Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 15 Pro Get real folks, each and every (new) iPhone is an amazing device
- Thread starter cyberone
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I agree that people take things for granted. I agree that people sometimes (often) lose sight of what counts as “only” first world problems.
However, ALL new phones, computers, cars, you name it, are marvels of technology from the right perspective. That doesn’t mean there aren’t shades of gray, missteps, corner cutting, and baffling decisions. It’s all relative, and consumers absolutely need to vote with their wallets, shop around, and compare these “marvels” to one another. It’s a terrible idea to just buy on brand name and/or just accept whatever is passed our way by companies because of some rationalization that things used to be worse.
We aren’t a charity - we are paying our hard earned money voluntarily and we don’t owe Apple a single purchase, EVER. If they could have made something better for the money, we should not turn a blind eye and if a different company offers something better for the money they earned our money instead.
I say this as a passerby - I don’t have an iPhone 15 and am not here to whine about my new purchase
However, ALL new phones, computers, cars, you name it, are marvels of technology from the right perspective. That doesn’t mean there aren’t shades of gray, missteps, corner cutting, and baffling decisions. It’s all relative, and consumers absolutely need to vote with their wallets, shop around, and compare these “marvels” to one another. It’s a terrible idea to just buy on brand name and/or just accept whatever is passed our way by companies because of some rationalization that things used to be worse.
We aren’t a charity - we are paying our hard earned money voluntarily and we don’t owe Apple a single purchase, EVER. If they could have made something better for the money, we should not turn a blind eye and if a different company offers something better for the money they earned our money instead.
I say this as a passerby - I don’t have an iPhone 15 and am not here to whine about my new purchase
So, basically you are saying "we are holding it wrong?"
The space shuttle was an amazing piece of technology too. So one or two exploded or fell apart. Don't complain or expect it to work as expected. Right?
Attitudes like this is why Apple puts out things like the 15. Easily scratched, heat, poor wireless reception, poor battery...these aren't imaginary, people are experiencing them. "It just works" hasn't been true for a while now.
The space shuttle was an amazing piece of technology too. So one or two exploded or fell apart. Don't complain or expect it to work as expected. Right?
Attitudes like this is why Apple puts out things like the 15. Easily scratched, heat, poor wireless reception, poor battery...these aren't imaginary, people are experiencing them. "It just works" hasn't been true for a while now.
Depends on the observer. To a person who doesn't know how anything gets made, sure, all this stuff is a technological marvel from a million years in the future to your limited life experience.
If you work in product, it's quite another story, more one of a birds nest of compromises, cost-engineering, and timid risk-averse corporate conservatism.
To the futurist, we're still in a period of technological stagnation after the spending cuts to the sciences post-cold war. Private industry is still mostly in a period of refinement, making use of technologies from the 50's-70's. The idea of carrying around a brick in your pocket that does this stuff, like it's still 15 years ago (and doing the same tasks the last 10 years of models did) is not amazing at all but worthy of disappointment.
If you work in product, it's quite another story, more one of a birds nest of compromises, cost-engineering, and timid risk-averse corporate conservatism.
To the futurist, we're still in a period of technological stagnation after the spending cuts to the sciences post-cold war. Private industry is still mostly in a period of refinement, making use of technologies from the 50's-70's. The idea of carrying around a brick in your pocket that does this stuff, like it's still 15 years ago (and doing the same tasks the last 10 years of models did) is not amazing at all but worthy of disappointment.
Anyone want to be amazed with any device?
Delay replacement to the year model after the final Security Update release.
There will be a gap of 1 decade between your current device and the next one.
Only practical to do if battery is user replaceable and if your job or income isn't dependent on the latest and greatest.
Imagine using chips that are that old to that new
- 32nm to 5nm
- 22nm to 3nm
- 14nm to 2nm
Delay replacement to the year model after the final Security Update release.
There will be a gap of 1 decade between your current device and the next one.
Only practical to do if battery is user replaceable and if your job or income isn't dependent on the latest and greatest.
Imagine using chips that are that old to that new
- 32nm to 5nm
- 22nm to 3nm
- 14nm to 2nm
Apple owners are a fussy, persnickety group by and large (of which I am a member), but there is a subgroup that always have their antenna alert for ANY misstep to amplify.
I'm a millennial born in the early 90s and even I'm amazed at everything we've been able to consolidate with the iPhone... I lived through CD players, palm pilots, digital cameras, Sony PSP, blackberries, etc... and now its just 1 slim device in your pocket that does it all. Sometimes I catch myself starting to take it for granted, and then I remember.
The device does 10,000 things and if two of the 10,000 things don’t work exactly the way you want, boo hoo.
I’m sure there are some defects. For years and years, I’ve always avoided getting Brand New Product on Day One because the manufacturer discovers defects and figures out how to address them. It’s true with cars, computers, whatever.
If a product overheats at room temperature, there’s obviously a problem. I don’t know if it’s a one-off defective unit or something else, but of course that would be a problem and the manufacturer would have to determine the root cause and solve it.
My first step into the future was my TRS-80 at age 12.
Before that moment were the Dark Times, the Empire.
My experience has been that the more technical a person is the more they appreciate the devices and the challenges to create them. The people I know who can’t set a timer on their microwave are the ones who want iPhones to defy physics and cost half the price.
I agree. I am always intrigued how Apple tries to come up with ways to use the massive processing power in our pockets. Running PS5 games is pretty nifty but I do hope we see more. Right now every processor improvement impresses me but I don’t need it. That wasn’t always true of course. If the screen is gorgeous, the processor powerful and the storage far more than ever needed, then we are back to software and services as you say.
I had the TRS-80 until 1984 when my parents got me a Commodore 64. And the desk, printer stand and hutch to go with it. Except for the C64, I still have that stuff. In 1989, the C64 gave way to a C-128. I was running a BBS from 1987 to 1991. 1990 was a PC 286 AT.
I did have a Mac in 2001, a gift from my mom. But I didn't fully convert to Mac until 2003.
That’s fantastic! I still have my TRS-80, with a full 48k.
I really liked that I could start with a Level I machine with 4k and cassette and through mowing lawns, painting fences and washing dishes in a restaurant I ended up with a Level II 48k and a floppy disc. I used an Apple IIe (I think? 1983?) in high school for our computer class. Go figure, the next year I was the teacher‘s assistant haha. But my first Apple purchase was the first iPhone.
My nephew (who converted from Android to an Apple fanboy) likes to joke with me about my primitive technology back when I was a kid. I try to explain to him he’s looking in the wrong direction. If your only electronic device is a calculator, the TRS-80 is a massive leap.
This is a silly take—not because it's objectively wrong, but because it misses the mark and ignores the actual reason people complain.
Yes, all iPhones (and honestly all modern smartphones) are feats of engineering. Hell, every system on a chip is impressive because of how many billions of transistors can fit onto a single chip thanks to modern manufacturing technologies.
But…it's 2023. That is normal. All successful mega-corporations have powerful logistical strategies. They have to, or they wouldn't make money. These things would be impressive to someone 50 years ago when computers were huge and slow and logistics were harder to coordinate. But today? It's par for the course. There are new standards to live up to: good battery life; powerful cameras; the ability to use your phone without it turning into a stovetop in your pocket…that sort of thing.
The fact of the matter is that there has been minimal innovation and technological gains from the iPhone 11 to the iPhone 15 Pro that actually dramatically change people's lives or impact how they use their phones. Battery life is the same. Sure, you can run "more powerful" apps today than you could a few years ago, but 90% of iPhone users don't do desktop-level video editing or play ray-tracing games on their cell phone. They use it to text, video call, check email, and check social media.
So are you wrong? No, iPhones are impressive in one sense—but cars are also impressive, yet that doesn't mean customers shouldn't expect or demand more meaningful changes and improvements beyond "we now use plastic seats instead of cow skin, #environment!"
I had one of these in junior high school and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever owned. (I still have it in a box, somewhere.) My math teacher wouldn't let me use it as a calculator because he was suspicious of what else it could do.
This was my first calculator in the 1970s. Still have the original Texas Instruments version of it.I had one of these in junior high school and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever owned. (I still have it in a box, somewhere.) My math teacher wouldn't let me use it as a calculator because he was suspicious of what else it could do.
That brings up memories of Radio Shack. My dad was religious about shopping there. In his time, that was the tech store go to.I had one of these in junior high school and I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever owned. (I still have it in a box, somewhere.) My math teacher wouldn't let me use it as a calculator because he was suspicious of what else it could do.
Of course, as an electrical engineer working for Rockwell and TRW, he was always complaining about the 'corporate bean counters' who wanted to use 'off-the-shelf' parts from Radio Shack in the various ICBM programs he was involved in.
Never knew quite how to resolve that…
This was my favorite calculator. You could enter any date and it would tell you what day of the week that was. As an 8 year old this was magic! Wish I had kept it. 😩