The new magic.

Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.

The latest nom de jour in photography circles is ‘computational photography’, which is a fancy way of saying that image control has been passed from hardware to software. This augurs poorly for the latest high end ILCs with their ridiculous 50mp and higher sensors, with attendant demands on computer upgrades to handle those behemoth files in something under a week per snap.

DP Review’s technical writer Rishi Sanyal does an excellent job of explaining just how software in devices like the Phone 11Pro is taking the lead from hardware in delivering the best image quality in small files using brains, not brawn. Sanyal writes:

“Newer, faster processors often mean increased photo and video capability, and the iPhone 11 is no exception. Its image processing pipeline, which handles everything from auto white balance to auto exposure, autofocus, and image ‘development’, gets some new features: a 10-bit rendering pipeline upgraded from the previous 8-bit one, and the generation of a segmentation mask that isolates human subjects and faces, allowing for ‘semantic rendering’.”

What shines through in his detailed exposition of the newest iPhone’s features is how all three of its cameras are used to deliver the best picture, along with brilliant technologies like storage of a depth information profile for an image which allows the application of selective focus, as an example, in post processing.

Some 13 years ago in a piece titled “It’s the software, stupid” I wrote:

“And who will be the genius designing these new ‘lenses’? It won’t be a god the likes of Max Berek or Walter Mandler in Wetzlar. It will be some kid who is really sharp at coding who happens to like a superb picture from the one ounce piece of plastic passing for a lens attached to his camera. The great days of optics are yet to come and their designs will emanate from the keyboard of some unknown master even now getting his lips around the teat on that plastic milk bottle.”

Like that milk bottle, today’s lenses are plastic, their unprocessed quality is garbage, and software does what plastic cannot. Say goodbye to big cameras, big lenses and big sensors.

Profound implications for camera makers.

Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.

Yes, the price of the new iPhone 11Pro, just introduced, is high. Yes, the ergonomics are as awful as they were with iPhone 1 back in 2007. The on/off switch remains opposite the shutter button, making sure you turn off the camera when you most need it. And yes, the absence of a proper viewfinder in bright light makes framing a hit-or-miss proposition. And yes, the device is sprouting ugly faster than the pig in the Oval Office, with its three clunky lenses and increasingly confusing menu structure.

But take a moment to read the specifications and compare them with your advanced MFT or FF camera:

And don’t forget the always on GPS so you always know where your snap was taken. And the cell phone. And the internet. And email. And Messaging. And Google Maps. And all those stupid games. Your camera does none of those.

When I started with MFT one of the primary appeals was that you could get close to FF quality without FF bulk. This was especially true when it came to the size of lenses, something which has always made a nonsense of the ‘in between’ APS-C interchangeable lens format whose lenses are scarcely smaller than their FF counterparts. I transitioned to MFT with the superb Panasonic G1 a decade ago. As a replacement for the film Leica M it was a street snapper’s dream. Better definition, finer grain, lots of images on one card, great lens range and size and bulk comparable to the exemplar of film rangefinder cameras. Later upgrades saw the Panasonic G3 replace the G1 and finally the GX7 which is the ultimate Leica M replacement, with its truly silent electronic shutter and Leica M form factor.

But now the iPhone, with its multiple lenses covering most of what a photographer needs – wide, standard, modest telephoto – looks set to obsolete the MFT system in a much smaller package. FF? At the high end for sports snappers and journalists needing ‘street cred’ (who is going to take you seriously if the iPhone is your camera of choice?) it’s likely to survive, albeit with a minuscule and falling market share.

Price of the new iPhone 11? $1,000 with 64gB, which compares with $600 for iPhone 1 in July, 2007, with its crappy 2mp camera. Inflate that at 4% annually and you get $960 and the new iPhone has a larger, better screen, eight times the memory and is several orders of magnitude faster. So while $1,000 sounds like a lot, I prefer to think that $600 back on 2007 was really expensive. I know. I bought one.

Victimhood.

The ‘cheap’ iPhone Xr starting at $750 + tax.

Despite a new battery my iPhone6 is becoming very sluggish. Apple makes sure this happens with its older devices by loading them up with ever slower code in its unending pursuit of planned obsolescence. My original iPad Air is suffering the same symptoms.

So announcement of a new series of iPhones sort of catches my attention. While I want a new iPhone like a hole in the head, the operating realities of my current one leave me no choice but to upgrade. And as 50 of my 64GB remain unused, it’s not like it’s a memory issue.

The sad truth is that the technological edge of two manufacturers – Apple and Samsung – has landed consumers with an inescapable oligopoly. Your choice is the Sammy with the insecure, rat infested Android OS or Apple’s ‘my way or the highway’ iOS. And as I would rather keep my credit card out of Ivan’s hands when he next goes on a free shopping spree, I am pretty much tied into iOS.

Now I am not obsessed with the need for an edge-to-edge screen and am most certainly averse to shelling out a minimum of $800 for a new iPhone, you know the one without a headphone socket and that ridiculous face recognition technology replacing the excellent thumbprint sensor on my iPhone6, which has yet to let me down. But, sadly, $750 + tax is the lowest point of entry to the new iPhone universe, with costlier models (one is appropriately named the ‘Xs’ which will be immediately read incorrectly by the 99.999% of the populace without an education in Latin) adding unnecessary OLED displays in lieu of LCD ones and adding more costly storage when none is needed in the age of the cloud. That’s monopoly pricing power for you, albeit you must respect Apple’s pun in the name.

But a friend points out that, given my modest needs, an iPhone7 will do just fine and he pointed me to the web site ‘Swappa’ (doubtless run by chaps in Sicily) as an alternative to the slime pit that is eBay (full disclosure: my last two iPhones were sold on the slime pit to Russkies!):

Clicka da image to goa to de Swappa.

Here you can sella your olda iPhona and buya a later, if discontinued, replacement for a whola lotta lessa dan de latest iPhone from da gender challenged boy in Cupertino.

So I’m thinking I mighta giva da Swappa a chanca befora shelling out $800 on the latest and greatest. My friend upgraded from an iPhone 6 to a 7 and noted a large speed increase, so that upgrade path seems rather appealing. After sale of his iPhone6 his net outlay was very low indeed. Sadly, however, the iPhone7 deletes the headphone socket, meaning yet another adapter is required.

CPU speed? Check this Geekbench chart. The iPhone7 offers the best bang for the buck over the iPhone6 on CPU speed with a speed gain of 147%. Thereafter, later models are pretty much hitting the law of diminishing returns.

The ‘new iPhones’ are nothing but a bait and switch from a disingenuous Apple. There are zero compelling new features for the outrageous 25% price increase. How long will it take consumers to realize that they are being conned? AAPL’s unit sales of iPhones were up just 1% last year with all of the large revenue gains resulting from the high price increases on the iPhone X. How much longer can Apple get away with this ‘no product upgrade’ strategy for a 25% increase in price?

Update:

I bought a mint, boxed 128GB iPhone7 from an established Swappa seller for $429, shipped. I get 81% of the speed of the iPhone X for 54% of the cost and will happily resell my iPhone6 on the Swappa site once all is said and done. It will be a cold day in hell before I lay out $1000 or more on a cell phone. (The iPhone7 is still being sold new by Apple. The price I paid is $180 less than they are asking and, if needed, I can have the battery replaced for just $29 through 12/31/18 – Apple’s ‘guilt price’ after they were caught cheating on battery lives. Replacement sky-rockets come 2019, with Apple hoping no one notices).

The iPhone7 is indeed much faster than the iPhone6. No more grinding waits while it processes ever more bloated code. And the haptic feedback is well implemented and a ‘nice to have’ feature as is ForceTouch which Apple just discontinued on its latest iPhones, ever in search of greater margins. (You push down on an icon for more options – for example accessing bookmarks in Safari). The iPhone7 is a recommended upgrade for owners of the iPhone6 and earlier models.

No comment.

I got 4 years’ hard use from the iPhone6. Not bad.

A solution looking for a problem.

Say hello to the future, for it is broken.

Apple’s much hyped tenth anniversary iPhone, the iPhone X, was hyped to market yesterday in a presentation from Apple’s over-the-top palatial new HQ in Cupertino. I have long given up watching these hypefests, sick and tired of the sleazy, self-congratulatory tone and now follow them using online text services. And follow them one must for any market investor must be aware of what is happening to a company which constitutes such a significant proportion of the major market indices.

The feature most hyped in the new phone, not available for many weeks yet, is FaceID, replacing the TouchID fingerprint sensor. Not an adjunct to TouchID, mind you. A replacement. This is claimed to be far less likely to go wrong but casually denies some of the troubling Constitutional realities of the technology. And, by the way, where are all the complaints about TouchID which I find works just fine on my relatively old iPhone 6?

Constitutional realities? The fascist masquerading as a cop in your hometown doesn’t like your face at the rally protesting his relative in the Oval Office and applies his nightstick to your head. While you are down for the count he uses FaceID on your iPhone X to unlock your phone only to find that you are a fully paid up member of the ACLU and a routine opponent of trigger happy cops with guns. It’s off to the slammer for you.

Next he finds that you are a strong supporter of DACA after searching your emails, that as a civilized human being you desire peace and solace for immigrants whose only language is English and who came here as babes in arms. Remember that bit which goes “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”? Well, there goes the gaol door key in the river. Fourth Amendment be hanged.

But other practical obstacles exist, none involving pigs with guns or oval offices. Sure, your identical twin can unlock your phone using FaceID but, let’s face it, that affects a handful of users, so no big deal. But you are a keen motorcyclist and actually like to protect the space between your ears, always wearing a helmet. FaceID? Fughedaboutit.

I suppose one should add, on a positive note, that the masked bad guy or gal using FaceID to call home asking how to set off that explosive vest will be at a loss, but most of these folks use burner phones from WalMart in any case. Why waste money on an iPhone when the savings can be put to work by procuring more C4?

FaceID is the ultimate solution looking for a problem and I expect it to encounter many.

But there’s an amusing, or troubling if you prefer, side note to these ruminations.

As I was following the live text updates yesterday, when a senior hypeman started the iPhone X presentation he picked up the new phone boasting of how it would recognize his face and unlock the phone …. only to have FaceID fail. Oily marketer that he is he smoothly switched to a back-up phone but it was too late. The market has priced in this technology as a competitive advantage over Samsung’s pathetic offering (FaceID uses 3D sensors so – it is claimed – that it cannot be fooled by a 2D photograph, unlike the Samsung system which can be thus fooled). The reaction of the stock, shown in the red rectangle below, was swift and brutal. It appears I’m not the only one who follows AAPL:

That’s a loss of market capitalization of exactly $22.02 billion in 30 minutes. Way to go, Apple. You need better carnival barkers, though your best has long departed this world.

As I said, a solution looking for a problem and finding one before the gadget was even in the stores. The key feature, and it fails. And they are asking $1,000 and up for the HypePhone. That’s more than even an Apple laptop. Pass.