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Comment by midoridensha | Hacker News Reader

It's not delusional. You have a point with the M2, but most Apple owners don't have those, they just have iPhones and a few other associated gadgets. There's nothing special about iPhone hardware, in fact it's usually behind other manufacturer's hardware at similar or somewhat lower price points.

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Obviously some aspects of a phone are very subjective. Like the Camera, everyone I know who has an iPhone 14 Pro Max think the photos produced are amazing. Yet you jump on the internet and people will tell you they are shit. Mainly because they hate Apple and even a 10yo Android is obviously better than the latest iPhone.

But the Processor is SO far ahead of the competition its crazy. FaceID is still superior to the competition.

Well according to blind test, with 20 million votes iPhone 14 Pro camera is solid, but really nothing special in flagship tier. And in fact did loose to budget Android brand Realme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdjmGimh04

I always enjoy these sort of tests. I have the iPhone 13 Pro Max. There are times I take photos and I'm like "wow the camera is amazing" and other times I'm like "gah, wtf is this".

Then when I saw side-by-side comparisons of Pixel 7 Pro and 14 Pro Max, half the time I pick the 7 and the other half the 14.

What's interesting to me tho is how low the Huawei phone is compared to the Pixel, because when every there's arguments on Facebook about iPhone or something, there's countless comments about the Huawei being the best camera hands down, no competition. But it looks like it doesn't come close to top 3 in any category?

Ultimately the best camera is the one you have with you.

That's exactly what it comes to - most of modern flagships are the same. Best is one you have with you. You can pick traits that are important to you.

What's really weird are iPhone owners that begin conversations with "of course iPhone is objectively better", which I have met on HN a few times. They seem to live in a different reality, where it's justified to spit out couple hundred of dollars to not think for a five minutes.

I agree with the results in the video (and the inference the author made that most of what's going on here is software processing being over-tuned rather than hardware), but I don't really think this is dispositive to the overall conversation, which is basically:

Side A: Apple makes ludicrously expensive ultra-luxe products that only the conspicuously rich buy, like Rolex or Bentley.

Side B: Apple is definitely on the premium end of the market, but generally justify their presence there due to elements of product quality, and their price positioning isn't anything like Rolex or Bentley.

I think pointing out individual instances where products exist that beat Apple products in some respect and are cheaper doesn't really weigh in on the debate. In broad terms, Apple's high end phones are at or near price comparability with other high end phones, and at or near performance/specs/value with other high end phones. Maybe a smidge above or below in some respects at different times, but basically that's where they are.

To me, Apple is closer to Volvo, or maybe in a pinch BMW, in terms of their market positioning than it is to Bentley. That's not to say you can't prefer a Kia (better value / cheaper price) or a Genesis (premium brand spun off from a traditionally cheaper competitor) or a Lexus or an Audi (in the same price tier), but more or less it makes very little sense to pretend BMW and Bentley are the same thing.

Personally I think Apple is exactly like volvo. Nothing really special, but appealing to some part of the audience. For some unknown reason they think that they can be overpriced, when they really are pretty mediocre overall. Saying that as a volvo owner :-)

I think it's hard to compare smartphones to cars. Buying a Volvo isn't that different from buying a BMW or a Toyota or a Ford: they all work on the same roads. Buying a Volvo doesn't lock you into only driving on Volvo roads, buying Volvo gasoline, and listening to Volvo music, and only getting the best experience if you have a Volvo house.

Honestly, the recent iPhones' camera is shit. Half the images I see on twitter/reddit now look absolutely stunning as a thumbnail, but the moment you zoom in to take a closer look at something, the photos just look like a 90's webcam photo upscaled with Topaz AI, like a painting drawn by DALL-E.

The individual components are (e.g camera and screen) but in terms of the SOC they're still several years ahead of the competition on performent to power consumption, arguably the most important part of a mobile device.

It hasn't been relevant for years. It mattered when it doubled the speed but I can use a 6S even today and not care to upgrade. I can use a Pixel 3a and not care to upgrade.

Nobody buys the new iPhone because the SOC uses 20mAh less and is 13% faster and 300% faster in some irrelevant benchmark.

Camera quality, and bad battery life from old phone seem to be why normal people upgrade, brand and design occasionally too.

The question is: why do people upgrade to another iPhone (or from Android->iPhone) instead of to an Android? I'd say the big reasons are 1) brand prestige, 2) familiarity if they're already an iPhone owner, 3) because they're locked into the Apple ecosystem, 4) (for converts) their friends bullied them into joining their club.

People also genuinely change for the better camera. I knew one girl that liked BTS so much she switched to Android with the Samsung phone with BTS headphones lol.

Nobody bullies someone into getting an iPhone lol because nobody calls or texts anymore they all use FB IG or snap so those group chat memes you heard of have not been a thing for over 5 years.

>People also genuinely change for the better camera. I knew one girl that liked BTS so much she switched to Android with the Samsung phone with BTS headphones lol.

Huh? I'm talking about people switching to iPhone from Android (or staying with iPhone through an upgrade). The iPhone camera is nothing really special, and never has been: Android phones have always had the cutting-edge camera tech.

>Nobody bullies someone into getting an iPhone lol because nobody calls or texts anymore they all use FB IG or snap so those group chat memes you heard of have not been a thing for over 5 years.

That's not what I see when I see American users talk about using SMS messages and iMessage. SMS seems to still be very popular there, for some strange reason. Plus, it's not just the iMessage thing; it's people in real life seeing their friend with a non-iPhone and asking them "why don't you have an iPhone like everyone else?"

So iPhone users are susceptible and ignorant who buy expensive items not based on whether it meets their needs but based on marketing and peer pressure.

Always a good approach to have in life. Thinking everyone is dumb except for you.

I think people value the better SOC, but less incrementally year-over-year and more on the kind of upgrade cycle they're on. An iPhone 6S is absolutely still useable, and if you upgrade to a 7 it'll feel mostly the same, but if you upgrade to a 10 (or a 12 or a 14) you'll notice workflows where you get a real increase in fluidity and the same is true on a Pixel. I agree that battery failure and camera is likely what _drives_ the upgrade, mind you, but the better SOC brings collateral benefits.

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