[Updated] Far Out Stuff - Apple September 2022 Event Thread, Expectations, Reality and stuff.

[vetali]

My guess is they are gauging usage for the first two years to decide what to charge or bake it into (e.g. apple one, or fitness plus). There was an info-graph of how the system worked. If the local 911 center does not support text to 911 (a lot don't in rural areas) then it goes to a "logistics center" and they contact 911 off of the satellite ping. I don't recall anything about if it pings back to you. I assume not.

[hishnash]

18 minutes ago, vetali said:

I don't recall anything about if it pings back to you. I assume not.

They did mention that it can ping back to you, they can ask you follow up questions and you can response but it just takes a long time... that is why they start it out with a wizard so your first message includes as much info as possible. 

[saltycaramel]

The mind boggles at the possibilities of third party Live Activities and widgets on the full color always-on lockscreen of iPhone 14 Pro.

 

So called “always on” display of Android phones is amateur hour compared to this. 

 

https://overcast.fm/+FXx650Foc/33:02

[RedRound2]

9 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

The mind boggles at the possibilities of third party Live Activities and widgets on the full color always-on lockscreen of iPhone 14 Pro.

 

So called “always on” display of Android phones is amateur hour compared to this. 

 

https://overcast.fm/+FXx650Foc/33:02

That's sort of Apple's MO. They may sometimes do things very late, but they make the implementation so well thought out, that it becomes the unsaid rule from then on for all competitors.

Especially with Dynamic Island - which basically turned a notch into a fun, user interactable, functional design item.

[Thaldor]

23 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

The mind boggles at the possibilities of third party Live Activities and widgets on the full color always-on lockscreen of iPhone 14 Pro.

 

So called “always on” display of Android phones is amateur hour compared to this. 

 

https://overcast.fm/+FXx650Foc/33:02

It's basicly a fracking joke at this point. OLED screens (no, Apple does not have some magic pixie dust technology that no one else has) consumes as much power as the pixels it needs to use, even if they are dimmed. Updating the screen once a second doesn't change anything except in the processing side, with e-ink screens this would be different since they retain the image without consuming power, OLEDs consume power to retain the image, LCD is even worse because it needs to power the whole screen to retain the image. AOD should use as few pixels as possible to conserve power, as in turn the whole screen black except the things user has chosen to be shown with hopes it's just something like time and notification marker because you can do those with few handfuls of pixels and even then you optimally would like to have either blue, green or red because the screen then only needs to power the subpixels.

 

What Apple in my knowledge does is just dimm the lock screen and calls it a day. Yeah, you can read whole messages from it and see your pretty image but it's jsut dimming the screen and not really conserving a lot of power by dropping the display power consumption to less than few percents from full. You basicly can get to the same by just dimming your screen.

[saltycaramel]

Just now, Thaldor said:

What Apple in my knowledge does is just dimm the lock screen and calls it a day. Yeah, you can read whole messages from it and see your pretty image but it's jsut dimming the screen and not really conserving a lot of power by dropping the display power consumption to less than few percents from full. You basicly can get to the same by just dimming your screen.

 

Actually, no.

[Kisai]

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well no that's not what we/you are talking about if you are making a point about codecs and format compression. FLAC has nothing to do with anything else, it is it's own isolated thing. When you bring in a DAC or audio processor that supports FLAC format and decompression it actually has defined bitrate support (like DTS and Dolby does) so if you ignore supported bitrate and format negotiations and send something it cannot support you'll get no audio at all or simply noise (purely noise and nothing else).

 

When talking about lossless audio formats that exclusively is talking about the audio file itself. Pure analogue, live not recorded, isn't "lossless" either but that's really not the point about "lossless".

Audiophile arguments tend to fall into this fun twilight zone of "Your lossless is not as good as my lossless because mine used gold plated cables"

 

Digital files, If I copy a file from media A to media B, that is lossless, regardless of the underlying file. However if I instead decide to compress it with LZ (zip/rar) or LZMA (7z/xz) Iv'e increased the complexity of the ability to read the file later. So while the raw file might be larger and take longer to read from the media, the compressed one is computationally more expensive to save disk space. Disk space today is relatively cheap, so the only reason to compress things aggressively is to instead save the bandwidth somewhere else in the process. That can be the internet, that can be PCIe bandwidth, that can memory bandwidth, that can be wireless bandwidth, that can be CAV optical media bandwidth, etc.

 

Lossy compression however is on both sides of the question. You can have analog loss on the mastering/ADC end or analog loss on the DAC end, but those are choices the user takes, and some people just don't care to have a $800 headphones to listen to lossy mp3 files. The lossy compression on the actual audio signal however... guh, I remember people compressing MP3's to 320kbit to just make it "nearly lossless" just to play it on the device, while the standard lossy mp3 was 96-128kbit and most people were just fine listening to it (I wasn't, cause I could hear the lossy warbling.) AAC and OPUS codecs have different ways of throwing away bits.

https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,120166.0.html

 

What people don't realize, is that a codec designed for music (AAC) doesn't work as well for podcasts, and vice versa. However what some people attribute to "the lossy encoding" is really attributed to the encoder. If you are listening to something on youtube or spotify, it's in fact been lossy compressed twice, without any tuning towards it being music or speech. If you want to listen to lossless music, your only choice is listening to it on itunes by buying it.

 

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT212183

Quote

Apple has developed its own lossless audio compression technology called Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). In addition to AAC, the entire Apple Music catalog is now also encoded using ALAC in resolutions ranging from 16-bit/44.1 kHz (CD Quality) up to 24-bit/192 kHz.

 

So the CD quality things were originally mastered that way, so as far as we're concerned they are exactly the same as buying the CD, which is the point. 24-bit/192khz, is better, but generally the only people who will actually notice that are people with the equipment to do so. You're not going to notice the difference on earbuds, and definitely will not on wireless/bluetooth headsets of any kind, because the wireless devices are always going to be lossy, because the devices do not have 4.7MB (that's MegaBYTES)'s of bandwidth to decode the maximum theoretical audio channel configuration (7.1 channels.)

Quote

Audio Playback

• Supported formats include AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby Atmos
• Spatial Audio playback

 

https://www.apple.com/ca/iphone-14-pro/specs/

 

Bluetooth 5's maximum bandwidth is 5 MegaBITS. So no, it's not going to be lossless by any means. At best, assuming you only have 2 tracks (9216kbits,)  and use ALAC (60% compression) you still end up at 5529kbits. We can assume that the actual headset itself is not doing the decoding of something complex, the best case scenario is that the device (eg iphone) converts from whatever actual format it's in into 2 channel 48khz raw PCM before being sent to wireless headphones. Wired headphones, theoretically can have decoding logic in the headset for doing 8 channels, but does anyone actually sit there and watch surround sound movies while watching on an iphone? Seems like a stretch.

 

At any rate, we probably shouldn't care about the decoding end. People are going to listen on equipment that is not the same as the mastering equipment, and the best you can hope for is that people aren't listening on the built-in speakers of laptops and phones, because you may as well be listening to a lossy audio then.

 

[Obioban]

19 minutes ago, Kisai said:

People are going to listen on equipment that is not the same as the mastering equipment, and the best you can hope for is that people aren't listening on the built-in speakers of laptops and phones, because you may as well be listening to a lossy audio then.

My wife and I watch a TV show or movie every night on our 77" LG G2 using two sets of airpods pro (one for her, one for me), to keep our toddler from waking up. 

[seon123]

5 hours ago, hishnash said:

, i expect the bandwidth will increase as other vendors on the market come into being and the true emergency aspect (not the sharing of location) will be free and you will get some data as part of Apple One subscription for other stuff.

The limitation is not due to lack of competition, it's due to the laws of physics. Look up the Shannon-Hartley theorem. It takes at least 15 seconds under ideal conditions to send a very simple message with predefined options, do you seriously think it will increase in speed by thousands of times, just because Apple apparently has magic?

[hishnash]

23 minutes ago, seon123 said:

The limitation is not due to lack of competition, it's due to the laws of physics. Look up the Shannon-Hartley theorem. It takes at least 15 seconds under ideal conditions to send a very simple message with predefined options, do you seriously think it will increase in speed by thousands of times, just because Apple apparently has magic?

I was not suggesting the bandwidth will increase from your phone to the but rather total network bandwidth, the number of phones that can communicate at once. 

This is what will drive the cost for Apple when it comes to negotiating a contract, there are multiple network vendors preparing to role out support for this over the next few years, I could well see in 2 years time that the options of who apple renews their contract with is larger and thus the price is less or even apple can demand that emergency operations are free (if apple think they can offer a tempting enough offer for non-emergency users). 

When I said data I should have send txt messages to family, short text only snippets, I could see apple charging for this in that if your part of Apple One you can send N message per day through the network.

 

[DANK_AS_gay]

14 hours ago, vetali said:

Apple Watch still using a proprietary charger.

There isn't exactly a universal spec for smart watches. The current charger isn't hated because it's justified. Apple isn't making it proprietary just to make it proprietary.

[saltycaramel]

One thing I didn't expect was the Airpods Pro 2 adding the Watch charger to their long list of charging methods (Lightning, regular Qi, Magsafe, and now the proprietary Watch puck charger too). 

 

Every Watch charger in your life can now serve double duty as an Airpods charger. (imagine if in the future they'll also use it to charge an Apple game controller, the remote of the next Apple TV, head mounted wearables, rechargeable Airtags 2, etc.)

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, seon123 said:

The limitation is not due to lack of competition, it's due to the laws of physics. Look up the Shannon-Hartley theorem. It takes at least 15 seconds under ideal conditions to send a very simple message with predefined options, do you seriously think it will increase in speed by thousands of times, just because Apple apparently has magic?

Please elaborate.

What is the maximum data transmission rate that the iPhone 14 will be able to have to satellites according to the Shannon-Hartley theorem?

[Dracarris]

36 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What is the maximum data transmission rate that the iPhone 14 will be able to have to satellites according to the Shannon-Hartley theorem?

Well to answer that you need to know quite some figures of the link, including the avg receive and noise power, both of which probably can be engineered.

[saltycaramel]

In 2025 Globalstar will launch 17 spacecrafts loaded with new LEO satellites, all (or actually 95%) paid by Apple in advance.

 

What could these new satellites allow compared to the free-SMS-only-for-emergencies service Apple offers today?

 

Maybe also (not_free)-SMS-also-for-fun? Maybe international expansion? Maybe limited data for some basic services and calls?

[tim0901]

25 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Please elaborate.

What is the maximum data transmission rate that the iPhone 14 will be able to have to satellites according to the Shannon-Hartley theorem?

Quite simply, it depends on how powerful your antenna is. The equation is:

 

C = B log₂(1 + S/N)

 

Where C is your bits per second of throughput, B is the bandwidth in Hz, S is the power of the signal in W and N is a measure of interference. The more power you give to your phone's antenna - the higher the value of S - the more data it can transmit. I don't have the numbers to calculate an exact number in bits/second.

 

The bigger issue here though would be capacity, not physics. After all, Globalstar themselves offer voice and data services to their own customers and even sell WiFi hotspots that use their network. Data services are quite clearly possible here.

 

No, the actual problem is that Globalstar's constellation consists of a mere 24 satellites, which serve somewhere in the range of hundreds of thousands of customers today. This constellation just doesn't have the capacity to handle tens/hundreds of millions of iPhone customers worth of text traffic, let alone voice or data services. You'd need orders of magnitude more capacity to cope, hence the limited capacity is being reserved for SOS traffic only.

 

This limitation isn't going to go away any time soon. Globalstar's next constellation expansion isn't expected until 2025.

[LAwLz]

9 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Well to answer that you need to know quite some figures of the link, including the avg receive and noise power, both of which probably can be engineered.

-snip-

Yeah I know. It was a rhetorical question because I have a suspicion that seon123 just threw that theorem out there to sound smart.

[saltycaramel]

5 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

This limitation isn't going to go away any time soon. Globalstar's next constellation expansion isn't expected until 2025.

 

2025 isn't that far away

 

What I am curious about is if small wearables like the Watch Ultra and the (2027-2028) thin frame Apple Glasses will be ever capable of joining the satellite connectivity party or they're just too small. 

[tim0901]

5 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

2025 isn't that far away

It is when Starlink and T-Mobile are claiming their solution will be up and running by the end of 2023, and that they will offer full SMS, MMS and even select instant messaging apps like Whatsapp or iMessage.

[LAwLz]

While satellite connectivity is cool, I can't help but feel like it is a gimmick.

For some people it might be great, but I suspect that 99,99% of iPhone users will never need it. Most people who use it will just use it to try it out, and then never use it again.

 

It's too finnicky because you have to point your phone around and lock on a satellite.

Most people do have regular cellphone connectivity in practice all the time.

Even if you end up in a situation where you don't have connectivity, you probably don't need to make a call just at that exact moment, and you will regain connectivity very shortly. Even if you do need connectivity and don't have 4G connectivity, the speed available through this service is very, very low. Too low to do most things people want to do.

 

I think it is cool that you can basically send an SOS message regardless of where you are on earth, but the people who need to do that is next to none. Those who do probably don't want to carry around an iPhone as their only means of communicating either. They probably have a satellite phone that is more rugged, has better connectivity and way longer battery life, and I don't think this iPhone will replace those phones anytime soon.

Maybe in 5 years, but until then I think this is a gimmick.

[tim0901]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

While satellite connectivity is cool, I can't help but feel like it is a gimmick.

For some people it might be great, but I suspect that 99,99% of iPhone users will never need it. Most people who use it will just use it to try it out, and then never use it again.

In it's current form, yeah absolutely. Unless you're someone who goes hiking regularly etc. you probably won't be somewhere with no data connection regularly enough for it to be something you care about.

 

If I can get data on it... yeah I'm interested. Data connectivity on trains is generally awful - you're moving through the cells so quickly that it just can't keep up. That shouldn't be an issue with a satellite though - GPS works on trains just fine. But that sounds like it's a long ways off. I can't see us being able to stream Netflix via satellite anytime soon.

[saltycaramel]

17 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

It is when Starlink and T-Mobile are claiming their solution will be up and running by the end of 2023, and that they will offer full SMS, MMS and even select instant messaging apps like Whatsapp or iMessage.

 

 

True. Although they said “beta” so maybe to a limited number of beta testers and with a limited fleet of V2 Starlink satellites (a V2 fleet that currently consist of 0 satellites).

 

In the meantime, I salute the fact that by next Christmas tens of millions of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro users in US and Canada will be able to at least send emergency SMSs and (maybe a far less niche-y use case) share their “Find my” location to their family via satellite even in non-emergency situations. (I wonder how it works technically…maybe still an SMS containing the geographic coordinates that the Apple infrastructure on the ground then converts to a Find My location on servers).

 

One could say the mass-deployed mobile satellite connectivity revolution begins in November 2022. And it begins on iPhone. 

[tim0901]

6 minutes ago, saltycaramel said:

One could say the mass-deployed mobile satellite connectivity revolution begins in November 2022. And it begins on iPhone. 

You could, but IMO that's not a good thing. For example, take the LG Prada - the first touch-screen smartphone. Nobody cares about that device beyond its claim as the first touch-screen phone, people care about the original iPhone that released a month later, which went on to define smartphones as we know them today. The same was true with the iPod - it was hardly the first MP3 player in the world, but it ended up defining and dominating the category.

 

While Apple may be first to the party here, their solution is limited in its utility and unavailable to the vast majority of people and so most - especially outside the US - won't give a shit about it. The first company to bring a product to market that people actually care about - be that SpaceX/T-Mobile or whoever - will be the one that's remembered for 'mass deploying mobile satellite connectivity' in the same way that Apple is lauded for inventing the smartphone, even if strictly speaking they weren't the first to bring the concept the table.

[Dracarris]

3 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

You could, but IMO that's not a good thing. For example, take the LG Prada - the first touch-screen smartphone. Nobody cares about that device beyond its claim as the first touch-screen phone, people care about the original iPhone that released a month later, which went on to define smartphones as we know them today. The same was true with the iPod - it was hardly the first MP3 player in the world, but it ended up defining and dominating the category.

I really don't get all this "who did it first" nonsense. What actually matters is who did it first properly with a solid user experience, and more often than not, this was Apple. The MP3 player is a prime example.

[saltycaramel]

6 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

You could, but IMO that's not a good thing. For example, take the LG Prada - the first touch-screen smartphone. Nobody cares about that device beyond its claim as the first touch-screen phone, people care about the original iPhone that released a month later, which went on to define smartphones as we know them today. The same was true with the iPod - it was hardly the first MP3 player in the world, but it ended up defining and dominating the category.

 

While Apple may be first to the party here, their solution is limited in its utility and unavailable to the vast majority of people and so most - especially outside the US - won't give a shit about it. The first company to bring a product to market that people actually care about - be that SpaceX/T-Mobile or whoever - will be the one that's remembered for 'mass deploying mobile satellite connectivity' in the same way that Apple is lauded for inventing the smartphone, even if strictly speaking they weren't the first to bring the concept the table.

 

 

 

On the other hand they also showed (by committing long term to pay for the Globalstar expansion) they’re in this for the long run and being Apple they have all the money in the world to pursue their vision, something that couldn’t be said about the LG Prada.