Yet another Hacker News

157 points meetpateltech 3 hours ago 114 comments

BISH-BASH-BOSH 2 hours ago | parent

Is the C2 modem the satellite data chip?

ungreased0675 2 hours ago | parent

I’m still waiting on a mini

dijit 2 hours ago | parent

we’ll be waiting a while. The last Mini was iPhone 8 sized, when I considered anything larger than the 5 to be too much.

The Mini thus, undersold, because if you were fine with the 8 then iPhones of that size were still available (2nd Gen SE). Nobody bought: So Apple thinks theres no market.

ocd 2 hours ago | parent

Always seemed like a marketing issue on Apple's part. People have different opinions when they actually see and handle the Mini. Apple appended so many "Pro" and "Max" names to everything which ended up creating a "status symbol" that was contrary to the actual needs of the consumer to have a more reasonably sized phone. "Fablets" weren't particularly popular for that reason, and Apple still managed to lead people down this road.

permanent-overc 2 hours ago | parent

I think you forgot the history.

Apple was the last hold out with small phones, years after everybody else moved to huge phones.

But even Apple couldn't resist the pressure from the consumers, and eventually yielded.

happymellon 1 hour ago | parent

Yet they sold more minis than Google sells Pixels.

And somehow we ended up with more Pixels and not minis.

layer8 1 hour ago | parent

The mini was released six months after the SE2 was released, which many SE1 owners holding out for a new smaller iPhone had already migrated to. Then Apple presented the mini in a joke-y manner in the keynote, didn’t do any publicity afterwards, and neither did the carriers (because the mini was lower-margin for them I presume). Lastly, the iPhone 12 gen had particularly bad battery life, which also hurt the mini. With today’s battery improvements, it would be much better (as demonstrated by the iPhone Air’s good battery life). Apple could at least have taken the option to make the “e” line mini-sized.

Jtsummers 2 hours ago | parent

> The last Mini was iPhone 8 sized

It was smaller than the iPhone 8. It was slightly thicker (0.01"), shorter (by 0.27") and narrower (0.13"). And it had a bigger display despite being overall smaller. It was bigger than the 5, though.

ocd 2 hours ago | parent

Despite the Lightning port, I prefer my 13 Mini to upgrading.

pixelesque 2 hours ago | parent

Same, got battery replaced 5 months ago.

Wish I'd got the biggest storage size when I bought it though :(

rootusrootus 2 hours ago | parent

An updated 13 Mini with USB-C and modern chipset would be fantastic. That would get me to upgrade. My hope is that Apple decides the world needs an iPhone Mini once in a while, just not a new one every year.

mrheosuper 2 hours ago | parent

With SiC battery no less.

eumenides1 2 hours ago | parent

My contention is every 5 years release a mini spec with hardware bumps. Everyone jumps in and everyone upgrade. It only has the larger size space spec.

Rinse and repeat.

If you have a "known" or "expected" cycle, people can rely on that.

jghn 9 minutes ago | parent

This has been my hope. Relase one, say "oops no market", and then come back several years later

pixelesque 2 hours ago | parent

I wish they'd alternate each year or something between iPhone / iPhone mini if they're struggling for sales.

The body shapes and cases seem to change each year anyway now, so it's not like people get to re-use cases that much anyway...

haunter 2 hours ago | parent

The new iPhone Duo in single screen mode is the same size (5.4") as the iPhone 13 mini but with a different aspect ratio

https://photos.reportinglive.com/p/2026-09-09/f-bf86c6f5adb3...

idontwantthis 2 hours ago | parent

I wouldn’t mind buying half of one of those for 1/4 the price.

pixelesque 2 hours ago | parent

It's wider though, and surely going to weigh more...

Firaxus 2 hours ago | parent

I think the screen might be the same diagonal length but it looks wider overall…

layer8 1 hour ago | parent

Same diagonal doesn’t mean same size. The Duo is also much thicker (the camera plateau in particular) and heavier, and the front screen is so wide (a good bit wider than the Pro Max) that it’s hardly suited for one handed use.

idontwantthis 2 hours ago | parent

Me too. Everyone who sees my phone loves it, and I always share a nod with my fellow mini owners. I really don’t want a huge phone and it is still more than fast enough (a 12 at that!) iPhones got Good Enough at least 6 years ago. Same with macbooks.

azibi 41 minutes ago | parent

I really liked my iPhone 12 mini. But Apple also makes a lot of money from app sales, so I wonder if there’s a connection between screen size and app purchases. Maybe users with larger screens spend more time in apps and are therefore more likely to buy apps or make in-app purchases. The more screen real estate people have, the more they might engage with apps, which could translate into higher spending.

afavour 2 hours ago | parent

That’s certainly an iPhone, alright.

Apple basically need to release a new model every year to fit the phone upgrade cycle so I suppose it’s not that surprising to see one with so few compelling features. Maybe next year.

nobleach 2 hours ago | parent

> the most advanced camera in an iPhone

I mean, I can't remember the last time they DIDN'T say that. Variable aperture is kinda cool I guess. 256Gigs of storage basically means everyone's going to have to upgrade their iCloud storage monthly spend just to back this thing up. I've stopped sending my camera roll to iCloud just to save on space.

otherjason 2 hours ago | parent

Apple events are full of these meaningless statements, which always drive me crazy. Of course it's the "best iPhone Apple has ever made." If it wasn't, then wouldn't I be better off buying an older model?

nobleach 1 hour ago | parent

I haven't been this excited since Dodge released their new Caravan... or Ubuntu released their new orange and purple UI...

paxys 42 minutes ago | parent

Just once I want the CEO to go up on stage and say “this year’s model isn’t all that great tbh”.

Den_VR 31 minutes ago | parent

That’s the open for an actually amazing year.

HPsquared 6 minutes ago | parent

That's when they release some new product that blows the iPhone out of the water

insaneirish 31 minutes ago | parent

> I've stopped sending my camera roll to iCloud just to save on space.

This is an interesting choice. Photos from my phone would literally be the last thing I ever turned off backup for.

To each their own...

WarmWash 10 minutes ago | parent

Camera quality actually topped out a decade ago or so, and now it's become all post-processing trends that define "best".

Not unlike the "Best jacket of the season" being the one that is most fashionable as opposed to the most functional.

MattDamonSpace 55 minutes ago | parent

Incremental changes year/year to a mature product line means if you skip a couple years you get a BIG upgrade

at1as 2 hours ago | parent

I have no idea which iPhone version I have anymore. It doesn't feel as though it's missing anything, though.But I'd upgrade immediately if the new models truly offered better AI experience.

Forgive my skepticism that Apple will get it right. Even the lauded latest version of Siri is far worse than the labs' offerings or Android at voice dictation (I now have to fix 1 word per sentence instead of 4, previously)

paul7986 2 hours ago | parent

Indeed been using the new Siri since June and it fails a ton in comparison to chatGPT voice!

Using chatGPT voice i can see Open AI's push for pushing us to a new Internet voice paradigm 1st with screens/visuals secondary & complimentary to possibly none at all. It would be much safer especially when driving to get super intelligent human like directions where voice says drive to the mcdonalds on dorset you go to all the time and across the street is the new 7 Brew coffee shop.

jjice 2 hours ago | parent

Agreed on iPhone versions not feeling significant. I personally consider it a good thing. I'll keep my phone for as long as possible and not feel the need to upgrade.

I personally don't care if Siri is the worst LLM of the big players, as long as it can answer my basic questions and search my texts, I'm happy. I don't need "frontier intelligence" for that kind of stuff.

As for dictation, they say the new dictation is much better, requiring an iPhone 17. Unfortunately, I won't get to find out if that's true for another five or so years, but I'm hopeful for a better dictation on device, because you're right.

kenjackson 2 hours ago | parent

I update my phone now when the battery requires two full charges to 100% to last throughout the day. But there's no feature I'm looking for. My current phone is a 13 -- so I guess it lasted five years, which seems crazy long for it to be perfectly fine from a functionality perspective.

newman314 2 hours ago | parent

I went from a 13 Pro to 17 Pro and the battery life has been great.

petesergeant 1 hour ago | parent

I'm on a 12. Paid really not very much to get the battery replaced recently, and I wished I'd done it sooner. There's at least another year left in this phone now if I want it.

at1as 1 hour ago | parent

I would probably still have my iPhone 12 mini if not for what happened to its battery. Loved that form factor, but the battery went from bad to worse in just a couple of years.

Hopefully these models have a longer lifespan before the battery life forces a replacement. If they truly offer 36 hours, there's more runway before they hit the < 18 hours point at which many people need a refresh

ocdtrekkie 24 minutes ago | parent

Same, I went from a base model iPhone 11 to a base model iPhone 16. Assuming the trend line holds up, I'm in for an iPhone 21 next!

eastbound 2 hours ago | parent

— "Start my chronometer"

— "There is no contact named 'Chronometer'"

Maybe if we mock the iPhone enough, they'll stop autocorrecting words with other words that are on the opposite side of the keyboard. Or mistype letters with the letters just next to them.

iPhone is laughing stock. A neverending comedy of "There is no track named 'Call Mom' in your Apple Music library."

dayvid 2 hours ago | parent

I upgraded from a 13 to a 17 pro. Barely notice a different, my old phone was just dying

js2 2 hours ago | parent

The 13 is the last generation of the mini and I still have mine. Good to know I'm not missing anything. Battery capacity isn't even below 80% so I can't replace it under Applecare yet.

hakunin 2 hours ago | parent

I got a battery replacement instead, and still use 13 pro, works like new.

bayganyo 29 minutes ago | parent

13 to 17 pro is a huge leap in performance, battery life, and camera features.

hdgvhicv 2 hours ago | parent

This is the problem for Apple. Expect shorter lifetime for security updates in the next few years. It’s why they’re pushing the “lease to own”, because people aren’t upgrading every year, or two, or even three any more.

dylan604 1 hour ago | parent

That's kind of like saying the 2026 Corolla isn't really much different than the 2025. People don't expect to upgrade annually. I'm using an iPhone 15, and upgraded to that from a 6S+. The 15 was a night and day difference. Most people are financing their device with their service plan which is 2-3 contract.

SirFatty 2 hours ago | parent

Where's the foldable? :-D

stuff4ben 2 hours ago | parent

Apple iPhone Duo is out

rootusrootus 2 hours ago | parent

In some thread not yet voted to the front page. iPhone Duo

Edit: Nevermind, it has made the front page now

Merad 2 hours ago | parent

> eSIM-only models deliver up to 36 hours of video playback on iPhone 18 Pro and up to 45 hours of video playback on iPhone 18 Pro Max.

That might convince me to upgrade. Not because I care about watching video for two days straight, but hopefully it means the battery is large enough that it'll last 5+ years before battery degradation becomes annoying.

rafaelmn 2 hours ago | parent

Meh I just replaced a battery in my 14 pro (and the charging port) for ~200 EUR. I didn't want to upgrade yet and I would not even be considering upgrading if the device had USB-C

eastbound 2 hours ago | parent

Don't. Large iPhones are the deadweight of a ball and chain, and fits in no pockets. Next one will be the SE, and even if I buy an external battery, it's still lighter than the ingot Pro Max. Also you can buy one every 1.5 years.

Insanity 2 hours ago | parent

I'm on the iPhone 13 pro max since launch and my phone comfortable gets through an entire day of usage. (Given my usage is pretty light). If the battery fubars in one of the next years I wouldn't be upset, 5+ years of battery life is enough.

But I also don't see it failing me any time soon on battery. I think local AI models in a future iPhone could be an actual reason to upgrade.

jmuguy 2 hours ago | parent

I have a 12 Pro Max purchased at release, battery is now at 83% capacity. Still lasts all day and then some, rarely think how much I've got left on a charge.

Scoundreller 1 hour ago | parent

I set up a shortcut to put me into low-battery mode once I hit 95%. Works a treat.

JK-Swizzle 46 minutes ago | parent

I doubt any phone battery is lasting 5+ years. But I can say modern iPhones are pretty easy to swap the battery on. They designed it so the back plate gets removed to open the phone rather than the screen. No more risk of cracking the display.

moduspol 40 minutes ago | parent

Oh that's nice. I'd always see guides talking about glue with the screen and kinda spooked me out of it.

jmyeet 2 hours ago | parent

I don't know why we even have this event anymore. There's a new iPhone every September. It's incrementally better than the last iPhone. Phones keep getting more expensive while doing basically the same thing for some reason. Just buy whatever is out when you need a new phone.

I bought an iPhone 11 in 2019 I think? It last until 2 years ago when I limped along until the iPhone 16 Plus. I like the big screen area. The premium for Pro isn't worth it to me. I hope to get another 3 years out of it.

What I would like is an iPhone with Touch ID as an option and no, I don't mean the small one (SE?). I want a big screen. Put the Touch ID on the back of the phone like the samsung Galaxy did.

I literally hate Face ID with a passion and it's a massive accessibility issue for people with visual impairments.

No amount of slightly better CPU and camera is going to get me to upgrade every year anymore.

chrisbrandow 2 hours ago | parent

How is Face ID un-accessible for those with visual impairment? I hadn't heard that before.

jmyeet 1 hour ago | parent

If you have to hold your phone closer to your face because of poor eyesight, Face ID will constantly fail. So you have this dance of having to pull it away to get Face ID to pass when required. Touch ID just works.

sgarland 2 hours ago | parent

You’re in luck, the Duo has Touch ID and a big screen.

epistasis 2 hours ago | parent

I really don't care at all about phone models, I just want software to launch quickly.

Waiting 15 seconds for a simple app is just infuriating in this day and age. This is mostly on crappy app developers, but a lot of that falls on Apple for not having a rating system that encourages basic good app behavior.

Every bad app that I encounter, which sends advertising notifications, takes a long time to launch, etc. is dominated by 5 star reviews, somehow. The whole ecosystem feels broken.

(And I'm also really offended by how ugly, unpolished, and broken the Tahoe visual style is on iPhone. The whole thing feels like a buggy beta, something completely unworthy of Apple of the past. That it's still not fixed is an indication of the Apple of the future, unfortunately...)

throw1234567891 1 hour ago | parent

Maybe you need a new phone. Or a faster internet connection?

epistasis 51 minutes ago | parent

No I need better phone app developers. The fastest phone has the same issues. New phones are just as sluggish. And, it's a phone, there's not going to be fast networks everywhere, and a whole generation of poor developers was raised to believe that the network was always present and always fast.

And on the iOS side, Tahoe inserts all sorts of overdone, ridiculous animations that slow down phone interaction, but delaying presentation of

JK-Swizzle 38 minutes ago | parent

I just tested a number of apps on my 15pm connected to WiFi and could not find anything that took longer than 5 seconds. That includes some small developers and bad developers.

Not quite sure where you are seeing this. Maybe games?

nateb2022 2 hours ago | parent

I would love to see some "pro" features hit the Pro or Pro Max. Something I've wanted for a while is the ability to have more than 2 active eSIMs; I think a dual modem would be really cool, maybe with some features targeting users in poor cell coverage/ spotty service areas.

Or feature Thunderbolt rather than normie USB-C so you can record 4/8K ProRes to an SSD, and power a multi monitor setup with your iPhone Pro. macOS would be sick. Or (waterproof) exposed PCIE lanes so 3rd parties can integrate an ecosystem of backpacks like how Pi Hats work.

Scoundreller 1 hour ago | parent

> I think a dual modem would be really cool, maybe with some features targeting users in poor cell coverage/ spotty service areas.

Can already do iMessage over satellite. Most “data” is download and I predict some satellite service that sends basic broadcasts (traffic, news, Text-to-speech podcasts) squeezed into a few mbps by pointing your phone at the sky (or a small cabled antenna for around the clock use). Would love to go carrier-less.

cavoirom 1 hour ago | parent

Apple Reference Image is the new "pro" feature.

ksec 1 hour ago | parent

I am actually quite excited on this iPhone 18 Pro. Seems to pack a a lot of exciting stuff. 2nm A20 Pro, C2. I wish they have N2 but I guess not. 2nd Generation Vapour Chamber. I thought I would have to wait another generation because Apple like to use new product features for two generation before moving on. And it seems this Vapour Chamber along with other heat desperation features are much better built. Much better Camera. And larger battery. With 60W charging that finally matches or closes to a lot of Android phone has been doing.

Never thought they would do it all within one update. In terms of hardware that is pretty much everything I wanted other than Silicon Battery.

The only thing that need radical change is iOS.

LeBit 19 minutes ago | parent

Heat desperation?

I don’t think Siri is sentient yet.

runjake 1 hour ago | parent

There's a lot of misdirected complaining here, so some reminders:

- Apple has this event because it generates buzz, which increases sales.

- You do not need to watch the event.

- You do not need to pay attention to anything about the event.

- You do not need to buy the new device.

michelb 1 hour ago | parent

Golden HN rule: the more complaints, the more successful the product will turn out because normal people like it. It’s like the inverse Cramer.

Razengan 53 minutes ago | parent

The Reddit Rule: The more votes someone gets for bitching about something, the more popular that thing is in the Real World.

Like on post about the No Man's Sky update: "Oh these devs have been putting out free updates for 10 years? So what? I don't like it"

The worst thing about cynical-for-the-sake-of-being-cynical goons is that they drown out the actual legitimate complains and concerns about something.

justinator 19 minutes ago | parent

I guess exception:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36201593

justinator 19 minutes ago | parent

Things were simpler in the Slashdot/iPod era.

quinncom 1 hour ago | parent

I love that it has a feature to prove images came from the real world:

> Users can now prove the authenticity of a photo taken on iPhone 18 Pro models with Apple Reference Image, powered by the new sensor in the Main camera that can sign every pixel it sees. When a photo is taken in the new Reference mode, the camera captures signed sensor data that Private Cloud Compute develops into an unalterable reference image.5 Reference images can be viewed in the Photos app alongside the main image, like a digital negative, to visually compare the two assets and determine if any edits were made. APIs are available in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS 27 for third-party apps to enable viewing of these reference images.

cavoirom 1 hour ago | parent

Yes, this is really a "Pro" feature, while C2PA exists, not many consumer products have it, iPhone will be the game changer for reporters.

xattt 47 minutes ago | parent

*Not available in EU or China.

I wonder what the common thread is.

rock_artist 30 minutes ago | parent

> I wonder what the common thread is.

Regulation.

For China I would assume like other services, if there's some cloud involved, it should be on Chinese soil and accessible to China.

For EU harder to guess, but again the lock-in with "Private Cloud Computing" feels related.

andrewmutz 46 minutes ago | parent

Can't I just point my camera at an AI generated image? And it will get the stamp of authenticity?

dabinat 14 minutes ago | parent

It would be great if they could use the LiDAR scanner to sign a depth map of the scene in front of the camera. It would show if you photographed a flat image.

1970-01-01 1 hour ago | parent

Apple innovation truly looks dead at this point. At $1200 I expect them to be made in the USA by union workers.

ballsac 34 minutes ago | parent

This is the kind of nonsense I come here for… can I follow you? :D

infecto 12 minutes ago | parent

Hyperbole if I have ever read it. Lots of other products released I don’t think the highlight was the iPhone 18.

josteink 1 hour ago | parent

This phone is so underwhelming it doesn’t even make the frontpage of HN. And yes, I realise it was obviously overshadowed by the Duo.

Still. This must be the first iPhone not to break page one.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Edit: Page one I guess?

MattDamonSpace 56 minutes ago | parent

Hi from page 1

matesz 56 minutes ago | parent

Did they just announce the ultimate solution to image authenticity online?

Instead of proving some image on some platform is not AI or severely edited, we can simply prove it was original by verifying unforgeable signature made by a camera / microphone baked into each image produced by it.

And of course in future it could be done for video and audio! This would be absolutely HUGE!

embedding-shape 53 minutes ago | parent

> that image shared online is original and unedited?

The image data the sensor physically receives passes through a ton of processing steps before the image lands in your phone. If there is some watermarking/signature doing on, on the image, it'd be that the device at that moment capture that data, not that it's not AI, or not edited, or "truthful" or whatever. That's still an unsolved problem to figure out.

doublepg23 51 minutes ago | parent

The underlying tech is already compromised on the Android side.

https://lobste.rs/s/4netv1/c2pa_cameras_do_not_survive_conta...

nicce 41 minutes ago | parent

It is a very old idea. But it matters a lot in iPhone’s scale. Many people will have it without buying a separate device.

sergiotapia 49 minutes ago | parent

45 hours of video playback is insane?! Is this accurate, because if it is I will sell my phone and buy this. Normally my samsung discharges in about 12 hours or less when I'm out, not even watching 12 hours of video.

"On iPhone 18 Pro Max, five minutes of wired charging provides around seven hours of video playback"

Materially impactful feature holy moses! I can plug it in, brush my teeth and I'm set for the work day.

dofm 45 minutes ago | parent

iOS video playback is pretty highly optimised and hardware-assisted, though, right?

Not sure you can really extrapolate non-video battery life from video battery life. I have an ageing iPad and I can get a couple of hours of video when the battery is at 30%, but it would be gone in 45 minutes if I was browsing.

ModernMech 43 minutes ago | parent

Seems like at this point each year the biggest new feature is a new color.

sssilver 42 minutes ago | parent

...and a brave new price

millipede 31 minutes ago | parent

The things we need to know most, RAM and Memory Bandwidth, are unfortunately missing from the release. Their absence doesn't bode well.

runjake 19 minutes ago | parent

Based on supply chain leaks, it's pretty safe to assume 12 GB memory with up to 100GB/sec memory bandwidth at best.

The A19 Pro had 12 GB and was around 77GB/sec memory bandwidth for reference. If I was a betting man, I'd say the memory bandwidth on the A20 Pro is the same.

quentindanjou 6 minutes ago | parent

If I didn't dream it, I think their presentation said something like 50% increase so you should be quite right probably around ~110GB/sec

carstn 5 minutes ago | parent

Rumors suggested a wider memory bus on A20 Pro.

SirMaster 3 minutes ago | parent

But they said the memory bandwidth was double the previous generation.

dgellow 14 minutes ago | parent

What do you do with your phone that requires you to know the memory details? Genuine question, I have absolutely no idea how much memory my iPad or phone have and don’t see why I would need to know

WarmWash 12 minutes ago | parent

Running not-particularly-useful local models.

o_m 11 minutes ago | parent

I only care about it because I'm waiting for a MacBook Neo with more than 8gb of memory.

wang_li 8 minutes ago | parent

I'm waiting for a software release for my iPhone 16 Pro Max that will let me plug in a dock that has an attached SSD, keyboard, mouse, and display, and an option to pop up on my phone to reboot into MacOS.

Also, if they make a neo 2 from the A19 with 12 GB that'd be cool.

justinator 21 minutes ago | parent

Looking forward to the photo samples with the variable aperture. If it's something you can manually set (with the Camera app or third party), that would be neat. The miniaturization of this mechanical piece is really quite wild.

Eh, that's maybe about it.

jghn 11 minutes ago | parent

Just say no to phablets