Is anyone here actually excited about the features they just announced? Or are people simply upgrading because they get the latest iPhone every year or two by default?
It does feel like there's a small degree of "they can't win" here though. They caught a bit of flack last release cycle for comparing the M3 and M4 chips to the M1s and M2s. Either they can compare to the old ones and people gripe about them hiding the fact that the new releases are incremental, or they compare to the current models and people complain that the releases are incremental.
>Would the new models feel bigger upgrades if Apple only released one every 2-3 year? Sure. Would that be better for the average consumer looking to upgrade from whatever iPhone they have? Not sure. Incremental updates are nice IMO, stop caring about them if your iPhone is less than 3 year old…
I do find it funny that the industry that gave us "rolling release linux" and "dependabot" is full of so many people that hate incremental hardware release cycles.
I'm on a 12 Pro and I only want to upgrade to get more memory and faster processors. My current phone easily pages apps out of memory too often these days and it gets a bit tiring. Also, I already replaced the battery once after 1.5 years and the current battery is already back to about the same health/capacity as the first one was in the same amount of time.
Apple drip feeds features, they have realized that their business relies of making small incremental improvements to the iPhone every year so they hold back features that are bog standard in the more competitive Android world and then make a big fuss when they add it to the iPhone.
We complained about lockin and the uselessness once the older devices falls off the Apple support list, as repairs became a huge PITA (full swing anti-repair design at the time), and rooting the phones didn't help much as the jailbreaking scene was kneecapped compared to android's alternative stores.
Like any evolution, the year over year changes shouldn’t be that drastic
Not saying I need those new features. Only that Apple's incentives are to try to get you to buy the new phone so they are incentivised to gate several software only features to try to get you to upgrade.
It's just a portable computer, and people don't buy new computers every year or two.
It's not just the phone though, you would think by now they would release a smaller watch with round face.
In the iPod era we got a new form factor almost every year. You didn't have to buy it, but you had the choice. Now if I want a round watch I have to buy from google, which doesn't work with my iPhone?
I don’t shoot much video but I do take photos
It’s also supposed to do the half-press to lock focus and exposure, which has been a common feature on cameras for ages. But I think I read this is a “coming later” feature.
There was something else about double tapping to switch modes though I don’t know how that works exactly.
How so?
As long as other family members are happy with a steady stream of hand me downs, no harm done I guess.
This is just a new excuse to get a new phone with extra steps.
If you want a new iPhone, get a new iPhone, just be honest with yourself.
And business expenses, like a new phone, are usually above the line, meaning you essentially get a discount of your marginal tax rate, you don't just get it for free.
Your total expenses are less than half and the average phone age is the same while being adapted to everyone's needs. Each device is about 90% as good as the thousand-buck ones (assuming no one has special requirements, like if you're really into photography then either a camera or a top-of-the-line phone does make sense! Exceptions exist for sure)
Or you tell yourself you can get a discount (omg!) by buying it for business and get yourself a shiny new toy every year :). I know some people that do this indeed
That’s liable to land you in hot water in an audit.
I stand corrected.
It got smashed, so now I have to deal with all the regressions. No TouchID, no headphone jack, no SIM slot. Will I enjoy having a much better camera? Yep. But that won't do me any good while I can't listen to shit on the plane or in my cars... unless I carry an octopus of dongles everywhere, and none of it breaks and none of its non-removable batteries die.
The sad fact is that manufacturers work harder to screw the customer now than they do to impress him. Apologists enable this behavior, and entire product categories regress.
I've been writing an application and jumping through hoops to make it work on iOS 15 simply because I wanted it to work on my own phone. And those hoops were a PITA because SwiftUI was full of absurd holes and defects until iOS 17 (yes, 17). So I guess I can go through and shitcan all the workarounds I had to implement, at least!
For the last few years I've been waiting for the final, long-overdue ditching of all Lightning ports.
I'm not entirely sure why it happened… Maybe Apple thought that they could keep their own proprietary plug forever and that the EU was bluffing about forcing everyone to use USB-C? Or maybe they are happy like everyone to switch to a fragile connector type that will shorten the lifespan of iPhones.
I wonder what the EU will do when they eventually drop connectors entirely in favor of wireless charging.
Battery life is more than enough for me almost every day.
Why on Earth should I downgrade to Touch ID when using Face ID?
I cared about the camera and improved ultra wide angle, 5x telephoto (my current one, 14 Pro Max has 3x) and 4K 120FPS HDR are enough for me to upgrade.
I agree that the general improvements could be better though: nowadays it's mostly software/AI stuff, and I'd definitely would like to have better camera/better display upgrades instead of just software stuff.
And the thing with the dynamic island is it's mostly drawn on in software. It's actually 2 small cutouts, a pill and a circle for FaceID and the selfie camera. They fill it in with the island at the top to make it look like it's all software, so I don't see them shrinking it since it's being used as a feature, where apps can minimize into it with live data (music playing, sports scores, etc)
I'm somewhat tempted by the camera improvements. Mostly the increased resolution on the ultra-wide camera, though the dedicated camera button might be nice. There've also been times when the higher zoom lens would have been useful for me, and it being available as standard means I'd actually have it without needing to buy a too-large phone.
The ultra-wide matters even when you're not using it for the zoomed-out fisheye shots, because it also is used for the macro mode. When you're within about a foot-or-so of a subject, the Camera app will switch to macro mode and quietly transition to using an extremely cropped view from the center of the ultra-wide lens. This lets it focus really well on up-close things... but the image quality is noticeable worse. So hopefully a vastly higher-res ultra-wide would result in me not feeling I should fiddle with camera settings around that transition point.
(Yes, this is very much a problem of Apple's own making. It started being annoying around the 14, when the main camera's focal length changed a bit and made them push the distance they had to trigger macro mode from out so it was no longer only happening when you were around 6 inches from a subject.)
I once had a phone break just shy of 2 years and got it repaired, lasted three more years after and I only had to replace it because apps started to require a newer OS, the hardware was fine
On the other hand, the iOS device I had for a few years at work broke part of the touchscreen just after 2 years (nice one, Apple, just out of warranty) and had a battery life that was bad from day one, but then I only use it twice a day for 2FA and the occasional call so it wasn't quite worth sending back
YMMV... saying that any phone running a particular OS must have hardware lasting no longer than the minimum warranty period is beyond me. Well, except when there is only one manufacturer's monoculture of course
I really don't care. The 15 pro is so much phone, I can't imagine it lasting less than my SE. And frankly I only upgraded due to the limited time opportunity and knowing my son could use my SE due to his 7 being a crumpled lump of broken glass and gnarled aluminum. It's like he skate boards to school on it. RIP little SE, I guess.
I'd like the slightly nicer camera, but the ones on the 15 pro are so good it seems absurd to complain. I actually used this thing for product photos on my store's website, and they turned out remarkably well. It's not PRO level (I'll reproduce all of them with my camera later) but my god, cameras in phones have come a long, long way. We're at a point where I'd be very surprised if iPhone 17 introduces anything interesting.
I might get an Airpod 4 for the USB-C though the Airpod 3 sucked and I'm suspecting the Airpod 4 is just as bad. Falls out (compared to Airpod 2). Pinch to play/pause/que sucks compared to Tap to play/pause/cue. Several friends had similar experiences including several friends that work at Apple. All of them returned their Airpod 3s.
the CPU and integrated circuit is the core of the phone and if it is intact, the phone can be refreshed to be like new with the new shell for like $30 with parts from ebay
I buy a new phone every year because I'm rich, I love technology, and this is a device I use for a significant portion of every single day.
They probably have done a load of research that shows that people on the whole buy new phones more because they think they will take better photos/video of their travels/friends/kids, rather than because of the notch size.
It makes sense that they would keep prices constant this year considering the pattern over the last decade.
Apple raised the retail price on the 15 Pro Max and added 5x zoom (2023). Apple raised the price on the iPhone 14 by using last-generation SoC (2022). Apple raised the price on the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro by dropping the AC adaptor and adding carrier charges of $30 (at least in the US) (2020). Apple raised the retail price of the iPhone 8 ($50 more than the 7) and in the same year, put more expensive inputs in the the X line which became the Pro line (2017). Apple put more expensive inputs in the 6 Plus and priced it $100 more than the 6 (2014).
I'm frankly happy Cupertino didn't add bullshit features to make it exciting. This is an incremental update. They opened up minor new capabilities, some of which will matter to some people to varying degrees of compellingness.
Mind you, I try not to get excited for other releases when I made the decision to not yet upgrade my phone.
I missed the memo - I thought Touch ID was abandoned in favor of Face ID? Did they bring it back on the latest models? Can you use it again instead of Face ID, and is it as instant as it was on the older Apple phones?
The only two devices I have that don't have touch ID are my watch and my phone - the two devices I use Apple Pay on the most. WTF Apple.
They likely won't end up reducing the size of the notch any further until they figure out how to either make Face ID work with just a single selfie camera (which would inevitably be less secure), or put the sensors under some sort of semi-transparent display.
Many people thought they missed an opportunity by not simply putting the fingerprint sensor under the Apple logo on the back of the iPhone, but they probably didn't like the UX of that solution.
[1]: https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-s24-ultra/comp...
Or they could have both Touch- and FaceID. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Would love to have both! FaceID never works for me when I'm laying on my side in bed.
As a street / candid / pj photographer, the iPhone cameras + photo capture flow is unbeatable.
That said, it seems pretty unrealistic that we can't figure out any incremental improvement until advancing our understanding of the universe. Both have been happening in parallel for centuries if not millennia
That’s the only thing from your list that people actually care about and they did improve battery life, there was a whole segment about it.
The rest? No one cares. Do you even use an iPhone? You sound like me before I got an iPhone:
- I thought the notch would be annoying, I don’t even notice it anymore, it’s never been an issue in actual use
- I was convinced TouchID was better than FaceID but I completely changed my mind. FaceID is just more reliable and convenient, especially if you have sweaty palms
- Faster charging? I mean, why not, it’s always nice if it can be faster, but I’ve found fast charging already surprisingly fast whenever I’ve needed to quickly get some % before going out
- Larger default storage? Same, it’s a nice plus, but if you want or need more storage, pay for more? You have the option
- I wish my phone was easier to unlock when outside in the bright sun and wearing glasses. I often have to take them off or try again, or put in a passcode.
- I'd like the screen to not dim after a few minutes outside in the sun.
- I wish my phone charged faster, especially for moments where I'm like "Oh crap, my uber will be here in 5m and I forgot to charge my phone"
- I wish my safari tabs didn't attempt to reload at the most inopportune times (or ever like my Macbook). This is a very real scenario I run into often when in the subway with no cell/wifi, and is extremely annoying. Better than my 11, but not fixed by any means.
- I wish my OLED screen didn't have visible PWM at low brightness, and strained my eyes. Not everyone is sensitive to this, but some are, and I didn't have this issue with my 11.
These are all regular user stories.
This is my absolute #1 wish for my phone.
I want to load up 30 news tabs before I hop on the subway and just have them all stay loaded, instead of the most recent 4 staying loaded, while any others refresh (and fail) if I switch back to them.
I absolutely want all of my tabs to have the page state cached in storage whenever I leave them and they're done loading. With the scroll position too, as I'll often be interrupted halfway through reading a long story. I don't want them to be stored ephemerally in memory.
Surely it can't be so impossible to "pickle" the state of the page and then unpickle? I can totally accept it not surviving every app upgrade too. Just let me load up stories on the subway platform and read them all on my underground commute.
They just purge the oldest-used app(s) when they need more memory.
Unlike on a Mac, applications don't stay open in the background. With some exceptions for specific authorized background processes.
Have you tried playing with Reduce White Point in accessibility options? This plus the Dark Reader plugin for Safari it's a good option for late night reading.
Surely there's An App For That / another browser that doesn't do this? (I don't own an iPhone myself so can't give any recommendations)
I have several apps the notch covers. Arguably that's the app's fault for not upgrading ? Or is it Apple's? Maybe Apple should let apps opt into the notch. For apps that don't opt in they'd get a blank bar at the top. That would at least not have broken so many apps.
> - I was convinced TouchID was better than FaceID but I completely changed my mind. FaceID is just more reliable and convenient, especially if you have sweaty palms
Sucks with face masks.
Actually for me it's the opposite, and I see much more failures to unlock with FaceID compared to TouchID. There are many times where I had to hold the phone out in front of me like I'm taking a selfie and look directly at it for the system to work, whereas TouchID works in all kinds of weird positions as long as I'm able to place my finger on the sensor.
I gave up and went back to my 6S.
The new models do have better battery life and faster charging.