Victor Marks
This week on the AppleInsider podcast, Victor talks about the iPhone battery debacle, supply chain orders for iPhone X, and has an interview with synthesizer musician Suzanne Ciani.
AppleInsider editor Victor Marks discusses:
- Deals: Adorama this week has Apple's Late 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in Space Gray (part # MLH12LL/A) for $1,299.00 with $500 off coupon code APINSIDER. This is the absolute lowest entry price into a Touch Bar MacBook Pro with other retailers selling the same system for $300 more.
- Apple rumored to cut orders on iPhone X. Conversely, Rosenblatt Securities thinks this is wrong, iPhone 8 / 8 Plus orders are being cut, iPhone X is adding sales in China.
- Amazon Alexa tops the App Store charts in the US. Victor relates what it's like to set up Amazon Echo Dot outside the US, and how a $29 dollar speaker competes with the concept of a $350 HomePod.
- Apple to release the source code of the Lisa operating system and launch applications to the Computer History Museum. This is one that matters for archival and educational purposes.
- Apple's battery nightmare. Apple has issued a note calling it a 'misunderstanding', reducing price for replacement to $29, and promising to update the OS to let users know their battery status. Victor isn't at all sure this solves the experience problem of being confronted with a warning that your battery is bad immediately after an OS update.
- Qualcomm, Apple, and Apple's exploration into using MediaTek's baseband radios.
- Mike's Pixelmator Pro review, now with more Machine Learning
- Apple's plans for dividends, stock buybacks, and repatriation.
- Suzanne Ciani, one of the best synthesizer artists in the world, talks about her experiences with computers in music, Mac, iPad, and more.
The show is available on iTunes and your favorite podcast apps by searching for "AppleInsider." Click here to listen, subscribe, and don't forget to rate our show.
Listen to the embedded SoundCloud feed below:
Show note links:
- Adorama this week has Apple's Late 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar in Space Gray (part # MLH12LL/A) for $1,299.00 with $500 off coupon code APINSIDER. This is the absolute lowest entry price into a Touch Bar MacBook Pro with other retailers selling the same system for $300 more, according to our 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar Price Guide. What's more, Adorama will not collect sales tax on orders shipped outside NY and NJ, saving many shoppers another $100 on average. Expedited shipping is also free to the lower 48 for fast delivery. To compare this deal with discounts on 2017 Touch Bar MacBook Pro models, shoppers would need to spend $350 more to upgrade to Apple's standard 2017 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. This deal, which is valid while supplies last, is available only at AppleInsider using the APINSIDER promo code.
- Supply chain scuttlebutt stokes fears that Apple's $999 iPhone X price is too high
- Rosenblatt Securities disputes iPhone X order cut rumors, says no changes in Apple's plans
- Advanced TrueDepth camera, Face ID "major drivers" of iPhone X user satisfaction
- Apple tops device activations during holidays, iPhone X handily beating iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
- Computer History Museum will host Apple Lisa source code following review
- Apple's non-invasive glucose reader for Apple Watch may be 'years away'
- As Apple's HomePod misses Christmas, Amazon Alexa tops App Store charts for first time
- Home security camera company Blink bought out by Amazon
- Why Apple's Siri needs to become an 'ambient' ecosystem to compete against Amazon & Google
- As Qualcomm dispute drags on, Apple said to tap MediaTek for additional 2018 iPhone modem capacity
- Hands On: New Pixelmator Pro 1.0.5 brings Machine Learning to image editing
- Third iPhone battery lawsuit says Apple used slowdowns to avoid fixing defects
- Apple apologizes for iPhone slowdown controversy, will reduce out-of-warranty battery replacement to $29
- Suzanne Ciani's Wikipedia bio
Follow our host on Twitter: @vmarks.
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11 Comments
Apple has inadvertently hurt itself. Trying to help can hurt yourself. Lesson learned. Let customer replace battery when they feel the performance(frequent charge per day) is not as good due to battery ability to keep up. Let IOS warn user about battery issue and let iphone continue working(freeze,shutdown,less responsive,etc) like that.
If Apple didn't slow down older iPhone to avoid old battery created less accepted performance of iPhone which persuade customers to upgrade than Apple could have sold more iphones even that was not there intention. Apple, learn from Chinese and Korean phone manufacturers. Never admit publicly any fault to your products or accept any fault until like battery explodes in your face.
Waiting until the battery explodes isn't the right answer either.
What if instead, when they introduced the feature that throttles the CPU to keep it alive in iOS10, they had put up a pop up saying, "your battery doesn't hold as much charge as it did when it was new. You now have 76% (or whatever). Tap to set up an appointment to get your battery serviced. If you don't, your phone may perform slower because the battery doesn't have enough power."
All of this would have been averted.
They should have tried to avoid the hidden slowdown (it didn't occur to them that it was hidden information) and they should have tried to avoid the impression of "the new OS has made my phone slow." An informational popup saying "service your battery" after updating is also potentially awkward.
That is, none of these experiences are great, but they're better than Apple causing mistrust.
Weird listening to just Victor but another good episode, hopefully Neil is back next week.
I agree that Apple should have informed users about slowing down iPhones. They made a mistake and they are taking steps to make it right.
However, I’ve been listening to this podcast for a while and it seems lately that every podcast has been really negative towards Apple. Victor made the comment in this podcast that there are no answers to the battery debacle and what they are doing now isn’t good enough. He focuses on what Apple should have done. Yes they should have informed users from the beginning but that time has come and gone. What about some ideas as to what they could do now? The way the topic was left was really negative and it felt hopeless in a way.
In the previous weeks podcasts both Neil and Victor rip on Apple about software bugs. Yes there were some major and minor software bugs and Apple should be held accountable for these but how about balancing this out with something you like about the iOS experience?
I’m excited about technology and I’m excited about Apple but lately this podcast has been depressingly negative and unfortunately it has left me feeling down and hopeless about Apple. How about some excitement towards what is working well and what you like to balance out the negative?