Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales | Hacker News Reader

Apple to slice iPhone production 10% due to sluggish sales

asia.nikkei.com

189 pointsjseliger426 comments

Usually I have upgraded, but I currently have no intention of buying an iPhone 7 or later, unless they fix something!

For me it's a double whammy. I don't like the lack of headphone jack, and whereas I feel like I could manage grumpily ... for me it kills the excitement of buying the new device, and I think that is important. (My standard listening headphones are Etymotic ER-4Ps; there is no way I am going to downgrade to AirPods).

But the bigger part of the whammy is iOS. iOS is completely terrible at this point. I just can't consistently control the phone. A large percentage of taps or swipes do things I did not intend (how many I'm not sure -- 20%? 33%?) It's just completely crazy. They need to get rid of 3D touch, get rid of double-tap one-hand accessibility mode whatever it's called, get rid of weird swipes from the edge, fix the horrible inconsistencies in the way autocorrect works (or, please, offer a system that just underlines words-thought-to-be-wrong without changing them, and let me tap on them to change them, or use the current autocorrect system but let me tap on a word to un-"correct" it, the fact that the current system just changes what I typed and gives me no recourse to fix it apart from laborious deletions and re-typings, which I often have to do 2 or 3 times, is just haughty and offensive)... and in the meantime, might as well redesign the rest of the UI. Because right now the phone is not a joy to use, it's a constant exercise in frustration. I haven't felt good about using iOS since sometime back around iOS5 or 6.

So it's no mystery to me why sales might be slowing ... I don't want a new one if it's going to continue the downward trend.

>My standard listening headphones are Etymotic ER-4Ps; there is no way I am going to downgrade to AirPods

The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

Also, you can disable 3D touch and reachability (the double-tap home button thing) in the accessibility settings, if those are causing your issues.

>offer a system that just underlines words-thought-to-be-wrong without changing them, and let me tap on them to change them

If you disable auto-correction in the keyboard settings, it acts just like that.

"It just works"

> The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

Yeah, no. When will I need this dongle? Exactly when I left it somewhere else. Then Apple will need a "Find my Dongle" application next to all the other "Find my*" applications.

I am not going to buy expensive spare dongles just so I don't rage when I realize I left the dongle at work so now I can't listen to music in the garage while I work on my projects. I am not going to carry it around all the time with my phone just in case I need it. The removal of the 3.5mm jack is a failure by Apple.

I just keep mine connected to my headphones, since I use them more with my iPhone than a computer. Also someone made a cool keychain to attach it to if that works better for you. [1]

> expensive spare dongles

They're only $10 USD.

[1] https://uncourage.com/

Only $10??? That is a lot of money for something that shouldn't be needed in the first place. I haven't spent $10 dollars on my phone since I bought a case for it in 2013. Then again, I have expandable memory and a headphone jack (Galaxy Note 3).

Alright, so you spend $800 for a phone, and you're complaining that you can't spare $10?

I'm not saying removing the headphone jack to make the phone a mm thinner wasn't a retarded move, but... Really? $10?

I thought the removal was to recycle the space while making waterproofing easier.

The removal is to introduce a way to control which headphones are connected and to get license payments in the future.

The removal is to sell dongles

Doubtful. My guess is within 1-2 generations max the iPhone will have USB C to follow the Macbook line.

This statement is false.

Ah, true. That was mentioned as well.

It's amazing that people would pick an extra millimeter trimmed off or waterproofing over a headphone jack (I assume they did surveys..?).

If I buy an $800 device, I make sure it does what I want it to do with the least amount of friction (add/replace my other hardware).

What if I buy a router today and there is a company that sells routers with a nice gui, but all the rj45 jacks are removed and it requires a dongle on the power jack to be able to connect a rj45. (For some reason it comes with a dongle but that requires the router to run on batteries)

Anywho, I am not the guy that is going to buy apple hardware anyway. So I don't really have any impact on apple if I don't buy anything.

I'm buying a second-hand iPhone 6s instead of an iPhone 7 because of the headphone jack (mainly out of principle).

It's just that I see so many comments arguing that dongles are expensive... The problem is not that they're expensive. I agree that they suck, but I can't possibly believe that people that can afford to spend $1000 on an iPhone Plus all of a sudden can't afford a $10 or $29 dongle.

Agreed, if you buy it then it is your own responsibility to know that it requires more than just the money for the phone.

Then again, some people buy expensive cars and are surprised about the high price of spare parts. I guess many consumers like to pay a big amount of money for a single product, and not a big amount + 10 small amounts for a product that needs multiple other products during its life.

Its like a phone case, we all wish it wasn't necessary to have one, but many people buy cases because the phone needs it to stay nice/safe. And I don't think there is a solution readily available that makes phone cases abundant for those people.

Why bother with expandable memory if you haven't bought a memory card for it in over 3 years?

Bad comparison, memory cards are a clear need (gotta have more storage space) and are not responses to poor design decisions (gotta counteract a port I use every day being taken away).

A clear need for you isn't a clear need for everyone. Maybe I have all my stuff in the cloud, so I don't "gotta have more storage space". Meanwhile I've been using Bluetooth headphones for a decade now, I have no need for the headphone port.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Apple fanboy. But the real injustice here is that they're clinging to their proprietary Lightning port instead of going with the standard USB-C. That is complete bullshit.

> A clear need for you isn't a clear need for everyone.

This goes both ways.

It matters less as phone storage finally drops below $1 per GB, but traditionally it was not fun to pay 5x as much as a good-quality microSD, and that's if they even have the option to put in enough in the first place.

I have 5+ pairs of headphones. One for home, one for the office, one for the gym, and then a couple of spares for when I lose any of the main 3. I have the iPhone 7 and I end up carrying the dongle around in my jeans pocket when I am able to remember it. I'm certainly not paying $10 a pop for spare dongles when most of my headphones didn't even cost that much.

Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

> Getting rid of the headphone jack is by far the dumbest move I have seen on the iPhone in a long time.

Then why did you get the iPhone 7? Should have voted with your wallet

Unfortunately I have a life saving medical device that only is compatible with the iPhone. I switched from Android to the iPhone 7 because of this.

Somehow I can't understand how a life saving medical device would require a smartphone of a certain brand, but even if this is the case you could have gotten the iPhone 6 for example

I'm a type 1 diabetic. There is a device by Dexcom known as a continuous glucose monitor that reads my blood sugar via interstitial fluids and then transmits the information via Bluetooth.

When I get unexplained low blood sugars in my sleep, which is believed to be the cause of Dead in Bed Syndrome, it sounds an alarm on the iPhone to wake me up before it's too late.

As for going with the iPhone 6

1) my money would still have gone to Apple

2) I didn't think about what a pain it was until after I bought them

Side notes

1) I have contacted Dexcom regarding an app for Android, but it doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon.

2) I also tried an open source version for Android, but after purchasing 4 phones in a row that it had varying problems with I decided my life was worth more than being able to stay on Android.

[EDIT]

Diabetes is the number 7 leading cause of death in the United States and low blood sugar is the number one reason for ER visits by Type 1 diabetics.

Thanks for the clarification, and yes, T1 Diabetes is dangerous.

I have Dexcom CGM as well and I just use the hardware alarm that comes with it. The battery lasts days longer than a phone's and it is small enough to fit in my pocket with my phone. I'd argue you would have been safer buying Android and being forced to rely on Dexcom hardware instead of an app.

Yeah, that was what I tried at first. Unfortunately I'm an extremely heavy sleeper and the alarm on the Dexcom device doesn't wake me up. My wife was waking up to the alarm and then she would wake me. She travels frequently for work though so that wasn't ideal either.

Also though, which model do you have?

I have the G4 Platinum w/Share. The sensors for it now ship with a warning sheet stating that you may not receive audible alarms due to issues with the speakers.

Ah, yes, I've had that heavy-head issue, but I wouldn't think your phone would be louder than that alarm. Is it?

I have G5 with Share (I think; I have a drawer full of old Dexcom stuff) and have gotten the same letter, but haven't had that issue. I definitely trust it more than Dexcom pairing with the phone. I'm glad your setup is working for you, though.

Replying here to your other reply since you can't nest that deep.

I know there have been some changes on the G5 so I'm not clear how that works.

With the G4 the Dexcom CGM acts as a proxy to the phone. So when everything is working correctly I get two alarms. So this gives me a certain level of redundancy. Anyway it works for me well enough that I can get a full night's sleep. For years I had alarms set to wake me up several times during the night.

[EDIT]

Also, responding to your question about the phone being louder than the Dexcom. The phone is an order of magnitude louder than the G4.

$2 per on ebay. Just throw 20 bucks at it and buy one for every pair you have.

Why are people so desperate to defend this clearly user hostile move? A dongle is a poor user experience and continues to degrade user experience over time. The fact that there was a market demand for a "cool" keychain shows how unnecessary the removal of the jack was. Believe it or not, people enjoy using things without unnecessary accessories that you have to keep track of and swap around

I do not like the audio jack in my phone. Sometimes the headphones slide halfway out and the sound gets distorted.

I, for one, agree with the decision to let go of the audio jack.

I think the best use case for a dongle would be the first MacBook Pro I bought. They had phased out the VGA port for a DVI port, but included a DVI to VGA adapter in the box. The great thing about that is it simple a physical wiring adapter with no other logic inside. It worked well and no one complained since carrying the adapter in the bag with the laptop is not a big deal.

In the case of the iPhone 7 the laptop bag is my pocket which has much more limited space and a hard connector getting situated in the wrong spot could end up being uncomfortable until readjusted. Additionally it is not just a wiring adapter. The Lighting to 3.5mm adapter actually contains a DAC and ADC inside of it which unfortunately causes the audio quality to suffer slightly compared to a higher quality dedicated DAC/ADC solution inside the phone.

http://ifixit.org/blog/8448/apple-audio-adapter-teardown/

The conclusion on sound quality at the bottom of your link:

"when playing an uncompressed 16-bit audio file on the iPhone 6s, the dynamic range dropped from 99.1 dB at the headphone jack to 97.3 dB at the adapter. Though keep in mind, this slightly lower measurement is still higher than the theoretical maximum you get from a compact disc (which is 96 dB). So, is it a difference you are likely to notice? If you sit in a quiet room with a really, really good pair of headphones … and you’re a canine, the answer is: maybe."

Believe or not only few care about that lousy jack. Most will use earbuds that come with the phone, others will permanently have dongle attached to their headphones. And those who go AirPods way will forget jack ever existed.

> those who go AirPods way will forget jack ever existed

I'm pretty sure that this market segment, while surely it exists, will never overlap with those who care about good sound quality and a good music listening experience.

In other words: they're leaving significant market segments behind.

Are you implying there are no good Bluetooth headphones ? A2DP and aptx solved those issues long ago.

I will not upgrade to a phone that does not have a 3.5mm jack.

But arguing this is a poor user experience is probably wrong for most people. Apple is correct in that this is the way things are going. I bet all the Flagship Android phones will be jackless too soon.

I am hoping they are not as apple-copying

There are rumors:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/06/samsung-galaxy-s8-ru...

> Why are people so desperate to defend this clearly user hostile move?

Partly because even months before the iPhone 7 came out, sales of wireless headphones overtook those of wired.

http://qz.com/745108/wireless-headphone-sales-just-hit-a-tip...

People are already using it without unnecessary accessories.

They're about $2 per on ebay.

I have just one pair of headphones that I use daily. How many dongles would you need to have one for every set of headphones?

The headphones stay on the desk at work. Then there is the old set of Altec Lansing speakers in the garage. There are a few more spots that I rarely use, but they all have 3.5mm connectors.

> The removal of the 3.5mm jack is a failure by Apple.

It's been a total non-issue for me. Since the iPhone 7 comes with both the adapter and Lighting headphones work/home usage isn't a problem. I just use the adapter + existing headphones at home and the Lighting headphones at work.

The adapter will go away in the future, it's just a technology to get people on the jackless train. I'm sure iPhone 8 will no longer support it.

That's sort of what I found. I thought it was going to be a major inconvenience because I don't like talking directly on a phone without headphones and a mic.

It turns out that what I really don't like is having a conversation on a Samsung phone with the consistently awful earpieces Samsung puts in them (Note 4, S4, Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S...). I've been pretty happy with the iPhone 7 earpiece.

My plea to Samsung: you guys make killer displays; couldn't you figure out how to make an earpiece that isn't awful?

You can get a dongle attacher, like this one for the magsafe 1 adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/Cozy-Industries-MC-RD-1-2-MagCozy-2-P...

You'll probably want to pick up a dongle attacher attacher as well.

In my experience, the amplification that this adapter provides is not enough for larger headphones.

Larger headphones like what? Impedance should matter there, not size, and it would surprise me to learn that there are high-Ω headphones that an iPhone can drive effectively, but the adapter can't.

A sysadmin I work who has had Apple-everything for years (iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPhone, Apple Watch...) with walked in last week without his Apple Watch.

Asking him about it, he pulled out a new Pixel and said it was for op's very reason. In particular he noted that the pixel had a much better DAC than any one iPhone he'd ever had - and in particular that it could drive all of his higher end headphones. He also mentioned that the new iThing adapter has it own DAC inside the adapter... it's apparently powered by the lightning port with its own drivers - and that he had tried it out anyway but found it incapable of properly driving any of his nicer headphones.

I wonder how those dongles work for blind folks that use a headphone to connect to ATMs? I know the AirPods and lightning head phones are a no go for them.

Also, I need to buy a 3rd party dongle since power is also important in my car and I'm not buying a new car because of a phone.

I have headphones in multiple places, so I keep the dongle attached to the phone and realize it's scratching the phone or irritating my pocket. This was clearly a broken by design / apple screwing over consumers more / form over function insanity. They should have used standard USB-C for the damn phone too. Their laptops now standardize on it, but they still use proprietary crap on the phones.

Not an Apple fanboy, but the Lighting connector is way better designed than any USB connector, so I wouldn't call it crap. Proprietary, therefore sometimes annoying yes, but definitely not crap. The USB connectors are equally annoying when you try to insert them. With USB type A I always have to inspect the tip of the connector and the plug, and micro USB is always a pain to insert properly leading to connector damage at both the cable and the device ports.

The decision not to include a phone jack in the iPhone 7 was a crappy decision insteaead.

The USB-A/microUSB strawman notwithstanding, USB-C has the capabilities you're talking about (easy to insert, reversible).

Given that USB-C requires roughly the same vertical space as the headphone jack, the one thing lightning has going for it from my perspective is that it works in a phone too thin for a headphone jack.

USB-C didn’t exist when the Lightning connector was introduced.

It did when the iPhone7 was released, and had already been released on quite a few Android phones.

Sure, but having already invested goodwill and money in Lighting, the benefits of switching to USB-C would have to be substantial before it makes sense for Apple to do so. To reality is that for most of Apple's users, USB-C offers no discernible advantage and quite a few disadvantages (having to buy new cables and peripherals again).

>USB-C offers no discernible advantage

Well, besides being able to charge your phone from your laptop charger, use the same USB flash drive in your phone and laptop without an adapter, use the same powered noise-cancelling headphones in your laptop and phone, connect your phone to your projector/monitor/TV using the same adapter as the laptop, and so many more.

So, there are some benefits if you already have other devices that use USB-C. Most people don't however. Not yet. What people do have, is tons of crap that is Lighting compatible.

You're absolutely correct - these things can all be fixed. I think the main point is that it kills the excitement of getting a new expensive device. It just becomes more and more work to regain the control back.

That's the thing I find really interesting about this debate; one of the things that creates excitement for me with new Android devices is customizing it to work exactly how I want. Turning things off, changing default behaviours, IFTTT-ing the device until it's hard for anyone else to actually use.

Same with Precision Touchpad laptops (Dell XPS 15 for instance), changing all the swipe gestures to work exactly how I want. I always joke with my colleagues that if they can use my laptop efficiently, then I'm not done setting it up yet.

I totally get that it's a difference of expectations, it's just interesting to me.

Please don't ever design something meant for public use :)

You don't want designers who realize that everyone doesn't share their taste in how things are configured?

>The phone comes with a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter, so you can continue to use your existing headphones.

What if I want to use my headphones while charging my phone?

Quite a few companies sell adapters that allow for this.

So now you need two dongles for one set of earphones.

And how is the quality of the DAC in that adapter?

Sure sounds great!

I can definitely relate to that. Using iOS at this point frustrates me so much that sometimes I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6 to remember what a wonderful UI and UX that was.

The bigger problem is the lack of alternatives. Android is such a mess of inconsistencies and bad UX, added to that are the problems with system updates, lack of a proper flagship device (the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my opinion), and the fact that I don't like the Google ecosystem very much because of the way Google handles my data.

I really hope Apple gets back on track with iOS or Google finally nails it with Android so there would at least be competition. But at the moment, using 'mobile', for me, is more frustrating than it was in 2012.

So much this, damn. 2016 felt like everybody was just walking backwards.

I share your sentiment about Google. They look like they only do the minimal effort possible for Android not to die -- and since they get a lot of user data and ad revenue, they're not trying very hard since they're not taking hits in the wallet. That's not good enough for me, and IMO many other people. I personally have been witness to 3 tech-savvy businessmen who were excited to support Android finally give up and go full Apple. It was a pretty sad story listening to their motivation but I can't blame them because I found myself in 99% agreement with them.

I have the Exynos S7 Edge which for me is pretty much the one and only Android device which is close to perfect. I plan holding on to it until I see something that really excites me, until the release of iPhone 7s / 8 that is. If I like the 7s / 8 I'll just buy that and honestly call it quits with smartphones for at least 2 years.

Had enough of being milked for money for practically no upgrades at all for quite a while. Only Samsung and Apple are really trying -- mostly in the internal storage space.

"They look like they only do the minimal effort possible for Android not to die"

I can understand some Android users have frustration over carrier issues. But every version I have used has been a significant improvement over the prior, especially under the hood. I suppose one can argue that Android allows for too much end user customization (directly or by third party) but I would rather suffer that than the alternative.

Android also runs on old harware. My LG G2, ancient by many measures, runs Android 7.1.1 via AICP and is more responsive in every way than the original stock 4.3. Unless I shatter the screen, there is no reason to replace this phone. Granted, custom ROMs are beyond grandma but for anybody with marginal tech know-how there are step-by-step guides to upgrade. Yet, iPhone owning friends with older models first complain about iOS updates being 'slow' and then eventually run to the store to "upgrade" their phone to the latest iVersion.

IMHO to say Google does just the minimum, especially compared to iOS, is not really the case.

Android is an awful offender in terms of allowing every app under the sun to run in the background however. Does stock Nougat have a system app that allows you to white/black-list which apps can/cannot run in the background?

Samsung's SmartManager allows you to do so and it improved my battery life. Not by 100% but having in mind how notoriously bad Android's standby battery life is, even 2 more hours of SOT is a huge win.

What I am trying to say -- and I don't disagree with all your arguments, please have that in mind -- is that Google can step it up a lot more on the front of the housekeeping, yet they don't.

How long is gonna take for all us techies to realize that the non-tech people hate maintaining tech? Why doesn't Android (and iOS) have mechanisms for never allowing the device's cache to exceed a certain amount, for example?

Again, I don't disagree with you: your arguments are fair, but I believe mine are too.

EDIT: One of the things that seriously alienated me from Google's "vanilla" take on Android is them never allowing mobile Chrome to have content blockers. The amount of trash scripts and popups/popdowns out there on the web is astounding. Actions speak louder than words. I guess they don't want their scripts being blocked as well. That, or they are incompetent.

Yes. It has a high degree of control for that. I use many of these features; am running stock 7.1.1 Nougat on a 64GB Nexus 6P.

Would you point me at a web source? I'm considering a Nexus 6P with Copperhead OS, not Google's vanilla Android however.

I am very curious to find alternatives to Samsung's SmartManager.

BTW I am not talking about the "Data Saver" feature. I am talking about iOS-level of disallowing apps in the background -- they are killed and not allowed to run a single millisecond on the CPU, no questions asked. The "Data Saver" is a very minor and niche improvement.

> I pull out my iPhone 4S running iOS 6

Does iOS still spam you multiple times per day to "upgrade" to the latest version of iOS? That sort of constant nagging has me seriously thinking of ditching Apple products entirely.

It annoys the hell out of me when apps do this, but I'm very forgiving when it comes to operating system upgrade prompts. The reason is simple: unpatched/out-of-date operating systems tend to have a lot of security exploits. This is also why I've learned to live with Windows 10's mandatory updates.

It would annoy me a lot less if Apple (and the rest of them, to be honest) didn't just change stuff for the sake of change. Like oh hey, let's change four finger swipe up gesture to not be a toggle. Just because. Or, oh hey, let's just remove your battery life indicator. Ugh. Makes me scared to update anything.

Is it really just because? I've seen this mentioned before, but there must be some reason right?

I've never owned an iPhone (or any i* devices), so I have no experience here, but aren't the folks at Apple likely to do stuff for a reason? Or are things really that bad?

They've recently screwed up enough things badly enough to severely abrogate user trust, and I don't think they even realize it.

I try very hard to understand why they do some things, and come up short. With a lot of the minor UI tweaks, it's certainly not based on any real-world research, because some of the tweaks go against what's already established or being published in journals.

They probably do have reasons, but as to what they are, no idea. And as to whether their reasons are beneficial to the user, in many cases I can say no, absolutely not.

This happens because you have the iOS 10 update (or whichever version) downloaded but not installed. If you delete the update from Settings -> General -> Storage & iCloud Usage -> Manage Storage, and turn off automatic app updates so it doesn't get downloaded again, the prompts go away.

Worked for me on iOS 9.3.5 after another HN user recommended it, anyway. Older versions I'm not sure about, but it can't hurt to try.

Serious question: why do you not use the "upgrade during off-hours" option? With my iPad it usually takes a few times because it's not on the charger that often. I always assumed a phone would be (I'm on Android).

Because just blindly upgrading is a REALLY bad idea, as with OS X. I wish I could downgrade some of my iDevices to an earlier OS.

made the mistake of upgrading a friends \phone thinking it needed it like an android device...nope basically bricked it. I mean the 4s worked but but it was essentially not usable at that point. Gotta love planned obsolescence.

I assume they don't want to upgrade. I wish I had just put up with the incessant upgrade nagging/trickery because of how much I dislike iOS 10, especially with how much they changed basic stuff that I have muscle memory for.

I actually wish I could go back to iOS 6, but I've never been a fan of the flat UI style.

Isn't Apple just as bad as google with user data?

I feel that all of them, apple, google, facebook, amazon, they all disregard our privacy.

Actually no, privacy is a point of difference between Apple and the other companies. Apple has very different philosophy regarding user data. Generally they try to keep it on your phone and they don't suck everything up into their datacenter, as they aren't in the business of selling ads. That's why their "intelligent assistant" stuff isn't as good as Google's.

Google sells your data for $$. It is their main income stream. Apple doesn't. They don't want your data and don't enter markets in fact because they don't want to monetize you or your data.

Google sells access to your data for $$ (i.e., ads). They wouldn't sell the data itself, that would devalue it.

It's somewhat reassuring seeing Apple stand up to the FBI, which I haven't seen any other company of their size do. There may be other examples but I've missed them.

Potentially relevant (although less so with no more fire phone)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/...

Didn't Apple recently start selling targeted ads for the app store?

Not the same as Google/FB of course but the fact that they can target an ad based on some profile means they have the data.

They're not really targeted. You just purchase keywords for your app and then they can display it at the top if someone searches for those words. They're not doing anything fancy like seeing what other apps you have or using any of the information they may or may not have about you.

http://searchads.apple.com

They could hardly be more different. See:

https://www.apple.com/privacy/

Pff. All bullshit.

  Finally, I want to be absolutely clear that we have never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will.

Did they forget that they participated in PRISM since 2012???

All empty words if you ask me.

I feel that all of them, apple, google, facebook, amazon, they all disregard our privacy.

You feel that?

Don't get me started on Google. They are so huge only because they had a halfway decent search engine. Their Android OS as you note is a mess. And you think that's bad? You should try their TV/DVR app on their Google Fiber service. It is a complete tire fire. Google absolutely SUCKS at UI.

I won't argue about Apple, they are not perfect, they are after all human, but for the love of $DEITY they seem to be the only ones capable of decent UI. It always needs polish, OS X, iOS etc, but its much better than the tire fire alternatives out there.

And people complaining about the lack of headphone jack, Samsung, as usual, copied apple right after and removed it too. So, whatever.

> Google absolutely SUCKS at UI.

My favorite Google UXs (by FAR) are Chromecast and Google Home. Especially together, they're magical. Is it a coincidence that there's no GUI there (OK, there kind of is for Chromecast, but only just)?

Google Home can pause/resume anything playing on any Chromecast or group of Chromecasts, even if Home didn't start the playback. It (play/pause) even works with apps like Plex which Google Home knows nothing about. It's gotten to the point where I'll find myself getting up to go to the bathroom at the movies and almost saying "OK Google, pause theater" (I'm not being hyperbolic, the thing which stopped me was not knowing what word went at the end of the command). Great UX, but no GUI.

Update: I use and love Android, but I wouldn't call it magical. It fits my usage patterns, but it definitely has some rough edges.

"the Pixel is a joke compared to the iPhone 6s in my opinion" That's a very unusual opinion. Most reviews I've seen contradict this. Hell, you could compare the 6p with the 6s and the iPhone would win (in my opinion) but it wouldn't blow it out of the water. I haven't had hands on with the Pixel yet so I'll reserve my personal judgement but I have owned the 6s, the 6p, and the iPhone 7 (daily driver). Furthermore, it made be different in your use case but most iPhone users have all sorts of Google apps making the ecosystem argument irrelevant.

I have a pixel and an iPhone 6. Several close acquaintances with 7s. I have no idea what OP is talking about, but everyone I've talked to that sees the pixel and has an iPhone tends to have the reaction of "Wow, I'd actually consider dumping my iPhone after seeing that". Heck, one buddy actually returned the 7 and bought a Pixel because he was so frustrated with the 7 (didn't like the new home button, lack of headphone jack, buggy iOS updates, etc).

I'm not sure what about it he considers a "joke", but it's one of the best phones I've ever owned. It's what Android was always meant to be.

How does iOS compare to Android these days regarding everyday concerns like sluggishness, app switching, text editing?

YMMV depending on what Android phone you want to compare it to, but it's still not 100% there, even in expensive ones.

That being said, it's not longer a deal breaker, I think, for most of the people that used to complain about it and if you have a pixel or a high end Galaxy its very rare to find instances of slugginess or dropped frames when scrolling.

I still face more sudden app crashes on Android than on iOS, weird error messages that are definitely not user-friendly and for some specific categories of apps, like games or sound/music, I still think iOS offers better selection and reliability.

It is very rare for a Pixel, but Galaxy phones are a very large step behind them.

When I need a new phone I am going with a company that supports sold phones for a longer time.

Samsung abandons phones so fast, android updates are rare. (I know in my case the carrier is also between it)

The one major area where I think Android leads (at least stock Android, Nexus, Pixel) is text input. The voice typing on android is significantly more accurate than on iOS, and has been my biggest hurdle in getting used to iOS. I know few people find voice typing practical, but once you get used to it it makes pecking out words manually feel incredibly inefficient by comparison. Also the android keyboard swipe technology works very well, and I miss that a lot on iOS. I know you can technically install third-party keyboards, but they tend to not work very well due to iOS restrictions, plus then you completely lose access to voice typing and I'm not willing to give that up even if it's inferior on iOS. Since switching to iOS from android a year ago, I still type significantly slower and with many more typos than on android. If I could use android's keyboard and voice typing on iOS it would be the perfect device.

I do find it annoying that you can't use voice typing on 3rd party keyboards, but I use gboard for swipe typing and then will switch to the oem keyboard when voice typing. It's not perfect (because the kb switch button doesn't usually go the keyboard I want), but it does work ok.

FWIW, voice typing generally works well for me. Not sure why you're having so much trouble.

Android user here, recently switched to iPhone 6 when my Nexus 5 died (will definitely switch back when Google Pixel finally arrives to Russia).

Here are my conclusions after using iPhone for a couple of months as a daily driver:

1. The switch itself was, unexpectedly, a lot less painful that I anticipated. All my apps and mobile workflows were up and running in half a day. So I guess I'm platform-agnostic.

2. iOS feels very smooth. No stuttering at all. Sometimes I get lagging, but it's a minor annoyance, not a showstopper - except for cases when I can't pick up a phone call because the round draggy thingy just won't drag.

3. App switching via double-tapping the home button is easy and pleasant. I like it more than the Android way of switching apps.

4. Text editing on iOS is absolutely atrocious. This is a major downside, and a deal breaker for me. That's why I'm switching to Pixel as soon as I can get my hands on it. iOS's magnifying glass cursor is much less convenient than Android's "handle cursors", especially when the text I'm editing is near the top of the screen. Going into the editing mode requires a long tap, as opposed to Android's regular tap, which is annyoing as well. The stock keyboard is slick but useless because I'm a gesture typer. I tried Swype, but it's no match for Google keyboard. GBoard might be a good replacement, but it doesn't support Russian yet, so no opinion here.

4a. The only thing in iPhone that somehow mitigates the awfulness of text editing on iOS is 3D-touch cursor movement. You strong-press in the keyboard area and drag, and the cursor moves. This feature is very well done. I'll probably get me iPhone 6s just to have it (not iPhone 7 because I don't like their new home button). Also, this 3D-touch cursor movement may not work with non-stock keyboard like GBoard or Swype - I have no information about that.

totally agree. The home button has also become an object of mystery. It seems to have several functions too many, and it's always doing one I don't want.

I feel the same way. The UX in iOS has gone way downhill. This is especially evident in the system notifications in-use, and on the lock screen. Do I swipe this? Which direction? Do I tap it? I get no visual feedback after a tap, but then a new notification window appears after a second? What do I do with new window? Swipe? Tap? I have to authenticate now? Do I hold my finger to the Home button, or do I press the Home button? Again, no immediate feedback to reinforce the 'correct' behavior.

I probably have a hagiographic image of who Steve Jobs was, but I have to imagine that the current state of iOS wouldn't have slipped past him.

> I just can't consistently control the phone. A large percentage of taps or swipes do things I did not intend (how many I'm not sure -- 20%? 33%?) It's just completely crazy.

I couldn't agree more with this. Just as bad (if not worse) on Android. I can't seem to use any modern phone without a huge number of unintended inputs. The reliance on gestures in apps is especially annoying because I don't use some of them often enough to memorize the different gestures. I very often just get stuck in various apps tapping and swiping randomly trying to make something happen. Just the other day I finally figured out when I get stuck in Instagram I can tap the Instagram logo to go back. Up till now I've been force quitting it instead.

>fix the horrible inconsistencies in the way autocorrect works (or, please, offer a system that just underlines words-thought-to-be-wrong without changing them, and let me tap on them to change them, or use the current autocorrect system but let me tap on a word to un-"correct" it, the fact that the current system just changes what I typed and gives me no recourse to fix it apart from laborious deletions and re-typings, which I often have to do 2 or 3 times, is just haughty and offensive)

Android has this same problem and I wish they'd fix it using your suggestion. It would make typing so much better.

Amen. Just let me turn the sideswipes off in Safari. Ten times a day I end up going back a page without meaning to.

I love the swipe-to-go back gesture in Safari. You can always recover if you accidentally trigger it because it doesn't actually go back until you slide the page off the screen.

These two comments together cement why preferences are important in user interfaces.

I'd rather my applications be opinionated about the way I use them. I want a designer to think it through carefully and choose what they think is the best.

If I don't like those design choices then I'd choose a different browser rather than spend time configuring one.

(And obviously people make browsers for people who love custom configuration. Safari is not one of those.)

Well, Safa is somewhat opinionated. What should I do if I like 99.9% of the browser except one small thing that infuriates me a huge amount? It makes sense to offer preferences, especially to turn off certain things like gestures. In this case, the designer hasn't really gone far enough in determining that certain choices they have made can have seriously negative effects.

> They need to get rid of 3D touch, get rid of double-tap one-hand accessibility mode whatever it's called, get rid of weird swipes from the edge, fix the horrible inconsistencies in the way autocorrect works...

This is the same bullshit Apple has been doing with Mac OS X. I'm typing away in the terminal, doing something extremely productive, and suddenly my UI locks up for a second and I realize "shit, I must have accidentally timed a modifier key wrong and now I'm entering some crazy Mac mode" and then all of my windows fly around and I have to figure out how to get back to my terminal. I honestly don't understand why anyone wants any of these features, and if I did want them I'd want them to be super fast without the crazy slow animations, as every second I'm staring at them is a second I'm not working :/.

The one thing I can say is: just like on the Mac, you can turn most of this shit off on iOS. Essentially, they pretend that the only reason people would ever want to have an advanced option on iOS is because they are disabled, and so they hide everything under "Accessibility". You can turn off "3D Touch" and "Reachability" there. I'm not sure which edge swipes you hate, but if it is the one from the bottom, "Control Center" can be turned off (it is a top-level settings panel, turn off both "Access on Lock Screen" and "Access Within Apps"). You can also configure a lot about auto-correction under General/Keyboard.

Got a good chuckle out of me - it's like something my parents would say "I didn't do anything and the things are moving around". It's rather less funny when I do accidentally. I've never seen anyone do any of those things intentionally.

It's one of the critical flaws of Apple's modern design philosophy: Having a right mouse button would be too complicated, but hiding layers of complicated functionality through opaque multi-finger gestures, taps, and keyboard modifiers is A-OK.

And it's absolutely true that when Apple adds a new feature, it must have an accompanying slow animation tween to sell it. Frustrating.

Since Apple has completely supported right mouse for 20 or so years now, I just think you're confused

They support secondary click, but they have never shipped a first party mouse with a standard right button, favoring sleight of hand input schemes to trigger a right-click — schemes that are not immediately discoverable.

The mouse they ship -- the Magic Mouse -- issues a right-button click when you click on the right side of it. There's no slight of hand: it's a two-button mouse.

Apple seem to have a terrible blind spot for mice. Ive-era keyboards have been consistently excellent, but the mice have been consistently awful. Remember the horrendous hockey-puck mouse that shipped with the iMac?

The USB mouse ("hockey-puck") was particularly bad, as it wasn't easy to orient. The Might Mouse trackball was pretty bad, too. The others didn't have major deficiencies in my opinion. What in particular do you find fault with the others?

The Pro Mouse had one button when five were becoming standard. The Mighty Mouse would only right-click if you lifted your index finger off the mouse entirely. The multitouch on the Magic Mouse is woeful in terms of discoverability and frustratingly erratic. Ergonomics have been consistently poor, owing to Apple's refusal to make a mouse that actually fits the human hand. None of their mice are comfortable in palm grip, because they're needlessly low and flat. The rounded edges and gloss plastic of the Mighty Mouse and Pro mouse are difficult to control in fingertip or claw grip.

By comparison, Microsoft achieved near-perfection in mouse design with the venerable Wheel Mouse Optical 1.1a. After more than a decade, that mouse is still perfectly usable for competitive gaming. Contemporary high-end mice from companies like Steelseries and Zowie imitate the shape of the WMO very closely, because it's exceedingly comfortable for a wide range of grip styles and hand sizes.

The Pro Mouse had one button when five were becoming standard.

Apple has always produced mice that have at most one physical button, while providing in the OS to support third-party mice that have more. This isn't something that started with Ive. There are plenty of people who think Apple should produce mice that have more than one button throughout its history.

Having used all of these mice extensively, primarily in desktop publishing and programming environments, I haven't found any of the issues you mention a problem. That's not to say others haven't. I enjoyed using the Magic Mouse in particular. I never had any ergonomic issues with any of them, other than the Apple USB mouse.

You mention gaming, and I can see how none of Apple's mice would be good for this. And it's great that there are third-party companies producing great mice, and have been for a long time. (Speaking of Microsoft, I've heard great things about their keyboards as well.) Given my (admittedly personal) experience with Apple's mice, I find the phrasing "consistently awful" to be hyperbole and unwarranted. That's not to say they're the best. There's a wide range between "near-perfection" and "consistently awful".

Apple are supposed to be the paragon of industrial design, but their mice tend to fall prey to style over substance. Their mice designs look lovely, but there's no ergonomic rationale behind their shape. If you think that the Magic Mouse is satisfactory, I'd suggest trying some genuinely high quality third-party mice - the Logitech Marathon or MX Master, or anything by Mionix or Zowie. I think you'll be shocked at the difference.

Gaming is the extreme case for mouse use, but it's not an edge case. A good gaming mouse is simply a good mouse - not a puck that you push around the desk, but an extension of your hand with a sensor underneath. eSports gamers simply demand an excellent sensor and high-quality switches in an ergonomic package.

https://mionix.net/mice http://zowie.benq.com/en/product/mouse.html

Large chunks of the UI do not support a two button mouse.

Wifi status in menu bar: left and right click on the icon do the same thing. To get the advanced menu you need to option click the icon.

Audio status in menu bar: left and right click do the same thing. To get the advanced menu you need to option click the icon. Additionally, 'scrolling' on the audio icon does not change the volume.

is this the beginning of the end of Apple domination?

I was telling my dad over the phone to drag a file, and it wouldn't work. Apparently if he pressed too hard it engaged force touch or whatever and would just drop the file randomly. It dropped it in a random folder and he couldn't find it again.

They really started screwing up the core UI with just adding things for the sake of adding things.

Yes, drag and drop is very difficult on the new trackpads when "tap-to-click" is enabled also. I somehow end up "force-tapping"...

Three-finger drag has been saving my life (it's hidden somewhere in Accessibility - Keyboard - Trackpad - Drag)

"macOS" is unusable for me without three finger drag. But then I have to deal with deciding between two or three finger dragging. Why not make everything work either way? It seems like requiring the user to remember UI engineering details to make the UI work properly. ("This is a toolbar, so you should three-finger drag that, but that is a map, so you should two-finger drag to reposition that. But this other web-based map needs a three-finger and zooms from two finger dragging. Is that an Apple API implemented map?")

> I'd want them to be super fast without the crazy slow animations

I wonder if you mean standard-duration animations or their really-slow variations. Adding Shift to any OSX hotkey that involves animation will slow it down 20x or so (e.g. Cmd+Shift+F3). I guess it was originally introduced for show-off purposes, but it's weird how that still exists.

Shift + clicking on a folder in the launchbar also slows down the animation of it opening.

Going to be completely honest here - this isnt something I can sympathise with.

If you do the wrong thing on any computer system and I'm sure something unexpected would happen.

I'm not saying that "you're holding it wrong", nor do I know 100% what you're talking about, but I don't think its entirely fair to complain like that about a computer system that you're not using 'correctly'.

As a 1-week user of the iPhone 7, 3D touch has been the only new thing I really like. The apps I use seem to have made good use of it to improve UX, even though the rest of iOS seems is bulky and slow now.

Removing the headphone jack is just to get more money and control. First by selling dongles. Second after many people moved to new headphones they will introduce a license program for headphone vendors "Built for Apple" which costs say 10% of the headphone. Other headphones will no longer work (see what Sony did with PS4 bluetooth headphones).

After buying a recent macbook (not the touch bar version, ugh) I suspect the real reason is fashion related. One port is more sleek, more stylish than two or three ports. Functionality sacrificed in the name of a sleeker look...well, I appreciate the intent, even as I recognise I am not the target audience.

This could be true, but they choose to stick with the lightning connector. Which gives them licencing rights. Getting money from licencing is the only reason I can see for them having only the lightning connector.

They could have switched to USB-C, became standard, and then switched to one port. Then at least the head phones you but would also work on your shiny new MacBook.

Exactly. Users can't even use their lightning headphones on a new Mac. The move to remove was a mistake, but there is no going back now. That would be admitting to a design flaw.

> there is no going back now. That would be admitting to a design flaw.

What's wrong with admitting that you took a bet and it didn't work out?

People do that all the time. Reasonable people, at least.

I am surprised nobody has responded to this comment with the USB-3 male to female Lightning adapter solution.

Not only was it not a mistake, ten years from now people will refer to the outrage over the removal of the headphone jack in the same way we currently refer to the outrage over the removal of the floppy drive.

Switching to USB-C on the iPhone would have been a hugely shitty decision given their ultimate goal is clearly to build a phone without any ports at all within a few years.

Consider what would happen in that case: right now there are hundreds of millions of iPhone accessories out there that rely on the Lightning port - everything from headphones to cars to health devices and more. If Apple removed the Lightning port all of those accessories would become obsolete overnight and people would be up in arms about it (just look at the removal of the headphone jack and the storm in a teacup that became.) Manufacturers would bring out USB-C accessories for the iPhone, people would buy them to replace their Lightning accessories, the furore would die down and things would go back to normal, and then boom - Apple removes the USB-C port too.

In the space of a few years they'd have fucked over hundreds of millions of people who wasted money on replacing their accessories and the outrage would be overwhelming. People would be accusing Apple of doing it on purpose just to sell more accessories (which is what they're accusing Apple of right now because of the aforementioned removal of the headphone jack) when in reality Apple has been telegraphing the transition to wireless for a while now.

I don't think this is going to happen any time remotely soon, even if apple wants it to.

Going completely wireless would also destroy the current accessories market. No dongle or converter to fix it either.

Also apple already did change the connector for the iPhone once.

The iPhone will go USB-C because the rest of their products have. They can stay dumb and alienate their consumers, or finally start integrating with the world.

Apple made $230 BILLION in revenue last year, of which less than one fifth of one percent came from MFI licensing fees.

Removing the headphone jack had absolutely nothing to do with selling dongles and everything to do with Apple doing what it always does: seeing which way the wind is blowing and dragging everyone kicking and screaming into their vision of the future.

They did the exact same thing with the floppy drive and optical drive, they're now doing the same thing with USB and the headphone jack, and within five years you can be sure that every single one of their competitors will have made the same decision.

That's terrible to read. I'd hoped that Apple had just happened upon a streak of decisions that were inconvenient to users, and might reverse the trajectory. At less than 1/5 of $230B (more than 1/6?), and obviously at an extremely high profit margin, there's essentially no way.

I had been really optimistic about the adoption of USB-C, since it is as an open standard, but the discovery of such enormous licensing revenues that are essentially without expense to Apple, makes it almost inevitable that they will begin insisting peripherals get permission from Apple, too.

I think you may have misread what I wrote: one fifth of one percent, i.e, 0.2%. It's a minuscule drop in the ocean for Apple, such a small number it doesn't even show up on their financial reports. There's no way in hell they made a massive change like removing the headphone jack just to sell more accessories when their entire accessories revenue is little more than a rounding error.

That's much better! Something approaching 1/5 made me think of movie theater concessions.

Apple has been wrong about this sort of thing way more times than it has been right.

Here's where people pile on and say [citation needed]

Maybe I'm just forgetting things today, but i'm not thinking of any.

ADB? FireWire? Which ones?

Please, don't -- 3D touch is one of the big reasons I will never switch to a phone that doesn't support it.

It's an absolutely wonderful UX for me.

I thought it was a bit of a gimmick in iOS 9 but since they went all in for iOS 10. It's almost like right clicking on a phone. Just wish more third party apps used it.

I get the appeal of 3D touch but it has absolutely no discoverability - this feels like a complete setback in UX design. Apple used to be known for having UIs that had a lot of visual cues and didn't hide features from the user. However it seems they have done a 180 on that in recent years.

Why do you find 3d tough less discoverable than e.g. long-press to rearrange apps?

Discoverability is not the be-all end-all of UI design. In most ways iOS is a huge step forward in UI design as evidenced by the legions of toddlers who can figure out how to use an iPad.

No, it may not be the end-all, but it certainly is almost all of it

Only if you define it so broadly as to strip almost all meaning from the term.

What about manageability, i.e. can a user fit a mental model of the system in their head, or is it too complex to do that? What about the related concepts of consistency and predictability? What about comprehensibility of the metaphors used? The clarity of language? What about ergonomics? Directness of manipulation? What about delight (think pull to refresh)?

Elevating discoverability above all other concerns means that there can be no hierarchy of information. Every feature becomes primary. Everything is on page one, everything is above the fold.

> I get the appeal of 3D touch but it has absolutely no discoverability

I've had an iPhone for a few months now and I still have no idea what this is about.

> They need to get rid of 3D touch, get rid of double-tap one-hand accessibility mode whatever it's called, get rid of weird swipes from the edge

Hear, hear. It's like my last days of using Windows. Every app window had so many "hot spots" crammed in that triggered something, so that whenever i had multiple overlapping windows and wanted to click on a background window to bring it to the foreground, I would inadvertently trigger an action or change program modes because there wasn't a single pixel of the underlying window that wasnt an active zone.

That behaviour totally broke the "multiple pieces of paper on a desk" behavior and instead turned your desktop into a myriad of booby traps ready to kill your productivity.

I am starting to feel the same way about iOS.

Bring back "dead space" on application windows that don't HAVE to do anything when you tap/click/swipe/pinch on them.

I'll have to inject a bit of criticism to this particular rant.

If one is using several applications on Windows and being productive about it - You don't switch applications in Windows by clicking then with mouse. You order them on the task bar and then switch between them using windows button - number (where number is the order on the task bar.).

Depends on what you're doing. Direct visual manipulation is best if you're using the mouse. Winkeys can be better if you're primarily trying to stay on the keyboard.

I actually researched this back many years ago, and at the time, clicking on windows Exposé style won out reasonably convincingly over keyboard techniques, including winkey+#.

"best" and "won out" how? Certainly not in speed. Win+# is O(1) in complexity and I already have my left hand in position to press the 2 buttons required to instantly get to the window I want.

Compared to expose which is first a hotkey to initiate(note that already here you lost the race in number of keys to press), wait 300ms for the animation to complete, find the window you want which is more like O(n), move hand to mouse, move mouse around to find the cursor, move cursor to desired window, click, wait another 300ms for animation.

Even if I happen to already have my hand on the mouse and know where the cursor is the best case will take you at least one second, this is much inferior to just pressing 2 keyboard buttons which is essentially instantaneous, even with faster animations you will not save much time as you need that time to find the window. With more than 5 windows open finding the right one can be a true challenge as they get very small and there will be a lot of them to scan.

For grandma who don't care about speed maybe expose is easier to understand and remember but for intense task switching by experienced users it is just in the way.

An Expose-style interface with short animation beat all other interfaces (taskbar click (window), dock click (app), winkey+#, alt-tab) in mean task switching time over a series of controlled scenarios (not the user's normal workflow - just simulated scenarios). Expose style interface was invoked with a side button on the mouse.

From memory, Expose was around ~1.0s, taskbar click around ~1.2s, winkey around 1.5s, with other methods slower.

The physical action of flicking your wrist and clicking is actually surprisingly fast, possibly even faster mechanically than a two-key keyboard shortcut - think how fast twitch gamers are.

Decision time was the main component. Expose's decision time was the lowest mean, and the most stable. Alt-tab had the lowest decision time, but far greater stdev. Yeah this is a controlled test that may not represent a real user's workflow, hence my 'depends'. "Find the window" is actually an interesting one - as long as the interface is reasonably spatially stable, you actually don't need to find it because your spatial memory takes care of that for you.

In my experience, while I might have a few 'primary' windows that suit the ordered taskbar well, I've often got a number of other things that come and go. I'm never going to remember what place they are. So, while winkey+# is fast for a select few windows, it's really slow for others. I don't find it appreciably faster than an Expose interface, and it's easier and faster for me in my workflow to use one main task switching interface.

Interesting that decision time is the highest component. When using win+# I've already decided beforehand which window I am going to switch to.

When I say "decision time", I'm really referring to everything between "I need to switch to a window", and "I have just started performing the action needed to switch".

I routinely Alt-Tab between my current 2 or 3 windows when working, but i often have 20+ windows open at a time across 2 monitors and often times I will SEE the window I want right there, but selecting it is nigh on impossible.

One of the biggest culprits is MS Office (especially Excel, where I routinely keep data i need to refer to every now and then). Unless the title bar of the window is visible, clicking on any other edge will change the current active tab, pull down a menu, open a dialog, disable recalculate mode or some other weird behavior that is sometimes not readily apparent.

Ah, yes, with that workflow I'll have to agree. I can timesplit my work so I can always arrange the windows to taskbar and have generally less that 9 windows to deal with in single task. Context, context, context.

Cool. One more keyboard trick to navigate windows efficiently.

Now I'll have to figure out if it can compete with a mastery of ctrl+tab and alt+tab (and windows+tab and their cousins ctrl+shift+tab).

I just hate the inability to turn off voice control.. half the time I unlok my phone I end up in voice control and there is no way to get rid of it

same here. still on a 5s waiting on a reiteration of se.

all you said applies to me as well plus the new generic form factor which is uninspirning bust most importantly too large for comfortably pocketing

the real thing that keeps me locked to apple for now is the app commitment, but if a se2 fails to materialize I'll definitely jump to android at the end of life of my 5s

I just bought a used 5s w/ 64GB of RAM, also waiting for a decent SE2.

I've been curious about the Sony Xperia Z5 compact.

I would really like a Kickstarter for replacement form-factor main boards for classic iPhones (4S,5S) to run modern android or something.

I have so many "obsolete" phones with working hardware and barely usable software.

myself was looking at the lg g5, mainly because it has recent android, as android hardware rarely receives updates. there's the pixel, of course, but that rear bulge :(

In your usability rants I have every one of those problems too (particularly autocorrect and swiping). I wonder how widespread this is? I'd like to add four more:

1. iTunes is slowly degrading into a usability nightmare - recommendations are often albums I own and bought from Apple!

2. the OS itself seemingly picks apps at random for the "play" button on the "swipe-up" menu. Like I might play a podcast on, say, Monday morning and then switch to music - but for the remainder of the monday and some of tuesday when I pause, lock and then later use the "swipe-up" menu it tries to resume playing the podcast not the music. not to mention this menu has two tabs, and switching between them involves a swipe - which usually triggers some of the sliders (Brightness, volume, position) on the screen. This clearly didn't go through any UX testing.

3. no way to disable "voice control" home key shortcut - my iPhone 6S has an AWFUL habit of interpreting background noise as "Dial my ex girlfriend". I somehow can't kill the call before it starts ringing, but usually I don't see it because something has pressed the home button in my pocket. It's truly embarrassing.

4. "Do you trust this computer?" for the millionth time, yes!

This is my last iPhone, I think.

>iTunes is slowly degrading

That is incredibly generous considering the past decade of itunes, especially for Windows users. So much bad code, legacy cruft, and inconsistent UI decisions

Ah so I typed "iTunes" instinctively, but I meant the iOS app - guess it's called just "Music".

The desktop iTunes is a horror show in and of itself :D

I'm a Windows user and love iTunes. There's just isn't any piece of software that lets me sync all my selected playlists with a single click via Wifi to Android (iSyncr app) reliably. I can also use a remote to navigate (Retune app) and access whole library.

Too bad there's no other contenders on Linux as well, there's a million players, but no syncing because apparently it makes more sense in 2016 to sync a song with uploading it to an other computer (teh cloud™) then download it back instead of copying it locally within 1m of proximity.

Surely it has grown into a behemoth with managing iPhones, online Music etc., but one can simply not use that.

Plex (premium) works surprisingly well for me with music. Can sync or play from server. Should work in Linux too. https://launchpad.net/~plexapp/+archive/ubuntu/plexht

> Tip!: The Mobile Sync feature requires an active Plex Pass subscription for the main Plex Media Server account.

Paying for being able to transfer files within 1m ? Yeah no. Thanks for the tip though.

Well iTunes is not free either. I paid lifetime fee. It's expensive but to me worth the peace of mind. And should Plex go bad, it forces you to keep your files in a decent structure, so I feel confident I could migrate them to some other solution pretty easily, should push come to shove.

iTunes as in software is free. My music is mainly electronic livesets, nothing DRM, so all the streaming services mean nothing to my taste.

Well, iTunes runs only on Windows and OSX, neither of which are free. Nitpicking maybe. I don't like streaming services either except my own. What did you mean by that "within one minute"? I didn't understand that.

Rsync works well for me but I don't use much of the android specific apps. I think now that they fucked around with the storage permissions it might not actually be possible without root.

Phone OSes aren't rocket science, at this point I just want a phone that has buildroot support, even if that means it lacks a GUI.

With sync I mean full oneway sync with playlists created in the music player. I create a playlist which I'll then listen too in iTunes and with 2 clicks it's fully existing on the phone, with the .m3u playlist file, recognized by the media player. If I add/remove songs, change sorting in that playlist, the result is completely synced on the phone. I didn't find anything simple as this without extra fuckery and praying I can rely on it. It just works.

Rsync can do two way sync, the only two exceptions are:

1) deletions don't sync

2) colisons are resolved by overwriting the side that is synced last

    --delete

is your friend

Given the thread, I think the fact that your solution is based around an android phone is telling.

Well iTunes already syncs to iPhones natively in the same manner, also via a wireless connection. The only difference is that you control which playlists are synced in iTunes itself (not whole library, checkmark beside playlist), not on device.

Did you try MediaMonkey?

Uh, you could just sync the playlists (and the music, too, if you wanted) to Google Drive or Dropbox. Drive is the better option if you want integration.

Google Play Music (or any other music app) will then pick up the synced playlists

> apparently it makes more sense in 2016 to sync a song with uploading it to an other computer (teh cloud™) then download it back instead of copying it locally within 1m of proximity.

From the original post.

Been there done that, waiting in a full sport gear in the room for a playlist to sync going around the fucking planet while being 1m apart.

Weird. My experience is opposite of yours. When I try to adjust the brightness or volume, the damn thing swipes to the next card instead!

Also weird: My opposite experience is just as maddening :)

I've actually had this too, but the other use-case is more common for me (I adjust volume using the buttons, and rarely change brightness). I think it's the flat-UI thing where it's hard to see the boundaries of the slider element - so I would maybe not swipe near it if there was a little boundary, and you wouldn't swipe outside it.

Thankfully you can turn off voice control in iOS 10. Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Home Button.

You just became my favourite person of 2017 so far - thanks heaps!

I'd like to add Airplay issues to your list please. Airplay used to be magic and extremely dependable. Now it just randomly cuts out on me, things don't work first time around 30% of the time. It takes a number of goes sometimes to get things to work the way they did the day before. Its a nightmare.

> please, offer a system that just underlines words-thought-to-be-wrong without changing them

Ios have had that for at least a year. Two years?

I don't share these experiences. iOS in my experience is by far the best mobile operating system out there and I am constantly using it and not experiencing any issues (this on my iPhone 6). I cannot compare experiences with you in terms of 3D touch though.

As for auto-correct, I forget that even exists as it is the first thing I disable on a new phone (I type in 3 different languages on a daily basis).

As for the iPhone 7 (which I will soon upgrade to), I've tested the phone and it feels fabulous. Lack of an ancient 3.5mm jack does not bother me. The DAC should be as close to your ear as possible, so it makes sense to most audiophiles. There is a dongle for that and I do not see an issue bringing that along if I need it.

Let me echo the issues with iOS since the upgrade to 7 with an example from my children. We decided when my youngest was 3 to buy both girls a new ipad mini. This allowed them to watch shows. Sometimes but not often we'd also let them bring the ipad on walks (if you have not had kids don't judge). I was amazed at how well our girls figured out how to load a movie or show. It was pretty easy for my 5 year old to figure this out. My 3 year old struggled but after a few times showing her where and how to click she got it. A few weeks/months go by and ios7 is released. The new "flat" (cough invisible UI) is released into the wild. I am from the always upgrade generation because it's exciting so we upgraded everything. my 3 year was very very upset. Simple things like finding the video playback icon were now nearly impossible, even my 5 year struggled. Well, the worst possible outcome for us was my 3 year throwing the ipad in frustration down the street (literally we were on a walk). It gave me a whole new perspective on UI change. I believe Apple has improved since ios7 a lot - however many deficiencies remain that make the UI challenging - the multiple touch / 3d touch features. For us specifically, the distinction between a show or movie that is downloaded vs one that is not is crazy confusing and having to navigate into settings to switch between showing movies that are not on the device and ones that are has led to near repeat incidents of smashed ipads... I'm not sure what the right answer is for Apple... they have put themselves into a hard position for "fixing" things. Many people have probably become accustom to the new designs and features so a rollback is not what's needed. I believe they are mostly doing the right thing at this point which is to refine and improve, i just hope they can fix the extremely confusing itunes interface...

I read your comment soon after you posted it and sort of nodded internally, but over the last two days I've been actively noting how often I'm making a slip (i.e. through accidental 3D touch, or accidental swipe or whatever).

I think the 20% is actually pretty damn close to what my real error rate is, which astounded me. Even just stuff like initiating a scroll, I'm finding that I've started subconsciously ignoring the accidental 3D touch activations. I thought it would have been maybe 5%.

I just can't consistently control the phone. A large percentage of taps or swipes do things I did not intend (how many I'm not sure -- 20%? 33%?) It's just completely crazy.

I'm an iPhone user since the 1st gen iPhone with 8GB.

the horrible inconsistencies in the way autocorrect works

The worst part of autocorrect is how it sometimes autocorrects at just the last moment when you hit send. It's like my iPhone wants to break me up from my girlfriend! (I was dating an aspergirl recently, so literal meanings had a bit more meaning. Now I'm dating a foreign born ex-college professor, and she's more insistent on correct grammar than anyone I've known.)

This is an annual story, not super interesting. Nikkei itself actually posted something similar at this time last year:

http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Parts-makers-brace-fo...

> Apple is expected to reduce output of its latest iPhone models by around 30% in the January-March quarter compared with its original plans, according to several parts suppliers. The measure will deal a blow to Japanese and South Korean parts companies.

So maybe a 10% cut is actually bullish?

Supply chain stories about Apple get posted all the time, and there is no discernible relationship between what they say and the actual sales volumes the Apple reports in the next 10-Q.

Effects don't necessarily show up in the following quarter. Moreover, it's an overstatement to say there is no relationship. iPhone sales growth slowed dramatically following previous periods where supply chain order cuts were reported (eg in Jan'13 it was reported that Apple cut orders for iPhone 5 screens and subsequently actual growth did indeed slow dramatically). There seems to be a clear relationship between some such reports and the subsequent sales growth trend.

No, it's not an overstatement. If half the time the prediction turns out not to be true, then there is no relationship - you may as well flip a coin.

The parent claim was that there is no relationship, but they haven't backed that claim up. Unless someone does, it's an overstatement, especially in light of evidence that these reports (from well-reputed financial news institutions, not random internet rumors) do regularly turn out to be indicative of future performance (and no presently provided evidence to the contrary).

This new supply chain story also appears to be indicative of a true underlying trend in actuals as well, just as the previously cited one was. From the USA Today article on this same news: "Apple has hinted throughout the year sales of its iPhone would decline. Fiscal year revenue for 2016 dropped for the first time in fifteen years. Meanwhile, fourth quarter iPhone shipments were down 5% from the same time last year."

So, that's likey 2 for 2...

If you have a more rigorous analysis to back up the claim that there is no relationship historically between well-sourced reports by well-reputed and widely read financial news operations about iPhone supply chain dynamics to subsequent sales trends, then please provide it. If instead it was just an assertion from air, then it is an overstatement. One could reasonably say that the relationship is unclear. Or that it's hard to say how these reports relate to subsequent actuals. Or even that there are instances (if you can provide them) where these sorts of reports turn out to belie the trend in actuals. But saying flat out that there is no relationship meets the exact definition of overstatement unless it's backed-up.

>This is an annual story, not super interesting. Nikkei itself actually posted something similar at this time last year:

They reference that in the second sentence

It might make sense for Apple to always overestimate the demand for their devices in the contracts made with suppliers. This would guarantee that they can manage unexpected increase in demand.

That Apple might expect to sell fewer phones in the post-holiday quarter than the holiday quarter, that I buy. That sales are more sluggish than expected, I don't. At least not based on unsourced claims.

I've seen reports like this so often that I don't think I'd know what to do if one didn't appear. And so far, they mostly happen on years that are later demonstrated to include record sales of the product we're told is selling poorly.

I've begun to suspect that analysts literally make these up trying to provoke a response from Apple, since Apple normally only shares numbers during quarterly earnings, and they don't want to wait that long.

It isn't unsourced. They tell you the source in the article. This is from The Nikkei newspaper, as in The Nikkei Index. This is Japan's largest financial newspaper. It is original research performed by seasoned financial journalists. The Nikkei is actually the largest financial newspaper in the world, with a subscriber base of over 3M. Nikkei also owns the Financial Times among other assets. You've provided no reasonable basis whatsoever to doubt their journalism.

> I've begun to suspect that analysts literally make these up

In an era where patently false "news" pervades society, it does not help to blithely claim that real, reputable journalism is simply "made up". Also, this wasn't even an analyst firm, it is investigative journalism based on several primary sources with direct knowledge of the matters at hand.

Also, a quick Google search will provide more detail: http://www.usatoday.com/story/96001250/ ... Note how this journalist mentions that Apple has been hinting about this on recent quarterly calls.

Fake news isn't pervasive.

15 minutes later: parent edited "fake news" out of their comment.

Please tell me you don't buy the "the internet is full of fake news" narrative that dying traditional media industry is peddling...

This is not the first time reputable organisations have wrongly inferred sluggish iPhone sales numbers. In Apple's 2013 Q1, Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, warned against reading too much into any rumors about order cuts gleaned from supply chain data after an incorrect story in the Wall Street Journal [1]. I've seen more of these stories that later proved wrong than that were correct.

[1] http://www.imore.com/tim-cook-addresses-rumors-about-apple-c...

It's well and good to point out that analysis based on supply chain sources may draw inaccurate conclusions and definitely to demonstrate that such analysis has been wrong in the past (it certainly has, for Apple and others). I do not claim to know whether this analysis will bear out in reality or not.

I'm merely pointing out that it is nonsensical to blithely dismiss it or claim it may simply be "made up" when it is at least based on primary sources and real journalism.

With respect to your specific example, I'd say the WSJ article which the article you linked is referring to appears to have actually borne out with the benefit of hindsight. Q1'13 production supply orders affect supply in subsequent quarters, and a reduction in orders means there is less expected growth. The article you linked expresses skepticism that this is the case, but it appears that it was. iPhone sales growth YoY slowed dramatically subsequent to Q1'13... For example Q1'14 saw ~10% sales growth over Q1'13 versus ~30% YoY growth the year prior and ~100% the year preceding that. To the extent the article indicates that demand and production are falling off from previous growth rates, it appears to have been accurate.

The above doesn't mean that this new report will be proven out. Nor even necessarily that the previous reporting you cited was actually correct. But it doesn't appear to be a clear whiff either.

You are being very charitable to the WSJ. The WSJ article in question said in the second paragraph [1]: Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the first quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had planned to order, the people said.

In the three first months of 2014 Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones, compared to 35.1 million in the three first months of 2013 [2]. Unless you believe that they internally projected to sell anywhere near 75 million phones (more than the 47.8 million iPhones sold in the last three months of 2013, traditionally their strongest quarter by far), that rumor reported by the WSJ was flat out wrong.

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873242351045782410...

[2] http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/04/23Apple-Reports-Seco...

I hear what you're saying, but I am not sure you're interpreting the supply chain order implications correctly. You are assuming a 1 to 1 ratio of expected vs actual component supply order volumes and subsequent net sales. That is not at all how it typically works, and while I agree the WSJ could have and should have been more clear on this: the point of the article wasn't that the iPhone would sell half as much as Apple had forecast. I can see why you and other reasonable people would draw this conclusion from the article (hence my criticism that they could and should have been more clear), but it isn't implied.

Let's say that for Q4'12 Apple ordered 41M screens (vs say 30M in Q4'11), tracking toward a roughly ~35% YoY growth rate at the time. And, as per usual practice, so as to ensure their component partners in the supply chain are adequately tooled and ramped up for the future, they set expectations for Q1'13 and beyond, but at slightly lower growth levels than Q4'12's order because they are savvy and realize this is a maturing market where growth naturally slows over time. Without obligating themselves to actually order these future quantities in Q1'13 and beyond, they place contingent forecast orders representing say a ~28% YoY growth rate estimate for Q1'13 and beyond. Say that means they communicate a forecast order of 44M screens for Q1'13.

Now, as Q4'12 rolls along and Q1'13 component orders must be finalized and committed, Apple sees actual sales growth might be on pace for ~18% YoY. It looks like they will sell ~35M iPhones in Q1'13 vs the ~41M screens they have on hand from Q4'12's order, so they'll be left with a 6M screen inventory overhang from Q4'12's order. (I'm oversimplifying and assuming single quarter component turnaround time here for sake of illustration). They see that growth is tapering off going forward too (tracking down over time toward the actual ~10% YoY growth you cited by Q1'14). Q4'12's sales landed slightly slower than anticipated when they placed their order for it in Q3'12 as well, in line with this slower growth trend, and so they also have an overhang of, say, 4M screens from Q3'12's order for a total inventory overhang of 8M+4M = 12M screens by the end of Q4'12. They deduct this overhang from their projected Q1'13 screen order, as well as lowering their estimate from needing 44M screens in Q1'13 to needing, say, 36M screens total for Q2'13 As such, for Q1'13 they order 36M needed screens minus 12M screens in overhung inventory, or 24M new screens. So, Q1'13's order goes from a projected 44M screens to 24M.

In this scenario, a screen component supplier might say Apple "cut their Q1'13 order in half". But Apple's expected sales for Q1'13 and beyond wouldn't have been off by 50%, but more like less than 20% (41M vs 35M). Also bear in mind that Apple's internal forecast may not have even been off by this much. Companies sometimes slightly overprovision in periods of uncertainty if they know they can sell through the overhung supply later and simply dial back subsequent supply orders while the overhang is cleared through. This may be exactly what Apple did at this time around the iPhone 5's sales cycle, so there internal forecast may have been off by only 10%... Or not at all. Yet, it would still be true from a component supplier's perspective that their order for Q1'13 was cut roughly in half.

This is all grossly oversimplified and entirely hypothetical (though based very roughly on the volume figured you cited). Yet it illustrates the point that there certainly needn't be a 1:1 correlation between supply order changes and actual sellthrough vs forecast. This is only more true in the real world where myriad complexities and order terms can dramatically affect supply chain orders without implying a horrible misforecast by the buyer or any dramatic or unexpected sales trend.

This would make what Tim Cook told investors absolutely correct-- don't overextrapolate from (potentially faulty) supply chain sources. But it would also make the WSJ article perfectly accurate... And nowhere did the article state that Apple's estimates were 50% off nor that investors did or should expect a decrease in demand or even a drastic decrease in growth. So, they were both (potentially) right. Point being, it is faulty to assume a simple 1:1 correlation between supply chain order changes and resultant actual sales vs forecasts, as your post does.

You are right that you can construct a scenario where e.g. screen components could have been cut by half. Thanks for typing it out. The WSJ article, though, attributes the cuts in component orders to weaker iPhone demand: 'because of weaker-than-expected demand'. That's my beef with their reporting. If they had just stated 'one of Apple's suppliers has got its order reduced by half', I would have no problem with the article. Trying to tie it to iPhone demand is just conjecture.

Just like you said in your conclusion: don't overextrapolate from (potentially faulty) supply chain sources. Which seems to be exactly what the Nikkei article is doing again. There is very little info in it: 'Apple will trim production of its iPhone family around 10% on the year in the first quarter of 2017, according to calculations by The Nikkei based on data from suppliers'. So, they have some information from suppliers (all of them?), and they have some model (how accurate is that model?) that points to an iPhone production cut. To me that seems like overextrapolation again... And I agree with you that this is not 'fake news', but it is also not good reporting either.

Thanks for the reply and I agree with you (and Tim Cook!) on not overextrapolating from such stories. A couple points:

> The WSJ article, though, attributes the cuts in component orders to weaker iPhone demand: 'because of weaker-than-expected demand

In the hypothetical scenario I outlined, the reduction in component orders is literally due to "weaker-than-expected demand". In that scenario, they forecast needing, say, 41M screens but really only ended up selling 35M phones. It's off by less than 20% of forecost demand (and it still represents significant growth!), but it's still weaker than expected and that relatively small miss on expectations could easily result in a component order reduction of 50% or more due to inventory overhang and myriad other potential supply chain factors.

So, it'd be wrong to conclude that Apple's forecast was literally 50% off from this story... But that's not what they said and it is an incorrect assumption to presume a 1:1 relationship between component supply order cuts and subsequent sales actuals.

I switched back from Android to iOS because the only decent Android phone (Pixel) is in the same price range as an iPhone. I got a jet black iPhone 7 and I love it, it just feels great in my hand. The only thing I am a little disappointed about is the notifications system, which is still sub par compared to Android (like, 2 touches instead of 1 to clear a notification, and I cannot properly configure Gmail to show only certain messages as notifications; why Apple Mail can pull Gmail only every 15 minutes is beyond me ...) So I feel iPhone 7 will be doing well enough.

> why Apple Mail can pull Gmail only every 15 minutes is beyond me ...

It used to work, but Google removed Activesync support for free users a while back. you need to use the Gmail app or upgrade to a paid Google Apps plan if you want push support.

To be fair, Gmail does support the IMAP IDLE extension, which is the standard way of doing push email over IMAP. Mac mail supports it, and it works. (I actually get email notifications on my laptop before my Android phone.)

iOS only supports email push with iCloud or with a Microsoft Exchange server. IMO, this is really on Apple for not supporting the IDLE extension on iOS, rather than Google for not supporting a proprietary protocol for their free users.

> To be fair, Gmail does support the IMAP IDLE extension, which is the standard way of doing push email over IMAP.

IDLE would become a major battery hog on the iPhone, which is why it was never implemented. I don't believe Android supports it natively either.

Why? It works the exact same way as Apple and Google push notification implementations do.

It requires you to have an active connection to the server all the time.

That's just an entry in a table maintained by the kernel. "Active connection" doesn't nescisarily mean data is sent over it. Also, the other poster is right, this is exactly how the other push notifications work.

Of course, but the point is that you have only one connection open (the one to Apple or GCM), not one for each app, one for each imap account, etc. If you let anybody keep a connection alive continuosly you end up with a mess.

Just like Apple Push or Google FCM. How would that work otherwise if not with an idle connection? :)

That is one connection for all apps, not n individual connections.

To be fair, Microsoft asked for licencing fees for ActiveSync used with Gmail. Of course, Google is not going to pay that for the free users, while Gapps users have that included in price (the legacy free Gapps users aren't getting ActiveSync either).

There could be another way for Apple to support push email - they could support third party plug-ins providing protocol support for Mail.app, so Google could implement Gmail support, fastmail jmap support, etc. It is exactly this way, how Gmail app for Android supports ActiveSync.

yep, and my (lame) workaround is to activate notifications for the Gmail app, which I never use. When I get a notification, I then open up the Mail app, which downloads the message. Clunky, but it works (as long as I remember to open the the Gmail app after restarting the phone, which is apparently required for the notifications to work).

I switched (back) from Android to iPhone because of security settings. I found Android to be a nightmare. Compared that to iOS's ability to set per-application permissions and Apple's stated commitment to privacy and I'm not going back to Android any time soon.

Nor will I be upgrading my iPhone any time soon. I plug in the headphone jack in my car and have found no decent bluetooth receivers to replace that wired connection.

Android has had per application permissions similar to iOS since 6.0. It took way too long but it's no longer a problem.

Can you restrict an application's permission at a granular level. For example can you deny an app your GPS location while allowing it to access your contacts?

Yes, that capability was restored in Android Nougat. For example, see these Chrome permissions: http://i.imgur.com/D4jYrjP.png

Probably off-topic but I still can't make myself to love iOS that much. I like the idea of the iPhone a lot -- a seemingly commodity phone with actual superior specs (especially the internal memory which is practically a SSD) and fluid and standard experience which helps people not get confused. But things like not having more volume controls (for example notifications and phone ringer are on the same volume in 2016, you for real?!), or lack of a dark theme, usage of LCD displays, and a few others -- are still putting me off.

On the other hand, I am drifting away from requiring my smartphone to be an ultimate mobile device; I believe I'll just get an iPad Pro 9.7" next year and will settle for a more casual smartphone -- like the iPhone, or a Moto, or Galaxy S8, we'll see. I work from home and 99% of my internet consumption on a mobile device happens at home, so might as well just use a tablet.

My girl has the iPad Pro 12.9" and it's a fantastic device. Don't think any Android tablet can ever come close except 1-2 from the Samsung Galaxy Tab line. As for MS Surface, I'm not hot on the idea of having a huge app gap.

Apple's losing its mojo in a slow steady drip and there's going to be more of this if they don't get it together soon.

Apple used to be synonymous with premium equipment an a "It Just Works" experience. It made it really, really easy to just get the Apple version of anything knowing it was going to be good.

My parents need equipment, I get them an iMac, an Airport Extreme, iPhone, iPad, etc...knowing it's all just going to work.

And then somebody in the business unit started getting involved. Airport extreme is basically dead. They started trimming their product line so that they no longer have an option in every category like 17" laptops. They remove features that people don't want removed like the headphone jack and leave you with no other option aside from buying attachments or more expensive battery powered headphones. They started building in batteries in slices on the laptops they do sell, welding parts to boards so you can't open it up and change things out without paying somebody at an Apple store.

They started making design decisions that are almost purposely irritating like the new Magic Mouse. Look, it's got a rechargeable battery built right in! battery dies flip it upside down to plug in the charger and just wait until you can use your computer again. God forbid you put the charger on the front so people could use it as a wired mouse if they wanted/needed.

Let's not forget using $30 USB cords to charge your phone/mouse.

The combination of all these little decisions is what is finally driving me away after being nothing short of a fanboy for about 10 years. I'm just tired of having a company that I tend to disagree with lately trying to make decisions for me so I'm starting the slow exit from Mac life.

Laptop first (waves at Dell). Then a new router (waves at Asus probably). Then a new phone (waves at Samsung/Google).

And then, because the geeks in your friends lives tend to get asked for recommendations on what they should get for themselves...that stuff is probably going to spill over. I don't seem to be the only person feeling this way lately, so I hope whoever started making bottom line decisions at Apple is happy with the long term side effect.

Agree with most of this but sadly the competitors are so bad they can do all this and still be better.

I tried quite a few routers and if you are on a budget (or simply aren't fussed on giving $200+ for a router which is entirely fair) I found that the Asus RT-N18U is a fantastic device for the money. I attached my printer and external HDD to it and had almost no problems. The UI is better than most other vendors (Eero and Ubiquiti are still kings though) and on top of that they have a very decent mobile app as well.

As for Apple, I actually wanted to start investing myself in their ecosystem but as you very eloquently put it -- it seems the businessmen took over and things just go worse and worse with time. :(

Well I guess "Fritzbox"-Routers do not work in the US. (At least some modems, might not work with all providers) But if they do you should probably look into them since they are stable, extremly stable and getting updates for at least 5 years if you buy the new product line. https://en.avm.de/products/

That's what I had in mind with the ASUS wave. I've heard nothing but good things.

You might want to reconsider. Asus routers have had serious security issues. See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13289586

I wouldn't recommend Asus routers. I used to have one, but got rid of it due to the serious security problems they were having:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/dear-asus-router-use...

http://thehackernews.com/2016/02/asus-router-security-hack.h... (some random article I found, giving an overview of some of the other problems)

Now I use a Mikrotik. The only downside is the UI is quite powerful and allows you to hang yourself if you're not careful. It's definitely not for non-engineers. However, it does get regular updates since it's targeted at a more professional market.

I've read about that too a while ago, thank you. I believe those should have been fixed by now but being objective, we really can't know for sure, so I am with you here.

Please note that I said "if you're on a budget or you're not fussed giving $200+ on a router" however. I am aware that there are compromises to be made when one doesn't buy professional equipment. Not disagreeing with you. Only adding nuance.

FWIW I won't be looking for other middle-ground solutions after I figure it's time to upgrade again (which is gonna be in the next 1-2 years maximum). I'll just go full in with the 5-pack of Ubiquiti and hope for the best.

Do you know of any exploits in the Ubiquiti firmware?

Thanks for the tip. I'll check out Mikrotik.

If you're going to spend that much on a router why not just build a Linux box and use iptables?

It's on my radar. I've been considering a fanless metal-box PC to use as a router, home entertainment system, and file hosting -- for a while now.

Even if I manage to squeeze $700+ for such a machine (and I don't want to buy something weak; I will invest in future proofing), the bigger issue for me is investing the time and effort. I know it'll make me a better programmer and sysadmin (I am an amateur sysadmin, won't deny that) but sometimes you just want stuff to work right away.

I'll get to it but yes, IMO that's the endgame here. Or buy a 5-pack Ubuiquiti and let it do its thing and use the fanless PC for everything else.

The machine doesn't have to be powerful at all, most of the consumer routers have ~1GB of ram and a few megabytes of flash. The machines I use don't cost much more than $100, I've never tried using something like the raspberry pi but that's only because I can never find a USB hub good enough to run WiFi with and my only pi3 is already dedicated as my desktop.

I know it doesn't have to be powerful but throughout my technical life I became sick and tired of having to restart routers every time they clearly show signs of temporary overload. If this is coming from potential hackers looking for holes, or my torrent client goes crazy once in a while, or the 2 live video streams + 2 low-ping games that me and my girlfriend are playing, or its logging subsystem is killing it because of slow memory -- I can't say. But I've grown weary of routers crapping out, even if it's once a month. So I'm gonna go all-in.

Plus I want to try and host a mail server and a website in the future as well, so I am looking for a powerful fanless machine that can do several things at once.

> Let's not forget using $30 USB cords to charge your phone/mouse.

Both devices come with a Lighting cable, an Apple first party Lighting cable costs $20 not $30, and third party Lighting cables cost as little as $5.

When they initially came out it was $30 IIRC. 3rd party tends to trigger random unsupported notifications from the phone too.

It depends on the cable. I've never had that dialog using Amazon Basics or Anker cables.

In my house, a $5 bill set on fire will last longer than a $5 Lightning cable.

The Apple ones don't last much longer, but I need to squirrel those away to do the undocumented reset on my kids' iPads.

I paid $12 on Amazon for 6 Travalo lightning cables on Amazon and I couldn't be happier with them. Lightning interface is legit (no notifications about unsupported lightning connector) and they're more robust than the official Apple cables.

I personally think the iPhone 7 is just a bad phone (quite literally, the phone audio itself cuts out or muffles when you are on voice calls, and everyone I know with an iPhone 7 reports this problem). Aside from that, the iPhone 6/7 body was/is always very ugly and uninspired, and the iPhone 7 is no better but loses a useful feature (headphone jack) while offering no benefit as a trade-off. I personally have an iPhone 7 Plus but I would not recommend it to anyone, it's the first Apple product I've bought and had buyers remorse about. If you want a new phone I would recommend to save money and get a 6S, or wait two more years for the next major redesign.

Oh, and let's not forget iOS, which has seemingly degraded considerably in quality to the point of being at the same level of disdain as Windows ME or Windows Vista was. Maybe it's entirely perception, but the bugginess of iOS was actually a group conversation topic during Christmas despite having a largely nontechnical crowd of guests, all of who were complaining about various difficulties and issues with their iPhones.

I wish I was optimistic about Apple, but instead I am concerned.

The numbers coming out of Apple next quarter will be interesting. iPhone 7 has been underwhelming and reception to the latest MacBooks Pros has been mostly negative. And if sales are on a downhill trajectory, I wonder what the response inside of Apple will be.

I hope the market punishes them for removing the ports we regularly use from the MacBook Pro so when I'm ready to buy a new one in a few years they have brought them back.

In particular the removal of the magsafe power connector is maddening. By far my favorite feature of Macbooks and they removed it because??

The removed it because it was a proprietary port and felt that the market was better served in the long term by eliminating this kind of special case. I like MagSafe, but it's not really that big a deal.

> The removed it because it was a proprietary port

Apple is not shy when it comes to using proprietary ports - so I don't really buy this argument.

We can look at the iPhone 7 and it's proprietary non-USB connector as clear evidence they don't mind running proprietary connectors.

>Apple is not shy when it comes to using proprietary ports - so I don't really buy this argument.

There was not a single proprietary port on the old MB Pro, except for MagSafe, which isn't really even a port, but instead a power interface.

Zero.

> There was not a single proprietary port on the old MB Pro, except for MagSafe

So somehow that means Apple hates proprietary ports?

Besides, the Thunderbolt ports might as well have been proprietary given the small number of non-apple devices that used them.

I'm glad we agree there was a proprietary connector on that device.

MagSafe saved the brand "new" 15" MacBook Pro I bought last week, twice. Once when the young nephew grabbed the wire curious gently tugging it. Another when my mother hit the charger with her foot and sent it flying across the room. As well with the second case it also entirely prevented my mother from taking a nasty fall from tripping.

For those that it is useful for it is a big deal.

No, in a few years everything will be USB-C. The ports are gone for good.

Yeah the devices are coming soon. I find it ironic that the new macbook pro works seemlessly with new google pixel devices, you can just plug in a usb-c cable between them, no dongles needed. If Apple wanted to be really bold they would have swapped lightening for usb-c so the new iphone and macbook pro could be connected with one simple cable.

Totally agree. I made a comment on the original MBP thread that Apple dropped the ball here by not releasing the iPhone 7 also as usb-c. I'll be shocked, and really wonder WTF, if the next iPhone is not usb-c.

They're kind of in a tough spot there, having licensed so many lightning port accessories and headphones, that many of their customers have since spent so much money on.

And to their credit, they created the lightning port before USB type-C even existed.

Then why not a dongle? After all, that seems to be the solution for everything else...

and a several more after, it might have no ports! all wireless! wireless power!

  In particular the removal of the magsafe power connector

When USB-C removed the need for a dedicated power lead, I think that spelled the end for magsafe.

Still, there's always this: https://griffintechnology.com/intl/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-...

Or maybe this: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/branchusb/magneo-first-...

This looks like the right approach, thanks for the link.

However I still find the fact that I'd have to pay an extra $35 for an incredibly useful feature which apple decided to kill very unpleasant. Their product is not cheaper. So I end up subsidizing their stupidity. Or worse, their choice to not give a damn about my needs.

Where are you getting that impression? My understanding that was both the iPhone 7 and new MacBooks were the fastest-selling models of their respective product lines that Apple had ever released?

It's too early to tell. The iPhone 7 did indeed sell huge amounts immediately after launch, but IIRC that's the period every iPhone has sold the most - it then tails off throughout the year. The question is whether the iPhone 7 tails off more or less than previous devices.

As self-reported by Apple according to unknown criteria. We don't know yet.

But if you look at the development of iPhone sales [1], they pretty much peaked in 2015. Q1 2016 was only a rounding error away from the top in 2015 and YoY 2016 sales are very much down. That doesn't seem like a hot growing market anymore.

[1]: http://www.statista.com/graphic/5/263401/global-apple-iphone...

I wonder if, and if then how much, sales of MacBook pros are corellated to sales of iPhones. I suspect the correlation exists and it's stronger than we'd think.

The de-prioritization of MacOS could cause defections from all-Apple customers. Even though MacOS device revenue is a small percentage of iOS device revenue, MacOS defections break the all-Apple halo and open the door for other devices to be recommended by former advocates of Apple's ecosystem.

> the latest MacBooks Pros has been mostly negative

To developers to the hipsters they are "FANTASTIC!"

Apple doesn't think they need developer specific tools. Personally 90% of what I ever see is Apple products at Open Source conventions and developer conferences.

I thought the same thing about the MacBook because of what you hear in the tech echo chamber. The reality is that I t's mostly bullshit -- the notebooks have been selling extremely well. The disgruntled "pro" audience is mostly bullshit.

Intel isn't focusing very well on his category of product. Most of the PC OEMs have similar challenges -- faster laptops are bigger, have worse battery life and usually shittier screens.

Source on MBP sales? Are these launch sales figures or over a longer-term period?

https://www.google.com/amp/bgr.com/2016/11/22/macbook-pro-20...

If they are projecting a great 4th quarter with only a 2-3% drop off in Q1 2017, it's a runaway hit. Q1 is death for computer sales.

Thanks!

I'm not sure how much to extract from this article but it seems a leap to state definitively that "the notebooks have been selling extremely well" and that concerns are mostly bullshit. I have no dog in the fight as I am fine with the MBP overall, but this article cites no hard data. And the sole quote from Apple references only initial sales at their online store. That's good news but it doesn't speak definitively to overall initial sales, let alone multi-month/longer-term sales. The only other quote is from an MBP supply component company and is encouraging but ambiguous and isn't about actual sales but its own internal forecasts.

MBP sales may indeed turn out to be great and these are apparently good signals as to potential, but it'd be premature to conclude from these reports that it is selling "great", relative to either historical periods or to particular expectations, let alone that it will continue to do so if it is.

The "tech echo chamber" is really the discussion of the market leaders. It won't affect sales this generation, but look for reduced sales next generation, and the bottom to fall out the generation after that unless Apple really shakes up their development model.

> The numbers coming out of Apple next quarter will be interesting

Isn't it expected that many people will wait for the iPhone 8 (also iPhone's 10 year anniversary) because Apple probably waits with releasing new features for this version?

>I wonder what the response inside of Apple will be.

They'll take the battery out of the phone to make it 2mm thinner...and then you get to plug it in via dongle. #courage

I suspect Apple will continue downhill in 2017 especially in Asia markets. The so called iPhone 8 10-anniversary phone brand new design is never gonna happen. Instead we will get iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus with the same design but with an OLED screen. The reason is Tim Cook is in charge, he is a supply chain guy. And Apple is going to squeeze out all profit possible from the investments in iPhone 6/6s/7/7s design, by reusing the same factory retrofitting. Its about profit margin. If Apple continue to reuse the same 4 year old design, it will start to loose its appeal as a fashion accessory, to the younger crowd.

My buddy has purchased every new iPhone on release day since the first version. Every new iPhone except the 7. He said "The one I have now is the last one I'll buy". He's not willing to give up the headphone jack. I expect there are many more like him so a 10% reduction in production is to be expected. To be fair the 7 is slick and nice in a lot of ways.

I always bought every other iPhone. This year I got the iPhone 7 Plus and got on the every year upgrade plan... Put my girlfriend on the same plan.

Just another anecdotal story to pass around.

> He's not willing to give up the headphone jack.

Give him a couple years. He will.

then we will have better voice recognition and Bluetooth connectivity.

Yes, but all of my nice audio equipment isn't going to magically convert to Bluetooth.

10% or more reduction in the quarter after the holidays is always to be expected. This is just more of the usual "we need to write about _something_" journalism. Sigh.

(PS: anecdotally, 3 family members upgraded to 7s/7s+ in the last month. No complaints about headphone jack, it's really only a huge issue in the internet echo chamber while ordinary people in their vast majority don't care and just use whatever buds come with the device).

The article isn't talking about quarter over quarter growth, but year over year. Quarterly sales will likely decline, as they do most every year in the period and as is perfectly natural for this market. The story is that year-over-year growth may be lower than expected and that iPhone 7 component orders are being trimmed down.

I don't see anything in the article that says it's a 10% cut compared to last year, but maybe I missed it, can you clarify?

"Apple will trim production of its iPhone family around 10% on the year in the first quarter of 2017... This comes after the company slashed output in January-March 2016."

Along with the context that there is absolutely no news here if this is merely a dip in production from Oct-Dec to Jan-March as holiday sales are always high and then dip down significantly after January. The year-over-year trend is what matters.

Further context to back this up, from the USA Today article on this same story: "Apple has hinted throughout the year sales of its iPhone would decline. Fiscal year revenue for 2016 dropped for the first time in fifteen years. Meanwhile, fourth quarter iPhone shipments were down 5% from the same time last year."

It's a year-over-year trend, which is relatively unexpected, not quarter-over-quarter which is absolutely expected in this period.

Ah, okay, I didn't know the on the year term.

  there is absolutely no news here if this is merely a dip in production from Oct-Dec to Jan-March as holiday sales are always high and then dip down significantly after January.

Right, which is why I thought this was a non-article written in times of slow news. Thanks for explaining!

No worries and thanks for the reasonable reply! :-)

Like many of you here, I've also had buyers remorse with the iPhone 7 (Plus). I see everyone talking about putting the dongle on their headphones and leaving it there. Maybe my car is old fashioned, but I use my phone to stream spotify when I drive, which means the dongle stays in the car connected to AUX. I dont want to spend $10 on an extra dongle because that is fucking stupid. Not just this - but, like a fan boy, i purchased their new Macbook Pro with nothing but USB-C ports. The keyboard sucks, the touchbar is worthless to me (a sysadmin) and the trackpad is overkill. They removed the glowing apple, which doesnt affect my work but everything that was signature about the laptop has been stripped out. Do you know how stupid I look plugging my yubikey into a dongle into a USB-C port? I am a creature of habit so I just assumed that I'd get over all these changes but they are seriously impacting my use of the devices. It is not as easy to switch back to my iPhone 6 Plus but it is very easy for me to use my work macbook that doesnt have the gimmicky piece of crap they call the touch bar. The only positive on both the iPhone and MacBook is the battery life. Once they come out with something comparable that truly lasts as long, I'll switch away from Crapple.

You sure like sending "Crapple" your money.

If sticking yubikey into dongle to connect to your laptop is such a big deal for you, for the love of thigs why did you go full usb-c? Why did you get the touchbar model?

Seems like bad research on your end than poor execution.

As for keyboard, I really do enjoy it more then the sponginess of lterally any other laptop (including pre2016 mbp)

I do agree on the trackpad, seems overkill. But I didn't use it long enough to make judgement yet.

> I dont want to spend $10

Pennywise dollar dumb. You're making a $800+ device worse to save $10.

This is so overdue, to a company that has become so safe in mentality and lack of innovation.

Edit: look at the latest Macbook Pro, how out of touch this company has become, to put their philosophy/belief(thinner! lighter! no ports!) before true usability, to the point I feel sad because MBP was my favorite product from Apple.

Eh, I'll wait to hear the numbers. They reduce production every year at strategic times, I don't think it means doom.

I haven't bought a new phone since they stopped the practice of subsidizing a new phone purchase every 2 years. I can't understand how they wouldn't expect that to have killed sales. I had been buying a new phone every 2 years but now I have no plans to buy one until I absolutely need to.

Are we at the end of an era computing wise or is it just Apple? I wonder if computing technologies great transformation of our society is coming to an end. I also thought this in about 1993 and then again in the mid 2000s, so I'm probably wrong again. Maybe AI will be the new killer app that drives the next wave of upgrades.

No, there is simply more competition today, and market balances things out. Also, Apple grew too comfortable and stopped pushing forward. It was only a matter of time for this to happen.

Also, more in general, all the obvious improvements to the current smartphone form factor/concept have been made now: capacitive touch screen (iPhone), retina display (iPhone 4), fingerprint unlock/secure element (iPhone 5s), always listening Siri + Force Touch (iPhone 6s), plus huge improvements in CPU/GPU speed with all models. Where force touch was already quite a marginal improvement.

I have an iPhone 5S and my primary motivation to upgrade would be to get a 64GB model. I just don't see any revolutionary changes in newer iterations (neither in Android).

The same applies to the iPad. My wife has an iPad Air, but I have no clue telling how many generations it is behind, without checking Wikipedia. It works fine and there is no real reason to upgrade in newer iterations (except perhaps in specific niches).

There is always room for improvement in hardware and software. And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often, so the drop in sales is not due to technology saturation, but due to more competition becoming better than Apple.

And such high end handsets were never meant to be replaced very often

You're joking, right? If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle. Why do all these phones' screen break so easy. Why are all the batteries so terrible.

No, I disagree. Here in Australia, I know at least one carrier (Telstra) who will allow you to pay an additional amount (AU$149) 12 months in to a 24 month contract to allow you to upgrade the phone earlier.[1]

1. https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/plans-and-rates/new...

> If that were the case then why the rapid release cycle.

Competition. The fact that you don't need to upgrade doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to if you want to get something newer. Stronger competition forces them to move with good pace. Same as in for example regular PC hardware. Compare it to markets where competition is bad, like gaming consoles. There hardware release cycles are abysmally long.

Good point.

My thoughts exactly. Push forward in to where? And I think this is great for users. In the same way that my Core 2 Duo ThinkPad running Windows 7 (with SSD) does everything I need, I don't want to have to upgrade my phone every 12 months due to planned obsolescence.

I think one of the glaring areas for improvement is battery life. Won't someone give us the option of a 10+mm thick phone with a huge battery in it. Please.

> Push forward in to where?

In software. Apple's lock-in / NIH mentality combined with their slowness to innovate because they grew too comfortable bites them now (browsers is a clear example). And the trend will continue until Apple will wake up.

Apple has a real opportunity to modernize iOS a lot and kick Google in the nuts since they are very content sitting on their ass doing practically nothing for Android.

- Dark theme. Customization = good. Sends a good message.

- More separate volume controls. For me one volume level for notifications and phone ringer is absurd in 2016.

- LCD displays, really? The iPhone 7/Plus and the iPad Pro 9.7" are first of Apple's devices with an almost 100% correct color reproduction on the professional scales. About time for [s]AMOLED displays.

- More privacy settings and abilities to break the sandbox if the user so desires. If I want 3 apps to have access to the same vault of files, then I should be able to!

Since I sold my 6S Plus back in July I forgot the rest of my complaints but I remember them being between 10-13 in total.

    > I think one of the glaring areas for improvement is battery life.
    > Won't someone give us the option of a 10+mm thick phone with a huge battery in it. Please.

That I absolutely agree with. The obsessiveness with thin phones is something many of us hate with passion. I am a 115kg man at 184cm and pretty strong -- and a bit overweight :D -- and I honestly can't tell the difference between 140 and 200 grams in my hand. I'm sure a 300 or so grams of a phone would be perfect for many people.

> Won't someone give us the option of a 10+mm thick phone with a huge battery in it.

This option exists in the form of battery cases.

True enough but IMO this compromises the physical integrity of the phone. The one and only time in my life where I broke a screen of a smartphone was exactly when it had a hefty battery case on.

I'd prefer the bigger battery to be a part of the package.

> - Dark theme. Customization = good. Sends a good message.

I'm not sure if the customization option would come anytime soon, but a dark theme would very likely come out in 2017 when Apple releases an iPhone with an OLED display. It most likely wouldn't come if the lineup is all LCD (as it has been so far). This is all about battery life, which Apple obsesses about a lot. Assuming there's just text on the screen, with LCD, black text on white background would be better for battery life, whereas on an OLED screen, having white text on a black background would be better for battery life.

Edit: While Apple has shipped (LCD) iPhone models with new versions of iOS and sometimes darker wallpapers, my point above is more about many of the Apple apps, including Settings, Mail, Reminder, and so on.

I love it that they are obsessed with battery life. It seems very few OEMs remember what a mobile device is these days. I like Apple for it very much.

That being said, I would buy the OLED iPhone in a heartbeat but only if it has bezels and has no curved screen. These fads are making normal human usage of the phones a huge annoyance and really need to die.

I'm very sad that I am seeing exactly the opposite: many people FINALLY got their brains warmed up and figured "Hey! Samsung did it, look how well their S7 Edge sold! Let's do the same!"... that's awful, sigh. They absolutely don't get it.

Do you have any data that suggest that the reason Apple's sales are decreasing is because they are loosing markets to competitors, rather than simply because the whole market is not growing as much as it was previously?

Not sure if such data is public. That's my own deduction, based on apparent slowing down of innovation in Apple. It's natural to expect to fall behind competition in such case. If other manufacturers would start reducing production too, it would indicate, that market is now now not growing as much as before.

Mobile is maturing and consumer upgrade cycles are starting to slow down because of it.

So yes, I would say we are at the end of an era.

I'd also add that the move away from carrier subsidies may be slowing the upgrade cycle. We had an artificial 2 year upgrade cycle just because that was when your carrier would give you a subsidy.

But now I'm sitting here with a 2.5 year phone that I don't feel like replacing for 700 bucks out of pocket.

It's the end if you still refuse to buy anything but Apple products. Check out new devices outside the Apple store. VR, IoT's galore, and look at all the things you can do with raspberry pi these days.

I don't think it's either - what indicates we are at the "end of an era"? We've only had practical smartphones for about 10 years, which is an astonishingly short time!

I don't think we are at the end of anything, much less Apple. AI looks like the next big thing, and Apple needs to be careful not to miss it. Siri is just is not as good as what Google and Alexa are doing, and Apple appears doing nothing to satisfy the home demand. If they somehow completely miss the home AI front then I might get onboard the Apple is dying train. There is still time right now though.

They kinda shot themselves in the foot with their positioning on privacy. You can't get good at AI assistants without huge amount of training data.

The privacy thing is part of it, but Apples AI problem is deeper than that. Google and Amazon both have huge supplementary personalized datasets to pull from. Normal interactions with Apple just do not give away as much personal information, even if their privacy policy did not exist.

What has historically pushed consumer computing is new UX

We're in a lull with no new UX paradigms with mass appeal

VR/AR are still too expensive and inadequate. Plus a lot of people think they're plain silly

AI assistants seem to be the obvious choice but are still pretty meh. And one doesn't need to upgrade a handset each year to use the latest cloud based AI

Apple doesn't do well with services. They make hardware. Which is in a "good enough" state for many users

Phones are reaching (arguably have already reached a year ago) the point laptops reached a few years ago where it is becoming increasingly hard for even the earliest of adopters to justify upgrading more than every couple of years because the hardware differences just aren't very striking anymore.

I'm not sure AI is the best "cure" for this as generally the heavy lifting of what AI is currently present in phones (both from Apple and Google) is offloaded to remote servers anyway.

I see zero reason to upgrade my 5S. I just have not seen a compelling selling point for the later models compared to all the major overhauls phones like the 4 and 5 represented.

There's the form factor I guess, but everything just feels incremental or like basic maintenance right now.

A more realistic reason is probably saturation, a little like Facebook's user base. They're going to pursue new market rather than get people to replace their current phones from now on, I imagine.

Gunpei Yokoi (the designer of the Game Boy) had a philosophy "lateral thinking with withered technology". At the time this meant finding creative new form factors and uses for existing, highly commoditized, technology. There was nothing really special about the Game Boy, but it dominated the portable gaming market because of packaging and software.

The computing industry is now almost entirely commoditized, there's really nothing component-wise you can add that makes a huge difference, it's now about packaging, form factor, use-cases and software. Apple figured this out with the original iPhone. There were plenty of smart-phone devices on the market before then, but Apple figured out the lateral strategy and ended up owning the smartphone market for a few years. Nintendo's Game Boy also had portable gaming predecessors, but they nailed the size, cost and performance triangle.

Nintendo, just like Apple, had loads of portable gaming competitors, the list is endless. And just like Apple, didn't have a real competitor until a huge company with lots of staying power got involved (Sony). Now in many ways, Smartphones and cousin Tablets are Nintendo's competitors, again developed and sold by massive competitors with deep pockets (Samsung, Apple, etc.), but Nintendo's lateral thinking policy is still turning heads and making the company money.

Apple is now in a position where they need to think laterally again. They sort of tried with Smart Watches, but are those really reformulations of commidity hardware? They were pitched and sold very heavily as luxury lifestyle items and the market hasn't embraced them with the kind of fervor previous electro-gadgets were grabbed onto.

Apple's not hitting it either with the new MBP or the aging and impossibly priced Mac Pro trashcans. In fact the Mac Pro is a better example of what's wrong at Apple today than the MBP. It's a new form factor that doesn't provide any new use cases, gets rid of many of the other ones and is so overpriced and mismatched in features that nobody can quite figure out what they're supposed to be for.

Where we're seeing Yokoi-ing style thinking right now is at Microsoft. Repackaging existing hardware in new formulations, driving it with software (sometimes better than others), and then using that combination at reasonable price points to get product into consumer's hands and build profit options. There's now devices that run consistent software from tablet to wall-sized collaboration screens on the market, today, from Microsoft.

When a business person looks at a Surface, they see "light, portable, runs my business software, plus enables me to scribble notes" they get it and who it's for. Nobody can quite figure out who the new MBP or the Mac Pro is supposed to be for. They're still selling because Apple, but there's a real sense that Apple has started to lose the Golden Spark and is just making stuff to make stuff. They don't have a coherent philosophy anymore, it used to be "it just works" and those were glorious times and set laudable goals that I think drove them to innovate and make people centric and approachable machines. But that's gone, it's clearly gone, and they don't have a new corporate philosophy. I think it should be something Yokoi-like, because of the nature of the hardware available these days. But that's not where the company is either.

I don't think so, really. Self-driving cars are a big one. Wearables (lenses, implants, clothing, etc.) are coming. Business software for SMBs probably has a bit to go yet in using big data/AI.

I do think biotech is the hot stuff of the future, but it's going to take a decade or two before it really takes off.

I've had the 7 for a few months and I am considering returning it. The phone is overall solid build quality but uninspired/boring. There are flaws that make this model a definite downgrade from previous models. I buy Apple products because of the thoughtful little details they pay attention to that you didn't know you wanted till you noticed it. Its a super high bar to be sure but its one that is part of their brand and the justification for the insane markup they charge. I would compare it to buying a bespoke suit or a quality time piece. You pay this kind of money because you are serious about having the best and want every little thing just right. The 7 is just kinda "meh" and thats not how I want to feel when I spend this kind of scratch.

The headphone jack is of course super annoying and I run into so many case where I wish I had it (for instance when trying to play a song back through some monitors for my friends). Just such a stupid and unnecessary move.

The deal breaker for me (and can anyone confirm if they are experiencing this??) is that the lightning connector just refuses to stay plugged in if I jostle the phone even slightly. Tried different cables, case on and off. Always the same. Its possible that I have a defective unit I guess.

At this point the only things keeping me are a) I need an iOS device for some work projects. b) I am concerned that I wont be able to move all my data over to another platform without massive pain.

See if you dont have anything inside the port. I need to clean mine with a needle from time to time because small stuff from my pockets like cloth dust gets inside and then gets compressed every time you plug the cable. Ive seen this being the primary cause of the sensitive connection problem for a lot of people(including micro usb ports)

> There are flaws that make this model a definite downgrade from previous models

Only if you go back to the 5, in form factor/design it's an upgrade in absolutely every way over the abysmal 6-series apart from the headphone jack.

Back of the 6 is full of dirty antenna lines, the materials it was made out of look and feel cheap and slippy, the camera wart is just another component stuck to the back.

7 has a premium black option again finally that provides much needed grippyness, camera thought still warty is an equal distance from the edge not lopsided and actually machined out the case, antenna lines are finally almost invisible again.

> Only if you go back to the 5, in form factor/design it's an upgrade in absolutely every way over the abysmal 6-series apart from the headphone jack.

I'm in agreement with you that the 5 series form factor is way better. I was in fact referring to the headphone jack and the problems with the thunderbolt connector as being a downgrade from the previous generation.

> 7 has a premium black option again finally that provides much needed grippyness, camera thought still warty is an equal distance from the edge not lopsided and actually machined out the case, antenna lines are finally almost invisible again

TBH I think that most users (myself included) slap a case on these devices straight away so all of that stuff is kind of pointless. That attention to detail should be expected at this price point that said.

The 7 doesn't suck by any stretch. IMHO there are some flaws and design stupidity that just shouldn't have been allowed to make it out into the world so I'm considering alternatives. The S7 Edge maybe? Dunno.

I'm not surprised sales are weak: the regular iPhone 7 seems to offer few improvements over the 6s or 6, with only the 7+'s camera being a really notable differentiator.

Better camera, better screen, faster, waterproof, more ram, Taptic Engine, nicer finish options, more durable home button, and on and on. It's a better phone in almost every measurable way.

And still, for many daily users the differences are not going to be spectacular. At least not 'drop 700 Euro on it' spectacular. So I guess many people went from a 2 year to a 3-4 year upgrade cycle.

The camera upgrade is spectacular. But yes, it's not a reason normal people would pay 700 € to upgrade, unless they're semi-professional bloggers/Instagram users/whatever.

I should start measuring the time I spend fishing around my cluttered desk looking for that stupid dongle because I'm now done with a Hangouts call on my laptop and would like to switch back to my phone to play a podcast. iPhone 7 will crush that metric! Oh wait, lower is better? Eph!

There's also that time that it was 2pm and I still hadn't had lunch. I ended a Hangouts call, yanked my headphones out of my mbp, cruised over to the elevator, and excitedly made my way to Eataly for a prime rib sandwich. Sat down with my sandy, pulled 1/8" jack toward base of phone… Eph again!

The experiences that end in me loathing Apple are building slowly and steadily.

See, your problem is you need a 1/8" (male) to lightning (female) dongle that you leave on your laptop. Then switch to lightning headphones and you're all set. Because dongles magically fix everything.

It does suck. I've remedied it by using bluetooth earphones & also bringing an adapter (which is pretty small) in my wallet, along with a microusb-to-lightning adapter. And now I'm pretty happy with my phone.

All of this is extra effort to fix broken usability. Not much but frequent and unavoidable.

All this subsidizes apple's decision to not offer an effortless solution for very common use cases.

Bringing a dongle is an effort. Replacing existing headphones is an effort. Paying extra ateention to which Apple-made earbuds I bring is an effort. Buying bt headphones and charging them is an effort.

What am I buying with the extra efforts I need to invest in activities which required no such efforts before?

The sound is not better. I am not going to swim with my phone.

My only conclusion is that I do this for Apple, not for me.

Not $850 better than this iPhone 6+ purchased at launch.

It's trivial for folks to turn a light on if their pictures are too dark

Unless you're making a living off iPhone photos, most people will do fine with performance and features of the SE even

None of those is as big as a upgrade than a bigger screen from 5s to 6.

Seriously, look at Apple's announcements of late, it didn't feel like an event trying to wow its customers, it felts like an internal business review where executives boasting about how impressive their achievements/progress are since last one.

Do we know if the lack of headphone jack has any effect on sales?

AFAIK all we have are anecdotes, but I know a half dozen friends that decided to "try Android" to keep their headphone jacks.

It's very possible they'll go back for the next iPhone iteration, but they didn't buy the 7 because of it.

What Android did they buy?

Some Galaxies (not sure which ones), one Nexus 6P, but mostly Pixels.

Anecdotally, yes. It does (and will) stop me from buying this and following models. Making people carry around (and forget / lose) an extra dongle to make up for removed functionality is the opposite of good UX. I will ride my iPhone 6 until it dies of HW failure (still mint condition now) and only then will I think long and hard about a successor. Ask me again in 6 years or so.

For someone who waited nearly a month to get my iphone7 (as an upgrade from a galaxy s3) due to inventory being unavailable I'm going WTF - sluggish sales? then why did i have to wait so long? But then at the same time I compare my iphone 7 to friends iphone 6S models and realize...oh the only difference is the headphone jack if you dont do x,y,z...no wonder they aren't selling too many

Better screen, better camera, better external speakers, added waterproofing, and faster. I'm not sure what people were expecting when they say nothing has changed.

Out of that list, the waterproofing is the only one that really stands out. The rest are minor, iterative improvements. We're used to Apple making larger leaps on even years (4,5,6) then iterative improvements in odd years (4S, 5S, 6S). But this year they broke that - the 7 feels more like an iPhone 6SS than a 7. Yes, it's better, but it's not "full price for a new phone" better.

> We're used to Apple making larger leaps

I think what people mean when they say this is they are used to Apple redesigning the outside of the phone every 2 years. I just do not see that as necessary. Unfortunately, many people care more about the superficial it looks different instead of the real improvements which it had many.

Well in the past the "redesigning the outside of the phone every 2 years" also meant higher res/bigger screens which was a very clear improvement.

Aside from better battery life (better as in 3+ days of use) I can't think of much I'd want in a phone that isn't already there. Camera, display, speed etc are all fine for my needs.

I agree - which is why I, and many others, don't see the need to upgrade. That's the problem Apple is facing.

Yeah, still rocking the iPhone 6 here. I'd quite like the 3D touch that's on newer models, but not enough to pay for a new phone. Will likely stay with this until the battery drops off or it otherwise stops working.

Previously had 3G,3GS,4,5 so this is the longest I've a particular model.

Is the same stagnation in Android land too? I wonder how manufacturers will handle it in the long run?

Incremental changes are less noticeable. Sure they show up on spec sheets but unless you've got both models side by side for direct comparison smartphones have generally reached a level of "good enough".

I don't really think my Pixel is amazingly faster compared to my old Nexus 5, most apps I use on a frequent basis were instant on both phones. I think the screen is arguably worse on the Pixel but unless I go find a Nexus to compare with, they're essentially identical.

But I don't watch/listen-to-externally music videos in the rain while switching back and forth between snap-chatting

The comparison of the 7 and 6S between email, browser, twitter and a couple other common apps however is negligible.

Difference between 6s and 6 were also small and so are the differences between a Samsung Galaxy S7 and a S6, for example. I'd venture that is very rare these days to have a phone that justifies buying the immediate next generation one. Phones are mature enough. Good ones are really well built and will last a couple generations just fine.

As long as this is an industry-wide problem, Apple has nothing to fear. It would be a problem IF people who have waited three years to change their iPhone decide to go for a different brand.

Not one person has thought that this may be due to production of the next iPhone beginning. Cook is a logistics guy and under him, Apple keep inventory to a minimum. Add to the the fact that the quarter immediately following Christmas is always sluggish. This looks like a normal shift in production priorities.

If this were true, the supply chain would know about it.

I missing the part in the article where it says this was a surprise to the supply chain.

Sluggish sales? Well, they're sold out (and with a sizable backlog) here in Portugal. A family member needed a new phone and we were put on a waiting list for "at least two weeks".

No 7, 6s or SE have been available (unless you really like rose gold) for a week or so now, at least in the couple of retailers and telcos I checked.

Oh, HN audience: how transparent you are.

Ironic that people continued upgrading for years when relatively few changes were made, and Android continued to improve.

Then, shortly after they finally made significant changes (e.g. expanded form factor choices), upgrades begin to slow.

I'm definitely not buying an iPhone 7. Not only did they remove the headphone jack, they used their proprietary Lightning port. If they instead provided a USB C port, I'd consider it. That's at least universally available and I can see headphone manufacturers developing headphones which connect via USB C in the near future. Carrying around a headphone adapter is just too much of a compromise for me.

I'm guessing iPhone 8 will be a enough significant design change to maintain sales.

However we are getting to the point with smartphones like we did with PC's ten years ago where they just became "good enough" for everyday use so the constant upgrades were less necessary for normal use.

Does anyone know if this cut is:

- sequential (fewer phones than christmas season)

- YoY (year-over-year -- vs Q1 2016)

- or vs financial guidance (an apparent difference between what they told their investors they would do during the last shareholder call and their now-current plan)?

Or is it something else?

This happens every year after the Christmas quarter and the tech idiots always proclaim that it's the last nail in the coffin for Apple.

"Breaking: iPhones sold well around Christmas, sales declined after everyone bought a new one, just like last year. News at 10."

This is not what the article says. It isn't discussing quarter-over-quarter sales. It references year-over-year sales.

It is also discussing supply chain order volumes, which can indicate future expectations of sales by the company (Apple).

It's more than what you said. Apple is a solid supply chain company and they understand quarter-to-quarter demand changes. It turns out that their Q1 estimates were too high by 10%. The initial estimates already accounted for the cyclical holiday season.

I just updated my ancient iPhone 4 for a Huawei P9 Lite. The main reason I chose Android was I hated iTunes. It deleted my music library and was impossible to manage. I really like the Huawei. It's fast, reasonably priced, has a decent camera, and a good screen, and I upgraded the memory with an extra 32MB for less than $20.

I had been led to believe that Android OS would be worse than iOS, but there's no significant difference that would make me want to go back to iOS.

Isn't this just a way of trying to boost iPhone 7s/8 sales by cutting supply of previous gen?

If they want to boost sales, bring back the headphone jack and get rid of 3d touch. Simple as that!

What's wrong with 3d touch? I'm a fan of it, especially its use on the keyboard to move the text cursor.

And yet Apple market cap (618b) is almost as high as MSFT and IBM combined (641b)

My Christmas wish is that sales tank to the point of triggering serious introspection.

This would obviously bring back the headphone jack, and hdmi/magsafe to the mbp. ;)

Do you know any company which recovered from introspection? It feels to me like they all tank, whether it be Yahoo! or Nokia. My Christmas wish would be to have enough competition that we'd have a real choice for privacy, performance, jack/hdmi/magsafe/Fn keys, and open-source. "Be the change you seek", they say.

No, you're right. Alas, my wish is fanciful. :(

I hate not having a jack it really pisses me off

Normally I'm not a fan of clickbait headlines, but the authors totally whiffed on "Apple to decimate iPhone production in the new year"

I'm really glad I just learned this definition of "decimate", can't wait to use this

You have a team of 10 devs, and blow a project? Draw straws, the loser gets fired.

Not a bad idea if there is good team dynamics. Probably more effective than firing everyone and starting again.

Finally the historical use of the word Decimate. To remove 1 in 10.

> The word decimation is derived from Latin meaning "removal of a tenth" - http://www.dictionary.com/browse/decimate

In Ancient Rome if a Roman Army was to be disciplined for desertion or mutiny they would be decimated and 1 in 10 soldiers would be killed by the commanding officer. They would use lottery system to choice the ones to be whipped to the point of death and then beheaded. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation_(Roman_army)#cite_n...

True! I just read about the "decimation of Aethelwulf" - the ninth century king of Wessex (current Great Britain) gave away a tenth of his empire in order to secure the kingdom during his pilgrimage to Rome.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Æthelwulf#Decimation_Charter...

Cool! I like reading about that stuff, especially so since I've also been watching the semi-historical fiction of "Vikings". The show is enjoyable even when not historically accurate but it then gets me to read about the similar things that actually happened.

Ugh, the olden days seem so cruel. It motivates me to make the world a better place.

I watched "The Last Kingdom" from BBC (which I recommend) and it made me want to know more about 9th century England. So far the book "Alfred the Great: the man who made England" by Justin Pollard has been fantastic if you're into that kind of thing. It's very well researched and historically accurate but not overly dry, Pollard makes a point of not including too many footnotes in the book as many of the more academically targeted books do.

WOW genius sneaky news release the day before NYE when all the traders are away from the desks and will be shitfaced drunk tomorrow and forget by monday.

It would be good if it was true, though. Just to wake them up.

The 7 is really extremely boring, and the haptic button feels terrible.

I wonder how the pro Apple blog sites, where no news is bad news, will spin this.

"Apple to focus on quality not quantity"

"Apple to give its workers extra time off for the holidays"

"Why Apple Was R̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ Wrong To Remove The iPhone 7 Headphone Jack"

There's some real accountant-level decision making at Apple at the moment.

For instance, the MacBook Pro is exactly 3 lbs and the MacBook is 2 lbs. They were designed with weight contraints in mind rather than the user. You have to buy a DongleBook because of that.

Rather than a delightful experience, there is the feeling of having being conned and someone making your wallet lighter.

Not surprising considering who is in charge.

I have an iPhone 6S since its first month. Just thought, you know, test it once. But I always look jealously at my friends who run Android phones for half the price. You can just do more with Androids, it's more efficient, the keyboard is more efficient, apps can run concurrently, and to my surprise even the cameras seem to be way better. Besides the brand I really don't know what reason there is to buy iPhones. So to me it is no surprise that the sales drops. Just means people still vote quality over empty brand value. (The same doesn't apply to Macbooks afaik)

As a counter to just one of your points, you can also run apps concurrently on iOS, in fact you can have them side-by-side, and for audio apps, multiple separate apps can generate synthesizers and other music simultaneously while another app mixes and records them. It's pretty neat stuff.

Can you link to a guide, YT video or something? I've never seen it in action. I just see a lot of my apps only get active when they are the front app. Side by side mixing and and generating sounds like the same direction I want to go when using a modern smart phone.

> you can also run apps concurrently on iOS

Only for use cases Apple has approved. E.g., an IRC or SSH app will always lose it's connection after 10 minutes in the background since that's not an approved use case by Apple.

> in fact you can have them side-by-side

Only on the Plus models and iPads

Everyone has their own opinion and that's fine, but saying Android is more efficient than iOS just is demonstrably untrue that I'm not entirely convinced you typed that with a straight face. There's also only one phone that has a camera as good as the iPhone, and that's the newly released Pixel. Every other camera falls short in independent testing.

About the camera: That's what I thought as well. So I presented my phone proudly in a bar to friends, all of them having Android. We shot some photos, and each and every photo was better than on the 6S. 100% and live.

About the efficiency: Agreed that it's a hard thing to argue. But the reason is less that it's not measureable, but because it's hard to convince people of efficiency that they don't even deem possible. Best example for me is Vim vs a random simple text editor. People who use the latter are hard to convince of why Vim is way more efficient, since they can't even imagine what you can do with Vim. In the same regard I know few, really few people, who even try to achieve some level of efficiency on their phones. But in fact since I have paid for the iPhone now I would love to be convinced from the opposite myself. So if you have some neat efficiency tricks (e.g. how to get a typing speed of not lifting your finger at all + good word guessing on an iPhone) I'm happy to admit being wrong.

it's more efficient,

It would need to be to run on the slower processors available to non-Apple companies.

You can just do more with Androids

What more, specifically?

My biggest examples are:

Notifications. You can react immediately to notifications on Android (e.g. respond to a chat message without opening the app). You have them at the front and they are not gone after seeing them once hidden somewhere in a back menu (whcih is kind of important for reminders).

Keyboard. I have this phone for a year now? It still doesn't know sh*t about guessing my words. And you can't just slide words, you always need to type them. Combining bad guesses with wild, error prone typing makes typing on the iPhone really, really slow. Afaik you can't even change the keybord if you hate the stock one, right?

Interface control. You can't really control the interface as much. Like on my Android I always had side menus with widgets and app overviews (e.g. last few mails)..

Background processes. There seem to be a few apps that have background notifications like chat apps. But most of them don't do anything if they are not the front app (e.g. my photo backup app). I even had personal hotspot shut down if it's not the "active" app after some time.

Notifications: You can slide down on, say, a text message notification to open a text box where you can immediately respond. Otherwise if the phone is locked you swipe, unlock the phone, and it takes you to the app. You can also swipe down from the top edge to get a list of recent notifications and things on your to-do list.

Keyboard: Apple's autocorrect is actually really good for me. There are times where I have typed completely garbled things and it was able to figure out what I Was actually saying. You can also add third party keyboards if you want. You might think it works less than it does because of selection bias.

Interface: whatever man.

Background processes: Personal Hotspot is the only one that's been finicky for me, but usually other apps work fine in the background for me. For example, I'm usually able to get Reddit/Messenger notifications pretty quickly.

I feel like your comment is from 3 or 4 years ago. It's been at least a few versions of iOS since you can respond directly to notifications, replace the keyboard, add widgets to the 'today' screen.

Background processing works fine, and was implemented in a way that doesn't completely drain the battery. The hotspot is designed to turn off if the clients have not been transmitting or receiving data for a period of time as a battery saving measure. It doesn't do this if you tether over USB though.

May be true, but I don't see how. I could agree to just having less knowledge about what you can do with your iPhone in comparison to what you can do with your Android phone.

Fair points. You can react to iMessage notifications inside the notification overlay on iOS 10 ... and it's dog slow and inconvenient and I don't like it.

The keyboard and autocomplete is really frustrating. You can custom keyboard, but even with NinType swipe-keyboard installed, it's slow to startup, and I don't use it because it wants me to type whole English words in whole English sentences - and that's not what I want to write in iMessages.

Also, phones like the Pixel (which i hear many are having issues with tho) have the Google Assistant built in.

Siri which i have used since 2011 is junk comparably. For me having the best AI assistant on my phone is as important having the best camera. Such makes life a lot easier!

I have an iPhone and an Android phone. I use both on a regular basis. I see a lot of friends with iPhones looking jealously at people with Android, and vice versa. The grass is always greener. I've talked people out of switching—on both sides.

I'm far from the only one—before I got an Android phone, I asked my Android-using friends about it. They told me it was a bad idea.

I'm in a cynical mood right now so I'm going to say that both platforms suck, just for different reasons, and switching platforms sucks even more so don't do it unless you have a very good reason. Android has a ton of problems with software, ecosystem, and hardware. iOS has a ton of problems with software, ecosystem, and hardware. If you like the assistant and cloud services maybe Android is the right choice. If you like battery life and app ecosystem then maybe iOS is the right choice.

I also had the experience of dragging out an obsolete (5 year old) phone recently. I was surprised how well it compared against modern phones, except for the fact that a 5 year old lithium battery doesn't hold much of a charge.

I still use my iPhone 4S every day as my main phone and it is well over 5 years old now. It still works great for me!

I had an Android excursion from 2013-2016 (Nexus, Moto G, two generations of Moto X), because the grass is always greener on the other side.

It is definitely true that there are great Android phones at half the price of an iPhone. It's also true that the latest Android versions are pretty good and material design is great.

However, upgrades and handling of warranty is a complete nightmare on Android. Even Motorola, which used vanilla Android, was rolling out updates at a snail's pace. And when updates came out, they were incredibly buggy (e.g. Android 5.0 for Moto X 2014 had terrible memory leaks and it took them half a year to release a fixed version). When you have an issue with your phone (e.g. my Moto X 2013 would spontaneously reboot), you are basically without a phone for 1-2 weeks. My Moto 360 had a crack, and long story short, I had a replacement after 2 months (!).

Life is too short for that nonsense. With an iPhone, you can just bring your device to an Apple store and usually have it fixed within a few hours. (E.g. my iPhone 5S recently had a screen issue, it was fixed in 2 hours, no questions asked.)

Yeah, the update problem was a big one for some time. They seem to have fixed that now to a big degree though. Warranty I'm unsure, but convincing me that Apple does that better is not hard. Haven't thought about that at all, since I never had an issue before using a phone for 2+ years (whcih meant replacing it with a newer one was the better option anyways)

Bad news for smaller app developers: when Android becomes monopoly, apps will be pulled left and right from Google Play.

For what reason? I would wager that 3rd party stores would gain popularity should that happen.

If that happened, Google would stop letting you install those.

They would be sued so hard and fast that they would travel back in time to register the original googol domain.

And you'd likely see a fork with support of the major handset makers and companies like Amazon. Google has a lot of control thru Play Services, but something that hostile would be a recipe for a split.

Oh right, something like Cyanogenmod, right? ducks

They've been looking into getting rid of aosp for years by the means of neglecting it. So they'd just have to stop publishing the code.

This move by Apple isn't in response to losing marketshare as much as iPhone owners not upgrading.

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