With a $1k Price, Apple’s iPhone Crosses a Threshold
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
And in terms of iPhones / Population / Apple Store, the US has it most. While in Japan 60% of the Smartphone are iPhone ( i.e Higher the US usage ) they have less then 10 Apple Stores. And it is the same everywhere else, which means any mark up in a certain countries has nothing to do with its Operation with in, and more to do with a Sales Tax, Global Pricing structure.
For Example, HongKong used to have the cheapest iPhone around the world, it was priced the same as US and because there are no Sales tax, it was 10-15% cheaper. Making HK the trading ground for all of SEA region or mainly China. ( Hence Tim Cook continue to blame HK market is more of a delusion rather then fact. ) Around iPhone 5 Apple started to put up additional $100 USD to ALL iPhone price in HK, as a way to combat the black market trading, and if everyone else where making money of it, why not keep the profits itself?
What has all these got to do with $1K iPhone. Well Apple already knew certain people are buying at those prices, again why not make a product that fit those segment? And to re balance the prices across the Globe?
And we have known for long there is no way to make the cutting edge devices every 12 months and ship 200M+ of it. They will need a product that only 10-20% of those 200M will buy, and have the best technology in it.
And mind you, shipping cutting edge technology to 20-40M user a year isn't any easier then the 200M+ iPhone.
Only one of the tech toys stores that we visited had Samsung at the time.
I think the largest stores are Elgiganten, Mediamarkt, Netonnet and all of those sell a mixture.
A quick look at price comparison site for my area shows 80 stores selling iPhone 7 and 72 sellingg Galaxy S8. And that includes the Apple stores.
Purchase protection took care of a theft I had in my house last month. They just needed a receipt and a police report, and the purchase price was refunded a few days later.
VAT in the EU (or anywhere else really that has the concept of VAT) normally affords no additional consumer protections on its own. It's a tax, not dissimilar at a high level to sales tax in the US, applied to goods or services at time of sale.
http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...
Check your cardholder agreements. Mine do.
This is in addition to a year of additional warranty protection and various other purchase protections.
Only some of us haven't kept those in many, many years. And the one I had back then certainly didn't have such things, but it might have changed since the late 90's. For myself personally, it doesn't seem worth the hassle. Another bill every month that is non-necessary when I could just save some money to cover such things or get it repaired. It kinda sucked not having an actual card in the US, but here it isn't.
Is this sort of thing common on credit cards nowadays? I saw two replies mentioning their banks, and I'm now wondering how widespread such a thing is.
Yeah, you can autopay on debit cards too, but I don't trust that as much.
Purchase protection is pretty common on good credit cards.
27% VAT <3
#wordlclass
"Salary in the US is higher" - but heir healthcare sucks
"Weather in California is nicer than in Oslo" - But you don't have healtcare
"New York is such a great city to live in" - But you're left for dead
I just want to say that at the end of the day there is no solution other than reducing the cost: be it healthcare or education or retirement...
My idea is that it is not something that you should have to think about. I mean I understand it is a difficult topic because you have these outliers that can totally destroy your life if you have a baby with a malfunctioning heart or whatever but it comes back to the question of what we think is fair. I sincerely believe that healthcare is too expensive. The problem is that nobody who is in a position to cut costs has the incentive to do so.
I mean I hear all these complaints about medicare from providers like oh there are restrictions on what you can bill and what you can't and I am just thinking "good" because otherwise the doctor will put every single patient who comes in with a stomach ache through an MRI without using any of her judgment. I mean it looks badly on her if one out of a thousand patients turns out to have something she didn't catch but it doesn't hurt her at all for all those 999 useless MRI and the cost of those. The hospital is happy because they already have the machine and the technician who is there so is drawing salary so they have an incentive to maximize the use of the machine and the technician.
I am hopeful for medicare for all but we should remember that this is not the end of the problem. There are no silver bullets. As a society, we have to constantly make difficult choices and I for one support "death panels" which to me means that certain cases where the cost is too great AND the outcome is not good enough can and should get denied.
I'm not completely clear on the point you're trying to make, but this is how things work in socialised healthcare. Not everything is paid for - instead the money that is available is spent on those that return the best value-for-money balanced against not being unfair on an individual level. The question of whether to MRI everyone with tummy pain is translatable into a clinical question and can be tested in clinical studies.
In the UK we work on using a QALY - or quality-adjusted life-year to help with these sorts of decisions. They are used on boards in NICE (for general health-provisioning guidance) and the cancer drugs fund [1] which aims to give quick guidance on the fast-developing and expensive field of anti-cancer therapies.
Sure there are no silver bullets, but issues you bring up are being tackled to a relatively sophisticated degree in other countries.
That's perfect! One more question: how do you handle things like tobacco, alcohol, sugar, daredevils (think jackass the TV show)?
The hospital that did it was religiously affiliated and knocked a huge amount off my total hospital stay, but I still paid a lot out of pocket.
What's worse is, until the ACA came along, that bout of uninsured surgery made me uninsurable from then on--I had "pre-existing condition". The ACA has made it possible for me to actually buy health insurance at all again.
Of course, I'm still hoping the Medicare for All movement starts gaining steam...
So back to the $1,000 phone. If all phones cost $1000 - I'd be more likely to go without one.
In addition, the fact that's part of every discussion gives a hint of how much of an issue this is.
you buy subsidized insurance. do Europeans really think the USA is just a free for all ?
EDIT: The less it costs for the same quality.
Your salary requirements factor into the price. Someone making only 17k a year is capped at $54 a month premium. There are caps at certain salary intervals.
> Whereas in the part of Europe where I live, the less you have the less healthcare costs you.
100% true for the US as well. Please don't listen to news or internet comments. Verify the facts!
I was buying plans from health care exchange for 2 years and my last plan for two (parent and child) cost me 500$ per month with 6500 deductible per person - 13000$ total.
So effectively I had only a catastrophic insurance but was forced to pay for some subsidized guys who had a platinum plan with no deductible for 54$ per month. Worst situation for people like me!
The system has warts. There are good reasons to criticize it. But saying we leave the poor dying in the streets because, well, fuck 'em they're poor, is both untrue and insulting.
Well, except that it's exactly true that that’s why the “warts” that you acknowledge which do, in fact, deny swaths of the poor access to care are tolerated.
And by the way, I do not buy subsidized insurance. I pay my taxes, and I have health insurance. My taxes pay for health insurance. There is nothing else to pay to get that, other than a small fee for the doctor out of pocket up to a certain amount. No doctor, no medicine = no payment. Other than taxes, assuming I'm working and paying taxes.
Personally I'd offer the somewhat-feeble defense that it isn't as bad as people say it is, but I'd stop far short of calling it good... because I've got my own political axes to grind too, even if they are nearly diametrically opposed to the local consensus. But it isn't actually true that the American health system requires you to sign into indentured servitude the moment you walk in the emergency room door, and injects you with strychnine and tosses you out the door if you can't pay enough to satisfy the bureaucracy this week. Ambulance crews do not prowl the street and abduct unsuspecting European tourists and force them to donate blood before they're allowed to escape. Doctors do not actually giggle with glee and make "chaching!" noises when giving you bad diagnoses.
Why would they? The US produces a surplus of blood and tissue, to the point that many other countries (particularly in Europe) have to purchase to from the US to address their own shortages.
Watched this process with sick relatives in the 90s, and it was already fucked-up then. Gone through it with my wife's 3 pregnancies and a couple family illnesses in the last 5ish years. Same thing. It's a broken, evil system that ruthlessly exploits and crushes anyone without the time, wits, and wherewithal to fight it every step, and it has been for a long time. I think what changed is we have much better exposure to what it's like elsewhere, so more of us are aware that there is no reason whatsoever to keep hurting people this way.
Look up how much US spends on healthcare and how much rest of the world does.
Is your point, "we spend so much today that we couldn't possibly spend more under a different legislative regime."??
Do you have a reference?
It's possible some other reforms that differ radically from those systems would improve things, and maybe even be better than anything other OECD states do, but since we have a wealth of real-world data about how the existing systems work and only speculation about most others, it's a much safer move to base reforms on the ones that are observably better than ours in the real world.
Other than that, the patient-doctor match gets mostly allocated on the basis of location and narrow specialty, or with limited availability; e.g. if you want a particular popular doc, then (s)he might have a queue, so you either wait when they become available or pick someone else.
My view of the mainstream story is that things went from ok to chaos within the past, say, 3 years.
Instead, the costs have been steadily rising while voters have repeatedly opted not to make changes.
Thought experiment: what if gas or milk prices had increased at the same rate? Education cost has increased a lot, but that's mostly inflated by student loans that I predict will implode like subprime mortgages.
Have voters done that, though? I mean look at the trouble Republicans are having repealing the ACA. Voters seem to not want to repeal it. It seems like only the Republican leadership actually wants it repealed. My understanding is that when you ask individual voters of all stripes, they agree that pre-existing conditions should not stop you from getting affordable healthcare, and that lifetime limits are unfair across the board. But those are the things the Republican leadership wants to axe first.
It's always harder to repeal a law, versus blocking it from passing. As soon as a law is passed, it's the new status quo. And recall how close the recent repeal vote was.
Why haven't we repealed the laws against weed and poker yet?
That's not really true; total expenditures have increased, but that's largely because the treatments and care that people are choosing are different (and more expensive) than previous ones.
Put another way: today you can still get the same type and quality of care that was available in the 1960s, and it'll be cheaper than it was in the 1960s (measured in 2017 dollars). You just probably don't want it, because it's nowhere near the current expectations and standards of quality of care.
No, in many cases you can't because the techniques and absence of procedural and other safeguards are no longer up to the standard of care in the profession, older drugs are no longer produced, etc.
It's been horrible for a long time (and there's been outrage for a long-time: while it got derailed and we got nothing out of it but HIPAA, the bad state of healthcare and plans to reform it were central to the Clinton campaign in 1992—and while Clinton tried for a complicated scheme involving insurance companies, polling showed majority support for single-payer even then; the ACA is often pointed out to be a copy of Romneycare in Massachusetts, but what is less commonly pointed out is that both are copies of something proposed by the insurance industry and embraced by the Republican Party as a desirable national reform direction shortly after Clinton's reform effort failed, because even then it was widely perceived that something had to be done.)
> I'm not saying the status quo is best, but we didn't suddenly plunge into a crisis.
No, we've been in a crisis for more than a generation.
It's less-commonly pointed out because it's not really true.
It's true that there was one bill, in 1993, that was proposed by a Republican and which happened to somewhat resemble the Affordable Care Act at a very high level. However:
a) It was proposed by a Republican senator from a very blue state (Rhode Island)
b) That Republican senator lost his next re-election bid
c) The bill never received a vote
e) The bill was only one of many GOP-sponsored healthcare bills that year
f) Conservative and moderate Republicans strongly criticized the bill
g) While it bore some resemblance to the ACA at a very high level, it was a very different bill in details and implementation, so it's misleading to suggest that supporting one and not the other would be hypocritical. There were a lot of things Democrats like about the ACA that weren't in Chafee's bill, and there are a lot of things that Republicans might like in Chafee's bill (or the ANHRA in the House) that were not present in the ACA.
> so it's misleading to suggest that supporting one and not the other would be hypocritical
I wasn't suggesting that, I was illustrating that the perceived problem and many elements of the potential solution space have been part of the national dialogue for a long time.
Regulation in turn is driven by lobbying efforts of large professional groups (trial lawyers, AMA, large pharma etc).
In another word it is a corrupted system that manages stay afloat as people in power legally able to get their cut through lobbying.
We're at 8% uninsured, which is nothing to brag about, but its far from a free for all post-apocalypse where people keel over in their desks or in the unemployment line. Its also important to note that those numbers include illegals who can't or won't get insurance due to citizen status and 1/3rd to 2/3rd of that number actually qualify for various insurance programs, but for some reason aren't seeking it (aside from citizen status).
We absolutely have a big problem with the rural poor and insurance, which is a hefty 14-20% of that demographic. I'm not sure what the fix here is especially considering rural states are heavily conservative and fight off ACA and Medicare/Medicaid expansion regularly.
I imagine ACA mandated insurance is a net boon here even if the monthlies are more.
To the curious Europeans out there, if you lose your job you can stay on your job's health plan for 18 months while you look for new work. If you're unemployed that long then you'd qualify for Medicaid after that, the government insurance program for the poor. If for whatever reason you really didn't have insurance you will nevertheless never be turned away from any hospital emergency room. This "die in he street because you have no insurance" is a myth and total hogwash.
You've clearly never, ever been in a position where money was an issue for you. Especially not to the point where you felt your life was in danger because of it.
I have.
If you had been, you wouldn't be handwaving away legitimate concerns over the system of healthcare. Considering you didn't even address any of the points I mentioned, I have a feeling you have no response.
If you can pay the full premiums, including the part your employer paid while you were employed.
> If unemployed that long then you'd qualify for Medicaid after that, the government insurance program for the poor.
You don't qualify for Medicaid based on duration of unemployment; whether, and in what form, you would qualify for Medicaid depends on income, assets, and state you live in (Medicaid is a state-run program with some federal standards, though even the most basic broad-strokes qualifications differ between states, especially between those participating in the expansion under the ACA and those not.)
> If for whatever reason you really didn't have insurance you will nevertheless never be turned away from any hospital emergency room.
But will be booted into the street from the ER after stabilization without treatment of the underlying condition.
> This "die in he street because you have no insurance" is a myth and total hogwash.
Except that people do, in fact, die because of lack of health insurance in the US.
http://www.pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortal...
No, and you don't want an emergency room treating you, because emergency physicians aren't trained to provide anything other than acute care.
That said, the point is moot, because once a patient is stabilized, if they need further care, they'll be admitted, and receive care from an internist.
Afterwards, they'll receive a bill for a rather large amount, which the hospital doesn't expect them to actually pay (but for legal reasons is required to present them with). If they know about this, the uninsured patient can almost always get away with paying less than 5-10% of the total (initial) bill, and the hospital writes off the remainder so the bill is paid in full (ie, it does not get sent to collections). Of course, most patients don't know any of that.
The billing situation is 100% fucked, and the reasons for that are way too long to explain here, but it's not true to say that an unemployed person without insurance can't receive anything but acute care from a hospital, or that they would necessarily have to end up in debt for doing so.
No, they often won't, because while ER stabilization without regard to ability to pay is mandatory, subsequent admission and treatment is not.
If the condition is not stabilized in the ER, they may be admitted for stabilization to fulfill the mandate, but there is no mandate for admission for treatment after stabilization.
That's not really true, and it's a common misconception that arises due to the way the ER mandate is specified in law (explicitly, and via a single bill), as opposed to the confluence of a few different regulations.
In short, because of the intersection of ways in which hospitals are and are not allowed to discriminate against patients by insurance status, what ends up happening in practice is that the decision to admit a patient is rarely made with the patient's insurance status as a determining factor.
That's especially true for public hospitals, but it's true of many private hospital situations as well. (Note that this doesn't apply to the decision of which hospital to admit a patient to - a single ER which has more than one associated hospital may decide to admit a patient to the public hospital instead of the private one based on their insurance status).
"Like many musicians, Matheny went years with minimal health insurance, or none at all. In Germany, with no insurance, he wound up in debt of about €30,000 — roughly $35,000. That's what Matheny calculated he would have owed in the U.S. if he did have insurance."
I don't really know how to compare countries like that- but I would wager somebody has tried.
In the US you get your phone cheaper. But you buy your healthcare.
Most Europeans would prefer to pay more for their phone and know everybody in their neighbourhood gets free medical for life in return.
The US system was cheaper and comparable. Now it's dramatically more expensive for the same cost. All we got from the government is expense. This is why many here are not pro-single payer.
Or not at all, depending on pre-existing conditions, continuity of past coverage, and other factors.
Take a look at the U.S. public healthcare expenditure per capita. It's higher than countries like the U.K. (with fully tax-funded healthcare), probably even Germany. And that's before accounting for private funds.
Again your example is a poor way of comparing things, but you didn't even factor in how much you pay towards Medicare/Medicaid.
Last time I checked, in the UK I pay less towards the NHS and the best private health insurance I could find, combined, than I'd be paying in the U.S. in taxation towards healthcare alone.
All these comparisons between the US and Europe regarding healthcare are useless. The common suggestion that the US would need a 20% VAT or higher income tax to afford universal healthcare is absolutely false.
In Europe you pay more taxes but pay less at the doctor.
In US you pay less taxes but might pay more if you need to go to a doctor.
Sales tax is a state thing and many US states don't have it. For example Florida doesn't have Sales Tax or Income Tax.
Could you explain this differently? If it had the same price as the US (converted to HKD), and no sales tax, it would be the same price as buying it in (say) Oregon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...
> Since January 2017, 5 states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon) do not levy a statewide sales tax
Once you correct for VAT and currency, you'll find a lot of foreign iphone sales aren't really expensive. USA pricing does not include taxes and the dollar is fairly strong now.
>Well Apple already knew certain people are buying at those prices, again why not make a product that fit those segment?
I think the larger issue here is that Apple can't maintain 2008 level pricing a decade later especially as China stops being so cheap for labor. Toss in US consumers buying on credit for 24 months and its a no-brainer we'd see price jumps. Apple isn't taking a cut on its margins, so it has to do a price increase eventually.
That's on top of the phones having expensive high quality components, NAND shortages, and the cost of rare earth elements going up every so often. Prices aren't scaling for components it seems. A high quality display in 2017 isn't the same price of one in 2008, plus inflation. A modern SoC now has to support HDMI, displayport, 4-8 cores, LTE, etc all come at a component cost as well as a licensing cost. Modern phones are more or less mini laptops now, so the dream of a 'simple' ARM device is long dead. We more or less have the desktop re-invented on ARM platforms and expect them to do anything from calls to word processing to 3D gaming. That's a far cry from the original iphone and its simple apps and simple OS.
Perhaps this is the old man part of me talking, but I absolutely fell in love with smartphones in the early days. My Treo was a wonder and the iPhone twice so. The simplistic aspects of it was incredible. Everything was snappy. Apps were a couple megabytes, if that. It did the minimum I needed and then some. Now, of course, that's all changed, but for a few years there I kind had the star-trek like device I always imagined. Now I'm back to a mini-desktop, lag, big complex apps, a near unusable mobile web, constant nags for reviews/notifications, etc. The only saving grace is that a lot of that is abstracted away from me as I move towards a lot of automation and voice interfaces (voice commands, google home, etc) and I simply developed lowered expectations of the mobile experience.
pet peeve of mine is then vs than.
It is interesting to note among Developed countries, the US has the cheapest everything.
Cars, computers, building materials, clothes, TVs. You name it, it is cheapest in the USA.
It is interesting to note this is because people in the US have much less disposable income than people in other developed countries. Companies can charge higher prices in other developed countries because people have enough money to pay it, but they can't in the US.
Is this true? I always heard it was the other way around:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/090616/...
And median: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
US ~41k, Switzerland ~36k, France ~30k and Germany ~32k
Is this a commonly known thing? First I've heard it. I would have figured it would be the opposite given our overall tax rate compared to somewhere like Sweden is infinitesimally smaller. Can you point to some analysis/citations for this?
It does seem to make sense in my mind as, anecdotally, when I was in Germany I noticed a large number of high end Audis and BMWs. Cars that are $80k in the US would be well over $100k in Germany. (This is perhaps an oversimplification of the situation given that there are a great deal more factors involved in the pricing of German-made cars within Germany vs. selling the same cars in a much more competitive foreign market like the US'.)
Past there, I'd suspect that it comes down to society as a whole having a more positive outcome, while individuals potentially having slightly worse outcomes. If we lower everyone's income in taxes but reinvest that money in healthcare and mental health services, quality education, etc, then we lift a lot of unproductive members of society up and have them all producing for us as well. The middle class may earn slightly less, but we can basically chop the lower classes/poverty stricken individuals right out of the equation - Sweden has 1% of the population below the poverty line, while the US has 15% - that's going to skew the average upward quite a bit.
I am curious did you just make this up? This is a completely bogus statement. The US is actually amongst highest per capita disposable income countries. See:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets-economy/090616/...
https://www.currencyfair.com/blog/which-country-has-highest-...
The sticky price structure of Apple was severely undercut by the price of the yen. They fixed it now, though.
This post is informative, but can I suggest that we not adopt the "black market" nomenclature for cases where people buy hardware in one location, and then re-sell it?
Companies like Apple may brand this a "black market", but that implies that companies have a right to perform perfect price discrimination across the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination
I suggest we reserve the phrase "black market" for cases where contraband is being exchanged, or for cases where items were obtained through crime (e.g. the sale of stolen goods).
Is that the case we're talking about here? Buy in HK with no taxes, then sell in another country without paying the taxes? If so, that still sounds "black market" to me. I'd think you'd have to pay the taxes in the country of sale regardless of where you obtained the device. If that's not what we're talking about, then I agree it's probably not fair to label them "black market."
Let's say Apple wants to be as innovative in hardware as a company like Essential – and therefore use components or manufacturing processes that aren't available at the scale of tens of millions per quarter. What should Apple do?
* Not innovate. Leave this for smaller companies; wait for the price to come down. Risk: lose market, engineers, and ability to build competence, to other companies.
* Release in limited supply at a low price; leave the surplus to rent seekers (scalpers). Risk: Leaves money on the table; insert middleman in relationship between Apple and (ultimate) customers.
* Release in limited supply at a low price; attempt to control scalping by limiting sales per customer and locking phones to the original purchaser. Risk: Complicated mechanism that people will hate.
* Charge a higher price, in order to set demand to supply. Risk: Bad image; magnifies effects of wealth inequality.
There are technologies, like process nodes, that improve on several dimensions, and while I'm sure the military has access to "future" process nodea, the yields are just so dramatically low (and also therefore dramatically more expensive), that it's not really feasible for a mainstream product.
The adgances it will have will be much less profound: more CPU cores, more GPU cores, maybe higher clocking, and a heavier battery to power it all. So, it's simply an attempt to broaden the product line, like the "plus" and (unsuccessful) "C" models.
Also, given that Apple sold a $10,000+ watch, they probably don't mind charging more. Though, it'll be priced to sell (which that watch didn't).
However, given that phones have overshot most people's needs (e.g. 5s iPhones are still selling well), Apple will soon need a killer app that requires all that power... like AR. Unfortunately, there's no indication that AR is a killer app. Who knows, maybe Apple will change that.
In India, the SE was recently on sale for Rs. 18500 after discounts and cashbacks are accounted for... with budget alternatives.
Cash reserves make it easier for them to make a riskier play into the luxury market. But in the long-run the reserve is only a temporary fallback not a sustainable model.
Pushing the price up makes it easier to play with the price margins and add more expensive parts.
It could also be fueled by the output of their R&D but they could also see the value proposition they offer as justifying a higher price from entirely non-functional aspects (ie non-software/hardware innovation), just merely the emotional draw of the product via design and branding. The measure is whether people still want the product as much rather than whether it does x & y better than the competitors.
People tend to discount the utility of emotional appeal and the connection people have to the products they use daily. Instead focusing on CPU speeds or raw feature comparisons.
This is basically the S-class phone (To make a car analogy, because that's what we do). The S-class Mercedes costs twice as much as the "Normal" E-class, and each time they launch a new model, it contains the most exotic and expensive new gadgets. It's sold to the very price insensitive. This offloads a lot of the R&D costs of these technical gadgets to the S-class customers. The following year, their E-class (Which is upscale but not a super luxury car) sees most of those S-class features at a much lower price point.
I'm suspecting this is what will happen with a new, expensive iPhone. It will be a testing ground for new features, and if the features work they will be introduced at much lower risk and cost to 10x the number of customers next year. This year it's oled screens, facial recognition etc.
In that way I think he ends up paying maybe $200 every other year for his new phone. In the last 6 years I've spent WAY more than that on the Androids I used to get and break/lose every year or so. I've finally seen the light and got an iPhone myself and plan to adopt the same strategy.
agujeronegro
Hey, Samsung released July security patch to Samsung Galaxy S4!!! We are talking about April 27 of 2013. That's 4 years and a half! https://www.sammobile.com/firmwares/galaxy-s4/GT-I9505/NEE/d...
Unfortunately the nexus is now no more, it's the Pixel which just seems like a rip-off, if I'm going to spend that kind of money I'll go back to iPhones.
Even the much touted camera on the Pixel sucks. Worse, GPS is frequently off by as much as a mile from your actual location but accuracy is claimed to be <50ft, when it claims 200-1000ft accuracy is when it's actually the correct location.
One consequence is that he has no option but treat is carefully, use a case, a screen protector, etc.. which is kind of ironic considering how much effort is put on the exterior design of the phone.
Selling the phone also has a non-zero cost : you have to find a buyer and make the transaction. In that guy's case, when he sells his own iPhone, he doesn't sell something else from his shop. And he has the advantage of being an experienced salesman and having a shop.
As for the tax write-off, sure, but I suppose that if you write off your phone as a business expense, you also need to declare the sale as business income. I doubt it is as straightforward as one may think. That guy, who is presumably a business owner, probably has an accountant to deal with such issues.
What I am trying to say is that that guy strategy probably works very well for him but how it will work for you is another story.
Yeah, but I do that too regardless of whether I'm planning to resell it, because cracked screens are a pain in the ass and that applies to any phone.
> Selling the phone also has a non-zero cost : you have to find a buyer and make the transaction. In that guy's case, when he sells his own iPhone, he doesn't sell something else from his shop. And he has the advantage of being an experienced salesman and having a shop.
He actually just sells them on facebook. He does have a shop, but he's not in the iPhone business anymore - he has a car dealership. Like I said, good salesman! He's the most active facebook user I've ever encountered, so he may be paying his "shop" rent that way.
I suspect the strategy won't work quite as well for me - but I think I can expect to pay the same $2-400 every 1-2 years that I have been paying, plus I get an iPhone instead of a cheap Android. I didn't think it would win me over, but it has.
(I also don't buy the hassle of using screen protectors. I do not mind micro scratches all that much because I'm not trying to protect the resale value of a consumable item. I can put it in the same pocket with keys or many other sharp items if that's what's most convenient in a given situation. There is indeed a cost at trying to preserve any carryable item in mint condition.)
They're not really for "micro scratches", though - they're for when you drop the phone or otherwise catch the front with something heavy/sharp/etc. My last two screen protectors have saved my screen from damage - considering that's £30 of outlay compared with ~£270 for a new iPhone 7 screen each time, I would say they're vital.
It's similar to why I make DIY furniture for my home. While the cost of materials is lower than what I would pay for a finished piece at a furniture studio, that doesn't account for the time and effort I put into it. But for me the effort itself is a net positive that it's hard to put a price on, just like the joy of arbitraging iPhones might be for this person.
Honestly, the resale value for damaged iPhones is still pretty good. Even if the screen is cracked, you can get a few hundred dollars.
I just searched for "iPhone 7 cracked screen" on eBay and filtered by completed listings, and there are quite a few that sold in the past few days for over $300 after receiving quite a few bids.
You've got to have the folding to start the ball rolling in the first place though.
I'm using a cheap, Chinese Android phone for 2 weeks every other year to bridge the gap between selling my iPhone and getting the new one. I have to say: cheapy Android phones are getting better. Sure, they're nowhere near the quality and experience of iPhones, but my Doogee Shoot 2 ($54,-) performs pretty decently and actually shoots some nice photos in daylight. I won't be converting anytime soon (show me an Android phone that performs like new after 2 years of everyday usage, without lagging) but it does make me wonder sometimes that the price difference can't really be justified...
I usually sell my iPhones and iPads after the new one has been delivered, preferably on the first weekend of the month. In my experience you won't have to expect a significant decrease in value after release. People know there's a new iPhone - it's not a surprise, even for non-tech audiences, and people will spent accordingly.
However the supply will be larger after release, no doubt, but one could argue that this applies to size of target audience as well. People will look for second hand iPhones after release.
In any case the resale value of Apple products is nothing short of amazing.
However, the price of the lowest-tier of the latest model has been going up steadily over time, which seems not natural at all. I'd expect them to keep the price of the lower-tier constant, at least. OTOH, if they push out an Apple Watch with LTE, you can combine it with an iPad and the AirPods, and there will be no need for the iPhone at all. How much either of these combinations is "reasonable," only time can tell.
Because just relying on the watch (for modes of communication, consumption etc) might have other constraints like battery life, reading, other forms of ease etc.
The base model iPhone has been $649 for as long as I can remember, which means it's technically gone down in price when you account for a decade of inflation...
On a different note, E-Class seeing most of the features of previous year's S-Class may be a bit far fetched, don't you think so? Maybe couple of features that make the newly launched E-Class visibly an upgrade from last E-Class but "most" and that too at half the price of S-Class seems slightly off. I would assume that the previous year model of S-Class would still cost the same (a little more or less) and will be in market - unless a new S-Class model is released every year.
PS. Know very little about cars (def. too little luxury ones). Just had some general doubts. And I hope E in E-Class doesn't stand for "economy".
"Executive" I think. But it's just a symbol that means their second highest model.
1. a cheap stripper model used to bring people into the showroom
2. an expensive deluxe model with every bell and whistle. It's primary purpose is to frame the next one as being affordable:
3. the mid-price mid-range one you're expected to buy.
Of course, the price-is-no-object people will buy (2) anyway, and that's just extra gravy.
You'll see this technique used across all sorts of product lines.
there are two great books I recommend for those interested: predictably irrational [1] and the upside of irrationality [2]. personally, I think the first is better than the second as a layman's introduction to it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expand...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Irrationality-Unexpected-Benef...
(FTA:) "The company will also enter new territory on price: The latest phone will start at about $1,000, compared with the $769 minimum for its current top phone, the iPhone 7 Plus."
So they are comparing 'top' to 'top' here. Got it.
My guess is we get a 7 replacement (named 7S or 8) and an ultra-premium (named 8 or iPhone Edition).
Or, maybe not, and there is no real 7 replacement. Just the ultra-premium, and the 7 stays on as the mid-level, maybe with $100 price reduction (and the 6S is retired).
I mean 1,000$ seems bad, but that can translate to under 30 cents an hour if you're spending 4 hours a day on your phone.
there is objectively no reason to spend more than 200 Euro on a smartphone - except for attempting to inflate one's ego.
I sure do, because I prefer the quality control and availability of municipally-supplied mains rather than sinking a well in my back yard.
Your point about conspicuous consumption is pretty unfocused. Should everyone use the same laptop, do the same job, be paid the same rate, lest be accused of propertarian tendencies?
I don't know where you live but here in Germany this water source is pretty cheap while of high quality. So this would rather be an example of pragmatic spending behaviour.
A $1000 smartphone would rather correspond to vanilla-flavored water filtered in a space ship using a high-tech-crystal-structure ...
> Should everyone use the same laptop, do the same job, be paid the same rate, lest be accused of propertarians tendencies?
Exactly - you are identifying yourself with those possessions. In my experience people with such materialist life philosophy are tedious and annoying.
Bottled water is basically the same thing just in slightly more convenient form yet it's ~1000x as expensive. Because it's not the relative price that's important it's the price relative to the benifit.
Better example is drinking bottled water rather than tap water. Which many people do but is IMO a total waste of money. To say nothing of environmentally wasteful.
I work with the material I get given.
Also it depends on what you use it for. If you use it for web browsing/messaging/email/phone calls then most phones will do. But other features such as the camera might be very dependent on price. Adding $100 to the price doesn't add much to the ability to make calls, but photos actually get noticably better with each dollar still.
For example you can't use the iPhone as an usb disk.
I tend to buy top of the line devices given a price range.
Mi5 was the flagship phone for Xiaomi when I bought it
I also was a owner of previous Xiaomi products and I wanted to test the new one
My point is that iPhone is a very limited platform
And its value for money is very low
I am not sure if the difference between keyboards is that price dependant
Your $10 keyboard was better for you because you were more comfortable on it. My tenkeyless blue switch keyboard at home is nice, but I don't think it has much of an effect compared the Apple keyboard that I use at work.
Disclaimer: In the world of mechanical keyboards there are certainly keyboards that are better than others. That can't be said when comparing switch types, but within a certain switch type there are switches that are manufactured better than others. Here's a blog post with gifs that show the different switches: http://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2012/12/an-introduc...
Mechanical keyboards are objectively bettet in that all top competative touch typists use them.
In my case it reduces wrist fatigue
I'm 40, being using computers for 35 years now
A good keyboard literally makes my life better
My point is that a good keyboard can make the difference, while an "iPhone only" feature most probably won't
An iPhone can do neither of those things.
That's simply not true, an "iPhone" most certainly can, just not with "stock iOS". Google "roqyUSB7" if you don't believe me.
No, you can't.
Try to connect your iPhone to the USB port of your smart TV and see what happens.
HINT: nothing
That's literally the mineral water industry. So yes, lots of people do!
But getting to the water point: Yes, people spend too little on the water they drink. They should be more careful but generally speaking it is not that serious. (ie: Focusing on quitting smoking will have more significant health improvement)
Or search for "military grade phone cover".
PS: Dropping a phone should not destroy it. Over the last 20 years I have never used a case and shattered exactly one screen when fumbling it onto concrete. The new screen was not that expensive.
Instead I buy a ~$200 phone (which is just as good to me than a $1,000 phone) and when that one breaks I get another ~$200 phone.
I don't care about a broken screen though, if the screen cracks then I'll just use it until the phone isn't functional anymore.
[1] https://www.thrillist.com/tech/best-military-grade-iphone-ca...
These phones really aren't that expensive if you look for a deal.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Apple-iPhone-7-128GB-AT-T-Refurbi...
In 20 years of owning different mobile phones, I've never accidentally destroyed or lost one. Maybe you are just clumsy or careless.
You may look at spending $$$ on a keyboard or chair that you use a lot as a similar purchase, but they are far less likely to dangle carrots in-front of you to take more of your money and give you questionable value in return.
But if $500 gets you 90% of the way there, is that last $500 really worth it? Same with shoes - I regularly spend less than $100 on my shoes and find that they are perfectly comfortable, last a long time, and fit all my needs. 0 complaints. Spending another $100 might give me a better experience (at the very least it might make me feel happier when I put them on the first time), but the returns are so low that it isn't worth it.
These days, the money bar for a "good enough" smartphone is very very low.
Most of my friends have a nicer, more expensive, car than I do. Buying a previous-year showroom-demo Nissan SUV from the dealer saved me something like $20,000, compared to buying a Lexus or Audi, even one a few years old.
That's two decades of having the best phone. I'm not generally price insensitive. I'm specifically price-insensitive about devices that I spend a huge amount of time using, namely (in my case) my smartphone and computers.
And those things are also objectively way cheaper than luxury cars, so they aren't really comparable. A lot more people can decide to go high-end than can with cars, For instance, I noticed my housekeeper, a nice old lady who works for $15 an hour cash, also rocks a 256GB iPhone 7 Plus just like I do, and she doesn't even have a car.
If you don't drive much, try smaller cars: A1, Mini-cooper, BMW series 1, etc...
I think it's mostly because base E-class comes with way smaller engine than base S-class, not to mention less standard equipment. When you start comparing apples to apples (say the 400 4MATIC variant for both cars), the price difference becomes suprisingly small.
Put it in the flagship, make it at a higher per-unit cost, and work the kinks out to get the manufacturing process down. Then by year two it can be economically added to lower tier phones.
You don't need to be rich to afford a new iPhone every 24 months. $1000 over 24 months is a little under $42 per month. After the first time, you won't spend that much anyway, because you can sell your current 24-month-old iPhone for a few hundred dollars when you buy the next one.
People are ready to pay for expensive cars for a better experience and higher "social standing". Phones are not that different in this regard
The amazing thing isn't that phones cost so much but that competition is such that you can get an excellent product with top-of-the-line CPU, radio, RAM, screen, everything for $1,000 instead of $100,000 or $1,000,000.
The really interesting part is that for ~$1000 you get the best product available at any price.
That's the magic of economies of scale in consumer markets, especially technology. It's so incredibly expensive and largely fruitless to step out of the economy of scale, that practically speaking no-one does it.
I don't have a yacht like Paul Allen, I bet my house isn't as nice as Bill Gates' and my bank account looks nothing like Zuckerberg's. But it's quite possible I have the same phone!
> no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good
And coke is not the same everywhere either. My guess is that the prez isn't going to be drinking much watery post-mix coke with his meals.
Similarly, coke in glass bottles is nicer than post-mix coke, and it's more expensive. 'Regular' cokes are in-between. And, for the US with its HFCS coke, you can import the much better-tasting sucrose-coke, which is more expensive to obtain if you're importing it yourself (although a lot of places on the Mexican border already have it).
The US - along with a select few nations - was a pioneer when it comes to mass-consumer economics that leverage a relatively free market to deliver high quality goods to both rich and poor. It required a dramatic leap in productivity, manufacturing output, to get the scale necessary to drive prices down to such an extent. Ford's Model T was arguably the earliest, best example of that. Over eight years post introduction it went from $850 (6k unit sales) to $360 (577k unit sales), eventually bottoming out under $300 (and incomes climbed substantially over that ~16 year total period). Whether we're talking mass production soda, or cars, or radios, or kitchen appliances, the US was particularly a global pioneer at it from ~1880-1980.
> And, for the US with its HFCS coke, you can import the much better-tasting sucrose-coke
To be fair, that's a Warhol quote from 1975. At the time he said it, Coke was still using sugar in the US market. It was 1984 when Coke and Pepsi announced plans to switch to HFCS.
(And I've tried it on 5 different continents.)
I'm not a huge wine snob (most wines I buy are in the $10-$20 range), but I have tasted some rather expensive wines. In a lot of cases, you're not really paying for "richness of flavor" (a lot of cheaper wines have plenty of richness and balance), you're paying for name and for rarity, especially when it comes to older wines.
I'm actually more into whisky, and I can tell you in no uncertain terms, that the best whisky I have ever tasted in my life costs around $400. Now, that is still somewhat expensive compared to the <$100 whiskies I usually enjoy, but it's not outrageously expensive, especially considering how long a bottle of whisky lasts, when compared to a bottle of wine, once it's opened.
And it was immeasurably better than any multi-thousand dollar whisky I've had the chance to taste. With Macallans, Dalmores, Pappy van Winkle and other high-priced spirits, you are absolutely paying for a name, not necessarily for the quality.
It was a Bunnahabhain XXV, the greatest sherry cask dram I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. I am very close to rationalizing buying a bottle, but I know I can buy four $100 bottles of other whiskies that are 95% as good, and will give me a wider range of experiences, for that same price.
What you're saying is certainly true for a $200-500 bottle of wine and possibly even a $2000-5000 bottle of wine, but once you get up to $20k you're buying a rare collectors item as an investment vehicle and not a drink.
I like port, for example. I usually have a bottle sitting in my apartment so that I can pour a glass after dinner and drink it while relaxing.
And even without an "educated palate" I -- and other people I've invited to blind-taste who knew less than I did about it -- can taste the difference between, say, a $30 bottle and a $100 bottle. It's not a subtle thing at all; it's a massive difference.
But that's not because of the price; the price reflects the manner of production and the actual quality of the product. The cheap bottle is a blend of wine from several different years, and possibly different producers, may have been just dumped in steel tanks after fermentation to await bottling, etc., while the more expensive stuff is often going to be from a single year and/or single producer, barrel-aged, and so on. This produces a large and obvious difference in the way it tastes.
Once you get into that tier of well-produced port, you won't see much in the way of big jumps in quality for paying more. The difference between, say, a $200 bottle and a $100 bottle is much less than between the $100 bottle and the $30 bottle, despite the larger price jump. At that point you're mostly hunting for particular years which were known to be good, and are expensive because of that plus their scarcity.
For example, some bars round here sell this cola: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentimans_Curiosity_Cola
According to this review: https://www.androidcentral.com/vertu-constellation it's pretty close to stock android these days with a slightly customized launcher and a few minor tweaks like "Where a typical phone might offer only a few options for title — Mister, Miss, Doctor — Vertu Accounts offer a laundry list of titles, ranging from King and Queen to Sheikh and Lord and His Excellency"
Also the hardware is always a generation behind.
Hey they're improving. They used to be at least three generations behind.
Just kidding. I'd have an android and a squad of engineers to set it up exactly like I want.
The main things I'd give up would be first party Google apps and neat apps like my D&D companion. I'd be giving up SnapChat, but I rarely use it. Not sure if Bill Gates is big into that one!
Honestly for a professional, a Windows Phone would probably work just fine. But you give up big players in social, most banking apps and a vast library of entertainment. Fortunately for some, you can bank on your computer, and distractions on your phone are not desired.
Maybe, maybe not: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/vertu-for-bentley-smart...
I assume things will go the same way as the PC. Cheaper hardware for most, Apple still holding onto a niche in the market.
http://www.motortrend.com/cars/mclaren/570/2016/2016-motor-t...
0: http://www.motortrend.com/cars/mclaren/570/2016/2016-motor-t... 1: https://jalopnik.com/what-nobody-understands-about-the-subar... 2: http://www.automobilemag.com/news/2016-ford-focus-st-one-wee...
For reference, the trackday club I belong to is doing a weekender trip to the nurburgrink in late october: I'm not taking the fiesta for that (also I don't want to drive 800km in it to get there).
It gets the monthly security updates. I guess I worry about the binary blobs that vendors may or not be updating but that's true of any hardware no longer receiving updates.
For the first week, at least. Then they start to accumulate cruft and slow down, eventually becoming barely usable.
I've experienced it in the past. I see it happen for my friends and family. I decided some time ago to save up that $750 - $1k and go for the high-range phones, so that I can use them for two or three years without daily frustrations.
The top-most commenter is right. Phones are used even more frequently than cars; for many, even more frequently than other types of computers combined. It's one of those things it's not worth to cheap out on - like a mattress or an office chair.
(Now, of course part of me is happy for the mid-range phones costing what they do, because this is why high-end phones cost $1k and not $10k.)
(I even remove/disable any Facebook clients etc, only use Chrome to access services. Perhaps this is why I'm happy.)
We've both had them for a while now and they are both good phones but I think I'll spend less on my next phone since I can and still get something that works very well.
(Perhaps the 5S wont have it so bad given that it won’t have to deal with the new springboard and multitasking...)
300-400$ range phones work perfectly well for years and there's now even a staggering amount of pretty good phones covering most usecases from companies like Xiaomi that can be bought for as low as 150$ and they still run about as well as an iPhone 5c.
My point was - they run well enough, do their job and are really affordable (after all, people were happy with performance of iPhone 5 / 5C weren't they ;).
iPhones (especially refurbished ones) aren't here (I do understand that situation in US is a bit better).
When naive users install 3 different weather widgets, 2 battery meters and a custom launcher, you start to understand why people say mid-range phones start to slow down.
I mostly just don't get the loyalty people have to operating systems or particular manufacturers. When there is an application that I need and it's exclusive to some platform, then that decides what OS I need.
I also am not bothered by a $1000 phone and I'm surprised that it's a topic of contention here. Many of us spend more than that on coffee in a year and the phone is probably just as important. $3 / day is well within reach for most of us. My life isn't going to be any different if I choose the $1 / day phone.
1) A CAN$100 phone gives you 75% of the experience, a CAN$250 gives your 95% of the experience
2) Android doesn't lock you to use a single app depot
3) Android doesn't require 2 or 3 login / password (iCloud + iTunes)
4) Android accounts work worldwide, it doesn't fail to log you in if you change countries (I had to re-create an AppleID when I moved to Canada because the US one no longer worked)
5) You don't have to use an extra step when migrating, just log-in et voila ! (ie. not iTunes shenanigans)
6) generally poor software full of UI glitches
7) No pressure sensitive touch-ID which fails to work with aging users (try to explain the concept to a +80 yo).
8) I can still use my $2 earplugs without an adapter
9) Android does not care what OS you use on your main desktop
10) MULTIPLE SIM ! Dual SIM phone is pretty much getting standard. I wish there was triple or quadruple SIM phones
11) External storage
12) Removable batteries
etc.
It can just be disabled in the phone settings.
Nowadays the difference is really marginal for every day use. You are only going to take better photos in marginal low light conditions, if you even take lots of photos, everything else will be pretty much the same experience. I'd argue that we are even in removal of features mode (audio jack, touch id) which is putting off people like me who normally wouldn't mind a high price tag for a smartphone.
There are enough apple fans out there to buy any piece of plastic that apple will sell at the price of gold. But for a wider wealthy and techie audience, I think the value added of spending more on an iphone is becoming hard to justify.
This is part of why I stopped buying the latest flagship, just didn't make sense for me to worry so much when I could avoid that entirely, and get 98% of the same performance and features.
the only thing that im missing in comparasion with current phones is camera.
You’re talking about phones with hardware from half a decade ago. How exactly are you getting the same performance and features, let alone even support or updates from manufacturers?
Source: Paul oBrien
In any case, I used to have one too until about 2 weeks ago when it finally broke down (tbh, possibly due to moisture). While it's not odd they still release updates for their phone OS for the only phone they've ever sold to regular customers, I can't brush away GP's point entirely. The hardware is definitely sub-par by now (it wasn't that good to begin with), not to mention the trade-offs made in the construction of the phone (loudspeaker issues are rather common, and my phone started later to have problems with the display back-light, too).
I also have a moto e4 which I'm using to type this. I think it cost me about $65. (I also have a variety of iDevices and flagship phones for testing stuff I write)
We are in the age of adequate, super cheap phones that aren't awful. I have the option of, but choose not to place my sim card in one of more expensive and flashy devices I own because I'd rather have the thing I carry with me be a "worthless commodity" that could get lost without my caring at all.
Last time my phone broke I just swapped the sim card that day, not caring in the slightest. This is a liberating experience.
You can also do this with prescription glasses - you can pay under $7 a pair online. Anti-scratch, investment preserving upgrades and the feeling of preciousness are all gone. Not having to emotionally invest in things is wonderful.
Speaking for the OnePlus One and Nexus 5 the procedure is pretty straight forward: pop it open using plastic trim tools (which are often sold with batteries) disconnect the ribbon cable and pry the battery off any adhesive. Drop the new one in, reconnect it and snap it back together and you're done.
Depends on the phone I guess, but the whole thing takes maybe 15 minutes.
When I'm feeling like an uber-cheapskate I rebuild laptop batteries, recycling the failed cells and replacing them with good cells from other batteries.
Oreo is supposed to improve things even further, but for know its just a theory.
You can say the exact same for PCs, which could have stopped getting any performance improvements about 5 years ago and the general populace wouldn’t have complained at all.
GPUs and SSDs are a different subject...
Yes, some people have Windows 10 installations that run perfectly fastly and greatly and God's own nectar spews forth from their machine and feeds their family etc.
Which is nice for them but doesn't help -me- with -my- machine that runs like a dog with Windows 10 (but was perfectly fine with Windows 8.)
That's my reasoning when I buy a new computer. I can buy a MBP for $2000, use it for 3 years and sell it used for $1000. $30 a month is a bargain considering I use it between 5-10 hours a day. I may pay a mac a little more (20%?) than the competition but it's worth it considering it's subjectively better (and objectively different, Mac OS / design / size -- arguably less and less so).
However, I'd never buy an iphone (or an expensive smartphone). Iphone users may disagree, but for what I've seen they provide almost the same experience as much cheaper phones (typically two times cheaper). Another issue I have with the price is that I don't feel confortable walking around with such a small expensive item. So easy to lose it or forget it.
And the part about cooking itself sounds like a manufacturing defect for which you should have gotten a replacement - in normal conditions it should just shut down, if temperatures get high enough that ventilation and throttling don't help.
I'm happy to have sold that MBP and put Apple far behind me, with the inflatable battery and high temps, it was on par with the $20 x100e I picked up last year (though that x100e was much lighter/smaller).
I made the mistake of buying a MBP to see what all the fuss was about and fantasize regularly about destroying it Office-Space style, "weighty piece of burden" is just about the nicest way you could put it
Also means I can leave one in the office and have one at home then just move the SSDs between them.
How do you like the X220s? I nabbed one for a friend a while back, seemed like a nice smaller form factor laptop, she rather liked it iirc. Good price too, think I paid $65 for it.
I've got Atom open, Signal Desktop, Tor Browser Bundle (Youtube), Firefox with a few dozen tabs (Soundcloud, HN, etc). Couple spreadsheets too in LibreOffice, and Thunderbird & Transmission too. With a few of those closed, should be able to get some more battery life, but I don't feel in need of it.
You do have to use wayland to get scaling across a low dpi external monitor to work, but that has been fairly painless these days (if your GPU is supported by the open source drivers).
Better keyboard/mouse/display integration. Support for laptop-like apps. Then it could be worth laptop-like pricing.
I agree if you plan to use iPhone for less than 2 years it's probably expensive.
The official situation is slated to improve now with Android 8 separating the HAL and the rest of the OS more clearly it likely means that in a generation or two this won't even be a concern.
You see, right there you described why most people, myself included, aren't interested in that. I can't be bothered to care about weekly OS updates, I tolerate the 1-2 yearly updates to my android because as someone in the security industry I understand the need for updates but that's it. A phone isn't something I care about tinkering with, it's a tool and I want it to work well with as minimal maintenance getting in the way as possible. I couldn't even be bothered to root my current phone, much less install a different OS.
We're not talking about major updates here, we're talking about updates that take about 30 seconds to apply plus a reboot, once a week and you know you're always running the latest and greatest from a security standpoint. Most change nothing from a user perspective.
Of course, you're free to treat these updates as you like, I typically only patch about once a month or when there's a major remote vulnerability.
Like I said, doing weekly or monthly updates and reboots would be an extra concern that I'd rather not have. As it stands the only "management" burden my phone (I use an HTC 10 for reference) imposes on me is having to connect it to the charger every night; It's already more than I would like but unfortunately it doesn't have wireless charging.
As far as I'm concerned, for non-hobby stuff, the least management a device asks of me, the better it is because it's a few more things I don't have to bother taking care of.
Or break it. After I broke my Nexus4's screen three times I gave up and bought some cheap Zenfone (and it cost as much as one screen repair for Nexus).
I've used a refurbed Thinkpad T420 for about a year now. It cost me $350 to buy, and I expect it to last at least 2-3 years. Less than $10 a month, and it's more than fast enough to do absolutely everything I need to do. Not too shabby for a 6 year old machine.
The only reason for buying a brand-new computer is if you absolutely need the highest end of computing power, or need the very newest peripheral ports for some reason.
I use Apple Music, WhatsApp, and the camera. However, WhatsApp is available on Android and the camera on the iPhone 6s still doesn't even come close to that of an SLR so I tend to use that and keep the iPhone in my pocket. When I take photos, I have gone out with the intention of taking photos, so there is no convenience factor of an iPhone for me.
However, I also love cars. You can take them out for fun on a weekend, show them off and talk to other owners at meets, drive them on tracks all over the world, and, if you made sensible choices, have the depreciation of an iPhone make a car look like an investment. Meanwhile, everyone and their mother has an iPhone - there is no novelty to owning one.
Thus, until I start getting more out of an iPhone, I can't help but think how a Moto G and an extra $800 in pocket to spend on something else would give me so much more pleasure than the next iPhone.
I do think that there are markets for $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 iphone, but they must provide functional enhancements over $1,000 model, be it insanely good camera, insanely good display, 1TB storage, or 50% more battery life in same form factor.
With computers and devices, it's more about practical utility.
So why doesn't Apple do this? Because the market for $2-$5,000 phone is too small, and given Apple's reliance on parts maker, they can only have so much competitive edge. (i.e. if they can do it, then so can Android)
Apple can't do much wrong: removed the audio jack did not hurt iPhone sales. The new mac book pro, ridiculously priced, a very 'particular' keyboard, was the fastest selling laptop ever.
If you see the reactions on let's say, The Verge, on any post regarding new Apple products - it's insane.
So I think Apple is still in a very comfortable position to keep on doing this artificial pricing for the time being, and for the foreseeable future as well - and get away with it. Their tandem of hard & software, though much flawed, still seems to be worth the premium price for many people.
They have me because of OSX but I won't stand another crappy laptop of them anymore.
And then there's the Windows telemetry stuff. Apple's actually talking about ways to incorporate identity anonymization (sp?) into its browser. They've stayed out of trying to reap side income off device usage in multiple ways.
By the way, support for that is completely non-existant on Linux.
xrandr reports the following:
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3840 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192 eDP-1 connected 1920x1080+1920+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 294mm x 165mm
- I'm now used to the "inverse mouse scrolling". To enable this for my mouse (logitech something?) I needed to edit the registry. Every time I plug it into a new USB port it's now a new device with a new registry entry to hack.
- I installed the various device drivers that came with my hardware. The Realtek on-motherboard network card had some driver, which actually stopped the hardware from working - Microsoft's own standard driver was better. But every time I rebooted, Windows would helpfully install the "updated" driver from it's local cache. I ended up fixing this by setting the permissions on some c:\windows\system32 file to such that the system itself could not update it
I'm also not yet familiar with the changes to the Start menu and Windows Explorer, so those also feel confusing. But it's a gaming computer, I turn it on, play games, then turn it off. Presumably if it was a development workstation I'd have more opinions on the rest of it.
I got forced into going Windows for GPU powered 3D rendering because Apple isn't interested in my business.
I seldom (never?) have to worry about reinstalling device drivers. Everything works, all the time, on my windows laptop somethings don't work and I have to do convoluted things to make them work - e.g. pdf's no longer open in adobe reader, I keep saying yes make adobe reader the default but it never works, I've never looked into it cause who cares. With my mac I seldom have to fiddle with something because it's not working - it is a lot smoother experience, with windows bits are broken everywhere and I just work around them.
Edit: oh also the 2d graphics are so much nicer and crisper - core graphics makes gdi/gdi+/direct2D a joke (I spend a lot of time writing graphics code), cocoa is superior.
My reminder alerts are being triggered at arbitrary times. I followed every advice on the support forums. Nothing works. Now the recommendation is to reinstall macOS.
I have replaced the magic mouse with a wired Logitech mouse because bluetooth keeps draining the mouse battery too quickly. I wanted to buy a wired Apple keyboard for the same reason, but they no longer sell one without a number pad (which makes the keyboard far too wide)
After waking from sleep my Mac takes awfully long to become responsive. I just keep hitting those keys until they show up. Then I delete all the buffered keystrokes and start entering my password. Stupid, I know.
Don't get me started on Apple Mail...
Time capsule doesn't make much sense as a backup solution if its in the same physical place as the Mac itself. You're just one burglary or fire away from losing all your data. I use spideroak which works on any OS.
I like Swift, but Xcode is by far the worst IDE I have ever used. It keeps crashing. The much-vaunted "playgrounds" are a useless, annoying toy. It is slower than you think possible, always indexing something. It can't rename Swift functions and classes (This "advanced" feature is coming this month I think). It doesn't even have a built-in shortcut (or a mappable command) to delete the current line.
I haven't used Windows in many years and I have no idea if its any better. I guess I will try once my mac mini expires, because I'm certainly not going to hand over thousands to Apple for a MacBook or buy a "new" mini that has almost exactly the same specs as the one I bought 5 years ago.
What I like about macOS is that it rarely has driver issues (I did have one wi-fi issue a while ago though). That's what keeps me away from Linux.
You can buy the wireless keyboard and plug in a lightning cable all the times. I don't recommend it, but it works just like a wired keyboard.
Beyond that, I've just got a lot of random applications for streamlining my workflow and day-to-day usage that would take a long time to find equivalent tools for, and I'm long past the days when "spending a weekend fucking with settings" was something I want to do. OSX, I just back up my machines and if/when I need to replace them, it's just "plug the new one into the backup drive, restore from backup".
Maybe someday the year of the linux desktop will actually happen, but I'm not holding my breath either.
Not to mention that since it's more popular every device manufacturer wants to "customize" your experience with some BS app, the amount of bad practices in app development is abundant (remember when Windows 2000/XP came out how long did it take developers to make their products run without being Administrator? And then with Vista?)
MS helps developers, shames them sometimes (IIRC Vista had a "Windows is not shutting down because of this app ) and sometimes "virtualizes" things so developers can still not clean up after themselves, but it gets old.
I have a personal 2012 macbook air and a lenovo thinkpad whatever from work. If I have to use the trackpad on windows I'm miserable. It's just so bad, the OS itself isn't made with it in mind: things like dragging and click-holding don't work anywhere near as well as it does on the macbook, the multi finger gestures are a miserable experience; I spend most of my time frustrated that I don't have a mouse. Compare it to the macbook: I do have a magic mouse somewhere but I haven't used in years; it offers me no better experience than that amazing trackpad support does.
This isn't even related to trackpad hardware because the experience was equally bad when I ran windows on the macbook using bootcamp. The Windows trackpad experience is just years behind OSX.
edit: as a related sidenote, I'm planning on dumping the macbook next year becase it's aging (4gb ram doesn't cut anymore). I'm planning on replacing it with a MS Surface; I found that touchscreen+pen are a suitable replacement for the macbook trackpad when you're on the go for my type of usage.
No advertising built into OS X on a fresh install. No default collection of usage. Faster boot times, faster wake up from sleep and faster shut down (ever been stuck on shutdown?). Forced updates, with a count down to save my work before a forced reboot (seriously, what decade is this?!). Windows Trackpads suck compared to Mac (even with the Precision Touchpad enabled laptops... and so much more.
- That it has Unix and its tools underneath
- That app guis look consistently good on it (although I will admit that Windows has caught up to Mac OS X in this regard)
- That I don't have to worry about catching viruses as easily when browsing the Internet. Yes, I know there are viruses for Mac, but I've not come across them. Not the same with Windows. In fact, I made the switch after catching a nasty one using Windows Vista and losing more than half of my stuff.
- A corollary is not having to use Antivirus on a Mac
- That even though Macs have little in terms of specs, that the OS doesn't fucking lag something fierce. Last Windows I used, Windows 8, was still a memory hog for a machine having twice the RAM as my Mac. It was a work machine, not a personal machine.
And Most importantly, that I don't have to worry about maintaining the machine for all the aforementioned reasons and that I just get stuff done.
9 months later I kind of hate it again. You get used to the short travel, and the clickiness is very pleasant. The problem I have now is that sometimes you can feel a click and it doesn't trigger - most commonly with the arrow keys. Also occasionally a few keys would "jam" and not fully click.
Overall my typing speed and accuracy has definitely decreased.
However it's not reliable. A single speck of dust under the keycap then you have misfires. Keys get mushy for no reason, get stuck etc. My b key does not work reliably now for example.
As far as I can tell, the mechanism is too fragile / shitty.
There is a single metal dome below the key which acts like the spring and actuator. Butterfly thing is there to keep the keycap in place and distribute pressure so if you hit a corner it directs that to the dome thingy. That metal dome seems to have an issue with heat as most people report problems when the device heats up. Maybe it expands. If you look at the contacts below it looks like there is too little margin for error.
I think this keyboard is gonna create a lot of issues in the long term.
In the end, I settled for a Moto Z Play, at the recommendation of a programming blog, and that it had excellent reviews on the outlets I could find it. But, even with that, I accidentally bought an international version from Amazon unknowingly until I tried to purchase accident protection from Motorola, and they had to direct me to Indian support, which their phoneline was offline for all the times I tried to call. After ordering the proper U.S. version through motorolas site, though, everything has been fine. But thats a lot of technical stuff and throwing direct money (no monthly payments) at a single item. I can understand why people would just go to their providers site, and order an Iphone after trying, or not trying, to do research into smartphones.
For reference, I was able to return the international version even though I had used it for a week or so, and once refunded bought the U.S. one. Motorola tries to provide a monthly payment mechanism through 'Affirm', but Affirm was... Firm in that I didn't have a checking account in my bank, because my bank gives it a different name (though still is a checking.). The main saving grace of motorola is that AFAIK, their accident protection can send me a new phone before I have to send a broken one back in the future if(when) it does break.
And after all of this, still no 4G on it, because AT&T doesn't do that unless you have an 'AT&T' phone IMEI supposedly.
My SO actually has the Moto Z Play and that phone has one feature that even none of the Apple iPhones had - the battery will easily live for three days, pretty much eliminating battery anxiety when traveling or staying somewhere for extended periods of time. It really feels wierd again to not have to worry about dragging cables, chargers and battery packs around on every minor event.
This. I buy iPhones because I know that every released version will be bought by several tens of millions. I don't want a smartphone that only a couple of million bought. If something is wrong with it I don't want to find a few unhappy souls on some forum complaining about the same thing, and a manufacturer that's already pushing ten new models. The "Just works" feature is worth so much to people.
Obviously some of the the flagship android phones are also big sellers, and also tend to "just work" - but those also cost about the same as the iPhone.
Not sure if serious ...
If I can replace a MacBook with an iPhone X + Apple screen then I'm definitely going to do that. Price point is higher compared to a single phone, but lower compared to phone + laptop. Solves almost all of the portability issues and makes app dev easier - which is where they want to push people anyway.
If they are going hard towards AR glasses, they need people to get used to having a single device for desktop and mobile. The glasses just become a peripheral at that point for early adopters.
1.http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/d...
According to rumors, they're still going to have various models and price points.
Also, iPhones are extremely economical because no other phones receive OS updates for as long. My iPhone 6, which cost $749 at the time, is coming up to 3 years old. It's still flawless, no speed issues or any issues. The only thing bad is that the battery isn't as good as before, but I still get through the day just fine.
I might upgrade this year just because "new & shiny", but I'll probably pass the iPhone 6 to family. And because it's still very good and receive updates, that means if I get 4 years of life out of it, its cost is actually only $375 when compared to other phones that stop getting updates 2 years in. That's really good!
Oh, the thing is waterproof and 'shock-proof' (although the latter is to be taken with a grain of salt, my wife managed to break the glass on hers after about three years).
In other words, it does not take an expensive iPhone to last longer than a contract period. Well-built phones can last a long time, much longer than the 2 years which most people seem to consider as normal.
Secondly, AOSP isn't forever. After your carrier/device-manufacturer drops support, Google isn't that far behind. If you're not getting AOSP drops for your device that work with device drivers then it's probably dead. There are a few brave souls willing to port modern Android to no-longer-google supported devices, but I wouldn't call that sure-fire security.
Thirdly, many AOSP derivatives and communities have niche motives that don't really align with the average user. New OS features, experimental "battery saving" kernel hacks and user-space root are commonplace where they really shouldn't be for the average, or arguably any, mobile user. Often devs get a new device and the community quietly moves on, dies, stops providing.
Mobile software is really in a sore place right now overall and neither duopoly is 100%. The incentives aren't aligned to the consumer.
So yeah its hard. YMMV.
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/here-comes...
Yes, I too have a Nexus 4 (bought in 2012) and it still works fine. But no more updates. I don't consider that on par with say my previous work laptop, which was also 3 years before I upgraded.
I also own a Moto E (2nd Gen, $60-ish) and bought a Moto G+ for my brother this year, but I can't count on them to receive OS updates for as long.
You could buy a new Moto G every 2 years and you would still have an up-to-date phone that is more economical than an iPhone, if OS-updates are your main worry (on average, I believe Apple supports devices up to 5 years, which objectively is a lot).
That without considering how well old phones work with newer OSs, my iPhone 4 did technically work with the last supported update, but the performance hit was so big it made it a pain to use.
So why buy the expensive Android phone when the low cost ones are really good for that price point and you can just buy another one with the money you save?
I had a Moto G for over 3 years that cost $150 in 2014 and which continued to work perfectly with zero updates (Android 4.4) during that period.
It finally died last month when I tried to recharge it on an USB cable that I wired backwards (on a motorcycle). Replaced it with a $120 Lenovo that's fantastic, does everything I could think of and more.
I think people who are ready to buy an iPhone for over $1000 would in fact pay any price; Apple should try to sell those for $2500 and see what happens.
For the rest of us, a $120 Android phone is more than enough.
Yes, maybe not updates as such but we certainly need security patches. Any network connected device does and phones are more connected than most, frequently sharing networks with strangers or friends that aren't tech savy enough to keep their environment secure..
In layman terms, security updates are seen as trojan horse for larger updates they don't want.
Windows XP still works, but that doesn't mean I would accept my computer being locked to that version of Windows.
Security updates are important, but so is the fact that you might want to run software on it that doesn't work with an older Android version.
I have one of those and an iPhone 7.
I realize that "flashing" the ROM is not what normal user would do, but it has become very easy to do, and it does extend the (usable) life of the phone..
Oh, the thing is bulletproof (although it must be taken with a grain of salt, chuck norrys managed to break the glass on his after about three years).
In other words, it does not take an expensive iPhone to last longer than a contract period. Well-built phones can last a long time, much longer than the 10 years which most people seem to consider as normal.
Perhaps if the 1100 had WhatsApp we can talk about this comparison, but otherwise this is like comparing your phone battery life to a flashlight's. Sure, a flashlight will last longer for the light, but I still like use the light on my phone because it's a thing I use for other things as well.
If you’re going to try to capitalize on an internet meme, at least try to do the job properly.
...actually, it wouldn't quite be useless - I could still play Snake!
In 2011 I bought a Motorola Droid 2 and I it's been one of the best phones I've used, but I don't think I've ever got any system update. It's been stuck on 2.1 forever.
All my iPhones get handed down. The only one out of (er, 5 devices I think?) that's properly busted is my other daughter's 4s. It started falling apart at the seams this summer and is currently held together with sliced strips of sticky tape. Still, it's lasted 5 years and was still getting OS updates last year!
All my iPhones get handed down. The only one out of (er, 5 devices I think?) that's properly busted is my other daughter's 4s. It started falling apart at the seams this summer and is currently held together with sliced strips of sticky tape. Still, it's lasted 5 years and was still getting OS updates last year!
The ting with OS updates is, it was supposed to be the other way around. We were told that being open source meant Android phones could never be abandoned like this. Owners would have the freedom to update the OS themselves and would truly own their device and it's software. There's no way a proprietary OS vendor would provide long terms support because it would be uneconomical and deter upgrades to new devices. What an utter crock of shit! What went wrong?
All my iPhones get handed down. The only one out of (er, 5 devices I think?) that's properly busted is my other daughter's 4s. It started falling apart at the seams this summer and is currently held together with sliced strips of sticky tape. Still, it's lasted 5 years and was still getting OS updates last year!
The thing with OS updates is, it was supposed to be the other way around. We were told that being open source meant Android phones could never be abandoned like this. Owners would have the freedom to update the OS themselves and would truly own their device and it's software. There's no way a proprietary OS vendor would provide long terms support because it would be uneconomical and deter upgrades to new devices, but with Android that wouldn't matter.
What an utter crock of shit that turned out to be! What went wrong? How can Android fans that bought that line not be storming the gates of the vendors and Google that sold them these lies for being deceived and betrayed? But no, it's all about the new Samsung (factory worker poisoning, embezzling CEO, explodaphone coverup) shiny. Just roll over and be grateful for your new dose of utopian Android open source goodness, the best possible phones in the best of all possible open source worlds.
Un-effing-believable.
Even with Android 4.4 it will be a very insecure phone. With Android 2.3 it will be laughably insecure. Visit one wrong webpage and your phone is owned. No thanks.
While there is lots of talk about 'Android being insecure' it is hard to find actual examples of Android devices which are used in a sensible way (i.e. which do not get fed whatever APK just downloaded from getfreestuff.cooldoodz.biz) being exploited.
Just look at the monthly security fix notes. There are critical vulnerabilities getting fixed every month.
Here are more critical ones: CVE-2017-0764, CVE-2017-0756 from the September patchlevel that also affects Android 4.4.4. See https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2017-09-01
In August 2017, three more. In July one. In May another two. Still not convinced?
so, not flawless? i can replace the battery on my phone, which is very reassuring and also practical for times away from a charger.
We can all imagine theoretical situations where one would need to swap batteries, but they're just that - theoretical. In practice you can either find/borrow/buy/steal a charger or you carry an USB powerbank with you if running out of battery is an issue for you.
so it's not theoretical at all. the person i replied to literally listed a reason why it's nice to be able to swap out a battery: their battery no longer works correctly.
Uh, what? I'm on my second ~$70 Android smart phone in eight years. It's a tad slow, but we're talking about literally a few seconds of waiting, nothing truly inconvenient. I have honestly never been impressed by anything a $600+ iPhone can do beyond what my phone can. The only drawback is that it isn't compatible with Apple group texts, but that is more than made up for by the fact that I truly don't care if my phone gets lost or breaks (I back up my files, so I'm only out 70 bucks). I have no idea why people spend so much money on phones.
A few seconds of waiting is not "truly inconvenient"? I suppose you're either a zen master, or not doing much with the phone (possibly because it's "a tad slow").
For me, the phone is something I use constantly during the day, in lots of brief bursts. Few seconds of lag may be the difference between me staying in or leaving the flow. It would often make a significant fraction of the length of a single interaction with a phone. Those kinds of frustrations add up for me over time. Avoiding all of that is worth the $700, if I can afford it.
Edit: For that matter, interacting with your phone for a few seconds at a time is probably an attention deficit issue in and of itself. I admit that it's common, but that doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
Each of those actions should take no more than couple of seconds (occasionally, a couple dozen). And it can, if your phone is not lagging out after lockscreen or when trying to load an on-screen keyboard.
It can take a few seconds to switch between any of these apps, especially when there are several of them running in the background. Would a new device be faster? Sure it would. Will I buy a new device sometime in the future? Sure, when this device kicks the bucket or another device shows up which offers the same feature set (good performance (compared to current devices), good battery, waterproof and sorta-shockproof yet still looks like a normal device instead of some prop from a B-movie). Do I feel like I'm missing out on something by using a 6 year old phone? No, I do not.
In my case it's not about chasing the newest features and highest resolutions - it's about certainty of getting a quality product. I no longer want to risk getting a shitty, laggy phone, or a phone that turns into one after few months. I consider it not worth the frustration it causes in daily usage.
No, he just isn't possessed by the ridiculous "must go faster, must go faster" mindset that plagues most people today.
A website takes more than a second to load? ARGH it must be down, now my day is ruined!
Just relax, if a small delay is enough to make you "leave the flow", maybe you need to reevaluate your priorities. If your "flow" is interrupted that easily, maybe it wasn't particularly important, anyway.
Delays when fetching data on-line are understandable. Delays for simple off-line stuff are not. Especially unexpected delays - as in, the stuff used to work fast (in the past, or on my previous phone), but now it lags. Hell, I had a crap smartphone that liked to hang for 30+ seconds when trying to answer a phone call.
> No, he just isn't possessed by the ridiculous "must go faster, must go faster" mindset that plagues most people today.
You see, time, not money, is the most valuable thing a human being has - because it's hard-capped. Each of us has a choice on how to spend it; I choose not to let crappy consumer hardware waste mine when I can afford it.
My Moto X Play is still as fast as ever, the only app I ever experience any slowdown in is Google Maps, and it's always been like that.
Everything else is latency from logging in, fetching resources and so on.
You may have the patience of a saint, but the majority of the world does not.
Would you make the argument that everyone should be using $200 chromebooks?
If not, then why would one make the argument that anything more expensive than a chromebook is crossing some kind of threshold?
What are those different needs? What do the top end phones do that the mid range phones do not, other than take better photos? Battery life is comparable, screen size is comparable, they run the same apps. I'm struggling to think of a single reason (other than the camera) why people buy high end phones anymore. There used to be a big difference in quality, but that gap has pretty much evaporated.
The advances very much do trickle down. Whether you would personally buy it or not.
Yes it sucks when a windows xp machine catches a massive virus from a random website.
But here I am with an iphone 5 that cost me $xxx, it gets updates that slow the phone down and break a lot of functionality, and my ssn isn't keylogged from my device, it's just leaked by someone else!
Now luckily my passwords aren't being keylogged but- wait! damnit!
It depends. From the top of my head, the smartphone is the most common second factor, so an attacker that's on your smartphone may be able to log onto most services that have 2FA. Or alternatively, they can DoS your own attempts to log into these services by deleting SMS, or just sending the phone into a reboot loop. (Of course, "targeted DoS" is not in everyone's threat model. But still, I have more peace of mind using a dedicated TAN generator device instead of my phone.)
Few seconds waiting for what? There's a big difference between a few seconds waiting for an app to load and, say, for it to register that you've tapped a key on its on-screen keyboard.
Good point. Also they sell extremely well on the second-hand market.
This feeds the scond hand market.
If I bust an android phone I lose it for three to four weeks, have to buy a stopgap phone and tend to end up with a botched repair from a 3rd party repairer the vendor have hired. On top of that the OS updates usually stop after a year and roll out about a month after they are announced unless I buy a Nexus which is completely non repairable anyway.
The trouble with iOS devices is that they stop being usable the moment you can no longer update the OS in the way that most applications only support the newest OS (happened to several iPads here with e.g. Amazon app, Twitter, Youtube) - because updates roll out to the majority of users so fast compared to Android.
"stop getting updates 2 years in."
With Android most applications still support 4.X when Oreo comes out.
The only things I can't do involve hardware-based features for things I don't have in my phone.
I love my MotoX 2013, but it never got updates (Sprint model, Sprint blamed Motorola, Motorola blamed Sprint); it's succeptible to Stagefright so I can't use it anymore. And it will never receive an update for it.
As much as we use our phones and as much personal information is on them, security updates should be first and foremost.
Yes, AOSP exists for some devices, but 9 times out of 10, something breaks when using it.
When Android moves to a new way of doing audio or video, drivers stop working, and some people try to come up with shims, but as others point out. The developer of it gets a new phone and the project dies.
My Nexus 5 (November 2013) hasn't gotten a security update since October 2016. My iPhone 5 (September 2012) just got an update to 10.3.3 in July.
Android devices are notorious for being slow to get updates, if you ever get them at all.
Yeah it can be cheaper to get an Android device, and I have quite a few, but they simply aren't up to the same standards that iPhones are.
This is kinda the case with phones too, you can buy a $450 phone with 2 years of updates, or a $700 with 5 years.
Which one is more economical over time?
> Which one is more economical over time?
My sub-100USD android apparently. What the heck kind of math do you have going on for "economical?"
$450 / 2 = $225/y of support.
$700 / 5 = $140/y of support.
Six years ago I paid $170 for an equivalent phone (older version of android than current, slower, less ram, space, etc). On sale. And used it for almost a year and a half. So the low-end has really gone down in price.
I'm talking mainly about phone support not whether it continues to function on a basic level or not.
The previous phone I think it was most of the time I owned it, but I didn't get any major OS upgrades (nor did I expect to), just minor updates.
It got slower over time but it never bricked, unlike my fancy new Nexus 5X, which completely bricked after I owned it for a year and a few months. Who cares about security updates and software patches when your phone completely breaks in less than the average upgrade cycle (obviously I don't mean all of these phones do, but apparently it was a common problem with Nexus 5X, I found out after the fact. I have a coworker on his 3rd one in two years).
$250 gets you a Xiaomi Mi A1 - a phone with a 1080p display, a full metal body, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of flash, a fast 8-core processor and guaranteed software updates directly from Google.
Is a $750 iPhone really three times better than that phone? Is it even 5% better? If I were an Apple shareholder, I'd be giving some serious thought to Apple's future in the growing middle-income economies. Apple are clearly going gangbusters right now, but I'm highly sceptical about their continued relevance.
I've done the Windows/Android thing, it's a pain in the ass to keep up with all the stuff. As I get older, I just need my things to work (especially smartphone and computer) and I'm willing to pay a premium. I don't even want to have to research what I'm buying, and Apple has been executing on that for quite a few years now.
I switched from a custom-built desktop PC to a laptop then to a Macbook a while back. I switched from an Android phone with super heavy customization and a flashed ROM to a Windows Phone (and after that platform died, an iPhone). Did I give up some flexibility? Yes. Did I spend more money? Yes. But I made a conscious choice to do so because I hate to be my own IT guy.
If I need a new computer, I don't comparison shop to see if Lenovo or Asus or Acer or HP has the best features for the price or reliability scores or any of that. I buy the latest Macbook. If I need a new cell phone, I don't look up who the best is. I buy an iPhone. I pay a little bit more for peace of mind. It makes me happy.
Yes, it is. Three times better might be an exaggeration, but it has unique features that basically no other phone has currently, and that's worth different things to different people.
If I'm being honest with myself, I just need a damn phone and an ok camera. The rest are frivolities.
I can just continue using my table for the rest.
Those new Nokias are only carrying the brand name under typical chinese design and manufacturing process. The incentive would be to revive the brand in markets where Nokia had stronghold with its cheaper models and the average phone has poor quality. If that's the case it'd be very disappointing for what you are expecting.
Haha you're kidding me? They shut down the 2G networks in Australia this year!
https://www.cnet.com/news/nokia-3310-3g-us-launch-fcc-filing...
This is going to be for the hitherto-unavailable third tier of new iPhone: we'll have iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. I expect this is referring to the X. Which may well only be offered in a 256GB configuration. A jet black iPhone 7 Plus in 256 GB is $969 today. So this might not be a huge increase for the X. I fully expect 8 and 8 Plus models to mirror current pricing.
And second, we've seen this "high price" reporting with other releases, notably the Apple Watch IIRC. Reputable outlets were floating high prices, and Apple announced "normal" pricing at the event. Other comments here have talked about anchoring: this may be more of the same Apple marketing FUD.
The progression of the smartphone is evidently to replace the personal computer and the iPhone X should be a step in that direction.
Yeah, I kept hearing the same thing about tablets till sales dropped off. I'll believe it when I see it.
My 2012 iOS device is now stuck on iOS9. I wouldn't mind except they bundle web browser updates with the OS. This is wrong.
The web browser on iOS9 does not support javascript ES6 features such as the "Let" statement. Any web sites that use let statements will fail on iOS 9. I discovered this recently when browsing on my iPad3, 2012 model. Apple doesn't care, they just want people throwing their old hardware in the trash and buying latest product.
I understand why I can't have iOS10 on an iPad3, but the web browser should be given updates separately.
5 years of updates for a smartphone is pretty good. From Android, I think only certain Sony phones even come close to that.
By now, the battery cells will be damaged, the CPU/RAM too slow or limited, the flash memory wearing out. Time for a new phone :)
The official situation should change too - with the release of Android 8 there is now a more defined layer separating the HAL from the rest of the OS, allowing updates to be pushed out universally.
I'm not against the idea of customizing your phone with a custom ROM but let's not pretend that it's a genuine option for regular consumers.
I'd say it is a quite genuine option - you just need to know one person who can set you up once, updating is simple and streamlined.
As mentioned, I don't mind about OS updates, I care about browser updates or at least patches for iOS Safari.
> By now, the battery cells will be damaged, the CPU/RAM too slow or limited, the flash memory wearing out
Nope. The battery on my iPad3 is fine. iPads should not be classed as a "throw-away" replaceable product like phones seem to be. CPU and RAM is fine for web browsing and most apps. Flash memory wearing out? Gimme a break.
Every Steam game homepage gallery is broken now on browsers that don't support ES6 javascript. The highlight player doesn't display images or video since recent update to their website. I previously enjoyed browsing Steam on my iPad looking for new games. Example:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/449640/Bloody_Zombies/
Note, I partly blame Steam web devs for not making it backwards compatible, but also Apple for denying Safari any updates because of their dirty business model of abandoning their own products. Disgusting lack of modern environmentally concerned tech life-cycle standards. They boast about green packaging for products destined for the grave in only 5 years.
iPhone 7 32 GB
Australian price: AU$1,079 ... US Price: $649
[0] https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/04/cheapest-country-to-buy-an-ip...
So I pay an extra $300 to save me the trouble of putting my finger on the touchID sensor? That doesn't sound like a compelling value proposition to me.
It'll be interesting to see how this works out. I'm in the minority amongst my social group as an Android user, but I can't imagine many of the iPhone users I know shelling out $1k. But I'm sure there's a mid-range model. Right?
For all the truly amazing capabilities the basics are lacking.
This $1000 iPhone X may be nearly as expensive as a Macbook Air, but that's entirely reasonable: it's a far more powerful and sophisticated computer in a much smaller package. Why would you expect it to cost less?
Gruber seems to hint that the OLED display is still single-sourced by Samsung and incredibly expensive to boot:
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/09/06/samsung-oled-mo...
The price may just be what it is until the price of the display comes down. Apple could also be trying to modulate demand because of the low display availability, but in the case of iPhone it will probably backfire and cause demand to increase.
The bigger issue is at the moment its just taking productive income from the economy that could drive real economic activity and job growth and dumping it in Apple's already inflated bank balance which they don't know what to do with.
That's $704 2017 dollars, and look how much more of a device you will be getting.
Seems perfectly find to me. If people want to spend it, of course a company will make it.
I suppose that 'we're here to change the world' soda commercial isn't nearly as absurd when you consider the audience.
Apple next challenge is not making people pay $1,000 for an iPhone. People already do that. Apple next challenge is bringing globalization, breaking the VAT, and putting profits in safe havens away from the fiscal preys.
People already pay thousands, dozens and hundreds of them for luxury. Apple upping its price might have the reverse effect: People line up to buy the highest price iPhone because it is not "accessible for everyone". Apple always got your back with a cheaper version but you really want the expensive one otherwise you are out of line.
We are getting close everyday to the confrontation between IT giga-multi-nationals and the traditional countries/governments of the world. We are probably still too far from the real battle but everyday is showing more why these two are not friends.
This might be a case of under-promise, over-deliver.
IP68 means absolutely no dust whatsoever and:
"The equipment is suitable for continuous immersion in water under conditions which shall be specified by the manufacturer. However, with certain types of equipment, it can mean that water can enter but only in such a manner that it produces no harmful effects. The test depth and/or duration is expected to be greater than the requirements for IPx7, and other environmental effects may be added, such as temperature cycling before immersion."
In the S8's case, the manufacturer specified conditions were "submersion in up to 1.5 meters of fresh water for up to 30 minutes", from http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/galaxy-s8/performance/.
Which is the best phone I've ever owned -- Nokia N9 aside, anyway. Excellent size, great performance, latest updates and I got it second hand (but BNIB, was her insurance replacement for a lost phone) for $350AUD. I get to use iOS with a reasonably modern day chipset, an excellent camera, but for the cost of a midrange android phone. Excellent, really.
Older articles, but they cover what I'm talking about: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/09/why-stealing-ip...
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-brie...
(I'm still running a 4-year old, super under-powered Android phone. I shelled out $150 for it when it was brand-spanking new. That was unsubsidized.)
I dont get it its like somebody in US buying it for 5000 usd.
But it is changing. With companies like xiaomi putting up phones for 100usd that do the same for those people and look nice... I believe apple is going to be going down if they increase prices even more. These people dont want second class iphone. They want THE iphone. If they cant afford THE iphone they wont buy the shitty 500usd one. They might aswell buy the 100usd xaomi then.
I think aple is not going right way with this.
So there's a new X line that will have all the best of the best and the regularly numbered ones below it will have more mainstream features / design and will be produced in greater numbers.
Apple's scale is amazing but I don't really get this observation. Is this is because Samsung has been shipping OLED at Apple-level volumes for years, so they've already sucked up most of the supply?
And basically Samsung is not going to cut their own production to sell to Apple. Samsung is Samsung's preferred customer I imagine, unless the phone department seriously lowballs their offer.
To give you an idea of the discrepancy: Samsung's two flagship phones (S8/S8 Edge) sold roughly 12MM in their first quarter of availability (April-June 2017), while the current iPhone models sold 40+ million units in their third quarter of availability (same time frame).
Is that an exception ?
Because I see why Apple wants to sell the idea of the iPhone as a luxury product, but subsidization runs opposite to luxury.
However, it's still smaller monthly payments; few I suspect buy the device up-front.
Nonetheless I believe they will sell lots and lots of these models: It will be a status item.
Moreover, in a lot of countries, most people don't but smartphones fully upfront to own them, but pay monthly with their phone bill. So, its not $1k or $1.5k, but perhaps $50 more upfront compared to other high end smartphones and another $15 monthly surcharge on the phone bill. Doesn't seem sooo incredible that way, isn't it?
I doubt most of these people are doing phone based VR and play high end phone games.
I knew plenty of people who buy a new Android, priced anywhere from $400 to $700, every year, more often than not it was once every 9 months even.
So I might spend $1100 or so on the iPhone Pro / X / whatever the moniker is. But I'll use it at least 3 years.
Annual cost of owning an iPhone makes it cheaper than almost any Android.
Not everything is about upfront cost. iPhones get updated for 5 years and they don't start lagging in 8-12 months like almost all Androids do. If you don't bust it, you might sell it for 75-90% of its original cost even 3 years down the line.
Mostly philosophical article without much economical substance.
Although the iPhones might get updated for 5 years that does not make them fast. Each update makes the older device slower which at a point it becomes unusable. A 3 year old device just cant compare with the increase in features, how a newer device can.
But for Android, it all comes down to the provider. This has always been the issue. I have a Nexus 6 running 7.1 and working just fine. I could use it for another year if i wanted but it does show signals of getting old.
People used to change iphone every year as they did with Android. I believe that this is coming to an end and people will keep there phones longer as they become much more expensive (X:1100+, note8:1050, etc) and the increase in hardware is not that massive any more.
I am yet to ever see a slow iPhone in my life though, anecdotal evidence or not.
Maybe you were looking at iPhone 5 or 5S. From 6 and on, they are quite long-lasting and many people hold on to them for a long time without complaints.
Nexus is not a good example from your side. It's more the exception than the rule. Have you looked at the wild landscape of most of Android land? Phones get abandoned in less than a year. That's the norm in Android.
Nexii and Pixels are the outliers.
EDIT #1: Nexus 6 should theoretically now be abandoned by Google in terms of new Android versions, same as 5X and 6P. Last two should have one more year of security updates though.
EDIT #2: "increase in features" in smartphones hasn't been happening in a while. It's been mostly rebranding of a little bit more battery-efficient SoCs, at least in Android. Apple is showing gradual increase in single-core performance, and I can't deny that my Mi 6 (using Snapdragon 835) is snappy as hell. So IMO you're half-right: people will hold on to devices for longer since they're very expensive now, but there's another half: many people, me included, feel the smartphone hype is over and that the OEMs have nothing to show except flashier displays, maybe faster SoCs, and prettier outer shells. Thus I want to buy a longer-lasting device. And that ain't any device in Android, sadly. I am not a huge fan of Apple but the durability and high performance retention (the point you're questioning) seem to be an accepted fact, so I'll go with them.
Yes the initial outlay is more painful, but i find £25 a month much more palatable than £74 (for the same plan with the phone)
back of the napkin maths says the following; iPhone 7+ 128G (my current phone) - £819 phone plan (unlimited data - 600mins - unlimited texts) - £25/month Over 2 years - 819+600 - £1419
phone + plan (unlimited data - unlimited minutes - unlimited texts, closest to what i currently have) - £74/month Over 2 years - £1850
And not only is it priced that way, thats actually what it is which is why in all likelihood I'm buying one tomorrow.
Every Android I've ever used has felt like cheap shit in my hands, and works like crap after 10 months or so. My current iPhone is knocking on 3 years old and works as well as the day I took it out of the box.
iPhone $1k iPhone $1.2k iPhone $2k ...
I would not mind paying $1000 for a phone if it offered any additional value over my $200 Android phone.
But I cannot see anything better in the form factor of the iPhone line.
And for the software - I have an iPad and I hate the software. It is so restricted. You cannot even do basic tasks like download an mp3/pdf/whatever in your browser and then open it in the app of your choice.
While I agree with your general sentiment I can save and open PDF:s from safari to third party applications just fine on my IPad.
Only options to directly open it in applications that are registered to open PDF files. That seems to save a copy to the directory of that application. Which is terrible messy and clunky way to deal with files imho.
For MP3s I don't get any option other then to open them in Safari.
But that's different from being unable to save :)
This is what I meant. I have not found a magic button to bypass the ios sandboxing.
Google drive works almost as well for me since I use it anyway.
(btw I don't get it either. But I don't see anything special about iPad, hence my question)
1) It had the best form factor these days. It was the lightest 9.7inch tablet. Nowadays, a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 scores better.
2) iOS is a popular OS, so I wanted to have at least one device running it.
I hate iOS but the hardware is far beyond any android tablet.
Having said that, Apple does make a few funny pricing decisions that pushed me to buy an ASUS Zenpad instead.
I think you can download pdf/mp3 files and open them in your favorite app on iOS too.
Now $1000 is a bit too much so unless it has a killer feature I will skip this upgrade.
And no, I don't get any option to download an MP3 from Safari on my iPad.
Looking around the App Store, the apps that play MP3s look rather shady. Anything trustworthy out there to play MP3s?
Anyhow, I downloaded one of the apps that can play MP3s. Still, Safari does not offer any way to save them or push them to that app.
And I'm not saying they are wrong. But they bought it for one thing, and that's the "feels" it gives them. It's not Android, they are not buying a phone, they're getting an iPhone(tm).
Now, when you can buy a Huawei P-whatever that has the same lines-on-white flat design UI, the same speed, it's not the specs. And yes, the iPhone looks better, the Huawei thing feels bulky in comparison. Does that feel worth 500 USD? That's up to the customers.
(I'm not affiliated with Apple. However, I do think that it's kind of neat that Apple has way for people to get the latest iPhone each year without having to buy it outright, or be locked to a specific carrier).
Until then I'll stick to buying previous generation hardware for 70% the price.
(I would never pay $60/mo but lots of people do)
A $1k iPhone on it's own would cost ~ $40/mo if you spread it out over 24 months.
My issue is I can't see the benefit I'm getting extra. My 7+ seems to be about the same really. Lifestyle wise this latest black rectangle is going to change literally nothing as far as I can tell.
FaceID fulfills that role.
Even if the system uses infrared or 3D images or whatever, it's just a matter of developing an advanced enough algorithm to deal with that, which shouldn't take that long if the target market is there (hundreds of millions of iphones with such an auth system).
So were fingerprint scanners before Apple's take on it.
>but it's orders of magnitude more difficult to "clone" someone's fingerprint
You can do this by taking a photo of a finger or lifting a print.
>copy one of their pictures from the internet, or from a CCTV camera, etc.
A 2d photo won't unlock FaceID. There are 3D sensors on the front for a reason.
>Even if the system uses infrared or 3D images or whatever, it's just a matter of developing an advanced enough algorithm to deal with that, which shouldn't take that long if the target market is there (hundreds of millions of iphones with such an auth system).
And you think 3D printing a skull, eyes, and possibly blood vessels is easier than copying a finger? Why do you act like you know so much about something that hasn't been tested in the wild?
I've tried disabling it completely in favor of the pin, but in all honesty the 90% of the time my hands aren't sweaty or greasy it works so much faster that I just deal with the 10% and keep it enabled.
These could just be sweaty guy problems, but I'm definitely looking forward to face unlock.
Edit: I went back and looked at the latest leaked photos. It's better than I remember. The phone looks decent enough when the screen is off, but very gimmicky when the screen is lit. It looks like they went as far as they could, realized they couldn't deliver any better, and so left that top section of the phone in what is essentially an unfinished state. I suspect the innovation I'm holding out for will happen by iPhone 10 or 11.
/s
Apple becoming a "fashion" company is such a horrible strategic mistake that I don't think Steve Jobs would've made. Apple will proportionally become less of a "tech" company as a it becomes a fashion company.
In other words, the technology it uses in its devices will feel less and less advanced (especially for the price) as time moves on. You can already see that with other companies developing (real) gold phones with crystals on them and such, while using specs from 2-3 years before, but charging many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for the phone.
Like a Gucci handbag or a Rolex watch. With a smaller markup.
After the 2 year mark our Android phones are literally in the junk drawer, and her iPhone 6s is still functioning as fast as the day it was purchased.
Recently the battery got swollen, I took it to an apple shop and got a replacement (a refurbished iPhone 5) for 100 dollars.
I've had nothing but bad experiences with iPhones in the first 4 years they existed, and have switched back to android for the past 6.
There are always a few Android devices that get multiple OS upgrades, but you can't predict which one of the current generation is the update-unicorn.
As for a 2 year shelf life - I'm still on a 2013 Nexus 5. It runs smooth and runs everything I need. Isn't a 6s only 2 years old?
$1000 for two years. After two years, sell the phone for $300-$400.
That's $25-$29 per month. Around $1 per day.
I hope all of this hostility from Apple will result in lower marketshare and a slow fade into oblivion. I use Apple products because they're the best, but if I have to spend $1.4k for a phone and $3.5k for a computer I'll hope MS and GOOG have somewhat caught up to the quality because it's getting tiring.
Apple is not an innovative company anymore, but trying to be a Bentley in the phone market.
[1] https://www.tecmundo.com.br/iphone/118381-decisao-foxconn-ip...
PS: Why do I call fans stupid? The company isn't 1% as loyal to you as you are to them. If you still continue to be loyal, it can't be a smart decision.
I know it might be nice to believe that if you're a die-hard Android fan, but this is frankly nonsense. iOS is as popular as it ever was.
Actually I believe there will be another popularity spike and Apple will be a profitable company for another 20 years. But that doesn't mean iPhone's not dying. If you are that big, you can have both together.
Personal theory of mine, based on watching th tech market for 10 years (no claim to being an expert):
You are growing if you are funded and have great ideas that you can validate to be the top of the game. This is what the first iPhone and iPod did.
You are the constant leader when you provide top notch quality for a high but affordable price. That's what the Macbook does. Without an iPod like great idea you won't be able to beat that market leadership. They shouldn't expect growth with that product line, but they are really save.
And then there are losers. They may be anywhere in the market, based on previous successes and failures, but they are objectively worse than the competition and more expensive for about the same quality. This is where the iPhone stands. It lacks engineering wise so badly, it's not possible to overcome the hurdles without a complete rewrite. But the market is satisfied already. A complete rewrite is a high risk to stay on top in a stagnating market. Not worth it. The better strategy is to drain engineering costs and instead focus on marketing completely. That's what you can see with the iPhone happening. Each generation is worse than the previous, and mostly the hype and ownership-prestige is what keeps people coming back again and again. Putting money from engineering into marketing/sales will actually boost your profits for some time.
But marketing alone can't keep you on top forever. At some point the difference between fantasy and actual product will be so big that most people can't avoid the truth anymore. Then you will become the next Nokia.
Btw. I think Apple as a company still has a lot of opportunities. But the iPhone branch is dying. Hope I could explain why and why I believe that we will even see popularity rise in the next few years. Still engineering savy people have already switched away from iPhone. 100% sure about that part. For business reasons I needed to buy an ipHone 6s, and for powerusers it's a pain in the A, with no technical chance to make up the difference.
The iPhone 7 which released last year is more powerful than the Galaxy S8. Android phones lag embarrassingly behind in terms of CPU performance, disk write speeds, and software updates. If those things don't matter to you, I suppose you could get an Android phone for the AMOLED screen(though the new iPhone is reportedly going to have that too) or customization.
But to say that the only reason people buy iPhones is because they're stupid is embarrassing, really. I mean Apple weren't the company that have customers refusing to give back a phone which literally catches on fire.
B) The Galaxy S4 with Android 2.2 is more powerful than the iPhone 7.
C) There are two reasons. Both may apply to you, though. Reality is really hard to accept, I know.
D) Macbooks are really good. That doesn't give any additional points to the iPhone, though. I use one myself and am happy with it. It is well designed and combines strong features from both Enterprise and Opensource world.
B) Citation needed.
C) What are the two reasons, specifically?
The biggest argument I hear about using Android is that it's customizable, but I would argue that 99% of people, engineers or not, wouldn't customize their phone enough to matter. I would much rather get an iPhone because, even disregarding or accepting the customizability argument, iPhones are less intrusive on your life (I don't want Google to know where I am at all times or know my phone habits), and get updates and work years after they are released. Those two objective reasons alone are enough to warrant me buying an iPhone.
If you can show me a strategy, maybe I can explain to you why iPhones are badly designed. it should be obvious by using it.
Examples:
a) you get a notification that you have a new mail, whatsapp message or similar. You open the app. Only then the App is able to actually start downloading the content. This is an example of Apps not really being able to work in the background. 80% of what you want to do with a computer you can't do with an iPhone.
b) The keyboard has no features to write more quickly, e.g. by swiping. Also the suggestions aren't learning from your input. This means each interaction is very painful instead of being done quickly.
c) Click on a Youtube link in FB or Twitter. It will not open the Youtube App, but it will open an app internal browser. From there you can manually redirect to the browser and only then you can open it in Youtube. There is no real event mechanism, or it isn't opened to App developers.
d) The costumizability results in you being protected by default, because App developers already have more freedom to provide sane defaults. Even if you never use customizibility yourself, you already gain from it.
a) It depends on how the app works but in general you are right. But this is to save data, especially in cases where there are a lot of images. Some apps do download the content when it receives the notification as well.
b) Are you suggesting typing is that much more difficult than swiping on a keyboard? Even if that were the case, you can download a keyboard from the App Store that allows you to use a swiping motion on the keyboard.
c) That's more Facebook or Twitter's fault for not handling the same events as the built in browser, not the failing of the OS.
d) That doesn't make sense. You're protected because app developers have the freedom to provide sane defaults? What about the bad actors that don't provide sane defaults or add malware? I'd rather trust the OS to enforce sane defaults than trust the app developer to, because at least the people that make the OS are generally competent, whereas app developers are more likely to not be.
b) Custom keyboards are a thing for at least three generations of iOS
c) It's entirely possible to open an application from a webpage
d) pure horse shit. In iOS you could prevent applications from reading your contacts from the get go. Until recently permissions were an all or nothing thing in Android. Trusting app developers to respect your or other app developers interests is like trusting a crack head with your credit card. Poor battery life was one of the direct results. It's really no mystery why Google is slowly moving to the iOS side of permissions and background processes.
And yet, the Galaxy S8, Xperia XZ Premium, etc, can play Gamecube games at full speed via Dolphin. No iPhone can do this.
At $1,000 sets a very high bar. Excited to see if they meet it!
Can't it send music via USB to an external DAC anymore?
- https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7932507?start=0
- https://www.whathifi.com/news/apple-ios-update-prevents-dacs...
- https://www.head-fi.org/threads/iphone-7-severe-issue-with-m...
Now I just really dont understand in what world it makes sense to have extra things lingering around your headphone/phone when Apple is motly about ergonomics and UX. You think that I buy a 1000 USD phone and than a DAC as well because they removed it from the phone? It does not make too much sense to me.
I have an Oppo HA-2 and it works great with my iOS devices (though i use it as a portable amp for my work computer).
There's also the likes of Audeze who are shipping Headphones and Earphones with a Lightning cable DAC in addition to the usual 3.5mm TRS jack.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-6s-plus-audio-qualit...
>>Analysis & Recommendations >>As expected, the analog audio output of the iPhone 6S Plus is extraordinarily good. It has only >>half the distortion of the already extraordinary iPhone 6 Plus.
>>Apple has more smart people and more resources than any other audio company on the planet, so as >>we see when it comes to audio engineering, the iPhone easily outdoes many so-called "audiophile" >>products.
>>For enjoying music, you will probably get poorer performance if you waste your time and money >>with outboard DACs or headphone amplifiers; the iPhone already has the best there is.
The story around current DAC's isn't good and certainly can (and hopefully will!) be improved.
So, yes, the audiophile experience with an iPhone isn't great, but I'd argue that's a function of the current DAC situation (as my sibling comment points out), not the removal of the 3.5mm jack.