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New iPhones Score Well with 'Consumer Reports', but Display and Battery 'No Match' for Android Competitors
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Apples & Oranges. Compare the battery life to a Droid that actually fits in your pocket (the Droid Mini, which is still bigger & heavier than the 5S) and the iPhone battery is best in class. If you REALLY need the untethered hours of use, an iPhone 5S plus a Mophie Juice Pack case is still smaller than a Droid Maxx and not a whole lot heavier.
Keeping in mind that this is the same publication that said the iPhone 4 was the best smartphone they'd ever reviewed, yet they couldn't recommend it.
Battery size will matter more in the future because people will be keeping their phones longer. Since iPhone owners can't replace their battery they will face a problem faster than those who can charge their phones less frequently (and Samsung phone owners do not have this issue at all because their batteries are user replaceable).
Android phone displays surpassed iPhone not only in screen size but also in pixel density. Nobody prefers lower pixel density.
The Droid Maxx (the one with 24hr talk-time) seems pretty cool, but it's 167g. That's amazingly light for what it does, but a lot heavier than an iPhone 5S at 112g.
At 55g more, it's almost 50% heavier. It's arguably a different category of device (phablet?) - or, at the very least, a different weight division.
At 55g more, it's almost 50% heavier. It's arguably a different category of device (phablet?) - or, at the very least, a different weight division.
While I have been tempted by the bigger Android phones (I have to admit, the Note 3 is just plain awesome), Google has allowed a serious bug in Android to fester for three years now. Android has a service called Media Server, that basically controls media playback functions - music, video and such. It occasionally scans your media files and the bug is that if it gets stuck on a file it can't handle, like a album cover art it just doesn't like, the Media Server service will crush your processor to up to 90 percent and your "24 hour" battery suddenly only lasts 3. Its known as the "Media Service loop".
If you don't do a lot of media on your device, you may never see it, but for those of us that do, this Media Server bug is just plain ridiculous. And Google doesn't seem much interested in fixing it, or redesigning their OS to get rid of that horrible, buggy and unnecessary Media Server service.
iOS is hardly perfect, and rather boring to be honest, but it beats Android easily in stability - even with the buggy iOS 7.
If you don't do a lot of media on your device, you may never see it, but for those of us that do, this Media Server bug is just plain ridiculous. And Google doesn't seem much interested in fixing it, or redesigning their OS to get rid of that horrible, buggy and unnecessary Media Server service.
iOS is hardly perfect, and rather boring to be honest, but it beats Android easily in stability - even with the buggy iOS 7.
Just Ask Blackberry
I guess its now very clear how much Steve Jobs ensured technological advancement and was ahead of the market. Tim Cook, not so much. It seems he just does not have that capacity other than pick up where he left off and do the best he can. The same people are still there creating, conceptualizing but failed to keep up with product innovation on the timescale historically as mentioned by shareholders earlier. At this pace the appeal of apple could fade over time from leader of innovation to keeping up with the market. Just ask Blackberry!
I guess its now very clear how much Steve Jobs ensured technological advancement and was ahead of the market. Tim Cook, not so much. It seems he just does not have that capacity other than pick up where he left off and do the best he can. The same people are still there creating, conceptualizing but failed to keep up with product innovation on the timescale historically as mentioned by shareholders earlier. At this pace the appeal of apple could fade over time from leader of innovation to keeping up with the market. Just ask Blackberry!
wish the OP would have referenced the battery test by Anandtech on the 24hr MotoX, I guess really as all battery products ymmv.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/6
I stopped reading after I saw Consumer Reports as I am under 60 and their info is not relevant to me.
Here's how this thread would have gone down if the headline was different
"New iPhones Score Well with 'Consumer Reports', Display and Battery Crushes Android Competitors '
"Of course"
"Android sucks"
"Well it's no surprise"
"That's because Apple creates both hardware and software so obviously they have better integration and better performance"
"Proves that it doesn't matter how big your screen is if it sucks and your battery life sucks to"
"Oh the android trolls are going to come out now"
I am sure there are plenty of other comments we'd be reading too
"New iPhones Score Well with 'Consumer Reports', Display and Battery Crushes Android Competitors '
"Of course"
"Android sucks"
"Well it's no surprise"
"That's because Apple creates both hardware and software so obviously they have better integration and better performance"
"Proves that it doesn't matter how big your screen is if it sucks and your battery life sucks to"
"Oh the android trolls are going to come out now"
I am sure there are plenty of other comments we'd be reading too
The threat is there... but somehow I think Apple will make the transition easy for developers.
Apple cares VERY much about their platform and developers. They will do everything possible to ensure the creation of great apps to delight their customers.
Apple basically says:
"Make your apps look and work beautifully on the 3.5" screen"
"Make your apps look and work beautifully on the 4.0" screen"
And Apple gives you the tools and the guideline to make that happen. They are very strict too.
Apple may soon say "Now make your apps look and work beautifully on the 4.7" screen... and here's how to do it"
Developers already have to deal with 2 sized screens with 2 different aspect ratios. Are developers mad about that?
At least they won't change the aspect ratio again... it will be 16:9 from here on out.
But this raises a good point... the iPhone has ALREADY been through so many changes with so many different things developers have to deal with:
3:2 aspect ratio, non-Retina
3:2 aspect ratio, Retina
16:9 aspect ratio, Retina
If that didn't make developers quit already... I think we're fine.
Adding a 4th guideline shouldn't be too bad
you're right, it's much more interesting to have random services kill your battery for no known reason without any support to fixing the issue. That keeps things exciting
I just think it's silly that you should have to use a phone with two hands. You CAN use a phone with two hands, sure, but you shouldn't HAVE to.
Let's take a look at this.
"calling the 4-inch Retina display and 8-10 hour battery life "no match" for Motorola's latest Droid smartphones"
The display is only no match for the comptetition based on size. Without looking, I'd imagine the pixel density and power requirements to be pretty similar (for their respective sizes). A bigger screen doesn't make your screen inherently better.
As mentioned earlier, with more space behind a larger screen, you can fit a bigger battery. I'm more concerned about the battery efficiency over the battery life (unless it was something extreme of course). Different apps affect things differently. I haven't needed to charge my iPhone more than overnight until I started playing some dumbass games that got me hooked. I'm sure there are users of all different OS and phones and apps that have similar and different experiences with battery life.
Bottom line is that I feel saying these things are "no match" for the competition is misleading. Why doesn't the headline say that the competitors processors no match for the 64bit?
"calling the 4-inch Retina display and 8-10 hour battery life "no match" for Motorola's latest Droid smartphones"
The display is only no match for the comptetition based on size. Without looking, I'd imagine the pixel density and power requirements to be pretty similar (for their respective sizes). A bigger screen doesn't make your screen inherently better.
As mentioned earlier, with more space behind a larger screen, you can fit a bigger battery. I'm more concerned about the battery efficiency over the battery life (unless it was something extreme of course). Different apps affect things differently. I haven't needed to charge my iPhone more than overnight until I started playing some dumbass games that got me hooked. I'm sure there are users of all different OS and phones and apps that have similar and different experiences with battery life.
Bottom line is that I feel saying these things are "no match" for the competition is misleading. Why doesn't the headline say that the competitors processors no match for the 64bit?
My wife has an HTC one. She doesn't have big hands. She can operate her phone easily with one hand.
All of this talk about what is and is not comfortable is on an individual use case. Any attempt to generalize is silly.
I would totally buy an iPhablet, but only if they released it in gold with a retina display and TouchID...or a colorful polycarbonate option with an outdated processor!
you're right, it's much more interesting to have random services kill your battery for no known reason without any support to fixing the issue. That keeps things exciting
I can say that I have never had a battery issue with an iOS device. In fact, the only real issue I have with the current setup is the horrible iTunes 11 syncing issues with iOS devices - not syncing playlists (then suddenly working) and iTunes not being able to count, apparently, when it tells me the wrong device storage space left. Yes, bugs too, but battery issues (and also random device reboots, another thing I fortunately haven't had) are just device killers.
With more screen - you use more battery.
And the headline doesn't say that because, I imagine, the average consumer doesn't know or care about 64bit architecture. They care about battery life and screen.
Apple can take their time to deliver bigger screen iphone thats "right" maybe with slim bezel or edge to edge screen or any other technique I can't think of.
From what I've read, a majority of readers here do NOT want a bigger screen. Count me as one of them. I do not want to make phone calls from an iPad. I really hope Apple doesn't follow Shamsung's lead here
A bit of hyperbole. And here's a newsflash - you won't have to buy any phone you don't want to. Fortunately - no one ever holds a gun to your head and forces you to.
Good news... Apple will not make a 7.9" or 9.7" iPhone
But don't be shocked if Apple makes a 5" iPhone. Hopefully they'll keep the 4" version too.
Not a surprise, historically Consumer Reports has not really liked the iPhone, just begrudgingly giving it an ok score. I suspect Apple doesn't bend over backwards to give them what they are looking for, for the coveted "recommended" rating.
