Apple iPhone 6S Mini Rumors

I might even embrace a smaller form factor than my current 4S, but there are limits to how far the trend could progress.

At this point it’s only a rumor but just how sweet would it be if Apple decided to keep a four inch screen variant of their popular iPhone in circulation?  I’ve always considered my iPhone 4S to be the epitome of a well designed ergonomic expression in tech and would welcome an upgraded four inch replacement.  The fact that it might hit the market about the time I expect my aging 4S lithium battery to give up the ghost is also a serendipitous thing to behold.  Another of my special blessings.

I’m not a “big screen” hater which is why I own an iPad Mini.  I might even upgrade to a humongous iPad one of these days, but as far as something that primarily functions as a phone I’d prefer to keep the smaller form factor and I’m sure there are more than a few of my fellow iPhone lovers out there who feel the same way as I do.   It’s not like I can read any of my ‘smart’ devices without glasses anyway, so I’m tossing in my two cents for the continuation of an iPhone with a four inch screen.

Enjoy.

Yosemite Junction

One Button Upgrade

There are aging and arthritic tree sloths with quicker reflexes than the memory/processor/hard-drive combo in my MacMini!

In under a minute I will be starting the ugrade process for my MacMini, to move it into Yosemite Valley OSX.  I am nearly completed with the backing up of what is going to get backed up. I am a bit nervous since my barely tolerable MacMini is crippled by whatever minimum RAM memory configuration it came loaded with.  Curiously, I have not “user-servicable” upgraded it.  It also has a mechanical hardrive that probably came out of the Apollo era.  Live-bogging the upgrade after the jump.

Samsung’s Latest Apple Attack

Fresh on the heals of Samsung’s latest round of advertisements mocking Apple, they’ve gone and released a whole set of creatively vulgar remixes of the Apple Logo itself for use on the home screens of their well-received Galaxy Gear smart watches.  Check them out below the fold.

Advice for Apple

On the off-chance that Apple customer relations and marketing give two tugs on a dead dog’s dick what their end users are thinking about their product line, I will toss this post into the hat for consideration.

AirDrop’s major limitation is that it does not support data transfers between iOS 7 devices and Macs.

That’s it.  I can live and prosper with the rest of their wacky intraworld, but if they don’t get this fixed pretty soon I’m going to be doing to them what Microsoft forced me to do. I’m going to buy a different O/S (think Android) and educate myself on that platform so I can get this ONE function that I ought to already have had on my Apple products for quite awhile now. I might then find a whole new ‘other’ world of functionality I didn’t or hadn’t considered.  Then I’d be ‘off Apple” and I don’t think that’s what they are striving for in the long term.  Now to be fair, I don’t even know if the file transfer function I am looking for even exists in the Google world, but I bet it does.

I wonder how many of us Apple fans are out here in the real world, with the same issue and thinking the same thing?  I bet I am not alone.  There are work-arounds to this and I am currently using them.  This in no way negates my continuing frustration with what I can only deduce, in the era of supercomputing smart phones and multiple wireless transmitters, to be a self inflicted limitation being forced upon me for no reason at all.

Why is Apple trying to frustrate me and others out of their operating system? The lack of universal file transfer functionality is pure and utter hubris on their part and it doesn’t sit well with anybody who is paying any attention.

Enjoy.

Wednesday Tech – Part 5S

The iPhone 5s and 5c have arrived.

Meanwhile, my iPhone 4 is still going strong, and if I’m lucky, by the time it blanks out, Apple might be shipping the iPhone 7. In the meantime, I’m excited at the prospect of moving to iOS7 in the next couple weeks whenever Apple drops the final consumer release to the public.

Technicolor

There have been numerous tech improvements since the iPhone 4.  Processor and camera-related upgrades are de rigueur.  Now we have colors, though to be honest, it’s a brave soul who doesn’t already armor their iDevices in some sort of protective colored condom.

It’s market genius for Apple to promote customers NOT using a case in order to show off their fancy new colored gadgets.  Lots of broken phones to be replaced means more profit. You pay your money and you take your chances.

Aside from the fingerprint reader, the beltway press seems dinterested in the latest chip improvements or hardware advances in Apple’s new offerings, and much more interested that they didn’t drop the price of the colorful plastic model (5c) enough to make a dent in the Android-awash smartphone markets in central Bangladesh.  That’s something I never would have wondered about, let alone contemplated happening, but then I live on planet Earth and don’t get paid big bucks to write deep insipid analysis like Farhad Manjoo.

Tech Thoughts

To be fair, tech improvements beyond the iPhone 4 are far less critical to me than the operating system that runs on it (and the app environment it supports). For most of the world, anything beyond the iPhone 4 is more than adequate technology. That level of tech has now dropped to a zero price point (on contract).  If you want the added bling of color or the latest in Apple smartphone tech it’s available for a couple hundred bucks more.

I’m hard pressed to come up with a defensible reason why upgrading to the latest model iPhone, just to get the bells and whistles of fingerprint scanners, faster chips and camera magic is worth it.  The camera upgrade intrigues me, but I’m savvy enough to know from experience that at the end of the day, it’s still a “phone cam”.

Enjoy