Thank the heavens. The market for smartphones has gone insane a few years back. That's because smartphones have realistically already been comoditized. Frankly, at this point, they shouldn't be...
Thank the heavens.
The market for smartphones has gone insane a few years back. That's because smartphones have realistically already been comoditized. Frankly, at this point, they shouldn't be called smartphones - we should just call them phones. It's not like there are a ton of locked down feature phones on the market today.
The crazy thing about smartphones is the economy around them and how the products have changed. It's insane that people think they need to spend $1000 on a phone, but they do it anyways because the market is crazy. In order to get a high quality cell phone, consumers think they need to get these "flagship" models - remember there is practically zero middle to the smartphone market. But these devices are expensive because they artificially distinguish them with arguably poor design choices, the largest example being custom-made screens with unusual geometry - curved sides, cut corners, notches, bullet holes, etc.
I'll play devils advocate, then! You're right. They shouldn't be called smartphones. They also shouldn't be called phones either. They're supercomputers in our pocket that allow us to track our...
Exemplary
I'll play devils advocate, then!
You're right. They shouldn't be called smartphones. They also shouldn't be called phones either. They're supercomputers in our pocket that allow us to track our health, record our exercise, keep connected with the world, track our sleep. They're our cameras, our PDA's, our calculators, our GPSs, our gaming devices. It's misleading to say "it's insane people need to spend $1000 on a phone", no one is spending $1000 for voice-based cellular connectivity. They're spending $1000 for a pocketable super-computer.
I think the rest of Goode’s review contradicts the notion that $750 (or better, $800 for the 128 GB version) is a “crazy amount of money for a phone”.
Phones are the most important computer in most people’s lives. They’re the only computer in many people’s lives. Nobody says it’s crazy to spend up to $1,500 on a laptop — but most people use and care about their phone more than they do their laptop. That’s why phone displays are getting bigger. We’ve been corrupted by thinking of them as “phones” in the pre-2007 sense of the word.
A cell phone used to be just a wireless telephone. No longer. They are our ever-present personal computers. They are also our most important cameras (and often our only cameras). A decade ago, point-and-shoot cameras ran $200-400, easily. It’s your watch, it’s your alarm clock, it’s your Walkman, it’s your map and GPS. It’s your wallet full of photos of your family and friends. It’s also, increasingly, your actual wallet.
If you took an iPhone XR back to 2006 people would be amazed. If you told them they could buy one for $750 they’d think you were lying.
Regarding your comments regarding screens with "unusual geometry", I encourage you to switch between apps on an iPhone X or iPhone XS using the home bar. You'll see exactly what the final design goal is for Apple when you do this. WebOS-inspired, card-style apps, with beautifully rounded corners. The notch is merely the engineering-compromise that's being made for the time being: until under-display front facing cameras happen, Apple's design philosophy is "we're going to need a notch". The notch isn't a feature. It's a well-considered compromise that represents the next step for Apple.
I think you may have been confused at part of my arguement. That's ok; I realize that I wasn't being particularly clear. The reason why I said that we shouldn't call them smartphones is because...
I think you may have been confused at part of my arguement. That's ok; I realize that I wasn't being particularly clear. The reason why I said that we shouldn't call them smartphones is because the term implies that they can do things that other phones cannot do. But since essentially all phones being produced are smartphones, the term doesn't really apply. It keeps being used because the manufacturers are doing everything they can to avoid having the public realize that smartphones are commodities and should be priced as such.
The quote you use seems to have some problems in and of itself. Specifically here:
Nobody says it’s crazy to spend up to $1,500 on a laptop
$1500 is ok if you are buying a mobile workstation or at least something designed to be very durable or "future-proof". There you are paying for pure performance. The issue is that today there are laptops that should cost $600 but charge $1500 because they are fashionable. It's crazy people would spend so much money on those because they are literally held together with glue and cannot be repaired. Do you see a parallel here?
The reviewer also pushes a logical falacy in regards to value. Just because the individual implementations of the features in smartphones would have cost more in the past doesn't mean that smartphones have the license to keep the prices high forever. That's like saying that clothes irons with steam should cost hundreds of dollars because garment steamers cost that much before they put that feature in clothes irons.
I actually did try to use the iPhone X out of curiosity when it first came out. I honestly could not figure out how to get out of apps anymore, let alone switch between them. In any case, I fail to see how a screen notch is required for it. You said yourself that the concept is webOS inspired, yet no webOS device I am aware of has a notch in it's screen.
I paid over $3k for my laptop, and I did that because I use it for work, and needed a powerful machine, and wanted certain benefits that cheaper laptops don't contain. I spend 10 hours a day using...
I paid over $3k for my laptop, and I did that because I use it for work, and needed a powerful machine, and wanted certain benefits that cheaper laptops don't contain. I spend 10 hours a day using it, and it's worth paying for those conveniences. You can claim people are paying $900 more just because a computer is fashionable, but that's so absurdly out-of-touch that is tells us only things about you, not them.
My phone is a 2nd hand phone that was originally released in 2016 and I paid about $200 for it.
People spend the money on things that are worth it to them. I pay extra for things you clearly don't care about. But I have no doubt you do the same in other areas.
There is no need to resort to personal attacks. I wasn't even aware I was saying anything that would insult anyone. Note that I said that $1500 is fine if you are buying a workstation - and that...
There is no need to resort to personal attacks. I wasn't even aware I was saying anything that would insult anyone. Note that I said that $1500 is fine if you are buying a workstation - and that is what you would appear to have.
Exactly. No one is taking away affordable phones. You can buy phones every year for cheaper than the previous year for the same or better performance. Budget phones are like that. It's just the...
Exactly. No one is taking away affordable phones. You can buy phones every year for cheaper than the previous year for the same or better performance. Budget phones are like that. It's just the public attention is at luxury flagships that rise in price and gain characteristics unpopular in enthusiast circles. But if they do sell at higher prices, manufacturers will rise prices. It's like if a new lambo costs 500 grand instead of 300 and can go 400 mph instead of 300, who would need that? Well, someone, out there...
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the problem for me is the price point. A flagship smartphone costs about a thousand dollars here in Denmark. I haven't bought one of those despite...
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the problem for me is the price point. A flagship smartphone costs about a thousand dollars here in Denmark. I haven't bought one of those despite wanting to, but I simply can't afford it. What's missing is, per the article, the medium-priced phones with great performance, a la the Nexus 5 from 2013 which is what I still use because I simply can't justify paying that much money for a phone. Yes people use them a lot, every day, multiple hours per day, but I refuse to believe that it's actually worth that much money to anybody. I thought 400 dollars was expensive for this one - no way in hell am I paying 1000+ dollars for something that can do maybe 30% more stuff, of which I'll actually need 5%. I already only use maybe about 30% of my phone's functionality... They are amazing handheld supercomputers, yes, but that doesn't mean the price has to be jacked so ridiculously high.
Just gonna chime in here, I'm still using a Nexus 5 as well. These things can be bought for less than $80 nowadays, and they still run just fine. The battery life could be a bit better, but that's...
Just gonna chime in here, I'm still using a Nexus 5 as well. These things can be bought for less than $80 nowadays, and they still run just fine. The battery life could be a bit better, but that's my only gripe. Give me a browser and a dialer and I'm happy.
To add to that, the value of an iPhone isn't just what you pay for it initially. They have insane resale values compared to similar-market phones. The iPhone X was selling for a minimum of $650...
To add to that, the value of an iPhone isn't just what you pay for it initially. They have insane resale values compared to similar-market phones. The iPhone X was selling for a minimum of $650 used right before the XS release. 256 GB models were going for $750—these aren't "asking" prices; the prices are from comparing completed eBay sales. Those phones were $1K and $1100 at release. No other phone's resale value even comes close. So if you want to upgrade to whatever iPhone they release next fall, your outlay is considerably smaller than that initial outlay. You could get the comparable XS for $1000, sell your X, and only be out $350. A lot of people do that now, and it greatly minimizes your yearly upgrade cost, if that's your desire (and it really should be, because waiting another year just means you have an older phone that's not worth nearly as much). The price-hype is overblown.
That's because Apple products and namely iPhones are a luxury brand. The markup on them is absolutely insane, and any other luxury brand can only dream of their markups x sales volume.
That's because Apple products and namely iPhones are a luxury brand. The markup on them is absolutely insane, and any other luxury brand can only dream of their markups x sales volume.
The markups are absurd and it is a luxury brand, but that doesn't stop there being things (other than fashion) about Apple products that make them worth the extra money for the people who buy them.
The markups are absurd and it is a luxury brand, but that doesn't stop there being things (other than fashion) about Apple products that make them worth the extra money for the people who buy them.
Exactly. Seamless iCloud Photo & Document syncing, Continuity with macOS, using my iPhone as a camera for Mac to insert photos as needed, using my phone as an Apple TV remote, Keychain syncing,...
Exactly. Seamless iCloud Photo & Document syncing, Continuity with macOS, using my iPhone as a camera for Mac to insert photos as needed, using my phone as an Apple TV remote, Keychain syncing, Apple Watch management, HomeKit, Apple Pay.
For every markup, there's a feature I get legitimate use out of that is not as seamless on other platforms.
I have a windows PC, and I only run Mac OS in a VM, but I still buy iPhones. I just figure that I have to pay for iOS since its development is not funded by monetizing my data, as it seems Android...
I have a windows PC, and I only run Mac OS in a VM, but I still buy iPhones. I just figure that I have to pay for iOS since its development is not funded by monetizing my data, as it seems Android is.
I realize that’s not the entire story, but that’s my rationalization. These days all flagships are super expensive, so iPhone is even more attractive. That’s not even counting the fact that Apple is more likely to do privacy by design, and their App Store is much more trustworthy in my opinion.
The curved screen trend and now notches smells strongly of making up new changes for the sake of changes because they ran out of functional things to change. Before it was "My phone supports 4g...
The curved screen trend and now notches smells strongly of making up new changes for the sake of changes because they ran out of functional things to change. Before it was "My phone supports 4g and gets way better download" or "This phone takes way better photos than any other phone" but now its "My phone is 2% faster but it also has a chunk missing from the screen and the headphone port is gone and cost me $1500AUD"
I was in the store this week and 95% of the phones I saw had notches and there was a good selection of brands and models there. Its amazing how fast every single maker jumps on a fashion trend with no functional purpose and simply being a visual indicator that you purchased a phone in 2018.
Snapdragon 855 claims something like 40% performance boost over 845. Maybe changes aren't that big every year, but they still gradually happen exponentially. Phones are by no means like desktop...
Snapdragon 855 claims something like 40% performance boost over 845. Maybe changes aren't that big every year, but they still gradually happen exponentially. Phones are by no means like desktop PCs here.
Also as there's a boom of social media, consumers want really good cameras, and hardware does matter here.
This all comes at cost. If you want top notch (pun intended) experience, you pay top dollar. It's because manufacturers decided so, and people do pay, people want these "non significant" features and curved bezelless screens on their thin glass phones.
If someone wants a phone that works just fine, there are plenty of inexpensive phones with CPU like Snap 625 or 425. They are like regular cars in the city, comparing to sports cars as flagships. All cars will get you from A to B but some people want to be pushed back into seat when they step on gas.
Usually in capitalism there's the worry about the falling rate of profit as products become commoditized. But somehow Apple has found a way around that: just raise the prices.
It's insane that people think they need to spend $1000 on a phone
Usually in capitalism there's the worry about the falling rate of profit as products become commoditized. But somehow Apple has found a way around that: just raise the prices.
I don't have a phone. I have a defective (by design) handheld computer that just happens to have a phone dialer app. I'd rather not have it, but the rest of you all have one and ripped out most of...
I don't have a phone. I have a defective (by design) handheld computer that just happens to have a phone dialer app. I'd rather not have it, but the rest of you all have one and ripped out most of the goddamn pay phones.
I'm surprised by this - partly because you can still easily buy a calls and texts only model if you want, but more because I can't imagine foregoing the utility of having a web browser in my pocket.
I'm surprised by this - partly because you can still easily buy a calls and texts only model if you want, but more because I can't imagine foregoing the utility of having a web browser in my pocket.
This is basically the exact same reason I have Facebook. I fucking hate that website, but because everyone else has it, I have to have it too or I'd be out of what little social life I do have.
This is basically the exact same reason I have Facebook. I fucking hate that website, but because everyone else has it, I have to have it too or I'd be out of what little social life I do have.
Do people not know what a 'plateau' is? The market is still growing - that's not even a plateau yet, that's growth. A plateau will happen when the market hits saturation. A decline would be if...
Do people not know what a 'plateau' is? The market is still growing - that's not even a plateau yet, that's growth. A plateau will happen when the market hits saturation. A decline would be if people started 'unplugging' from smartphones. We're miles away from that if we ever get there.
It's a sign of the retarded worldview the key players in this industry have when growth slowing is called a decline. It's happened in several industries over the years, and most incumbents do poorly since they're stuck in dumb old mindsets. There's a fascinating example where TVs hit a similar point of saturation - every family in the US had a TV, so plenty of companies began to wind back on their mass production and start niche competition, and 'plus an inch' size competition. Then Sony decides to come out of left field and go much, much smaller, and market them as 'bedroom tvs'. Market explodes and Sony makes bank. Now of course they're the dinosaur incumbent and Samsung is taking them to the cleaners, but that's in large part due to Samsung's panel tech R&D being largely funded by the smartphone market these days.
History of tech tells us the peak will grow very, very slowly (as it has done lately) and the gap between the big expensive smartphone and the cheapshit smartphone will rapidly narrow. Then someone will probably have an idea that shoots it off to the side and starts a new consumer tech race. At no point does any of this require a 'smartphone decline'.
Sure it's a good point about companies competing in niches. But the market is in decline. Defining market here as quantity of people buying and selling. If people are happy with what they own and...
Sure it's a good point about companies competing in niches. But the market is in decline. Defining market here as quantity of people buying and selling. If people are happy with what they own and not buying, by definition they're no longer part of the market. Until years later when their phone becomes obsolete and they need to upgrade, and rejoin the market.
You're talking about something else - maybe the market for software which may indeed grow as more people own the hardware platform. But here we're specifically talking about the hardware market.
Nope, I'm still talking the hardware market. It's the flaw in thinking 'number of people who are buying and selling right now' as being 'the market' - it's not, as Sony showed in the TV example....
Nope, I'm still talking the hardware market. It's the flaw in thinking 'number of people who are buying and selling right now' as being 'the market' - it's not, as Sony showed in the TV example. Somewhere in the future is the idea that gets people buying another device, or replacing their current hardware, or a new sales model like a hardware subscription or w/e. Just because the vendors have nothing to get that purchasing interest happening right now doesn't mean the market has shrunk.
I get what you're saying and in colloquial use "market" can have either meaning. But it's kind of pointless to define it this way in this context and say the market is still growing. It's like...
I get what you're saying and in colloquial use "market" can have either meaning. But it's kind of pointless to define it this way in this context and say the market is still growing. It's like saying the coffin market is growing because the population is increasing and there's more and more people who will eventually need a coffin when they die. Technically true but useless information to people in the industry and measuring economic activity.
Instead it makes sense to talk about the transactions per time period as the article does. If we look at transactions per year, it's the first time it has shrunk in several years, which is kind of a big deal. If it marks the beginning of a trend, it may force these smartphone giants to shrink and cause a ripple effect in economies worldwide.
Unless they are clever enough to open up that potential market you are getting at. But there's no evidence that will be a certainty.
That thing looks like what I've been looking for. I just don't get why it has 16gigs of storage without a camera or a way to have music on it. Looks promising though.
That thing looks like what I've been looking for. I just don't get why it has 16gigs of storage without a camera or a way to have music on it. Looks promising though.
I don't really buy the "but can it make phone calls?!" meme. I managed to convince my parents to buy a smartphone last year, they're about as technology-phobic as it gets but the amount of apps...
I don't really buy the "but can it make phone calls?!" meme. I managed to convince my parents to buy a smartphone last year, they're about as technology-phobic as it gets but the amount of apps and features in the smartphone they use is surprising:
They use the web browser, WhatsApp with photos+videos, email, voice recognition (which surprised me, they love it!), my dad does a ton of GPS tracking, uses the measurements app with the level function, they're also really into an app I showed them tracking stars in the sky using augmented reality, the good old notes app, timers for cooking, an app for public transport times, an e-banking app for pin codes and such, music and the weather app. That's people in their 70s who never used a smartphone before 2017.
I sometimes want to say "but I barely use any of the 'smart' functions!", because it feels like you're only using a fraction of what's there and you feel like protesting the car-salesman-like up-selling of all kinds of vague features and functionalities but it's not really true. There's a ton of practical stuff you can do with the internet, GPS and a camera. It's not some kind of fake, made-up fad. That doesn't mean there aren't aspects that are problematic.
Yea, sorry for hijacking your comment, I definitely see your use case. It just see it becoming really fashionable to pick very specific cases (like yours – again, it's absolutely valid), to...
Yea, sorry for hijacking your comment, I definitely see your use case. It just see it becoming really fashionable to pick very specific cases (like yours – again, it's absolutely valid), to illustrate some anti-smartphone narrative (I guess it's 10 years so they're no longer "cool"). I don't think it's very representative considering how I see smart phones being used, especially by less technologically apt users who are happy to have simple one-button/one-function apps.
There's many problems with smartphones and the impact they have on our lives but it's IMO not "I just want to use my phone to make phone calls!". It makes a lot of sense to carry around a computer you can use with one hand. My only personal horror scenario is Apple starting to get serious about pushing iPads as replacing MacBooks. Not because of the form factor but because it would cement the locked-in app culture of iOS in general purpose computing.
That's why I really like that phones like these seem to tend towards having the hotspot feature baked in there. If you do need something "smarter", you can feed a backup smartphone your hotspot...
That's why I really like that phones like these seem to tend towards having the hotspot feature baked in there. If you do need something "smarter", you can feed a backup smartphone your hotspot and away you go.
That looks really good. I've been keeping an eye on the Nokia 8110 4G but that looks even better. Glad to see it also has the ability to hotspot out its connection.
That looks really good. I've been keeping an eye on the Nokia 8110 4G but that looks even better. Glad to see it also has the ability to hotspot out its connection.
$349 for what looks like a handheld calculator is too much. At that price point, I would be better off getting a flip-phone and spending the remaining $300 elsewhere.
$349 for what looks like a handheld calculator is too much. At that price point, I would be better off getting a flip-phone and spending the remaining $300 elsewhere.
I really hope that with this decline phone companies would finally appeal to niche maerkets again. It's crazy that we have no modern QWERTY slider considering Android started with one. I'm glad...
I really hope that with this decline phone companies would finally appeal to niche maerkets again. It's crazy that we have no modern QWERTY slider considering Android started with one. I'm glad that Blackberry made KEYOne/KEY2, but these are nowhere near horizontal sliders.
Thank the heavens.
The market for smartphones has gone insane a few years back. That's because smartphones have realistically already been comoditized. Frankly, at this point, they shouldn't be called smartphones - we should just call them phones. It's not like there are a ton of locked down feature phones on the market today.
The crazy thing about smartphones is the economy around them and how the products have changed. It's insane that people think they need to spend $1000 on a phone, but they do it anyways because the market is crazy. In order to get a high quality cell phone, consumers think they need to get these "flagship" models - remember there is practically zero middle to the smartphone market. But these devices are expensive because they artificially distinguish them with arguably poor design choices, the largest example being custom-made screens with unusual geometry - curved sides, cut corners, notches, bullet holes, etc.
I'll play devils advocate, then!
You're right. They shouldn't be called smartphones. They also shouldn't be called phones either. They're supercomputers in our pocket that allow us to track our health, record our exercise, keep connected with the world, track our sleep. They're our cameras, our PDA's, our calculators, our GPSs, our gaming devices. It's misleading to say "it's insane people need to spend $1000 on a phone", no one is spending $1000 for voice-based cellular connectivity. They're spending $1000 for a pocketable super-computer.
This is exactly what Gruber commented on in his iPhone XR Review roundup:
Regarding your comments regarding screens with "unusual geometry", I encourage you to switch between apps on an iPhone X or iPhone XS using the home bar. You'll see exactly what the final design goal is for Apple when you do this. WebOS-inspired, card-style apps, with beautifully rounded corners. The notch is merely the engineering-compromise that's being made for the time being: until under-display front facing cameras happen, Apple's design philosophy is "we're going to need a notch". The notch isn't a feature. It's a well-considered compromise that represents the next step for Apple.
I think you may have been confused at part of my arguement. That's ok; I realize that I wasn't being particularly clear. The reason why I said that we shouldn't call them smartphones is because the term implies that they can do things that other phones cannot do. But since essentially all phones being produced are smartphones, the term doesn't really apply. It keeps being used because the manufacturers are doing everything they can to avoid having the public realize that smartphones are commodities and should be priced as such.
The quote you use seems to have some problems in and of itself. Specifically here:
$1500 is ok if you are buying a mobile workstation or at least something designed to be very durable or "future-proof". There you are paying for pure performance. The issue is that today there are laptops that should cost $600 but charge $1500 because they are fashionable. It's crazy people would spend so much money on those because they are literally held together with glue and cannot be repaired. Do you see a parallel here?
The reviewer also pushes a logical falacy in regards to value. Just because the individual implementations of the features in smartphones would have cost more in the past doesn't mean that smartphones have the license to keep the prices high forever. That's like saying that clothes irons with steam should cost hundreds of dollars because garment steamers cost that much before they put that feature in clothes irons.
I actually did try to use the iPhone X out of curiosity when it first came out. I honestly could not figure out how to get out of apps anymore, let alone switch between them. In any case, I fail to see how a screen notch is required for it. You said yourself that the concept is webOS inspired, yet no webOS device I am aware of has a notch in it's screen.
I paid over $3k for my laptop, and I did that because I use it for work, and needed a powerful machine, and wanted certain benefits that cheaper laptops don't contain. I spend 10 hours a day using it, and it's worth paying for those conveniences. You can claim people are paying $900 more just because a computer is fashionable, but that's so absurdly out-of-touch that is tells us only things about you, not them.
My phone is a 2nd hand phone that was originally released in 2016 and I paid about $200 for it.
People spend the money on things that are worth it to them. I pay extra for things you clearly don't care about. But I have no doubt you do the same in other areas.
There is no need to resort to personal attacks. I wasn't even aware I was saying anything that would insult anyone. Note that I said that $1500 is fine if you are buying a workstation - and that is what you would appear to have.
Exactly. No one is taking away affordable phones. You can buy phones every year for cheaper than the previous year for the same or better performance. Budget phones are like that. It's just the public attention is at luxury flagships that rise in price and gain characteristics unpopular in enthusiast circles. But if they do sell at higher prices, manufacturers will rise prices. It's like if a new lambo costs 500 grand instead of 300 and can go 400 mph instead of 300, who would need that? Well, someone, out there...
I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the problem for me is the price point. A flagship smartphone costs about a thousand dollars here in Denmark. I haven't bought one of those despite wanting to, but I simply can't afford it. What's missing is, per the article, the medium-priced phones with great performance, a la the Nexus 5 from 2013 which is what I still use because I simply can't justify paying that much money for a phone. Yes people use them a lot, every day, multiple hours per day, but I refuse to believe that it's actually worth that much money to anybody. I thought 400 dollars was expensive for this one - no way in hell am I paying 1000+ dollars for something that can do maybe 30% more stuff, of which I'll actually need 5%. I already only use maybe about 30% of my phone's functionality... They are amazing handheld supercomputers, yes, but that doesn't mean the price has to be jacked so ridiculously high.
Just gonna chime in here, I'm still using a Nexus 5 as well. These things can be bought for less than $80 nowadays, and they still run just fine. The battery life could be a bit better, but that's my only gripe. Give me a browser and a dialer and I'm happy.
Basically that's all it takes, yes. I would really like a good camera too though, and that's sadly where the price starts increasing beyond belief
To add to that, the value of an iPhone isn't just what you pay for it initially. They have insane resale values compared to similar-market phones. The iPhone X was selling for a minimum of $650 used right before the XS release. 256 GB models were going for $750—these aren't "asking" prices; the prices are from comparing completed eBay sales. Those phones were $1K and $1100 at release. No other phone's resale value even comes close. So if you want to upgrade to whatever iPhone they release next fall, your outlay is considerably smaller than that initial outlay. You could get the comparable XS for $1000, sell your X, and only be out $350. A lot of people do that now, and it greatly minimizes your yearly upgrade cost, if that's your desire (and it really should be, because waiting another year just means you have an older phone that's not worth nearly as much). The price-hype is overblown.
Edit: you're/your mobile typo
That's because Apple products and namely iPhones are a luxury brand. The markup on them is absolutely insane, and any other luxury brand can only dream of their markups x sales volume.
The markups are absurd and it is a luxury brand, but that doesn't stop there being things (other than fashion) about Apple products that make them worth the extra money for the people who buy them.
Exactly. Seamless iCloud Photo & Document syncing, Continuity with macOS, using my iPhone as a camera for Mac to insert photos as needed, using my phone as an Apple TV remote, Keychain syncing, Apple Watch management, HomeKit, Apple Pay.
For every markup, there's a feature I get legitimate use out of that is not as seamless on other platforms.
I have a windows PC, and I only run Mac OS in a VM, but I still buy iPhones. I just figure that I have to pay for iOS since its development is not funded by monetizing my data, as it seems Android is.
I realize that’s not the entire story, but that’s my rationalization. These days all flagships are super expensive, so iPhone is even more attractive. That’s not even counting the fact that Apple is more likely to do privacy by design, and their App Store is much more trustworthy in my opinion.
Edit: clarity
The curved screen trend and now notches smells strongly of making up new changes for the sake of changes because they ran out of functional things to change. Before it was "My phone supports 4g and gets way better download" or "This phone takes way better photos than any other phone" but now its "My phone is 2% faster but it also has a chunk missing from the screen and the headphone port is gone and cost me $1500AUD"
I was in the store this week and 95% of the phones I saw had notches and there was a good selection of brands and models there. Its amazing how fast every single maker jumps on a fashion trend with no functional purpose and simply being a visual indicator that you purchased a phone in 2018.
The "functional purpose" of the notch couldn't possibly be clearer: the front camera has to go somewhere.
Snapdragon 855 claims something like 40% performance boost over 845. Maybe changes aren't that big every year, but they still gradually happen exponentially. Phones are by no means like desktop PCs here.
Also as there's a boom of social media, consumers want really good cameras, and hardware does matter here.
This all comes at cost. If you want top notch (pun intended) experience, you pay top dollar. It's because manufacturers decided so, and people do pay, people want these "non significant" features and curved bezelless screens on their thin glass phones.
If someone wants a phone that works just fine, there are plenty of inexpensive phones with CPU like Snap 625 or 425. They are like regular cars in the city, comparing to sports cars as flagships. All cars will get you from A to B but some people want to be pushed back into seat when they step on gas.
Usually in capitalism there's the worry about the falling rate of profit as products become commoditized. But somehow Apple has found a way around that: just raise the prices.
I don't have a phone. I have a defective (by design) handheld computer that just happens to have a phone dialer app. I'd rather not have it, but the rest of you all have one and ripped out most of the goddamn pay phones.
I'm surprised by this - partly because you can still easily buy a calls and texts only model if you want, but more because I can't imagine foregoing the utility of having a web browser in my pocket.
This is basically the exact same reason I have Facebook. I fucking hate that website, but because everyone else has it, I have to have it too or I'd be out of what little social life I do have.
Do people not know what a 'plateau' is? The market is still growing - that's not even a plateau yet, that's growth. A plateau will happen when the market hits saturation. A decline would be if people started 'unplugging' from smartphones. We're miles away from that if we ever get there.
It's a sign of the retarded worldview the key players in this industry have when growth slowing is called a decline. It's happened in several industries over the years, and most incumbents do poorly since they're stuck in dumb old mindsets. There's a fascinating example where TVs hit a similar point of saturation - every family in the US had a TV, so plenty of companies began to wind back on their mass production and start niche competition, and 'plus an inch' size competition. Then Sony decides to come out of left field and go much, much smaller, and market them as 'bedroom tvs'. Market explodes and Sony makes bank. Now of course they're the dinosaur incumbent and Samsung is taking them to the cleaners, but that's in large part due to Samsung's panel tech R&D being largely funded by the smartphone market these days.
History of tech tells us the peak will grow very, very slowly (as it has done lately) and the gap between the big expensive smartphone and the cheapshit smartphone will rapidly narrow. Then someone will probably have an idea that shoots it off to the side and starts a new consumer tech race. At no point does any of this require a 'smartphone decline'.
Sure it's a good point about companies competing in niches. But the market is in decline. Defining market here as quantity of people buying and selling. If people are happy with what they own and not buying, by definition they're no longer part of the market. Until years later when their phone becomes obsolete and they need to upgrade, and rejoin the market.
You're talking about something else - maybe the market for software which may indeed grow as more people own the hardware platform. But here we're specifically talking about the hardware market.
Nope, I'm still talking the hardware market. It's the flaw in thinking 'number of people who are buying and selling right now' as being 'the market' - it's not, as Sony showed in the TV example. Somewhere in the future is the idea that gets people buying another device, or replacing their current hardware, or a new sales model like a hardware subscription or w/e. Just because the vendors have nothing to get that purchasing interest happening right now doesn't mean the market has shrunk.
I get what you're saying and in colloquial use "market" can have either meaning. But it's kind of pointless to define it this way in this context and say the market is still growing. It's like saying the coffin market is growing because the population is increasing and there's more and more people who will eventually need a coffin when they die. Technically true but useless information to people in the industry and measuring economic activity.
Instead it makes sense to talk about the transactions per time period as the article does. If we look at transactions per year, it's the first time it has shrunk in several years, which is kind of a big deal. If it marks the beginning of a trend, it may force these smartphone giants to shrink and cause a ripple effect in economies worldwide.
Unless they are clever enough to open up that potential market you are getting at. But there's no evidence that will be a certainty.
That thing looks like what I've been looking for. I just don't get why it has 16gigs of storage without a camera or a way to have music on it. Looks promising though.
Is there any way to run software of your own on it?
I don't really buy the "but can it make phone calls?!" meme. I managed to convince my parents to buy a smartphone last year, they're about as technology-phobic as it gets but the amount of apps and features in the smartphone they use is surprising:
They use the web browser, WhatsApp with photos+videos, email, voice recognition (which surprised me, they love it!), my dad does a ton of GPS tracking, uses the measurements app with the level function, they're also really into an app I showed them tracking stars in the sky using augmented reality, the good old notes app, timers for cooking, an app for public transport times, an e-banking app for pin codes and such, music and the weather app. That's people in their 70s who never used a smartphone before 2017.
I sometimes want to say "but I barely use any of the 'smart' functions!", because it feels like you're only using a fraction of what's there and you feel like protesting the car-salesman-like up-selling of all kinds of vague features and functionalities but it's not really true. There's a ton of practical stuff you can do with the internet, GPS and a camera. It's not some kind of fake, made-up fad. That doesn't mean there aren't aspects that are problematic.
Yea, sorry for hijacking your comment, I definitely see your use case. It just see it becoming really fashionable to pick very specific cases (like yours – again, it's absolutely valid), to illustrate some anti-smartphone narrative (I guess it's 10 years so they're no longer "cool"). I don't think it's very representative considering how I see smart phones being used, especially by less technologically apt users who are happy to have simple one-button/one-function apps.
There's many problems with smartphones and the impact they have on our lives but it's IMO not "I just want to use my phone to make phone calls!". It makes a lot of sense to carry around a computer you can use with one hand. My only personal horror scenario is Apple starting to get serious about pushing iPads as replacing MacBooks. Not because of the form factor but because it would cement the locked-in app culture of iOS in general purpose computing.
That's why I really like that phones like these seem to tend towards having the hotspot feature baked in there. If you do need something "smarter", you can feed a backup smartphone your hotspot and away you go.
That looks really good. I've been keeping an eye on the Nokia 8110 4G but that looks even better. Glad to see it also has the ability to hotspot out its connection.
$349 for what looks like a handheld calculator is too much. At that price point, I would be better off getting a flip-phone and spending the remaining $300 elsewhere.
I really hope that with this decline phone companies would finally appeal to niche maerkets again. It's crazy that we have no modern QWERTY slider considering Android started with one. I'm glad that Blackberry made KEYOne/KEY2, but these are nowhere near horizontal sliders.