Apple Products

£160 for AirPods Pro 2 :fire:.

Plus a £10 Costco voucher on top.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/apple-airpods-pro-2nd-generationusb-c-mtjv3zma-4468548

4 Likes

https://www.johnlewis.com/apple-airpods-pro-2nd-generation-with-magsafe-charging-case-usb-c-2023/p111063449?tmad=c&tmcampid=7&s_share=jlappios_Y29tLmFwcGxlLlVJS2l0LmFjdGl2aXR5Lk1lc3NhZ2U=

£179

A render of that supposed leak (more rumour being dressed up as one) that hopefully demonstrates how absurd and dubious it is.

If the iPhone looks like that, I will commit here and now to swapping to Android in October next year.

Apple aren’t going to ditch titanium just two generations after swapping to it, and one generation after refining the watch lineup to match. It can cope with extremes better than aluminium. Apple aren’t going to adopt a lens layout that can’t record spatial videos. And Apple aren’t going to do glass/metal back that resembles a Pixel. It’s hideous.

The leak sounds like it’s describing the next pixel, not the next iPhone.

2 Likes

I can’t envisage them moving to a camera set up like that either.

Who wants to record vertical spatial video?!

Didn’t they just change it on the 16 to enable spatial video recording? :thinking:

2 Likes

They’re not really ditching Aluminium though are they. It’s still used on all non-Pro models. And my understanding is that this isn’t actually a Pro model.

The camera visor literally screams Pixel. It’s hard to see them going this route.

The metal frame on the pro phone is a titanium alloy, reinforced with aluminium on the inside. The leak claimed they will be going back to the aluminium frame for the pro phone.

The leak was in reference to the pro phones, different from the upcoming rumoured iPhone Air, and that render is what the pro phones would look like based on that leak.

2 Likes

:bookmark:

6 Likes

The Pixel visor is actually my favourite bit of phone design since the iPhone X, so I’d love a camera layout like that. The weird glass cutout is not happening, ever - at least not in the way this ‘rumour’ suggests.

I don’t see spatial video as a limit to camera arrangement - if they pop two 48MP cameras on the back they could easily allow cropped ‘landscape’ video while the phone is held vertically.

1 Like

That’s a very simplistic idealist solution to what is a very complex physics challenge. That cropping is already less the video quality than the existing lenses shooting horizontally. Then they’d have to apply their software solution (which likely already involves cropping into the centre right grid of the right lens, and the centre left grid of the left lens, hence a 1080p output, not 4K), so that’s even greater quality loss (even if both lenses were 48MP).

But none of that deals with the much much narrower field of view that comes with cropping in this way resulting in very little separation to start with. I don’t think any amount of software smarts would be able to compensate and correct for that. I simply don’t think it’s technologically possible. Not at the cost level of an iPhone. The lenses would need to remain vertical in order for them to shoot spatial video.

It’s a marvel Apple have managed to achieve spatial video recording on the lens array they have already. Why make that challenge harder for the sake of copying a competitor’ hardware design language.

1 Like

I’m sure the 6 people who watch them on their Vision Pro will be livid.

4 Likes

Because the three-burner hob design is crap and nobody cares about Vision Pro. I think it’s a product that was dead on arrival pretty much.

1 Like

It’s more about the 6 million who will be able to look back on them in future on significantly cheaper hardware running on their vision platform. Apple are investing for the future here. Not the now.

When my dog died last month, we had to travel to the mainland for cremation. Afterwards, I went to the Apple Store in Aberdeen and booked a Vision Pro demo where I got to experience spatial videos I’d recorded. There’s no other experience of reliving memories quite like it. Apple know this and I suspect it’s what they’re banking on for the future success of the vision platform.

2 Likes

While that was a nice way for you to remember your dog (RIP) I think you are overestimating how many people actually care about wearing a headset for stuff they can just do on their phone.

I would bet most people have no idea what spacial video is and probably haven’t heard of the AVP headset anyway.

Also just to add my first comment was sarcastic and I would of course buy an AVP if I had @WhyAydan money to throw around.

1 Like

Maybe. But that’s marketing’s problem to solve. VR is already a popular enough niche, particularly among the upcoming generation.

There’s a longer game to this though. Vision Pro is a glimpse of the future, today, and that’s how they’ve positioned it. Some day, when they’re the price of an iPad, and VR continues to progress as a category, more and more homes are going to own one. Many will want the one that works best with their iPhone.

An interesting and comparable paradigm here would be the television. We all own one now. When they started, they were a niche, luxury gimmick for the wealthy. They would never take off because we had books.

3 Likes

Hey hey don’t bring me into this!

2 Likes

I tried the Meta Quest 3 in Currys the other weekend as they have a display model (no strap, have to hold it to your face) and it was pretty cool but even with the 4k screens it looked very blurry.

Not tried the Apple version so not sure how much better it is but if it’s similar then it’ll be a long time before they are worth the money IMO.

Forgot to say the MQ3 is all ready iPad price, depending which iPad you look at.

True but how many decades did it take for TVs to become mainstream? Will Apple keep it around long enough or will it go the way of the Apple Car?

1 Like

When did you last have an eye exam?

My brother had that with the meta quest too. It was fine for me. Turned out he needed glasses now!

Well Apple actually shipped this one, so that’s promising. Apple Car never existed in the end, so…

I think we’ll see the first mainstream devices within the decade. Meta are probably only a generation or two away from cracking it, and the current one is certainly passable.

1 Like

Honestly it could be that. :laughing: But it just reminded me of the old Samsung/Google “VR” headsets you put your phone into. The demo video it played on the MQ3 wasn’t anywhere close to the quality of a 4K TV.

If it’s just a crappy demo video quality then they aren’t going to help sell headsets lol.

1 Like

If it’s a bit fuzzy, you might need lens inserts.

The Apple demo is very impressive. Especially their new immersive film they made for it (some of it filmed at the Sheldrick Wild Trust Nairobi Nursery and Bondeni is in it). It’s pretty close to feeling like a 4D theatre, almost like you’re actually inside the film. If you’re ever passing by an Apple Store, definitely book one.

If they can get that core experience down into a sub £1000 device with an integrated battery, I wouldn’t hesitate in buying one.

2 Likes

I might book a demo just to see how it compares to the MQ3 to be honest. If it did all the stuff Apple Vision Pro does now but it was <£1,000 I would have bought one, I’m a sucker for new tech as long as it’s priced what I consider appropriately. :laughing:

1 Like