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Comment by graphe | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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