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Deeds500

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 22, 2014
313
490
I'm so over the iphone. Every year I vent on this site about my frustration with the lack of new features because I'm angry and hopeful that, on the off-chance, something will be done about it.

This year is no different.

How can I say it without sounding like a troll: Tim Cook has NFI. He started from a very high platform. He becomes CEO of the company which invented and makes arguably the greatest consumer product the world has ever seen, all thanks to Steve Jobs (RIP) and has since seen it progressively reduced to an overpriced, feature-starved, glorified emoji device.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but:

In 2014, the iphone came with with a big screen (cool) with very little else added to the iphone.

In 2015, Apple introduced 3D touch which had so much potential but was left to became effectively a shortcut menu. 3D touch is now, according to reports, on its way out.

In 2016, Apple introduced a better camera (an improvement, not to be confused with a new feature) but took away the headphone jack.

In 2017, Apple introduced Face ID, a biometrich which replaced another biometrich, again, an improvement rather than a new feature because it was a case of one security access feature replacing another, no new capability was added. It also polarised opinion as not everyone was/is a fan of Face ID. Oh, and we also saw anamojis, yipeeeeee.

And in 2018....a bigger screen and a spec bump.

And next year? Well at this rate Apple will be removing something from the iphone because that's the one certainty you get with Apple, for whatever reason, they remove features. Anyone remember the old Youtube app? Gone. Headphone jack, gone. 3D touch, probably gone. Apple giveth, Apple taketh away.

Back to Apple's go slow approach. When's it gonna end? I've had enough of it. In the last 5 iphone keynotes, we have seen improvements and spec bumps here and there, but nothing to make me go wow. When was the last time Apple added something which made the iphone do something it could never do before and which was innovative?

Now before people say "phones have stopped making people go wow" and "what do you expect from a phone", please spare me the comments. Those comments may have been relevant 2-3 years ago, but not now. In the last 5 years, we have not seen one major added feature to spruce life back into the iphone. And don't get me started on the years preceding 2014 and how slow the feature-adding was then too, albeit, better than the years post 2014.

The iphone has become a boring, bland device. If all we want from it is to read email, play music, text and consume media, which is what some keep saying, then why has it become so damn expensive? I have seen at least 5 phone reviewers say if you're going to spend a thousand dollars on a phone, then the Note 9 is the phone to buy. And that is no coincidence. Not kidding you, the Note line has left the iphone line behind. And I say this as an iphone user. After playing with the Note 9 in the store, it did make me go "WOW".

That is all.
 
Honestly with the amount of work Apple has put into the camera is amazing. Not only Apple but Scamsung also. I wish Apple would put a little bit more effort into it becoming a better music player sound quality wise. But really there are no other features I can think of.

Software is where it's at. Just sit back and think about how much you can do with your phone. From controlling temperature in your home to your finances.
 
I'm so over the iphone. Every year I vent on this site about my frustration with the lack of new features because I'm angry and hopeful that, on the off-chance, something will be done about it.

This year is no different.

How can I say it without sounding like a troll: Tim Cook has NFI. He started from a very high platform. He becomes CEO of the company which invented and makes arguably the greatest consumer product the world has ever seen, all thanks to Steve Jobs (RIP) and has since seen it progressively reduced to an overpriced, feature-starved, glorified emoji device.

Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but:

In 2014, the iphone came with with a big screen (cool) with very little else added to the iphone.

In 2015, Apple introduced 3D touch which had so much potential but was left to became effectively a shortcut menu. 3D touch is now, according to reports, on its way out.

In 2016, Apple introduced a better camera (an improvement, not to be confused with a new feature) but took away the headphone jack.

In 2017, Apple introduced Face ID, a biometrich which replaced another biometrich, again, an improvement rather than a new feature because it was a case of one security access feature replacing another, no new capability was added. It also polarised opinion as not everyone was/is a fan of Face ID. Oh, and we also saw anamojis, yipeeeeee.

And in 2018....a bigger screen and a spec bump.

And next year? Well at this rate Apple will be removing something from the iphone because that's the one certainty you get with Apple, for whatever reason, they remove features. Anyone remember the old Youtube app? Gone. Headphone jack, gone. 3D touch, probably gone. Apple giveth, Apple taketh away.

Back to Apple's go slow approach. When's it gonna end? I've had enough of it. In the last 5 iphone keynotes, we have seen improvements and spec bumps here and there, but nothing to make me go wow. When was the last time Apple added something which made the iphone do something it could never do before and which was innovative?

Now before people say "phones have stopped making people go wow" and "what do you expect from a phone", please spare me the comments. Those comments may have been relevant 2-3 years ago, but not now. In the last 5 years, we have not seen one major added feature to spruce life back into the iphone. And don't get me started on the years preceding 2014 and how slow the feature-adding was then too, albeit, better than the years post 2014.

The iphone has become a boring, bland device. If all we want from it is to read email, play music, text and consume media, which is what some keep saying, then why has it become so damn expensive? I have seen at least 5 phone reviewers say if you're going to spend a thousand dollars on a phone, then the Note 9 is the phone to buy. And that is no coincidence. Not kidding you, the Note line has left the iphone line behind. And I say this as an iphone user. After playing with the Note 9 in the store, it did make me go "WOW".

That is all.
Everyone has a choice in life. You did yours and beware that android devices are extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks due its OS development environment nature: too open. Hence, any logical reasonable and knowledgeable cyber security experts are not recommending android devices. Check or consult with one of them. Good luck!!
 
A boring bland device, true. Just like your nose or foot is boring bland device, which is attached about the same way.
 
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The tech has effectively peaked, and hardware updates are more focused on energy efficiency, rather than groundbreaking features.

Are they though? Every year they are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at the processor and still making huge leaps year over year, but what for? Can anything out there even tax an A8 chip yet? Seems like instead of so much processor effort they could spread the effort out a bit to other areas of the phone, like the audio player portion, etc.
 
You’ve touched on all of the points I’ve criticized before:

1. You want to be wowed by some unspecified thing. Why? I certainly don’t need this to be happy with my product. Furthermore, you have no original (or unoriginal) solution.
2. Use of the word “boring”. The modern smartphone is possibly the best device to both consume and create content. Make music. Make art. Edit. Write. Watch new shows. Learn. You can take a university course on your phone. For free, for crying out loud. I don’t declare my “tv” boring when it doesn’t present new features. I watch a new show. It’s all about content now. Only a boring mind is bored.
3. Neither Steve Jobs nor Apple invented the smartphone. I was interested in them before 2007. Apple simply created their own variant and were the first to implement a multi touch display. Which they also didn’t invent. They created the first great smartphone. Hardly the first smartphone. Or second or third.
4. Incremental updates. Strangely, we’ve got the best versions of arguably the best consumers product ever made. Beyond what was realistically foreseeable a handful of years ago. How did we get here with all of these unimpressive upgrades? Something doesn’t reconcile.
5. Do something greater that doesn’t require you to be satisfied by a smartphone.
 
Sounds like you have an easy choice then. Buy a different phone.

I don’t think iPhones were ever designed for people to want to upgrade every year or 2. They were designed with the last generation’s values in mind, and this is exemplified with Ios12. They make a product that will last and will perform well in 5 or more years. Apple doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t have to) make a product that blows you away every single year.

I think these new phones are designed to last 5 years, and at a thousand dollars or a little more, that ends up at $200 or less per year, which is far less than a dollar a day, and closer to 50 cents a day.

For the record, the thing that blew me away at this keynote is the IP68 rating that they were so confident about, they talked about it on stage with a guy swimming to the bottom of a pool. Surviving 2m underwater for 30 minutes is an unbelievable achievement. There isn’t some place where 2 meters down only has a couple gallons of water. A pool that is 2m deep has 10s of thousands of gallons, and enough pressure to hurt your head when you hold your breath and swim to the bottom. That a phone as intricate and complex as an iPhone can hold up under there for 30 minutes (and based on their confidence on stage, in reality probably far longer) is nothing short of amazing. It’s also something that I feel has a lot of value to me.

I’m not really sure what kind of amazing features you want from Apple that the competition has and iPhones dont, but I also don’t see how this post helps you get those features. Is there something specific you have in mind? Just go buy whatever phone has the features you want. In my case, the iPhone fits nicely with my computer and my Apple TVs and has plenty of great features and an aesthetic that appeals to me, so I’m happy paying whatever, especially in monthly installments with 0% interest.

Anyway, the standout features of the next generation of phones will be their integration with the world around them, not the actual specs built in. Phones are going to become less about the built in I/O and more about the raw computing power. We are going to want our pocket CPU to integrate with our cars (basically R2D2), our homes (already have HomeKit kinda things), our bodies (watch and rumored AR glasses, I’m also thinking surgically implanted devices that output to the phone which can then share it with medical professionals/machine learning algorithms), and our jobs (personally i use authentication apps that make use of touchid on my current phone to auth me for various VPNs/accounts). The faster this future comes, the better, and I’m willing to pay a premium for it. If you don’t? That’s fine too, you do you.
 
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The average joe doesn’t buy a new iPhone each year so Apple doesn’t add loads of new stuff each year. This of course upsets those of the ‘look at the shiny shiny’ generation who NEED new shiny stuff to look at every minute.
 
Sounds like you have an easy choice then. Buy a different phone.

I don’t think iPhones were ever designed for people to want to upgrade every year or 2. They were designed with the last generation’s values in mind, and this is exemplified with Ios12. They make a product that will last and will perform well in 5 or more years. Apple doesn’t need to (and shouldn’t have to) make a product that blows you away every single year.

This is a great point. Part of the reason I got into Apple pre-iPhone was because my first Mac laptop (an iBook) was so stable and lasted a while compared to the competition. I associated their products with stability and longevity. My last MBP lasted 6 years before I upgraded, compared to being frustrated with a Windows machine after 2. Before my iPhone 6s, I found my Android phones almost unusable after 18 months. With the 6s, I made it to 3 years before I decided to get the iPhone 8 Plus. It's an amazing phone. Would I have liked it as much if I had upgraded every year. Probably not. But since they make a good quality device, I don't need to and can wait longer, and then be wowed when I eventually do upgrade.
 
What new features do you expect? It’s a phone. It’s slowed down because...well there is only so much it can do. Seriously what else is there? I took a look at the galaxy s9 when it came out. Didn’t really seem too different from the s8. Not many more features. Couldn’t tell you about the note. Don’t pay attention to it. I’ll admit that the prices are getting ridiculous. I’m still going to buy the xs max. But I highly doubt I’ll spend over that for a phone. Or even spend that much again. If your over apple, then cool. Go get a Samsung and have fun with their customer service when the charging port on your phone becomes so loose that the charger won’t stay in it. Then you can wait 2 weeks for your factory replacement. You also have to look at the time period of the releases. Around the iPhone 4 era, there was a ton of things to add to the phones. Now they have all that. What else are they honestly suppose to be able to do?
 
Does the new iPhones even let you capture in ultra slow motion? I was hoping they would upgrade to camera to at least keep up with Samsung.
 
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Have fun w/the Note 9 - at least you can get that neat Fortnite Galaxy skin. ;) Note 9 really is a nice phone if you are cool w/Android side.

The last Samsung I owned didn't even last two years before bricking itself and I had to pay a $199 deductible to get it replaced. Went straight back to Apple and stayed. I trust Apple hardware more, even if I don't always agree with what they're doing (dongle-hell on Macbook Pros for example).
 
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