Taking a look back at seven days of news across the world of Apple this week’s Apple Loop includes a big leak around the new iPhone, a long-term review of the iPhone 7 Plus, the reactions to the touch bar enabled MacBook Pro, why the MacBook Pro was once the future and how it has matured around the iPhone, Apple starting to tidy up the App Store listing, a new browser for iOS, and a potential Christmas present for Apple fans.
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read the weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).
The Biggest iPhone Leak Yet
Following on from last week’s news that the iPhone SE 2 was being scrapped to preserve the market for the flagship iPhone in 2017 (see last week’s Apple Loop), details have emerged of three presumptively titled iPhone 8 handsets. As well as updates to the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, the idea of a third ‘premium’ device has returned. Forbes’ Gordon Kelly reports on the details revealed by Ming-Chi Kuo:
We look for new 2017 iPhones to come in three models: one OLED model, and two TFT-LCD models with 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch display. We believe the OLED and 5.5-inch TFT-LCD iPhones will feature [a] dual-camera. Barclays analysts this week said this OLED model will be a massive 5.8-inches and, if correct, Kuo’s revelation of three distinct models brings both good and bad news.
More on the good and bad angles about this big leak here.
Long Term Review Of The iPhone 7 Plus
Staying with the iPhone handsets, Forbes contributor Brooke Crothers has been living with the iPhone 7 Plus since it was launched. It was certainly geek chic when it was taken out the box, but how good a phone is it four weeks later?
The iPhone 7 Plus is a stellar interim upgrade but a not-so-stellar two-year upgrade that comes across as a tweaked iPhone 6s Plus. I’m speaking strictly from a consumer’s point of view. Lots of consumers will be hard pressed to tell the difference between the iPhone 7 Plus and the iPhone 6s Plus and even 6 Plus.
Crothers’ full review can be read here on Forbes.
Apple iPhone 7 (image: Ewan Spence)
Mixed Reactions To The Touch Bar MacBook Pro
Apple released the Touch Bar enabled MacBook Pro this week into stores at the same time as the embargo lifted on those reviewers who had early access to the hardware. As expected the similar design to the cheaper thirteen-inch model was welcomed (as were the additional USB-C ports), but in terms of the Touch Bar the jury is still out. Jacob Kastrenakes echoed the view of many in his review on The Verge:
But for every smart use of the Touch Bar, there’s another that’s too complicated or entirely meaningless. Often they’re even within the same app, all present on the Touch Bar at once.
Take Mail, for example: I love those quick-firing Archive and Spam buttons. But for some reason, the biggest button on the Touch Bar is used for… folder management!? It’s a puzzling decision; and while some apps let you edit the Touch Bar’s layout, Mail isn’t one of them.
Read the other MacBook Pro reviews here.
The MacBook Pro Was The Future Once
Although the MacBook has been welcomed by many users, it feels like Apple’s focus is in a different area. While the laptop is a comfortable piece of tech, Tim Cook and his team are working to move more consumers to the more profitable tablet platform:
Last year at the launch of the iPad Pro, Tim Cook asked “Why would you buy a PC any more?” Why indeed? It’s possible to carry out many of the day-to-day task that would normally be done on a laptop on a tablet – web browsing, social networks, music and video playback, note taking, document editing, messaging, and more. iOS has matured to point where the third-party ecosystem can cover the majority of tasks required by the majority of users.
The challenge in part is to convince consumers that think ‘laptop first’ to think ‘tablet first’. That continues to be the role of the iPad Pro in Apple’s portfolio. With the smart keyboard covers, long battery life, and Cupertino’s focused marketing the iOS tablets continue to perform strongly.
[Source:-FORBES]
