Hasta La Gadget!

The iPhone 5 has been criticized for being a boring and marginal update to the iPhone 4S—at least in terms of design, since the new handset looks a lot like its predecessor. The two phones are so similar, that when Jimmy Kimmel showed the iPhone 4S to random people on the street, passing it off as the iPhone 5, no one realized the ruse. More »

Apple changed its long-standing 30-pin dock connector out for an 8-pin new standard called Lightning. But what does that actually mean for users? Well the advantages are mostly passed on through hardware design — not necessarily around performance.

Here’s the skinny: Apple made claims on-stage about improved speed and reliability, thanks to an “eight-signal, all-digital” hardware design. The speed could be better, but this is still based on USB 2.0 specs, not 3.0 or Thunderbolt. That means gains will be modest, not magical. And given that Apple recently made sure that its latest notebooks all have USB 3.0, that seems strange.

But it isn’t that bizarre, really. Apple would have had to do significant redesigns on the inside of the iPhone itself to make that change, and that would have cost more money and affected margins. Engadget senior columnist and long-time mobile industry analyst Ross Rubin told me via email that, while USB 3.0 seems like a logical way to go, that likely won’t happen for a while yet, but is probably an easy switch in terms of the tech in the cabling itself.

“Particularly with the iPad being used as a video storage device and the growing video resolutions of cameras on the iPhone, a speed bump in throughput would have been welcome,” he offered via email. “The USB 2.0 speeds are likely a limitation of the iPhone 5 and not Lightning per se as it’s unlikely Apple would launch an architecture that would lock us to that speed for the next few years.”

Durability also seems like an advantage to Lightning, Apple says, since it has a design with much less of a ridge where cable meets connector, a common breakage point on 30-pin cables. But overall, this isn’t about delivering a better sync or charge experience for users, it’s about the same thing the nano-SIM is: saving space inside the case to allow for thinner, more lightweight designs and larger batteries. In fact, as Apple SVP Phil Schiller told AllThingsD, making an iPhone this thin with the existing dock connector wasn’t physically possible.

Before now, the iPhone’s design has been limited quite a bit by the 30-pin connector architecture. Now design decisions can be dictated by other factors, which obviously has benefits for consumers. For instance the horizontal size of the 30-pin dock connector is at least three or four times the width of the new connector. In a game where millimeters count for a lot, that’s a huge amount of extra room to play with.

Another thing Apple talked about was that the connector works no matter how you plug it in, so there’s definitely some upside in terms of usability. And there are downsides, like the fact that the dock adapter doesn’t support either video or iPod Out, according to Apple’s official specs (Lightning itself does support the same kind of media I/O as the 30-pin connector, however).

Lightning has a trade name that evokes its speedier, low-latency cousin Thunderbolt, but it’s a necessary step based on design decisions, not something designed to push the envelope on user experience. That said, the tangential benefits it makes possible are considerable in themselves, so the short-term disadvantages in terms of ecosystem obsolescence are ultimately probably not a bad trade-off. And Schiller indicated to AllThingsD that it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, so at least we’ll have time to recover from the extreme trauma of the shift this time around.

Apple has a tradition of timing FCC filings for new wireless mobile devices so that they appear just as soon as they’ve been announced, and it’s not about to let up now. We’ve got a trifecta of approvals on the way for 2012 that start with the iPhone 5. What’s hard to miss is the absurd number of cellular bands at work: as Apple had to make separate iPhone 5 models to cover every LTE carrier it supports, on top of the usual alphabet soups for CDMA and GSM, the filing combining the two devices is one of the largest we’ve seen to date. The addition of 5GHz WiFi support only compounds the situation.

A pair of iPods also made their appearances today, and they’ve been given the regulatory once-over as well. The iPod touch has the 5GHz WiFi band included and isn’t special by itself, but the new iPod nano is noteworthy simply for showing up at all — the inclusion of Bluetooth means a spin past the testing facility in addition to some wireless audio. We’re still digging to see if the iPhone or new iPods have any surprises, although you can have a first-hand look through the source links.

Brad Molen contributed to this report.

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio/Video, Mobile

iPhone 5, updated iPod touch and iPod nano models reach the FCC right on cue originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Sep 2012 17:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple’s new EarPods are available to order today in the Apple Store, but we were lucky enough to get a pair here at TechCrunch for some early testing. The new design is definitely eye-catching, but does performance live up to the looks? Read on to find out.

The Good

These definitely sound better than those earbuds you got with your iPhone 4S and immediately put into a drawer, never to think about again. The sound is much richer and more like what you’d get from Apple’s In-Ear Headphones, though without the sound isolation since they don’t form a seal in your ear canal. That is actually better for general commuting use, however, since it means you can still hear traffic and other environmental sounds.

One thing everyone will probably appreciate is much better bass performance. It’s not overpowering, which you might get on a pair of Monster Beats, and that’s a good thing. You also get better stereo effects, all resulting in a much more immersive listening experience.

Comfort is pretty much a toss-up between these and the last. They do feel a little less likely to fall out of your ears or shift around while you’re walking and wearing, though it also takes a little bit longer to get them seated correctly in the first place.

Smaller openings that don’t use a huge grill alone should increase element resistance and make them more durable, and Apple claims overall they’re designed to better take a beating, and early impressions bear that out.

The Bad

It would be hard for the new EarPods to be worse at anything than the earbuds they replace, if only because those were so bad in every regard. However, one thing I did notice was that the controls/mic pod felt a little bit flimsy and light, which could be a concern for long-term wear, but that could admittedly also just be a mistaken impression.

Conclusions

The new EarPods are better than the old ones, and they come free with new iPhones and iPods, so you can’t really complain. Plus, at $29, while I’m not sure they rival some of my favorites like the Bowers & Wilkins C5 or Klipsch S4i, they sound pretty good. Definitely a better buy than the lackluster In-Ear Headphones with Mic for $79 as a standalone purchase.

By now, you’re probably familiar with Apple’s latest earbuds. But are they an improvement over their arguably disposable predecessor, you ask? You bet. Still, they’re not going to win out over high-end or even mid-range audio options. That’s to be expected, though — the EarPods do sound better, and, well, they cost 29 bucks and ship with all of the devices Apple announced today. The attractive white ‘buds are packaged in a plastic case that’s quite similar to the enclosure that Apple introduced with its previous-gen step-up set. They’re very lightweight, not that you had any doubts, and appear to be durable enough. The “one size fits all” design worked well in our ears — it wasn’t a snug fit by any means, but we didn’t fear that they’d fall to the ground with the slightest movement.

You’ll net the best performance in quieter settings, considering that they don’t isolate sound like some other options on the market, and if you’re a frequent air traveler or often find yourself working in noisy environments, you’ll probably want to consider other options. That said, folks who don’t need the absolute best or want to save up for a better solution should find these to be sufficient — we didn’t have a chance to do any in-depth testing and analysis, but expect that to come after we’ve had a chance to digest all of today’s new gadgets. For now, you can take a closer look in the hands-on gallery just below.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Wearables, Mobile

Apple EarPods hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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