Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized summary. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to read it during lunch or dinner hours as well.
jam tomorrow
One of our most-read articles last week was an exploration of early iPhone 16 rumors. Reflecting on reports of larger screens, better battery life, solid-state buttons, and more, the article suggested that the best solution for customers might be to skip the iPhone 15 generation altogether and wait for the big update in 2024. totally disagree… but that argument made me wonder how often super-exciting Apple product launches are planned for next year, and how often they actually happen.
I’m not talking about delays. I’m not talking, for example, about the ever-delayed launch of the Reality Pro headset, because unless it hits some intractable technical difficulty and does an AirPower, it will eventually happen. I’m talking about how next year’s launch is always more exciting than this year’s.
Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, an early exponent of the tic-tac release strategy, pledged to feed its employees jam every other day, with the slight caveat that in practice, jam would be served yesterday and tomorrow but never today. Today’s white queens work as technology analysts, telling us over and over again that the iPhone has shaken up the industry in the past and will see game-changing innovations in the future, but this year, sadly, is doomed to wallow in the iterative doldrums.
So let’s try an experiment. When do you think the last iPhone launch was truly memorable? Particularly generous readers might think of last year’s 14 Pro, which offered an always-on display and the dynamic island. But many pundits advised their readers to ignore it and wait for the 15th series. Sound familiar?
I have a soft spot for the Series 12, with its state-of-the-art redesign and MagSafe charging standard, while 5G support, in retrospect, seems like a big step forward; but in an iPhone 12 Pro review at the time, I said “everything about it screams an iterative upgrade.” Those with an iPhone 11, I insisted, had no reason to upgrade that year.
In fact, to find an iPhone launch that most people at the time agreed was a big deal, I think you need to go back to the iPhone X, the first of Apple’s handsets to ditch the home button and go almost full screen. (Our own reviewer even said, “The thrill is back.”) But I bet there were pundits in 2017 insisting the XS would be the one to look forward to.
In part, I suspect, this mindset is a function of how technology products are developed. Every generation of iPhone presumably starts out with lofty ambitions, which are gradually worn down and compromised as tests fail and prototypes disappoint and managers do their best to keep costs under control. On the other hand, without wanting to be too cynical, media coverage naturally gravitates towards the more interesting rumours, and the further away from the launch, the less concrete information there will be to contain the nonsense. Next year’s iPhone looks more exciting than this one because the most ambitious rumors about it have yet to be refuted.
There could also be a bigger psychological effect here. Everything we currently have must be unsatisfactory for the whole system to work. We have based our economy on nostalgia for an imagined future, and our politics on nostalgia for a poorly remembered past. Why should our perception of technology products be different?
Maybe I’m starting to get out of my lane. If this week’s column was disappointing, I apologize. But next week’s is going to be great.
Foundry
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Want to know how long do macs last? igamesnews studies the lifespan of Macs and MacBooks.
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The rumor mill
After a recent decline, Apple is looking to boost a “Return of the Macs” with an ultra-fast M3 chip.
The hype is building for Apple’s AR headset as more and more evidence of a WWDC launch emerges.
Indeed, Apple’s “xrOS” brand almost confirms the arrival of its AR headset next month.
If you want a iPhone 14 Pro you should probably wait for the iPhone 15.
Podcast of the week
The countdown to Apple’s Developer Conference has begun and reports indicate it’s time for some major changes with watchOS 10. We talk about the new face of the Apple Watch in this episode of the igamesnews Podcast!
You can watch every igamesnews podcast episode on Spotify, Soundcloud, Podcasts app or our own site.
Software updates, bugs and issues
A strange iPhone bug has been broken threads with Android users.
Apple patched three Safari active zero-day bugs with its latest round of updates.
We now know what Apple fixed in its first iOS and macOS Rapid Security Response.
The people were mad at google last week, but Apple will delete your inactive account even faster.
Apple taps into Shazam with new live concert features in Music and maps.
Apple has pushed out an updated iOS 16.5 final beta as wide version approaches, and a rare third macOS Ventura 13.4 release contender.
And with that, we’re done for this week. If you want to receive regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters. You can also follow us on Twitter or on Facebook to discuss the latest news from Apple. See you next week, and stay Appley.
Table of Contents
