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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.

Time Magazine uses the iPhone Camera

Posted on September 11, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Time Magazine captured pictures using the camera in the iPhone.

When digital photography first appeared, film was so far superior that Kodak assumed it would always stay that way. Eventually, digital cameras captured images that equaled film, and when that happened, digital photography proved far less expensive and accessible to people than film, which spelled the end of the film business for Kodak. Now practically everyone, including professional photographers, use digital cameras. More surprising is that many professional photographers also rely on nothing more than the camera in the iPhone.

Time magazine recently asked Brazilian photographer Luisa Dörr to capture images of women for a series highlighting women in America. To capture these images, Luisa Dörr used nothing more than a reflector and an iPhone.

There’s a saying that the best camera is the one you have with you, which appears to be the case with Dörr. Because the iPhone is always in her pocket, Dörr can capture great pictures anywhere, anytime without lugging around bulky professional camera equipment. Even better, the iPhone is less intrusive so subjects tend to behave more naturally than the often stilted poses photographers get when they force people to appear in a studio surrounded by various equipment.

“I like the simplicity of how these pictures are made. But the best part is that as a photographer, you feel extremely light and free. It is almost as if I can make pictures with my hand,” Dörr said. “There’s no noise, gadgets, tools or plugs—just the subject and myself.”

The iPhone’s camera alone is becoming the most crucial tool for professional photographers so if it’s good enough for them, it’s more than adequate for the average consumer. Even the handful of professional photographers who prefer to lug around bags full of equipment can’t deny that the iPhone is far more convenient to use and captures images that are nearly as good as dedicated digital cameras.

The debate about film and digital photography is long over. Now the debate about dedicated cameras vs. the iPhone camera is also nearly over. Dedicated digital cameras will always be superior to the iPhone camera, but the iPhone camera is much easier to use. Given the small advantages dedicated digital cameras offer, it’s only a matter of time before dedicated digital cameras become more expensive and less common. The iPhone camera doesn’t just rely on greater megapixel resolution but on various software and hardware features to help capture the best picture possible.

The best smartphones offer the best cameras, and one of the best smartphones on the market is the iPhone. You may be able to find high-end Android phones that offer better cameras, but it’s much simpler just to depend on an iPhone for camera quality rather than research the various Android offerings to find the best camera on the market.

The iPhone camera is helping make the iPhone unique, and that’s before any including any additional features the iPhone may have to offer.

Siri, Coming to a Device Near You

Posted on September 8, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Siri is Apple’s natural language voice assistant.

In 2011, Apple introduced Siri, the world’s first commercial voice assistant program for consumers. In the past, voice recognition meant arduous training by repeating the same word or phrase multiple times until the voice recognition program could finally recognize your voice. Then if someone else wanted to use that voice recognition program, they’d have to train it with their own voice. This limitation meant that few people bothered to use voice recognition systems because they took time to train and even worse, if your voice changed because you got sick with a cold or flu, then the voice recognition program wouldn’t recognize your voice.

That all changed with Siri. Siri began as a third-party product that was originally designed for iOS, Android, and Blackberry OS, but Apple bought the rights to Siri and positioned it solely as an iOS feature. Initially, Siri worked but wasn’t that useful for many people. Still, it was remarkable that Siri worked at all without prior training and with multiple users. Even more amazing was that Siri could recognize voice commands in multiple languages including Cantonese, Hebrew, Norwegian, and Turkish in addition to English. Even today, rivals like Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Now only work with English and a handful of other languages.

For the longest time, Apple didn’t seem to bother improving Siri so rivals caught up and surpassed it. Amazon scored a huge hit with their Echo product and Google offered a similar product as well. Now Apple will be releasing HomePod that puts Siri in a stand-alone device.

What’s important about Siri isn’t just it’s ability to recognize far more languages than its rivals, and even offer rudimentary translation of languages. What’s crucial is that Siri will soon spread everywhere on the Macintosh, iPhone/iPad, Apple Watch, and HomePod. Wherever you have an Apple device, you’ll be able to use Siri.

In comparison, Microsoft’s Cortana works just fine on PCs, but has limited exposure in the mobile and wearable computer market. Microsoft has essentially killed their smartphone operating system and killed Microsoft Band, their wearable computer. Google’s voice assistant works on Android, which dominates the smartphone market, but has little presence on desktop computers and wearable computers. Amazon dominates the home market with their inexpensive Echo devices, and has limited exposure on Amazon Fire tablets. However, Amazon has little presence on smartphones, desktop computers, or wearable computers.

That means only Apple has the potential to bring you a voice assistant on any device you might use. Use a Windows PC and you can use Cortana. Use an Android smartphone and you can use Google Now. Use an Amazon Echo and you can use Amazon Alexa. That might not be a problem since all voice assistants work alike, but all of them are far behind Siri in understanding multiple languages, and all of them are behind Siri when it comes to being available on all devices possible.

If you stick with Apple products, you’ll be able to use Siri everywhere. If you use a combination of products from other companies, you’ll wind up with different voice assistants. As Siri gets smarter (along with its rivals), it’s likely people will get comfortable using their favorite voice assistant. As the iPhone continues to grow its market share and the iPad continues dominating the tablet market while the Macintosh keeps growing in the desktop computer market and the Apple Watch dominates the smart watch market, Siri will be everywhere and rival voice assistants will not.

Even if Siri remains behind its rivals, improvements to Siri can help it catch up. On the other hand, rivals must suddenly learn a dozen other languages and find a way to appear on all types of devices. It’s easy for Apple to improve Siri. It’s hard for Google or Amazon to suddenly teach their voice assistants to understand Thai, French, or Mandarin, and it’s nearly impossible for them to start selling devices that range from desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, and wearable computers.

Whether Apple continues exploiting their lead with Siri or allows Siri to fall behind its rivals is the question. The only way Siri can flop is if Apple stumbles. The voice assistant market is there for Apple to dominate. It’s just a matter of hoping that Apple will make Siri the best voice assistant on the market.

Deutsche Bank Dropping Blackberry

Posted on September 2, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Deutsche Bank has finally dropped Blackberry as their standard smartphone.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Blackberry dominated the enterprise market. Ten years later, Deutsche Bank was one of the few major companies still relying on Blackberry although they also allowed employees to bring their own devices as well. Now Deutsche Bank has officially dropped Blackberry in favor of Apple’s iOS devices instead.

Blackberry has been dead in the smartphone market for years, but lo0ok how long it still managed to linger with a company as large as Deutsche Bank. That just shows how slow the enterprise market is to switch platforms, despite consumers already voting with their pocketbooks years ago. This also shows how the enterprise is warming up to iOS as the standard mobile operating system device.

In the past, the enterprise market standardized on Windows as the desktop operating system, and in most corporations, Windows is still deeply entrenched with no signs of losing its grip. However, iOS has staked out the mobile market, which is growing faster and will changing more rapidly. The mobile market is where the future lies.

This is why Microsoft tried to position Windows as a desktop and tablet operating system (and now a smartphone operating system as well) so they could keep Windows entrenched in the enterprise market. However, it’s unlikely corporations will stick solely with Windows when Windows currently doesn’t run on smartphones and only works as a suboptimal tablet operating system. Given a choice between using Windows on a tablet or iOS (or even Android) on a tablet, most people prefer anything but Windows.

Microsoft’s Surface devices work best as ultraportable laptops and tablets as a secondary feature. Few people are buying Surface devices solely to use them as tablets. That just indicates that Windows is not the tablet operating system of the future but iOS already is.

With Deutsche Bank finally dropping Blackberry, it’s apparent how slowly and reluctantly the enterprise market adopts software standards. Windows will likely be around for another decade or more but Windows simply can’t make much inroads in the mobile market that iOS has already captured. Given a choice between using an iPad as a tablet or a Microsoft Surface device as a tablet, guess which one more corporations will likely choose?

Just walk through any major corporations and you can still see Windows XP running on many PCs. To expect corporations to shift away from Windows on PCs is nearly impossible, but that’s why every day makes iOS more and more of a corporate standard. One day we’ll see corporations still relying on old iPads alongside Windows XP PCs. When that day finally arrives, we’ll know that iOS has finally dominated the enterprise market.

Google Introduces ARCore for Android

Posted on August 30, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Google announced ARCore, a set of tools for creating augmented reality apps on Android.

Three years ago back in 2014, Google introduced Project Tango, which hoped to offer augmented reality to Android. Yet Project Tango didn’t seem to ignite any interest in augmented reality since that time. Then Apple introduced ARKit in 2017 and suddenly developers are rapidly creating augmented reality apps for the upcoming iOS 11.

To encourage Android developers to embrace augmented reality, Google recently announced ARCore, based on Project Tango. The main idea behind ARCore is to give Android developers access to augmented reality on Android. The huge obstacle facing Android is hardware. Many Android devices don’t possess the necessary processors to display augmented reality, which means only a handful of Android devices will be able to take advantage of ARCore. On the other hand, ARKit makes augmented reality accessible for recent models of the iPhone and iPad Pro.

So even though Android has a larger market share, fewer Android devices can run ARCore. In the meantime, iOS has a much smaller market share than Android, but a large majority of those users will be able to use augmented reality.

That means a large percentage of iPhone and iPad users will be able to use augmented reality while a large percentage of Android users will not. That will create a frustrating experience for Android. Whether that drives Android users to switch to iOS remains to be seen, but it’s likely that augmented reality will become popular first on iOS and then later become popular on Android. That big question is how long will it take before augmented reality on Android becomes as commonplace as augmented reality will become on iOS this fall?

Augmented reality will be the major difference between iOS and Android. If you can see the potential of augmented reality, then you’ll want an iPhone or iPad. If you have no use for augmented reality, then it won’t make much difference which platform you choose.

Android devices have largely caught up to the iPhone and iPad in terms of hardware, but they stumble consistently in trying to catch up to iOS in software. Android devices typically need faster processors and more memory just to fall behind slower iPhone/iPad processors that use less memory. Now with augmented reality about to arrive this fall, Apple has a new way to differentiate their products from Android competitors. Android can fight back with ARCore, but ARCore does no good if it can’t run on the majority of Android devices available today.

Augmented reality is Apple’s way of convincing people to skip Android and get an iOS device. Already third-party developers have demonstrated augmented reality apps, but it’s likely that Apple will demonstrate their own augmented reality apps for Maps and other apps that come with iOS.

The future belongs to augmented reality. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how much of a lead Apple can create between themselves and Android when it comes to the growing augmented reality market.

To read more about ARCore, click here.

Seeing the Future in Augmented Reality

Posted on August 29, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software, User Interface Leave a comment

What it is: Developers have been using ARKit to create different uses for augmented reality.

It’s no secret that Apple has been acquiring augmented reality companies over the past few years. With the recent release of ARKit, Apple has now given developers access to their augmented reality features and that will simply generate more momentum towards buying and using iPhones and iPads.

One unique example of augmented reality is Kabaq, which lets restaurant patrons examine 3-D images of food so they can see exactly what they’re ordering. In many Japanese restaurants, they use wax depictions of food so you can see what you’re ordering. Now with Kabaq, patrons can use an iPad to view possible food choices. This will likely dominate the restaurant industry and kill the Japanese wax food industry.

More importantly, Kabaq demonstrates the latest possibilities of augmented reality to show you something that doesn’t really exist. Expect Kabaq to spread widely throughout the high-end restaurant industry as both a unique feature for restaurants and a way to give customers exactly what they want.

Kabaq demonstrates that augmented reality isn’t just a gimmick but offers real-world applications. Once Apple officially releases iOS 11 and the next iPhone, expect plenty of augmented reality apps to come from developers who won’t be creating equivalent Android augmented reality apps initially. That means all the augmented reality excitement will exist solely on iOS, not Android.

While only a handful of people will likely switch from Android to iOS to take advantage of augmented reality, expect augmented reality apps in Android to be far more limited because the hardware used in various Android devices isn’t uniform and may not be powerful enough to handle augmented reality. That means Android device owners may or may not be able to use augmented reality, which will create a frustrating experience for Android users.

Augmented reality is going to be the prime difference between Android and iOS, and Android won’t be able to catch up because of its hardware fragmentation. That means all the best augmented reality apps will work smoothly on most iOS devices and sporadically on a handful of Android devices. For people who see the benefits of augmented reality, they’ll either have to switch to iOS or buy a high-end Android device that likely costs just as much as an iPhone or iPad. Given a choice between paying just as much for an iPhone or iPad as for an Android device, expect a trickle of customers to choose iOS over Android solely to gain the augmented reality features.

In the world of mobile operating systems, Android wins by market share, but iOS will win in terms of convenience and advanced features. The biggest growth of iOS will come from augmented reality and it will come at the expense of Android. Android needs to offer similar augmented reality features that work on all Android devices, and that will come within a few years, but by then iOS will cement its position as the best platform for augmented reality.