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The Mystery of the iPhone 5C placement in Apple’s lineup

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Apple Event 10th September 2013

As recent rumors have pegged, tonight’s Apple event will introduce two new iPhones – the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C.

We have seen enough leaks to know everything there is to know about the iPhone 5C’s five colors and construction, and how they are really just iPhone 5 innards in a new plastic housing.

That said, the exact placement of the iPhone 5C in Apple’s iPhone lineup remains a mystery up till now.

In a previous post, I had revealed that the iPhone 5C had a 4-inch screen and a Lightning port (thanks to my friends) and speculated that the iPhone 5C will replace the iPhone 4S at the lowest end of the iPhone lineup and complete the transition of the iPhone line to Lightning ports and 4-inch screens this year, leaving the iPhone 5S at the top and the current iPhone 5 in the middle of the lineup.

I still think that this will be the arrangement, but rumors (from idiotic analysts nonetheless) suggest that the iPhone 5C will replace the iPhone 5 completely, leaving only the two new iPhones (and the old iPhone 4S) in the iPhone lineup.

This is weird for various reasons.

Firstly, it will leave a big gap between the pricing of the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C, assuming that the iPhone 5C will be quite a bit cheaper than the iPhone 5S. Previous years, the mid-range iPhones have always been about 100USD cheaper than the top-of-the-line models, and people who are intending to buy mid-range this year will not be happy that they are paying for something that are not last year’s models, at the same top-range-minus-hundred price point.

Secondly, it will not be feasible to have the iPhone 4S remain on the lineup, for the extra effort Apple needs to maintain the dock connector accessories and the assumed extra cost of making the iPhone 4S’ metal and glass housing will outweigh the benefits of just letting the same production lines making the now lesser in demand iPhone 4S continue running.

The only reason/way I can see it (iPhone 5C replacing the iPhone 5) is if the supply yield of the delicate aluminum and glass housing of the iPhone 5 still remains small today even after one year of production, due to the care needed to prevent scratches on the soft aluminum on the assembly lines.

If that is truly the case, it will make sense for Apple to divert all current iPhone 5 housing production lines to the production of the iPhone 5S, to ensure maximum supply of the iPhone 5S on launch day (20th September) and in the months after that, especially with the rumored increase in color choice.

Plastic housings are extremely cheap and easy to produce (ask Samsung), and will be produced fast enough to meet iPhone 5C launch demand, and a big supply of iPhone 5Cs is need if China is going to be part of the first launch countries this year.

Apple will still have to adjust their prices accordingly, and there will still be a gap, unless of course they just went ahead with the old top-range-minus-hundred pricing assuming that people will pay for the "newness" of the multi colored iPhone 5C lineup.

Can’t wait for tonight! Will love a blue 5C.

Visit Sgmac.net, the new fb group (still in tweaking mode until mid-Sep, but open for joining) for devoted Mac users today!

On the long Apple writing hiatus and my hatred for the world right now

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Since Steve passed away, I have not found much motivation to post anything here. Furthermore, changes to various aspects of my Apple-related connections locally just made things worse.

These days, I am really more depressed than anything else to have idiots berating me every time I point out factual mistakes in their Anti-Apple rants, all while the whole local Apple scene is becoming more generic and boring. The Mac no longer matters to most, and all everyone is about are just iPhones and iPads, and how Samsung Galaxys are better simply because they have styluses and bigger (but lousier) screens.

To tell you the truth, I do not give a damn. I hate Samsung because I am disgusted by how they operate (through deceitful ways), and I hate people who defend them without any factual knowledge to back up their anti-Apple rants, and somehow thinking that if they hate Apple, they must support Samsung.

Samsung the brand and company is made up of scumbags and more scumbags, and every single person in cahoots with them by being a fan should be ashamed. Either that or they are scumbags themselves as well.

This is a fact – I do not hate Android. I just prefer iOS because Android is way too limiting for many things (yes, don’t give me all that crap about being “open” and whatever, because despite the sheer app ecosystem and raw numbers of devices out there in the world, Android and Android apps don’t do half of what iOS can do for me). I have Android phones all over my table right now, namely the Nexus S, the Nexus 4, the Xperia Z and the Sharp Zeta SH-09D (not everything is mine) and even a Windows Phone 7 phone (the Lumia 800) and I do not hate any of them.

Yet arseholes tell me that I am nothing but an Apple fanboy (including one of my old friends) everytime I point out how factually wrong their anti-Apple rants are, and either refused to give any facts to support their crap-attacks or simply do not have anything to back their shit up.

Just because I am a Steve Jobs fanboy does not mean I support Apple in every thing they do. There are more than a few things that I take issue with Apple in the past 20 months or so;

1. Firing of Scott Forstall – Just shows how ineffective Tim Cook is at managing those under him. Forstall was getting out of control and it seems that Cook had no choice but to get rid of him to keep the harmony within Apple’s executive team.

2. You think of Apple these days as AAPL and nothing else – Everything done in the past 12 months seems to be more than focused on the share price of AAPL. Is AAPL more important or is Apple Inc. more important? The board of directors seemed to be a bit confused. Almost every single comment Tim Cook makes publicly these days seems to be carefully calculated to affect the stock price positively. Whatever happened to “screwing” the stock price?

3. Wrong timing of product announcements – Seriously, what’s with the product announcements last October/Novemeber?

4. Don’t just give me iOS stuff. I want OS X and Macs.

There was a time when I relied on Apple to keep me entertained and feeling alive waiting for the next new annoucement, those days have since long passed. Every time I check RSS there’s nothing but stupid and baseless crap from analysts, or yet another report of Samsung doing something deceitful. Nothing, nothing at all from Apple.

Things may change with WWDC with iOS 7 and OS X 10.9, but until now I continue to be bored with the no-news situation from Apple that has been continuing since last October’s product announcements.

One more thing: Don’t listen to analysts. Those arseholes know nothing.

A tale of iPhones – The 4, the 4S and a little bit of the Origin

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Yeah yeah I know. I didn’t join the Starhub queue. I had a Starhub guy come to my place to give me my iPhone 4S in the comfort of my living room at 12pm sharp yesterday. Truth be told, I would love to go to the Singtel launch even though I’m not re-contracting with them this year (I alternate between Singtel, my real line, and Starhub, the line I sign for my brother to use, yearly), simply because all their launches have been really well done and enjoyable so far. But well, I’m not in the leagues of the local big-shot bloggers, and I talk shit about local telcos all the time. So no one would want to invite me. As usual.

But whatever.

I love this shot. Don’t you? And it’s not even the full family YET.

Pardon the photo quality. I had to take it with the shittiest camera phone I had at my disposal, for the good stuff’s the subject! (You know which Shitty phone that iS, don’t you?)

Here’s another washed-out pic. Oh so disgusting a camera the Nexus S is.

2011 MacBook Pros – Possibly the coolest ever?

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So the rumors about the new MacBook Pros releasing tomorrow night are definitely super interesting to me.

Let’s first recap how and why there is so much anticipation for this MacBook Pro release, unlike the other speed bump/innards update releases over the past two years.

1. It is now 2011. Apple first introduced the unibody MacBook Pros in late 2008, which makes three years already. And Apple loves to refresh its hardware designs every three years or so (discounting the fateful Aluminum Powerbook/MacBook Pro design). Which makes this year a perfect timing for new MacBook Pro designs. As with all Apple redesigns, it’s a big deal.

2. The release of the redesigned MacBook Air last year (I bought one myself, it’s that good). With the new MacBook Airs there is a very apparent new MacBook design philosophy – the focus on using SSDs, and not just any SSD, but the Toshiba Blade X-gale series that first appeared on the MacBook Airs, because they are much much smaller than a standard 1.8″ or 2.5″ traditional SSDs, and also because they are stock parts, they make way more sense for Apple to use them then to solder flash memory onto the logic boards themselves. And Apple publicly said that the Air will be the basic building block upon which future MacBook designs will be derived from, much like how the original Air inspired the Unibody MacBook Pro series.

3. The iMac refresh last year brought some interesting hardware configurations, namely, that Apple has a build-to-order configuration for a SSD and traditional HDD combination in an iMac, rather than have just a SSD as an option. This configuration allows one to install OS X and all apps onto the SSD and use the HDD for data. Having the OS and apps on the SSD will basically result in super speeding up boot times, application launch times, system response times, and the such, you get what I mean here. Basically it gives you a feeling of a much faster system than you actually own.

4. And that finally Apple probably has to switch to Core i3/i5/i7 series for their 13-inchers, for the Core 2 Duo chips will be out of production soon (or already is).

Macrumors (sourcing from Macgeneration, a french site) released the following rumored specs and info about the new MacBook Pro earlier today;

– no more white MacBook (Apple goes back to two lines of 13″ inchers)
– 16 GB SSD mSATA drives on all models to store the system
– Core i3 and third USB port on the 13″ model
– Matte screen option on the higher-end 13″
– Option to replace the SuperDrive with a SSD on the 15 and 17″ models
– HD screens on all models : 1440×900 on the 13″, 1680×1050 on the 15″
– 200 to 300 grams lighter : 1.8 kg for the 13″, 2.3 kg for the 15″, 2.65 kg for the 17″
– Better battery life : 12 hours on the 13″, 10 hours on the 15″
– 8 GB of RAM on the 17″

This seem to fit in with much of the changes in design philosophy brought about by the updated MacBook Air and the iMac refresh, for it makes use of 16GB of SSD for the system to basically boost overall system response speeds. Core i3 for the 13″ MacBook Pro makes complete sense with Sandy Bridge being good enough. Though personally I’m still hoping for some kind of miracle where Apple will put in a more decent-than-stock integrated/dedicated graphics on the 13″ MacBook Pro.

Matte screen options for the 13″ will finally appease the bunch of silly users who keep insisting that matte screens are better (when they are not) and who had to buy the 15″ because there wasn’t a matte screen option for the 13″, until now.

The screen resolution change isn’t a surprise, Apple switched the resolution starting from the updated 13″ MacBook Air last year, and it makes no business sense for them to keep using a lower resolution screen for the MacBook Pro lines.

And really, besides the introduction of SSD in every model and the increase of screen resolution, the most important part must be the decrease in weight of the whole MacBook Pro lines. With the unibody series the MacBook Pro line was already almost some of the lightest notebooks in its categories (all the more cool when you realised that competitors are achieving comparable weight using cheap filmsy lightweight plastic that breaks when you knock your laptop against your knee). If the 1.8kg weight for the 13″ MacBook Pro is real, there is just simply going to be no competition.

I am really excited, shouldn’t you be too? Especially you, you, you, you, you, you, and you, since you are already planning to buy your first Mac in the next two months.

This is really exciting.

P.S. And then there’s Light Peak. Shall not comment on it until we see it tomorrow.

P.S. again. It seems that new last minute-rumors have appeared to dispel some of the more cooler rumors including case redesigns and weight reduction. Check it out here. If true, will be much less ambitious and exciting than originally hoped for.

P.S., yet again. Cool my arse. The rumor mill could have never been more wrong. The 13″ers are totally lousier upgrades compared to the previous generation, which has better graphics and longer battery life (10 hours vs the current 7 hours)

Why is Apple hiring for the “Apple Travel Team”? What is that?

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Maybe I am really ignorant, but this is the first time I have ever heard of the “Apple Travel Team”.

Apple is currently hiring for the following positions in the “Apple Travel Team”;

i. Travel Counselor

ii. Operations Manager

iii. Operations Supervisor

For example, the Apple Travel Counselor position lists;

The Apple Travel Team in Singapore is seeking Travel Counselors who will be responsible for providing outstanding service and professionalism to travelers, make accurate and timely travel reservations, and maintain high levels of productivity in our fast pace Regional Service Center (RSC). This is an exciting position for an individual that is extremely customer focused and has a passion to provide service excellence to customers. The right individual must have a thorough knowledge of the travel industry, travel reservation systems, pricing, and international markets.

The successful candidate will:

•Professionally interact with travelers to respond to all travel inquiries including reservations, price quotations, and customer service issues

•Ensure optimum customer service through effective use of phone system, e-mail and positive telephone service techniques

•Achieve individual and team service level goals related to telephone, quality, accuracy and productivity

•Knows and properly uses airline terminology, codes, fare basis, airline rules and tariffs, resource guides, books, and industry contacts

•Maintaining a favorable company image when interfacing with outside resources

•Effectively work in a team environment supporting management and staff, follows policies, providing feedback, assisting in special projects, and taking on additional responsibility

•Outstanding organizational skills that result in high productivity

•Efficiently and effectively respond to customer service issues

•Must work weekends, may require night shift..

All these positions have been posted a few days ago. No one seems to have reported anything strange, which is why I am skeptical of this being something interesting. But never before have I seen the words “Apple Travel” on the Apple jobs site in all my lousy attempts at applying for a job at Apple.

It’s no secret that a large part of Apple’s call centre services for their Online Stores and sales is located in the Singapore campus, but I have never heard of Apple providing “outstanding service and professionalism to travelers, make accurate and timely travel reservations, and maintain high levels of productivity in our(Apple’s) fast pace Regional Service Center (RSC)”.

Pardon me but that totally sounds like the work of a TRAVEL AGENT.

And since when is Apple a travel agent?

Is Apple providing a new service? Maybe this has something to do with their purchase of some company providing mapping solutions a while back? Or to do with the Tim Cook visit to the Singapore campus a while back?

Or am I just plain dumb (well there’s a big chance) to the obvious presence of a “Apple Travel Team” in Apple Singapore all these years?

Anyone in the inside mind dropping me a PM? LOL.

Interesting.

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Why iOS 4.3 will bring Mobile Hotspot to the majority of iPhone owners before Android does to its minions

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So I posted a tweeted the other day declaring that the majority of current Android phone owners will never see their phones ever getting the Mobile Hotspot feature despite Android announcing the feature first in Froyo, Android 2.2, which was released in May 2010.

Why did I say that?

It’s very simple. The majority of Android handsets simply do not qualify for Froyo updates, usually because the carrier can’t be bothered or they just want to push sales of their newer handsets that come with Froyo installed, like the hundreds of new handsets slated for release in the next six months in a world when Gingerbread already exists.

Some guy replied to my tweet, stating,”I don’t think that applies to SG. I’ve been able to tether internet access from my HTC Desire for months now.”

Right.

And the majority of Android-using Singaporeans are using the presumably fugly HTC desire as their phone.

That is simply not true.

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First Post of 2011 – MacRyu’s iMac Setup 2011

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Almost five years ago, I posted my iMac setup (basically the stuff that’s on my work desk 90% of the time) on flickr. Since that time, components of that 2007 setup have changed, items have been removed and added, well, mostly added (thus a much messier table), and for the first post of 2011, I thought I’ll post some photos of my current work desk setup.

Here is the original September 2007 MacRyu iMac Setup.

iMac Setup 280907 - 012.JPG

And here are the January 2011 MacRyu iMac Setup photos……

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Blogger-Reviewers, Tech Reviews, Bias, Freebies, Rants and why Apple Singapore hates me

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Warning – This article might come across as being messy and distasteful.

Let’s face it – everyone has their bias. Every blogger, reviewer has their own bias. Anyone telling you otherwise is just plain lying in your face.

Sites that try to be like Engadget and Gizmodo are totally biased as well – they tend to be bias towards Engadget’s reviews. And since Engadget loves to write what I call a favor of reviews which I like to term “not here not there”, the kind of reviews you get from such sites are usually “neither here nor there” either.

Which might be just what you want – if you are not a fan of any brand or company – in other words, if you lack passion about your gadgets.

Do you?

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So I recently had my iMac’s 320GB hard drive replaced….

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Cause my Applecare Protection Plan is almost up, so I thought I’ll finally bring the dead 320GB original Apple (Seagate OEM) hard drive to swap for a new one.

Two days later, they called me up for collection.

The 320GB hard drive was swapped with a brand new 500GB one. Sweet. It’s another Seagate OEM.

The interesting thing was that

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