About expectations from announcements Apple and the real state of affairs, hopes for new form factors of smartphones and a time machine Meizu, multi-window mode Android N and more …
Theoretically, the most important and interesting event since the end of the MWC should have been the presentation Apple. On the one hand, everyone understood perfectly well that no breakthrough was to be expected and that all the most interesting things would only be shown to us six months later, during the presentation iPhone 7. On the other, this is Apple! Can't a company arrange a whole event and not show anything interesting at all?
As it turned out, it can. All the salt of the novelties can be described with one single phrase from Sergey Kuzmin's article – 'iOS you can't put in' Meizu ', well, many people cannot live without iOS.' Well, those who really cannot live without an operating system for mobile devices will probably be satisfied. Another thing is that there is no point in dwelling on the processor model, case color or mobile operating system for most people. That after the announcements of new Samsung Galaxy smartphones, that after the announcements of new (although now it would be more correct to say – flagship) models iPhone, data on a huge number of 'defectors' appear on the network every time, who switch to a new product from smartphones to' enemy 'OS. Fans of these brands each time try to pass it off as convincing proof that their favorite manufacturer or their favorite OS is head and shoulders above the competitor's solutions. In fact, most people don't buy the OS, the processor, or even the case material. They buy a single and indivisible device, a finished product, rather than a set of popular geek components. Therefore, they change devices on different hardware and with different software without any remorse or problems.
The presented products are not bad, someone will probably buy them and will be glad, but in general, nothing outstanding. There are dozens of similar announcements in a year, and they are of primary interest to those who are thinking about buying a device from this price category. Everyone else can safely pass by, there is no new information or fresh ideas here. This is completely normal – but not exactly what is expected from old memory Apple.
In fact, we need to understand one simple truth – despite the old name, we have a different company before us. Maybe she's better. Maybe worse. But she will not go the same way as before, in any case. For those who still habitually expect to see Jobs on stage with his 'One More Thing', it's time to finally realize that he's been gone for a long time.
Some will say that the same designers and engineers remained to work in Apple as under Jobs. That no one took the developments, patents and software from the Apple company. And that the same iPhone SE is a typical representative of the line iPhone, which can be blamed for anything, but not for dubious innovations and disregard of traditions. If so, what has changed? It's just that another person is entering the stage now, that's all.
The change is about the same as in Nokia after the change of leadership. There were also patents, people, factories, logo, brand stores and other important things. In any case, at first. Only the goals and methods of achieving them have changed. And although at first it was not striking, after a couple of years the company became unrecognizable. In the case of Nokia, the changes were negative, in the case of Apple they can become positive, it can even be assumed that in a year or two we will throw together Tim Cook at the monument. But in any case, there will be no 'as before', even if some fans (and sometimes haters) of the brand are not satisfied with this.
The main difference that changes absolutely everything is a different approach to creating devices. Before iPhone there was always one – the best. Plus a few more old models, which were the embodiment of the same idea, but managed to get a little outdated. Moreover, it was more outdated in theory than in practice – updates with all the new chips (albeit with a number of reservations like Siri) continued to flow on them regularly, there was no fundamental difference in functions, capabilities or physical dimensions. When asked, 'what is your phone number', they usually answered simply – iPhone, and the specific model was already the tenth thing.
Any step away from the original concept was an admission that the flagship was not perfect and, at least in theory, could not suit everyone, and that was unacceptable. The very idea that the current screen diagonal may not be optimal simply should not have occurred to users. Yes, and most of Jobs himself, it probably did not occur to him – in the first place iPhone was the ideal phone for him personally, he did not care what anyone else thought about this. And since he didn't need a 'shovel' the size of a tablet, it was automatically assumed that no one needed it.
Now everything is completely different, iPhone and iPad are not just a phone and a tablet, they are solid lines of different devices. Diagonals of current models of smartphones range from 4 to 5.5 inches, tablets – from 7.9 to 12.9 inches. There is no question of any ideal options, the most comfortable sizes, or even stylus, which, as we remember, are not needed by anyone. Here are a dozen devices for every taste and color, choose which one is closer to you.
This is probably correct. And it unambiguously meets today's market realities. But this is a fundamentally different approach, a view not just from a different bell tower, but practically from a different universe. There will be no revolutions in the past now, there will be painstaking work to expand the model range and further improve the devices. A true revolutionary always puts everything at stake, never deviates from the intended goal and fights for his truth to his last breath. And this is clearly not the way of Cook. He is much closer to the classic version, familiar to any manager – we never put on zero, we don’t put all our eggs in one basket, carefully observe the competitors and always try to spread straws for ourselves. If he were an artist, he probably would have painted each picture in several versions at once: with an African American, a mother of many children, an Indian and an Amur tiger holding a Greenpeace poster. Just in case.
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For me, the only surprise was that iPhone SE will fit covers from iPhone 5S.
Keeping in mind the constant invention of new SIM-card formats and all sorts of tiny adapter cables for Lightning at $ 30 apiece, I was sure that the size of the new item would be a couple of millimeters larger. Just so that you can make good money on accessories. But no, this time nothing happened.
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Whatever changes affect Apple, one thing remains unchanged – the popularity of the 'apple' style among producers. And at the same time, the willingness of fans to accuse everyone and everything of vile copying of someone else's design. And it doesn’t matter that Meizu Pro 6 has not yet been announced, and iPhone 7 has never been seen, the verdict is final and cannot be appealed – “the Chinese stole the design”.
'The Chinese stole the design'
As evidence, they usually cite all sorts of leaks that appear on the network long before the official presentation of smartphones. But today the situation is such that it is simply impossible to understand from the photograph alone which company this or that device belongs to. Especially if the company logo is not visible on it.
So, some time ago, photos of some unknown smartphone got into the network, which was immediately mistaken for iPhone 7. And, of course, this news immediately spread across all profile resources and collected a bunch of enthusiastic comments. There was only one problem – in fact, the photo was not iPhone 7, but Meizu Pro 6.
Probably, Meizu were very happy with such a number of warm reviews and immediately rushed to declare that this was their phone. Vice President Meizu Li Nan even personally posted on a Chinese social network a photo of the yet unannounced novelty, which clearly shows the corporate logo.
Alas, the effect turned out to be strictly the opposite – disappointed fans rushed to declare that the designers Meizu simply copied the design of the future iPhone 7, which means that the company has absolutely nothing to be proud of.
If I were employees Meizu, then I would simply file a patent for a time machine, honestly.
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Leaks are generally unreliable. The fact that the early prototype has some interesting function does not mean that it will appear in the commercial version of the device. And sometimes the decision is made at the very last moment. There are a lot of such cases, for example, you can take the same SGS3, where the function of turning pages with a glance was in the pre-sale samples.
So I would treat the next leak about a full-fledged windowed mode in the new Android with a certain degree of skepticism. We are talking about the support of the new OS version of a full-fledged multi-window mode, similar to the capabilities of desktop OS. Surely work in this direction is underway, and in some third-party assemblies there is such a mode, but whether it will appear in Android N (and on which devices it will be active) is a big question.
Although, according to the assurances of software developers who got access to early assemblies Android N, now such a function is really present in it. Windows can be moved from place to place, arbitrarily resized, and so on. And this is already a little more than what was shown to us at the presentation.
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On the other hand, I don't think that this mode will be of much use on smartphones or tablets. The current OS capabilities for current devices are quite enough, if you change something, then first of all it is hardware, and almost the maximum is already squeezed out of the software. If we talk about the design and form factors of modern devices, here we see a regression rather than progress. Even good old clamshells or side sliders cannot be found with fire in the daytime, what can we dream of something bigger.
Much depends on how this year goes. First of all, how will buyers like the idea of a modular smartphone LG G5.
For LG this is only the first cautious step in this direction and if everything goes well, then the idea of modules will be developed further. For example, the other day the company plans to hold a special conference for developers, at which experts will discuss in detail the future of modular smartphones in general and modules for LG G5 in particular.
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The only trouble is that the flagship is an expensive thing and not everyone will be able to try out the idea of modules. Maybe the majority of users would have liked it, but they just can't or don't want to shell out a huge heap of money for such a phone.
Let's hope that over time, LG G5 will have a budget cousin, especially since LG began to practice a similar approach. For example, X cam and X screen smartphones will be on sale this week in South Korea, the first of which inherited a dual camera from the flagship, and the second received an additional screen with an 'Always-on' function, as in LG V10 .
The devices will also reach other countries, only a little later.
Main specifications LG X cam:
- Communication standards support: 4G / LTE
- Dimensions: 147.5×73.6×5.2-6.9 mm
- Weight: 118g
- Processor: 1.14 GHz, eight-core
- Platform: Android 6.0 Marshmallow
- Display: 5.2-inch, In-cell Touch, 1920 × 1080 resolution
- Main camera: 13 MP + 5 MP
- Front camera: 8 MP
- Memory: 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth, USB, GPS
- Battery: 2520 mAh
Main technical characteristics LG X screen:
- Communication standards support: 4G / LTE
- Dimensions: 142.6×71.8×7.1 mm
- Processor: 1.26 GHz Quad Core
- Platform: Android 6.0 Marshmallow
- Main display: 4.93-inch, In-cell Touch, 1280 × 720 resolution
- Secondary display: 1.76-inch, 520×80 pixels
- Main camera: 13 MP
- Front camera: 8 MP
- Memory: 2 GB RAM, 16 GB internal
- Communications: Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth, USB, GPS
- Battery: 2300 mAh
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While the company LG decided to use trump cards at MWC, Samsung chose to keep its ace up its sleeve for the time being. What it is is not yet clear, but you can recall that once Samsung planned to launch a folding or folding device on the market by 2016.
Offtopic: the future through Samsung's eyes
And patents for such devices are popping up on the net with enviable constancy. For example, like this:
The picture shows a flexible screen slider that allows the display to slide out and back out.
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I would like to believe that we will still see all this abundance of various form factors and unusual devices on store shelves, and not only in patents leaked into the network. As for me, it's high time.
