Will you pay a premium for an iPhone 8 (X)?
- Thread starter rockymtnhigh
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 526
- Views 30K
Does the Hopper support VP9? Not that it has anything to do with the iPhone X, but it does with hardware support for decoding 4K video.
Hmmm, in order to support VP9 / AV1 a licensee needs to not litigate patents against the Alliance. With Apple holding competing patents used by HEVC, it sounds like Apple can't provide VP9 / AV1 format support without abandoning a portion of their business. So I guess I'll just use Chrome or Firefox on my system to watch 4K YouTube.
The notch doesn't bother me. I got used to no home button quickly, within a day or two which was much faster and better than I had expected. I actually like the gestures better than the home button. The one thing I do not like as much is the action it takes to close out apps. Why on earth would they not let you to continue to just swipe up to close an app but instead have to push the app until the red minus circles come up in order to close them? I think thats crazy. Theres supposed to be a way to create your own gestures and am wondering if I can create my own to re-implement that feature on the X closing the apps by swiping up like you can on the prior models.
I like the size. It seems perfect. I had issues with the touch id as it would work good at first then quit working for me after a little while when I would redo the scan. I had that issue with the 6 plus and 7 plus. The face id works great. Whats not good is that some apps/videos cut the sides off basically making it same screen real estate as the 6/7/8 base models in those instances.
I like the size. It seems perfect. I had issues with the touch id as it would work good at first then quit working for me after a little while when I would redo the scan. I had that issue with the 6 plus and 7 plus. The face id works great. Whats not good is that some apps/videos cut the sides off basically making it same screen real estate as the 6/7/8 base models in those instances.
According to the Apple pundits, closing Apps was made difficult because there is no reason to do so. Apps sleep when they aren't active, and are swapped out of RAM if and when the memory is needed for some other App. It used to be that force-quitting a Bad App would save battery, but Apple would like us to think that those days are gone. In other words, Apple says Opening and Force-quitting an App will eventually use more power than opening the App and letting iOS determine its activity level.
But it just gets so cluttered when you're moving from App to App if there's more than a half-dozen.
But it just gets so cluttered when you're moving from App to App if there's more than a half-dozen.
Spotify just got an update to support the iPhone X screen. The only holdout I use multiple times per day now is the Gmail app. I'm sure there are others that I just haven't opened recently but the only other app on my phone besides Gmail that I know for sure hasn't received an iPhone X update yet is Nest. I'm thinking this is not a coincidence since both of these apps are owned by Google but the Youtube app was updated for the X right away.
The Nest thermostat is one of a very few truly smart thermostats that works with Homekit so if anyone is bent out of shape, it is surely Apple.
I'm not saying that Google is bent out of shape or doing this out of spite. They could choose to not even develop apps for iOS if they wanted to. I'm saying that they are slower to update their apps to use the full iPhone X screen than most other major developers. I'm not sure how Gmail and Nest not being updated for the iPhone X means Apple is bent out of shape either though.
I don't have an axe to grind against Google. If I did I would be using a different email provider or at least using the default mail app instead of the Gmail app. The Nest app not filling the whole screen doesn't even bother me. Everything is so automated with my Nest at this point that I almost never even open that app anymore. The only reason I even brought it up was because it is the only app on my phone I use often enough to know it hasn't been updated for iPhone X yet besides Gmail. Gmail not being updated yet bothers me more because there is a lot of wasted space that could be used to display my email and I am probably in that app a dozen times per day.
This is another example where Apple is bent. They insist on using unusual screen resolutions and aspect ratios. This forces the app developers to look at Return On Investment of an app update. If Apple would use standard resolutions and aspect ratios (as their Plus line does) this would never have been a problem.
I just went through every app on my phone and there are still quite a few that haven't been updated yet. The ones I wasn't aware of until now are just apps that I haven't used since getting my iPhone X. The following apps have not been updated yet;
Gmail, Nest, Kindle, Dish Anywhere, Marvel Unlimited, Amazon Prime Video, Tivo, Goodreads, Fox Sports Go, OnStar Remote Link, Playstation, Steam, and Speedtest.
That sounds like a lot of apps but when compared to all the apps I have on my phone it's really not that big of a number. The reading apps (Kindle and Marvel Unlimited) and the video streaming apps (Amazon Prime, Tivo, Dish Anywhere, Fox Sports Go) would really bother me but I almost never use those kinds of apps on my phone. I stick to the iPad for reading and video.
Google is far from the only major developer that hasn't put out an update yet and Spotify was just updated today. Gmail is probably one of the most popular apps that hasn't been updated yet though. It's certainly my most used app that hasn't.
Gmail, Nest, Kindle, Dish Anywhere, Marvel Unlimited, Amazon Prime Video, Tivo, Goodreads, Fox Sports Go, OnStar Remote Link, Playstation, Steam, and Speedtest.
That sounds like a lot of apps but when compared to all the apps I have on my phone it's really not that big of a number. The reading apps (Kindle and Marvel Unlimited) and the video streaming apps (Amazon Prime, Tivo, Dish Anywhere, Fox Sports Go) would really bother me but I almost never use those kinds of apps on my phone. I stick to the iPad for reading and video.
Google is far from the only major developer that hasn't put out an update yet and Spotify was just updated today. Gmail is probably one of the most popular apps that hasn't been updated yet though. It's certainly my most used app that hasn't.
It's not like Apple is the only one doing this. Look how tall the Samsung Galaxy S8 is. According to this article it has a 18.5:9 screen.
I suppose they don't absolutely have to be updated since most video people watch on their phone is 16:9. As I've said before, the phone is not really a video device for me so it doesn't bother me that much.
Apple's Trailers app is a good example app to get an idea of what can be done with the wider aspect ratio though. Most movies have an aspect ratio that is wider than 16:9. The Trailers app let's these wider videos go all the way to where the notch starts. It makes much smaller black bars than an app like Amazon Prime that hasn't been updated would. They also give you the option to double tap the video to make it go full screen but if you do that some of the image is lost.
Netflix and Youtube give you this option too because they have been updated. I just tested with The Hateful Eight on Netflix and the video goes all the way to the notch on the iPhone X instead of putting big black bars on all 4 sides of the video like Star Trek Beyond does on Amazon Prime which hasn't been updated yet. It's like watching a letterboxed movie on a 4:3 SD channel on your 16:9 HDTV.
Again, I can't imagine wanting to watch The Hateful Eight or Star Trek Beyond on my phone but if you do apps that have been updated will use more of the screen than apps that haven't.
Last edited:
This is an oft-used response (especially by Don) to the goofy aspect ratio citation. That many (especially those millennials who are seemingly one with their phones) don't have computer or tablet options makes it a weak argument in general.
Samsung seems to be wandering off in their own direction with the new OLED phone displays (and their own private HDR for that matter). I wonder if they're trying to drive home the impact of South Korea on modern electronics. It is sad that the impact manifests itself as a weird compromise.
Of course retreating to the iPad doesn't help much since they use SD's 4:3 aspect ratio across the board.
App screens shouldn't be any different than a web app needing to reformat their presentation on a browser. Apple's iPhone X with part of the top portion of the screen unusable is a huge anomaly to the rectangular window paradigm. It would have been better if the UI had drawn the line across the top and separated the Screen Real Estate into Upper-Left, Upper-Right, and Main Screen. But then you would have an asymmetrical Apple device, and you can't have that. Oh, wait, I guess they did do exactly that...
Let's not extrapolate the basis for my response about the "goofy aspect ratio" on the iphoneX. My comment was in reference to a decision to buy or not, the iphoneX before the leaked features were released and finalized by the official announcement. My reason had to do with the search for a native 4K screen in a form factor that would fit in the 360VR goggles. Like my 6+ which is only 2K screen, the Sony I bought as opposed to the iphoneX fills that need. It would have been nice to own one device to use for that purpose, but the 4K Sony also gave me a 960 fps slomo camera which is a nice addition to my kit. If the iphoneX had a 6+ form factor with 4K native screen I would have purchased it.
My choice has nothing to do with what is popular or what others are looking for. It was a choice I made based on what I was looking for. As a communications device I rarely use the 6+ to watch videos anyway and now never use it for my 360VR goggles. The Sony fills that purpose. The iphoneX shape won't even fit the holder in the goggles so the optics won't work right anyway.
I understand that, but discounting that the camera or the display isn't a ding because you use something better suited to the application is a cop out. Holding up individual elements of a particular device as superior while dismissing the importance of features that aren't so great for what a large majority of the owners use such a device for isn't really fair to those who are trying to decide what's best for themselves.
What if Apple went for it and delivered a best-of-almost-every-category phone commensurate with what the street price should get you?
Why should Apple be let off the hook? It isn't like they don't have money in the budget and they aren't printing it in large denominations.
How is it a cop out to say that I don't care about watching TV on my phone? I bought the iPhone X fully aware that it wasn't 16:9. I'm not here trying to recommended it to anyone else. If they want their phone to be a perfect mini TV they obviously need to look at other devices.
The display is not a ding for me. It was a selling point. I'm someone who didn't want anything to do with Apple's + sized phones. I stuck with a regular iPhone 6 because I liked that size better. The whole reason I bought the X instead of the 8 is because of the new screen. An OLED display that is significantly larger than the 6/7/8 while the device itself is very close to the same size sounded great to me. You can go look back at my posts here from before the preorders went live and see that I pointed out back then that this was the exact reason I was buying an X.
If the iPhone X was 16:9 I probably wouldn't have bought it. The device would have to be quite a bit wider and it would be starting to approach the + size phones. I am happy that it isn't designed as a mini TV because that's not what I use it for even though I am one of those millennials you are talking about. I don't think that's a cop out.
Edit: In addition to the Samsung Galaxy S8 I mentioned earlier, the Pixel 2 XL is not 16:9 either. Neither is the Note 8, LG V30, or the LG G6. I went through the first page of the most popular smartphones on Verizon's website and it seems like there are as many phones with taller displays as there are with 16:9 ratios... but yes, Apple is bent for not going 16:9 and anyone who doesn't care about that is just making a cop out.
Last edited:
Many people will "defend" this non-standard resolution after the fact with a comment like, "well, I don't really use my phone to watch videos anyway, so it's not a big deal to me".
Hard-core Apple fan-boys do it all the time, like....
"I never have had to charge my phone at the same time I wanted to use my headphones"
"Is it really a big deal if it takes a few seconds longer or more than one try to use FaceID when people are waiting in line behind me while I try and use Apple Pay ?"
