Apple Beefs Up, Tunes Up iPhone Hardware

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so few days ago toms published an article saying "all the new motorola products are flawed" how about these overpriced new Apple lineup?
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That's exactly what I was thinking. Toms is such a hypocrite for the way they bashed Motorola for not getting with the times in hardware specs yet they praise Apple for it. I mentioned that in my comment on the Motorola post, it seems they didn't listen lol. What a joke of a website this has become.
 


I don't think you understand the seriousness of what you're alleging. If I thought for one second that any of my writers was being paid by a company for special treatment, I'd fire them immediately and would have some extremely harsh things to say to that company, to boot.

TH is not, and never will be, paid by a company for our opinion on anything, ever. To suggest otherwise is a serious allegation, and if you actually think that's happening, instead of leaving a remark in the comments, you should say something directly to me (as the news chief) or the EIC (who actually attended the Apple event and wrote the coverage). If you think it's us that's guilty of something, then you should go higher up the food chain.
 


It is true though that Apple does not really need a particularly stronger CPU or GPU due to the iOS platform being limited to one hardware configuration. As long as developers properly optimize their apps they should run fine. That part I can accept somewhat although ARM has been rolling out more energy efficient cores and they should update to include those revisions when they are released.

What is absolutely not acceptable is their screen resolution and RAM. I can't believe that people actually paid over $600 for a phone that didn't even have a 720p panel and 1GB of RAM. No matter how optimized your software is you should at least update your RAM. If they kept bragging about their 'retina' display then why couldn't they even add a 720p panel? Also why not make the 4.7" iPhone 6 a 1080p screen and the 5.5" one a QHD panel?

The reason is that they don't go with better hardware because they can get away with cheaping out and just barely providing what is necessary for today's market and still seem cutting edge. I mean why would they be selling macbooks with a starting price of around $1200 with dual core i7s that any gaming laptop can smoke around the same price range? Because they're Apple and they can get away with it.
 
You to avoid criticizing their products, as I can't remember when I last saw a negative response to something that Apple has done or produced[/quotemsg]

I don't think you understand the seriousness of what you're alleging. If I thought for one second that any of my writers was being paid by a company for special treatment, I'd fire them immediately and would have some extremely harsh things to say to that company, to boot.

TH is not, and never will be, paid by a company for our opinion on anything, ever. To suggest otherwise is a serious allegation, and if you actually think that's happening, instead of leaving a remark in the comments, you should say something directly to me (as the news chief) or the EIC (who actually attended the Apple event and wrote the coverage). If you think it's us that's guilty of something, then you should go higher up the food chain.
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Ziiing!

Also:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/iphone-5c-bad-value-analysis,review-32784.html
 

Amen to that. The iPhone was great in its beginning but is still behind in hardware. I agree 1GB RAM is ridiculous. Also, one of the highest misconceptions is that people think a stronger processor will make the phone any faster. It will not, because loading speeds are regulated by the SSD. If they said there was faster Flash storage, then that would be good but the A8 Chip will not make any significant difference. I have seen people thinking that the processor really affects the loading speeds a lot in an iPhone but to my knowledge it really does not.
 


I myself do not believe that any writers on tom's are being paid by companies to write positive reviews. But just reading the titles of the two articles (this one and the Motorola coverage) and comparing them, it's clear which one is more favored. But after reading both of them, they were really both just coverage of the hardware and tech specs and pricing along with availability. There weren't any major biases or endorsements thrown around in either articles.

But I would suggest to your writers to write hmmm, less inflammatory article titles. Tom's guide in particular with its iWatch rumor articles, were noted in the comments to unintentionally inflame many users with it's titles and the nature of the topic and how it was handled.

I guess people are on edge with tech news sites lately. Tech news is closely intertwined with video game coverage, which if you haven't been paying attention, video game journalists have been under extreme heat by the user base as there is a lot of corruption in the video game media industry.

I do apologize for any unwarranted comments by any users here though.
 
Readers & commenters: Your critiques, unabashed opinions, calling us on errors in fact, and even on what seems like hypocrisy are all fair game and Tom's Hardware learns from it all. However, to be clear, Tom's Hardware does not get paid for coverage. Never has, never will.

The article doesn't necessarily praise Apple, unless you count "not bashing" as praise. There isn't a single comparison in the article to ANY other smartphone. The article points out areas where Apple has improved the iPhone. These are facts. They have. But the article also points out where Apple is not providing further information -- information that could materially impact the performance of the phone. And it also notes where Apple has fallen short of expectations (in several places). In the end, the testing and full hands on will tell us what we need to know -- with regard to the iPhone 6 and the new phones from Motorola.

One of the problems with the two pieces, and what people seem to be alluding to -- the Motorola and the Apple stories -- is that they were written by two different people. Lucian did express some disappointment to me about the iPhone 6 in an e-mail, so perhaps if he had written the Apple story it would have been just as critical as his Motorola story--but maybe in areas other than the SoC, which is where he took them to task. I'll own that -- and the difference between the two pieces -- as a valid criticism, and had it been logistically possible (it wasn't), I would have had Lucian at the event instead of me.

(Oh, cknobman: on the "benediction" line, you conveniently forgot to add the part where I wrote: "But there are too many unanswered questions to jump to conclusions." That whole part wasn't meant as praise, but a reflection of the Apple ecosystem.)
 

Hahaha Theres a good chance I know a lot more than you do about it... But anyhoo... Like I said check out the Oppo Find 7, very likely to be a better camera more MP's or not champ....
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its almost all about the optics in camera, an amazing sensor cant rely on bad optics but a bad sensor can brought up by great optics

than again, if you give a damn about quality you won't be taking photos from a phone.

also, more megapixels means that you get a bigger image than you can shrink and remove a bunch of the flaws in the image, its why that one 48mp phone takes the best cellphone camera pictures, you can get a flawless 8mp picture out of it.
 
They've finally caught up to the 1520, but still lacks a sd card slot (I have limitless offline storage), it still lacks a decent camera, and battery life is still behind the 1520.

Tsk tsk.. I guess we'll see ya next year apple. I'm sure you'll come up with something new and unique. Or just expensive, like always.
 
I want to say that I wish people would provide more facts to back up their opinions rather than just going all out "Apple sucks" and what not. This is just like politicians, people have an opinion and will never bother to look for the possible good of the other candidate's opinion. Why don't we take a look at what truly the iPhone has to offer rather than just criticize and post.

What's Good About It

One nice thing I see first about the iPhone 6 is the availability in sizes, something that is not offered too much for same phone. For example, the Galaxy S5 is one size, but iPhone will now offer three sizes. If you ask me size is a huge leap for Apple because when the iPhone came out the size was great but now things have gotten larger. It is also nice to see the larger phone has a higher resolution, but whether you guys realize it or not, even if your Android has a higher PPI the human eye can only see so much and you won't notice a difference from the perspective of the eye to the screen size.

Furthermore, I was just around some 33 young adults and the one guy asked who in the room had an iPhone. There was a show of about 28 hands which shows that the iPhone still has its popularity. Why do all these people like it so much? Here on Tomshardware we are some of the most tech-savvy individuals, so we don't think like the average non-techy person does. The average person wants a phone that is very easy to use, they don't give a load of crap whether or not its open-source. The IOS operating system is very user-friendly and more globally consistent, you cannot deny that.

Last but not least, they are reliable phones, not saying that Android's aren't. Yes, iPhone screens crack a ton but so would any screen without a case, yet the hardware remains totally undamaged. Along with reliability is the optimization of the Apple software and the benefits that come with it. For example, the 28 people I know likely use certain forms of communication at times like iMessage. Another benefit is Apple Pay which is coming to 220,000 stores and will be a new innovative way for paying. So all in all Apple certainly had not gotten worse and are ever-so progressing onward.

What's Bad About It

The problems with the iPhone for one thing is that it's behind in terms of hardware. There are many other phones that have higher resolution screens, more RAM, and better processing. On an iPhone's 1GB RAM, you would not be able to have too many Web Pages open at once. It is easy to tell when an iDevice has started paging on large Web Pages because stuff gets extremely slow.

Furthermore, the iPhone6 has no great news that is of much benefit hardware-wise. Apple advertised that it has received the A8 chip which is not of much benefit. Think of it, IOS is already optimized for the hardware of the iPhone that a new processor will not really help with speeds, maybe only in some CPU-intensive games but that's all. A huge misconception I hear people saying is that, "The A8 chip will make the iPhone much faster". That is not really true, because for one thing data is loaded off the SSD of the iPhone, not the CPU, so loading speeds will be generally the exact same as the 5S. If Apple had announced something such as faster permanent-data transfers of higher-clocked RAM that would be nice, but they don't.

Once again with the A8 chip, Apple never flat-out states the technical specs of the processor. They stick with the "it's faster" and pretty much anyone will buy that and believe it. Of course it is faster, but people like us want to know the proper factor of speed, the amount of cores, clock speed, even transistor count. I feel as if Apple truly does not release tech specs on the main site of their processors because they are behind Android.

So you see, we don't need to rant about anything, I plainly just supported two sides right above these letters, and you can respect both people who like it and don't.
 
Personally, I can't wait to see mail-replies from the iWatch, much less watching folks reading iMail on them. "Please don't use any word with more than 4 characters..."
 
I still find amusing to this day not only how Apple is pulling these performance improvement numbers out of their... hats (it's their prerogative because it's their product), but above all how gullible "tech journalists" swallow these numbers without a second thought. It's like a car manufacturer would say "we're not giving you any real numbers, but trust us the new model is X times more powerful than previous one". How many serious car enthusiasts would just take that for granted? Not too many.
 
Readers & commenters: Your critiques, unabashed opinions, calling us on errors in fact, and even on what seems like hypocrisy are all fair game and Tom's Hardware learns from it all. However, to be clear, Tom's Hardware does not get paid for coverage. Never has, never will.

The article doesn't necessarily praise Apple, unless you count "not bashing" as praise. There isn't a single comparison in the article to ANY other smartphone. The article points out areas where Apple has improved the iPhone. These are facts. They have. But the article also points out where Apple is not providing further information -- information that could materially impact the performance of the phone. And it also notes where Apple has fallen short of expectations (in several places). In the end, the testing and full hands on will tell us what we need to know -- with regard to the iPhone 6 and the new phones from Motorola.

One of the problems with the two pieces, and what people seem to be alluding to -- the Motorola and the Apple stories -- is that they were written by two different people. Lucian did express some disappointment to me about the iPhone 6 in an e-mail, so perhaps if he had written the Apple story it would have been just as critical as his Motorola story--but maybe in areas other than the SoC, which is where he took them to task. I'll own that -- and the difference between the two pieces -- as a valid criticism, and had it been logistically possible (it wasn't), I would have had Lucian at the event instead of me.

(Oh, cknobman: on the "benediction" line, you conveniently forgot to add the part where I wrote: "But there are too many unanswered questions to jump to conclusions." That whole part wasn't meant as praise, but a reflection of the Apple ecosystem.)
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That may be true but it doesn't explain why there always seems to be a "friendly' biased slant on toward apple on most articles we seem to see/read.

Having said that, I'm not having a shot at toms, like I said earlier, an another sites article I was reading the writer explained the new screen to be "like retina on steroids" and that's for a bog standard FHD screen and some other crap, lower res screen!

I guess people are just over the brown nosing and a%% kissing of apple.
 
I want to say that I wish people would provide more facts to back up their opinions rather than just going all out "Apple sucks" and what not. This is just like politicians, people have an opinion and will never bother to look for the possible good of the other candidate's opinion. Why don't we take a look at what truly the iPhone has to offer rather than just criticize and post.

What's Good About It

One nice thing I see first about the iPhone 6 is the availability in sizes, something that is not offered too much for same phone. For example, the Galaxy S5 is one size, but iPhone will now offer three sizes. If you ask me size is a huge leap for Apple because when the iPhone came out the size was great but now things have gotten larger. It is also nice to see the larger phone has a higher resolution, but whether you guys realize it or not, even if your Android has a higher PPI the human eye can only see so much and you won't notice a difference from the perspective of the eye to the screen size.

Furthermore, I was just around some 33 young adults and the one guy asked who in the room had an iPhone. There was a show of about 28 hands which shows that the iPhone still has its popularity. Why do all these people like it so much? Here on Tomshardware we are some of the most tech-savvy individuals, so we don't think like the average non-techy person does. The average person wants a phone that is very easy to use, they don't give a load of crap whether or not its open-source. The IOS operating system is very user-friendly and more globally consistent, you cannot deny that.

Last but not least, they are reliable phones, not saying that Android's aren't. Yes, iPhone screens crack a ton but so would any screen without a case, yet the hardware remains totally undamaged. Along with reliability is the optimization of the Apple software and the benefits that come with it. For example, the 28 people I know likely use certain forms of communication at times like iMessage. Another benefit is Apple Pay which is coming to 220,000 stores and will be a new innovative way for paying. So all in all Apple certainly had not gotten worse and are ever-so progressing onward.

What's Bad About It

The problems with the iPhone for one thing is that it's behind in terms of hardware. There are many other phones that have higher resolution screens, more RAM, and better processing. On an iPhone's 1GB RAM, you would not be able to have too many Web Pages open at once. It is easy to tell when an iDevice has started paging on large Web Pages because stuff gets extremely slow.

Furthermore, the iPhone6 has no great news that is of much benefit hardware-wise. Apple advertised that it has received the A8 chip which is not of much benefit. Think of it, IOS is already optimized for the hardware of the iPhone that a new processor will not really help with speeds, maybe only in some CPU-intensive games but that's all. A huge misconception I hear people saying is that, "The A8 chip will make the iPhone much faster". That is not really true, because for one thing data is loaded off the SSD of the iPhone, not the CPU, so loading speeds will be generally the exact same as the 5S. If Apple had announced something such as faster permanent-data transfers of higher-clocked RAM that would be nice, but they don't.

Once again with the A8 chip, Apple never flat-out states the technical specs of the processor. They stick with the "it's faster" and pretty much anyone will buy that and believe it. Of course it is faster, but people like us want to know the proper factor of speed, the amount of cores, clock speed, even transistor count. I feel as if Apple truly does not release tech specs on the main site of their processors because they are behind Android.

So you see, we don't need to rant about anything, I plainly just supported two sides right above these letters, and you can respect both people who like it and don't.
Click to expand...

Why all this negetivity and blaming tom's hardware of bias?
Because a company that releases a smartphone that costs a 650$ for it's cheapest version off contract, when that smartphone introduces "new" concepts that's been around for 2 years now, should be shunned and berated by every person who considers himself knowlegable about this kind of stuff.
Instead we got an article saying how apple has "beefed up" it's new Iphone. How come Apple recieves the benefit of this "neutrality' while most other articles debating hardware products are not neutral and are almost always compared to other products?
 
I wonder if Apple's now buying up corrective-vision stores? "With 6pica fonts, we'll have eyestrain galore! Just think how much more we can get selling the disease AND the cure!!"
SENT
FROM
MY i
WATC
H
 

How was I being negative? I was merely taking both stands by stating the pros and cons of stuff. Why do you all have to be so darn stubborn, why does it make you guys extremely mad if Apple releases a new product? If you were in their situation why would you not continue making products that sell well? There is no reason to get angry, no one these days can have a modest conversation, no one is chill anymore. They are just complainers like people who comment on YouTube videos. Be chill guys.
 
Why all this negetivity and blaming tom's hardware of bias?
Because a company that releases a smartphone that costs a 650$ for it's cheapest version off contract, when that smartphone introduces "new" concepts that's been around for 2 years now, should be shunned and berated by every person who considers himself knowlegable about this kind of stuff.
Instead we got an article saying how apple has "beefed up" it's new Iphone. How come Apple recieves the benefit of this "neutrality' while most other articles debating hardware products are not neutral and are almost always compared to other products?
Click to expand...

It is a comparison to apple products in general, not a comparison to android products. (not to mention it isn't even released yet)
In all honesty both product types have their pros and cons. My family has owned both iphones and a few android devices and yes iphones tend to lack on the hardware side in some areas and their OS doesn't allow as much customization but in all honesty ive yet to see any android device between my families and friends that didn't have 2x the amount of glitches and issues.

I personally have been going back and forth for my next phone and have been waiting to see what apple came up with. Sadly the cpu, ram specs, and lack of 1080p on the smaller phone left me disappointed so I most likely wont be purchasing one.

If it wasn't for those hardware specs then I wouldn't have any issue with the new phone. I personally don't need the higher customization that comes with the android. For programs like that I use a labtop or my desktop.

And for all the people that keep going bigger is better, that's honestly a personal opinion. Our android phone that has a 4.7" screen is about the largest I would ever want a phone to be. I actually like to be able to fit my phone in my front pocket and pull it out while sitting.
 
Hahahaha 8mp Camera?? Awesome, I turned my 13mp camera down to get 16:9 photos and its still 10mp and better than the latest greatest offering from the Apple Gods.

I read in another article that the displays were like retina on steroids (Clearly an ijerkoff boi), again totally awesome, just as awesome as my 2 year old HTC Butterfly that had Full HD 5 inch screen. Now I've got a QHD phone and its older than the ip6!

I'm sure I remember ifans saying that anything bigger than an iPhone was pointless and would be too hard to use and live with... I'm sure I heard that being sprouted by them... Now those bigger sizes will be the best thing since sliced bread no doubt!

I cant believe people are still in raptures about this company and their products! Apple are clearly playing catching and obviously failing at that! Check out the Oppo Find 7 if you want a properly specced phone!
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you do realize that MP does not mean its a high quality photo... I guarantee that my 16mp Nikon camera can take a better photo than a 32mp phone.

So while the iphone has a lower MP it may still take a photo that's looks 10x clearer and more detailed than what your phone takes. (not saying it does, just saying it could)
 
Hahahaha 8mp Camera?? Awesome, I turned my 13mp camera down to get 16:9 photos and its still 10mp and better than the latest greatest offering from the Apple Gods.

I read in another article that the displays were like retina on steroids (Clearly an ijerkoff boi), again totally awesome, just as awesome as my 2 year old HTC Butterfly that had Full HD 5 inch screen. Now I've got a QHD phone and its older than the ip6!

I'm sure I remember ifans saying that anything bigger than an iPhone was pointless and would be too hard to use and live with... I'm sure I heard that being sprouted by them... Now those bigger sizes will be the best thing since sliced bread no doubt!

I cant believe people are still in raptures about this company and their products! Apple are clearly playing catching and obviously failing at that! Check out the Oppo Find 7 if you want a properly specced phone!
Click to expand...

you do realize that MP does not mean its a high quality photo... I guarantee that my 16mp Nikon camera can take a better photo than a 32mp phone.

So while the iphone has a lower MP it may still take a photo that's looks 10x clearer and more detailed than what your phone takes. (not saying it does, just saying it could)
Click to expand...

Yeah your right, but I'm saying my $600 Oppo find 7 will take better pictures at a higher MP (Win Win really), so why the hell do people seem to cream themselves over apples overpriced overrated products?
 
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