I don't think I've ever been excited for a new phone since I was in my teens- and this time it's only because they're ditching their proprietary port and joining the industry standard 8 years...
I don't think I've ever been excited for a new phone since I was in my teens- and this time it's only because they're ditching their proprietary port and joining the industry standard 8 years after they started releasing devices with it.
Yep. The only thing holding me back is I have an SE and they no longer will be making mini's, so I might wait to see if we can get one. I would really like to get to a future where most devices...
Yep. The only thing holding me back is I have an SE and they no longer will be making mini's, so I might wait to see if we can get one.
I would really like to get to a future where most devices are USB C.
I agree. The one big downgrade I dealt with when I swapped to the 14 was the lack of a bezel. People go crazy about bezel-less designs but when you have to hold on to something and the entire...
I agree. The one big downgrade I dealt with when I swapped to the 14 was the lack of a bezel.
People go crazy about bezel-less designs but when you have to hold on to something and the entire front of it is a touchscreen it kind of sucks. I constantly mess up typing on it if I'm not holding it perfectly because the side of my palm touches the keyboard, and when I am lazily reading a long article with the phone perched on my stomach, I'll accidentally touch the top right corner which is the shortcut to scroll to the top on Safari. I don't know why everyone else isn't complaining about it.
For real. I saw a mock-up of the 15 Pro, and it was almost edge to edge screen. How do you hold that? As a real world user, I’m going to have a case, and the case needs a little lip over the front...
For real. I saw a mock-up of the 15 Pro, and it was almost edge to edge screen. How do you hold that? As a real world user, I’m going to have a case, and the case needs a little lip over the front side - there is no room for that. Who keeps asking for smaller bezels?
Just paid attention to how I hold my phone and my fingers fully sit along the sides of the phone without touching the front at all. I think in this case, you’re just holding it wrong. You could...
Just paid attention to how I hold my phone and my fingers fully sit along the sides of the phone without touching the front at all. I think in this case, you’re just holding it wrong.
You could get a case that makes the edges a lot fatter if you want.
That’s a really disappointing response. If just trying to securely hold on to a device causes it to activate functions you don’t want it to, isn’t that a symptom of a poor design? This isn’t a new...
you’re just holding it wrong.
That’s a really disappointing response. If just trying to securely hold on to a device causes it to activate functions you don’t want it to, isn’t that a symptom of a poor design? This isn’t a new phone for me either. I bought it at launch. It still happens. It’s just a natural way to hold it. It’s not like I’m trying to hold it by the screen, it just gets touched naturally this way because of the shape of my hands. Especially when typing.
Just to add my 2c so you might feel less dog piled, I have wee hands and am forced to use two for controlling anything larger than an SE. It really sucks, tbh, so I can minimally relate to...
Just to add my 2c so you might feel less dog piled, I have wee hands and am forced to use two for controlling anything larger than an SE. It really sucks, tbh, so I can minimally relate to aggravation around poor ergonomics becoming a standard. It’s also pretty awful to feel that people are dismissing your perspective because you can’t hold an iPhone like they do.
We all have different bodies, and it’s hard to empathize with people who physically experience the world differently. I’d imagine the folks in this thread are genuinely trying to help, and for them, changing their grip was actually useful.
The wording of my comment was a satirical reference to Apple telling people they were holding the iPhone 4 wrong. But the point was that everyone else isn’t complaining about it because it doesn’t...
The wording of my comment was a satirical reference to Apple telling people they were holding the iPhone 4 wrong. But the point was that everyone else isn’t complaining about it because it doesn’t affect them. I personally have never had accidental touches on the screen from holding it.
I'm not sure it's the lack of a bezel because I've also noticed the accuracy of my typing has gotten worse and I have it in a case that functionally gives it a bezel. I think when they went...
I'm not sure it's the lack of a bezel because I've also noticed the accuracy of my typing has gotten worse and I have it in a case that functionally gives it a bezel. I think when they went bezel-less there is something about the way it tries to ignore inputs along the edge that interacts poorly with inferring what you're trying to to tap on when you're typing keys that approach the edge (I have a particular issue with the 'n' key frequently triggering the space bar and the delete key putting in a period or the 'enter' button instead.) In other words, I believe it to be a software issue with the multitouch that's related to being bezeless, but not the lack of a bezel itself. It probably isn't universal or consistent between people because everyone taps with their fingers differently.
As for the "why is nobody else complaining about it" it may just be because a lot of people put their phones in cases and don't notice. Most cases functionally add some bezel to the edge so the accidentally scrolling to the top doesn't happen. It's definitely a problem if it needs a case to not be annoying though. I haven't noticed it and I alternate from cased to caseless throughout the day. My main gripe is just that I feel like I don't have a good grip on the aluminum surface when I do hold it. It feels too slippery compared to how much traction I get holding it in a silicone or leather case. And also the power button and volume up/down button being perfectly symmetrical drives me up a wall. It's impossible to tell by touch which way the thing is oriented or which button you're pressing.
Don't grip the phone like you're trying to squeeze air out of it. Jokes aside; I, like the other user, examined how I hold my phone and my fingers never hold onto the display except for the thumb...
Don't grip the phone like you're trying to squeeze air out of it. Jokes aside; I, like the other user, examined how I hold my phone and my fingers never hold onto the display except for the thumb to scroll.
Aw man, this makes me think of my Pixel 4. Such a great, sleek and small phone (aside from the tiny battery). Had to replace it last December with a Pixel 7, an objectively better phone in every...
Aw man, this makes me think of my Pixel 4. Such a great, sleek and small phone (aside from the tiny battery). Had to replace it last December with a Pixel 7, an objectively better phone in every way - except the form factor.
I still have the 4 laying on my desk and occasionally I will just flip it through my fingers because they nailed design and how the materials feel. And the size. It's ridiculous that both the P4 and P7 are the smaller versions, yet the 7 is just so big compared to the 4!
I have no small hands but I still have trouble in certain situations to use my phone with one hand.
This is my first time hearing there won’t be Mini models, that’s really disappointing. I would’ve sprung for a Mini with USB-C since my SE is so ragged at this point but apparently not, I’ll just...
This is my first time hearing there won’t be Mini models, that’s really disappointing. I would’ve sprung for a Mini with USB-C since my SE is so ragged at this point but apparently not, I’ll just keep running it into the ground.
It's fair to say Apple just makes different design trade-offs that favor the general mass market user instead of people who want to tinker with their devices. Not everything needs to be for...
It's fair to say Apple just makes different design trade-offs that favor the general mass market user instead of people who want to tinker with their devices. Not everything needs to be for everyone, and quite a few people prefer devices and an ecosystem that requires less fussing to maintain their security and reliability.
It's generally annoying with tech-adjacent spaces online when every thread about anything Apple is dominated by people who simply cannot stand that many people have different priorities in their tech and feel compelled to flood the zone with outrage.
This is far worse than anything Microsoft for slapped for in the 90s.
Microsoft was anti-competitive because they had almost complete market saturation of the PC market. Apple has fewer than 20% of the smartphone market.
You’ll notice that neither 28 nor 57 are anywhere near 80-100, which is about where you start to get into being a monopoly. The one that isn’t able to leverage a platform monopoly (because it...
You’ll notice that neither 28 nor 57 are anywhere near 80-100, which is about where you start to get into being a monopoly.
Now tell me... Which is more anti competitive of the two?
The one that isn’t able to leverage a platform monopoly (because it doesn’t have one) to artificially strangle the emergence of other technologies (as evidenced by the fact that WebKit is nowhere near a monopoly on browser engines either).
You’ll notice a key term in the anti-trust lawsuit being “maintain its monopoly position” not “including security or usability restrictions that tinkerers don’t like.”
By this logic any hardware appliance is a “monopoly” because they only run their own firmware. This is some truly weird pretzel logic to call something a monopoly.
Apple has a de-facto monopoly on iOS devices.
By this logic any hardware appliance is a “monopoly” because they only run their own firmware. This is some truly weird pretzel logic to call something a monopoly.
I disagree. Apples is actively hostile to anything outside of their ecosystem. Apple actively works to keep your data on their devices, and make the experience for competing devices worse by...
It's fair to say Apple just makes different design trade-offs that favor the general mass market user instead of people who want to tinker with their devices. Not everything needs to be for everyone, and quite a few people prefer devices and an ecosystem that requires less fussing to maintain their security and reliability.
I disagree. Apples is actively hostile to anything outside of their ecosystem. Apple actively works to keep your data on their devices, and make the experience for competing devices worse by hindering open standards. Everything they do is to keep you using Apple products and services and discourage users from using other platforms. If you have both Android and Apple devices, you will notice that accessing data on the Apple devices from one of the Android devices is at best extremely inconvenient, making you jump through a number of hoops and often interact directly with the Apple device multiple times. But if you want to access data from a competing device on an Apple product, you often have fewer issues. This is to discourage you from choosing to buy a competitor device and keep purchasing Apple products. Even just logging into the Apple website is basically impossible without physically interacting with their hardware multiple times.
Apple doesn't hinder "open standards" any more than any other tech company. What passes as "open standards" on the web these days is basically Google putting stuff in Chrome, declaring that to be...
Apple actively works to keep your data on their devices, and make the experience for competing devices worse but hindering open standards.
Apple doesn't hinder "open standards" any more than any other tech company. What passes as "open standards" on the web these days is basically Google putting stuff in Chrome, declaring that to be "the standard," and have that become fact by the mere fact that they have a browser monopoly. It's a canard. The only reason Google doesn't have a complete monopoly is because of iOS. I've made service calls to various services to complain about some critical functionality in their website being broken and when I tell them I use Safari they assume I'm accessing it from my phone. The concept of desktop Safari doesn't even seem to register. People don't even bother to test their websites on the second-most widely used browser technology because it's too small to bother with. Yet we are to pretend Apple is the monopolist here who is negatively affecting user options?
Nvidia makes it basically impossible for Macs to be nearly as performant as PCs with the same hardware because they're lazy about development of native drivers on Apple devices. This was to the point where Apple just gave up on working with them and went their own way. They also don't get shit on because the usual suspects don't care about other companies doing things to hobble Apple users being able to get the most out of their devices.
What this is is largely a question of where in the stack you think it's appropriate to have someone making the call on what the acceptable range of options ought to be. Apple happens to be making the call at a level that's very close to the end-user's points of contact while most of the other stuff happens well upstream of what general commercial users will ever think about. That's it.
Everything they do is to keep you using Apple products and services and discourage users from using other platforms.
They mostly do this by making the Apple ecosystem advantages much better and smoother. Part of the reason they can do that is because they have a combination of hardware and software and kernel level interconnections that can make this possible. They could, in theory, create more generally accessible clean hooks into that functionality but it would be a hell of a lot of work for little to no benefit to them or most of their user base. The main case where it does have a serious use, they are actually trying to do this. This is in how they're trying to integrate CarPlay in with the real-time OSes that run on modern cars. But we can see how long it's taken for them to do that and that's in the realm of the very finite range of hardware and software permutations involved with the car industry.
There is basically no way to profitably open up most of the platform advantages Apple realizes through their ecosystem. A substantial portion of this stuff is close to impossible to actually open up without making iOS devices as prone to compromise and security vulnerabilities as MacOS devices are, which would be a reputational and business catastrophe for them and every app developer in their platform. Their governance over the App Store for scams and user-hostile interaction design from developers is already flimsy and pathetic. They can't really afford to let it get any worse.
I have a hunch (read: hope) that they’ll be forced to change this software issue in addition to the charging/data port hardware problem sometime soon, also due to EU rules. Let’s keep our fingers...
Also user hostile: the way to sideload apps on iOS.
Use iTunes and Altserver... so that it can a third party Apps via iTunes, the same mechanism used for developing and testing on your own iPhone. Only signed for 7 days, so every 7 days resigning is required. Has to be done with a host computer via USB or Wifi and you can only sideload 3 apps at a time.
Meanwhile on Android: Download with Chrome. Enable "Unknown sources" for Chrome. Install. Done.
I have a hunch (read: hope) that they’ll be forced to change this software issue in addition to the charging/data port hardware problem sometime soon, also due to EU rules. Let’s keep our fingers crossed… to the benefit of enthusiast iPhone users.
That's not exactly anything new. They've been doing it for at least 4 years now. This is still a step, however small, towards being better for the consumer. Today we have standardized ports,...
That's not exactly anything new. They've been doing it for at least 4 years now. This is still a step, however small, towards being better for the consumer.
Today we have standardized ports, tomorrow maybe standardized batteries.
Honestly the Facebook Onavo scam, where Facebook paid people $20 to install spyware in their iPhones, using a workaround Apple included that’s intended to only be for companies to lock down...
Honestly the Facebook Onavo scam, where Facebook paid people $20 to install spyware in their iPhones, using a workaround Apple included that’s intended to only be for companies to lock down company devices, presents a very strong argument for exactly why Apple needs to be as stringent as they are if any of the benefits people buy their phones for are to be realized.
The reason the App Store is the only store where people pay for software is because they trust the environment to be a shield from that kind of egregiously invasive crap. If that trust was broken, the only people who would be downloading and installing apps would be nerds. And every one of us nerds would be fielding endless tech support calls from relatives who installed a stupid purple monkey to dance around on their screens but that also constantly crashes their computer because it’s actually spyware.
Bit of a tangent, but it'd be neat to know why people buy Apple products -- I couldn't find any surveys which covered that from some quick searching. I know I picked an iPhone up because of (1)...
[...] but people generally buy iPhones because they like them and they work, not to flash a custom ROM, or dick around with system theming.
Bit of a tangent, but it'd be neat to know why people buy Apple products -- I couldn't find any surveys which covered that from some quick searching. I know I picked an iPhone up because of (1) the excellent reported price to perf ratio for an SE 2020, and (2) the long maintenance cycle for their devices, but everything about the device has been a disappointment. I'm kinda curious if -- for instance -- folks are buying Apple devices because there's more to life than the phone in your pocket, and when their device "slows down", there's a simple upgrade path available vs. needing to consider many alternatives.
Also another tangent, but overall, I really think people need to chill out about this stuff. Both on the positive and negative sides. It'd be cool if we could all take a step back and demand the best from the companies we interact with, without immediately viewing praise as fanboyism, and criticism as intentionally inflammatory poop slinging.
For the iPhone, one of them is that I use a mac as a daily driver. For software engineering, macs are what you get at work, and they are also my preferred computer being a unix derived OS that...
For the iPhone, one of them is that I use a mac as a daily driver. For software engineering, macs are what you get at work, and they are also my preferred computer being a unix derived OS that doesn't spontaneously combust every few months. iPhones have many useful integrations with macs, like handoff.
For context, I do actually use an android phone on a regular basis, as I use a large android phone as a media tablet (as largeish phones are the right size for me to use without vision correction - for tablets, at their best viewing distances, they are out of focus). iOS is just smoother, the failure modes more "hidden", and the defaults nicer.
On the apps side, although it's diminished as people generally shift away from native apps, iOS generally just has better apps. It's well known that the App Store is a significantly better platform to develop for, financially, and it shows. There are still many boutique iOS apps like Photomator, which I use quite often, native and built with the iOS design language. Android mostly has cross platform apps. For many commonly used apps, there's just no alternative on the play store, not without it being an ad-ridden, non-native mess.
The iOS built in apps are just much nicer than either the Samsung or Pixel defaults. These have gotten good enough that on iOS I use most of the default apps when available.
Aah, that’s an interesting case study — thanks :) Hopefully this doesn’t summarize your perspective incorrectly, but it sounds like overall ecosystem health and UX consistency/reliability is a...
Aah, that’s an interesting case study — thanks :) Hopefully this doesn’t summarize your perspective incorrectly, but it sounds like overall ecosystem health and UX consistency/reliability is a major driver for you, which makes sense!
(also, on another tangent, I’d managed to go about a decade in software engineering without using macOS at work. Admittedly I do either perf focused or boring jobs, so maybe all the cool devs have been using macbooks this whole time!)
There's also a Youtuber I refuse to name (and can't remember their name) who made BANK at the iPhone 6 "bendgate" stuff releasing multiple long videos packed with sponsors and ads just blasting...
There's also a Youtuber I refuse to name (and can't remember their name) who made BANK at the iPhone 6 "bendgate" stuff releasing multiple long videos packed with sponsors and ads just blasting away at everything Apple did.
People flocked into the comments to hate Apple and they rode the wave for a loong time. Still going I think with a decently sized channel.
I don't know why you're approaching this from the angle that purchasing and/or wanting to purchase a device is a vote of confidence in Apple's decisions versus the reality of just exchanging money...
I don't know why you're approaching this from the angle that purchasing and/or wanting to purchase a device is a vote of confidence in Apple's decisions versus the reality of just exchanging money for a product. I don't care whether the EU or Apple is making the device better, I just want a good device.
We get it. Apple is repair-hostile. It's far more readily apparent than people think it is. Key thing is, as a user, I've been hearing this for 8 or so years and still not once have I went to a repair shop with an Apple product and got told "yeah, we can't fix that," other than a water damaged phone losing the Face ID camera (and still working just fine otherwise with a cheap screen replacement.)
For iPhones especially, the devices are so well-understood by third party repair shops despite Apple's hostility that it really does not affect the calculus of a purchase decision. I think me, and most people, would survive losing TrueTone if a display is swapped, and I actually expect this to trend better, not worse, because regulators are waking up to it.
I really think Apple planned to ride out with lightning until they figured out a way to seal the phone off and have no ports at all. They never quite came up with adequate solutions for linking...
I really think Apple planned to ride out with lightning until they figured out a way to seal the phone off and have no ports at all. They never quite came up with adequate solutions for linking peripherals or wireless data transfer, and even wireless charging is a bit clunky and evidently bad for battery health. So I think they just gave up.
I miss the days when a) phones had S variants — I always bought the S variant. It had all the features of last year with the major bugs fixed. b) and there was genuinely something new and...
I miss the days when a) phones had S variants — I always bought the S variant. It had all the features of last year with the major bugs fixed. b) and there was genuinely something new and groundbreaking every year, where getting a new phone meant having something radically different. An extra camera isn’t groundbreaking.
Yes, where can phones go from here, they’ve already done everything! That’s what they said about Motorola razrs. Let’s get sci-fi with holographic displays, or AR from my phone to my glasses, not a 3500 pair of ski goggles.
You can’t really get from A to B without the ski goggles to start with. No doubt that is the long term Vision, but you need to actually release something that works that you can iterate on. Apple...
Let’s get sci-fi with holographic displays, or AR from my phone to my glasses, not a 3500 pair of ski goggles.
You can’t really get from A to B without the ski goggles to start with. No doubt that is the long term Vision, but you need to actually release something that works that you can iterate on. Apple is the master of slow and steady yearly improvements to get to something really good. You can’t just summon AR hologram tech out of the ether.
The ski goggles are legitimately the most innovative thing they've released in the last few years. Both the "screw the controllers" thing, and the top-down approach (i.e. instead of starting at a...
The ski goggles are legitimately the most innovative thing they've released in the last few years. Both the "screw the controllers" thing, and the top-down approach (i.e. instead of starting at a tolerable price and then working upwards towards a tolerable featureset, they're starting at a tolerable featureset and working downwards on the price).
Yes, they're kind of bulky, but "they're not sufficiently slim" is something Apple will focus on improving in future versions, whether that's a good idea or not.
I think they’re gonna prioritize battery life and performance over size for the foreseeable future on those things. But it’s hard to say, even they don’t know what they’re gonna focus on until...
I think they’re gonna prioritize battery life and performance over size for the foreseeable future on those things. But it’s hard to say, even they don’t know what they’re gonna focus on until they put it in people’s hands and see how it’s being used.
A lot of the first impression reviews have complained about the weight if you’re using it for a long time, so I think maybe that’s something they’ll try to tackle. At the very least swapping the glass for one of the higher end polymers like they use for helmets and ski goggles. (Though AFAIK nothing beats glass for clarity and optical fidelity).
I really don’t think the ski goggle thing will end up being that big of a deal in use. It looks weird and dorky now because it’s new and different. Once it’s commonplace it won’t make people so self conscious to think about it. We saw this cycle play out with the walkman, with AirPods, camcorders, and even smartphones.
It’s been a while since we’ve had “revolutionary” hardware features. They’ve been steadily iterating and improving things for years. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a sign of a mature product....
It’s been a while since we’ve had “revolutionary” hardware features. They’ve been steadily iterating and improving things for years. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a sign of a mature product. That’s not to say they haven’t made great improvements in things like battery life and processing power, but those aren’t revolutionary.
They still have S years. They’ve switched to a three year cycle now instead of the two year cycle they had until the X came out. They introduce a new style and then just refine it. If they keep the same body this year and just slim down the bezels, then they could be moving to a 4 year cycle.
It seems like other companies like Samsung are the ones that are coming out with “revolutionary” devices like the Flip and Fold lines. I’m sure Apple will enter the market eventually, but they’re usually slow to get into new markets.
Samsung has always been more innovative than Apple. First smartwatch, first with NFC, folding and the list could go on. If you want innovation, you need to move away from Apple. There are so many...
Samsung has always been more innovative than Apple. First smartwatch, first with NFC, folding and the list could go on. If you want innovation, you need to move away from Apple. There are so many interesting Android phones that are geared to specific audiences. From the gaming phone to the streaming video phone, it's very neat in the Android world outside of Apple's walled garden. Heck even the pixel features, I miss allowing the google assistant to answer my calls so much! I wish Samsung would adopt that!
The S is just a branding thing. It doesn’t really matter that they just increment the number now. The iPhone 13 was basically an iPhone 12S in every way - the 12, but with the rough edges sanded...
The S is just a branding thing. It doesn’t really matter that they just increment the number now. The iPhone 13 was basically an iPhone 12S in every way - the 12, but with the rough edges sanded after a year in customer hands.
Let’s get sci-fi with holographic displays, or AR from my phone to my glasses, not a 3500 pair of ski goggles.
You can’t just magically go from A to B. The ski goggles is the incremental step. Many issues you only find out when a product is in customers hands. For the long journey of a truly portable AR device, it’s much better than Apple can iterate on public products.
The iPhone 6S* Plus is still to this day, my fav iPhone. If it would operate well today I would probably still be rocking one, but I know it won’t be able to keep up with the current software.
The iPhone 6S* Plus is still to this day, my fav iPhone. If it would operate well today I would probably still be rocking one, but I know it won’t be able to keep up with the current software.
Me and my bank account are pretty happy that this tech isn't progressing quickly anymore. I bought and iPhone 13 last year and it's been really great, but I can't see getting a new phone until...
Me and my bank account are pretty happy that this tech isn't progressing quickly anymore. I bought and iPhone 13 last year and it's been really great, but I can't see getting a new phone until it's at least 5 years old or so. It would have been more tempting if something revolutionary came along - but these minor differences/upgrades aren't enough to make me go "wow!"
As per usual, my interest isn't deeper than just watching a 10-minute Marques Brownlee video after the fact 😅
I have an 11 pro max and it’s been great. BUT it’s showing it’s age a tad, battery life has decreased and the lightning port broke I can only charge wirelessly. So, I’ll probably get the 15 if it...
I have an 11 pro max and it’s been great. BUT it’s showing it’s age a tad, battery life has decreased and the lightning port broke I can only charge wirelessly. So, I’ll probably get the 15 if it has usb C. 4 years isn’t a bad run. Had the port not broken I probably would have gone another year.
For devices as expensive as these, I definitely feel like ~4 years should be the minimum lifetime. For most people, it probably is. I am very happy that the EU are coming down so hard on planned...
For devices as expensive as these, I definitely feel like ~4 years should be the minimum lifetime. For most people, it probably is. I am very happy that the EU are coming down so hard on planned obsolescence and other such shady behavior from these companies. Anyway going from an 11 to a 15 certainly seems fair enough to me - and you are going to notice a very real upgrade as opposed to someone going from 14 to 15 or even 13 to 15.
I had a Galaxy A50 before getting my iPhone 13 last year. I had it for 3 years which I feel is a decent enough lifetime for a low-/mid-budget phone - but yip like you I would have likely kept it going for another while but the screen cracked so I felt like I had a good excuse to upgrade 🙈 And again, changes are so minute now that it just doesn't make sense (to me) to upgrade more frequently than every 4-5 years
Also have the 13 and it still feels like a new phone. Apple has done a pretty good job at building devices that last longer now. Could easily go 6 years between upgrades.
Also have the 13 and it still feels like a new phone. Apple has done a pretty good job at building devices that last longer now. Could easily go 6 years between upgrades.
MKBHD had a great video about why (techy) people feel that new phones aren't "innovating" and every release is just an incremental release. Yes, that's true if you update every single year. You...
MKBHD had a great video about why (techy) people feel that new phones aren't "innovating" and every release is just an incremental release.
Yes, that's true if you update every single year. You won't get any WHOA features or performance upgrades.
BUT YOU AREN'T THE TARGET AUDIENCE
You need to imagine someone who's upgrading from a 5 year old phone to the current generation, that's going to be multiple WHOA-level events with the new features, camera upgrades and processor speed.
I'm in the exact boat. Bought a 13 Pro at the start of 2022 to replace my then 4yo iPhone X. And the X replaced my 3yo 6 Plus, which replaced my ~2yo 4S (my first iPhone). I've been steadily...
I'm in the exact boat. Bought a 13 Pro at the start of 2022 to replace my then 4yo iPhone X. And the X replaced my 3yo 6 Plus, which replaced my ~2yo 4S (my first iPhone). I've been steadily adding a year to my phones.
So I'd like my 13 Pro to last 5yrs, which I think it'll do. Maybe a battery replacement somewhere down the road, but that's about it.
I'm not an Apple person but I've been moving into iOS development at work, so I'm pretty excited to see what they show off! The USB-C rumors are super interesting and I feel like there might be...
I'm not an Apple person but I've been moving into iOS development at work, so I'm pretty excited to see what they show off! The USB-C rumors are super interesting and I feel like there might be some weird limitations they put on it, but I hope not!
It's also kinda exciting because it also means Google's is right around the corner and I'm more excited for that, haha.
I would be shocked if they don't limit their fast charging to "apple certified" cables and chargers, in a similar way OnePlus and Oppo do it. Probably the same for data transmission through the...
I would be shocked if they don't limit their fast charging to "apple certified" cables and chargers, in a similar way OnePlus and Oppo do it. Probably the same for data transmission through the cable.
Maybe they'll even do it like they do with the internal components, make it pop an error for non official hardware and have fake glitches. For example it might suddenly stop charging until you unplug and replug the cable, or randomly start changing really slowly.
The most exciting thing about a new iPhone is the price drop on last year's models. I'm on an iPhone XR which is showing its age so I'm looking forward to upgrading.
The most exciting thing about a new iPhone is the price drop on last year's models. I'm on an iPhone XR which is showing its age so I'm looking forward to upgrading.
Predictions: It'll have a partially eaten fruit on it somewhere. It'll be generally rectangular. It'll be marginally improved in a few areas over the current item. It'll remain grossly overpriced...
Predictions:
It'll have a partially eaten fruit on it somewhere.
It'll be generally rectangular.
It'll be marginally improved in a few areas over the current item.
It'll remain grossly overpriced while being assembled almost exclusively by grossly underpaid workers.
Some hype machine will make it out to be the single greatest invention since Steve Jobs' mother invented Steve Jobs.
Apple will somehow be considered forward thinking and revolutionary for making the charging port USB C, despite they essentially being forced to do so by various governments around the world.
Fanboys that derided USB C in an Apple-can-do-no-wrong white knighting of the lightning connector will develop selective amnesia about those points.
Apple revenues will go up further as all their users begin replacing their lightning connector devices with new USB C devices lest they be forced to have two different cables around.
This has been something of a thing for the consumer tech industry for a while now. Remember when apple announced that iTunes would be making a revolutionary announcement, and it turned out that it...
This has been something of a thing for the consumer tech industry for a while now.
Remember when apple announced that iTunes would be making a revolutionary announcement, and it turned out that it was just that you could buy music from The Beatles on the iTunes store?
Oh yeah! An Apple event! I love how they big these things up and they have been next to zero on the innovation part. What do I expect from this one? Hmmm. A 20%+ mark up on the last versions...
Oh yeah! An Apple event!
I love how they big these things up and they have been next to zero on the innovation part.
What do I expect from this one? Hmmm. A 20%+ mark up on the last versions price. A nanometer smaller bezel, a new processor and GPU combo which makes the old phone and this one so different by at least one nineteenth of a second when launching the same app. A higher pixel density because our eyes can still see the difference, apparently. A super improved camera that can do quarter of a million optical zoom using the latest AI modelling to invent what it thinks you're looking at. Let's not forget the crippled USB-C industry standard port that will need a branded cable to charge at the real speed and to work with an Apple computer or laptop.
I miss the old days of real innovation. At least companies are trying new things such as shapes, sizes, folding and material. Or the OS actually did something really cool. Maybe, and I really hope, that is something which may have something worth looking at. If they've done something OS based which is a game changer.
I don't think I've ever been excited for a new phone since I was in my teens- and this time it's only because they're ditching their proprietary port and joining the industry standard 8 years after they started releasing devices with it.
We truly live in age of wonders.
Yep. The only thing holding me back is I have an SE and they no longer will be making mini's, so I might wait to see if we can get one.
I would really like to get to a future where most devices are USB C.
Physically the SE is such a nice phone. So light and slim compared to the phones of today.
I agree. The one big downgrade I dealt with when I swapped to the 14 was the lack of a bezel.
People go crazy about bezel-less designs but when you have to hold on to something and the entire front of it is a touchscreen it kind of sucks. I constantly mess up typing on it if I'm not holding it perfectly because the side of my palm touches the keyboard, and when I am lazily reading a long article with the phone perched on my stomach, I'll accidentally touch the top right corner which is the shortcut to scroll to the top on Safari. I don't know why everyone else isn't complaining about it.
For real. I saw a mock-up of the 15 Pro, and it was almost edge to edge screen. How do you hold that? As a real world user, I’m going to have a case, and the case needs a little lip over the front side - there is no room for that. Who keeps asking for smaller bezels?
Just paid attention to how I hold my phone and my fingers fully sit along the sides of the phone without touching the front at all. I think in this case, you’re just holding it wrong.
You could get a case that makes the edges a lot fatter if you want.
That’s a really disappointing response. If just trying to securely hold on to a device causes it to activate functions you don’t want it to, isn’t that a symptom of a poor design? This isn’t a new phone for me either. I bought it at launch. It still happens. It’s just a natural way to hold it. It’s not like I’m trying to hold it by the screen, it just gets touched naturally this way because of the shape of my hands. Especially when typing.
Just to add my 2c so you might feel less dog piled, I have wee hands and am forced to use two for controlling anything larger than an SE. It really sucks, tbh, so I can minimally relate to aggravation around poor ergonomics becoming a standard. It’s also pretty awful to feel that people are dismissing your perspective because you can’t hold an iPhone like they do.
We all have different bodies, and it’s hard to empathize with people who physically experience the world differently. I’d imagine the folks in this thread are genuinely trying to help, and for them, changing their grip was actually useful.
The wording of my comment was a satirical reference to Apple telling people they were holding the iPhone 4 wrong. But the point was that everyone else isn’t complaining about it because it doesn’t affect them. I personally have never had accidental touches on the screen from holding it.
I'm not sure it's the lack of a bezel because I've also noticed the accuracy of my typing has gotten worse and I have it in a case that functionally gives it a bezel. I think when they went bezel-less there is something about the way it tries to ignore inputs along the edge that interacts poorly with inferring what you're trying to to tap on when you're typing keys that approach the edge (I have a particular issue with the 'n' key frequently triggering the space bar and the delete key putting in a period or the 'enter' button instead.) In other words, I believe it to be a software issue with the multitouch that's related to being bezeless, but not the lack of a bezel itself. It probably isn't universal or consistent between people because everyone taps with their fingers differently.
As for the "why is nobody else complaining about it" it may just be because a lot of people put their phones in cases and don't notice. Most cases functionally add some bezel to the edge so the accidentally scrolling to the top doesn't happen. It's definitely a problem if it needs a case to not be annoying though. I haven't noticed it and I alternate from cased to caseless throughout the day. My main gripe is just that I feel like I don't have a good grip on the aluminum surface when I do hold it. It feels too slippery compared to how much traction I get holding it in a silicone or leather case. And also the power button and volume up/down button being perfectly symmetrical drives me up a wall. It's impossible to tell by touch which way the thing is oriented or which button you're pressing.
Don't grip the phone like you're trying to squeeze air out of it. Jokes aside; I, like the other user, examined how I hold my phone and my fingers never hold onto the display except for the thumb to scroll.
Aw man, this makes me think of my Pixel 4. Such a great, sleek and small phone (aside from the tiny battery). Had to replace it last December with a Pixel 7, an objectively better phone in every way - except the form factor.
I still have the 4 laying on my desk and occasionally I will just flip it through my fingers because they nailed design and how the materials feel. And the size. It's ridiculous that both the P4 and P7 are the smaller versions, yet the 7 is just so big compared to the 4!
I have no small hands but I still have trouble in certain situations to use my phone with one hand.
This is my first time hearing there won’t be Mini models, that’s really disappointing. I would’ve sprung for a Mini with USB-C since my SE is so ragged at this point but apparently not, I’ll just keep running it into the ground.
The minis are pretty inconsistent. I think they're probably only going to release them every 3 to 4 years if at all.
Calling something more convenient and also user hostile seems like a bit of an oxymoron.
It's fair to say Apple just makes different design trade-offs that favor the general mass market user instead of people who want to tinker with their devices. Not everything needs to be for everyone, and quite a few people prefer devices and an ecosystem that requires less fussing to maintain their security and reliability.
It's generally annoying with tech-adjacent spaces online when every thread about anything Apple is dominated by people who simply cannot stand that many people have different priorities in their tech and feel compelled to flood the zone with outrage.
Microsoft was anti-competitive because they had almost complete market saturation of the PC market. Apple has fewer than 20% of the smartphone market.
You’ll notice that neither 28 nor 57 are anywhere near 80-100, which is about where you start to get into being a monopoly.
The one that isn’t able to leverage a platform monopoly (because it doesn’t have one) to artificially strangle the emergence of other technologies (as evidenced by the fact that WebKit is nowhere near a monopoly on browser engines either).
You’ll notice a key term in the anti-trust lawsuit being “maintain its monopoly position” not “including security or usability restrictions that tinkerers don’t like.”
By this logic any hardware appliance is a “monopoly” because they only run their own firmware. This is some truly weird pretzel logic to call something a monopoly.
I disagree. Apples is actively hostile to anything outside of their ecosystem. Apple actively works to keep your data on their devices, and make the experience for competing devices worse by hindering open standards. Everything they do is to keep you using Apple products and services and discourage users from using other platforms. If you have both Android and Apple devices, you will notice that accessing data on the Apple devices from one of the Android devices is at best extremely inconvenient, making you jump through a number of hoops and often interact directly with the Apple device multiple times. But if you want to access data from a competing device on an Apple product, you often have fewer issues. This is to discourage you from choosing to buy a competitor device and keep purchasing Apple products. Even just logging into the Apple website is basically impossible without physically interacting with their hardware multiple times.
Apple doesn't hinder "open standards" any more than any other tech company. What passes as "open standards" on the web these days is basically Google putting stuff in Chrome, declaring that to be "the standard," and have that become fact by the mere fact that they have a browser monopoly. It's a canard. The only reason Google doesn't have a complete monopoly is because of iOS. I've made service calls to various services to complain about some critical functionality in their website being broken and when I tell them I use Safari they assume I'm accessing it from my phone. The concept of desktop Safari doesn't even seem to register. People don't even bother to test their websites on the second-most widely used browser technology because it's too small to bother with. Yet we are to pretend Apple is the monopolist here who is negatively affecting user options?
Nvidia makes it basically impossible for Macs to be nearly as performant as PCs with the same hardware because they're lazy about development of native drivers on Apple devices. This was to the point where Apple just gave up on working with them and went their own way. They also don't get shit on because the usual suspects don't care about other companies doing things to hobble Apple users being able to get the most out of their devices.
What this is is largely a question of where in the stack you think it's appropriate to have someone making the call on what the acceptable range of options ought to be. Apple happens to be making the call at a level that's very close to the end-user's points of contact while most of the other stuff happens well upstream of what general commercial users will ever think about. That's it.
They mostly do this by making the Apple ecosystem advantages much better and smoother. Part of the reason they can do that is because they have a combination of hardware and software and kernel level interconnections that can make this possible. They could, in theory, create more generally accessible clean hooks into that functionality but it would be a hell of a lot of work for little to no benefit to them or most of their user base. The main case where it does have a serious use, they are actually trying to do this. This is in how they're trying to integrate CarPlay in with the real-time OSes that run on modern cars. But we can see how long it's taken for them to do that and that's in the realm of the very finite range of hardware and software permutations involved with the car industry.
There is basically no way to profitably open up most of the platform advantages Apple realizes through their ecosystem. A substantial portion of this stuff is close to impossible to actually open up without making iOS devices as prone to compromise and security vulnerabilities as MacOS devices are, which would be a reputational and business catastrophe for them and every app developer in their platform. Their governance over the App Store for scams and user-hostile interaction design from developers is already flimsy and pathetic. They can't really afford to let it get any worse.
I have a hunch (read: hope) that they’ll be forced to change this software issue in addition to the charging/data port hardware problem sometime soon, also due to EU rules. Let’s keep our fingers crossed… to the benefit of enthusiast iPhone users.
That's not exactly anything new. They've been doing it for at least 4 years now. This is still a step, however small, towards being better for the consumer.
Today we have standardized ports, tomorrow maybe standardized batteries.
Honestly the Facebook Onavo scam, where Facebook paid people $20 to install spyware in their iPhones, using a workaround Apple included that’s intended to only be for companies to lock down company devices, presents a very strong argument for exactly why Apple needs to be as stringent as they are if any of the benefits people buy their phones for are to be realized.
The reason the App Store is the only store where people pay for software is because they trust the environment to be a shield from that kind of egregiously invasive crap. If that trust was broken, the only people who would be downloading and installing apps would be nerds. And every one of us nerds would be fielding endless tech support calls from relatives who installed a stupid purple monkey to dance around on their screens but that also constantly crashes their computer because it’s actually spyware.
Bit of a tangent, but it'd be neat to know why people buy Apple products -- I couldn't find any surveys which covered that from some quick searching. I know I picked an iPhone up because of (1) the excellent reported price to perf ratio for an SE 2020, and (2) the long maintenance cycle for their devices, but everything about the device has been a disappointment. I'm kinda curious if -- for instance -- folks are buying Apple devices because there's more to life than the phone in your pocket, and when their device "slows down", there's a simple upgrade path available vs. needing to consider many alternatives.
Also another tangent, but overall, I really think people need to chill out about this stuff. Both on the positive and negative sides. It'd be cool if we could all take a step back and demand the best from the companies we interact with, without immediately viewing praise as fanboyism, and criticism as intentionally inflammatory poop slinging.
For the iPhone, one of them is that I use a mac as a daily driver. For software engineering, macs are what you get at work, and they are also my preferred computer being a unix derived OS that doesn't spontaneously combust every few months. iPhones have many useful integrations with macs, like handoff.
For context, I do actually use an android phone on a regular basis, as I use a large android phone as a media tablet (as largeish phones are the right size for me to use without vision correction - for tablets, at their best viewing distances, they are out of focus). iOS is just smoother, the failure modes more "hidden", and the defaults nicer.
On the apps side, although it's diminished as people generally shift away from native apps, iOS generally just has better apps. It's well known that the App Store is a significantly better platform to develop for, financially, and it shows. There are still many boutique iOS apps like Photomator, which I use quite often, native and built with the iOS design language. Android mostly has cross platform apps. For many commonly used apps, there's just no alternative on the play store, not without it being an ad-ridden, non-native mess.
The iOS built in apps are just much nicer than either the Samsung or Pixel defaults. These have gotten good enough that on iOS I use most of the default apps when available.
Aah, that’s an interesting case study — thanks :) Hopefully this doesn’t summarize your perspective incorrectly, but it sounds like overall ecosystem health and UX consistency/reliability is a major driver for you, which makes sense!
(also, on another tangent, I’d managed to go about a decade in software engineering without using macOS at work. Admittedly I do either perf focused or boring jobs, so maybe all the cool devs have been using macbooks this whole time!)
There's also a Youtuber I refuse to name (and can't remember their name) who made BANK at the iPhone 6 "bendgate" stuff releasing multiple long videos packed with sponsors and ads just blasting away at everything Apple did.
People flocked into the comments to hate Apple and they rode the wave for a loong time. Still going I think with a decently sized channel.
I don't know why you're approaching this from the angle that purchasing and/or wanting to purchase a device is a vote of confidence in Apple's decisions versus the reality of just exchanging money for a product. I don't care whether the EU or Apple is making the device better, I just want a good device.
We get it. Apple is repair-hostile. It's far more readily apparent than people think it is. Key thing is, as a user, I've been hearing this for 8 or so years and still not once have I went to a repair shop with an Apple product and got told "yeah, we can't fix that," other than a water damaged phone losing the Face ID camera (and still working just fine otherwise with a cheap screen replacement.)
For iPhones especially, the devices are so well-understood by third party repair shops despite Apple's hostility that it really does not affect the calculus of a purchase decision. I think me, and most people, would survive losing TrueTone if a display is swapped, and I actually expect this to trend better, not worse, because regulators are waking up to it.
They also promised 10 years of support for Lightning when they released it.
This fall is the 10th anniversary of the Lightning connector. Coincidence?
I really think Apple planned to ride out with lightning until they figured out a way to seal the phone off and have no ports at all. They never quite came up with adequate solutions for linking peripherals or wireless data transfer, and even wireless charging is a bit clunky and evidently bad for battery health. So I think they just gave up.
I miss the days when a) phones had S variants — I always bought the S variant. It had all the features of last year with the major bugs fixed. b) and there was genuinely something new and groundbreaking every year, where getting a new phone meant having something radically different. An extra camera isn’t groundbreaking.
Yes, where can phones go from here, they’ve already done everything! That’s what they said about Motorola razrs. Let’s get sci-fi with holographic displays, or AR from my phone to my glasses, not a 3500 pair of ski goggles.
You can’t really get from A to B without the ski goggles to start with. No doubt that is the long term Vision, but you need to actually release something that works that you can iterate on. Apple is the master of slow and steady yearly improvements to get to something really good. You can’t just summon AR hologram tech out of the ether.
The ski goggles are legitimately the most innovative thing they've released in the last few years. Both the "screw the controllers" thing, and the top-down approach (i.e. instead of starting at a tolerable price and then working upwards towards a tolerable featureset, they're starting at a tolerable featureset and working downwards on the price).
Yes, they're kind of bulky, but "they're not sufficiently slim" is something Apple will focus on improving in future versions, whether that's a good idea or not.
I think they’re gonna prioritize battery life and performance over size for the foreseeable future on those things. But it’s hard to say, even they don’t know what they’re gonna focus on until they put it in people’s hands and see how it’s being used.
A lot of the first impression reviews have complained about the weight if you’re using it for a long time, so I think maybe that’s something they’ll try to tackle. At the very least swapping the glass for one of the higher end polymers like they use for helmets and ski goggles. (Though AFAIK nothing beats glass for clarity and optical fidelity).
I really don’t think the ski goggle thing will end up being that big of a deal in use. It looks weird and dorky now because it’s new and different. Once it’s commonplace it won’t make people so self conscious to think about it. We saw this cycle play out with the walkman, with AirPods, camcorders, and even smartphones.
It’s been a while since we’ve had “revolutionary” hardware features. They’ve been steadily iterating and improving things for years. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a sign of a mature product. That’s not to say they haven’t made great improvements in things like battery life and processing power, but those aren’t revolutionary.
They still have S years. They’ve switched to a three year cycle now instead of the two year cycle they had until the X came out. They introduce a new style and then just refine it. If they keep the same body this year and just slim down the bezels, then they could be moving to a 4 year cycle.
iPhone 3G -> 3GS
iPhone 4 -> 4S
iPhone 5 -> 5S
iPhone 6 -> 6S
iPhone 7 -> 8
iPhone X -> iPhone XS -> iPhone 11
iPhone 12 -> iPhone 13 -> iPhone 14 -> iPhone 15?
It seems like other companies like Samsung are the ones that are coming out with “revolutionary” devices like the Flip and Fold lines. I’m sure Apple will enter the market eventually, but they’re usually slow to get into new markets.
Samsung has always been more innovative than Apple. First smartwatch, first with NFC, folding and the list could go on. If you want innovation, you need to move away from Apple. There are so many interesting Android phones that are geared to specific audiences. From the gaming phone to the streaming video phone, it's very neat in the Android world outside of Apple's walled garden. Heck even the pixel features, I miss allowing the google assistant to answer my calls so much! I wish Samsung would adopt that!
The S is just a branding thing. It doesn’t really matter that they just increment the number now. The iPhone 13 was basically an iPhone 12S in every way - the 12, but with the rough edges sanded after a year in customer hands.
You can’t just magically go from A to B. The ski goggles is the incremental step. Many issues you only find out when a product is in customers hands. For the long journey of a truly portable AR device, it’s much better than Apple can iterate on public products.
The iPhone 6S* Plus is still to this day, my fav iPhone. If it would operate well today I would probably still be rocking one, but I know it won’t be able to keep up with the current software.
I loved the 6s but the battery life was terrible. A brand new fully charged battery would last about half a day when traveling.
You mean the 6S Plus? Definitely a great phone, had some good improvements over the 6.
Ope, yeah, 6S plus.
Me and my bank account are pretty happy that this tech isn't progressing quickly anymore. I bought and iPhone 13 last year and it's been really great, but I can't see getting a new phone until it's at least 5 years old or so. It would have been more tempting if something revolutionary came along - but these minor differences/upgrades aren't enough to make me go "wow!"
As per usual, my interest isn't deeper than just watching a 10-minute Marques Brownlee video after the fact 😅
I have an 11 pro max and it’s been great. BUT it’s showing it’s age a tad, battery life has decreased and the lightning port broke I can only charge wirelessly. So, I’ll probably get the 15 if it has usb C. 4 years isn’t a bad run. Had the port not broken I probably would have gone another year.
For devices as expensive as these, I definitely feel like ~4 years should be the minimum lifetime. For most people, it probably is. I am very happy that the EU are coming down so hard on planned obsolescence and other such shady behavior from these companies. Anyway going from an 11 to a 15 certainly seems fair enough to me - and you are going to notice a very real upgrade as opposed to someone going from 14 to 15 or even 13 to 15.
I had a Galaxy A50 before getting my iPhone 13 last year. I had it for 3 years which I feel is a decent enough lifetime for a low-/mid-budget phone - but yip like you I would have likely kept it going for another while but the screen cracked so I felt like I had a good excuse to upgrade 🙈 And again, changes are so minute now that it just doesn't make sense (to me) to upgrade more frequently than every 4-5 years
Also have the 13 and it still feels like a new phone. Apple has done a pretty good job at building devices that last longer now. Could easily go 6 years between upgrades.
MKBHD had a great video about why (techy) people feel that new phones aren't "innovating" and every release is just an incremental release.
Yes, that's true if you update every single year. You won't get any WHOA features or performance upgrades.
BUT YOU AREN'T THE TARGET AUDIENCE
You need to imagine someone who's upgrading from a 5 year old phone to the current generation, that's going to be multiple WHOA-level events with the new features, camera upgrades and processor speed.
I'm in the exact boat. Bought a 13 Pro at the start of 2022 to replace my then 4yo iPhone X. And the X replaced my 3yo 6 Plus, which replaced my ~2yo 4S (my first iPhone). I've been steadily adding a year to my phones.
So I'd like my 13 Pro to last 5yrs, which I think it'll do. Maybe a battery replacement somewhere down the road, but that's about it.
I'm not an Apple person but I've been moving into iOS development at work, so I'm pretty excited to see what they show off! The USB-C rumors are super interesting and I feel like there might be some weird limitations they put on it, but I hope not!
It's also kinda exciting because it also means Google's is right around the corner and I'm more excited for that, haha.
I would be shocked if they don't limit their fast charging to "apple certified" cables and chargers, in a similar way OnePlus and Oppo do it. Probably the same for data transmission through the cable.
Maybe they'll even do it like they do with the internal components, make it pop an error for non official hardware and have fake glitches. For example it might suddenly stop charging until you unplug and replug the cable, or randomly start changing really slowly.
The most exciting thing about a new iPhone is the price drop on last year's models. I'm on an iPhone XR which is showing its age so I'm looking forward to upgrading.
Apple announces an announcement of the thing they announce annually.
Predictions:
This has been something of a thing for the consumer tech industry for a while now.
Remember when apple announced that iTunes would be making a revolutionary announcement, and it turned out that it was just that you could buy music from The Beatles on the iTunes store?
Oh yeah! An Apple event!
I love how they big these things up and they have been next to zero on the innovation part.
What do I expect from this one? Hmmm. A 20%+ mark up on the last versions price. A nanometer smaller bezel, a new processor and GPU combo which makes the old phone and this one so different by at least one nineteenth of a second when launching the same app. A higher pixel density because our eyes can still see the difference, apparently. A super improved camera that can do quarter of a million optical zoom using the latest AI modelling to invent what it thinks you're looking at. Let's not forget the crippled USB-C industry standard port that will need a branded cable to charge at the real speed and to work with an Apple computer or laptop.
I miss the old days of real innovation. At least companies are trying new things such as shapes, sizes, folding and material. Or the OS actually did something really cool. Maybe, and I really hope, that is something which may have something worth looking at. If they've done something OS based which is a game changer.