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I’ll second that! Long term, you’ll want the Retina – but there’s no reason not to get the regular Mini now, as a stop-gap, so long as you are canny about timings.

If you look at eBay, prices for second hand Minis are pretty solid. So if you factor this resale price into the cost of ownership for the stop-gap Mini, it really isn’t too bad (perhaps £30/$40 for 6 months’ ownership?).

My pro-tip: look for a Refurb unit from Apple direct. The quality of these refurbs is consistently excellent, and the 14%-15% savings will mean that when you do come to sell the regular Mini, you are even more likely to make back most of your outlay. I’ve done precisely this, and anticipate that the Mini shold sell on eBay for just £30 or so less than I have paid for it. That seems more than worth it to tide me over until the Retina Mini arrives.

The other advantage of this route: if the Retina Mini turns out to be underspecced (like the iPad 3 was) then you have a better prospect of resisting the temptation to buy it if you already have a regular Mini. Meaning that you can hold out for the inevitable revision 6 months later to a more capable and lasting Retina Mini!

1 day ago on I want an iPad Mini. I get the feeling I should wait. [Updated] 1 reply

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Sorry Juliano, I respect many of the views you have expressed in these forums, but I would strongly advise you to stop passing judgement on iOS7 until you have used it! Seriously. Because you may well end up looking very silly!

Commenting on the iconography is, I guess, fair game – they are what they are. Some will like them, some won’t. I personally quite like many of them (Maps, Photos, Weather) and only strongly dislike a few (Game Centre, Contacts Reminders). I’m sure they will be iterated before launch, however.

Assessing the UI/UX, however, is pointless unless you have actually used iOS7. Without wishing to sail too close to the NDA, suffice to say that iOS7 is a much better experience in practice than your inherently superficial first impressions from the Keynote/screenshots. Accusations of inferiority/ regression should be reserved until you are in a position to give an informed opinion.

So – in answer to the OP’s question – yes, iOS7 does get better as you become familiar with the dramatic shift. Much, much better. Fluid, beautiful, coherent, entertaining, but all the while deferential to its function… honestly, it’s a joy to use. Your comparison to Sparrow is an interesting one – Sparrow was my mail client of choice previously, but it is absolutely guilty of some indulgences and flourishes that impede its function – iOS7’s Mail.app, by contrast, has just as much finesse and vitality, but without the corresponding compromises.

I had the same reservations and concerns as anyone else when watching the Keynote, but I’m completely bowled over now. That’s not to say there aren’t some quirks, but for a first beta it is quite a remarkable achievement.

5 days ago on As people start using it, they start lovin it!

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In ignorance – what can one do with the M3U8 link? Can I somehow download the stream using this URL or something?

Context: I can’t watch the event live, but want to watch “as-live”, spoiler-free, later this evening. Based on past performance, the official post-event stream/download on Apple.com won’t be available for a good 5/6 hours later, which is way too late for me (I’m in the UK). The podcast version is usually even later. So can I use this M3U8 somehow, e.g. to download the file and put it on my iPhone to watch during my commute tomorrow?!

9 days ago on Apple's WWDC 2013 keynote will be streamed live 2 replies

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Fair point. Having watched the D11 interview, I interpreted his answer as being focussed on things like 3rd party keyboards, etc. The problem from Apple’s perspective is that if they allow users to set new defaults for apps like Mail and Calendars, it is almost inevitable that they will have to let you set a new default Maps application etc sooner or later. Given their strained relationship with Google, and their acknowledged determination to establish good mapping/location data, it seems like it would be anathema to allow Google Maps back in as default…

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo!

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Fair point. Having watched the D11 interview, I interpreted his answer as being focussed on things like 3rd party keyboards, etc. The problem from Apple’s perspective is that if they allow users to set new defaults for apps like Mail and Calendars, it is almost inevitable that they will have to let you set a new default Maps application etc sooner or later. Given their strained relationship with Google, and their acknowledged determination to establish good mapping/location data, it seems like it would be anathema to allow Google Maps back in as default…

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo!

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An interesting list. Option 1 falls foul of my dictatorial rules(!) but other than that…

I would query NFC support, however – plainly that would necessitate new iOS hardware, which is absolutely not going to happen. Nor would they risk embedding the requisite code in anticipation of future hardware, whether explicitly or covertly, since doing so would inevitably tip people off to a major new feature for the iPhone 5S (or whatever).

My only other quibble with your list – which seems generally great – would be re: “Improved battery life”. As a feature it is probably up there with “Safari feels snappier”! We’d all hope iOS7 would be more gentle on battery life than previous versions, but (a) I doubt they could achieve anything significant enough to tout it as a feature; and (b) most of the new features folks are expecting will probably demand more of the battery, so any efficiency improvements elsewhere would likely be lost.

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo! 1 recommend

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Bingo! And/or the ability to dismiss individual notifications, e.g. by swiping to the left. This, and quick reply, are both available in BiteSMS on jailbroken iPhones. I’d love to see this come to iOS7 (in an even-more elegant fashion).

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo! 1 reply

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Seems like a pretty good, realistic list there de_dust. Would love to have the ability to set default apps – I’m still in two minds as to whether Apple would be willing to do it, however. I suspect they are wary of doing something they perceive as a loosening of control over their platform (rightly or wrongly).

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo! 1 reply

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Hey Crunkfish. Some interesting suggestions, several of which I’ve not considered before. Couple of thoughts:

APIs for wearables sounds great, but obviously won’t come until Apple actually puts a stake in the ground – and I don’t expect the iWatch (or whatever) to appear at WWDC. So I’d guess any APIs of this nature would be deferred until 7.X/8.

Photostream simplified – an interesting comment – if anything I’ve always felt that Photostream was too simplistic. For example, my wife and I have to use the same iCloud account in order to have the photos from both our iPhones merge into the same Photostream and then automatically sync to our Mac. I’d love us to be able to separate our Photostreams (“don’t cross the streams!”) whilst still being able to see each other’s photos(without having to manually push them between us) and have both sync to our computer.

iPod Touch with 3G/LTE – four years ago I thought this was inevitable. Now I’m pretty certain Apple has decided it will never happen until the product line/market changes fundamentally. It would blur the lines between the Touch and the iPhone just too much…

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo! 1 reply

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Good to have you here Juliano – probably the most prolific presence in Apple Core!

Have to say your iOS7 features seem pretty ambitious to me. Not that I wouldn’t love to see each and every one of them, but I would fall off my chair if Apple managed all of that on top of the redesign everyone is banging on about. I love the ideas though – and as someone who has grown to love Zephyr in particular I’d love to see that come across. I’m actually really torn over whether to surrender my jailbreak in order to test the iOS7 beta – I’m 99% sure that once I upgrade, the only step back is to 6.1.3 (which is not jailbroken…)

Regarding the revamp to Camera.app – do you think all that would come via a software update, or do you not think it might be the sort of feature they would reserve only for new hardware (i.e. iPhone 5S)? Likewise offline Siri – I know there’s no technical reason it couldn’t come to current hardware, but isn’t that just the sort of thing Apple would do to differentiate and upsell the 5S?

19 days ago on iOS7 Keynote Bingo!