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iPhone, not fun at parties

Or Apple Watch, at least parties with leaky helium balloons

[iFixit](https://ifixit.org/blog/11986/iphones-are-allergic-to-helium/) details a odd story from a hospital near Chicago

A MRI machine was being install and suddenly iPhone’s and Apple Watches, 40 of them, began to malfunction.

Most were completely dead, wouldn’t even power up or charge, others came on and wi-if worked, but no cellular

At first some electrical or “EMP” issues was suspected, but only Apple devices were impacted.

The issue turned out to be a liquid helium leak (used to cool the machine) A lot of liquid helium 120 liters which expands to 90,000 L of gaseous.

Why. Tiny MEMS, microelectromechanical systems. The smallest mechanical apparatuses in the world.

Apple uses MEMS timing oscillators, instead of quartz, for their system clock. Basically the heart of the iPhone

They are smaller the quartz timers and are not as susceptible to becoming less accurate in extreme temperatures

Apple uses MEMS timing oscillators from SiTime.

These mechanical devices are susceptible to helium intrusion

Apple’s user guide states, “Exposing iPhone to environments having high concentrations of industrial chemicals, including near evaporating liquified gasses such as helium, may damage or impair iPhone functionality”

It can sometimes be reversed, but it might take a week unconnected from any power.

MEMS are all used in the gyroscopic and motion sensors on a lot of devices.

iPhone 5 vintage and repairable

An Apple product goes “vintage” five years after the end of production.

Until then Apple will supply parts and perform repairs on the devices.

The iPhone 6 is now “vintage” in the US and “obsolete” elsewhere.

You’ll also hear of products being called “obsolete” the difference exists mainly because California and Turkey required limited support for certain products for two years after they’re marked “obsolete”

Apple has [a list](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624) on their site with vintage and obsolete products.

Now normally this would mean iPhone 5 get limited repair support in California, and nothing anyplace else. But…

Apple has a new pilot program for repairs of some “vintage” products

They and AASPs can continue to provide repairs and get parts, while supplies last for:

iPhone 5, MacBook Air Mid-2012, iMac Mid 2011 (US and Turkey only)

They also plan to add more models and devices to the program soon.

Apple’s new stuff gets tested and tortured

iPad Pros seem to live up to Apple’s faster then “92% of portable PCs” claim. Including many of Apple’s portables

Geekbench single core: 5030 and 17,995 multi core

That about matches the single-core score of a 2.6GHz i7 2018 MacBook Pro (Mid-level)

The MacBook Pro does beat out the iPad in multi core with 6 cores, vs 8 in the iPad, but not by much.

The new iPad Pros are 30 percent faster in single core and twice as fast in multi-core vs the models they replace.

Shows good promise for the future of Macs running on Apple silicon

The Mac mini seems to be holding it’s own especially in the higher price point configuration

3.2GHz 6-core 8th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, UHD Graphics 630, and 32GB RAM ($1,699.00)

Geekbench single: 5512 and multi core 23,516

Puts it inline for a 2018 MacBook Pro 2.9GHz and close to a 2013 Mac Pro.

It also out performs 2017 iMac models.

The new MacBook Air seems to be matching performance closer to the 12-inch MacBook with a 13-inch MacBook Pro edging it out (Blowing it away in multi-core)

Not surprising considering it’s a 1.6GHz vs. 2.3Ghz

Using a new Intel low power “Y” series processor.

Apple’s Q4 2018 Results

Apple’s best June quarter ever and 4th quarter of double digit revenue growth

Strong iPhone, services, and wearables growth.

No doubt helped by iPhone XS and XS Max and Apple Watch Series 4

Apple noted revenue increases of over 50 percent in wearables.

The numbers

$62.9 billion in revenue, up from $52.58B in the same quarter last year.

Sold 9.7 million iPads, down from 10.3 million

46.9 million iPhones, up from 46.7 million

Seems bad until you know that globally smartphone shipments are down 6 percent.

5.3 million Macs, down from 5.4 million

In terms of revenue growth Other saw the largest gains at 31 percent followed by iPhone at 29 percent, and Services at 17 percent. Even Macs, despite a tiny drop in unit sales saw 3 percent revenue growth.

iPad revenue was down 15 percent, still their market share in tablets went up slightly according to IDC and their sales are declining, like the iPhone, at a slower rate then the rest of the industry. (6% decline for Apple vs 8.6% for the rest of the industry)

Not hard to see why Apple is driving up base pricing on their products when you start analyzing the numbers.

By revenue Mac and iPad now represent the two smallest slices of Apple’s business at 12 percent and 6 percent respectively. iPhone is 59 percent and services 16 percent. With “Other” which includes Apple Watch, Beats, and accessories making up 7 percent.

For the yer Apple had $265.6 billion in sales with net income of $59.5 billion that’s 11.1 billion more in profit this year vs last year.

Apple Pay has seen triple transaction volume year-over-year

Starting next quarter Apple will no longer report unit sales volume in ANY category.

Luca Maestri (CFO) said, “number of units sold in a quarter is not representative of underlying state of business.”

Competitors don’t report unit numbers.

“Other” is being renamed, “Wearables, Home, and Accessories”

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More returned XRs

I had a few others mention that they returned the XR due to not liking the size.

If you do return it don’t forget to remove it from Find My iPhone and Erase and reset it. Also remove your SIM if you transferred it over from your old device.

As a fellow gigantiPhone hater I can understand. The jump to a XS in price is hard to justify just based on size preference alone.

Still many of you are loving the XR

Even the size. Look, size is a very personal thing, so it’s great we now have almost all the options covered with new tech

I know you 4-inch iPhone SE fans are still left out, sorry.

Biggest complaint is lack of “portrait” support for objects other then people.

Now solved with 3rd party Apps like Halide or ProCamera

My impressions

I checked ‘em out in store

While I don’t like the size I didn’t have any issues with one handed operation

I also personally don’t have issues with the “slipperiness” of the phone

Enable “Reachability” and swipe down on the home indicator (bar)

Stand behind my impression that for most folks looking to upgrade from a device older then a X or 8 and 8 Plus this is the phone to consider.

Best feature to price

The wide angle portrait mode is a thing, but not a big one.

Also lack of telephoto

The images were great though.

In some ways the LCD screen seemed “better” then my iPhone XS

Brighter

Don’t think most will miss 3D Touch

Colors are all pretty great though not sure how I feel about the “mismatched” aluminum bands on some. Red is best match.

Community Thoughts on Apple Announcements

Many of you have been waiting on upgrades apparently and these seem to be the ones to jump on.

We have folks with Macs that have been in faithful service for 6-10 years. Crazy.

also supports my theory on why Apple is upping prices a bit. (Also confirmed by MANY comments)

Most don’t seem to put off by the prices, though a few do.

Hardest to swallow is the storage and RAM premiums

Let’s face it, 256GB storage and 16GB RAM are sort of the minimum which rules out most of Apple’s “base” configurations in my mind.

Still overall if you budget what you get for what you pay it’s pretty much just the Apple “premium” we’ve always accepted.

Tony says he thinks Apple left the MacBook in the line up to fulfill Apple’s “vision of the future” and it’ll be the first Mac with an Apple processor

Interesting, but I fell after the event Apple turned my thought of the merging of the Air and MacBook lines upside down

Now I think the Air has become the merging of those lines and the MacBook will slowly fade out.

Daniel brought up a point about warranty coverage and cost of ownership

He agreed with my assessment that part of the price increases is Apple’s managing a longer consumer upgrade cycle on products and the fact that their products just last longer

So he asks shouldn’t Apple back that up with a lower cost for consumers on repairs for the useful life of the product.

Stop charging for AppleCare+, build it in as part of the purchase (in a way they have done this with iPhone Upgrade Program)

I would argue that in a way Apple already does this.

I have had more experiences where Apple has just repaired it replaced a product free of charge even when out of warranty.

Also, out of warranty replacement costs are fairly low and reasonable in most cases.

Most of you seem pretty excited about the iPad Pro updates

I've very excited to get my new 11-inch iPad Pro

A little worried about the size "downgrade"

Tim also sent in his thoughts on the iPad Pro update.

The iPad and Storage

This needs to be a separate topic as many people have asked if now that the iPad USB-C if it would support external storage volumes.

Also, as Apple seems to be positioning it as a laptop or PC replacement then it seems to make sense.

They also are putting a big focus on iPad as a content creation device

Greg wants it because he’s a Photographer and now that “real Photoshop” for iPad is coming that is one limit he says makes his Surface a better device for his work.

With the addition of the Files app, combined with USB-C it seems like now more then ever would be the time for Apple to support external volumes

Unfortunately I don’t see it happening.

To date Apple & Adobe’s focus seems to be wanting us to push everything into the cloud.

Still it would make a lot of sense for all the reasons stated above.

Opt out of Apple Music

I’ve been a subscriber sinc e day one, so I didn’t know any different

Daryl mentioned that he didn’t want Apple Music and now inside the Music App and in iTunes it’s constantly asking him to subscribe.

I had never experienced this, but I tested it and he’s right.

In iTunes it slides down on Album and Artists pages.

In Music in the For You, Browse, Radio, and Search

Yes, search defaults to Apple Music

Settings > Music. Disable “Show Apple Music”

Gives you back, “Library, Connect, Radio, and Search (no Apple Music)

iTunes still has the banners on a lot of screens

Larger screen device there is a “close” button.

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