Top Bananas | Monthly Archives: September 2017

The Amazing iPhone Camera

Posted on September 22, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple improved the camera in the latest iPhone that captures even sharper pictures than ever before.

Kodak invented digital photography but clung to film because film was how they made their money. Kodak not only processed film, but they also sold film. Of course back in those early days of digital photography, film offered far superior results than digital photography. By the time Kodak realized that digital photography had equalled film, the world no longer needed film. Kodak’s entire infrastructure based on film quickly collapsed and that was essentially the end of Kodak’s reign as the top photography company in the world.

Digital cameras eventually surpassed film, but the best digital cameras were always dedicated ones. The simple cameras in smartphones simply weren’t good enough to compare to dedicated digital cameras. That will always be the case because dedicated digital cameras have far more room for lenses, but the difference in quality has been shrinking rapidly. Already, many professional photographers rely on the iPhone camera to capture images. Not only is the iPhone camera equal to dedicated digital cameras of the past, but the iPhone camera is far simpler and easier to use.

The physical cost of lugging a dedicated digital camera around is rarely worth the hassle compared to carrying an iPhone around. The best part about an iPhone camera is that it’s almost always with you. After all, you can’t take a picture if you don’t have your camera with you, and you can’t take a picture if you need to take time to pull a dedicated digital camera out of a bag, set it up, and aim when you can just shoot a picture with an iPhone almost instantly.

The camera in the iPhone will never equal dedicated digital cameras, but it can equal (and surpass) the dedicated digital cameras of the past. Since professional photographers relied on dedicated digital cameras years ago, using an iPhone camera is like using a dedicated digital camera from a few years back, except with greater convenience. Today’s dedicated digital camera will eventually be equal to (or surpassed by) tomorrow’s iPhone camera.

The iPhone camera will only continue to get better but it will never equal today’s dedicated digital cameras, but it doesn’t have to. It simply needs to equal yesterday’s dedicated digital cameras because today’s dedicated digital cameras will always be better. The big difference is that the gap between today’s iPhone camera and today’s dedicated digital cameras is shrinking with each new generation.

The iPhone camera is rapidly approaching the point where it’s good enough for professional photographers to use on a regular basis. That means the world of dedicated digital cameras will shrink to a niche for those professional photographers who absolutely need superior technology. For the rest of us, the iPhone camera isn’t just good enough, it’s the best there is.

The Smartphone is Just a Fad

Posted on September 21, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple introduced an LTE connected Apple Watch that can make calls independent of an iPhone.

Within our lifetime, we’ve gone from landline telephones to mobile phones. Many people still don’t have a mobile phone because they rely on a landline, but many others are dumping their landlines and switching entirely to mobile phones. In the old days, a home would only have a single telephone number with multiple telephones scattered around the house. Nowadays, each person has their own mobile phone so landlines are obsolete.

Mobile phones made landlines obsolete, but to think that mobile phones will be around forever is delusional. In the old days, people could only imagine making a telephone call from a landline. today, people can only imagine making a call from a mobile phone. Tomorrow, people may not carry around a mobile phone at all.

The drawback of a landline was that it was fixed in one place. If you weren’t near the telephone when it rang, you missed a call. Answering machines helped solve this problem, but you still could only make a phone call if you were physically near a landline phone.

Nowadays, you can take your mobile phone everywhere you go. The problem is that people lose their mobile phones on a regular basis. People leave them behind at airport security checkpoints, in taxis, on buses, or even at home. A mobile phone is only useful when you have it.

That’s why a wearable mobile phone, in the form of an Apple Watch, can be useful. Not everyone will want or need a wearable phone, but one huge convenience is that it’s always with you as long as you remember to strap it to your wrist. For senior citizens, that means they’ll always have a phone with them at all times, which won’t always happen if they forget to carry their mobile phone with them.

In many ways, a wearable phone is preferable to a mobile phone for senior citizens since many dislike all the features a smartphone typically offers such as web browsing, text messaging, and calendar scheduling. Senior citizens prefer simplicity and there’s nothing simpler than a wearable phone that can make phone calls simply by commanding it to do so with your voice.

For many people, an Apple Watch tethered to an iPhone is fine. For others, an Apple Watch that’s independent of an iPhone is much better. You can choose one or the other, just as you can still choose between an iPhone or an iPod touch that does almost everything an iPhone can do except make phone calls.

In the future, most Apple Watches will let you make phone calls. When that happens, the smartphone will be too small to do work on so tablets will likely make a comeback and start selling more units than smartphones. Whatever happens in the future, it’s likely the smartphone won’t reign forever.

The iOS 11 Files App

Posted on September 20, 2017 by admin Posted in Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: The Files app in iOS 11 gives users access to file management on iOS devices.

For the longest time, many PC users criticized the iPad as a toy because it wouldn’t allow you to manage individual files. Instead, the iPad limited each app to accessing only its own files. While this made it easy to find files used in specific apps, it made managing files much clumsier. The advantage of not having a file management system made the iPad easier to use, but for power users, the lack of a file management system made the iPad too limiting.

Now with iOS 11, Apple has introduced the Files app, which gives power users the ability to manage files while giving most other users the ability to ignore the Files app completely if they wish and continue using their iPad exactly the same as before. This compromise works for everyone because managing files is often the hardest part of using a computer for many novices. By shielding novices from the complexity of file management, the iPad can satisfy their needs without excess complexity. By giving power users file management capabilities, they can use the iPad as a more powerful mobile computer than ever before.

The introduction of the Files app shows that the iPad is gradually becoming the new laptop computer of tomorrow. Before the iPad appeared, the other alternative for an inexpensive mobile computer was the netbook. Netbooks first appeared running Linux but Microsoft quickly dropped the licensing fees of Windows to make Windows the standard netbook operating system, especially when people got frustrated with learning Linux on netbooks and trying to share files with their Windows PC.

Yet as soon as the iPad appeared, the netbook market disappeared practically overnight. The iPad was simply better than the netbook in every way. Of course, people still preferred the greater versatility of laptops so many people used both. This helped give rise to the 2-in-1 device market defined by the Microsoft Surface that’s a combination laptop and tablet. 2-in-1 devices are typically great ultraportable laptops and mediocre tablets, but for people who need a laptop that’s as small and light as a tablet, 2-in-1 devices are perfect.

Now that the iPad has more capabilities such as its file management capabilities, the iPad will only get more powerful over time. That means the traditional laptop will be in danger of getting overtaken by the iPad just as netbooks were overwhelmed by the original iPad. The days of laptops are numbered.

As further evidence that the iPad can replace a laptop, Apple’s processors are getting more powerful, rivaling even Intel’s low-end processors used in the MacBook Pro laptop. As the processors in the iPad grow in power, expect the iPad to start cannibalizing laptop sales. People will see that a laptop that acts like a mediocre tablet will never be as useful as a tablet that acts like a superior laptop. The iPad Pro isn’t quite able to replace laptops, but that’s the future and it’s clear the iPad is targeting the same market as laptops.

Your next laptop will probably still be a laptop, but the replacement for that new laptop will likely be a tablet. Laptops are the only major growth market in the PC industry and once the iPad starts eating into sales of laptops like they ate into sales of netbooks, expect the laptop market to collapse and wither away. People will still need laptops, but they might not always want or need a Windows laptop any more.

The First Wave of Augmented Reality Apps

Posted on September 19, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: With the release of ARKit and iOS 11, Apple has made augmented reality accessible to the masses.

Augmented reality is going to change the way people interact with their smartphones as much as the touch screen interface literally changed the way smartphones work. With the official release of iOS 11, augmented reality apps have started flooding the App Store. By examining these augmented reality apps, you can get a glimpse at the future. Best of all, many of these early augmented reality apps are free.

Most of these early augmented reality apps are games that let you play video games overlaid over the actual image as seen through your iPhone’s camera. A simple, non-game augmented reality app lets you view cars in your driveway so you can see what different cars might look like parked in front of your own home.

Such early uses of augmented reality may be trivial, but just remember that the early iPhone apps used to be trivial such as iFart that let you play different farting noises on the iPhone. When that app first came out, it earned up to $10,000 a day. Nowadays it probably earns far less, but that just shows you how excited people were to find any apps on the App Store in those early days.

The same processor excitement for trivial apps will occur with augmented reality. Some of the more sophisticated augmented reality apps let you measure items without an actual ruler or look in the skies to see constellations in the sky. As developers see what’s possible with augmented reality and get more sophisticated, expect to see more useful augmented reality apps in the near future.

Augmented reality has suddenly given the iPhone a huge advantage over Android devices. If you want to use augmented reality, you won’t find as many augmented reality apps available for Android (and you certainly won’t find them at all for Windows Phone). As augmented reality becomes commonplace, expect to see similar augmented reality apps start popping up on Android. However, augmented reality only works on the most advanced hardware so with Android devices fragmented across so many hardware configurations, only a small subset of all available Android devices can run augmented reality. That creates a frustrating experience for Android users.

In comparison, if you own one of the latest iPhones or iPads, you’ll have no problems using these latest augmented reality apps. Apple’s choices make it easy to run augmented reality. Android’s fragmentation makes it harder to know whether augmented reality will run on certain devices or not.

Try a free augmented reality app and that will give you a clue what the future might bring. Between using augmented reality apps to help you view dance steps to a dance or viewing human anatomy by pointing your iPhone at someone to see their internal organs depicted, augmented reality will change the way we work with smartphones. Android is already behind the augmented reality market and rival operating systems have little chance to catch up. (Think Tizen or Windows Mobile 10.)

The future of iOS belongs to augmented reality. Upcoming versions of iOS will simply continue making augmented reality a game-changer in the smartphone market that Android can never match.

Apple Pay Cash Coming Soon

Posted on September 18, 2017 by admin Posted in Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Apple Pay Cash will be a way to send money to others through an Apple Pay account.

If you want to see the future, look overseas. That’s because other countries are often far more advanced in certain areas than others. For years, Japanese people used mobile phones to store and pay for items. In Kenya, people don’t have access to banks so they rely on a peer-to-peer payment system called M-Pesa, which lets people send money to the mobile phone users without relying on carrying actual cash.

Kenyans had a choice of carrying large amounts of cash with them (which could be stolen) or using M-Pesa to make secure, simple, and fast transactions using a mobile phone. Third world countries like Kenya adopted mobile phones far faster than so-called advanced countries because Kenya lacked the infrastructure to create landlines. So most of the Third world basically skipped landlines and jumped straight to mobile phones, adopting them at a rate far faster than the Western world that had a landline infrastructure already in place. That’s why Kenya is the world leader in mobile phone money transfers.

So Apple Pay Cash is simply a way for the rest of the world to catch up to Kenya. By using Apple Pay Cash, you can send money directly to others. This avoids carrying cash and lets you send money instantly without mailing a check or wiring funds through a bank. Apple Pay Cash will be coming to iOS 11 and watchOS 4, which means you’ll be able to ask for cash and receive it through an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.

Apple Pay Cash likely won’t change the world but it will help make Apple Pay more popular. Once more people get an Apple Pay account, they’ll be more likely to purchase items using Apple Pay. Then Apple will make money on each purchase. Eventually, Apple Pay will earn Apple a sizable chunk of revenue every quarter and help fund Apple’s other projects.

That’s the difference between Apple and rivals. Most Android device makers can offer Android Pay, but they make nothing off each purchase. That’s why Samsung developed Samsung Pay, but they’ll never dominate the Android market because not every Android device will be made by Samsung. Samsung Pay will never be as widespread as Apple Pay because Apple Pay works on the Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Samsung Pay can work on Android smartphones and tablets, but not on PCs. Most likely Samsung will want to get Samsung Pay to work on Android Wear as well, but Android Wear’s share of the wearable computer market is far less than Apple’s share with the Apple Watch. That means Samsung Pay can never hope to equal Apple Pay.

With most rivals shut out from the revenue generated by Android Pay, they won’t have the steady revenue stream to allow them to pursue additional research to make better products. While Apple developed faster, more efficient processors, Android device makers are stuck using third-party components. The only Android device maker that can make their own processors is Samsung, which means rival Android device makers will simply fall further and further behind. Eventually, Samsung will be the dominant Android device maker, but that puts them in an uneasy alliance with Google. That’s why Samsung tried to make their own Tizen operating system to free themselves from Android, but that will likely never work because most developers won’t create Tizen apps and most consumers own’t buy a Tizen smartphone until there are enough apps for it.

Apple Pay Cash is the future that follows M-Pesa in the mobile payment market. Paying by mobile phone will soon be common whether you’re buying something at a store or sending money to each other. Cash is simply disappearing. Cash is great for anonymity but for convenience, mobile payments are far simpler and easier.

Apple’s Growing Processor Expertise

Posted on September 17, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Apple released the new A11 processor along with their own graphics processing unit.

Apple recently broke off collaboration with Imagination Technologies, which was creating graphics processing units for mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. During the recent announcement of the latest iPhone, Apple quietly introduced their own graphics processing unit, which means Apple has long been working on a graphics processor for years and finally felt that their own efforts surpassed anything Imagination Technologies could offer.

One huge problem with relying on third-party products is that those products are generic. Anyone can buy and use them too so Apple doesn’t want the iPhone to contain the exact same components as rival Android smartphones and tablets. More importantly, Apple wants to optimize their graphics processor so it runs faster and more efficiently than anything rivals can offer. That puts rival products at a severe disadvantage because they must use less efficient, slower components. This is partly the reason why Android smartphones tend to offer more RAM and faster processors, yet still run slower than the iPhone. When you dump third-party components together, it’s difficult to optimize them to work together.

The fact that Apple is now designing their own processors simply means that Apple will continue focusing on its own hardware to make it better than any rivals could offer. This makes the typical laundry list of technical specifications meaningless because if you compare to smartphones and one has more RAM than another, it seems like the one with more RAM should be superior. But in actual practice if the one with more RAM runs slower, then it’s actually inferior. The fact that some Android devices need twice as much RAM to run slower than an iPhone with half as much RAM clearly highlights the inefficiency of relying on third-party products.

Other than Samsung, who else can make their own hardware? LG, HTC, Huawei, and others cannot. That relegates them to the relying on third-party products and selling their products for the lowest possible price to gain customers.

The choice is clear. You can pay more to get more with an iPhone, or you can pay less and get less with most rival Android devices. You can even pay just as much for an iPhone and still get an Android device that’s not as good as the iPhone, which makes no sense at all.

As Apple continues to improve its processors and as rivals continue relying on the same components that aren’t as good, the gap in hardware quality will continue to grow. Do you want an optimized device or do you want a less optimized device? The less optimized device is fine if you’re willing to pay a lower price, but makes no sense if you pay just as much as an iPhone. Toss in the optimization Apple can do with iOS to work with specific hardware and how Google cannot optimize Android to work with any particular hardware and the optimization between the iPhone and Android devices grows even larger.

Android gets the job done and if that’s all you want, it will work just fine. However, if you want the best, then the choice is clear. You want an iPhone.