8 ms·

Name for me one brand new feature. This is a product update, this isn't deserving of a new version number, and it certainly isn't "the biggest thing to happen t

Name for me one brand new feature. This is a product update, this isn't deserving of a new version number, and it certainly isn't "the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since iphone". This isn't to say it's a bad device, just infinite hype for zero payoff.

evan_ 14y ago
> Name for me one brand new feature. LTE
- morsch 14y ago
  That's just an implementation detail of an improvement of an existing feature.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    Then wireless charging and NFC could be counted as mere improvements (of existing features, i.e. cable charging and scanning barcodes) too!
    - camiller 14y ago
      Well, to be fair, NFC is capable of two way communication where scanning a barcode is one way communication. You are comparing galaxies to apples ;) As an android (GS3) user I would have liked the iPhone to get NFC (and NFC based mobile payments) for the simple reason that the more phones capable of NFC payments the more merchants are likely to support it which benefits all of us (or at least all of us interested in paying for things with our phones). The same argument would hold true for wireless charging, but it would probably be unlikely for Apple to adopt the emerging "Qi" wireless charging standard and instead roll it's own.
      - evan_ 14y ago
        > Well, to be fair, NFC is capable of two way communication where scanning a barcode is one way communication. OK, then NFC is just a slightly improved Wifi+Bonjour.
      - fleitz 14y ago
        You could use the front facing camera and display a barcode on the iPhone screen. Voila NFC. I know I'm going to take down votes for this, but for 90% of the population NFC is a solution in search of a problem. For most people cash, credit, or debit work just fine. NFC isn't a 10X better payment solution. Most people have to carry something on them to carry cards, drivers licenses, etc in which they will place their payment card. Instead of fiddling with your wallet, now you're fiddling with your phone. NFC is as silly as using bump for payments.
        camiller 14y ago
        Fair enough, but there are at least some point of sale systems that have NFC already, I have yet to see a system that is set up to display a barcode for the phone to read and then read a barcode on the phone (without moving the phone).
        jarek 14y ago
        > For most people cash, credit, or debit work just fine. Phones worked just fine for most people in 2006. Phones' screens were just fine in 2009... Paypass and Paywave are a considerable improvement over chip and PIN or singing a slip of paper. Faster, less fumbling. Necessary, no; an improvement, yes.
        fleitz 14y ago
        Ok... lets rehash... The iPhone was a 10X improvement over what was out there, if you upgraded your whole phone experience got better. Retina was a 4X improvement (4X as many pixels) after looking at retina the 3GS looked ugly, if you upgraded your entire phone experience got better. Now lets take a look at what happens if you get an NFC phone, you still have to take your wallet, and then you have to ask everyone whether their payment system supports NFC. 95% of the time you're going to be taking out your wallet. It's not a 10X improvement therefore adoption will be slow. And it still doesn't work when the power is out unlike cash. I'm actually starting to go away from any payment system that isn't cash, because cash is universally accepted, even the Olympics takes cash. If NFC was on par with the aforementioned features it would be in the new phone.
      - pooriaazimi 14y ago
        I think Apple is betting heavily on PassBook, which I think is superior to NFC, but would eventually fail if it's not an open standard (and even if it was open, Google and others would never use it because not using it would hurt Apple more). Maybe they should've integrated PassBook with NFC... I think their decision to go with PassBook will backfire (like Thunderbolt did - It's even more niche than Mac itself!) and they'll add NFC in iPhone 6 like they added USB3 support. That said, I'm not in a market that either of these technologies are likely to be used in the foreseeable future (5-10 years), so I personally don't care one way or another :) NFC/PassBook catching on just make me more jealous!
        Steko 14y ago
        I don't think they are betting heavily against NFC or that passbook is superior to NFC. I think Apple sees more profit potential in leveraging Apple IDs for payment and they are cautiously hoping it will take off faster then NFC but won't hesitate to swap NFC chips in if that starts to see widespread adoption.
      - bduerst 14y ago
        Exactly. I was really looking forward to p2p payments over NFC phones.
  - r00fus 14y ago
    That kind of thinking would have said that the WWW was just a slight improvement over gopher back in the 90's.
    - morsch 14y ago
      I'm not sure what you mean. 3.5G to LTE is a simple improvement along a one-dimensional axis - bandwidth. Maybe two metrics, if you want to account for the latency improvement. There are no such straightforward metrics for comparing Gopher and WWW. So no, that kind of thinking does not arrive at WWW being a slight improvement over Gopher. That's not to say incremental improvements to existing features, such as LTE, can't be reason enough to sell a device (note that wasn't the question, though). As others have pointed out, though, Edge to 3G felt like a more significant step than 3G to LTE, though, just as 56k to 1 Mbit DSL felt like a more significant step than 1 MBit to 16 Mbit or 16 Mbit to 50 Mbit.
podperson 14y ago
Most cellphone makers will come up with a new product name or number because someone sneezed at the factory, and you're complaining that Apple went from 4 to 5 in two years merely because they improved every single aspect of the phone? Gee. Tough crowd.
batista 14y ago
"infinite hype"? Where? They announced an event, the day came, they announced the product. A slogan like that on the product announcement/product page, does not amount to "infinite hype". If you want to see "infinite hype", check the Microsoft Courier and other hypeware, in which videos were made, the press touted it for months, it was announced to be "the future" and nothing came of it. "Zero payoff"? Really? It's an amazing device to upgrade to, after your 2-year contract ends, even if it doesn't have magic unicorn powers. It's the best iPhone YET made, period, I don't think someone can argue against that (and no, it's not a guarantee with any product update to be better than the last one). Your response amounts to the proverbial: "No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame". >Name for me one brand new feature "Brand new" is used here to preempt any mention of the tons of incremental improvements?
- quaunaut 14y ago
  Every previous iPhone had a new feature that was a pretty BFD. This is the first without.
  - unfoldedorigami 14y ago
    LTE
  - roc 14y ago
    Funny, I seem to recall that the disillusioned techie reaction to the 4S was that it was also a non-update. Same shell. Modest internal updates and the only feature of note (Siri) was panned as an app that Apple bought that merely caught it up to other phones that already had voice control.
    - wmf 14y ago
      One problem with the 4S was the rumors of an iPhone 5 with a tapered design. (If you Googled for iPhone it would autocomplete "iPhone 5" — I guess bad rumors are now self-reinforcing.) At least this time the rumors were accurate and people can't complain that they were expecting more.
  - 14y ago
think-large 14y ago
>Name for me one brand new feature. Navigation App
- wahsd 14y ago
  Third party apps exist and it's in no way a new feature. Next thing you know you'll call Angry Birds a new feature if they ship it with the phone.
bratsche 14y ago
Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution? It's a better phone than the last one. If you're not impressed, don't buy one.
- rodion_89 14y ago
  > Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution? I completely agree. But Apple has a habit of making it seem like everything they do is revolutionary. It's very good marketing. > Apple reinvents the phone [1] > This changes everything. Again. > The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone > A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price > Resolutionary Again, I agree with you. But what I'm getting at is that Apple's brand of marketing creates a lot of hype and I'm sure they like it that way. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20070113215301/http://apple.com http://web.archive.org/web/20070113215301/http://apple.com
  - cheap 14y ago
    Dear Mister Obvious, Every marketing team ever has created hype. Ever.
    - freyr 14y ago
      Right. And when Apple creates hype, people for some reason buy into it. In droves. I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this.
      - rodion_89 14y ago
        > people for some reason buy into it It's not just "some" reason. They have one of the best marketing departments in the world who do an excellent job. > I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this. I'm blaming Apple for doing a damn good job of marketing their products.
  - acomar 14y ago
    What I don't get is why the comments of "meh" are getting attacked with so much vitriol.
m_eiman 14y ago
Let's compare this to the changes in Samsung Galaxy S3 compared to the S2: - Slightly larger screen - Faster CPU - Improved camera - Added LTE - Faster Wifi - Added NFC - Added a couple of sensors - Better battery life - Heavier Not a whole lot different from the iPhone changelist, and I bet it's not a whole lot different from any other phone maker's changelist between generations either.
- tjoff 14y ago
  Let's compare the time-frame. Last time the iPhone had such a changelist was in june 2010. The S2 came out 12 months prior to the S3. When you only release one phone every 24 months people are right to expect more. That, or you could compare the S2 with S3 against the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S...
  - kahawe 14y ago
    But Samsung didn't deliver any magic in the S3 - and what could Apple have delivered as a super-duper-WOW feature? I cannot think of any technologies out there that they haven't squeezed in there yet and I don't think "wireless charging" is anything to really care about, novelty and "OMG!" factor aside. Adding NFC would have also been just catching up and personally, I cannot see the benefit from NFC and it looks like Apple can't either. So what is left then? What COULD they have added to floor people? Nuclear reactor? Drones? I cannot think of anything.
Steko 14y ago
I'm not aware of any phone shipping this month that's a true Cortex A15 device. There are a lot of Krait phones, but that's a half step away.
batista 14y ago
>Every previous iPhone had a new feature that was a pretty BFD. This is the first without. Larger screen. It's a BFD for some people, for they have been tearing their hearts out at forums for ages how Android has that and the iPhone doesn't. And 3G -> 3GS didn't bring anything to the table. Or 4 to 4S for that matter, considering that Siri was already available as an app.
kisielk 14y ago
I think people complaining about the tag line are missing out on the obvious pun.
branchan 14y ago
This isn't deserving of a new version number? Tell me, how many Samsung Android devices are there?
jsz0 14y ago
it certainly isn't "the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since iphone" If you look at the changes between previous models it really is. Just about every single component has been upgraded. There have never been this many changes at once in an iPhone. The 3GS->4 upgrade comes close but when you get into the sort of second tier of features the 4S->5 list is quite a bit longer. If you're judging it by significance of the upgrades that may be a little different. I think the 3GS->4 still wins out there. On the raw numbers though the 4S->5 simply has more changes.
kahawe 14y ago
> Name for me one brand new feature I don't understand all the negative reactions - name one brand new and truly "wowing" feature the new Galaxy brought to the table? Pretty much all modern smartphones are at the technological cutting-edge and I cannot think of much they could possible squeeze into those things. You already have all sorts of sensors and pretty much all connectivity options you could possibly want and it can do frakking 3D games in the palm of your hand too and play music and videos and etc. NFC could be interesting but I am happy enough with paying with my CCs or directly playing with my ATM card in a LOT of stores here in Europe. I don't see what paying-over-NFC could do for me. And wireless charging? Sounds incredible and very "sexy" for the average user but really, very "meh" for me. You still going to have to plug something in somewhere... I could not care less. I can understand people feel a little disappointed but really, what was everyone expecting??? ALL current smartphones were just relatively small updates to existing models. Everyone is doing the "xx% slimmer/lighter/longer/bigger" increments and has been for some time now. There was no "paradigm shift" in ANY one of them. What were people hoping Apple would do... add a nuclear reactor or some drones or what?

evan_ 14y ago

> Name for me one brand new feature. LTE

morsch 14y ago
That's just an implementation detail of an improvement of an existing feature.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Then wireless charging and NFC could be counted as mere improvements (of existing features, i.e. cable charging and scanning barcodes) too!
  - camiller 14y ago
    Well, to be fair, NFC is capable of two way communication where scanning a barcode is one way communication. You are comparing galaxies to apples ;) As an android (GS3) user I would have liked the iPhone to get NFC (and NFC based mobile payments) for the simple reason that the more phones capable of NFC payments the more merchants are likely to support it which benefits all of us (or at least all of us interested in paying for things with our phones). The same argument would hold true for wireless charging, but it would probably be unlikely for Apple to adopt the emerging "Qi" wireless charging standard and instead roll it's own.
    - evan_ 14y ago
      > Well, to be fair, NFC is capable of two way communication where scanning a barcode is one way communication. OK, then NFC is just a slightly improved Wifi+Bonjour.
    - fleitz 14y ago
      You could use the front facing camera and display a barcode on the iPhone screen. Voila NFC. I know I'm going to take down votes for this, but for 90% of the population NFC is a solution in search of a problem. For most people cash, credit, or debit work just fine. NFC isn't a 10X better payment solution. Most people have to carry something on them to carry cards, drivers licenses, etc in which they will place their payment card. Instead of fiddling with your wallet, now you're fiddling with your phone. NFC is as silly as using bump for payments.
      - camiller 14y ago
        Fair enough, but there are at least some point of sale systems that have NFC already, I have yet to see a system that is set up to display a barcode for the phone to read and then read a barcode on the phone (without moving the phone).
      - jarek 14y ago
        > For most people cash, credit, or debit work just fine. Phones worked just fine for most people in 2006. Phones' screens were just fine in 2009... Paypass and Paywave are a considerable improvement over chip and PIN or singing a slip of paper. Faster, less fumbling. Necessary, no; an improvement, yes.
        fleitz 14y ago
        Ok... lets rehash... The iPhone was a 10X improvement over what was out there, if you upgraded your whole phone experience got better. Retina was a 4X improvement (4X as many pixels) after looking at retina the 3GS looked ugly, if you upgraded your entire phone experience got better. Now lets take a look at what happens if you get an NFC phone, you still have to take your wallet, and then you have to ask everyone whether their payment system supports NFC. 95% of the time you're going to be taking out your wallet. It's not a 10X improvement therefore adoption will be slow. And it still doesn't work when the power is out unlike cash. I'm actually starting to go away from any payment system that isn't cash, because cash is universally accepted, even the Olympics takes cash. If NFC was on par with the aforementioned features it would be in the new phone.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      I think Apple is betting heavily on PassBook, which I think is superior to NFC, but would eventually fail if it's not an open standard (and even if it was open, Google and others would never use it because not using it would hurt Apple more). Maybe they should've integrated PassBook with NFC... I think their decision to go with PassBook will backfire (like Thunderbolt did - It's even more niche than Mac itself!) and they'll add NFC in iPhone 6 like they added USB3 support. That said, I'm not in a market that either of these technologies are likely to be used in the foreseeable future (5-10 years), so I personally don't care one way or another :) NFC/PassBook catching on just make me more jealous!
      - Steko 14y ago
        I don't think they are betting heavily against NFC or that passbook is superior to NFC. I think Apple sees more profit potential in leveraging Apple IDs for payment and they are cautiously hoping it will take off faster then NFC but won't hesitate to swap NFC chips in if that starts to see widespread adoption.
    - bduerst 14y ago
      Exactly. I was really looking forward to p2p payments over NFC phones.
- r00fus 14y ago
  That kind of thinking would have said that the WWW was just a slight improvement over gopher back in the 90's.
  - morsch 14y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean. 3.5G to LTE is a simple improvement along a one-dimensional axis - bandwidth. Maybe two metrics, if you want to account for the latency improvement. There are no such straightforward metrics for comparing Gopher and WWW. So no, that kind of thinking does not arrive at WWW being a slight improvement over Gopher. That's not to say incremental improvements to existing features, such as LTE, can't be reason enough to sell a device (note that wasn't the question, though). As others have pointed out, though, Edge to 3G felt like a more significant step than 3G to LTE, though, just as 56k to 1 Mbit DSL felt like a more significant step than 1 MBit to 16 Mbit or 16 Mbit to 50 Mbit.

podperson 14y ago

Most cellphone makers will come up with a new product name or number because someone sneezed at the factory, and you're complaining that Apple went from 4 to 5 in two years merely because they improved every single aspect of the phone? Gee. Tough crowd.

batista 14y ago

"infinite hype"? Where? They announced an event, the day came, they announced the product. A slogan like that on the product announcement/product page, does not amount to "infinite hype". If you want to see "infinite hype", check the Microsoft Courier and other hypeware, in which videos were made, the press touted it for months, it was announced to be "the future" and nothing came of it. "Zero payoff"? Really? It's an amazing device to upgrade to, after your 2-year contract ends, even if it doesn't have magic unicorn powers. It's the best iPhone YET made, period, I don't think someone can argue against that (and no, it's not a guarantee with any product update to be better than the last one). Your response amounts to the proverbial: "No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame". >Name for me one brand new feature "Brand new" is used here to preempt any mention of the tons of incremental improvements?

quaunaut 14y ago
Every previous iPhone had a new feature that was a pretty BFD. This is the first without.
- unfoldedorigami 14y ago
  LTE
- roc 14y ago
  Funny, I seem to recall that the disillusioned techie reaction to the 4S was that it was also a non-update. Same shell. Modest internal updates and the only feature of note (Siri) was panned as an app that Apple bought that merely caught it up to other phones that already had voice control.
  - wmf 14y ago
    One problem with the 4S was the rumors of an iPhone 5 with a tapered design. (If you Googled for iPhone it would autocomplete "iPhone 5" — I guess bad rumors are now self-reinforcing.) At least this time the rumors were accurate and people can't complain that they were expecting more.
- 14y ago

think-large 14y ago

>Name for me one brand new feature. Navigation App

wahsd 14y ago
Third party apps exist and it's in no way a new feature. Next thing you know you'll call Angry Birds a new feature if they ship it with the phone.

bratsche 14y ago

Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution? It's a better phone than the last one. If you're not impressed, don't buy one.

rodion_89 14y ago
> Why does every new phone have to be a fucking revolution? I completely agree. But Apple has a habit of making it seem like everything they do is revolutionary. It's very good marketing. > Apple reinvents the phone [1] > This changes everything. Again. > The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone > A magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price > Resolutionary Again, I agree with you. But what I'm getting at is that Apple's brand of marketing creates a lot of hype and I'm sure they like it that way. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20070113215301/http://apple.com http://web.archive.org/web/20070113215301/http://apple.com
- cheap 14y ago
  Dear Mister Obvious, Every marketing team ever has created hype. Ever.
  - freyr 14y ago
    Right. And when Apple creates hype, people for some reason buy into it. In droves. I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this.
    - rodion_89 14y ago
      > people for some reason buy into it It's not just "some" reason. They have one of the best marketing departments in the world who do an excellent job. > I don't understand why so many people blame Apple for this. I'm blaming Apple for doing a damn good job of marketing their products.
- acomar 14y ago
  What I don't get is why the comments of "meh" are getting attacked with so much vitriol.

m_eiman 14y ago

Let's compare this to the changes in Samsung Galaxy S3 compared to the S2: - Slightly larger screen - Faster CPU - Improved camera - Added LTE - Faster Wifi - Added NFC - Added a couple of sensors - Better battery life - Heavier Not a whole lot different from the iPhone changelist, and I bet it's not a whole lot different from any other phone maker's changelist between generations either.

tjoff 14y ago
Let's compare the time-frame. Last time the iPhone had such a changelist was in june 2010. The S2 came out 12 months prior to the S3. When you only release one phone every 24 months people are right to expect more. That, or you could compare the S2 with S3 against the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S...
- kahawe 14y ago
  But Samsung didn't deliver any magic in the S3 - and what could Apple have delivered as a super-duper-WOW feature? I cannot think of any technologies out there that they haven't squeezed in there yet and I don't think "wireless charging" is anything to really care about, novelty and "OMG!" factor aside. Adding NFC would have also been just catching up and personally, I cannot see the benefit from NFC and it looks like Apple can't either. So what is left then? What COULD they have added to floor people? Nuclear reactor? Drones? I cannot think of anything.

Steko 14y ago

I'm not aware of any phone shipping this month that's a true Cortex A15 device. There are a lot of Krait phones, but that's a half step away.

batista 14y ago

>Every previous iPhone had a new feature that was a pretty BFD. This is the first without. Larger screen. It's a BFD for some people, for they have been tearing their hearts out at forums for ages how Android has that and the iPhone doesn't. And 3G -> 3GS didn't bring anything to the table. Or 4 to 4S for that matter, considering that Siri was already available as an app.

kisielk 14y ago

I think people complaining about the tag line are missing out on the obvious pun.

branchan 14y ago

This isn't deserving of a new version number? Tell me, how many Samsung Android devices are there?

jsz0 14y ago

it certainly isn't "the biggest thing to happen to the iphone since iphone" If you look at the changes between previous models it really is. Just about every single component has been upgraded. There have never been this many changes at once in an iPhone. The 3GS->4 upgrade comes close but when you get into the sort of second tier of features the 4S->5 list is quite a bit longer. If you're judging it by significance of the upgrades that may be a little different. I think the 3GS->4 still wins out there. On the raw numbers though the 4S->5 simply has more changes.

kahawe 14y ago

> Name for me one brand new feature I don't understand all the negative reactions - name one brand new and truly "wowing" feature the new Galaxy brought to the table? Pretty much all modern smartphones are at the technological cutting-edge and I cannot think of much they could possible squeeze into those things. You already have all sorts of sensors and pretty much all connectivity options you could possibly want and it can do frakking 3D games in the palm of your hand too and play music and videos and etc. NFC could be interesting but I am happy enough with paying with my CCs or directly playing with my ATM card in a LOT of stores here in Europe. I don't see what paying-over-NFC could do for me. And wireless charging? Sounds incredible and very "sexy" for the average user but really, very "meh" for me. You still going to have to plug something in somewhere... I could not care less. I can understand people feel a little disappointed but really, what was everyone expecting??? ALL current smartphones were just relatively small updates to existing models. Everyone is doing the "xx% slimmer/lighter/longer/bigger" increments and has been for some time now. There was no "paradigm shift" in ANY one of them. What were people hoping Apple would do... add a nuclear reactor or some drones or what?