That's an interesting take and certainly a valid opinion. It's cool how we're all different as I feel exactly the opposite as you. To me, the 5/5s transition from, the '4/4s' was significant. I'm enjoying the 5s that for the first time since the original...I won't be buying one 'from the line'
. That's me. I've been 'that guy' since the original transition to the 3G. I learned my online ordering lesson and from there forward waited in line for each iPhone release. iPad as well. Met some great friends and put together (still to be finished, I'm thinking this fall) a small documentary about ...'the line'. Anyway, the 5s if far and away my favorite phone I've owned and as a 43 year old, I've owned many. I also own (for our business specifically) a Note 3. I really like it. But for many different reasons ...it's amazing and I enjoy both OS'es. That said, as an owner of several large, 'phablet' size phones including an S3 that was traded within the month for the original Note, I'm MUCH happier carrying, using and 'pocketing' a 4" phone than a larger one. My business of 21 years requires carrying a laptop and iPad so the Note lives in my carry bag,
not my pockets. It's too big. I know, it's the extreme but 4.5"+ if the home button in its physical size & dimensions as it is IMHO will be too large. There's just a difference, to me, on what I use for what. During the day...while working or even running errands, mowing the yard or coaching little league, the iPhone is perfect. Setting and sketching rigging points, flight notes and some conditional off airport information and diagramming as well as the client's ability to 'see' their receipt, sign with a stylus on my Next Register and immediately receive a text and email of the receipt reigns supreme on the larger note. That said, both can be done on an iPad or iPhone and if mandated to choose I'm sticking with iOS simply for its applications and software. For productivity and creativity it's second to none and it's integration and aggregation with my Macs, iPads and iPhones is invaluable and 'science fiction' just a decade ago
Didn't mean to go on but I think the 'biggest change in year's was iOS 7, the A7/64bit silicon move on the 5s and unparalleled photographic and motion capture ability and 'smarts'. As Samsung has proven, anyone can make a large phone but you nailed it. Aesthetically pleasing and ergonomically user friendliness to the user is paramount. Something, minus the MotoX, that has eluded 4.5"+ phone OEM designers to date. If Apple can do it without risking that 'pocketability' and single handed operation, they'll have a winner. To appease the whiners just by going larger isn't 'Apple-like'. Keep in mind, the 5s was the fastest, largest and most sold phone...or ANY electronic device in history within 3 and six months since release. That's pretty awesome (if we use the deductive reasoning with 5c sales and decreased production, 'gold' iPhone sales' delays) for a cell phone. I'm not sold Apple's going to a abandon the 4" form factor. I believe they'll make a larger phone but like the iPhone 5s/rMini/Air I believe they'll give them the same 'guts' so you don't sacrifice power or storage caps by deciding on the smaller version. Perhaps battery life will be extended in the 4.7", just as the 11/13" MBAs.
K. I'm done. Sorry, truly am. I didn't want to come across as a dick but this is exactly why choice is good for all of us, as is competition. It would be cool to see LG, Sony, HTC, and the Windows' lines start picking up stream. While I love my Apple products, and I do enjoy my Note...just two competitors with viable capital would kinda suck
Have you tried iOS 7? Have you downloaded any apps? Tired the 'Play Store' yet? I have. Your smartphone isn't meant to enjoy the OS. Rather its offerings as far as apps, software, communication and sharing ...media, creativity and productivity. iOS 7 rocks! As an Android owner with KitKat I can assure you it wasn't a HUGE leap in significance ...other than a couple of challenges, most improvements were more refinements and bug cleansing. Nothing groundbreaking for sure. Grass isn't always greener. Especially if you leave your springboard and play a game, listen to music, edit a picture or a movie, make a song or write/read a book ...edit a spreadsheet or pretend you are when you're actually reading the latest edition of Sports .illustrated.
You'll find Macrumors to be populated by a lot of intelligent and passionate 'technology' fans. Not many 'fanbois' (is that really how you/or the right way/spell it? I've always gotten it wrong
). A lot of open minded peeps with knowledge in both sides. Previous, current or ambidextrous users of iOS and Android, Windows and OSx, Ubuntu or Chrome. Though 'gadget geek' is kinda cool...I consider myself the same, 'hardware geek' is different. Significantly. And if you TRULY are, you'll be incredibly excited to 'find out' what's in the pipeline on iOS. We're sporting 64bit chips today. Outperforming current generation snapdragon chips in many areas and still passing them up in many. Our 'old' GPU silicon is still holding it own natively and off screen. Benchmarks in the CPU are off the charts and Qualcomm is working 25 hours a day, eight days a week right now. While Apple increased the speed of the RAM, quadrupled the 'on SoC' memory buffer on the A7...& increased graphic performance from 50-400% in some instances! Imagine what's next. ESPECIALLY as a self proclaimed 'hardware geek'! More, faster 64bit performance and headroom. A new generation
Imagine graphical power...most likely a RAM bump...with power management when idle. Whether or not the DDR 4 is here and ready, we'll see. I notice the difference between my Air and iPad 4 as well as my wife's 5 and my 5s. The smoothness of the A7 devices (she's got the retina mini) is incredible. To me, as an Android owner...I'm with ya, after two weeks I was tired of 'sideloading apps, hacking and too many reasons to list here...' Actually I didn't side load apps. No reason. Nothing I've found compelling enough without a safe (& well reviewed, respected developer) alternative in the Play Store. Not sure what 'hacking' means. I assume you're talking about rooting, right? Are you employed? Wife? Kids? Mortgage? College? High school? Or still in JrHigh/MidSchool? Doesn't matter. All are cool. I'm old. I'd love to be young again
. I get it if you're in elementary school, junior high. Even high school or college if you're studying coding, app development, computer programming, networking or mobile comm engineering. Even as a hobby but dude...lots of us have to work. I'm excited to get three two hour nights a week coaching baseball. A couple hours a week doing homework. Making dinner or cleaning it up. The LAST thing I've got time for is hacking my phone. Side loading apps is dangerous. If you're THAT intent though, the jailbreak community is live, well and arguably a LOT more safe, sturdy and trustworthy than 90% of And S/L's. I've owned a dozen Android devices including an original Xoom that's still kickin. I'm not sure we're not close to the end of the 'excitement' factor as this is one area I'll agree with you. I won't be in line. But I'll buy one. I'll buy another Android within a year. We've got two dozen employees, 17 of which are supplied phones so I'm able to upgrade when I want as there's someone to pass along to. As, like you, I'm a gadget geek and I suppose a hardware geek if I face the truth. Unfortunately I've no time to so what you're talking about. Hence my query. Your age, responsibilities and whether or not you're in a similar position (married WITH mortgage, kids, n cars
). I need the secret! Independently wealthy would ROCK! Lol. Fortunately I work in my field of choice and passion and dread the day I've got to work for a living...when 18 hours days are enjoyable, you've got the right gig
Another completely off base comment. 4s was a MASSIVE update internally. Double the speed computationally. Double the RAM. Better camera, optics and sensor with a higher megapixel count and phenomenal shots, 1080p capture, for its day second to none for a smart phone. Still an incredibly powerful and viable phone today...nearly three years later. To call the 5s update insignificant is...well, never mind. Call the folks at Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung and other silicon manufacturers. Ask THEM what kind of update the A7 was to the world, the ENTIRE industry over the iPhone 5's incredibly sweet and still excellent A6 32bit processor going on two years old and still keeping pace, in some cases beating the competition...and in all, still holding a top 5 benchmarking slot. That's awesome for a two year old phone. Sell your 5 for your 6 upgrade this year and get $250-450 locally pending the storage and condition. Try selling your Galaxy S3
(not implying you own one, just another benefit to owning iOS). The comparisons you made are literally the exact opposite when you look at actual 'sales'. By volume, each transition you mentioned sold, what...maybe five to ten billion more units in the first thee months Than its predecessor? Neither is bad. The '#' release is, or has been a design change and typically a nice performance bump. The '#s' model in the same form factor historically boasting an incredible speed increase, optical improvement, Siri, machine gun shooting or dual tone flash, 64bit processing and faster RAMw/4mb on die buffering, new GPU and slow motion 720p120fps shooting. Lots of fun, kinda useful stuff. Fingerprint scanning saves me several minutes a day aggregated. Used to enter four digits constantly. 7.1's update has literally made it instantaneous and almost 100% 'hit rate'. Not bad for an 's' update. I'll say it for a third time. Just become a fly on the wall in Qualcomm's board room and engineering departments
'Finally?' How did you get the 5s? It's 8 months old
. I'm with ya though. It's hard to explain how 'right' Apple got the 5s. While I enjoyed and had very few complaints with each iteration previously ...the 5s is really the pinnacle of smartphone technology. I'm long forward to additional RAM as you mentioned. Battery life is always welcome ...my wish though, true 4k shooting @ 24/30 FPS. 60 would be awesome but we'll need 128GB storage with that size of file. Even the 24/30's are gonna be four times the size if they keep the same compression algorithm. They've refined this perfect (IMHO, ymmv) 8mp sensor to date. The sweet slit for this 'size' sensor. Open that aperture to 1.8. 8mp is 4k (+a 100 or two thousand) as we're quadrupling the size of 1080p (2k). This would negate the need for optical stabilization as you could write a code to use 4k shooting in 1080p capture and 'crop' the wiggle out. All the while downsampling to 1080p resolution for playback and editing with the 'option' to keep the RAW wobble shot for self correction in your NLE. I think that would be my big wish. As quick as the camera shoots, the A7's power is evident (as in GarageBand/DAW with multitracking more that a half dozen tracks...the A7 glides to 32! My A6x iPad 4 starts to have challenges with 8-10) and the A8 should build seriously on the 64bit platform opening a MASSIVE world in development and end user experience and 'ability' to continue powerful creation, productivity and energy...battery savings. These little guys are sooo much faster, with more software (apps) available than just a decade ago's computers that were plugged into the wall! Moore's Law is now mobile! Kinda cool to see just how far they'll be able to take it (they meaning ALL mobile OEMs. Competition=Great for us!)
Jailbreak. There's also a pretty good app, Path Input Swipe keyboard. It's good. That said, I'm quicker with my thumb on iPhone than Swype on my Note. I like Android's option to change the keyboards and launchers. But I'm usually using the stock keyboard and predictive text (amazing) on the Note. Just used to it now and I'd love to see Apple open up a bit with their safari engine, keyboard and browser options, as well as lock screen customization. I'm not a big Widget user but customizing that home screen to avoid opening the phone and app for the information vs being able to put what 'you need' on that launch screen would be most excellent
