[alxbrun]

When I see Apple putting forward as a key feature the number of bits in their processor in a general public announcement... I'm really feeling the "new" product is not really new. In the past Apple was always laughing at the PC ads boasting processor speed and memory capacity.

[mikeash]

Apple laughs at numbers-based ads when they are behind, and play up the numbers when they are ahead. Remember the Pentium snail ads? There's nothing surprising here. They have a spec advantage right now and they're playing it up. If and when they drop behind again, they'll be back to talking about more qualitative aspects.

[Cookingboy]

Isn't that what EVERY company does when it comes to marketing? I have never taken a single marketing class but I'd think putting emphasis on your strong points and gloss over your weak ones is common sense?

[seiji]

Not on Hacker News. On Hacker News your press conference should alternate new feature paragraphs with apologies.

"We have a new fingerprint sensor! But, you probably don't want to use it because privacy crazies online think Apple is a front for the NSA."

"We're moving to a 64-bit architecture! But, geeks with low reading comprehension think it's not that useful because we have tiny RAM, so you should just ignore this point too."

"We have the best mobile phone camera ever created! But, everything was already good enough, so we've probably just wasted two years developing this and wasting shareholder dollars instead of entering the virtual cow social abuse market."

[pavlov]

The Lumia 1020 will be hard to beat for the title of "best mobile phone camera ever created".

[potatolicious]

In terms of raw sensor performance, certainly. The new camera moves the software stack forward in a way that Nokia didn't though - extremely high frame rate to "catch" the best moment, programmatic selection of said moments, merging of exposure information across multiple consecutive frames, etc.

As a photo enthusiast that part of the presentation was a lot more exciting than the (rather marginal) improvements to lens and sensor.

[holaby]

You don't need to mess around with these software hacks when the hardware is as good as in the Lumia 1020. Besides these software features are already done in the HTC One (lookup 'Zoe'). Apple's playing catchup here.

[topbanana]

Not that hard apparently.

http://www.tbreak.ae/features/camera-comparison-nokia-lumia-...

[pavlov]

Who are "tbreak.ae"? That's not a very insightful review.

Many better known sites like DPReview.com think that the Lumia 1020 has the best smartphone camera:

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/5234892048/nokia-lumia-1020...

[x0054]

Lumia 1020 has very slow shot-to-shot and start times. On iPhone 5 I can start the camera app and shoot 9 images in 10 seconds. Just did it. On 1020 you might get 3 shots of in the same time. But the key is the time to first shot. On iPhone 5, from off to first shot is roughly 2.5 seconds, and just .5 of a second or so for the second. 1020 takes 4-5 seconds for first shot, another 2-3 seconds for the second (based on my experiments in the store).

Since most people use their cameras to shoot pictures of cute cats or children, and then upload them to FB, I think the vast majority of people would prefer the fast and very good quality of the iPhone over the slow but excellent quality of 1020.

[nabeards]

Best is too vague. My issue with it is that it's a huge bulge on the back of the phone, so in my mind it can't be the "best mobile phone camera ever created".

[mcintyre1994]

I'll bite. Explaining to a "geek with low reading comprehension", what is the actual benefit to the iPhone being 64-bit?

[eco]

There are a lot of interesting things you can do with a massive address space even if you don't have the RAM to back it. You can mmap massive files. False pointers are virtually nonexistent for conservative GCs in a 64-bit environment (I believe modern Objective-C is compiler supported refcounting though so this doesn't really apply here). You can virtual alloc a 4GB array and just let it grow in physical memory on demand.

There is also a new instruction set to go along with the bump to 64-bits which improves things. However, I remember Herb Sutter saying that, in the case of x64, Microsoft generally found that the improved instruction set performance gains were a wash due to the increased cache misses caused by the doubling of the pointer width. I'm not sure how much ARM 64-bit instruction set improves things.

[mcintyre1994]

I'm definitely out of my depth here, I guess I just wasn't really convinced 32-bit was ever a ceiling on the iPhone. I'm sure Apple have their reasons though, and maybe massive files and 4GB arrays and really do matter to iPhone users more than I thought. I'm sure Apple have some reason beyond marketing, since I doubt the general consumer really cares.

[mistercow]

> (I believe modern Objective-C is compiler supported refcounting though so this doesn't really apply here)

Yeah, I don't think they ever supported GC in iOS. Now that you mention it, it's probably not a coincidence that it was added to the Mac shortly after the entire product line had switched to 64-bit. You could still do it in 32-bit, but I doubt they were expecting many developers to start writing new 32-bit apps at that point.

What does use a conservative garbage collector on iOS, however, is Safari's JS engine. But I assume that the conservative scan is only used on the stack (that's what FF does), since it would be kind of silly to do a conservative scan of the heap for a language that doesn't support pointers. So it doesn't seem likely under normal circumstances that you'd have many false hits even with 32-bits.

[demallien]

Memory bus bandwidth - moving large chunks of data around just got twice as fast. That means loading textures for games, or hauling photos up from flash memory will be substantially faster now.

[kllrnohj]

Memory bus bandwidth has nothing whatsoever to do with CPU word size. You'll have to wait for LPDDR4 for an increase in memory bandwidth.

[mikeash]

There's no mandatory relationship between word size and memory bus size. 128-bit memory busses were common well before 64-bit CPUs were.

[mikeash]

Yep, of course. Which is why I don't understand when people act like this is something weird. Talk up your strengths, talk down your weaknesses. If a point that was a weakness last year has become a strength this year, you emphasize it even though you de-emphasized it last year. That's just how it works.

[bgruber]

the difference is that apple doesn't merely do what you're describing. in the past, they have actively lambasted others for marketing bigger numbers.

[mikeash]

Because no other company ever criticizes their competitors' marketing?

This discussion is frankly insane. This stuff is called "marketing". Virtually every company does it. Companies that don't do it are called "failures".

[pekk]

More than most brands, Apple uses 'meta' advertising, calls out competitors for being corporate and mainstream and focused on machines over humans ("1984", etc.) It helps them mint money selling nice-looking consumer electronics, and at the same time it makes them justly more susceptible to this kind of criticism. It's all part of the same package. I think they can weather a little criticism for the hypocrisy in their marketing, let them take their lumps as they take their money.

[mikeash]

Does it really do this stuff any more than other brands? Seems to me that it just gets more attention for it sometimes.

[laureny]

> they'll be back to talking about more qualitative aspects.

The problem is that they hardly have qualitative aspects left that they can claim over the competition. They are engaged in a race to the bottom.

When the highlight of the keynote is a feature that has been available on cheap Thinkpads for five years, you wonder if Apple will ever innovate again.

[yapcguy]

Motorola released an Android phone with fingerprint sensor in 2011. Check out the video.

http://secureidnews.com/news-item/motorola-releases-fingerpr...

[laureny]

"Cupertino, start your photocopiers".

[baddox]

> Apple laughs at numbers-based ads when they are behind, and play up the numbers when they are ahead.

Shame on them. They should be like the more well-behaved companies, which emphasize numbers when they're behind and ignore numbers when they're ahead.

[gfodor]

An increase in processor word size has been part of Apple's marketing materials in the past, as was the transition from PowerPC to Intel. Apple tends to not get hung up on speed and capacity, which is just always regularly increasing, but step-wise jumps like word size are a different type of change since they require substantial technical hurdles and, as is the case here, can double the speed of certain applications in a single generation.

[seiji]

In the past Apple was always laughing at the PC ads boasting processor speed and memory capacity.

The last occurrence of that would have been almost ten years ago. They've always highlighted their technical superiority in presentations.

[yapcguy]

Apple are hoping that journalists are lazy or rushing to meet a deadline, so they get headlines line "New iPhone is 40x faster than old iPhone!".

They could have put "2x faster than iPhone 5" in their slides, but they deliberately chose to put 40x (referring to the original iPhone) and leave it slightly ambiguous.

[superuser2]

2x was the number in the slides when the A7 was introduced, at least from TechCrunch's photos.

[windexh8er]

That's how good marketing gains traction quickly. Count on the ignorant to do your bidding.

[x0054]

It's the first smartphone with 64bit CPU, it's a significant achievement, and they are rightly proud of it. I thought comparisons to the original iPhone were very silly though.

[scott_karana]

Yes, the iPhone 5S definitely needs to address more than 4GB of RAM directly, or do 64-bit integer math for Angry Birds to render accurately.

(This is a joke: I know 64-bit ARM is substantially improved, but it's really not a big selling point to the general population anymore, is it?!)

[jmcdonald-ut]

Non techies that I know hear 64 bit and immediately think that it's better. When friends show me a new lap top or whatever else, they say it's 64 bit. When they're shopping they ask if something is 64 bit. They don't understand why it's important, but they think it is.

[scott_karana]

Alright, fair enough. Guess it's still a marketing buzzword for some!

[davidcollantes]

The leaks contribute to take away some of the awe. Yet, A7, M7, iOS 7, new camera, new flash, Touch ID. It looks new to me.

[alxbrun]

My "is it new?" test works this way: how would I explain what's new to my father (who is 74 years old and knows not much about tech). A7, M7, iOS 7, better camera and flash: not much to say. Touch ID OK that's new, but that's not much.

[davidcollantes]

I am sure you can find a way to explain, it is not that hard.

Touch ID is a lot! No more password entering on iTunes. A godsend for someone who has a 26 characters passphrase like me.

[makmanalp]

If you have a 26 character passphrase, then how are you having an easy time trusting the fingerprint auth?

[davidcollantes]

It is my fingerprint. Why shouldn't I trust it?

[makmanalp]

It's not about your fingerprint though. It's just that cheap scanners are easy to trick and you leave fingerprints everywhere, including on the very surface you scan it on.

[uptown]

If you're cautious enough to use a 26 character passphrase, why are you comfortable revealing how many characters your passphrase contains?

[cheald]

Because even if it's just digits and numbers, 62^26 - 62^25 is a non-brute forceable keyspace.

[madisp]

ah, but it is a passphrase, not a password. Limiting phrases to exactly 26 chars doesn't seem that big anymore.

[veridies]

It would be kind of ingenious to publicly reveal a false character count.

(A little paranoid, though.)

[acchow]

"The photos look way better" is pretty easy to describe.

[orbitur]

And if they reply that they don't think iPhone 5 photos look bad?

[therandomguy]

"Dad, it looks better, is way faster, makes you healthier, take much better pictures and you don't have to type your pass code 200 times a day"

[kmfrk]

It needs to be contextualized and explained for practical usage. They had the same problem with Siri, which was pretty awesome, but presented very gimmicky.

[hbbio]

The iPhone 7 is really great.

[nicholassmith]

They've discussed processor performance gains in all the iPhone press events I can remember.

[twoodfin]

I suspect that slide was partially a message to ARM and their partners as well as Intel:

"Architecture transitions used to be a big deal. We have built a software and developer ecosystem that makes them worth a single slide. ARM: Don't get too comfortable. Intel: Show us what you can do."

Looking at Intel's roadmap and the success they've had with Haswell ULV, I think they have at least a fighting chance at ending up in an iOS flagship product within 2-3 years.

[bedhead]

Smartphone hardware is in the 9th inning. These devices have mostly hit the natural limits of what's achievable for now. Bad for Apple since this effectively levels the playing field.

[swamp40]

I disagree completely. Perhaps the 9th inning of a preseason game?

Flexible displays are coming soon.

The paths for easy integration with multiple low power wearable peripherals have just been forged, and the area is still in its infancy.

Mobile payments have not fully arrived yet.

The phones are all still in rectangular boxes - something that will look ridiculous in 20 years.

I think there is a lot yet to come hardware-wise.

[bedhead]

Flexible displays would certainly be neat, but their utility for a cellphone largely escapes me.

Wearable peripherals are a different category, they're not smartphones. Regardless, I dont have terribly high hopes for these future devices.

Mobile payment is mostly not a hardware issue. It's a software issue and a matter of coordination or market forces selecting a standard or two. It's things like THIS that are the next battleground in mobile: services and integration.

They are in rectangular boxes because that shape, for various reasons, happens to be extraordinarily efficient. TV's haven't changed shapes.

I think smartphone hardware is pretty much dead. The major leaps - touch screens (which is so ridiculously underappreciated as an innovation), HD screens, HD cameras, CPU horsepower, nice OS's, voice recognition, blah blah - are behind us. There is a reason that almost all of the best selling smartphones look alike, feel alike, and generally have the exact same feature sets. The differences between each other, in the grand scheme of things, are lamentably minute.

[cookingrobot]

These are great points. To add to your list - I'd love it if as part of mobile payments they do what's needed to completely replace a wallet. If I'm at a restaurant paying for a drink with my phone, I should also be able to send them a verified copy of my id with photo and age. Then I could stop carrying a wallet entirely.

Integration with low power peripherals will be nice, but don't forget about high powered peripherals like tablets and tvs. If I put down my phone right now and pick up a tablet, I should be able to finish typing this comment with no interruption.

[swamp40]

...and Haptics!

Clickable buttons, raised hyperlinks, textures - all coming soon!

[uptown]

"These devices have mostly hit the natural limits of what's achievable for now."

Isn't that always the case? But "now" is a moving target.

[mikeash]

Usually, but not always. In 2007, it turned out that the available technology allowed something way better than what was actually being sold. Apple realized this and used this fact to go from zero to smartphone dominance nearly overnight. Gaps do happen, they just don't last long before someone comes along and gets rich by exploiting them.

[ctdonath]

Except that Apple just doubled the processing power. That, with everyone else now needing (and, given a year, able) to catch up & exceed, is hardly "the natural limits of what's achievable for now". The processing power curve shows no sign of slowing down, and with wireless tech racing past LTE toward 100Mb territory meaning local storage capacity becomes a mere buffer instead of a limit, we're nowhere near "natural limits".

The only limit we face now is users finding sufficient aggregate need for all that power & bandwidth. Build AppleTV into a touchable monitor, drop a wireless keyboard on the desk, and eliminate that 4" bottleneck for most users - BAM, death blow to Windows etc.

[wisty]

Can you plug your iPhone into a couple of 30" monitors, and use it as a workstation?

[wmf]

It's not clear that this is thermally possible.

[wisty]

The iPad 3 pushes 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. A single monitor 30" requires 2560 x 1600 (or maybe less, if it's crap). So ... I can see an iPhone being able to drive a single 30" monitor some time soon.

People will be using their phones as desktops (if not serious workstations) sometime soon. And once they use them as desktops, phones won't be fast enough until they have performance comparable to workstations (which, as you point out, won't happen).

[PeterisP]

Why not? If it doesn't melt while being maximally used in my hands, why should it be thermally impossible to put it on the table while connected to an external screen?

The processor is more powerful than many old computers, and the 30" screens need no more pixels than the iPhone screen already has.

[shabble]

I wonder if it would be practical couple the CPU directly to an externally accessible thermal pad, and have some sort of docking station which includes additional cooling. There are probably better cooling options available (liquid, heatpipe?) if you could find a way to connect/disconnect them reliably and not compromise much on the mobile aspects of the design.

[jl6]

Sure it is, just use an external CPU in the docking station.

[wmf]

So now your "docking station" is actually a separate computer; what part of the phone would it use? The storage?

[jl6]

Yes, it would be very useful to have a single OS image that could scale its user interface and capabilities to the hardware it finds attached at any given moment.

[ako]

Limits of what is achievable, or limits to what is useful for most users? I assume most users won't notice speed improvements anymore.

[bedhead]

Both, although more so the latter.

[sytelus]

Not true... there is so much still left to do in smartphone arena: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6352045

[superuser2]

Apple's advantage on craftsmanship is already well-established and doesn't really need to be sold (to people who haven't already decided they hate Apple, that is). 64-bit is not the primary differentiator of the iPhone the way a few hundred MHz is the only real difference between laptops in a Best Buy.

I don't see them talking about this any more than they've talked about every iterative processor improvement in the past. Being the first 64-bit smartphone is a slightly bigger deal than selling 2.6GHz instead of 2.4.

[stakecounter]

I think the "Touch ID" fingerprint matching that was just revealed is way more interesting than their performance improvements. I wonder why they chose to order the announcements like that.

[superuser2]

Going to 64-bit is a lot bigger deal than adding a few hundred MHz in terms of what it enables for the platform.

[hahainternet]

Such as?

[superuser2]

This is being discussed around the page, but here's a start: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/607322/what-are-the-advan...

[wmf]

At least it's running in 64-bit mode, unlike the G5 when it was announced.

[xutopia]

That did seem rather bizarre to me as well.