∞ LA Times gets stupid

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As you can imagine things have been pretty busy this week, so I’m just getting caught up on all the stupid that went on during the release of the iPhone 4S. One piece in particular from the LA Times caught my eye.

Normally, I may just link to the stupid article, but this one deserves a bit more attention. The article starts with a statement that sets the tone of what you can expect throughout the story.

Apple began its new era with a creation unlike anything it had produced in years: disappointment.

The only way you can characterize the iPhone 4S as a disappointment is if you believed all of the bullshit rumors that have been floating around the Internet for the past few months. That being the case, your readers should be disappointed with you for even suggesting this.

Clearly, you’re upset that it wasn’t an iPhone 5, but Apple never said it would be an iPhone 5. Perhaps you should show some disappointment in the rumors sites instead.

Alex Spektor, a wireless analyst at Strategy Analytics: By choosing not to call the device the iPhone 5, he said, “Apple is admitting that it’s basically the same phone but with some souped-up specifications.”

Wait a minute. Having a larger hard drive maybe be considered “souped-up” specs, but we’re talking about a phone that can intelligently switch antennas to make the call quality better. That’s not just a spec, that’s ground-breaking technology.

And the A5 chip is not just souped-up, this is a new processor that is twice as fast as the predecessor and has graphics that are seven times as fast as before.

This gives Apple and third-party developers the opportunity to make better apps to be sold on this little thing called the App Store. Maybe you’ve heard of it?

Unlike Jobs, who tended to stay on the stage for most of a product unveiling…

Now you’re just trying to piss me off. Have you been to any of Jobs’ keynotes in the past couple of years? Tim Cook followed the exact same format that Steve did. Let the executives in charge of the technologies being demoed, talk about them.

“They are satisfying the broadening demand of the market,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst with Forrester Research. “It’s a good strategy on Apple’s part.”

Finally.

One of the day’s minor flourishes was Apple’s announcement of its new “Cards” application…

So, to make your point, you choose one of the cool little apps that Apple introduced. A fun app, that is in itself something that nobody else is doing.

If you are going to choose an app, why not choose Reminders? Then you could mention that it integrates with Siri, Apple’s voice assistant to set up location reminders around the places you visit.

While the LA Times did mention Siri, it focused on the simpler functions of the technology, but completely ignored the fact that it understands the context of what you are asking it.

I guess that wouldn’t have supported the outcome of the article.


  • http://twitter.com/sashachh Sasha Chh

    Um, why wouldn’t anyone be dissapointed in a phone that would be high tech three years ago?

    • His Shadow

      You are kidding, right? The first dual core cellphone was announced Dec 15th 2010. At best, you could argue this hardware is a year old. Maybe. But since the A5s graphics leaves the competition in the dust, in actuality you don’t have a point. And lets try to grasp this: cellphones are shipping with dual core processors. DUAL CORE! The specs are entirely irrelevant! What matters, what will push tech forward, what people will actually give a shit about, is what can you DO with the phone?

      And in that regard, Apple will again be out in front of the kludge that is Android, and the unreleased Unicorns and also rans from WinMobile partners.

      • Anonymous

        Lol, the A5 had the same gpu the original galaxy s had and any omap 4 cpu had. Its not at all cutting edge, power vr already has a successor that is 200% performance(power vr sgx 545-mp2) and thats being nice about it, and there developing another that has 800% performance gains, to be honest apple has superb programing and excellently designed and integrated apps. Nothing else they have is cutting edge. Wich is not to say that what they have is not awesome and exactly what is necessary

        • YossarianLives

          Wrong. The Galaxy S was ARM Cortex-A8, the A5 was ARM Cortex-A9. I’m sorry if facts get in the way of your idiocy.
          The rest of your post is also unreadable, and that is only partly due to your poor diction and grammar. Next time call up to ask your mom for help when trying to post legibly.

          • Anonymous

            Lol,
            my comment was unreadable because you apparently lack the intelligence to comprehend what I’m saying. I never said procedure was the same. I said the gpu graphics processing unit/chip was the same. With every current gen cpu there is a subsequent gpu that utilizes the cpus power todrive the graphics procedure to perform multiple graphics computations. The power vr sgx 540 is found in ALL samsung made Galaxy S phones as well as the galaxy tab (7inch) my argument was that the power vrsgx 540 gpu

          • Anonymous

            Is an old gpu, wich currently drives the graphics in: the black berry play book, the archos g9 series, the droid bionic, droid 3, the nexus S, any product running the omap 4 platform.
            Not a bad gpu, but not at all the top of the line.
            Also I’m writing this on my phone

        • His Shadow

          I’m sorry, but is your defense of your claim that the iPhone 4S is 3 year old tech going to be to compare it to GPUs that are not available yet?

          • Anonymous

            They are Available today, you can buy a dev system right now and see for your self what it can do but you dont have to because I’m telling you facts that its amazing. Apple just didn’t want to pay top dollar for the top gpu when apple buyers don’t understand the difference between the quadcore power vr sgx 543 mp4 and the ipad 2s gpu wich has actually 90% the ability. Make no mistake that I will have an ipad 2 sooner or later, buy understand that it is not at all the top of the line like apple would like everyone to think.

          • Anonymous

            P.s. Besides the new os benefits like siri and cards and all that, the ipad 2 and iphone 4s are hard ware wise the same basically, wich is good. But they could have done better, I would have liked them to make the screen larger, like 4 our maybe even 4.3-4.5. Or maybe make a 6 or 7 inch ipad S, I would but two 6-7 inch ipad-s’s, and I would pay 800 each if they had the quad core gpu and a 1.2ghz -1.5ghz cpu, damn I would buy 3 so I could give one to my wide and her sister lol

        • http://twitter.com/oomu oomu

          we don’t care : Siri is NEW usage, recent tech now at last integrated in the core of the whole system, it will allow a better way to speak to apps.

          yes , that is interesting. THAT is exciting, it’s like the old nuance app to a whole new level

          bullshit about cpus-gpus-core-whoever-was-the-biggest-first and whatever generation-specifs units apple/samsung/my grandmother are using is GEEKS TALKS ! 

          And Geeks TALKS are NEVER the speak of the heart but the speak of contempt ! Geeks have no respect to engineering and technology, they just want candies because they are easily bored.

          Speak about accessibility, ease of use, better tools, why the technology will help me, and I will be convinced.

          “power vr sgx 545-mp2″ vai-ar-seugeuHixMGLgelAURG is just an esoteric insult.

          -
          by the way, the A5 is custom, so it’s not that straightforward to compare.

          and yes, I’m grumpy.

    • Anonymous

      Explain your reasoning, or you’re a troll.

      EDIT: I take it back. Anyone who would post a clearly inflammatory comment and not follow it up with reason and evidence is already a troll. Consider yourself so dubbed.

  • http://twitter.com/justin_horn Justin Horn

    Sometimes you have to wonder if the people writing these articles are on the same planet with the rest of us.

    • http://twitter.com/oomu oomu

      yes they are

      but their job is to sell you Drama (or Romance, or Tragedy), in a way : “pathos”.

      They have to sell you fear or anger or love to interest you and fed up to you ads (or subscription ). So today it’s “disappointment”.

      Yesterday they sold you “excitement”, and just after, the cold shower. Don’t you see ? it’s just like a movie.

      it’s storytelling, baby.

      -
      the true article with explanations, interesting facts and all will come later or sooner. it will be a different text, to please others peoples.

      (for example, the NYT can do BOTH in the same day).
      -
      it’s just business.

  • Samuel Ford

    Beginning to think the likelihood of success for any given Apple product is directly proportional to the “disappointment” of the tech press. By that measure, this should be a run away success.

    And honestly, I think it will be.

  • Jon Thompson

    I fully expect that at some point Cards will integrate with Siri too.

    “Order a card for my wife on her birthday and use a five star photo from within two weeks.”

  • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

    That’s a misleading headline, Jim. It would be more accurate to say “LA Times Continues to be Stupid”.

  • Eyraud

    i was amused to see the Times refer to the “iPhone Touch” and the “iTouch” in their section with pictures.

    i wonder who makes those?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_5BHLNE6HC75ETNMNDKEEKLMF3M Steve Pederson

    Almost invariably when a major news outlet covers something I know about I’m appalled at how wrong they get it. I’ve come to believe that traditional journalism is really “arrogance in being ignorant.” Clearly this article was written based on the author’s belief in what Apple product launches were like, not any actual knowledge.

    The most obvious is that the 4S is EXACTLY what Apple’s history said they would launch. But people seem to “know” that every Steve Jobs announcement was some magical all new shiny thing.  Mac, once. OSX, once. iPhone, once. iPod, once (maybe twice if you count the nano); iPad once. The rest are evolutionary improvements of products customers already love (and heads spinny with something completely different every year is NOT what real customers want. They have lives.)

    Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

    MSM isn’t just dying because its business model is broken. It’s also dying because its content was never really very good. There’s a whole blogsphere that covers Apple much more intelligently. We no longer have to settle for the ignorance of traditional journalists.

    My thinking is: My God, these Apple guys got on stage and announced these products with breaking hearts. They had to know. The chair. “Reserved.” That’s the human story.

    • Player_16

      I was kind of waiting for the usual quote of ‘..well the other companies  turn out new models at least 4 times yearly.’ or ‘…Android’s been doin’ this for a couple o’ years so now Apple’s tryin’ to catch up.’ 

      He just came for a free feed.  

      • Anonymous

        I have a friend who once said the reason why everyone else comes out with new models 5 times a year is that they don’t want to admit that the previous one had a flaw. So they fix it and slap a new name on it to no one figures it out. 

        Probably not true, but it feels like it sometimes with the rate some companies release

    • Anonymous

      One of the best bits about Steve was his ability to call even a simple thing magical and people saw it with those eyes. So they walked in with a positive POV. Even though it wasn’t a huge change from what came before. 

      That’s not Tim’s style and he has enough respect for Steve not to try to be a copy cat. And I imagine that Steve encouraged that. It would go with his stuff from when he spoke at Stanford about not playing by other folks rules. 

      At the same time, hopefully Tim will be a little more excited with the next one and the fully downbeat was because of the situation, which no one can fully get out of their minds. 

  • Anonymous

    Despite the fact that whenever possible Apple managers cite user experience as their main focus, the blogosphere and analysts lead off stories with spec comparisons to other phones. Apple will not enter the feature arms race even if that makes the LA Times unhappy. Horace Dediu wrote an excellent piece on why no iPhone 5. I would add that Apple engineers probably also decided that a different (tear drop?) form factor would not add significantly to the user experience. Memo to the LA Times: “It’s the software stupid.”  This is also an early Christmas present to the supply chain. They won’t need to retool manufacturing facilities and their personnel are already trained. Serious cost savings.

  • Missyp3

    Thank you; tired of everyone being “disappointed” by Apple!

    • Anonymous

      I’m not disappointed in apple, not like when they released the verizon iphone with the same antenna problems the att one had, all they needed to do was cost the bezel/antenna in a clear film that was not conductive, blah lol I’m not going to rant about it.
      Iphone 4s is amazing even with the screen being alittle small for gaming, they should have made it the same pixel count but with a 4+ inch screen, still not disappointed, form factor staying the same is not a deal brasher compared to what you gain under the hood, software and hardware wise.

      • Anonymous

        Forgot to mention the camera is a freak of nature and as so should be….. Put into everything lol! I want that camera in anything i own

  • http://twitter.com/ankleskater Ankle Skater

    The article was a bit of a butcher job.  But, to be fair, based on recent and not so recent history, Steve Jobs would have been the one to present the 4S.  I think Tim Cook is showing humility as well as a knowledge of his role by not talking about any of the tech.  Having said this, I don’t think Phil Schiller did a good job.  He frequently looked at some kind of prompter (a computer in the first row?). He stuttered when describing the technical details or simply mentioned them very quickly.  They need someone else to show the hardware.  Scott Forstall has emerged as the best presenter of the bunch.  He just needs to slow down on his delivery.

    • Player_16

      There are large, shielded monitors in the front row at all of the events -similar to a teleprompter. It permits the speaker to move around. The speaker can control the speed of the content that appears by using a remote that’s passed from speaker-to-speaker. 

  • Anonymous

    If they had called it the iPhone 5 as in ‘the fifth iPhone we made’, Spektor would have based them saying that new numbers only belong on phones that were actually redesigned (i.e. new body style) and this should be called the 4S. 

    ie no matter what he wouldn’t have been happy