teenager has existed for aeons, but there usually comes a point where you have to grow up and deal with the real world: to accept the contradictions, the unfairness, the differences, and the ugliness that you may encounter as you transition into an adulthood defined by goals and growth. Once upon a time that transition was aided by everyone around you being an adult too, there were examples to learn from in your own community and in your country (as a Brit I grew up idolizing the industrialist Isambard Kingdom Brunel for example). Nowadays there's an epidemic of people that haven't graduated to adulthood despite being in their late 20s, 30s, 40s, heck even 50s+. The kind of examples for kids today include YouTubers and influencers that have little to no value in the real economy. According to some polls the number one job kids aspire to in America is "Social Media Influencer" meanwhile in China (irrespective of your opinions on that country) it's "Astronaut" and "Engineer." In some ways I agree with those that claim social media is a national security threat, not because of accusations of Russian/Chinese election interference or 'misinformation,' but because of something a lot more tangible: its stupefying effect on the population. Even before concerns over the Chinese owned TikTok became a thing domestic companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were already contributing towards the problem, bloody hell they practically kickstarted it, all because their engineers discovered you can induce more usage by enraging users over all other emotions. Jake Paul isn't a misinformation agent, he's just an idiot that makes money from being as dumb as possible.

I'm not necessarily trying to make a judgement over people's souls because I really believe this sort of behavior is redeemable, it may even correct itself as people slowly wake up again... but all of this makes me fearful for the future of my countries (the USA where I live now and my homeland of the UK). I don't put the blame on the majority of people either because the dominant mood today is despair over whether or not we have a future worth working toward. Many people can't afford to start a family for example. I think many of us want the same things but some people have convinced themselves the divide is so large that their own existence is contingent upon the destruction of everyone else and that the only thing worth pursuing, in lieu of any meaningful path to take in the real world, is to be a personality online and thus the descent continues.

 

[zakarhino]

My 14 Pro Max just arrived at the UPS local distribution center. Looking forward to taking lots of pics for sure. Next week I'm gonna see if my local store has any Watch Ultras in stock on release day (I kinda doubt it). I feel like all I really need is the Series 8 though, there's nothing about the Ultra that is essential for me. I don't even need cellular because I've never used my watch without my phone in my pocket.

 

[Citysnaps]

My 14 Pro Max just arrived at the UPS local distribution center. Looking forward to taking lots of pics for sure. Next week I'm gonna see if my local store has any Watch Ultras in stock on release day (I kinda doubt it). I feel like all I really need is the Series 8 though, there's nothing about the Ultra that is essential for me. I don't even need cellular because I've never used my watch without my phone in my pocket.

Excellent and thoughtful analysis up above about the state of social media interaction today, and its consequences.

Regarding your 14 ProMax, there's a recent (about an hour ago) story on MR about a potential iOS 16 bug that may impact iPhone 14 activation, possibly related to "open" (meaning non-private?) WiFi networks. Worth a read. I'm hoping there will be more detailed information tomorrow.

 

[lizkat]

Because it's a goofy, non-Apple name? We're used to iIsland or Apple Island. Dynamic Island just has a weird ring to it. Especially for an Apple product.

That said, I think it's wicked cool and a silly name isn't going to stop me from getting a new phone this year. Even if I didn't think it was a good idea, I'd be getting a new phone (because I'm a grown up who doesn't think Apple needs to produce a product that is 100% perfect for ME).

My problem with 'Dynamic Island' is indeed that it's just hard to remember. I call it 'the thing instead of the notch...'

 

[DT]

I think maybe it's time for the wife and daughter to get an upgrade.

And I totally dig on that design for the Watch Pro, that's probably a "day one" order, definitely the next gen for the wife (not sure if she's into a beefier design).

Oh yeah, maybe the wife DOES want a new phone

 

[Cmaier]

 

[Citysnaps]

View attachment 17714

Curious... did you update your new 14 to iOS 16.0.1 first?

About to move forward on my transfer between phones. And wondering if I should do that (some people saying it **might** prevent a glitch).

 

[Cmaier]

Curious... did you update your new 14 to iOS 16.0.1 first?

About to move forward on my transfer between phones. And wondering if I should do that (some people saying it **might** prevent a glitch).

I don’t think 16.0.1 is even available for other phones?

What I did (which seemed to go smoothly, and had some new wrinkles I’ve never seen before):

1) on old phone, unpair my apple watch
2) start the phone transfer process
3) connect the old and new phones with a wire (via the lightning camera adapter and a lightning cable or two).
4) let it do its thing
5) my main phone account activated pretty easily (took awhile in the background). the phone was shipped to me with it set up for that number, though. (Will do my wife’s phone next, and that one was not set up ahead of time by Apple, so we’ll see what that entails)
6) once everything transferred (took about an hour before it got to the point where I could use the phone, with it doing icloud magic in the background and downloading apps), I tried to transfer my other esim, which is for a prepaid account on a different carrier. it wouldn’t let me (“not eligible.”). I called the carrier, who each year prior had to send me a QR code. This year she asked for my IMEI and told me it would magically happen within 2 hours.
7) she wasn’t quite right. What I needed to do then was to go into settings and “add sim,” and this time it listed my carrier’s name. I was able to select that new entry and everything worked. (Note: it also listed a phone number corresponding to that carrier as another entry, which was already there and does not work if you select it - that came over when it transferred the info from my old phone. So you need two entries, and only the one that just says “carrier name” works).
8) paired my Apple Watch with the new phone
9) activated the device manager software used by my lawfirm. Within about 15 minutes i had my work email and calendar working.
10) go into settings |privacy and enable developer mode
11) pair with Xcode and install a project on it to test that Xcode works with it
12) install the code I need for my RSA app.
13) do the 16.0.1 update. Note that messages was already working, so I don’t know if i really needed to.

That’s it. Everything *seems* to work. Haven’t played with it at all. I do enjoy staring at the dynamic island.

 

[Cmaier]

Found one wrinkle: covid vaccine cards in the Wallet app don’t transfer over. The easiest way to take care of that was for me to point my new phone’s camera at my old phone’s QR code, and then add them to the wallet that way. When I launched “health.app” it did tell me that i could add a vaccine card, but since i have 3 (one for each family member) and it only gave me a chance to do one of them, I needed a way to add the other two.

 

[Citysnaps]

I don’t think 16.0.1 is even available for other phones?

What I did (which seemed to go smoothly, and had some new wrinkles I’ve never seen before):

1) on old phone, unpair my apple watch
2) start the phone transfer process
3) connect the old and new phones with a wire (via the lightning camera adapter and a lightning cable or two).
4) let it do its thing
5) my main phone account activated pretty easily (took awhile in the background). the phone was shipped to me with it set up for that number, though. (Will do my wife’s phone next, and that one was not set up ahead of time by Apple, so we’ll see what that entails)
6) once everything transferred (took about an hour before it got to the point where I could use the phone, with it doing icloud magic in the background and downloading apps), I tried to transfer my other esim, which is for a prepaid account on a different carrier. it wouldn’t let me (“not eligible.”). I called the carrier, who each year prior had to send me a QR code. This year she asked for my IMEI and told me it would magically happen within 2 hours.
7) she wasn’t quite right. What I needed to do then was to go into settings and “add sim,” and this time it listed my carrier’s name. I was able to select that new entry and everything worked. (Note: it also listed a phone number corresponding to that carrier as another entry, which was already there and does not work if you select it - that came over when it transferred the info from my old phone. So you need two entries, and only the one that just says “carrier name” works).
8) paired my Apple Watch with the new phone
9) activated the device manager software used by my lawfirm. Within about 15 minutes i had my work email and calendar working.
10) go into settings |privacy and enable developer mode
11) pair with Xcode and install a project on it to test that Xcode works with it
12) install the code I need for my RSA app.
13) do the 16.0.1 update. Note that messages was already working, so I don’t know if i really needed to.

That’s it. Everything *seems* to work. Haven’t played with it at all. I do enjoy staring at the dynamic island.

Thanks - appreciate it! I don't have the necessary adapters/cables to transfer Lightening to Lightening. But I do have fast WiFi. Oh, on 16.01, I meant installing it first on your new iPhone 14 - and then doing the transfer.

 

[Cmaier]

Thanks - appreciate it! I don't have the necessary adapters/cables to transfer Lightening to Lightening. But I do have fast WiFi. Oh, on 16.01, I meant installing it first on your new iPhone 14 - and then doing the transfer.

Oh, i see. No, I did the OS upgrade after everything was transferred over.

 

[Citysnaps]

Just opened the box and am looking at the phone.

One thing I noticed right away is the top surface of the round shrouds around the camera lenses are black. As opposed to reflective silver-gray on my iPhone 12. I'm hoping that significantly reduces (ideally eliminating) lens flare - though the black is a little reflective, just not as much. Would have been better flat black.

That's been a real issue and pet peeve of mine about the iPhone 12 camera as I've ruined some decent photos in the past not being aware of the issue, nor spotting it when quickly reviewing photos on the phone display in bright light.

And yeah... it's a *big* phone!

 

[Runs For Fun]

Found one wrinkle: covid vaccine cards in the Wallet app don’t transfer over. The easiest way to take care of that was for me to point my new phone’s camera at my old phone’s QR code, and then add them to the wallet that way. When I launched “health.app” it did tell me that i could add a vaccine card, but since i have 3 (one for each family member) and it only gave me a chance to do one of them, I needed a way to add the other two.

Well that's annoying. Thanks for the heads up. Still waiting on delivery!

 

[Andropov]

One thing I noticed right away is the top surface of the round shrouds around the camera lenses are black. As opposed to reflective silver-gray on my iPhone 12. I'm hoping that significantly reduces (ideally eliminating) lens flare - though the black is a little reflective, just not as much. Would have been better flat black.

That's been a real issue and pet peeve of mine about the iPhone 12 camera as I've ruined some decent photos in the past not being aware of the issue, nor spotting it when quickly reviewing photos on the phone display in bright light.

It was already black on the 13

 

[DT]

It was already black on the 13

How much more black can it be?

The answer is none ... none ... more ... black.

 

[Citysnaps]

It was already black on the 13

Did it eliminate/reduce lens flare?

Here's a typical example. The Sun was out of the frame.

 

[lizkat]

How much more black can it be?

The answer is none ... none ... more ... black.

But the front glass or ceramic or whatever might have properties that make it look different.

I would be upgrading from a XR and still thinking instead of a 14 getting an Apple-refurb-shelf 13 model, not sure which one but there's time yet to wait for those to show up. Of the 13's colors i like that product red...