Apple Gambles Security And Stream Woes Won’t Tarnish New Tech

The launch of the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ in California is a stunning spectacle, if you were in the room.

Don’t, said Public Enemy firmly, believe the hype. Perhaps lamentably Apple were apparently more into N.W.A. (as their more recent association with Dr. Dre indicate) and didn’t get the memo. That meant that when it came to the launch of the new iPhone 6 there was hype aplenty, and not just any old hype, but the best most classy sort of hype. A complete lack of information. Oh certainly there had been the odd leaked picture of the new handset, but nothing to quell speculation, and speculation is the depleted uranium of the hype world.

Speculation as to the specifications, the new features, the changes to the old features, the new games, the new apps, none of these were damped in discussion by blurry leaked photos of what purported to be this amazing new device. Of course when it comes to discussions of leaked photos connected to Apple it hasn’t been handsets but starlets upon which the net-a-verse has focused in recent weeks, and it was against this background of swirling rumors of suspect security Tim Cook took to the stage.

The iCloud leaks couldn’t have come at a worse time, marring what was supposed to be another slick launch of a slick product, indeed so adverse was the timing that one could be forgiven for thinking that those behind the leaks had less desire to look at tits than make Apple look like a bunch of them. The boys in Cupertino deny any issues, of course, but then Apple admits mistakes and faults about as readily as hens grow teeth, and was characteristically tight-lipped in the run up to the product launch presentation.

On the gleaming clean white website numbers in an elegant thin font counted down hours, minutes and seconds to the big moment and, just as they flipped to read 00:00:00 anyone watching on a non-Apple product (you know, like a PC or Android device) were promptly told Live Streaming of the event simply didn’t apply to them. This is standard practice of course, but still seems a bit snotty, giving potential converts a welcome as warm as a Vladivostok casino doorman’s welcome. Not that it really mattered what you were running, because the stream had ideas of its own.

New Shiny Toys, Same Old Problems

As CEO Tim Cook took to the stage, the stream took to the hills, first showing a blank error, then a test card, then a different test card and then finally switched back to the event where it would loop ten seconds of the presentation until you either stopped it or began to chant along. When it finally seemed to settle, Phil Schiller was gamely showing off the new larger phones and talking up a good game of their new features and technology. The effect of which, for those of us at home, was completely spoilt by the sudden Chinese dubbing running over the top of everything he was saying.

There is only so many times one can hear a loop of “A great product isn’t just a collection of features it’s how it all works together.” repeated with the glacial confident ones of Schiller but accented by the shrill staccato of a young lady trying to translate into Chinese and talk at the same time. A few prods later and we got another burst of coverage before once again the stream decided to slow, stop, throw an error or six at anyone watching via VLC, and then finally completely die. For a device that prides itself on being your connection to everything, it was a pretty poor show.

Certainly they are both very nice phones from what has been seen of them. They’ve the Apple styling of course, making them look like the sort of thing Fisherprice would create if it suddenly had the urge to make toys for adults, they’re both slightly better than the previous models in terms of speed, camera quality, battery life and screen size, and indeed will make your pictures look slightly better, slightly sharper, slightly nicer of hue, but then these will be almost completely imperceptible to anyone with human eyesight.

Likewise the speed won’t really increase the rate at which you can browse the net, you can already do that as fast as you could possibly wish, the battery life IS longer, but then it was already lasting the best part of a full day anyway, and who doesn’t charge their phone at night? The 6+ has a gyroscopically stabilized camera which will definitely make your pictures less shakey, and will almost certainly be the thing that breaks when you knock it off the table or drop it into the lion enclosure attempting to take a humorous selfie.

Golden Apple Watch Wearable

None of which will stop fanbois buying the wretched things in huge numbers, queuing outside stores to be some of the first to get one, calling people in the queue from their iPhone 5 to tell them they’re queuing up for an iPhone 6. Very soon iPhone casinos will be packed with the new handset owners and their crowing smugness over the rest of the Apple acolyte community. Worse still some of them will have one of the other pieces of tech launched by Apple at this star studded but badly streamed event. The wearable tech oh so long awaited; the Apple Watch.

Sounding a bit too much like the most boring reality TV show ever made, Apple Watch was probably announced at the same time as the new iPhone because they sync up and other clever technical things, but it then could be Apple launched it with the new iPhone gambling people wouldn’t notice it looks like a bulky, gaudy piece of over complex rubbish that would perhaps be better left back aboard whichever 70s Sci-fi series space captains wrist they stole it from. It comes in steel, aluminium and, heavens save us, gold.

It is by no means an ugly gold brick on your wrist, far from it, but you can’t help thinking that Motorola did a far better job with their latest offering than Apple have done with theirs, if only in terms of aesthetics, upon which, let us not forget, Apple so manifestly pride themselves. However with the impending iPhone mobile gambling site invasion about to make a new round of software development a certain must, perhaps the Apple Watch will do the decent thing and fade away before it tarnishes the nice new phones.

U2 played out the launch with their new single and as people like Stephen Fry and Rupert Murdoch looked on, another iPhone joined the hallowed ranks of pointlessly better technology that has made no leaps, no bounds, just shaved a few margins here and there and smartened itself up a bit. The iPhone 6 will be a roaring success, until the iPhone 7 comes along next year and we who are not of the tribe are once more assailed with crappy streaming from one of the biggest technology companies in the world who quite frankly should have done better.

~ Read more about the new iPhone and gambling ~.