IPhone 6 | Hacker News Reader

IPhone 6

marco.org

29 pointsmh_46 comments

> When Apple did release a model named “iPhone 5” that was far better than the 4S [...] it was a huge update that gave them everything they asked for, plus more.

Whoa, hold the hyperbole train their Marco. I wouldn't exactly call a slightly bigger screen, slightly improved camera, slightly snappier performance (all expected in a yearly update), a new custom connector that invalidated all your previous peripherals and cables, and a new scratchable, slippery exterior "far better" or "a huge update that gave them everything they asked for, plus more".

Factor in how woeful Apple Maps was (and is), and how much steam the competition had picked up, and yes, the iPhone 5 was simply disappointing.

> Factor in how woeful Apple Maps was (and is), and how much steam the competition had picked up, and yes, the iPhone 5 was simply disappointing. [emphasis mine]

I like my iPhone 5 and think it's the best phone I've ever used. Apple Maps is a mixed bag (though I still use it as my default; it does some things very well), but I don't see "the competition's stopped sucking" as something that makes me like my phone any less.

On the contrary, Android and Windows Phone are getting good enough that I can be certain I like iOS's design philosophy for what it is, not only because it's the only design that isn't half-baked.

Before, "good enough" for the iPhone was good enough, as nothing else came close. But with how polished Android has become of late, the bar is much higher, and Apple's "good enough" is no longer at the same level of other players.

Siri woes in comparison with Google Now (look at the comparisons during hurricane Sandy—Siri confused it with a sports team). Maps can be synced offline on both Android and Windows Phone. Want to share a photo to Instagram as soon as you take it with the stock camera app (the only one that has a "shortcut" from the lock screen)? With Android, one tap. With iOS, you have to load Instagram, and share it from there.

There are many little things that were okay when iPhone was still young but they appear to be resting on their laurels.

As a counterpoint, I'm looking quite seriously at an Android as my next device, this after being a "life-long" iPhone fan.

It's simply gotten to the point where Android works well enough for my big use cases, is open enough to changes to allow me to do some things I can't with the iPhone, is cheap enough that it saves me money, is big but light... overall, iPhone has less of an advantage every day.

The sales data doesn't really support the notion that the iPhone 5 was a disappointment to anyone except the most picky of technical users.

http://bgr.com/2013/01/17/iphone-sales-comparisons-samsung-2...

You're forgetting LTE. I'd say that just the larger screen and inclusion of LTE constitute a major update.

It's also freakishly light, if you're in to that sort of thing. I actually like the heft of the 4 series, and would have preferred they kept the weight and filled the 5 with more battery, but that has less sizzle on the sales floor.

It doesn't just sizzle on the sales floor--it is extremely practical for a "walking around phone" for people who wear trousers.

It's admittedly subjective; I didn't mean to imply that aren't real advantages to a lighter phone. At the same time, reading "30% more battery" on the product stats doesn't have the same wow factor as "omg, this thing is freakishly light".

Good point. Although I'm in the UK, and so far you can only get LTE on one carrier—and the prices are extortionate.

Disappointing relative to what?! The iPhone 5 was a bigger update than the 4. For ordinary people, it was a combination of top-notch specs (still the fastest phone GPU and will probably remain so until the Snapdragon 800 phones come out), lowest weight (by a healthy margin), competitive battery life with LTE, and highly pocketable form factor.

Don't forget the camera flaw: http://gizmodo.com/5947972/apple-acknowledges-iphone-5-camer....

> slightly improved camera

Now that's an understatement/hypobole/litote. iPhone 5's camera is vastly superior to any that came before it.

No matter what they release and no matter how well it sells, they won’t win over the press, the pundits, the stock market, or the rhetoric. Not this year. They could release a revolutionary 60-inch 4K TV for $99 with built-in nanobots to assemble and dispense free smartwatches, and people would complain that it should cost $49 and the nanobots aren’t open enough.

Speaking of rhetoric...

I think this post is the main problem Apple could face; their PR essentially falls into the Android ditch of promoting specs instead of ideas and features. It's the kind of thinking that results in gadget sites using side-by-side comparison tables, which helps no one buy their next phone. Buying an Android phone must be hell, since that's how most people have come to explain why one model is preferable to another.

Marco's description of the improvements is basically incrementalism: it's "harder, better, faster, stronger" - X% more Y.

The 4S was a bit of a disappointment, because Cook - and Apple's engineers - did a pretty measly job of touting Siri as something profoundly new. But otherwise incremental changes to hardware are just an opportunity to focus on the software instead in terms of iOS (which won't run on all devices, which directly makes the new phones that more attractive).

There's a reason we shouldn't see keynotes talking about how dashboard navigation is now 13% faster, and Spotlight search is 8% better at indexing and uses 7% fewer system resources.

In the Android world of PR, Retina was just a DPI number, whereas Steve Jobs sold it as a level of detail that met the limit of visual perception by the user. That made it a genuinely interesting feature instead of just another case of numbers wank.

I think in some sense the expectations game has been lowered ever since iPhone 4, and that it's suddenly O.K. to just judge an iPhone by its spec changes - and as a result, Apple apologists like Marco are just moving the goal posts as a subtle concession to the disappointed critics.

This also means that people missed how much better the iPhone 5 camera is in low-light environments, for one, which could just as well have been touted as a great feature instead of an incremental increase to the camera, or in whichever vacuous incrementalist ways people like Marco choose to put it these days.

Writer sounds like he will either burst in to tears or go on a violent rampage if the next Apple phone is received badly.

This probably makes him a lot more revenue than being "fair and balanced", however.

-- snip --

Now, Apple pessimism is even stronger. No matter what they release and no matter how well it sells, they won’t win over the press, the pundits, the stock market, or the rhetoric. Not this year. They could release a revolutionary 60-inch 4K TV for $99 with built-in nanobots to assemble and dispense free smartwatches, and people would complain that it should cost $49 and the nanobots aren’t open enough.

-- snip --

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman

"You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack. By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate."

Author vastly overstates the importance of the tech press: do I really need to point out that the iPhone 4S and 5 both sold (and continue to sell) like crazy, mostly limited by their availability?

Kind of circular if e.g. their availability itself was in-turn limited by accurate sales projections.

Looking around me I get the feeling I'm not the only Apple-fan that didn't get particularly excited about any iPhone after the 4.

I really couldn't be bothered with the 4S or the 5, still using the old 4. Android phones have never excited me because of their boring derivative design. Except as a useful tool, I'm pretty much over smartphones as objects of desire.

Unless Apple manages to rekindle that by making the next phone something more exciting than an upgrade on the iPhone 5, I might as well upgrade to something like the HTC One, just to see what that's like.

I won't love it though. Not in the way I loved my first iPhones.

The point he makes about the iPhone 5 not being received well seems to contradict the entire point of the article. If the iPhone 5 wasn't received well by name alone (after all, it doesn't have an "S"), why should the iPhone 6 be?

To give them the finger, because he knows that no matter what Apple delivers for their updated flagship, it will be 100% better than anything else out there in all respects. Anyone disappointed? THE FINGER!!!

Samsung... 4?! That's 2 BEHIND LOSERS! i-f-ing-Phone-6.

Apoplectic at the first blogger that says, "They should called it 5S. Me disappointer."

Calm down there, buddy.

Quite a persecution complex on display. Reminds me of the evangelical conservatives in the U.S. who are always crying out about being oppressed.

Well, way to give them more ammunition.

They should call it the iPhone 13.

It would leapfrog the Galaxy S 4 by 9, and it would be a number that they coud increase every year.

It worked for the Xbox 360. That was a mix of the PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution. Of course, now the next Xbox will need to be something absurd like the Xbox 720 or 9 or Blue or some silly name.

OR...

Apple could just call it... "iPhone" and drop all the numbers business. Worked for the iMac and the iPad and iPod.

I'm not sure it is just a naming issue. I think people are starting to get bored with the iPhone, myself included.

When the iPhone came out, it was huge. It really was a big deal, and it's only gotten better since then. But the lack of a new huge advancement is playing against Apple. It's not that the competitors have advanced leaps and bounds beyond Apple, it's not that the competitors are necessarily better, but they're different. Even these small differences can be enough to excite a consumer who is growing bored with the minor changes they've seen as they've grown with a platform. It's not that the competition is stronger or something new, it's that the competition is different.

I don't want to be the guy telling Apple what they need to do or not do, the point is that the iPhone is still, at its core, the same as it's been since it was released. Occasionally I get bored with Windows, having used it for two decades and see that it's still the same at the core, and switch to Linux for a few months. It's not that I find Linux better or worse, it's that it's different enough to inspire me out of a slump I might be in.

A change out of a routine can be a very refreshing experience. Apple may realize this, but they may also realize that a lot of their non-technical consumers won't share this viewpoint. For them, routine might be the only comfort they have in the electronic world.

Another option would be calling it the new iPhone, like they do now with the iPad.

I was actually shocked when they didn't call the iPhone 5 "the new iPhone", since it was after they'd done so with the iPad.

I think the main reason for this is that (to my knowledge) you can only buy the newest model of the iPad at any given time whereas the market for phones is far more segmented. Thinking of my friends, I know simultaneously people who have the 4, 4S, and 5, and you can purchase pretty much three models at any given time. Differentiating them would be far more difficult if you only had one name across the board.

The iPad 2 is (or at least was) still available, as a low cost non-retina option. I believe it continued to outsell the iPad 3. Now that the iPad Mini exists to fill that segment, they may be more likely to remove the old options.

They are still selling the iPad 2 and the iPad 4 side by side:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipad/compare

It's fortunate for "launch" iPad 2 owners that it's still sold in 2013, because that suggests that it will continue receiving iOS updates and not be left behind any time soon.

It's uncharacteristic of Apple to compete on individual specs, but I think they've got to put something special into this release. Maybe this new sapphire glass for the display, or NFC, or an even beefier chip / battery life. Something. Or all of the above.

I totally get what Marco is saying: it's not just the tech press, it's Wall Street, it's the public. There's a general feeling out there that Apple is done pulling rabbits out of the hat and it's not just from the echo chamber. I don't think this portends their decline, but Android, Samsung, et al., have really been pushing the envelope. The fact that a 4S is still like $100 under subsidized contract feels almost criminal when you compare it on specs to other Android phones that are available for the same deal.

Would NFC really be special at this point? Most (at least high end) Android phones have had it for years at this point.

And yet, as far as I know, it never really broke through; I think that if Apple had come with NFC for the iPhone 5, it would've. A lot of app builders and companies aren't doing anything with NFC yet because the iPhone doesn't have it, disregarding the 70% market share Android has nowadays (although only a small percentage of those have NFC).

Not by itself necessarily, but Apple's adoption would be noteworthy and I'm certain would increase/uptick adoption.

My broader point is that I can easily foresee a time in the near future when Apple devices are cynically noted for what they don't have/do that other devices do - beautiful interfaces, fit-and-finish notwithstanding.

  The iPhone 4S was a huge improvement over the iPhone 4, but 
  the press and fans shat all over it because it had the same 
  case design and therefore wasn’t “an iPhone 5”.

Are we talking about "actual specs" or "perceived difference"? Because I have a 4 and a 4S and while the specs may be better, the average person cannot tell a whole lot of difference outside of Siri. Sorry, but it's truth. "Reaching" is the only word I can think of to describe OP's rant.

So, the disappointment is merely a naming problem that Apple baked for itself by starting/sticking to a numbering scheme when most device makers have an "internal" code and then there's the name that each carrier tacks on. The only time you get iterations is when a device "hits" (Razor, Galaxy, One, etc.)

The disappointments surely aren't because, spec-by-spec and material ounce-per-ounce, bloggers and the public look at the value proposition and shrug about the AAPL premium. The former certainly would also never try to clickbait fanboys to their ad-laden pages to profusely pound the Book of Jobs upon heretics.

"A year later, when Apple did release a model named “iPhone 5” that was far better than the 4S and had an external redesign"

Huh? I thought the iPhone 5 had the same external design as iPhone 4.

Backplate is not glass and dimensions changed.

See for thickness comparison: http://cdn.thenextweb.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/...

Bottom side of the phone changed slightly too.

Build quality also got drastically better. The hardware buttons are impressively responsive. The phone also got considerably lighter and denser, which I definitely notice in my daily usage.

I think he means iPhone 7. So far we have iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, and iPhone 5.

It was good pointing out that the iPhone numbering scheme is screwed up, but realistically from a marketing standpoint Apple's choices are "iPhone 5S", "iPhone 6", "new iPhone" or some other alternative name.

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