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I still remember when the first iPod came out and the tech press called it boring. I was not interested at all, but when I saw one in person I was blown away. I
by Camillo 14y ago
I still remember when the first iPod came out and the tech press called it boring. I was not interested at all, but when I saw one in person I was blown away. I never bought an iPod, because I didn't need one, but right there and then I understood how much the tech press didn't get it.
Same thing with the unibody MacBooks, to say nothing of the Air. Had a MacBook and a much less expensive PC laptop from the same generation in the house; I'm still loving the MacBook, while the PC is long forgotten.
Even bigger effect with the iPhone. That one looked impressive from the start, but it made a world of a difference to actually hold one in your hand.
The iPhone 4 had the Retina display, and so that time the nerds were actually salivating over it, because the higher resolution could finally be expressed as a number and put in a chart. Nah, just kidding, the nerds were adamant that nobody needed that many pixels anyway, and preferred to argue about the "Retina" monicker. As for myself: waited until I saw it in person, was blown away again.
I'm not going to buy an iPhone 5. My iPhone 4 is still serving me fine. But from past experience, I know that the only good way to evaluate an iPhone is to actually hold it in your hand and use it. That's why I'm more interested in the impressions of a Gruber holding an iPhone 5 than in those of a bean-counter holding an iPhone 5 data sheet.
PS: just a small concession to the specs game: are you sure "the S3 beats the pants off the iPhone 5"? If you do a google search, you'll find as many people saying the 5 beats the S3 as those who say the opposite. Geekbench scores for the S3 are all over the place (check the browser). Then there's the question of whether most apps can scale to a 4-core processor as well as Geekbench does. And then there's the fact that the iPhone 4 performed much better in practice than higher-clocked Android phones of the same era. I'm sure Android has gotten "snappier" since then, but we should have learned a few lessons by now.
- backprojection 14y agoI recently bought an SIII to replace my old, broken Galaxy Nexus (cracked screen from being hit by an SUV). I ended up buying another Galaxy Nexus, and will sell the SIII. On paper the SIII blows the Nexus out of the water, but after using both for 2+ weeks, the SIII feels like shit to me, compared to the Nexus. It may just be because the Nexus is on Jelly Bean, and the SIII is (embarrassingly) still on ICS, or maybe its Samsung's TouchWiz that slows the phone down. So I definitely agree with you; my anecdote matches your experience. But I'd still say the iPhone should be compared to the Nexus, rather than the SIII.
- blrgeek 14y agoOh - I should have had a disclaimer. I had a first gen iPod, iPad, a Powerbook G4, a Macbook, and now a Macbook Pro. I LOVE Apple products, and am in no way disparaging the absolute impact they've had on the rest of the industry. I've influenced a dozen people to go Apple, and told many others that the right phone for them was an iPhone, and not an Android. But reading Gruber's syrupy review, when the iPhone 5 is just not as 'revolutionary' as it's made out to be, and as if other phones which do better on specs, size, battery life, LTE, don't exist was just a bit too much. Gruber's 'review' doesn't belong on HN.
- blrgeek 14y agoOn the S3/Specs - I was looking at the 4-core version on geekbench - 1853(S3) vs 1601(iPhone5). Ref: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1052786 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1052786 Of course, since Android has multi-tasking, at least the OS can take advantage of the cores that the front-end app can't. Android is definitely not as 'snappy' as iOS. But JB is a LOT 'snappier' even on my single-core Nexus S. I readily take your point - Apple's iPod, iPhone, iPad were magical when they came out. And they continued that with iPhone 4S, iPad3 displays. But their competition has not stood still. The improvements in the iPhone 5 are not 'revolutionary' - there's nothing there that's pushing the envelope - 'merely' incremental improvements. Not that it's bad, but it's hyped way over what it is.
- Camillo 14y agoWeird, here it says 1344 (S3) vs 1601 (5). Ref: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1052719 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1052719 Oh wait, that's Android 4.0.4. My bad. Here's with Android 4.1.1: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1045167 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1045167 You're right about multi-tasking, but single-task performance is still important for many apps. Assuming Geekbench scales linearly, the S3's single-task performance would be about half the iPhone 5's.