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Comment by c7DJTLrn | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat unrelated but ever since moving to Android (Pixel 5) I've totally lost track of the iPhone product line. If you asked me what the difference between the iPhone 11/12/13 is I wouldn't be able to tell you. I don't think I care either. Phones aren't making big leaps anymore, it's not worth keeping up with.

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Basically true of all smartphones, now. I recently saw a giant billboard for Samsung S22. I doubt Samsung has had 21 prior versions of the S line, but who knows. These phones all look the same and have had looked the same for a handful of years now.

Samsung switched to using the current year for their model numbers. S22 is the 2022 model.

Thanks for clearing this up. Last year I was shopping for used phones and looking at S8/S9, and getting very confused when I saw S21 starting to pop up. "How many of these did they make, anyway?"

S10 was the last of the old numbering scheme, they changed it in 2020 (with the S20).

Tangentially related, Reminds me of this: In Los Angeles there's a few very prominently displayed billboards at a shopping center for the Galaxy S4 that has somehow remained up [1]

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/deKaDdMjM3U4P1Gb7

// If you asked me what the difference between the iPhone 11/12/13 is I wouldn't be able to tell you

And the difference between the last 3 versions of android phones would be what?

The difference between the last 3 realme phones would be: a different camera, a different screen, a different brand of processor between each of these and they would have been released 3 weeks apart.

here you go, probably the same thing for iPhones

Mine has a folding screen.

Every phone is nowadays a slab with a touch display so there hasn't been big surprises for a long time. Just gradual improvements and small new features once in awhile.

To follow the scene I've noticed it's easier to follow new iPhone releases than multiple brands of Android phones. They are still more or less the same although the specs are in many cases a notch higher in Android phones as the Android seems to be more resource hungry.

I got frustrated with the Samsung OS support (long time for new Android releases and no support for quite recent devices etc) and switched from SGS 9 to iPhone 13. Been switching between iOS and Android couple of times earlier and it's good way to avoid platform lock-in.

biggest change for me are folding phones! They look like the next big thing (but so expensive atm)

“I've totally lost track of the iPhone product line. If you asked me what the difference between the iPhone 11/12/13 is I wouldn't be able to tell you.”

thanks for sharing!

My fam has 4 iPhones: An 11 and 3 13's and we could also not tell you the main differences. Better uh... camera? Faster maybe? I know the 13's are chonky.

11 has the ridiculous rounded bezel, which makes it difficult to pick up, hard to handle in general and very easy to drop (it looks cooler though). Luckily, after years they've finally come to their senses and returned to the uglier, but 1000x more functional cornered bezel in 13.

Never had a problem picking up my 11 but then again it's barely spent a day outside of it's case.

Same. I stopped caring. I'll use my Pixel 4 until it is no longer supported.

If only the Pixel 6 had a headphone jack... :'(

5a does have one, but it is annoying that this only seems to appear on budget phones.

> I'll use my Pixel 4 until it is no longer supported.

So about 6 months to go?

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

That's when the guarantees end. I'll buy the next phone the first security update that I don't receive.

Have to agree here. Have the iPhone 11 Pro and still works great. Have worked with iPhone 12 and 13... honestly don't see any day to day difference in performance.

I've got the iPhone 6 ans it still works fine. :)

Although I sometimes wish I had the iPhone 6s so that I could update to the latest iOS version.

But iOS 12 still gets security updates every once in a while (last one — September 2021, and there were several last year) so I'm in no hurry to upgrade.

Perhaps come the next iPhone SE.

I would love to hold old phone, the only issue that lingers me is battery. I have changed many battery, but it seems I will never get same display time ....

> Phones aren't making big leaps anymore, it's not worth keeping up with.

Couldn’t be farther from the truth. Apple has never been about revolutionary change after revolutionary change every year, but the iterative improvements do make big leaps over time. For iPhones, the cameras and photo quality improve a lot at least once every two or three years. It’s because you don’t care that you don’t know about the leaps, not the other way around.

As someone who went from an iPhone 7 Plus to a 13 mini, I see GP’s point. 13 mini is certainly a better phone. Better cameras, better battery life, bigger screen but smaller device. But I could see why someone would say this “isn’t worth keeping up with” and not “big leaps.” My 7 Plus photos were fine. It did everything I needed to do. On a daily basis the only benefit for me is that 13 mini is smaller.

It was definitely worth the price to me but I see why someone would say it’s not a big leap. And 7 to 13 is many years worth of upgrades.

You can't copy music onto the iphone with a USB cable connected to your computer.

Yes you can.

With any PC? It certainly doesnt work with linux or windows.

On a Windows machine you need iTunes to sync music and transfer files according to the docs. (You don’t need to use the iTunes store, but you do need the app to sync music). It’s been a while since I’ve used a windows machine of my own.

I doubt it works on Linux unless maybe it works with WINE.

Yeah wine doesnt work with USB. It's crazy you need iTunes (which is being discontinued) to copy music to a device you have access to and can connect to your computer. It's the only hold up I currently have to getting an iPhone. I have a lot of music that just isn't sold or available on any streaming platform that I'd like to copy over but I dont have a windows or mac available. I do have several linux machines available though. I bought a 13 Pro but had to return it. So bummed because Im over Google/Android.

I guess the only other solution would be to upload the files to iCloud Drive (not the music library) and play them with a third party app.

I checked that too, I couldnt find software that would import into the music library from iCloud either. Id be very interested if you know of one that works? I'll keep searching. Or if I wander into an extra $1000 bucks I can buy a mac soley for the purpose of getting music on my phone that I own.

This is how I think about computers. I don't think it's a problem or really points to anything.

> If you asked me what the difference between the iPhone 11/12/13 is I wouldn't be able to tell you

Well, let me assist. The 13 is way better than the 12, which is way better than the 11. The camera on the 13 is hands down the best camera yet on any mobile device and was sufficiently better that I and millions of others dropped a cool grand to get it. And guess what? If the 14 is better enough, I'll get that too, and be delighted about it!

I get that many phones are now "good enough" for the more basic use cases but that doesn't mean strides aren't being made in other dimensions. You might not care, but others sure do.

> The camera on the 13 is hands down the best camera yet on any mobile device

I have a Canon MKIV with several lenses (most of which are L glass), and consider myself a decent photographer. [1]

While the sensor size and resultant image data from my Canon vastly outperforms what my iPhone can do, the software processing Apple applies to photos leaves me significantly in awe when compared to my workflow that includes a beefy PC + Adobe Lightroom.

At this point, I am seriously ditching my entire DSLR kit, shooting nearly exclusively with my iphone, and possibly just picking up a medium format digital range finder to shoot travel landscapes.

1: https://alanroy.smugmug.com/

I'm in the same boat, albeit in the Sony camp, sitting on an embarrassing array of now pretty much unused kit. Like you, I'll still lug it along when "taking photographs" is an explicit part of the agenda, but in practise.. it hardly makes it out of the bag any more. The iPhone is just good enough, and it's there.

I honestly don't know what to do with the DSLR now. Maybe I'll point it out the window and live-stream the view.

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