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I'm conflicted. It's absolutely stunning what smartphones can do these days and Apple makes an excellent product. It feels ungrateful and cynical to keep calli

I'm conflicted. It's absolutely stunning what smartphones can do these days and Apple makes an excellent product. It feels ungrateful and cynical to keep calling new models "boring". The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user. She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. You can add a million features to the camera app but she opens it and presses the shutter. Her only awareness of features is when she accidentally enables one and doesn't know how to get back. You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know they even exist. All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest. You might assume my girlfriend is perhaps lowly educated or just not tech savvy. Wrong, she's highly educated, even works in IT, although not in an engineering role. It's not that she's unable to understand the advances, she simply doesn't care. It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies. Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years. I think this is also why Apple put many Pro features into the regular model. Most people don't buy the pro and they're desperate for selling points in the regular model. If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse.

GenerocUsername 2y ago
Apple is a trillion dollar battery company.
- colechristensen 2y ago
  The joke I want to make is they make phones that are as fragile as glass and that's why people replace them so often... but they actually make phones out of glass that are stupidly fragile. It's equally stupid that you have to buy this thing and put a protective case on it that increases it's size x%. Why is the back of my phone glass. Why does the front of my phone have 0 protection from the glass hitting whatever it is dropped on? This has to be on purpose. Or maybe in an opposite direction, their stock would likely drop a considerable amount if they made a phone you could drop on concrete with only minor blemishes.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    It's because the alternative is plastic. Hard to sell a phone for 1000 dollars when its made out of plastic.
    - actionfromafar 2y ago
      Ceramic back? Titanium? Diamond? Anything but a glass back please. Why not even the option? A bezel around the rim?
      - jazzyjackson 2y ago
        You just reminded me my favorite fit and finish was the Essential PH1, titanium edge, ceramic back, felt twice as luxurious as anything I'd held previously Diamond and ceramic are however more prone to shattering. Sapphire like they use for the camera lenses and watch face might be ideal.
  - amelius 2y ago
    They're not making phones. They make vending machines that go in your pocket.
  - bouke 2y ago
    MagSafe
  - nemothekid 2y ago
    I have been using the iPhone without a case since the iPhone 6. I think the fragility of iPhone displays is incredibly overblown. The idea that Apple is purposefully making the displays "weak" is unfounded. People buy cases because they feel their $1,000 slab of metal must be protected.
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      Also because the camera bulge means the phone can't lay flat on a flat surface without a case.
- israrkhan 2y ago
  3.36 Trillion as of today.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
paxys 2y ago
> All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest. Gonna disagree with this one. Tell me, does using an iPhone today feel significantly faster than the top model 2-3 years ago or even 10 years ago? Does the battery last a lot longer than it did back then? Apple certainly claims this is the case in their marketing every year. The answer however is no, because with every increase in computing power and battery size, the OS and all the apps on it get that much more resource hungry. The entire ecosystem is designed to get users to need to upgrade every ~2-3 years, otherwise they will start to feel the lag.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > does using an iPhone today feel significantly faster than one from 2-3 years ago? Yes. Absolutely. We just forget that opening an app--or restarting the device, or recovering from airplane mode--was an action that incurred a noticeable delay once and does not tend to anymore.
  - amelius 2y ago
    Sorry but you just contradicted yourself.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > you just contradicted yourself Where?
      - 0xFF0123 2y ago
        I assume their logic is that if we have forgotten what that feels like then it doesn't in practice feel any different.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Ah, memories of RISC OS from school in the 90s. Instant boot, instead of the minute or so for Win95 and System 7.5.5…
keyle 2y ago
Agree with what you wrote. That said quality of life things such as pro motion and increase battery life are noticeable. Scrolling at 120hz is butter smooth and improves the UX quite a lot. While battery life is peace of mind that you don't have to worry about. What ticks me off is OpenAI integration in my private life. I really like chatGPT as a daily google box but I hate the idea of it meddling in my private information. That's a big no no.
- veber-alex 2y ago
  So don't enable it. ChatGPT is optional.
  - keyle 2y ago
    I wasn't sure, thanks
  - Gud 2y ago
    Until it isn’t. Try using CarPlay without enabling Siri.
    - _ph_ 2y ago
      Siri doesn't use ChatGPT
      - yunwal 2y ago
        The parent comment is saying once an optional feature gains enough traction, Apple will make it mandatory.
        shuckles 2y ago
        Apple very reasonably has decided using your phone while driving requires voice support. It's not about "traction."
        2y ago
ghaff 2y ago
>If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. I was with you up to there. Do you really think that people are so lazy or stupid that they wouldn't go to any of the zillion battery replacement places (including Apple Stores) rather than buying a new $1K-$1.5K device?
- digital_sawzall 2y ago
  I have a 2015 Macbook pro and an iphone 11 that works great save for that they don't hold a charge. I would happily spend a several hundreds dollars to save these and continue to use them, or give one to my parents or kid, but I can't find someone who will do a battery replacement. I live in Austin TX and have called 3-5 different apple repair shops. If I can't find someone to do it in a city with the second largest Apple office in the world, I don't think anyone else will be able to.
  - riley_dog 2y ago
    Apple will replace the battery on your iphone for $89 and your macbook for $249. Source: https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement and https://support.apple.com/mac/repair https://support.apple.com/mac/repair
    - HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
      Following the link on the Mac page, it looks like Apple will not repair a 2015 Macbook Pro: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772 > Obsolete: ... MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)...
      - 39896880 2y ago
        >Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.
arcticbull 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Battery replacement costs at Apple are $69-99 and offered all the way back to the iPhone SE 1st Generation. That's the all-in cost where you bring it in, they open it up, swap it out, and give your phone back to you. An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50. Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like it's going to nuke their business from orbit.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  Agreed. Apple phones are quite repairable (just not DIY-able), no one is dropping 1000 dollars on a new phone because their current one has a cracked back glass. Watching their live feed, one of Apple's selling points on such an expensive phone is that it will last a long time and have a higher re-sale value than other phones. It's not a case of planned obsolescence.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    There are absolutely cases where they have artificially gated features to new devices, even when the hardware is capable (I'm thinking around Handoff/Continuity, etc.). Where the initial reaction is "maybe it's a new BT chip or ..." but it can be shown that the functionality is perfect when some trickery is done to fool the OS its running on more modern hardware.
    - twoodfin 2y ago
      This is a consequence of Apple’s deeply ingrained (and hugely successful) product design culture. When you’re trying to develop a vertically integrated feature across a synchronized release requiring potentially new silicon, a new device, new OS frameworks, new app code… you have to express your requirements precisely. Either the M1 is being designed to support three displays or it’s being designed to support two. Not “as much display support as we can squeeze in where performance is still OK end-to-end”. By the time you know if end-to-end looks good for all the features you built up depending on lower layers in the stack, it’s too late. You’re also likely not to trust “hey, seems like our tolerances were excessive and it works great on older hardware”. And building up that trust is time-consuming and difficult, so they rarely go back to do it without a strong market justification. Stage Manager being the most recent—somewhat odd—example.
Fokamul 2y ago
"highly educated" != "tech savvy/smart". IT Project manager, right? :D
IgorPartola 2y ago
The real advancements majority of users would notice: - Get rid of green text when messaging Android phones - More battery life. - Better camera (arguably already achieved) - lesser issue but fix the stupid bugs with storage/duplication with pictures and messages. I am already paying for a TB level plan with iCloud. How can my phone possibly run out of storage? That’s it. All the AI stuff is marginal at best and useless at worst. The new UI stuff they introduced sometime ago? Doesn’t really get used by anyone I know. Control center was probably the last useful feature added. If they did a release where they removed features to simplify iOS I would upgrade.
- peab 2y ago
  where'd you see no more green text?
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    iOS 18 (available for all iphones since 2nd gen SE) will support RCS I don't actually know how this will be implemented into iMessage but it's supposed to bring feature parity between android and apple. EDIT: looks like still green bubbles https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-rcs-texting-starts-improving-green-bubble-chats-with-ios-18-beta/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-rcs-texting-starts-i...
    - inferiorhuman 2y ago
      RCS brings plenty of new monetization and spam opportunities but doesn't bring feature parity. Or did Google decide to open up their proprietary extensions to non-Google RCS clients?
      - vel0city 2y ago
        There's a massive feature benefit: finally allowing multi-megabyte attachments. Hopefully pictures and videos won't be compressed to fit into 600KB.
baggachipz 2y ago
I've been working in tech for 25 years, and I'm sure I hardly use any of the new features. Camera? Click, maybe crop it or turn it into a loop if it's funny. I play some games on it. I browse some social crap on it. I occasionally tell Siri to set a reminder. That's... about it. I'm really not sure what else I'm supposed to be doing.
- adrr 2y ago
  I use mine to measure things, replaced my measuring tape. It is also my flashlight. I use it to find my wallet and keys as they have air tags in them. Its my wallet, credit cards, hotel room key, subway/metro pass. I have an app that implements OpenAIs CLIP on my phone and can instantly search my photos thats better any other image search out there and it runs on the device.
  - xvector 2y ago
    What app are you using for measurement and local image search? For measurement I found Apple's app disappointing, even on the Pro models it isn't accurate to the scales I typically work with (centimeters.)
    - adrr 2y ago
      I just use the apple measure tool. Not dealing with that level of precision, just to measure things in the house to see if furniture will fit or not. For the image search, i use this https://github.com/mazzzystar/Queryable https://github.com/mazzzystar/Queryable
- creakingstairs 2y ago
  I’m on the same boat as you. I do most of my productive work on my computer. But I started teaching kids recently and realised that kids do EVERYTHING on their phone these days. Write essays, edit videos, play games, make musics etc. A lot of them can’t type well on their keyboards and it’s the main source of frustration for kids when learning coding.
- jodrellblank 2y ago
ben_w 2y ago
Even as an iOS app developer, there's a huge amount of stuff that stock iOS can do that I'm unaware of. At this point, I'm not going to be interested (dead battery isn't "interested") in the upgrade cycle until there's a new kind of sensor, e.g. thermal imaging or (technically possible in software) repurposing the WiFi as a wall penetrating radar. Even on the dev side, WWDC for the last few years feels more like "here's an even more complicated way to create a simple app" instead of "this will make your life easier because x" or "y is increasing important, use tool z to support it".
- busymom0 2y ago
  I am an iOS developer too and I use an iPhone 13 before which I used an iPhone 6 until its support was dropped. I prefer developing with older devices as it helps me ensure my apps work well on slower devices. I haven't seen any reason to upgrade for the last 3 years. Switching from iPhone 6 to 13 was the most needed change for me due to the change in safe area insets (notch).
  - lawgimenez 2y ago
    Also an iOS developer, upgraded last week from iPhone 12 to 15 Pro Max. I also preferred running my apps on the 12, to make sure app is very performative.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > I prefer developing with older devices as it helps me ensure my apps work well on slower devices. Similar reasoning even before I stopped being excited. I've got an SE 3, which makes me aware how many UI teams don't design and/or test for narrower displays. (But also, the move away from touch ID to face ID feels worse to me; when I do finally replace this phone, I'll likely return to using my actual cards for contactless payments rather than Apple Wallet with face ID).
    - al_borland 2y ago
      The iPhone mini is an issue for devs not testing as well. I sent feedback to one to ask if the mini was still being supported. They told me yes, and they were able to reproduce the bug I was seeing related to the screen size. Over a year later and the bug remains. I don’t think it’s getting fixed. Have you used FaceID? I was skeptical of it, but within the first day or two I was sold. It’s so seamless, and there are some safe guards. If you’re not looking at the camera with your eyes open, it won’t work. You can also repeatedly mash the lock button to disable it. I haven’t needed to do this, but if I ever see a potential situation coming, I’d likely reach into my pocket and quietly kill FaceID, but I’d want to do the same with TouchID as well. I’m curious, why would you use your cards over an iPhone with FaceID? The card seems more vulnerable, as anyone could use it (unless you’re in a country where a pin is the norm for credit).
kvgr 2y ago
I am professional android developer for more than 10 years. And even i dont care about the features anymore. Outside my work i just want good battery life and big screen. I have iphone 12 and dont plan to upgrade until it stops working. Probably professional exhaustion. But i honestly care about the newest buzz.
markus_zhang 2y ago
They have to keep adding new features because what to do otherwise? I have long lost interest of the mobile world. Battery life and some rams to run some apps are all I need. The general customers definitely want more. They are getting excited by AI in camera apps (existed before the AI hype) and other stuffs.
cmeacham98 2y ago
> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. I find this example interesting, because on the android side I would rank these two in the top 10 _most_ notable improvements made to phones in the last 5-10 years. I have had multiple "normies" use my phone in the last few years and ask why it felt so smooth - and every time the difference between my phone and theirs has been a higher refresh rate display (what apple calls "ProMotion").
- iteratethis 2y ago
  The lack of distinction between LCD and OLED can be explained. The specific condition in which OLED thrives rarely occurs. You'd need deep blacks in low ambient light viewing conditions for it to really stand out. iOS, most apps, most websites, even most video isn't mastered as such and not consumed in those conditions.
  - runako 2y ago
    I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at night is a normal use case. I thought it was a normal thing that many/most people do, but this comment suggests that perhaps my social circle is odd in that way.
    - nozzlegear 2y ago
      > I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at night is a normal use case. Your GP and optometrist would certainly prefer you don't do it. I can't speak to the frequency of how much other people do it, but my wife and I try to avoid it, not always successfully.
    - iteratethis 2y ago
      TV shows and movies aren't mastered like that either. I have an incredible TV. OLED with increased brightness, the latter being new tech. The combination of OLED and HDR is jaw dropping to witness. To me and to everybody that I show it to. What do I show them? A Youtube list with TV demo videos that specifically demonstrate the effect. Deep blacks with locally bright highlights. Not to mention very deep vibrant colors. I watch the demo videos every 2 months or so to remind myself that I have an awesome TV. Because I most certainly do not experience anything remotely like that on ordinary TV channels, streaming services, the like.
FireBeyond 2y ago
> Apple makes an excellent product Contrarian opinion on the AirPods. Apple says that they think the new noise cancellation "auto adjust" is better on the "human" side of things, and the social - they showed an interaction where the barista started talking to the wearer, and the AirPods adjusted so the barista could be heard. To me, that's not social, I think it's actually anti-social. It moves the onus onto anyone who wants to or needs to interact with you to assume that you can hear them, that you're focused on the conversation, etc. It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments.
- iteratethis 2y ago
  Fully agree. Same for putting a speaker on the Apple watch. "Great for when you don't have your airpods with you" Yes, and surely it will be normalized in the culture to just blast your watch in public.
  - wilg 2y ago
    the apple watch has had a speaker for 10 years and it hasn't been an issue
- doublepg23 2y ago
  I think that ship sailed a while ago. I was doing retail work around COVID and there were many many people who didn't have the decency to hold phone calls while checking out let alone taking off headphones.
- wilg 2y ago
  > It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments. you can just do this. but sometimes your hands are full, or you dont have use of them, or you dont want to drop your airpod.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  > It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments. Actually, I've found this creates more social friction, not less. I spent a while listening to some books while working, and originally had noise canceling turned on. Every time someone came over to talk about something, whether I paused and turned noise canceling off or removed the ear pieces, there was always an awkward moment for the person talking to me while they had to stop what they were starting to say, wait for me and then usually apologize for interrupting. It felt extremely anti-social, and I think a part of that is that headphones were for a very long time considered anti-social and the act of removing them was often a signal that someone was interrupting you (and that you didn't really want to be interrupted). But when you're using headphones in a shared space, it's usually less about not wanting to be interrupted and more being considerate that not everyone wants to listen to the same things you're listening to. Eventually I left them in transparency mode and kept the volume low enough that I could carry on a conversation over it, and could subtly reduce the volume while still holding a conversation. No more awkward pausing and restarting, no more apologies and the "hardest" thing I have to do is maybe rewind a bit after I'm done with the conversation. So much less anti-social feeling all around.
015a 2y ago
Heck, I have friends in tech that in the past did iPhone 4, 6, 8, whether you were an "even number" or an "odd number" iPhone buyer became something of a label. One of these guys is on the 11 Pro, has the 16 Plus in his cart, but is actively texting the group chat whether or not to go through with it. If you feel Apple isn't actively facing a xx% risk to their business by 2030, you're beside yourself. Its not that people are switching away, or that Apple overtly missed some major tech trend; people just aren't upgrading anymore. They need to come up with something a lot more drastic to keep people motivated toward spending $1000+/year with them; its not ungrateful, its not cynical, its the market. AI is not it.
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  It's the camera for me, especially 5x zoom lens in the big phone instead of the enormous phone. But if I do go through with it I'll be coming from a 4 year old phone, so I'm already not in the $1000/year market. If they're able to figure out a mass market VR headset that will give them another push for new phone sales. I hear the "spatial photos/videos" are very cool.
  - 015a 2y ago
    VR also isn't it. The best case scenario for Vision is that it becomes a <$10B/quarter market similar to the iPad, but it costs substantially more to build and evolve (more complicated hardware and software, lower margins, less software sharing with iPhone). The more likely outcome is that it doesn't even reach $5B by 2030 (that would be ~6% revenue). I think the broader problem is that no one knows what "it" is; what comes next. We had web3, crypto, AR, VR, now AI, but none of these things feel like they have the horsepower to launch another $30B in quarterly or even annual revenue for Apple.
    - wlesieutre 2y ago
      I'm not convinced the next "it" is a new hardware product any time soon. You can do a lot with a screen, battery, and cellular connection. All the stuff that AI pins and necklaces can do will end up in phones, watches, and earbuds, and Apple will keep selling all those existing product lines for years. They might even find a way to squeeze an "Apple Intelligence Plus" subscription in there somewhere, with their recent focus on chasing services revenue to make up for slower phone sales. Just because phones are maturing doesn't necessarily mean a new computing paradigm is right around the corner.
hintymad 2y ago
> even works in IT, although not in an engineering role. What an accurate profile! I work in an engineering role in IT, and I'm like your girlfriend when it comes to the phone. Like, I don't even know whether my iphone is max or max pro, as it does not make a difference to me. The top apps that I use are Kindle, Books, Chrome (for tracking my progress on dreamingspanish.com), Podcast, Spotify, Maps, and as everyone else: some social/messaging apps. Everyone of such apps seems work just fine on a much older phone.
stroupwaffle 2y ago
My biggest complaint is that the lenses aren’t flush with the back. I hate having cases on my phone, and their design makes wireless charging somewhat useless because it’s not flush with the charging mat.
- spicymaki 2y ago
  They would if they could. Optical physics is one factor that prevents the lenses from being flush with the back. If you want to support advanced optical features the lenses need depth.
  - stroupwaffle 2y ago
    Makes sense. Instead of having a flat back, it might be kind of neat to have it slope like a “wedge” shape. It would actually make the phone more comfortable in the hands too because they could improve the weight balance.
    - sfjailbird 2y ago
      Always wondered why they don't do this. Just a subtle sloping of the edge around the lense, so the phone is flush with the table it is lying on.
      - 93po 2y ago
        it's ugly and 99% of people dont care
    - Zee2 2y ago
      The original Google Pixel (2016) was exactly this shape. No camera bump with a wedge profile.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    So put a periscope in there. Or synthesise the image from 48 tiny cameras in a grid.
napierzaza 2y ago
I don't really get the confusion people have. It's understood that most people don't constantly upgrade every year. They are improving their product, and when you do need a new phone it will have a many features and be competitive with other devices. Yes, there has not been a killer-app in a long time that forces upgrades.
acchow 2y ago
The savvy users that integrate new features into their creativity are the young people. Under 25. And of course creatives that do it as a hobby or a job. Regular folks won’t be using this stuff
jrflowers 2y ago
People like better looking/more easily captured photos and even “normies” can grasp features like satellite 911
mithr 2y ago
I don't know that I completely agree. To some degree, sure — most folks probably don't notice the year-to-year updates in e.g. computing power. But my 70yo mother, who is pretty far from being technologically savvy, uses continuity every day to copy one-time-use codes from her phone to her computer, even though she'd have no idea what the term "continuity" means in this context. She notices that it's easier to snap better pictures in more conditions than it was a few years back (and that pictures she receives are better looking on average, too). She uses 1Password with FaceID, which I set up for her, because it's so easy to just look at your phone to unlock that there's very little in the way of enabling and using that, and she doesn't need to write down passwords anymore. I think some of the magic of the Apple ecosystem is that you don't have to know about these things in order to use them. Someone shows you how to do something (Apple could certainly improve on the organic discoverability of many of these features! Some are impossible to find without looking), and then it often just works. And these things do keep getting closer to that ideal over time, with each generation. When I first started using continuity — long before my mother did — it definitely did not work all the time, and I persisted because I'm a techie early adopter. Eventually, though, it reached a state where once folks learn about it, they can just use it. I'm also not sure about the 3-4 year number, at least from personal experience, fwiw. We pass down phones in my family, and it easily takes 5-6 generations for them to reach the end of that chain and be in use for a year or two before they're switched out for the next model. Battery has never been the reason someone in that chain switched phones.
- sroussey 2y ago
  Battery can be replaced by going to the apple store and buying a new one which is cheaper than a new phone, so I agree with you on that. Phone definitely last longer so 6 years sounds about right, as after that they tend to get obsolete.
  - camjohnson26 2y ago
    I had no idea this was possible, but yeah, going to “battery health” in my Settings shows battery health is degraded, and provides a link to schedule a replacement.
TuringNYC 2y ago
>> The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. Sure, and a couple of iOS updates into a good phone, and the phone is suddenly slow, crawling, and no longer meeting normie needs.
- thirdsun 2y ago
  I experience none of that.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
runjake 2y ago
> Most people don't buy the pro Historically, that was true, but more recently, most people do buy the Pro. I don't know why (actually I do: FOMO and monthly payment plans). https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figures-show-the-pro-models-have-become-the-default https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figu... iPhone 15 Pro Max: 23% iPhone 15 Pro: 22% iPhone 15: 14% iPhone 15 Plus: 9%
- foobarian 2y ago
  I don’t know if you’re old or not or what your eyesight is like but even the pro max is getting hard to read for me :-)
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  You are already spending $800 for the 16; the 16 Pro is $200 more and you get better camera, better battery life, and slightly bigger screen. It is a tempting proposition if you want the new tech. If you don't care about latest/greatest get the SE at 1/2 the price.
  - alt227 2y ago
    This is apples strategy across the whole of their product portfolio. Make a cheaper crippled base device, and a model with higher specs just within reach of that price so that most people will upgrade because 'why not?'. If they just made the base model have half decent specs, a lot less people would upgrade to the higher end models.
Giorgi 2y ago
Owning current year's iPhone model is pretty much status symbol, that's basically all that is.
tails4e 2y ago
I agree largely. I have a p30 pro, and it's a great phone despite being 4 or 5 years old . It's so good, recently it got water damaged and I as faced with replacing it. I couldnt find a phone for under 500 that could beat it, and especially the 2 day battery life. So I didn't, I instead paintakingly dried it out over 3 weeks and it's pretty much fully functional. That's how much I didn't want to change phone, and how the new sparkly features don't really matter as much as battery life, and utility.
wwweston 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. For me it's slightly more complicated than that. I would probably still be using my 2016 iPhone SE with its headphone jack and size if (a) it was still receiving OS updates and (b) iOS bloat didn't make it slow. Would love it if the battery swap were easy for the end user to do, but TBH paying $100 to have it done every few years is doable for me. Better camera capability is the only other thing that even registered for me. The jump to the iphone 12 mini that I made last year did have some nice benefits on that front and got me some performance I'd lost back. Other than that, the main reason I upgraded is that I was forced to by the iOS obsolescence treadmill.
- dkga 2y ago
  Sorry, jumping in here. I don’t think it’s so much iOS gloat as much as app gloat. Take a look at their sizes, it’s absolutely bonkers and unjustified.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    App bloat really is out of control, to the point that I wonder if maybe Apple shouldn't somehow incentivize developers to minimize bundle size and resource consumption. Maybe well-crafted, efficient apps get an "eco friendly" badge and their own section of the App Store or something.
superfrank 2y ago
You only feel conflicted about this because (I assume) you lived through the phase where smart phones were changing every year and the updates from one phone to the next were regularly pretty ground breaking. People who lived through that era were conditioned to feel that every generation was a massive leap forward and that you were missing out on cool things if you didn't upgrade every year. That's not the case anymore, but it's a hard feeling to shake, especially when companies are still trying to convince us that it's true because it benefits their top line. The truth is that smart phones are just small computers at this point. Most people don't feel conflicted about not buying a new computer every year and you shouldn't feel that way about smart phones. At this point the only people who need (I use that term very loosely) a new smart phone every single year are people who see having the most recent version as a status symbol.
jmyeet 2y ago
Apple is engaging in feature-bloat to protect the $1000 price point. That's all that's going on here. Phones (particularly iPhones0 have stubbornly resisted getting cheaper. That's by design. Features get added simply to make it more expensive. We saw this with the Macbooks about a decade ago. The Macbook Air was fantastic because it was cheap. For Apple it was too cheap. So we got Touch bar. Did it solve any user problems? No. I know a few will say they like it but it was a dismal failure. The only reason the Touch Bar existed was to make Macbooks more expensive. I have been frustrated with subsequent iOS updates because it gets less and less intuitive. Even Safari has a lot of touch points on the screen that do stuff I don't care about. On the iPad there's now split screen. I bet you've triggered this acccidentally or had to solve this for a friend or relative who had. We replaced private browsing mode with "tab groups". Does anyone actually need this? If you don't (and I would posit that's most people) then it's now an extra tap to switch modes. Cut and paste just seems to get worse and worse. It tries to be cleve by selecting a word. It can be difficult and involve several taps to get around this. The original implementation of this was (IMHO) far superior and more intuitive.
- gerash 2y ago
  I haven't had a Mac with touch bar but I can see the point of the idea: You have a keyboard and mouse as inputs to a Mac. why not a mini touch screen as well? but instead of rendering the app content there you render the controls. this way you don't need to remember shortcuts because common actions for an app are displayed there. IMO the idea makes sense but needs further refinement in execution. maybe even better haptic feedback
  - jmyeet 2y ago
    This ignores the issue that physical keys have tacticle feedback that touch screens do not. This is a big issue with modern cars (particularly Teslas). People generally hate touch screens because you have to look at them to use them. For driving in particular, that's a real problem. Compare this to a more normal car where you can feel the AC button or the volume or whatever. Companies like touch screens because it lets them punt on UI/UX design and selecting controls, which means they basically never get done. It's purely a cost issue. Now with Macbooks, I did like that I could slide my finger for the volume. That's it. And that wasn't worth losing the Escape key for. Or function keys for that matter. But that's so specific that I'd rather just have a volume control. A slider would be ideal but that takes up a lot of space. The best compromise is a "roller" (like on the Corsair K70 keyboard) as you can get precision and speed. You absolutely don't want to repeatedly hit a volume up or down button.
yodsanklai 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Don't underestimate the power of marketing.
AOsborn 2y ago
Absolutely agree. I'd say this goes one step further. We hand down older devices to our parents. They are completely happy with a device several generations back. The current product philosophy has completely cut them out as purchasers. They are product users, but will never purchase again. In fact, without planned obsolescence/battery degradation I suspect they would be happy never replacing their phones until they physically broke. It's a shame that they continually slow down to such a degree - the decreased speed is actually the only Apple 'feature' they notice.
bastijn 2y ago
Im there with you, my wife as well as myself are in fact like your girlfriend and I work an highly educated software engineering role. I simply don’t care, still on my iPhone 11 Pro Max which I got as a present from my parents at the time. I think battery power drain is even not fast enough for phone companies to sustain the selling Model. My guess is sooner or later they realize the real control point is software updates and they forcefully shorten OS and specially OS security updates under a bullshit reason they still can get away with to get us all back in line of buying regular phone upgrades in fear of hacked internet banking.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  > sooner or later they realize the real control point is software updates That's why I'm in the market for an iphone (and a new service provider), my pixel 5a5g got its final "guaranteed" security update in August. Nothing wrong with the device. Time to de-google I guess..
mihaaly 2y ago
Not only when the battery runs bad. That can be renewed (sometimes, my 1st gen SE from the last batch runs the second battery pack, probably the last batch of batteries available). Also when you are forced by apps you need that want the newest hardware by some reason. I mean when most of them, because some could be missed for a while, but when most you use are just refuse to work, then it is time to get a new one. Not like you need the new app, it is the same like with the iPhone 'features' you mention, but when your bank app cannot connect the bank when it is the newest version minus 2, then it becomes a nuisance. Not like I am afraid of tech, I have cool interconnected home appliances built from raspberrys and make my living on developing desktop tools, but the rampage of the mobile industry is just too much to handle. It does not worth the money and time they demand, getting in the way of my life as much as helping it. By now. It was better but getting worse as we speak.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  5G is rapidly becoming this. I'm still using a phone that's only a few years old and maxes out at 4G. Lately it's started sporadically losing connection entirely in locations where it previously worked perfectly... meanwhile everyone around me has a five bar 5G signal on their newer models. They've started to do to 4G what they did to E, H and 3G, complete bandwidth reduction to fuckin zero so the latest protocol can hog all frequencies. Planned obsolescence or what? Upgrade or we will slowly reduce your device to a useless brick.
  - mihaaly 2y ago
    : (
  - secondcoming 2y ago
    Doesn’t 5G piggyback on 4G though?
    - rangestransform 2y ago
      At the beginning, marketers tried to trick customers into thinking that high bandwidth LTE is 5G
ryoshu 2y ago
My daily is an iPhone 12 Pro and I work on bleeding edge tech daily. I don't need to upgrade. It works fine. Had to replace it when it had a battery problem. There are no features I need from the newer models.
dangus 2y ago
Yeah, okay, hardware releases are incremental now. We get it. But someone somewhere has a 5 year old phone with a busted screen and a dead battery and it'll be nice for them to get this phone or another similar new, highly capable device. And they'd probably like to know that this 5-year-newer phone has a whole bunch of new capabilities when they spend a big chunk of money replacing a big purchase. Sure, I don't want to buy a new car. They're expensive and they depreciate. I would like to just keep driving mine, it's fine. But when the time comes that I do buy a new car I do want to know that it has a whole bunch of new, better things than the one I am replacing. Don't forget that Apple makes the perfect phone for your girlfriend: the iPhone SE. The flashy marketing videos are for high-value high-vanity customers who throw money at them. She could buy that type of low-mid-range phone at $400 and run it into the ground until she is forced to upgrade by hardware failure.
foobarian 2y ago
The software mute was the last thing that made a difference in my day to day usage (but didn’t upgrade for it). The next thing I would love and upgrade instantly for is a sealed, waterproof design
epolanski 2y ago
Man I work in IT as a developer and I have absolutely no clue what most of my devices (can) do, and truth to be told I couldn't care less, because if I need something I find out how to do it. My main phone is a 2019 Xiaomi midrange phone, and I just can't tell how's the Iphone 14 I use to test our apps should be better, and I played with it some. I read the economist, hackernews watch some YouTube, play chess and occasionally use messaging apps or check banking stuff. I couldn't care less about editing photos on a phone nor mobile gaming. I know I live in a bubble, but I don't see users around me do much more than I do with the phone. It's not like these products are bad, and I think that people that live on their phone will benefit from all of this. But I'm just not one of them.
benrutter 2y ago
I feel the same way, both in the sense of not feeling most features really add value to users, but also in feeling a little ungrateful and guilty for not caring about this kind of innovation. Recently, I've been valueing repairability more in tech that I buy and it feels like such a breath of fresh air and a bit of an antidote. Particularly, products like fairphone (a smart phone where almost every part can be replaced with a screwdriver) make me really excited, and feel like amazing innovation solving actual problems.
akira2501 2y ago
> It feels ungrateful and cynical to keep calling new models "boring". The church of American consumerism is so galling to me. This is a trillion dollar corporation that famously involves itself in tax schemes to avoid paying the face value rate that any other smaller corporation would have to pay. You feel "ungrateful" or "cynical" because they aren't innovating? Good lord man. Get out of that church.
- _gabe_ 2y ago
  A more optimistic reading of that sentence is that OP respects the accomplishments the engineers were able to make, but they aren’t impressed. I tend to agree with your sentiment, but reading the whole original post in context does not give me the same take away that you got :)
jwally 2y ago
Its like wine. I can tell the difference between a $4 bottle of wine and a $14 bottle of wine, but I couldn't tell the difference between a $14 bottle of wine and a $140 bottle of wine if my life depended on it.
- MarkMarine 2y ago
  I also like wine, but it’s rare that I’ve had a $140 bottle of wine that wasn’t actually a $30 bottle, but I was at a restaurant. It is real easy to be underwhelmed by a $30 bottle. I’d also put a bottle of Trader Joe’s 2 buck chuck ($4 cab) up against 75% of the $30 bottles and I bet in a blind taste test it would win. That isn’t to say that people’s taste buds don’t work. I’ve spent a bit of time tasting wine essentially blind (to price) at vineyards, brought that same wine home and been underwhelmed again… I learned that even 30min in a hot car trunk (140F) can change wine. The wine I tasted from the storage cave that was great, sucks when I got it home. I actually tested after I got it home and saw this. I think a lot of the “wine flavors being mysterious and psychosomatic” is actually poor storage. I know Reddit disagrees with me, but now that I climate control my wine when I bring it home, I haven’t had the same issues. This is a fact for beer (hoppy beer specifically) that is well known and pasted all over the Russian River Pliny the elder label. I believe it’s a fact for wine as well. Because I’ve had a couple $100 bottles that were stored well, and the memory of that taste is still with me. I want to find a way to repeat it. (Without spending $100 for a bottle)
  - fragmede 2y ago
    And the pour. A cheap $20 aerator gadget will make cheap wine taste better, but you still can't help but know that you're drinking cheap wine.
leptons 2y ago
I'm probably a lot like your girlfriend, and I've been in tech for 40+ years. I'm still very active in tech, but I got over being interested in smartphones after my 3rd one, and I was a very early adopter. My needs were satisfied a long time ago. If I have internet access, and can remote into any of my other dozens of machines, the phone has satisfied most of its purpose for me - allowing me to access all of my computing stuff while away from my main computers. Oh, I also take the occasional call on the phone, but that's very, very rare. The biggest upgrade for me in the last 19 years is the fold-able phone with a much larger screen area. But honestly, the old HTC Wizard that I started with does 80% of what I need a mobile device to do. I don't need or want AI following me around, especially not in my mobile device.
soneca 2y ago
> ”Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years.” I am exactly like this. But I am also use it as an opportunity to upgrade the hardware. For some time it was memory, although now I am pretty done for 256gb. I don’t need more. Recently it was the new processor+camera. I am not big into photography, but I like to take pictures. And I like them to look great, focused, even with bad light, without doing any setting myself (cause I am ignorant how to do it). Just regular picture of trips, or night with friends. I like the 2x and 0.5x zoom a lot also. It is also nice for the new updated apps I use to run fast. My 4 yo iPhone SE not only had a bad battery, but it was very slow already. And, occasionally, some gimmick is actually useful to me, like the notch. I turn off notifications of almost every app, including Uber and food delivery. For those the in-screen info in the notch is very useful. I’ll probably only buy the iPhone 18 next, but it will be nice have the 5x zoom (maybe more by then) at the least.
- godelski 2y ago
  For memory I've found that I'm much happier setting up a backup to my machines. Currently I'm on a pixel but looking to switch to iPhone. I do my backups with termux, so does anyone know a good alternative on iPhone? I see termus but it requires an account? Can I access my photos from these emulators? Just being able to have a few bash scripts really empowers these devices.
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mattnewton 2y ago
People like new and shiny things even if they don’t use any of the shiny features. There is a contingent buying new cars every decade- those people are buying iPhones every other year. Apple may not sell the most phones but they do make the most money selling phones.
4b11b4 2y ago
You shouldn't call your girlfriend a normie, that's harsh
andrepd 2y ago
"Normie"? Anecdotally and fro personal experience, I'd say the contrary: it's normies that (pushed by advertising budgets bigger than actual product development budgets) are in love with these yearly churn and ditch their Samsung S74 to buy the new and identical Samsung S75. Tech people, on the over hand, are some of the most borderline luddite people I know (me included!)
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> You can add a million features to the camera app there was a huge jump in the quality of my photos when I upgraded to an iPhone 13 (my current) from an iPhone 8. I've seen iPhone 15 photos and they're even better. And I'm not a pro photographer.
hi_hi 2y ago
This is missing the point. It's not about the functionality. It's about the marketing. Apple aren't going to all this effort so you have an amazingly functional product that will solve all your real world needs. They're doing it so you think you need it to solve problem you don't have. Classic FOMO.
r0fl 2y ago
Perhaps with Apple intelligence your girlfriend will just be able to tell Siri what she wants the phone to do and it will get done using a feature she never knew she had
lisper 2y ago
> It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies. It's not just "normies". I'm a senior engineer and I drive an 3rd gen SE. I was perfectly happy with my 2nd gen SE and only replaced it because I wanted more memory. In fact, I preferred the 2nd gen because of the square sides. The 3rd gen keeps squirting out of my hands.
Zak 2y ago
I'm a technically sophisticated user, and I don't want a new phone. I would almost certainly like it less than my current four year old phone. It would have a faster CPU, more RAM, and more storage, but it's rare I run into any of those limits. It would have a better camera than my current phone, but it would still be worse than my Olympus. It would have a bigger screen, but I wouldn't have a bigger hand and that would make it harder to use. It would have a bigger battery, but it would need a bigger battery. It wouldn't have a headphone jack, and I use mine. It might have an AI thing, but I don't want an AI thing. For about a decade after the current era of smartphones launched, they weren't good enough to do all the things people wanted them to, so most people were eager to upgrade when possible. Now they are, and an upgrade usually brings more hassle than excitement.
- girvo 2y ago
  > It would have a faster CPU, more RAM, and more storage, but it's rare I run into any of those limits I quite honestly cannot think of a single time I've run into any of those limits in at least the last 5 years, personally!
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  > It would have a better camera than my current phone, but it would still be worse than my Olympus. This is actually one of the reasons why I changed my phone last year. I don't know about your Olympus, but mine doesn't fit in my jeans pocket, even though it's one of the smaller models. I don't always what to carry a dedicated camera with me, even though I bought a m4/3 specifically because of how portable it was. But I do like to be able to take good enough pictures, and the iPhone enables me to do that.
  - Zak 2y ago
    My camera isn't pocketable, but if I'm doing photography such that I really care about the result, I bring it. If I'm not, I usually use the phone camera to document things I want to remember or show other people, and doing that slightly better is not very valuable to me. I'll admit to occasionally contemplating a Ricoh GR III, which is quite pocketable.
jrockway 2y ago
I don't really see these upgrades as being for iPhone 15 users. If you smash your phone or whatever, you get this years model and it's mostly like last year's model except it's not samashed. I upgraded from the X to the 15 Pro Max and it was a nice improvement. Much better camera. Much speedier. Better wireless charging. USB-C. I wouldn't upgrade to the 16, though; looking at the comparison chart, pretty much nothing changes. It can charge faster and record better 4K video. I have no complaints about charging speed and don't know what Dolby Pro Motion even is. When the iPhone 20 comes out, I'm sure I'll be tempted to upgrade. Every 5 years is a totally reasonable upgrade cycle, and enough stuff changes that it feels worthwhile. So for that reason, I don't view the yearly announcements as being anything relevant unless you need a new phone today for some reason. (Though I was in the Apple Store last weekend and saw people happily buying full-price 15s, not knowing Apple's release schedule. That's a shame for them.)
_yb2s 2y ago
Same here… I understand the advances and even like reading about them, but in the end I don’t care about having them- the phones are mature tech that still do the same thing. The annoying thing is that somehow they manage to make it so the same apps doing the same thing either get too slow or stop working over time, so you have to upgrade to get the same functionality. I usually keep a device until it cannot do something I need that it could do just fine the day before…. There’s also the security update thing but I think that is overblown. Ironically, if you have a very old device it ages out of being targeted for attacks. I have never had a very old device get compromised.
brk 2y ago
Hmmm. You are possibly dating my wife.
zer0zzz 2y ago
> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not a chance. I think she would immediately notice because the web of today is always going to be far more bloated than the web of eight generations ago. Trying any dated browser+hardware combo on the modern web is noticeable to all users I feel.
theptip 2y ago
I would agree on say 14->15 but I find it somewhat ironic that this version contains what could be one of the biggest changes in many years; Apple Intelligence is putting local-first LLMs into the OS. I predict that in retrospect this will be considered a watershed moment in computing.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  Yes, this is the right take on future phone/assistants. We will be entering a new world of search and much better Q&A. I’m hooked in Claude on my phone and having some local mini AI help could be a game changer
geepytee 2y ago
> It's not that she's unable to understand the advances, she simply doesn't care. Honestly that feels deep to me. I wonder to what extend all of the recent LLM advancements are lost on most people. I also wonder if over a long enough time horizon, the "normies" as you call them catch up, or it goes the other way and the "techies" also start to not care (?)
hbbio 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Oh yes. Switched from the iPhone X to a 13 Pro only because the battery life became unbearable. Overall, the size/format/handling of the X was *way better*. Even the camera was *better on the X* except in low-light pictures which I don't really care about. The difference is noticeable on 4K screens and print, pictures were truthful without complex image enhancement algorithms that you can't disable (even not in RAW). Etc.
- wrycoder 2y ago
  I’m still on the X after a $90 battery swap by an Apple shop. I got tired of the small payback doing them myself - and even the iFixit batteries don’t last as long as OEM.
GuB-42 2y ago
The problem with smartphones is that we are all, with few exceptions "normies". I dropped the ball on smartphones, my last one is a $300 Samsung that is actually quite decent for all I use it for. It doesn't take the best pictures but it is not a blurry mess either, more than enough to complement my terrible skills as a photographer, and by that I mean the skill of pointing the camera in the right direction, not that of fiddling with the settings. It doesn't run "heavy" apps, like 3D games, but I don't play these on my phone, the controls and small screen are not great. So I don't need that massive computing power. In fact, I only need these gigabytes of RAM because of how terribly bloated mobile apps have become. And the worst part is that I can't even use my phone as a general purpose computer. Despite being the more open of the two platforms, Android is so locked down that I can't have fun with the hardware and still use it as a daily driver. A smartphone is like a game console, like the Nintendo Switch. The Switch is an underpowered device by today's standards, but who cares about the hardware, its only value is the games it plays, and Nintendo makes damn good games in that power budget, making it a damn good console. Same idea for smartphones, they are defined by the apps they run, and the apps I want to run run on low end smartphones, so why buy an expensive phone For real work, I use a PC, with a large screen, a mouse, a keyboard, and an OS with a usable filesystem, that PC, while decent, is actually cheaper than a flagship phone. And yes, the camera, pretty much the only thing worth getting expensive phones for for most people, but still, there are limits to what these tiny sensors can do. And as I said before, we have already passed to point where for most people the real improvement can only come from the one taking the picture.
jdprgm 2y ago
This effect has been compounding too. I used to upgrade almost every cycle but have been on 11 Pro now and haven't been motivated to upgrade until this 16. It takes the combined changes of about 4 cycles to match the level of interest in upgrading single cycles did in the first 10 years. If I do get a 16 Pro the only thing I can even think of from an upgrade perspective that would make it last less than 5 years would be if on device inference becomes a major thing and there are huge and relevant improvements, everything else is basically mature and I can't see being motivationally better in a few years. People bring up battery as a big thing for upgrading but with the smarter charging that has changed a lot, my 11 Pro is still at 80% max after 4+ years which isn't materially different on a day to day basis for me.
- threecheese 2y ago
  You are lucky, or have excellent battery discipline. I just had to trade my 11 for a 15, the battery life was terrible (enough to force me, knowing the 16 was imminent). Also backgrounded apps would reload almost every time I swapped, maybe I am just using memory-hungry apps though.
chemmail 2y ago
I'm waiting for 10X optical. There are times where I borrow my wifes s21 Ultra to get a shot i just can't on iphone. Everything else isn't really needed. I haven't even upgraded to iOS17 on my 13. I also have a 14 Pro Max as my gamer but hate the island so i'm sticking to my 13 Pro as daily driver at least 1-2 more years.
bradleyjg 2y ago
I’ve have photos on this phone (12 pro) dating back to 2012 through a series of iPhones. The pictures they take when you press the button have gotten better and better. That’s not even considering the live photos, which are a new thing entirely. Maybe this is the upgrade cycle it’ll flatten out, but I sort of doubt it.
ryukoposting 2y ago
At the beginning of the year, I upgraded to a Galaxy S24 from an LG V35, a phone that came out in 2018. Can my new phone do anything my old one couldn't? Sure. The telephoto lens is really helpful for my blog, and I can shoot in raw format which is also really helpful. Circle-to-search is an astonishing accomplishment. Do I actually do anything with my S24 that I couldn't do with my V35? Not really. All the improvements are nice to have. I could still take adequate photos for my blog with my V35, even if the S24's photos are better. I think I used circle-to-search to find a Chinese candy online once. The simple reality is that I'd still have my V35, and I'd still be perfectly happy with it, if AT&T had ever updated their shitware-riddled fork to Android 9. I was stuck on Android 8. Slack stopped supporting it, which was an inconvenience that I could work around. But, then one of my banks stopped supporting Android 8, and at that point the only reasonable solution was a new phone. The funny thing is, the V35 is noticeably better in several ways. It's lighter and thinner. It has a 1440p display in the same footprint as the S24's 1080p display. It has a headphone jack, and a really good one at that - LG was pushing their hi-fi DAC when Samsung and Apple were dropping the feature entirely.
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tlonista 2y ago
I've been in tech for 35+ years. I've built CPU architectures, I can write device drivers, I can layout an 8 layer PCB, I can design an RF power amplifier. I like the iPhone because it is easier to use than Android. My iPhone 4 was perfect. I'd still be using it if they haven't deprecated the OS and the battery died. I have exactly 6 non-apple Apps on my current phone. I want FEWER features. Integrated it or hide it. Don't make me have to learn about a new button, or switch, or setting or some magical tweak to use the basic features. If enthusiasts want to sniff and twiddle every last setting, go for it: give them dozens of settings until they burst. Just bury those settings away from me, or better yet: have a pro-mode setting that fills the GUI with all these features. I want something easy to use with as few knobs as possible, and the ability to factory reset every app in case I screw up and accidentally flip some esoteric setting. All of my college buddies and age-equivalent work peers (mid/late 50s) feel exactly the same way.
- dzhiurgis 2y ago
  I think there's massive divide between people who just want a basic device vs (particularly kids) for whom iPhone is primary device. Mixing them together is probably healthy to each other, but definitely annoying both. Quick story - me and my partner were confused why none of the pics you take appear in the gallery. Turns out she filtered to show Shared Photos only...
- Aloha 2y ago
  You and I both want the phonepliance, I work in tech on highly complex distributed systems, and I use an iPhone because its an appliance, it works, I dont need or want to hack my phone, I just want a phone that works. I just bought my first iPad, going on a work trip next week, gonna give it a whirl, and try that out.
wyager 2y ago
It's OK if we've surpassed the needs and observational abilities of normies and we are now purely pursuing arete for those who can appreciate it. Eventually the level of arete usually passes some threshold that enables new normie-appealing use cases as well.
HumblyTossed 2y ago
I started programming on a TRS80 handheld then quickly moved to a C64. All I ever wanted to do was be a programmer. And as a programmer I still do! But I use my phone just like you described your GF. They’re just not that interesting to me. There is so much more tech out there that is more interesting.
baby 2y ago
What people notice are the folding phones. People look at mine when I unfold it in the subway and I'm convinced that a folding phone user using their unfolded phone in public is going to be a massive marketing phenomena and convert a lot of people. iPhones are not cool anymore, they're just small legacy phones.
sneak 2y ago
Faster performance per watt means fewer watts for the same performance. That is not lost on even casual users. It’s not that they need or want a faster phone; it’s that their existing daily runtime can be in a lighter and thinner device, or a same size device can run longer.
princevegeta89 2y ago
Hmm why are we assuming your girlfriend represents a majority of smartphone users though?
stephenr 2y ago
> Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years. The "upgrade every year" concept never made sense to me, and while I agree that a battery might be the trigger, I think a reasonable number (not all) would still upgrade every ~4-5 years. While there's generally no single groundbreaking feature year to year, over 4-5 releases there are likely enough smaller incremental features/improvements that someone would still upgrade.
faeriechangling 2y ago
I notice the generational improvements in battery life and still have a practical need for them.
randmeerkat 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. It’s coming, the EU brought the USB-C port to the iPhone and in 2027 it brings user replaceable batteries too. [1] [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/07/13/new-eu-regulations-mandate-user-replaceable-batteries-in-apple-products https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/07/13/new-eu-regulation...
vachina 2y ago
Feels condescending to assume people would not notice nor appreciate improvements. You’re technically correct phones have reached feature parity, but how refined are those features is another story. I can technically do whatever iPhones can do on an iPhone knockoff, but do YOU actually want to use an iPhone knockoff? Please.
scoofy 2y ago
>The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user. Children and teens drive this, not existing adults. If existing adults is how we evaluated usefulness, we’d all still be using the command line on dot matrix screens.
mulmen 2y ago
I am an engineer at a big tech company. I’m not a “normie”. Even for me the new features aren’t compelling. They don’t really help me do anything I actually want to do. They don’t solve a problem or scratch an itch. And features change so often and so drastically I don’t really care to learn. I used to have an optical zoom but now I have super wide angle. My Fidelity widget used to show my balance but now it doesn’t so I just never bother swiping to that page. I assume the current iteration of widgets will go away or be replaced soon so I don’t bother trying to fix it. Whatever, doesn’t matter. Smartphones are essentially solved at this point. It’s an appliance. And just like my washing machine and dishwasher the buttons are arbitrary and clunky but work well enough. I tolerate it. Like I tolerate that burner on the cooktop that doesn’t always work. The only thing that would get me excited is text editing and spellcheck that work correctly.
- eviks 2y ago
  How can you call it "solved" when such basics as text editing are broken? The dishwasher comparison is also way off, the level of dishwasher interaction is primitive and the frequency thereof is very very low, so it's much easier to tolerate bad design
  - deleted 2y ago
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  - mrkeen 2y ago
    > How can you call it "solved" when such basics as text editing are broken? I just want to be able to hold backspace in my URL bar until my link is 'polite' enough to share with someone else. I want it to stop clearing the entire field when I'm only halfway through removing the trailing crap.
    - eviks 2y ago
      What would you want next, a modal editor that understands "clean url" as a type of a text object which you could then select&copy in a couple of motions?
  - 2y ago
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nextaccountic 2y ago
> All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest. This is not my experience. All my life I used slow phones and browsing the web on them is excruciating.
mgh2 2y ago
> Most people don't buy the pro and they're desperate for selling points in the regular model. "Pro Max currently accounts for nearly 40% of new model shipments" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386700 You misunderstand the business case: she is not the target demographic/user, filmmakers are (as seen on the presentation). Apple's product marketing is 2nd to none. To break it down: iPhone 16 is for photographers, Pro for filmmakers; Watch for sport and health enthusiasts, Ultra for athletes; iPad for media consumers, Pro for artists; MacBook Air for everyday consumers, Pro for working professionals; SEs for newbies to grab competitor market share with price penetration, etc. Research: http://www.marcoshung.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Apple.pdf http://www.marcoshung.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com...
- al_borland 2y ago
  I think the iPhone Pro is for anyone who wants extra flexibility with the camera, photo or video. The normal iPhone is for people who couldn’t tell you the difference between macro and telephoto, or don’t care enough to pay extra for it on their phone. I’ve been using an iPhone mini since the 12 came out. I really miss the telephoto and will be getting a 16 Pro (as much as I hate the size) to get the telephoto lens back. I used it fairly often when I had it; I almost never use the wide angle, other than to experiment to see why it exists (I’m sure realtors love it). I would not even call myself a photographer, I just take some picture when I go on vacation, just to remember stuff. However, I like more flexibility than the normal iPhone gives me. I also despise digital zoom. The MacBook Pro is only for working professionals if they happen to be professionals in some kind of graphics (editing videos, digital artist, etc). Work gives me a MacBook Pro, and it’s pretty pointless. I write code; I’m not touching the GPU. On CPU tasks, the Air as the MacBook Pro are going to perform the exact same, assuming there is no thermal throttling going on… and there isn’t. I’ve never heard the fan on Apple Silicon; it used to be on all day every day with Intel. I’d actually prefer if work gave me a MacBook Air.
- Loranubi 2y ago
  That doesn't make sense. 99.9% of iPhone users are not photographers or filmmakers.
llmthrow102 2y ago
There aren't major innovations in chairs or mugs that make you throw out your whole collection every few years. Smartphones are just becoming a commodity and there's nothing wrong with that.
sweeter 2y ago
I honestly feel that. I love programming like crazy, I use Linux, but I genuinely just don't care one iota what features my phone or TV has... I just want to browse reddit, read webnovels, call my friends and family, watch and listen to music/videos, and take a few pictures. Sometimes I play with Termux. All these other features are just not important. I think the thing I like most about my phone is the OLED screen, which has been basically the only feature I've cared about.
amatecha 2y ago
I seriously wish I could just use my iPhone 3GS still. I mean, maybe with a slightly newer iOS than it supported, but otherwise, for me that was the perfect form factor, and it was such a "focused" product back then.
mandeepj 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse You can still take your old iPhone to a local electronic store or that phone stall at your nearby mall and get that dying battery replaced or check this one https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Battery+Replacement/165733 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Battery+Replacement/1... Yeah - a battery replacement wouldn’t collapse a mere $3T juggernaut
tshaddox 2y ago
If the only reason people buy new iPhones is that the batteries in their old iPhones go bad, why does Apple bother constantly iterating and improving them?
- randomdata 2y ago
  Competition. Once the battery has gone bad and the user has decided that they are going to get a new phone to replace it, they are going to evaluate Apple's offering against all other phones they can buy. If Apple's device doesn't look as compelling as Samsung's (or whatever), the person is apt to buy something else. But if the battery was working as well as it did when it was new, it is unlikely that the person would have started shopping in the first place. It is the catalyst that sees them move beyond "what I've got is good enough" to "this isn't serving my needs anymore".
  - tshaddox 2y ago
    If there is meaningful competition in the smartphone market, and what you say about consumer preferences is true, then surely at least one competitor would make a user-replaceable battery and capture what is supposedly the vast majority of the market.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      If what I say is true, the people are still apt to buy a new phone instead of a new battery. As before, once you've overcome the friction of having to buy something new, you're going to evaluate all the options. But let's assume what the OP says is true. It is still not clear why anyone would do what you suggest? The investment required to be that player would be intense and knowing that you only have one product lifecycle to recoup it... Highly unlikely anyone is that daring. Competition sees players seek to be the winner, not the first loser.
      - tshaddox 2y ago
        I’m pretty sure there would be plenty of players willing to make the investment necessary to capture the majority of the iPhone market even for only a couple of years.
kaba0 2y ago
Statistics indeed show that 3-4 years is the typical time people switch their phones at, but I don’t think your reasoning is sound. You can cheaply replace the battery at any number of repair shops. It’s simply that 3 small, incremental upgrade does make up for a more significant one in the end, though in the future it might end up 4 or 5 years instead, as the changes from generation to generation are smaller and smaller.
larusso 2y ago
I’m with you. My wife is a bit like this but she actually cares for the new features just doesn’t bother to actively look for them. When they showed of all the ways the camera button works I thought: “No normal user will use this to change settings / zoom”. The main usage I see will be: open the camera app. And maybe, maybe take a photo. I’ve been on vacation and used my Apple Watch as a remote for the camera for a group photo. People looked at me as I came down from mars. And it’s not like Apple tries to sell these features. I think their videos and ads are on of the best. I mean they managed to teach pinch and zoom in an ad :)
lynx23 2y ago
I hope she never reads this, or you are in for a "fun" talk. Claiming your gf, who works in IT, wouldn't notice if she suddenly were set back to iOS 9, is a rather bold claim. I am sure you only feel confident writing this because you somehow suspect you aren't being watched :-)
gloosx 2y ago
There are just 5 major use-cases for this thing, and they don't change since 2008: calling, messaging, navigating, camera, note-taking. The rest of what you can do is mostly time-burning and satisfying addictions, which makes the most of the profit I guess.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
  Audio is a major use case. Podcasts have grown in audience size dramatically, everyone has Spotify or whatever, and the iPod has long since been discontinued.
  - gloosx 2y ago
    That's true, tbh I totally forgot about it since I completely stopped using my phone for audio when they started removing 3.5mm jacks. Adapters don't stick for long with me, and BT headphones I just don't find too convenient. In the end I found my 2008 walkman and it works perfectly to this day. It's built like a tank. It has a replacable 64GiB SD card just for the music. And my latest macbook can now again work with this card perfectly for syncing. No upgrades needed for 16 years. I also don't like the concept of renting the music for listening, instead I prefer to buy it, as directly from the author as possible – so I never used Spotify or whatever. A lot of people are like this actually, I personally know a dozen who won't even listen to digital formats, only physical copies on vinyl, cd, tape, etc. – so it's a bit of an exaggeration to say "everyone is using X"
robomartin 2y ago
They have overloaded the buttons and swipe actions so much that it is impossible for most people to remember (or discover) a bunch of features. Zero points on usability and user-centered design. The ONLY reason I stick with iPhone is Apple's approach to policing privacy and security. Other than that, it was done for me a few generations ago (maybe iPhone 4-ish). I have a 15 now, only because my iPhone 4 started to get weird. I can't see upgrading until iPhone 20 ore beyond. If Microsoft got their heads out of their behinds and came out with a next-generation MS Phone (please don't call is Windows Phone) with true deep integration with desktop Windows as well as the security and privacy features, I would jump over in a microsecond. Sadly, they it seems they never understood this value proposition. There a few simple things. iPhone has broken listening to music and they simply refuse to fix it. Own a large CD library that I have fully digitized into Windows Media Player. I can listen to an album as an album, from start to finish, in order, without doing anything special. Pink Floyd? Bach? Mozart? Just select the record play it as it was written. I can't do that on an iPhone. Or, at least, I have not been able to do it for multiple generations of iOS. To the point where I gave up and have not checked if anything has changed in a while. They model is selling you songs. Which is fine of one hit wonders. I get it. However, Mozart's Requiem isn't something that you should listen to or experience in "shuffle" mode or as songs. I could go on.
vladvasiliu 2y ago
> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED I see sunglasses with polarizing lenses are the new rage. Have her wear a pair and try to look at the phone. I wanted to buy such a pair a few years ago, but I still had an iPhone with an LCD screen, so I went the regular lens way.
spease 2y ago
This is such an absurd attitude to have, on a site for startup news, no less. Having a frequent, iterative release cycle has a number of benefits: - Everyone in the ecosystem knows the rough cadence of when releases will occur - The people and companies involved in those releases have a steady stream of work - If something isn’t ready, it can more likely be dropped without the consequences becoming overwhelming, which would force the company to push back a release and screw up the schedule of many other things - If something isn’t working, it can be quickly removed in a subsequent release rather than having to push out an out-of-band release - There will always be people looking to casually buy a phone, and this ensures they’ll probably always get something reasonably current rather than it depending greatly on when they buy. - People are much more likely to delay a phone purchase for most of a year rather than switch ecosystems for a killer feature. If it’s two years, they’re probably more likely to switch ecosystems (and if it misses that next release, they would have to wait four) - Holidays come annually, this ensures gifts are “this year’s watch” and not “last years’s watch” Really, I think Apple should be commended for tweaking and refining things, rather than making big BS lateral changes to justify a product release. Also, not all the changes were “incremental”. The camera changes and SoC improvements are pretty significant for people who make use of them. I saw 30% and 2x bandied about for some things. As for “she opens it and presses the shutter”. That’s pretty much the optimal UI for a casual user, no? There’s a ton of work going into making it that easy to use for everything that goes into the picture that comes out. The whole point is that people aren’t aware of it. They don’t know how fast the lens is or the resolution of the camera, they just know if they get a newer device the pictures will be a little better than the previous device. And that’s probably all they care to know. No one is making you or your girlfriend upgrade every year. It looks like phones as far back as the 6s or the 8 are still supported, so by all means, keep using a phone until it’s 8 generations old. As others have pointed out, you can replace the battery for a reasonable cost, too. Of course Apple doesn't want to - their whole business position is that it’s a premium product for people who are purchasing an “experience”. They’d rather have the freedom to customize the internals to optimize performance than be limited by affordances sufficient to allow non-tech-savvy users to replace the battery. The latter of which is probably at odds with it being simple, waterproof, durable, and thin (eg a tiny screw or some kind of latching mechanism ).
octocop 2y ago
idk man, it feels like you are hatin' more on your girlfriend than criticising Apple.
- Biganon 2y ago
  Don't know about "hating", but I do wonder how she would feel if she were to read his comment. I couldn't be in a relationship with a woman I consider a "normie" whose use of a phone is sharing cat videos on Facebook. Jeez.
hedora 2y ago
I’m typing this on the last mini. I have huge hands. This phone is too big for them. My second biggest complaint is that the 5g modem eats an insane amount of battery when it has weak single (20% in 10 minutes. I set an automation to force airplane mode.) My third complaint is that the se3 is missing the UWB radio (and I actually use it!), so when this phone dies, I’ll need to get a refurbished phone. My typical budget for a phone refresh is $1000, but apparently my money isn’t good enough these days.
- fragmede 2y ago
  you might have better luck with battery life if you switch voice and data to "5G auto" instead of "5G on" in cellular options which chooses to only use 5g only when needed for performance to optimize battery life.
  - hedora 2y ago
    I did. 4G only and 5G only are both worse than 5G auto, but they’re all basically unusable without automatically enabling airplane mode.
jiehong 2y ago
When you sell phones to most of the population, it’s not only about the need of average users, but about the needs of everyone. You live close to another country and switch languages all the time? (Very normal in many places in the world) well, then you’re happy translating photos or copying text on them work without cell coverage. You have some disabilities and can’t see much anymore? Local AI can describe what your phone sees, ans help you navigate places more easily. You like photography, but your neck hurts because you carry that DSLR everywhere? Better cameras on your phone mean more people stop carrying those. When you sell to everyone, a niche feature for some is a crucial feature for others. It’s no longer about averages.
werid 2y ago
> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know they even exist. there's no manual to read. apple does not inform you in any way. finding out new features is by word of mouth. so annoying. i should not have to discover features on my very expensive phone by random chance via watching a tiktok video!
- saagarjha 2y ago
  Have you tried the Tips app?
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    The fact that a helpful comment had to inform me of this apps existence really says it all. Just ship the damn documentation on the device.
- iteratethis 2y ago
  Indeed. A typical major iOS version has hundreds of new features. New iOS features are typically announced at the WWDC event. Which is a developer event that surely no normie watches. But even if they did, it's still a summary featuring like 5% of new features. Normies may not know or suddenly discover features introduced a decade ago.
linux_devil 2y ago
True , for the matter if jsut like a privacy feature , we can turn off certain features which are not required and it can significantly maintain the battery. Yes, we do have Iphone battery power save mode but I am just curious how efficiently it can optimise battery power saving
benterix 2y ago
> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. It's not entirely true: apart from hardware measures, they also use software to enforce phone upgrades.
ksec 2y ago
I think She will notice one thing, and that is battery life. The new OLED, new SoC, new Modem, along with slightly better battery all means that you should be getting 20-30% more battery life when all things being equal. But what you said is true I think a lot of people would be happy with the upcoming iPhone SE, which is basically a iPhone 14 with single camera, Apple modem and A18. On the assumption that the Modem isn't too bad. ( Not too sure if it will be 8GB or 6GB memory, which could mean getting Apple intelligence support or not )
v7p1Qbt1im 2y ago
I think people don't actively notice most of these things. But they sure as hell notice when you take them away after. A good example of this is ProMotion. People don't notice high refresh rate when they first get a Pro. but they do notice when you use it for a few weeks and then go back to 60hz. Same for a lot of other things.
jsjohnst 2y ago
> You can add a million features to the camera app but she opens it and presses the shutter. Even the most lax laymen of photographer would notice the tremendous difference in photo quality between an 8 year old iPhone and today. I’d argue even from 13-15 it was a big bump, but certainly going back 8 generations.
ErneX 2y ago
AFAIK the 15 Pro Max is their best selling model, so “most people don’t buy the pro” seems wrong.
throwaway290 2y ago
> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED There are no LCDs in current lineup, I think. > nor would she notice Pro-motion This is kind of like "no one notices reduced air pollution". Yeah, but some people actually notice and even for those who don't it is a quality of life improver. > All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest Then she didn't need the Pro version or even iPhone 16 at all. I have a friend who does photo/video as hobby and photos he takes are mega cool. He will benefit from pro camera. Another friend does commercial video and only shoots on iPhone. He will benefit from pro video capabilities. Most people will not benefit from a pro. By definition. That's why it's pro. > It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies Is that a problem? I use iPhone 11. It works. I don't feel like I need the 16 or the pro. What's wrong with not having to buy latest devices if they are built to last?
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  I think people absolutely notice new screens and scrolling, but the thing is with their current setup they have accepted the conditions. It's one of those things when you've tried the new thing, you don't want to go back to the old thing because scrolling will seem laggy, and screen will seem bad. So it's not necessarily that you need it, but once you have it, you can't go back.
rowanG077 2y ago
I'm not conflicted at all. All these normies pay top dollar for things they don't need or really want. But the advances are real. And now we have dual stacked oled with insane brightness. We have a supremely high end CPU gpu combo in the m3 Max CPU. Something I do care about. Basically apple was able to fund enthusiast level R&D by asking people who don't care about to pay for it. Every enthusiast should be grateful.
- benterix 2y ago
  I have flashbacks from the time first LED screens appeared. They had lower resolution and overall quality (at least for gaming) than the CRT monitors I was using. I knew it will take time before they get on a par with CRT monitors (and overtake them since that market was basically abandoned) but wondered who will pay for all this R&D? Well, everybody did. Everybody were buying crap monitors for decades and at some point these became quite decent - at least models like Apple displays for example.
koliber 2y ago
Apple uses software updates to drive hardware sales. There are some relatively minor iOS features that appear here and there that make me want to upgrade the OS. And one day I find myself with hardware that works for me, but I can no longer upgrade to the latest version of iOS.
midtake 2y ago
Your complaint is that the iPhone is too good? And your assertion that their business would collapse is false. You can already replace batteries through Apple and their business model hasn't collapsed. It's just not "true" enough for you so that you can end your post with a dramatic flair.
Clubber 2y ago
I completely agree. I've worked in tech as a coder for 27 years and I find all the features of the iPhone annoying and inhibitive. When the settings app has 8 pages of scroll, something's gone sideways. I'm running an XS Max currently.
aaron695 2y ago
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wmoxam 2y ago
I’m a software developer and I barely care about the new features. I’m on a 13 and the only ‘recent’ change I’m interested in upgrading for is usb-c.
whatjadat2 2y ago
"that normie"? Are you 5 years old? You are not in some exclusive elite club, you are just as normal as anyone else.
Saris 2y ago
I'm just thankful for the people that do upgrade to every new model, it keeps the used market alive for those of us that want a 2 year old phone for cheap.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
My biggest peeve with iOS or iPadOS is that if you sync photos or SMS with your iPad, you will eventually run out of storage. I don't know why Apple doesn't do a "rolling" storage for these apps, it feels so broken. I'm never buying another iPad if they don't fix this, I'll pay their competitors instead who sanely allow you to decide which photos to download for offline viewing, and which ones to keep. I will always have way more storage on my phone than my tablet. There will also be a time where my iCloud Photos storage will surpass the available physical storage Apple gives you for your phone, so I don't understand this weak design. Worse is the Messages app, which insists on downloading every gif, photo and video I share to my iPad as well, as if I need them available for offline use all the time, no Apple, if I needed to see any of it, I would download them manually. iOS and iPad OS need to be smarter about their Photos and Messaging apps, they're really dumb. What's the point of iCloud if it forces everything downstream when I'm not asking for it.
throwaway894345 2y ago
I think this was really well written and insightful, but I disagree about the extent to which your girlfriend is representative (and not based on her education or anything). Most normies do notice dramatic improvements in battery life, camera quality, and screen quality. My tech-illiterate family may not know what OLED is or how it works, but they definitely prefer the OLED TV to the LCD. Similarly, they can tell a stark difference between a 5X telephoto and a 5X “digital zoom” photo or a macro photo versus an attempt to take a close-up photo without the macro lens. Similarly they will notice the improvements in low light conditions over models that are 6+ generations older. Further, the AI features (enabled by new hardware), for better or worse, will probably be a dramatic change in how people engage with their phones. I’m writing this from an iPhone 11 and I’m sure I’ll notice some stark differences if I upgraded to the 16, and I even notice big differences when I use others’ newer phones as well. I sincerely admire your girlfriend’s penchant for simplicity, I just don’t think that represents most people IMHO.
nprateem 2y ago
LOL. Your naivety is so sweet :D New features aren't for users. They're for the media so the company gets publicity and we have conversations like this and don't forget about them. Imagine if Apple said "we're done, users have all they need", but Samsung kept putting out new features nobody wants or needs, and press releases and launch events... It's obvious what would happen to Apple, right? Your average user has no idea what the buzzwords mean either, and that's for a reason. God knows why I need titanium, but I know it's strong and probably expensive so helps justify the price. 120fps? Who knows, but it's more than 24 or 60 so it must be good, etc. The features page goes on and on, gushing with how easy things are, high pro quality, time saving, etc. Features are there to bamboozle buyers and overwhelm them with "benefits" to justify the high price. Frequent releases are for regular publicity. Heaven forbid any of this is actually because users want any of this stuff.
mattbrewsbytes 2y ago
Adding features to smartphones for the last few generations is akin to more buttons in the MS Office ribbon/menu. Or any other commoditized product that adds gimmick features. Its compelling in the sense that these organizations feel compelled to continually release things. No other real reason exists. You could probably classify much of product development for smartphones as bullshit jobs at this point. They are as useful to society as someone adding features to an ERP system.
Certhas 2y ago
In the EU we are going to get user replaceable batteries: https://repair.eu/news/new-eu-rules-smartphones-and-tablets-will-follow-new-ecodesign-requirements-by-june-2025/ https://repair.eu/news/new-eu-rules-smartphones-and-tablets-...
QuadrupleA 2y ago
I'm probably as techie as they get, but I'm 100% with your girlfriend. I don't care. The smartphone industry has not delivered anything truly novel in a decade or more, it's been endless fussing about notch vs no notch, which slightly-different form factor is back in fashion, etc. And on a lot of fronts has made things worse - bloated many-GB apps, ads, spyware, attention sucking practices of all kinds, poorly policed and overloaded app stores, etc.
tomjen3 2y ago
I am going to have to disagree. You do not have to be a techie to appreciate beauty and enjoy an OLED screen even if you can't tell the technical difference. There is certainly a segment where "it takes photos" is a boolean, not a scale (my mum being in that group), and they will be perfectly happy with cheap Androids.
WhyNotHugo 2y ago
I can understand and relate to this perfectly. In the past, I used an iPhone 11 or 12. At some point, I got fed up of the issues around FaceID with face mask and/or glasses. I switched to an older iPhone SE with a fingerprint button. The switch didn't feel like a downgrade at all. I didn't miss any of the new fancy features. The only real downside that I ever noticed is the camera, which doesn't have night mode. The thing about infinite growth, is that at some point things are "good enough" for users, and they have no reason to upgrade. So companies have to create problems to force them to upgrade, like device locking down the device and not offering new software support, or preventing users from swapping batteries.
wing-_-nuts 2y ago
>The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user. >She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. I recently had a similar realization. Last year I finally bit the bullet and decided to build out a decent 'home office' setup. I have a tendency to research something to death before I make a purchase. I read all about monitor resolution, viewing distance, field of view and viewing angle. I had multiple different calculators. I measured my typical sitting / viewing distance down to a fraction of an inch. After doing all this, I initially thought surely, I needed a 32" 4k 144hz screen. Nothing else would do. Then at the last second after reading up on fractional scaling issues with linux, I decided on a 27" 1440p screen. It's fine. It turns out I am not the discerning conesour of pixels I thought I was. Yes, I can see them if I look hard enough, but I don't really care. I should have known. The most productive I have ever been as a dev was as a teen coding away on a 800x600 crt! Maybe I'll eventually get a 4k screen if I upgrade to a 5090 or whatever, but I have found that buying n-1 off the bleeding edge is the absolute sweet spot when it comes to capability.
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  I came to a similar realization when I had to go back to a non retina macbook a couple years ago (after using retina). Other than the larger display scaling you really can’t tell or see the pixels at the distance you would comfortably use a laptop. Same thing with my TV. Its 1080p and I can’t see the pixels. I’d have to spend hundreds upgrading my tv and xbox to 4k and for what? It wouldn’t look any better 10 feet away on the couch.
sholladay 2y ago
Sounds like she would love the new camera control. AI is also normie feature. A big one. Say what you will about its limitations and inadequacies but to a normie, GPT is a search engine with superpowers and an intuitive UI. Improved autocorrect and call screening, smart reply in Mail, transcripts and summaries for audio recordings in notes or from phone calls… these are all things normies will love. The technical crowd will dismiss them, afraid of inaccuracy or the model hallucinating. To a normie, it’s just the computer being helpful with everyday tasks. The only real hurdle will be how simple the UI is. Some of these features will be easy to access, while others might not be obvious.
elAhmo 2y ago
> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. Most people do notice a difference there, maybe not instantly with a few second glance, but using one over another is definitely visible. I do think it is not a reason to upgrade for most people. I consider myself quite technical, and I also upgrade fairly rarely - with 14 Pro I will either wait for next year or the year after that. I think there is a main point people usually forget - new phones are not for people who have bought an iPhone in the last few years, rather than people who have 5-6 year old phones, Android users, new people coming into smartphone market. That market is huge and the differences for those people is definitely perceivable. With non-pro version having a lot of the features from a pro version from the years before, it is a great time to buy the latest phone.
geonic 2y ago
I have an iPhone 11 Pro. One of the lenses is broken and it makes a weird snaring sound while recording video. Battery life is still okay at about 80% capacity. It does everything I need it to do without fail. If it weren’t for those defects I’d keep it at least for another year.
rurp 2y ago
> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know they even exist. Which seems totally fine to me since those features probably don't solve any real problems that she has. It's weird to me that the tech industry has this implicit idea that every product has to get better every year and users are missing out if they don't follow along. Not all products work that way indefinitely and that approach is driven more by corporate financial reasons than by anything else. Apple starts from a position of "How can we continually increase our sales of this product", not "How can we make the best possible product for users". There can be a lot of overlap there, but not always. The number one rule with corporate product and sales is: Number Go Up. Consumers shouldn't have any obligation to follow along though.
astrowilliam 2y ago
I'm a senior front end React dev and I also don't care about most of the features on my phone. Notes, email, phone, text, maps and my bank. Other than that, I don't care much about other features on my phone.
consf 2y ago
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barnabee 2y ago
Agree that at best the majority of the updates these days are nice to have, if that. But I’ll buy every other new “Pro” phone if it takes noticeably better photos, regardless of everything else.
timbo1642 2y ago
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barfingclouds 2y ago
Yeah that’s how I feel. I feel like the iPhone 7 could handle all the daily use cases just fine. Every phone after is cool but doesn’t accomplish anything
kaycey2022 2y ago
Sorry but hi. It’s me, your girlfriend. Only I’m actually in an engineering role.
salad-tycoon 2y ago
I surprised an 18 year old, intelligent and fairly tech savvy, when I showed him the share>find on page search function in Safari. Figured everyone knew that, or at least he and his demo would. No idea how wide spread it is, anecdotal etc.

GenerocUsername 2y ago

Apple is a trillion dollar battery company.

colechristensen 2y ago
The joke I want to make is they make phones that are as fragile as glass and that's why people replace them so often... but they actually make phones out of glass that are stupidly fragile. It's equally stupid that you have to buy this thing and put a protective case on it that increases it's size x%. Why is the back of my phone glass. Why does the front of my phone have 0 protection from the glass hitting whatever it is dropped on? This has to be on purpose. Or maybe in an opposite direction, their stock would likely drop a considerable amount if they made a phone you could drop on concrete with only minor blemishes.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  It's because the alternative is plastic. Hard to sell a phone for 1000 dollars when its made out of plastic.
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    Ceramic back? Titanium? Diamond? Anything but a glass back please. Why not even the option? A bezel around the rim?
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      You just reminded me my favorite fit and finish was the Essential PH1, titanium edge, ceramic back, felt twice as luxurious as anything I'd held previously Diamond and ceramic are however more prone to shattering. Sapphire like they use for the camera lenses and watch face might be ideal.
- amelius 2y ago
  They're not making phones. They make vending machines that go in your pocket.
- bouke 2y ago
  MagSafe
- nemothekid 2y ago
  I have been using the iPhone without a case since the iPhone 6. I think the fragility of iPhone displays is incredibly overblown. The idea that Apple is purposefully making the displays "weak" is unfounded. People buy cases because they feel their $1,000 slab of metal must be protected.
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    Also because the camera bulge means the phone can't lay flat on a flat surface without a case.
israrkhan 2y ago
3.36 Trillion as of today.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

paxys 2y ago

> All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest. Gonna disagree with this one. Tell me, does using an iPhone today feel significantly faster than the top model 2-3 years ago or even 10 years ago? Does the battery last a lot longer than it did back then? Apple certainly claims this is the case in their marketing every year. The answer however is no, because with every increase in computing power and battery size, the OS and all the apps on it get that much more resource hungry. The entire ecosystem is designed to get users to need to upgrade every ~2-3 years, otherwise they will start to feel the lag.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> does using an iPhone today feel significantly faster than one from 2-3 years ago? Yes. Absolutely. We just forget that opening an app--or restarting the device, or recovering from airplane mode--was an action that incurred a noticeable delay once and does not tend to anymore.
- amelius 2y ago
  Sorry but you just contradicted yourself.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > you just contradicted yourself Where?
    - 0xFF0123 2y ago
      I assume their logic is that if we have forgotten what that feels like then it doesn't in practice feel any different.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Ah, memories of RISC OS from school in the 90s. Instant boot, instead of the minute or so for Win95 and System 7.5.5…

keyle 2y ago

Agree with what you wrote. That said quality of life things such as pro motion and increase battery life are noticeable. Scrolling at 120hz is butter smooth and improves the UX quite a lot. While battery life is peace of mind that you don't have to worry about. What ticks me off is OpenAI integration in my private life. I really like chatGPT as a daily google box but I hate the idea of it meddling in my private information. That's a big no no.

veber-alex 2y ago
So don't enable it. ChatGPT is optional.
- keyle 2y ago
  I wasn't sure, thanks
- Gud 2y ago
  Until it isn’t. Try using CarPlay without enabling Siri.
  - _ph_ 2y ago
    Siri doesn't use ChatGPT
    - yunwal 2y ago
      The parent comment is saying once an optional feature gains enough traction, Apple will make it mandatory.
      - shuckles 2y ago
        Apple very reasonably has decided using your phone while driving requires voice support. It's not about "traction."
        2y ago

ghaff 2y ago

>If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. I was with you up to there. Do you really think that people are so lazy or stupid that they wouldn't go to any of the zillion battery replacement places (including Apple Stores) rather than buying a new $1K-$1.5K device?

digital_sawzall 2y ago
I have a 2015 Macbook pro and an iphone 11 that works great save for that they don't hold a charge. I would happily spend a several hundreds dollars to save these and continue to use them, or give one to my parents or kid, but I can't find someone who will do a battery replacement. I live in Austin TX and have called 3-5 different apple repair shops. If I can't find someone to do it in a city with the second largest Apple office in the world, I don't think anyone else will be able to.
- riley_dog 2y ago
  Apple will replace the battery on your iphone for $89 and your macbook for $249. Source: https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement and https://support.apple.com/mac/repair https://support.apple.com/mac/repair
  - HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
    Following the link on the Mac page, it looks like Apple will not repair a 2015 Macbook Pro: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772 > Obsolete: ... MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015), MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)...
    - 39896880 2y ago
      >Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.

arcticbull 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Battery replacement costs at Apple are $69-99 and offered all the way back to the iPhone SE 1st Generation. That's the all-in cost where you bring it in, they open it up, swap it out, and give your phone back to you. An OEM battery for an Android phone is like $50. Budgeting $69-99 once every 3-4 years hardly seems like it's going to nuke their business from orbit.

jazzyjackson 2y ago
Agreed. Apple phones are quite repairable (just not DIY-able), no one is dropping 1000 dollars on a new phone because their current one has a cracked back glass. Watching their live feed, one of Apple's selling points on such an expensive phone is that it will last a long time and have a higher re-sale value than other phones. It's not a case of planned obsolescence.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  There are absolutely cases where they have artificially gated features to new devices, even when the hardware is capable (I'm thinking around Handoff/Continuity, etc.). Where the initial reaction is "maybe it's a new BT chip or ..." but it can be shown that the functionality is perfect when some trickery is done to fool the OS its running on more modern hardware.
  - twoodfin 2y ago
    This is a consequence of Apple’s deeply ingrained (and hugely successful) product design culture. When you’re trying to develop a vertically integrated feature across a synchronized release requiring potentially new silicon, a new device, new OS frameworks, new app code… you have to express your requirements precisely. Either the M1 is being designed to support three displays or it’s being designed to support two. Not “as much display support as we can squeeze in where performance is still OK end-to-end”. By the time you know if end-to-end looks good for all the features you built up depending on lower layers in the stack, it’s too late. You’re also likely not to trust “hey, seems like our tolerances were excessive and it works great on older hardware”. And building up that trust is time-consuming and difficult, so they rarely go back to do it without a strong market justification. Stage Manager being the most recent—somewhat odd—example.

Fokamul 2y ago

"highly educated" != "tech savvy/smart". IT Project manager, right? :D

IgorPartola 2y ago

The real advancements majority of users would notice: - Get rid of green text when messaging Android phones - More battery life. - Better camera (arguably already achieved) - lesser issue but fix the stupid bugs with storage/duplication with pictures and messages. I am already paying for a TB level plan with iCloud. How can my phone possibly run out of storage? That’s it. All the AI stuff is marginal at best and useless at worst. The new UI stuff they introduced sometime ago? Doesn’t really get used by anyone I know. Control center was probably the last useful feature added. If they did a release where they removed features to simplify iOS I would upgrade.

peab 2y ago
where'd you see no more green text?
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  iOS 18 (available for all iphones since 2nd gen SE) will support RCS I don't actually know how this will be implemented into iMessage but it's supposed to bring feature parity between android and apple. EDIT: looks like still green bubbles https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-rcs-texting-starts-improving-green-bubble-chats-with-ios-18-beta/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-rcs-texting-starts-i...
  - inferiorhuman 2y ago
    RCS brings plenty of new monetization and spam opportunities but doesn't bring feature parity. Or did Google decide to open up their proprietary extensions to non-Google RCS clients?
    - vel0city 2y ago
      There's a massive feature benefit: finally allowing multi-megabyte attachments. Hopefully pictures and videos won't be compressed to fit into 600KB.

baggachipz 2y ago

I've been working in tech for 25 years, and I'm sure I hardly use any of the new features. Camera? Click, maybe crop it or turn it into a loop if it's funny. I play some games on it. I browse some social crap on it. I occasionally tell Siri to set a reminder. That's... about it. I'm really not sure what else I'm supposed to be doing.

adrr 2y ago
I use mine to measure things, replaced my measuring tape. It is also my flashlight. I use it to find my wallet and keys as they have air tags in them. Its my wallet, credit cards, hotel room key, subway/metro pass. I have an app that implements OpenAIs CLIP on my phone and can instantly search my photos thats better any other image search out there and it runs on the device.
- xvector 2y ago
  What app are you using for measurement and local image search? For measurement I found Apple's app disappointing, even on the Pro models it isn't accurate to the scales I typically work with (centimeters.)
  - adrr 2y ago
    I just use the apple measure tool. Not dealing with that level of precision, just to measure things in the house to see if furniture will fit or not. For the image search, i use this https://github.com/mazzzystar/Queryable https://github.com/mazzzystar/Queryable
creakingstairs 2y ago
I’m on the same boat as you. I do most of my productive work on my computer. But I started teaching kids recently and realised that kids do EVERYTHING on their phone these days. Write essays, edit videos, play games, make musics etc. A lot of them can’t type well on their keyboards and it’s the main source of frustration for kids when learning coding.
jodrellblank 2y ago

ben_w 2y ago

Even as an iOS app developer, there's a huge amount of stuff that stock iOS can do that I'm unaware of. At this point, I'm not going to be interested (dead battery isn't "interested") in the upgrade cycle until there's a new kind of sensor, e.g. thermal imaging or (technically possible in software) repurposing the WiFi as a wall penetrating radar. Even on the dev side, WWDC for the last few years feels more like "here's an even more complicated way to create a simple app" instead of "this will make your life easier because x" or "y is increasing important, use tool z to support it".

busymom0 2y ago
I am an iOS developer too and I use an iPhone 13 before which I used an iPhone 6 until its support was dropped. I prefer developing with older devices as it helps me ensure my apps work well on slower devices. I haven't seen any reason to upgrade for the last 3 years. Switching from iPhone 6 to 13 was the most needed change for me due to the change in safe area insets (notch).
- lawgimenez 2y ago
  Also an iOS developer, upgraded last week from iPhone 12 to 15 Pro Max. I also preferred running my apps on the 12, to make sure app is very performative.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > I prefer developing with older devices as it helps me ensure my apps work well on slower devices. Similar reasoning even before I stopped being excited. I've got an SE 3, which makes me aware how many UI teams don't design and/or test for narrower displays. (But also, the move away from touch ID to face ID feels worse to me; when I do finally replace this phone, I'll likely return to using my actual cards for contactless payments rather than Apple Wallet with face ID).
  - al_borland 2y ago
    The iPhone mini is an issue for devs not testing as well. I sent feedback to one to ask if the mini was still being supported. They told me yes, and they were able to reproduce the bug I was seeing related to the screen size. Over a year later and the bug remains. I don’t think it’s getting fixed. Have you used FaceID? I was skeptical of it, but within the first day or two I was sold. It’s so seamless, and there are some safe guards. If you’re not looking at the camera with your eyes open, it won’t work. You can also repeatedly mash the lock button to disable it. I haven’t needed to do this, but if I ever see a potential situation coming, I’d likely reach into my pocket and quietly kill FaceID, but I’d want to do the same with TouchID as well. I’m curious, why would you use your cards over an iPhone with FaceID? The card seems more vulnerable, as anyone could use it (unless you’re in a country where a pin is the norm for credit).

kvgr 2y ago

I am professional android developer for more than 10 years. And even i dont care about the features anymore. Outside my work i just want good battery life and big screen. I have iphone 12 and dont plan to upgrade until it stops working. Probably professional exhaustion. But i honestly care about the newest buzz.

markus_zhang 2y ago

They have to keep adding new features because what to do otherwise? I have long lost interest of the mobile world. Battery life and some rams to run some apps are all I need. The general customers definitely want more. They are getting excited by AI in camera apps (existed before the AI hype) and other stuffs.

cmeacham98 2y ago

> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. I find this example interesting, because on the android side I would rank these two in the top 10 _most_ notable improvements made to phones in the last 5-10 years. I have had multiple "normies" use my phone in the last few years and ask why it felt so smooth - and every time the difference between my phone and theirs has been a higher refresh rate display (what apple calls "ProMotion").

iteratethis 2y ago
The lack of distinction between LCD and OLED can be explained. The specific condition in which OLED thrives rarely occurs. You'd need deep blacks in low ambient light viewing conditions for it to really stand out. iOS, most apps, most websites, even most video isn't mastered as such and not consumed in those conditions.
- runako 2y ago
  I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at night is a normal use case. I thought it was a normal thing that many/most people do, but this comment suggests that perhaps my social circle is odd in that way.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    > I wonder if watching TV/movies on phones in bed at night is a normal use case. Your GP and optometrist would certainly prefer you don't do it. I can't speak to the frequency of how much other people do it, but my wife and I try to avoid it, not always successfully.
  - iteratethis 2y ago
    TV shows and movies aren't mastered like that either. I have an incredible TV. OLED with increased brightness, the latter being new tech. The combination of OLED and HDR is jaw dropping to witness. To me and to everybody that I show it to. What do I show them? A Youtube list with TV demo videos that specifically demonstrate the effect. Deep blacks with locally bright highlights. Not to mention very deep vibrant colors. I watch the demo videos every 2 months or so to remind myself that I have an awesome TV. Because I most certainly do not experience anything remotely like that on ordinary TV channels, streaming services, the like.

FireBeyond 2y ago

> Apple makes an excellent product Contrarian opinion on the AirPods. Apple says that they think the new noise cancellation "auto adjust" is better on the "human" side of things, and the social - they showed an interaction where the barista started talking to the wearer, and the AirPods adjusted so the barista could be heard. To me, that's not social, I think it's actually anti-social. It moves the onus onto anyone who wants to or needs to interact with you to assume that you can hear them, that you're focused on the conversation, etc. It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments.

iteratethis 2y ago
Fully agree. Same for putting a speaker on the Apple watch. "Great for when you don't have your airpods with you" Yes, and surely it will be normalized in the culture to just blast your watch in public.
- wilg 2y ago
  the apple watch has had a speaker for 10 years and it hasn't been an issue
doublepg23 2y ago
I think that ship sailed a while ago. I was doing retail work around COVID and there were many many people who didn't have the decency to hold phone calls while checking out let alone taking off headphones.
wilg 2y ago
> It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments. you can just do this. but sometimes your hands are full, or you dont have use of them, or you dont want to drop your airpod.
tpmoney 2y ago
> It really wouldn't kill you to remove an airpod (or any headphone) if you are in public initiating interactions with someone, for just a few moments. Actually, I've found this creates more social friction, not less. I spent a while listening to some books while working, and originally had noise canceling turned on. Every time someone came over to talk about something, whether I paused and turned noise canceling off or removed the ear pieces, there was always an awkward moment for the person talking to me while they had to stop what they were starting to say, wait for me and then usually apologize for interrupting. It felt extremely anti-social, and I think a part of that is that headphones were for a very long time considered anti-social and the act of removing them was often a signal that someone was interrupting you (and that you didn't really want to be interrupted). But when you're using headphones in a shared space, it's usually less about not wanting to be interrupted and more being considerate that not everyone wants to listen to the same things you're listening to. Eventually I left them in transparency mode and kept the volume low enough that I could carry on a conversation over it, and could subtly reduce the volume while still holding a conversation. No more awkward pausing and restarting, no more apologies and the "hardest" thing I have to do is maybe rewind a bit after I'm done with the conversation. So much less anti-social feeling all around.

015a 2y ago

Heck, I have friends in tech that in the past did iPhone 4, 6, 8, whether you were an "even number" or an "odd number" iPhone buyer became something of a label. One of these guys is on the 11 Pro, has the 16 Plus in his cart, but is actively texting the group chat whether or not to go through with it. If you feel Apple isn't actively facing a xx% risk to their business by 2030, you're beside yourself. Its not that people are switching away, or that Apple overtly missed some major tech trend; people just aren't upgrading anymore. They need to come up with something a lot more drastic to keep people motivated toward spending $1000+/year with them; its not ungrateful, its not cynical, its the market. AI is not it.

wlesieutre 2y ago
It's the camera for me, especially 5x zoom lens in the big phone instead of the enormous phone. But if I do go through with it I'll be coming from a 4 year old phone, so I'm already not in the $1000/year market. If they're able to figure out a mass market VR headset that will give them another push for new phone sales. I hear the "spatial photos/videos" are very cool.
- 015a 2y ago
  VR also isn't it. The best case scenario for Vision is that it becomes a <$10B/quarter market similar to the iPad, but it costs substantially more to build and evolve (more complicated hardware and software, lower margins, less software sharing with iPhone). The more likely outcome is that it doesn't even reach $5B by 2030 (that would be ~6% revenue). I think the broader problem is that no one knows what "it" is; what comes next. We had web3, crypto, AR, VR, now AI, but none of these things feel like they have the horsepower to launch another $30B in quarterly or even annual revenue for Apple.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    I'm not convinced the next "it" is a new hardware product any time soon. You can do a lot with a screen, battery, and cellular connection. All the stuff that AI pins and necklaces can do will end up in phones, watches, and earbuds, and Apple will keep selling all those existing product lines for years. They might even find a way to squeeze an "Apple Intelligence Plus" subscription in there somewhere, with their recent focus on chasing services revenue to make up for slower phone sales. Just because phones are maturing doesn't necessarily mean a new computing paradigm is right around the corner.

hintymad 2y ago

> even works in IT, although not in an engineering role. What an accurate profile! I work in an engineering role in IT, and I'm like your girlfriend when it comes to the phone. Like, I don't even know whether my iphone is max or max pro, as it does not make a difference to me. The top apps that I use are Kindle, Books, Chrome (for tracking my progress on dreamingspanish.com), Podcast, Spotify, Maps, and as everyone else: some social/messaging apps. Everyone of such apps seems work just fine on a much older phone.

stroupwaffle 2y ago

My biggest complaint is that the lenses aren’t flush with the back. I hate having cases on my phone, and their design makes wireless charging somewhat useless because it’s not flush with the charging mat.

spicymaki 2y ago
They would if they could. Optical physics is one factor that prevents the lenses from being flush with the back. If you want to support advanced optical features the lenses need depth.
- stroupwaffle 2y ago
  Makes sense. Instead of having a flat back, it might be kind of neat to have it slope like a “wedge” shape. It would actually make the phone more comfortable in the hands too because they could improve the weight balance.
  - sfjailbird 2y ago
    Always wondered why they don't do this. Just a subtle sloping of the edge around the lense, so the phone is flush with the table it is lying on.
    - 93po 2y ago
      it's ugly and 99% of people dont care
  - Zee2 2y ago
    The original Google Pixel (2016) was exactly this shape. No camera bump with a wedge profile.
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  So put a periscope in there. Or synthesise the image from 48 tiny cameras in a grid.

napierzaza 2y ago

I don't really get the confusion people have. It's understood that most people don't constantly upgrade every year. They are improving their product, and when you do need a new phone it will have a many features and be competitive with other devices. Yes, there has not been a killer-app in a long time that forces upgrades.

acchow 2y ago

The savvy users that integrate new features into their creativity are the young people. Under 25. And of course creatives that do it as a hobby or a job. Regular folks won’t be using this stuff

jrflowers 2y ago

People like better looking/more easily captured photos and even “normies” can grasp features like satellite 911

mithr 2y ago

I don't know that I completely agree. To some degree, sure — most folks probably don't notice the year-to-year updates in e.g. computing power. But my 70yo mother, who is pretty far from being technologically savvy, uses continuity every day to copy one-time-use codes from her phone to her computer, even though she'd have no idea what the term "continuity" means in this context. She notices that it's easier to snap better pictures in more conditions than it was a few years back (and that pictures she receives are better looking on average, too). She uses 1Password with FaceID, which I set up for her, because it's so easy to just look at your phone to unlock that there's very little in the way of enabling and using that, and she doesn't need to write down passwords anymore. I think some of the magic of the Apple ecosystem is that you don't have to know about these things in order to use them. Someone shows you how to do something (Apple could certainly improve on the organic discoverability of many of these features! Some are impossible to find without looking), and then it often just works. And these things do keep getting closer to that ideal over time, with each generation. When I first started using continuity — long before my mother did — it definitely did not work all the time, and I persisted because I'm a techie early adopter. Eventually, though, it reached a state where once folks learn about it, they can just use it. I'm also not sure about the 3-4 year number, at least from personal experience, fwiw. We pass down phones in my family, and it easily takes 5-6 generations for them to reach the end of that chain and be in use for a year or two before they're switched out for the next model. Battery has never been the reason someone in that chain switched phones.

sroussey 2y ago
Battery can be replaced by going to the apple store and buying a new one which is cheaper than a new phone, so I agree with you on that. Phone definitely last longer so 6 years sounds about right, as after that they tend to get obsolete.
- camjohnson26 2y ago
  I had no idea this was possible, but yeah, going to “battery health” in my Settings shows battery health is degraded, and provides a link to schedule a replacement.

TuringNYC 2y ago

>> The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. Sure, and a couple of iOS updates into a good phone, and the phone is suddenly slow, crawling, and no longer meeting normie needs.

thirdsun 2y ago
I experience none of that.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

runjake 2y ago

> Most people don't buy the pro Historically, that was true, but more recently, most people do buy the Pro. I don't know why (actually I do: FOMO and monthly payment plans). https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figures-show-the-pro-models-have-become-the-default https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figu... iPhone 15 Pro Max: 23% iPhone 15 Pro: 22% iPhone 15: 14% iPhone 15 Plus: 9%

foobarian 2y ago
I don’t know if you’re old or not or what your eyesight is like but even the pro max is getting hard to read for me :-)
WillPostForFood 2y ago
You are already spending $800 for the 16; the 16 Pro is $200 more and you get better camera, better battery life, and slightly bigger screen. It is a tempting proposition if you want the new tech. If you don't care about latest/greatest get the SE at 1/2 the price.
- alt227 2y ago
  This is apples strategy across the whole of their product portfolio. Make a cheaper crippled base device, and a model with higher specs just within reach of that price so that most people will upgrade because 'why not?'. If they just made the base model have half decent specs, a lot less people would upgrade to the higher end models.

Giorgi 2y ago

Owning current year's iPhone model is pretty much status symbol, that's basically all that is.

tails4e 2y ago

I agree largely. I have a p30 pro, and it's a great phone despite being 4 or 5 years old . It's so good, recently it got water damaged and I as faced with replacing it. I couldnt find a phone for under 500 that could beat it, and especially the 2 day battery life. So I didn't, I instead paintakingly dried it out over 3 weeks and it's pretty much fully functional. That's how much I didn't want to change phone, and how the new sparkly features don't really matter as much as battery life, and utility.

wwweston 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. For me it's slightly more complicated than that. I would probably still be using my 2016 iPhone SE with its headphone jack and size if (a) it was still receiving OS updates and (b) iOS bloat didn't make it slow. Would love it if the battery swap were easy for the end user to do, but TBH paying $100 to have it done every few years is doable for me. Better camera capability is the only other thing that even registered for me. The jump to the iphone 12 mini that I made last year did have some nice benefits on that front and got me some performance I'd lost back. Other than that, the main reason I upgraded is that I was forced to by the iOS obsolescence treadmill.

dkga 2y ago
Sorry, jumping in here. I don’t think it’s so much iOS gloat as much as app gloat. Take a look at their sizes, it’s absolutely bonkers and unjustified.
- jwells89 2y ago
  App bloat really is out of control, to the point that I wonder if maybe Apple shouldn't somehow incentivize developers to minimize bundle size and resource consumption. Maybe well-crafted, efficient apps get an "eco friendly" badge and their own section of the App Store or something.

superfrank 2y ago

You only feel conflicted about this because (I assume) you lived through the phase where smart phones were changing every year and the updates from one phone to the next were regularly pretty ground breaking. People who lived through that era were conditioned to feel that every generation was a massive leap forward and that you were missing out on cool things if you didn't upgrade every year. That's not the case anymore, but it's a hard feeling to shake, especially when companies are still trying to convince us that it's true because it benefits their top line. The truth is that smart phones are just small computers at this point. Most people don't feel conflicted about not buying a new computer every year and you shouldn't feel that way about smart phones. At this point the only people who need (I use that term very loosely) a new smart phone every single year are people who see having the most recent version as a status symbol.

jmyeet 2y ago

Apple is engaging in feature-bloat to protect the $1000 price point. That's all that's going on here. Phones (particularly iPhones0 have stubbornly resisted getting cheaper. That's by design. Features get added simply to make it more expensive. We saw this with the Macbooks about a decade ago. The Macbook Air was fantastic because it was cheap. For Apple it was too cheap. So we got Touch bar. Did it solve any user problems? No. I know a few will say they like it but it was a dismal failure. The only reason the Touch Bar existed was to make Macbooks more expensive. I have been frustrated with subsequent iOS updates because it gets less and less intuitive. Even Safari has a lot of touch points on the screen that do stuff I don't care about. On the iPad there's now split screen. I bet you've triggered this acccidentally or had to solve this for a friend or relative who had. We replaced private browsing mode with "tab groups". Does anyone actually need this? If you don't (and I would posit that's most people) then it's now an extra tap to switch modes. Cut and paste just seems to get worse and worse. It tries to be cleve by selecting a word. It can be difficult and involve several taps to get around this. The original implementation of this was (IMHO) far superior and more intuitive.

gerash 2y ago
I haven't had a Mac with touch bar but I can see the point of the idea: You have a keyboard and mouse as inputs to a Mac. why not a mini touch screen as well? but instead of rendering the app content there you render the controls. this way you don't need to remember shortcuts because common actions for an app are displayed there. IMO the idea makes sense but needs further refinement in execution. maybe even better haptic feedback
- jmyeet 2y ago
  This ignores the issue that physical keys have tacticle feedback that touch screens do not. This is a big issue with modern cars (particularly Teslas). People generally hate touch screens because you have to look at them to use them. For driving in particular, that's a real problem. Compare this to a more normal car where you can feel the AC button or the volume or whatever. Companies like touch screens because it lets them punt on UI/UX design and selecting controls, which means they basically never get done. It's purely a cost issue. Now with Macbooks, I did like that I could slide my finger for the volume. That's it. And that wasn't worth losing the Escape key for. Or function keys for that matter. But that's so specific that I'd rather just have a volume control. A slider would be ideal but that takes up a lot of space. The best compromise is a "roller" (like on the Corsair K70 keyboard) as you can get precision and speed. You absolutely don't want to repeatedly hit a volume up or down button.

yodsanklai 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Don't underestimate the power of marketing.

AOsborn 2y ago

Absolutely agree. I'd say this goes one step further. We hand down older devices to our parents. They are completely happy with a device several generations back. The current product philosophy has completely cut them out as purchasers. They are product users, but will never purchase again. In fact, without planned obsolescence/battery degradation I suspect they would be happy never replacing their phones until they physically broke. It's a shame that they continually slow down to such a degree - the decreased speed is actually the only Apple 'feature' they notice.

bastijn 2y ago

Im there with you, my wife as well as myself are in fact like your girlfriend and I work an highly educated software engineering role. I simply don’t care, still on my iPhone 11 Pro Max which I got as a present from my parents at the time. I think battery power drain is even not fast enough for phone companies to sustain the selling Model. My guess is sooner or later they realize the real control point is software updates and they forcefully shorten OS and specially OS security updates under a bullshit reason they still can get away with to get us all back in line of buying regular phone upgrades in fear of hacked internet banking.

jcgrillo 2y ago
> sooner or later they realize the real control point is software updates That's why I'm in the market for an iphone (and a new service provider), my pixel 5a5g got its final "guaranteed" security update in August. Nothing wrong with the device. Time to de-google I guess..

mihaaly 2y ago

Not only when the battery runs bad. That can be renewed (sometimes, my 1st gen SE from the last batch runs the second battery pack, probably the last batch of batteries available). Also when you are forced by apps you need that want the newest hardware by some reason. I mean when most of them, because some could be missed for a while, but when most you use are just refuse to work, then it is time to get a new one. Not like you need the new app, it is the same like with the iPhone 'features' you mention, but when your bank app cannot connect the bank when it is the newest version minus 2, then it becomes a nuisance. Not like I am afraid of tech, I have cool interconnected home appliances built from raspberrys and make my living on developing desktop tools, but the rampage of the mobile industry is just too much to handle. It does not worth the money and time they demand, getting in the way of my life as much as helping it. By now. It was better but getting worse as we speak.

moffkalast 2y ago
5G is rapidly becoming this. I'm still using a phone that's only a few years old and maxes out at 4G. Lately it's started sporadically losing connection entirely in locations where it previously worked perfectly... meanwhile everyone around me has a five bar 5G signal on their newer models. They've started to do to 4G what they did to E, H and 3G, complete bandwidth reduction to fuckin zero so the latest protocol can hog all frequencies. Planned obsolescence or what? Upgrade or we will slowly reduce your device to a useless brick.
- mihaaly 2y ago
  : (
- secondcoming 2y ago
  Doesn’t 5G piggyback on 4G though?
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    At the beginning, marketers tried to trick customers into thinking that high bandwidth LTE is 5G

ryoshu 2y ago

My daily is an iPhone 12 Pro and I work on bleeding edge tech daily. I don't need to upgrade. It works fine. Had to replace it when it had a battery problem. There are no features I need from the newer models.

dangus 2y ago

Yeah, okay, hardware releases are incremental now. We get it. But someone somewhere has a 5 year old phone with a busted screen and a dead battery and it'll be nice for them to get this phone or another similar new, highly capable device. And they'd probably like to know that this 5-year-newer phone has a whole bunch of new capabilities when they spend a big chunk of money replacing a big purchase. Sure, I don't want to buy a new car. They're expensive and they depreciate. I would like to just keep driving mine, it's fine. But when the time comes that I do buy a new car I do want to know that it has a whole bunch of new, better things than the one I am replacing. Don't forget that Apple makes the perfect phone for your girlfriend: the iPhone SE. The flashy marketing videos are for high-value high-vanity customers who throw money at them. She could buy that type of low-mid-range phone at $400 and run it into the ground until she is forced to upgrade by hardware failure.

foobarian 2y ago

The software mute was the last thing that made a difference in my day to day usage (but didn’t upgrade for it). The next thing I would love and upgrade instantly for is a sealed, waterproof design

epolanski 2y ago

Man I work in IT as a developer and I have absolutely no clue what most of my devices (can) do, and truth to be told I couldn't care less, because if I need something I find out how to do it. My main phone is a 2019 Xiaomi midrange phone, and I just can't tell how's the Iphone 14 I use to test our apps should be better, and I played with it some. I read the economist, hackernews watch some YouTube, play chess and occasionally use messaging apps or check banking stuff. I couldn't care less about editing photos on a phone nor mobile gaming. I know I live in a bubble, but I don't see users around me do much more than I do with the phone. It's not like these products are bad, and I think that people that live on their phone will benefit from all of this. But I'm just not one of them.

benrutter 2y ago

I feel the same way, both in the sense of not feeling most features really add value to users, but also in feeling a little ungrateful and guilty for not caring about this kind of innovation. Recently, I've been valueing repairability more in tech that I buy and it feels like such a breath of fresh air and a bit of an antidote. Particularly, products like fairphone (a smart phone where almost every part can be replaced with a screwdriver) make me really excited, and feel like amazing innovation solving actual problems.

akira2501 2y ago

> It feels ungrateful and cynical to keep calling new models "boring". The church of American consumerism is so galling to me. This is a trillion dollar corporation that famously involves itself in tax schemes to avoid paying the face value rate that any other smaller corporation would have to pay. You feel "ungrateful" or "cynical" because they aren't innovating? Good lord man. Get out of that church.

_gabe_ 2y ago
A more optimistic reading of that sentence is that OP respects the accomplishments the engineers were able to make, but they aren’t impressed. I tend to agree with your sentiment, but reading the whole original post in context does not give me the same take away that you got :)

jwally 2y ago

Its like wine. I can tell the difference between a $4 bottle of wine and a $14 bottle of wine, but I couldn't tell the difference between a $14 bottle of wine and a $140 bottle of wine if my life depended on it.

MarkMarine 2y ago
I also like wine, but it’s rare that I’ve had a $140 bottle of wine that wasn’t actually a $30 bottle, but I was at a restaurant. It is real easy to be underwhelmed by a $30 bottle. I’d also put a bottle of Trader Joe’s 2 buck chuck ($4 cab) up against 75% of the $30 bottles and I bet in a blind taste test it would win. That isn’t to say that people’s taste buds don’t work. I’ve spent a bit of time tasting wine essentially blind (to price) at vineyards, brought that same wine home and been underwhelmed again… I learned that even 30min in a hot car trunk (140F) can change wine. The wine I tasted from the storage cave that was great, sucks when I got it home. I actually tested after I got it home and saw this. I think a lot of the “wine flavors being mysterious and psychosomatic” is actually poor storage. I know Reddit disagrees with me, but now that I climate control my wine when I bring it home, I haven’t had the same issues. This is a fact for beer (hoppy beer specifically) that is well known and pasted all over the Russian River Pliny the elder label. I believe it’s a fact for wine as well. Because I’ve had a couple $100 bottles that were stored well, and the memory of that taste is still with me. I want to find a way to repeat it. (Without spending $100 for a bottle)
- fragmede 2y ago
  And the pour. A cheap $20 aerator gadget will make cheap wine taste better, but you still can't help but know that you're drinking cheap wine.

leptons 2y ago

I'm probably a lot like your girlfriend, and I've been in tech for 40+ years. I'm still very active in tech, but I got over being interested in smartphones after my 3rd one, and I was a very early adopter. My needs were satisfied a long time ago. If I have internet access, and can remote into any of my other dozens of machines, the phone has satisfied most of its purpose for me - allowing me to access all of my computing stuff while away from my main computers. Oh, I also take the occasional call on the phone, but that's very, very rare. The biggest upgrade for me in the last 19 years is the fold-able phone with a much larger screen area. But honestly, the old HTC Wizard that I started with does 80% of what I need a mobile device to do. I don't need or want AI following me around, especially not in my mobile device.

soneca 2y ago

> ”Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years.” I am exactly like this. But I am also use it as an opportunity to upgrade the hardware. For some time it was memory, although now I am pretty done for 256gb. I don’t need more. Recently it was the new processor+camera. I am not big into photography, but I like to take pictures. And I like them to look great, focused, even with bad light, without doing any setting myself (cause I am ignorant how to do it). Just regular picture of trips, or night with friends. I like the 2x and 0.5x zoom a lot also. It is also nice for the new updated apps I use to run fast. My 4 yo iPhone SE not only had a bad battery, but it was very slow already. And, occasionally, some gimmick is actually useful to me, like the notch. I turn off notifications of almost every app, including Uber and food delivery. For those the in-screen info in the notch is very useful. I’ll probably only buy the iPhone 18 next, but it will be nice have the 5x zoom (maybe more by then) at the least.

godelski 2y ago
For memory I've found that I'm much happier setting up a backup to my machines. Currently I'm on a pixel but looking to switch to iPhone. I do my backups with termux, so does anyone know a good alternative on iPhone? I see termus but it requires an account? Can I access my photos from these emulators? Just being able to have a few bash scripts really empowers these devices.

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mattnewton 2y ago

People like new and shiny things even if they don’t use any of the shiny features. There is a contingent buying new cars every decade- those people are buying iPhones every other year. Apple may not sell the most phones but they do make the most money selling phones.

4b11b4 2y ago

You shouldn't call your girlfriend a normie, that's harsh

andrepd 2y ago

"Normie"? Anecdotally and fro personal experience, I'd say the contrary: it's normies that (pushed by advertising budgets bigger than actual product development budgets) are in love with these yearly churn and ditch their Samsung S74 to buy the new and identical Samsung S75. Tech people, on the over hand, are some of the most borderline luddite people I know (me included!)

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> You can add a million features to the camera app there was a huge jump in the quality of my photos when I upgraded to an iPhone 13 (my current) from an iPhone 8. I've seen iPhone 15 photos and they're even better. And I'm not a pro photographer.

hi_hi 2y ago

This is missing the point. It's not about the functionality. It's about the marketing. Apple aren't going to all this effort so you have an amazingly functional product that will solve all your real world needs. They're doing it so you think you need it to solve problem you don't have. Classic FOMO.

r0fl 2y ago

Perhaps with Apple intelligence your girlfriend will just be able to tell Siri what she wants the phone to do and it will get done using a feature she never knew she had

lisper 2y ago

> It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies. It's not just "normies". I'm a senior engineer and I drive an 3rd gen SE. I was perfectly happy with my 2nd gen SE and only replaced it because I wanted more memory. In fact, I preferred the 2nd gen because of the square sides. The 3rd gen keeps squirting out of my hands.

Zak 2y ago

I'm a technically sophisticated user, and I don't want a new phone. I would almost certainly like it less than my current four year old phone. It would have a faster CPU, more RAM, and more storage, but it's rare I run into any of those limits. It would have a better camera than my current phone, but it would still be worse than my Olympus. It would have a bigger screen, but I wouldn't have a bigger hand and that would make it harder to use. It would have a bigger battery, but it would need a bigger battery. It wouldn't have a headphone jack, and I use mine. It might have an AI thing, but I don't want an AI thing. For about a decade after the current era of smartphones launched, they weren't good enough to do all the things people wanted them to, so most people were eager to upgrade when possible. Now they are, and an upgrade usually brings more hassle than excitement.

girvo 2y ago
> It would have a faster CPU, more RAM, and more storage, but it's rare I run into any of those limits I quite honestly cannot think of a single time I've run into any of those limits in at least the last 5 years, personally!
vladvasiliu 2y ago
> It would have a better camera than my current phone, but it would still be worse than my Olympus. This is actually one of the reasons why I changed my phone last year. I don't know about your Olympus, but mine doesn't fit in my jeans pocket, even though it's one of the smaller models. I don't always what to carry a dedicated camera with me, even though I bought a m4/3 specifically because of how portable it was. But I do like to be able to take good enough pictures, and the iPhone enables me to do that.
- Zak 2y ago
  My camera isn't pocketable, but if I'm doing photography such that I really care about the result, I bring it. If I'm not, I usually use the phone camera to document things I want to remember or show other people, and doing that slightly better is not very valuable to me. I'll admit to occasionally contemplating a Ricoh GR III, which is quite pocketable.

jrockway 2y ago

I don't really see these upgrades as being for iPhone 15 users. If you smash your phone or whatever, you get this years model and it's mostly like last year's model except it's not samashed. I upgraded from the X to the 15 Pro Max and it was a nice improvement. Much better camera. Much speedier. Better wireless charging. USB-C. I wouldn't upgrade to the 16, though; looking at the comparison chart, pretty much nothing changes. It can charge faster and record better 4K video. I have no complaints about charging speed and don't know what Dolby Pro Motion even is. When the iPhone 20 comes out, I'm sure I'll be tempted to upgrade. Every 5 years is a totally reasonable upgrade cycle, and enough stuff changes that it feels worthwhile. So for that reason, I don't view the yearly announcements as being anything relevant unless you need a new phone today for some reason. (Though I was in the Apple Store last weekend and saw people happily buying full-price 15s, not knowing Apple's release schedule. That's a shame for them.)

_yb2s 2y ago

Same here… I understand the advances and even like reading about them, but in the end I don’t care about having them- the phones are mature tech that still do the same thing. The annoying thing is that somehow they manage to make it so the same apps doing the same thing either get too slow or stop working over time, so you have to upgrade to get the same functionality. I usually keep a device until it cannot do something I need that it could do just fine the day before…. There’s also the security update thing but I think that is overblown. Ironically, if you have a very old device it ages out of being targeted for attacks. I have never had a very old device get compromised.

brk 2y ago

Hmmm. You are possibly dating my wife.

zer0zzz 2y ago

> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not a chance. I think she would immediately notice because the web of today is always going to be far more bloated than the web of eight generations ago. Trying any dated browser+hardware combo on the modern web is noticeable to all users I feel.

theptip 2y ago

I would agree on say 14->15 but I find it somewhat ironic that this version contains what could be one of the biggest changes in many years; Apple Intelligence is putting local-first LLMs into the OS. I predict that in retrospect this will be considered a watershed moment in computing.

robwwilliams 2y ago
Yes, this is the right take on future phone/assistants. We will be entering a new world of search and much better Q&A. I’m hooked in Claude on my phone and having some local mini AI help could be a game changer

geepytee 2y ago

> It's not that she's unable to understand the advances, she simply doesn't care. Honestly that feels deep to me. I wonder to what extend all of the recent LLM advancements are lost on most people. I also wonder if over a long enough time horizon, the "normies" as you call them catch up, or it goes the other way and the "techies" also start to not care (?)

hbbio 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. Oh yes. Switched from the iPhone X to a 13 Pro only because the battery life became unbearable. Overall, the size/format/handling of the X was *way better*. Even the camera was *better on the X* except in low-light pictures which I don't really care about. The difference is noticeable on 4K screens and print, pictures were truthful without complex image enhancement algorithms that you can't disable (even not in RAW). Etc.

wrycoder 2y ago
I’m still on the X after a $90 battery swap by an Apple shop. I got tired of the small payback doing them myself - and even the iFixit batteries don’t last as long as OEM.

GuB-42 2y ago

The problem with smartphones is that we are all, with few exceptions "normies". I dropped the ball on smartphones, my last one is a $300 Samsung that is actually quite decent for all I use it for. It doesn't take the best pictures but it is not a blurry mess either, more than enough to complement my terrible skills as a photographer, and by that I mean the skill of pointing the camera in the right direction, not that of fiddling with the settings. It doesn't run "heavy" apps, like 3D games, but I don't play these on my phone, the controls and small screen are not great. So I don't need that massive computing power. In fact, I only need these gigabytes of RAM because of how terribly bloated mobile apps have become. And the worst part is that I can't even use my phone as a general purpose computer. Despite being the more open of the two platforms, Android is so locked down that I can't have fun with the hardware and still use it as a daily driver. A smartphone is like a game console, like the Nintendo Switch. The Switch is an underpowered device by today's standards, but who cares about the hardware, its only value is the games it plays, and Nintendo makes damn good games in that power budget, making it a damn good console. Same idea for smartphones, they are defined by the apps they run, and the apps I want to run run on low end smartphones, so why buy an expensive phone For real work, I use a PC, with a large screen, a mouse, a keyboard, and an OS with a usable filesystem, that PC, while decent, is actually cheaper than a flagship phone. And yes, the camera, pretty much the only thing worth getting expensive phones for for most people, but still, there are limits to what these tiny sensors can do. And as I said before, we have already passed to point where for most people the real improvement can only come from the one taking the picture.

jdprgm 2y ago

This effect has been compounding too. I used to upgrade almost every cycle but have been on 11 Pro now and haven't been motivated to upgrade until this 16. It takes the combined changes of about 4 cycles to match the level of interest in upgrading single cycles did in the first 10 years. If I do get a 16 Pro the only thing I can even think of from an upgrade perspective that would make it last less than 5 years would be if on device inference becomes a major thing and there are huge and relevant improvements, everything else is basically mature and I can't see being motivationally better in a few years. People bring up battery as a big thing for upgrading but with the smarter charging that has changed a lot, my 11 Pro is still at 80% max after 4+ years which isn't materially different on a day to day basis for me.

threecheese 2y ago
You are lucky, or have excellent battery discipline. I just had to trade my 11 for a 15, the battery life was terrible (enough to force me, knowing the 16 was imminent). Also backgrounded apps would reload almost every time I swapped, maybe I am just using memory-hungry apps though.

chemmail 2y ago

I'm waiting for 10X optical. There are times where I borrow my wifes s21 Ultra to get a shot i just can't on iphone. Everything else isn't really needed. I haven't even upgraded to iOS17 on my 13. I also have a 14 Pro Max as my gamer but hate the island so i'm sticking to my 13 Pro as daily driver at least 1-2 more years.

bradleyjg 2y ago

I’ve have photos on this phone (12 pro) dating back to 2012 through a series of iPhones. The pictures they take when you press the button have gotten better and better. That’s not even considering the live photos, which are a new thing entirely. Maybe this is the upgrade cycle it’ll flatten out, but I sort of doubt it.

ryukoposting 2y ago

At the beginning of the year, I upgraded to a Galaxy S24 from an LG V35, a phone that came out in 2018. Can my new phone do anything my old one couldn't? Sure. The telephoto lens is really helpful for my blog, and I can shoot in raw format which is also really helpful. Circle-to-search is an astonishing accomplishment. Do I actually do anything with my S24 that I couldn't do with my V35? Not really. All the improvements are nice to have. I could still take adequate photos for my blog with my V35, even if the S24's photos are better. I think I used circle-to-search to find a Chinese candy online once. The simple reality is that I'd still have my V35, and I'd still be perfectly happy with it, if AT&T had ever updated their shitware-riddled fork to Android 9. I was stuck on Android 8. Slack stopped supporting it, which was an inconvenience that I could work around. But, then one of my banks stopped supporting Android 8, and at that point the only reasonable solution was a new phone. The funny thing is, the V35 is noticeably better in several ways. It's lighter and thinner. It has a 1440p display in the same footprint as the S24's 1080p display. It has a headphone jack, and a really good one at that - LG was pushing their hi-fi DAC when Samsung and Apple were dropping the feature entirely.

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tlonista 2y ago

I've been in tech for 35+ years. I've built CPU architectures, I can write device drivers, I can layout an 8 layer PCB, I can design an RF power amplifier. I like the iPhone because it is easier to use than Android. My iPhone 4 was perfect. I'd still be using it if they haven't deprecated the OS and the battery died. I have exactly 6 non-apple Apps on my current phone. I want FEWER features. Integrated it or hide it. Don't make me have to learn about a new button, or switch, or setting or some magical tweak to use the basic features. If enthusiasts want to sniff and twiddle every last setting, go for it: give them dozens of settings until they burst. Just bury those settings away from me, or better yet: have a pro-mode setting that fills the GUI with all these features. I want something easy to use with as few knobs as possible, and the ability to factory reset every app in case I screw up and accidentally flip some esoteric setting. All of my college buddies and age-equivalent work peers (mid/late 50s) feel exactly the same way.

dzhiurgis 2y ago
I think there's massive divide between people who just want a basic device vs (particularly kids) for whom iPhone is primary device. Mixing them together is probably healthy to each other, but definitely annoying both. Quick story - me and my partner were confused why none of the pics you take appear in the gallery. Turns out she filtered to show Shared Photos only...
Aloha 2y ago
You and I both want the phonepliance, I work in tech on highly complex distributed systems, and I use an iPhone because its an appliance, it works, I dont need or want to hack my phone, I just want a phone that works. I just bought my first iPad, going on a work trip next week, gonna give it a whirl, and try that out.

wyager 2y ago

It's OK if we've surpassed the needs and observational abilities of normies and we are now purely pursuing arete for those who can appreciate it. Eventually the level of arete usually passes some threshold that enables new normie-appealing use cases as well.

HumblyTossed 2y ago

I started programming on a TRS80 handheld then quickly moved to a C64. All I ever wanted to do was be a programmer. And as a programmer I still do! But I use my phone just like you described your GF. They’re just not that interesting to me. There is so much more tech out there that is more interesting.

baby 2y ago

What people notice are the folding phones. People look at mine when I unfold it in the subway and I'm convinced that a folding phone user using their unfolded phone in public is going to be a massive marketing phenomena and convert a lot of people. iPhones are not cool anymore, they're just small legacy phones.

sneak 2y ago

Faster performance per watt means fewer watts for the same performance. That is not lost on even casual users. It’s not that they need or want a faster phone; it’s that their existing daily runtime can be in a lighter and thinner device, or a same size device can run longer.

princevegeta89 2y ago

Hmm why are we assuming your girlfriend represents a majority of smartphone users though?

stephenr 2y ago

> Pretty much they buy the new one when the battery of their current one runs bad, typically every 3-4 years. The "upgrade every year" concept never made sense to me, and while I agree that a battery might be the trigger, I think a reasonable number (not all) would still upgrade every ~4-5 years. While there's generally no single groundbreaking feature year to year, over 4-5 releases there are likely enough smaller incremental features/improvements that someone would still upgrade.

faeriechangling 2y ago

I notice the generational improvements in battery life and still have a practical need for them.

randmeerkat 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. It’s coming, the EU brought the USB-C port to the iPhone and in 2027 it brings user replaceable batteries too. [1] [1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/07/13/new-eu-regulations-mandate-user-replaceable-batteries-in-apple-products https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/07/13/new-eu-regulation...

vachina 2y ago

Feels condescending to assume people would not notice nor appreciate improvements. You’re technically correct phones have reached feature parity, but how refined are those features is another story. I can technically do whatever iPhones can do on an iPhone knockoff, but do YOU actually want to use an iPhone knockoff? Please.

scoofy 2y ago

>The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user. Children and teens drive this, not existing adults. If existing adults is how we evaluated usefulness, we’d all still be using the command line on dot matrix screens.

mulmen 2y ago

I am an engineer at a big tech company. I’m not a “normie”. Even for me the new features aren’t compelling. They don’t really help me do anything I actually want to do. They don’t solve a problem or scratch an itch. And features change so often and so drastically I don’t really care to learn. I used to have an optical zoom but now I have super wide angle. My Fidelity widget used to show my balance but now it doesn’t so I just never bother swiping to that page. I assume the current iteration of widgets will go away or be replaced soon so I don’t bother trying to fix it. Whatever, doesn’t matter. Smartphones are essentially solved at this point. It’s an appliance. And just like my washing machine and dishwasher the buttons are arbitrary and clunky but work well enough. I tolerate it. Like I tolerate that burner on the cooktop that doesn’t always work. The only thing that would get me excited is text editing and spellcheck that work correctly.

eviks 2y ago
How can you call it "solved" when such basics as text editing are broken? The dishwasher comparison is also way off, the level of dishwasher interaction is primitive and the frequency thereof is very very low, so it's much easier to tolerate bad design
- deleted 2y ago
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- mrkeen 2y ago
  > How can you call it "solved" when such basics as text editing are broken? I just want to be able to hold backspace in my URL bar until my link is 'polite' enough to share with someone else. I want it to stop clearing the entire field when I'm only halfway through removing the trailing crap.
  - eviks 2y ago
    What would you want next, a modal editor that understands "clean url" as a type of a text object which you could then select&copy in a couple of motions?
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nextaccountic 2y ago

> All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest. This is not my experience. All my life I used slow phones and browsing the web on them is excruciating.

mgh2 2y ago

> Most people don't buy the pro and they're desperate for selling points in the regular model. "Pro Max currently accounts for nearly 40% of new model shipments" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41386700 You misunderstand the business case: she is not the target demographic/user, filmmakers are (as seen on the presentation). Apple's product marketing is 2nd to none. To break it down: iPhone 16 is for photographers, Pro for filmmakers; Watch for sport and health enthusiasts, Ultra for athletes; iPad for media consumers, Pro for artists; MacBook Air for everyday consumers, Pro for working professionals; SEs for newbies to grab competitor market share with price penetration, etc. Research: http://www.marcoshung.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/Apple.pdf http://www.marcoshung.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com...

al_borland 2y ago
I think the iPhone Pro is for anyone who wants extra flexibility with the camera, photo or video. The normal iPhone is for people who couldn’t tell you the difference between macro and telephoto, or don’t care enough to pay extra for it on their phone. I’ve been using an iPhone mini since the 12 came out. I really miss the telephoto and will be getting a 16 Pro (as much as I hate the size) to get the telephoto lens back. I used it fairly often when I had it; I almost never use the wide angle, other than to experiment to see why it exists (I’m sure realtors love it). I would not even call myself a photographer, I just take some picture when I go on vacation, just to remember stuff. However, I like more flexibility than the normal iPhone gives me. I also despise digital zoom. The MacBook Pro is only for working professionals if they happen to be professionals in some kind of graphics (editing videos, digital artist, etc). Work gives me a MacBook Pro, and it’s pretty pointless. I write code; I’m not touching the GPU. On CPU tasks, the Air as the MacBook Pro are going to perform the exact same, assuming there is no thermal throttling going on… and there isn’t. I’ve never heard the fan on Apple Silicon; it used to be on all day every day with Intel. I’d actually prefer if work gave me a MacBook Air.
Loranubi 2y ago
That doesn't make sense. 99.9% of iPhone users are not photographers or filmmakers.

llmthrow102 2y ago

There aren't major innovations in chairs or mugs that make you throw out your whole collection every few years. Smartphones are just becoming a commodity and there's nothing wrong with that.

sweeter 2y ago

I honestly feel that. I love programming like crazy, I use Linux, but I genuinely just don't care one iota what features my phone or TV has... I just want to browse reddit, read webnovels, call my friends and family, watch and listen to music/videos, and take a few pictures. Sometimes I play with Termux. All these other features are just not important. I think the thing I like most about my phone is the OLED screen, which has been basically the only feature I've cared about.

amatecha 2y ago

I seriously wish I could just use my iPhone 3GS still. I mean, maybe with a slightly newer iOS than it supported, but otherwise, for me that was the perfect form factor, and it was such a "focused" product back then.

mandeepj 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse You can still take your old iPhone to a local electronic store or that phone stall at your nearby mall and get that dying battery replaced or check this one https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Battery+Replacement/165733 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+15+Battery+Replacement/1... Yeah - a battery replacement wouldn’t collapse a mere $3T juggernaut

tshaddox 2y ago

If the only reason people buy new iPhones is that the batteries in their old iPhones go bad, why does Apple bother constantly iterating and improving them?

randomdata 2y ago
Competition. Once the battery has gone bad and the user has decided that they are going to get a new phone to replace it, they are going to evaluate Apple's offering against all other phones they can buy. If Apple's device doesn't look as compelling as Samsung's (or whatever), the person is apt to buy something else. But if the battery was working as well as it did when it was new, it is unlikely that the person would have started shopping in the first place. It is the catalyst that sees them move beyond "what I've got is good enough" to "this isn't serving my needs anymore".
- tshaddox 2y ago
  If there is meaningful competition in the smartphone market, and what you say about consumer preferences is true, then surely at least one competitor would make a user-replaceable battery and capture what is supposedly the vast majority of the market.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    If what I say is true, the people are still apt to buy a new phone instead of a new battery. As before, once you've overcome the friction of having to buy something new, you're going to evaluate all the options. But let's assume what the OP says is true. It is still not clear why anyone would do what you suggest? The investment required to be that player would be intense and knowing that you only have one product lifecycle to recoup it... Highly unlikely anyone is that daring. Competition sees players seek to be the winner, not the first loser.
    - tshaddox 2y ago
      I’m pretty sure there would be plenty of players willing to make the investment necessary to capture the majority of the iPhone market even for only a couple of years.

kaba0 2y ago

Statistics indeed show that 3-4 years is the typical time people switch their phones at, but I don’t think your reasoning is sound. You can cheaply replace the battery at any number of repair shops. It’s simply that 3 small, incremental upgrade does make up for a more significant one in the end, though in the future it might end up 4 or 5 years instead, as the changes from generation to generation are smaller and smaller.

larusso 2y ago

I’m with you. My wife is a bit like this but she actually cares for the new features just doesn’t bother to actively look for them. When they showed of all the ways the camera button works I thought: “No normal user will use this to change settings / zoom”. The main usage I see will be: open the camera app. And maybe, maybe take a photo. I’ve been on vacation and used my Apple Watch as a remote for the camera for a group photo. People looked at me as I came down from mars. And it’s not like Apple tries to sell these features. I think their videos and ads are on of the best. I mean they managed to teach pinch and zoom in an ad :)

lynx23 2y ago

I hope she never reads this, or you are in for a "fun" talk. Claiming your gf, who works in IT, wouldn't notice if she suddenly were set back to iOS 9, is a rather bold claim. I am sure you only feel confident writing this because you somehow suspect you aren't being watched :-)

gloosx 2y ago

There are just 5 major use-cases for this thing, and they don't change since 2008: calling, messaging, navigating, camera, note-taking. The rest of what you can do is mostly time-burning and satisfying addictions, which makes the most of the profit I guess.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
Audio is a major use case. Podcasts have grown in audience size dramatically, everyone has Spotify or whatever, and the iPod has long since been discontinued.
- gloosx 2y ago
  That's true, tbh I totally forgot about it since I completely stopped using my phone for audio when they started removing 3.5mm jacks. Adapters don't stick for long with me, and BT headphones I just don't find too convenient. In the end I found my 2008 walkman and it works perfectly to this day. It's built like a tank. It has a replacable 64GiB SD card just for the music. And my latest macbook can now again work with this card perfectly for syncing. No upgrades needed for 16 years. I also don't like the concept of renting the music for listening, instead I prefer to buy it, as directly from the author as possible – so I never used Spotify or whatever. A lot of people are like this actually, I personally know a dozen who won't even listen to digital formats, only physical copies on vinyl, cd, tape, etc. – so it's a bit of an exaggeration to say "everyone is using X"

robomartin 2y ago

They have overloaded the buttons and swipe actions so much that it is impossible for most people to remember (or discover) a bunch of features. Zero points on usability and user-centered design. The ONLY reason I stick with iPhone is Apple's approach to policing privacy and security. Other than that, it was done for me a few generations ago (maybe iPhone 4-ish). I have a 15 now, only because my iPhone 4 started to get weird. I can't see upgrading until iPhone 20 ore beyond. If Microsoft got their heads out of their behinds and came out with a next-generation MS Phone (please don't call is Windows Phone) with true deep integration with desktop Windows as well as the security and privacy features, I would jump over in a microsecond. Sadly, they it seems they never understood this value proposition. There a few simple things. iPhone has broken listening to music and they simply refuse to fix it. Own a large CD library that I have fully digitized into Windows Media Player. I can listen to an album as an album, from start to finish, in order, without doing anything special. Pink Floyd? Bach? Mozart? Just select the record play it as it was written. I can't do that on an iPhone. Or, at least, I have not been able to do it for multiple generations of iOS. To the point where I gave up and have not checked if anything has changed in a while. They model is selling you songs. Which is fine of one hit wonders. I get it. However, Mozart's Requiem isn't something that you should listen to or experience in "shuffle" mode or as songs. I could go on.

vladvasiliu 2y ago

> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED I see sunglasses with polarizing lenses are the new rage. Have her wear a pair and try to look at the phone. I wanted to buy such a pair a few years ago, but I still had an iPhone with an LCD screen, so I went the regular lens way.

spease 2y ago

This is such an absurd attitude to have, on a site for startup news, no less. Having a frequent, iterative release cycle has a number of benefits: - Everyone in the ecosystem knows the rough cadence of when releases will occur - The people and companies involved in those releases have a steady stream of work - If something isn’t ready, it can more likely be dropped without the consequences becoming overwhelming, which would force the company to push back a release and screw up the schedule of many other things - If something isn’t working, it can be quickly removed in a subsequent release rather than having to push out an out-of-band release - There will always be people looking to casually buy a phone, and this ensures they’ll probably always get something reasonably current rather than it depending greatly on when they buy. - People are much more likely to delay a phone purchase for most of a year rather than switch ecosystems for a killer feature. If it’s two years, they’re probably more likely to switch ecosystems (and if it misses that next release, they would have to wait four) - Holidays come annually, this ensures gifts are “this year’s watch” and not “last years’s watch” Really, I think Apple should be commended for tweaking and refining things, rather than making big BS lateral changes to justify a product release. Also, not all the changes were “incremental”. The camera changes and SoC improvements are pretty significant for people who make use of them. I saw 30% and 2x bandied about for some things. As for “she opens it and presses the shutter”. That’s pretty much the optimal UI for a casual user, no? There’s a ton of work going into making it that easy to use for everything that goes into the picture that comes out. The whole point is that people aren’t aware of it. They don’t know how fast the lens is or the resolution of the camera, they just know if they get a newer device the pictures will be a little better than the previous device. And that’s probably all they care to know. No one is making you or your girlfriend upgrade every year. It looks like phones as far back as the 6s or the 8 are still supported, so by all means, keep using a phone until it’s 8 generations old. As others have pointed out, you can replace the battery for a reasonable cost, too. Of course Apple doesn't want to - their whole business position is that it’s a premium product for people who are purchasing an “experience”. They’d rather have the freedom to customize the internals to optimize performance than be limited by affordances sufficient to allow non-tech-savvy users to replace the battery. The latter of which is probably at odds with it being simple, waterproof, durable, and thin (eg a tiny screw or some kind of latching mechanism ).

octocop 2y ago

idk man, it feels like you are hatin' more on your girlfriend than criticising Apple.

Biganon 2y ago
Don't know about "hating", but I do wonder how she would feel if she were to read his comment. I couldn't be in a relationship with a woman I consider a "normie" whose use of a phone is sharing cat videos on Facebook. Jeez.

hedora 2y ago

I’m typing this on the last mini. I have huge hands. This phone is too big for them. My second biggest complaint is that the 5g modem eats an insane amount of battery when it has weak single (20% in 10 minutes. I set an automation to force airplane mode.) My third complaint is that the se3 is missing the UWB radio (and I actually use it!), so when this phone dies, I’ll need to get a refurbished phone. My typical budget for a phone refresh is $1000, but apparently my money isn’t good enough these days.

fragmede 2y ago
you might have better luck with battery life if you switch voice and data to "5G auto" instead of "5G on" in cellular options which chooses to only use 5g only when needed for performance to optimize battery life.
- hedora 2y ago
  I did. 4G only and 5G only are both worse than 5G auto, but they’re all basically unusable without automatically enabling airplane mode.

jiehong 2y ago

When you sell phones to most of the population, it’s not only about the need of average users, but about the needs of everyone. You live close to another country and switch languages all the time? (Very normal in many places in the world) well, then you’re happy translating photos or copying text on them work without cell coverage. You have some disabilities and can’t see much anymore? Local AI can describe what your phone sees, ans help you navigate places more easily. You like photography, but your neck hurts because you carry that DSLR everywhere? Better cameras on your phone mean more people stop carrying those. When you sell to everyone, a niche feature for some is a crucial feature for others. It’s no longer about averages.

werid 2y ago

> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know they even exist. there's no manual to read. apple does not inform you in any way. finding out new features is by word of mouth. so annoying. i should not have to discover features on my very expensive phone by random chance via watching a tiktok video!

saagarjha 2y ago
Have you tried the Tips app?
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  The fact that a helpful comment had to inform me of this apps existence really says it all. Just ship the damn documentation on the device.
iteratethis 2y ago
Indeed. A typical major iOS version has hundreds of new features. New iOS features are typically announced at the WWDC event. Which is a developer event that surely no normie watches. But even if they did, it's still a summary featuring like 5% of new features. Normies may not know or suddenly discover features introduced a decade ago.

linux_devil 2y ago

True , for the matter if jsut like a privacy feature , we can turn off certain features which are not required and it can significantly maintain the battery. Yes, we do have Iphone battery power save mode but I am just curious how efficiently it can optimise battery power saving

benterix 2y ago

> If the iPhone would have true user-swappable batteries, their business would collapse. It's not entirely true: apart from hardware measures, they also use software to enforce phone upgrades.

ksec 2y ago

I think She will notice one thing, and that is battery life. The new OLED, new SoC, new Modem, along with slightly better battery all means that you should be getting 20-30% more battery life when all things being equal. But what you said is true I think a lot of people would be happy with the upcoming iPhone SE, which is basically a iPhone 14 with single camera, Apple modem and A18. On the assumption that the Modem isn't too bad. ( Not too sure if it will be 8GB or 6GB memory, which could mean getting Apple intelligence support or not )

v7p1Qbt1im 2y ago

I think people don't actively notice most of these things. But they sure as hell notice when you take them away after. A good example of this is ProMotion. People don't notice high refresh rate when they first get a Pro. but they do notice when you use it for a few weeks and then go back to 60hz. Same for a lot of other things.

jsjohnst 2y ago

> You can add a million features to the camera app but she opens it and presses the shutter. Even the most lax laymen of photographer would notice the tremendous difference in photo quality between an 8 year old iPhone and today. I’d argue even from 13-15 it was a big bump, but certainly going back 8 generations.

ErneX 2y ago

AFAIK the 15 Pro Max is their best selling model, so “most people don’t buy the pro” seems wrong.

throwaway290 2y ago

> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED There are no LCDs in current lineup, I think. > nor would she notice Pro-motion This is kind of like "no one notices reduced air pollution". Yeah, but some people actually notice and even for those who don't it is a quality of life improver. > All the spectacular advances in computing power are lost on her as this makes zero difference for the Facebook cat video group and Pinterest Then she didn't need the Pro version or even iPhone 16 at all. I have a friend who does photo/video as hobby and photos he takes are mega cool. He will benefit from pro camera. Another friend does commercial video and only shoots on iPhone. He will benefit from pro video capabilities. Most people will not benefit from a pro. By definition. That's why it's pro. > It's becoming ever harder to justify new models for normies Is that a problem? I use iPhone 11. It works. I don't feel like I need the 16 or the pro. What's wrong with not having to buy latest devices if they are built to last?

mewpmewp2 2y ago
I think people absolutely notice new screens and scrolling, but the thing is with their current setup they have accepted the conditions. It's one of those things when you've tried the new thing, you don't want to go back to the old thing because scrolling will seem laggy, and screen will seem bad. So it's not necessarily that you need it, but once you have it, you can't go back.

rowanG077 2y ago

I'm not conflicted at all. All these normies pay top dollar for things they don't need or really want. But the advances are real. And now we have dual stacked oled with insane brightness. We have a supremely high end CPU gpu combo in the m3 Max CPU. Something I do care about. Basically apple was able to fund enthusiast level R&D by asking people who don't care about to pay for it. Every enthusiast should be grateful.

benterix 2y ago
I have flashbacks from the time first LED screens appeared. They had lower resolution and overall quality (at least for gaming) than the CRT monitors I was using. I knew it will take time before they get on a par with CRT monitors (and overtake them since that market was basically abandoned) but wondered who will pay for all this R&D? Well, everybody did. Everybody were buying crap monitors for decades and at some point these became quite decent - at least models like Apple displays for example.

koliber 2y ago

Apple uses software updates to drive hardware sales. There are some relatively minor iOS features that appear here and there that make me want to upgrade the OS. And one day I find myself with hardware that works for me, but I can no longer upgrade to the latest version of iOS.

midtake 2y ago

Your complaint is that the iPhone is too good? And your assertion that their business would collapse is false. You can already replace batteries through Apple and their business model hasn't collapsed. It's just not "true" enough for you so that you can end your post with a dramatic flair.

Clubber 2y ago

I completely agree. I've worked in tech as a coder for 27 years and I find all the features of the iPhone annoying and inhibitive. When the settings app has 8 pages of scroll, something's gone sideways. I'm running an XS Max currently.

aaron695 2y ago

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wmoxam 2y ago

I’m a software developer and I barely care about the new features. I’m on a 13 and the only ‘recent’ change I’m interested in upgrading for is usb-c.

whatjadat2 2y ago

"that normie"? Are you 5 years old? You are not in some exclusive elite club, you are just as normal as anyone else.

Saris 2y ago

I'm just thankful for the people that do upgrade to every new model, it keeps the used market alive for those of us that want a 2 year old phone for cheap.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

My biggest peeve with iOS or iPadOS is that if you sync photos or SMS with your iPad, you will eventually run out of storage. I don't know why Apple doesn't do a "rolling" storage for these apps, it feels so broken. I'm never buying another iPad if they don't fix this, I'll pay their competitors instead who sanely allow you to decide which photos to download for offline viewing, and which ones to keep. I will always have way more storage on my phone than my tablet. There will also be a time where my iCloud Photos storage will surpass the available physical storage Apple gives you for your phone, so I don't understand this weak design. Worse is the Messages app, which insists on downloading every gif, photo and video I share to my iPad as well, as if I need them available for offline use all the time, no Apple, if I needed to see any of it, I would download them manually. iOS and iPad OS need to be smarter about their Photos and Messaging apps, they're really dumb. What's the point of iCloud if it forces everything downstream when I'm not asking for it.

throwaway894345 2y ago

I think this was really well written and insightful, but I disagree about the extent to which your girlfriend is representative (and not based on her education or anything). Most normies do notice dramatic improvements in battery life, camera quality, and screen quality. My tech-illiterate family may not know what OLED is or how it works, but they definitely prefer the OLED TV to the LCD. Similarly, they can tell a stark difference between a 5X telephoto and a 5X “digital zoom” photo or a macro photo versus an attempt to take a close-up photo without the macro lens. Similarly they will notice the improvements in low light conditions over models that are 6+ generations older. Further, the AI features (enabled by new hardware), for better or worse, will probably be a dramatic change in how people engage with their phones. I’m writing this from an iPhone 11 and I’m sure I’ll notice some stark differences if I upgraded to the 16, and I even notice big differences when I use others’ newer phones as well. I sincerely admire your girlfriend’s penchant for simplicity, I just don’t think that represents most people IMHO.

nprateem 2y ago

LOL. Your naivety is so sweet :D New features aren't for users. They're for the media so the company gets publicity and we have conversations like this and don't forget about them. Imagine if Apple said "we're done, users have all they need", but Samsung kept putting out new features nobody wants or needs, and press releases and launch events... It's obvious what would happen to Apple, right? Your average user has no idea what the buzzwords mean either, and that's for a reason. God knows why I need titanium, but I know it's strong and probably expensive so helps justify the price. 120fps? Who knows, but it's more than 24 or 60 so it must be good, etc. The features page goes on and on, gushing with how easy things are, high pro quality, time saving, etc. Features are there to bamboozle buyers and overwhelm them with "benefits" to justify the high price. Frequent releases are for regular publicity. Heaven forbid any of this is actually because users want any of this stuff.

mattbrewsbytes 2y ago

Adding features to smartphones for the last few generations is akin to more buttons in the MS Office ribbon/menu. Or any other commoditized product that adds gimmick features. Its compelling in the sense that these organizations feel compelled to continually release things. No other real reason exists. You could probably classify much of product development for smartphones as bullshit jobs at this point. They are as useful to society as someone adding features to an ERP system.

Certhas 2y ago

In the EU we are going to get user replaceable batteries: https://repair.eu/news/new-eu-rules-smartphones-and-tablets-will-follow-new-ecodesign-requirements-by-june-2025/ https://repair.eu/news/new-eu-rules-smartphones-and-tablets-...

QuadrupleA 2y ago

I'm probably as techie as they get, but I'm 100% with your girlfriend. I don't care. The smartphone industry has not delivered anything truly novel in a decade or more, it's been endless fussing about notch vs no notch, which slightly-different form factor is back in fashion, etc. And on a lot of fronts has made things worse - bloated many-GB apps, ads, spyware, attention sucking practices of all kinds, poorly policed and overloaded app stores, etc.

tomjen3 2y ago

I am going to have to disagree. You do not have to be a techie to appreciate beauty and enjoy an OLED screen even if you can't tell the technical difference. There is certainly a segment where "it takes photos" is a boolean, not a scale (my mum being in that group), and they will be perfectly happy with cheap Androids.

WhyNotHugo 2y ago

I can understand and relate to this perfectly. In the past, I used an iPhone 11 or 12. At some point, I got fed up of the issues around FaceID with face mask and/or glasses. I switched to an older iPhone SE with a fingerprint button. The switch didn't feel like a downgrade at all. I didn't miss any of the new fancy features. The only real downside that I ever noticed is the camera, which doesn't have night mode. The thing about infinite growth, is that at some point things are "good enough" for users, and they have no reason to upgrade. So companies have to create problems to force them to upgrade, like device locking down the device and not offering new software support, or preventing users from swapping batteries.

wing-_-nuts 2y ago

>The reality though is that normie needs were accomplished several generations ago. I'll use my girlfriend as a sample of such user. >She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. I recently had a similar realization. Last year I finally bit the bullet and decided to build out a decent 'home office' setup. I have a tendency to research something to death before I make a purchase. I read all about monitor resolution, viewing distance, field of view and viewing angle. I had multiple different calculators. I measured my typical sitting / viewing distance down to a fraction of an inch. After doing all this, I initially thought surely, I needed a 32" 4k 144hz screen. Nothing else would do. Then at the last second after reading up on fractional scaling issues with linux, I decided on a 27" 1440p screen. It's fine. It turns out I am not the discerning conesour of pixels I thought I was. Yes, I can see them if I look hard enough, but I don't really care. I should have known. The most productive I have ever been as a dev was as a teen coding away on a 800x600 crt! Maybe I'll eventually get a 4k screen if I upgrade to a 5090 or whatever, but I have found that buying n-1 off the bleeding edge is the absolute sweet spot when it comes to capability.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
I came to a similar realization when I had to go back to a non retina macbook a couple years ago (after using retina). Other than the larger display scaling you really can’t tell or see the pixels at the distance you would comfortably use a laptop. Same thing with my TV. Its 1080p and I can’t see the pixels. I’d have to spend hundreds upgrading my tv and xbox to 4k and for what? It wouldn’t look any better 10 feet away on the couch.

sholladay 2y ago

Sounds like she would love the new camera control. AI is also normie feature. A big one. Say what you will about its limitations and inadequacies but to a normie, GPT is a search engine with superpowers and an intuitive UI. Improved autocorrect and call screening, smart reply in Mail, transcripts and summaries for audio recordings in notes or from phone calls… these are all things normies will love. The technical crowd will dismiss them, afraid of inaccuracy or the model hallucinating. To a normie, it’s just the computer being helpful with everyday tasks. The only real hurdle will be how simple the UI is. Some of these features will be easy to access, while others might not be obvious.

elAhmo 2y ago

> She can't tell the difference between LCD and OLED nor would she notice Pro-motion. Most people do notice a difference there, maybe not instantly with a few second glance, but using one over another is definitely visible. I do think it is not a reason to upgrade for most people. I consider myself quite technical, and I also upgrade fairly rarely - with 14 Pro I will either wait for next year or the year after that. I think there is a main point people usually forget - new phones are not for people who have bought an iPhone in the last few years, rather than people who have 5-6 year old phones, Android users, new people coming into smartphone market. That market is huge and the differences for those people is definitely perceivable. With non-pro version having a lot of the features from a pro version from the years before, it is a great time to buy the latest phone.

geonic 2y ago

I have an iPhone 11 Pro. One of the lenses is broken and it makes a weird snaring sound while recording video. Battery life is still okay at about 80% capacity. It does everything I need it to do without fail. If it weren’t for those defects I’d keep it at least for another year.

rurp 2y ago

> You could set her back 8 iOS versions and she probably wouldn't notice. Because she uses none of the hundreds of features released since. Not because she dislikes them, she doesn't know they even exist. Which seems totally fine to me since those features probably don't solve any real problems that she has. It's weird to me that the tech industry has this implicit idea that every product has to get better every year and users are missing out if they don't follow along. Not all products work that way indefinitely and that approach is driven more by corporate financial reasons than by anything else. Apple starts from a position of "How can we continually increase our sales of this product", not "How can we make the best possible product for users". There can be a lot of overlap there, but not always. The number one rule with corporate product and sales is: Number Go Up. Consumers shouldn't have any obligation to follow along though.

astrowilliam 2y ago

I'm a senior front end React dev and I also don't care about most of the features on my phone. Notes, email, phone, text, maps and my bank. Other than that, I don't care much about other features on my phone.

consf 2y ago

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barnabee 2y ago

Agree that at best the majority of the updates these days are nice to have, if that. But I’ll buy every other new “Pro” phone if it takes noticeably better photos, regardless of everything else.

timbo1642 2y ago

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barfingclouds 2y ago

Yeah that’s how I feel. I feel like the iPhone 7 could handle all the daily use cases just fine. Every phone after is cool but doesn’t accomplish anything

kaycey2022 2y ago

Sorry but hi. It’s me, your girlfriend. Only I’m actually in an engineering role.

salad-tycoon 2y ago

I surprised an 18 year old, intelligent and fairly tech savvy, when I showed him the share>find on page search function in Safari. Figured everyone knew that, or at least he and his demo would. No idea how wide spread it is, anecdotal etc.