macplusplus

avon b7 said:

macplusplus said:

avon b7 said:

macplusplus said:

elijahg said:

jdw said:

The continued presence of the "notch" coupled with what consumers perceive as the biggest bang for the buck is no doubt driving this.

The notch doesn't concern me personally, but the price does. I'll always (within reason) be loyal to Apple, but more and more people are looking at Apple's £1000 phones and thinking "nah, you know what, I'm going to switch to Android," where they get 75% of the features for 25% of the price. Some of the Chinese Android phones really are surprisingly good, even at the £250 price bracket. My friend's £250 Xiaomi has incredible low-light camera performance. Makes the Xs look like something from 5 years ago.

Current iPhone toting friends are either holding off on a 5s sized device, or as I am, cheaper phones. The flagship 6s was £650 which was pretty good bang for your buck. It was way better than any other phone then. The flagship Xs is now £1000, but hardware wise is it really that much better than the competition? Is it really that much better than the 6s? Software is of course much better than Android, but that was already factored into the £650 iPhone's cost. The Xs is certainly not £350 better than my 6s was at the time.

If you consider Face ID and the Neural Engine yes, it is. Competitors have already given up face identification on behalf of “almost notchless” phones. Face ID is the only successful tech in that domain. Is it luxurious or burlesque? Absolutely not because you get it as cheap as $750, even cheaper with trade in on the XR. Don’t underestimate that Face ID assembly, it may open a whole growth domain to the iPhone such as health: face analysis, iris analysis, and even more (imagine a Siri that can detect makeup errors or suggest hair style ). It is not a fancy Animoji tool. The Watch acquired a whole health and fitness domain thanks to its heart rate sensors.

Apple’s another superiority is its use of the same CPU across all models of the same generation. Competitors offer differing CPUs by country even in the same model, those may differ even by store or by batch, there is no guarantee. So you get an A12 iPhone for as low as $750 and even cheaper with trade in. I am very glad I could buy an A11 iPhone 8+ substantially cheaper than iPhone X.

Android hasn't given up on face identification. It was used long before FaceID, (which is simply one - expensive - form of face identification and using 3D depth sensing) and is still widely used as a convenience biometric. It is a shame that Apple doesn't offer the same convenience options for iPhones without 3D depth sensing.

Also, FaceID is not the only successful use of the tech. An example of using 3D depth sensing, 3D object scanning/modelling, skeletal mapping and VR:



That video was taken almost a year ago. Baby steps but, AFAIK, Apple didn't provide anything similar when they could have done. Rumours point to the tech moving forward with the Mate 30 Pro.

It is true that, in general, Android phones are trying to reduce notches to their minimum expression and passing on expensive biometrics where other solutions provide more than sufficient security for payments etc. I think the goal was to maximise screen to body ratios and that is what we are seeing.

We don’t deal with vaporware. If those become a true product and in Apple’s scale come back again !

It is a real product. The video was taken at the official presentation for the Mate 20 Pro last year. I didn't link to the full official presentation as it almost two hours long. That's why it's just someone filming from the audience.

jgojcaj said:

I'd rather have a notch-free iPhone with a beautiful, timeless design over the desire to have 5G inside the phone, tbh. 

elijahg said:

jdw said:

The continued presence of the "notch" coupled with what consumers perceive as the biggest bang for the buck is no doubt driving this.

The notch doesn't concern me personally, but the price does. I'll always (within reason) be loyal to Apple, but more and more people are looking at Apple's £1000 phones and thinking "nah, you know what, I'm going to switch to Android," where they get 75% of the features for 25% of the price. Some of the Chinese Android phones really are surprisingly good, even at the £250 price bracket. My friend's £250 Xiaomi has incredible low-light camera performance. Makes the Xs look like something from 5 years ago.

Current iPhone toting friends are either holding off on a 5s sized device, or as I am, cheaper phones. The flagship 6s was £650 which was pretty good bang for your buck. It was way better than any other phone then. The flagship Xs is now £1000, but hardware wise is it really that much better than the competition? Is it really that much better than the 6s? Software is of course much better than Android, but that was already factored into the £650 iPhone's cost. The Xs is certainly not £350 better than my 6s was at the time.

MplsP said:

bigtds said:

omalansky said:

My housekeeper, who has a Samsung phone, occasionally asks me to help her do something on her phone. What a mess! I'd end up shooting myself if I had to switch to the Android operating system!

Don't pretend this dosen't happen with iOS also.

True - One of the big advantages of iOS when it came out was it was infinitely easer to use than anything else out there. It has gotten worse somewhat over the years, mostly out of necessity since it’s impossible to add features without increasing the complexity to some extent. Many of us have been with iOS all along and have incrementally gotten used to these changes so we tend not to notice them. Regardless, android came along, copied many of the design elements of iOS and added some of its own. I suspect that with either OS the experience is much different after you are past the learning curve. I have virtually no experience with Android, so I really can’t comment on it.seanismorris said:

jdw said:

The continued presence of the "notch" coupled with what consumers perceive as the biggest bang for the buck is no doubt driving this.

I don’t think the notch is that big a deal, but price is.  

Also, IPhone have been better at security but Cellebrite can crack both iPhones and Android. (Bad guys can buy them on eBay)

Apple has the better App Store, but the gap has narrowed.

I think people look at what’s available and conclude Android is the better value.  Personally, I don’t use Apple services to a great extent so migrating isn’t that big a deal.  I’m fine with my 6s until it dies and don’t see a reason to buy ultra premium.

I, like most people, will look at what givens the most bang for the buck.  Apple is pushing things like AR and the camera, which aren’t that important.  Security, build quality are things I care about...

As a pragmatist, I view people complaining about the ‘ugly notch’ to be the equivalent of 15 year olds who are more worried about which brands their friends will see them in than whether they are comfortable. Beyond that and as I’ve said many times before, the notch is the perfect solution and optimization of space. Would people rather have a forehead?

As others have mentioned, the smartphone market is reaching maturity, so the difference in features and quality is narrowing. We’ve seen this in the last several generations; most people don’t buy their phones to play AR games, they buy them to take pictures, use Snapchat, Fakebook and play the latest candy crush. The camera matters more than the graphics do, When you look at the comparisons done last fall after the latest generation of phones came out, people may have proclaimed one brand the ‘winner,’ but there was precious little difference between them. The population here on AI is not representative of the population in general, and if you’re not married to iOS, $1000+ gets to be pretty hard to swallow when you can get a very decent phone for $3-400 cheaper.