Where has Apple taken the biggest step back on the iPhone compared to the competition?

[smacrumon]

- Apple didn't release a new 4 inch phone at 6/6s launch.
- Apple has introduced poor unresolved design work into its products- e.g. protruding cameras, visible antenna bands, and apparently next, three smart connectors on the back. Ugly, not high Apple standards of the past.
- Apple stripped out almost all the skeuomorphism that made the devices feel unique and warm. i.e. the faux wooden bookshelf could have been retained but refreshed.
- Apple hasn't made the iPhone more accessible to more people at a better price.
- Apple should have introduced 3x retina in iPhone 6/6s just like 6+/6s+. When display zoom is turned on on iPhone 6/6s, and due to being a 2x retina device, image quality is noticeably reduced. This isn't seen on 6+/6s+ due to that device being 3x. On 4 inch devices at 2x, image quality is still quite satisfactory.
- Apple still differentiates products by storage GB. This differentiation should be abandoned. Instead build in 128GB, at the 16GB price, into all devices as the minimum and increase GB with new models. Differentiate only by device screen size. Customers don't need to know about how much storage they need.
- Apple isn't engaging in forward thinking, or thinking differently, it's been engaging in a lot of looking at the competition or maybe some random focus groups. There is no leadership in the iPhone space.

 

[M. Gustave]

- Apple stripped out almost all the skeuomorphism that made the devices feel unique and warm. i.e. the faux wooden bookshelf could have been retained but refreshed.

LOL!!!

- Apple hasn't made the iPhone more accessible to more people at a better price.

I guess you missed the release of the iPhone SE? It's got a "better price".

 

[maxsix]

Apple's stubborn elitist belief that they know best, that no one can possibly be as brilliant as they are, has caught up with them.

Right now, at this very moment, if Apple was offering an iPhone with significantly longer battery life than its competitors and a few of the other highly requested features, they would still be enjoying great demand.

Yes indeed, eventually a plateau is reached and sales subside, but Apple could have continued on unabated for yet a few more revs.

 

[Mildredop]

I bought an iPhone 6S before Xmas, having been Android for several years.

For me, it was iOS that was lacking. I got frustrated at the apps I couldn't delete, the phone forcing me to use certain apps (Maps and Safari in particular), the fact I couldn't arrange apps on the home screen the way I wanted (they always fill from top left), the lack of widgets, the seemingly endless pop-up boxes warning me of various things I didn't care about, the fact "back" hopped all over the screen with no continuity, the fact settings were not within each app but in a central settings app....

After two weeks I returned it and went back to Android.

 

[maxsix]

Currently I am using a Nexus 6P and I cannot imagine myself going back to an iPhone, even if I am deep into the Apple ecosystem.

Although I use an iPhone 6S Plus as my way of keeping current with iOS, I vastly prefer my Nexus 6P running Androids latest OS.

Fast, Smooth and Stable it's my Primary Smartphone of choice.

The quality of Google Maps, Docs, Sheets, Photos, Drive and all the other Google Apps have now surpassed Apple's counterparts by a very significant margin. An accomplishment of grand proportions.

Combined with true efficient multitasking, a fast set of three touch sensitive buttons below the display, in place of the single stodgy old 1950's style analog button Apple's married to, and you have a modern smartphone.

Thanks Google

 

[maflynn]

- Apple didn't release a new 4 inch phone at 6/6s launch.

No but they just did.

- Apple has introduced poor unresolved design work into its products- e.g. protruding cameras, visible antenna bands, and apparently next, three smart connectors on the back. Ugly, not high Apple standards of the past.

To a point I agree, I hate the power button on the side of the 6/6s and the protruding camera is not ideal.

- Apple stripped out almost all the skeuomorphism that made the devices feel unique and warm. i.e. the faux wooden bookshelf could have been retained but refreshed.

Thank goodness, they really went overboard with skeuomorphism, That ship long sailed away and apple was a bit slow in removing that from the design.

- Apple hasn't made the iPhone more accessible to more people at a better price.

*cough* iPhone SE *cough*

- Apple still differentiates products by storage GB. This differentiation should be abandoned. Instead build in 128GB, at the 16GB price, into all devices as the minimum and increase GB with new models. Differentiate only by device screen size. Customers don't need to know about how much storage they need.

People were burning Tim Cook Effigies because Apple dropped the 32GB option, can you imagine if they removed all size choices? One size does not fit all, and not everyone is wanting to pay for 128GB, when a smaller and less expensive model would fit their needs.

- Apple isn't engaging in forward thinking, or thinking differently, it's been engaging in a lot of looking at the competition or maybe some random focus groups. There is no leadership in the iPhone space.

I disagree, they introduced 3D touch, Live Photos, Apple Pay 64bit Architecture, etc etc. While some of those were not brand new technologies, no one had been very successful in implementing them. Apple has.

 

[xsimplyjosh]

With iPhone sales falling YoY for the first time and people complaining about Apple's lack of innovation, where do you think Apple has fallen behind on the iPhone design/features when compared to other top end competition?

The iPhone 6S camera comes to mind for me. By all accounts the Samsung Galaxy S7's camera is much better and for me that was a surprise because Apple had always managed to put some of the best cameras in smartphones.

Any other areas stick out to you guys?

- 7000 series aluminum [no more bendgate... not a biggest issue because im not the idiot to tout skinny jeans and stuff a plus phone in my pocket but i put plus phones in my pockets which are rather deep chinos so knowing it's a more durable material means more assurance to some extent]
- the REAR camera. God it has the best dynamic range so far for a phone that's "automatic" with not much customization. Better dynamic range imo, over my samsung S6.
- Performance! Yes the 6s/6s+ are so much more fluid when I was testing iPhone 6/6+ in stores... the seamless animations [incl 3d touch]. Not to mention the phone never gets hot [unless I turn on video recording and/or GPS/roadmp tracking which is the only thing that will ever make the phone hot]

- Rose gold... ok dont need to explain this ****. it's a new color. For a guy i had to had it as my 1st iPhone since the last iphone in 2010 [3GS]. end of story. end of debate. no gay/whatsoever comments please... it's just a nice color imo over GOld and it stood out for me in a positive way. Silver/Space graay were boring colors, and Gold was albiet too yellow for me liking but the Rose' have a nice color to it. Plus it was the only way to clearly show its a 6s so yea personal preference...

what was soso for me
- 3d touch. Ok this may be a widely debated topic but i use it for safari opening new tabs... peeking at peoples message hehe... settings is helpful i always check my battery usage on a daily basis just to see how i'm doing. Hope it gets implemented into games soon because they debuted a "game" during the announcement of iPhone 6s but not many games do that as of yet so that's a developer issue not apple imo.

- Bezels are soso. Not annoyed by it but alot of people do make a fuss out of it being oversized but tbh I feel it's okay and the most important thing is the screen anyway.. smh.. With a phone this big you shouldn't be nitpicking it especially for the 6s Plus model I felt it was fine for me coming from a S4/S6 previously.

what didn't stick out for me
- 5mp selfie camera. just seemed as bad as the 1.2mp selfie camera in the 6/6+. Because the sensor is so freaking small yet they put more attention into the main/rear camera i'm more allured to that actual camera. So tbh selfie camera should not be a dealbreaker for most/all people as it's not the "serious" camera...

***The money is in the rear camera which imo gets me the people who say "wow what did u use to take that photo" "no way u cant be serious an iphone?" kind of response... And so far it's been a positive experience. Paired that with previous experience on handling dslrs i guess it helps me to be a better photographer overall***

I was never a fan of selfie cameras they just had inferior quality overall with all phones and were too grainy to my liking even in daylight. I've been testing [S7 was pretty good however the post-processing applied by the software itself meant toyish face selfies that are smoothen out] each all have it flaw and never was happy with them.
[doublepost=1461848061][/doublepost]

- Apple didn't release a new 4 inch phone at 6/6s launch.
- Apple has introduced poor unresolved design work into its products- e.g. protruding cameras, visible antenna bands, and apparently next, three smart connectors on the back. Ugly, not high Apple standards of the past.
- Apple stripped out almost all the skeuomorphism that made the devices feel unique and warm. i.e. the faux wooden bookshelf could have been retained but refreshed.
- Apple hasn't made the iPhone more accessible to more people at a better price.
- Apple should have introduced 3x retina in iPhone 6/6s just like 6+/6s+. When display zoom is turned on on iPhone 6/6s, and due to being a 2x retina device, image quality is noticeably reduced. This isn't seen on 6+/6s+ due to that device being 3x. On 4 inch devices at 2x, image quality is still quite satisfactory.
- Apple still differentiates products by storage GB. This differentiation should be abandoned. Instead build in 128GB, at the 16GB price, into all devices as the minimum and increase GB with new models. Differentiate only by device screen size. Customers don't need to know about how much storage they need.
- Apple isn't engaging in forward thinking, or thinking differently, it's been engaging in a lot of looking at the competition or maybe some random focus groups. There is no leadership in the iPhone space.

Truth is unless all companies do the same apple will take advantage of storage space profits... Except samsung s7 which did put the SD card back in(?)

 

[smacrumon]

No but they just did.


To a point I agree, I hate the power button on the side of the 6/6s and the protruding camera is not ideal.

Thank goodness, they really went overboard with skeuomorphism, That ship long sailed away and apple was a bit slow in removing that from the design.

*cough* iPhone SE *cough*


People were burning Tim Cook Effigies because Apple dropped the 32GB option, can you imagine if they removed all size choices? One size does not fit all, and not everyone is wanting to pay for 128GB, when a smaller and less expensive model would fit their needs.


I disagree, they introduced 3D touch, Live Photos, Apple Pay 64bit Architecture, etc etc. While some of those were not brand new technologies, no one had been very successful in implementing them. Apple has.

SE is 5 is 5S, is 3 years+ old.
[doublepost=1461853153][/doublepost]

No but they just did.


To a point I agree, I hate the power button on the side of the 6/6s and the protruding camera is not ideal.

Thank goodness, they really went overboard with skeuomorphism, That ship long sailed away and apple was a bit slow in removing that from the design.

*cough* iPhone SE *cough*


People were burning Tim Cook Effigies because Apple dropped the 32GB option, can you imagine if they removed all size choices? One size does not fit all, and not everyone is wanting to pay for 128GB, when a smaller and less expensive model would fit their needs.


I disagree, they introduced 3D touch, Live Photos, Apple Pay 64bit Architecture, etc etc. While some of those were not brand new technologies, no one had been very successful in implementing them. Apple has.

No one needs to even think about storage size. One size does fit all, it is the top tier 128GB. It is introduced at 16GB prices. Storage costs nothing these days. It's an irrelevant differentiating feature, just like CPU speeds. CPU increases year on year, but customers aren't marketed CPU speeds these days because they are details for behind the scenes, users need not think about them.
[doublepost=1461853275][/doublepost]

LOL!!!



I guess you missed the release of the iPhone SE? It's got a "better price".

Releasing a rehash of iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S, 3 years+ old, is not a better price irrelevant of how upgraded the internals are.

 

[maflynn]

SE is 5 is 5S, is 3 years+ old.

So the iPhone 5/5s has an A9/M9 processors, 12MP camera and Live Photos?

One size does fit all

You may think so, but most others don't, hence the multitude of choices available to consumers.

 

[Black Magic]

I agree on the camera. I feel that simply boosting the MP on the 6S model without touching the aperture is apparent in the picture results. Also, I think the much overused adage of "it just works" has jumped the shark. Quality control issues along with operating system bugs have become more prevalent while on the android side, the days of lag have seemed to diminish and the stability has caught up to iOS if not surpassed it.

I have been and continue to be pro iOS since inception...but even I find myself watching Apple events and rolling my eyes at the continual "it's really cool, it's really awesome, for the first time" references that Schuler and friends continue to use.

The Galaxy S6 had 16 Megapixels. The Galaxy S7 dropped down to 12 MegaPixels to copy the iPhone 6s. I don't understand your argument.

 

[smacrumon]

So the iPhone 5/5s has an A9/M9 processors, 12MP camera and Live Photos?


You may think so, but most others don't, hence the multitude of choices available to consumers.

The design is from 2012 and has been recycled a third time in 2016 (5S, 5C, SE). Irrelevant of whether or not the internals have been updated, it's not an acceptable situation for a brand like Apple to say it innovates, but does rehash jobs in reality.
One storage size does fit all, at the lowest price point. 128GB this year. Two years from now 256GB etc. Users do not want to ever see a storage error message. But they do and that's just poor design. 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB have seen that message, 128GB, it's very unlikely to see that message. Storage is ultra cheap these days, there is no reason to differentiate storage. It's a progressive move in the right direction.
If we go the opposite direction, why not flesh out all the other options and make it more confusing for customers: 5MP, 8MP, 12MP cameras etc. Customers don't care about this, they just want the best possible photo. Extra options the user needs to think about is an extra minute the customer hasn't settled and made their purchase.

 

[Black Magic]

Had a bunch of phones, both android and apple, including the 6S Plus. My current Galaxy S7 Edge is so far superior to the current Apple product that it is laughable.

How exactly is it superior?

 

[maflynn]

The design is from 2012

The design dates back, yes, but the phone is not from 3 plus years old, which is what you stated. It closer to the 6s in features, and functions then to the 5s, even though its using the same enclosure.

One storage size does fit all

I disagree.

 

[bufffilm]

- Apple didn't release a new 4 inch phone at 6/6s launch.
- Apple has introduced poor unresolved design work into its products- e.g. protruding cameras, visible antenna bands, and apparently next, three smart connectors on the back. Ugly, not high Apple standards of the past.
- Apple stripped out almost all the skeuomorphism that made the devices feel unique and warm. i.e. the faux wooden bookshelf could have been retained but refreshed.
- Apple hasn't made the iPhone more accessible to more people at a better price.
- Apple should have introduced 3x retina in iPhone 6/6s just like 6+/6s+. When display zoom is turned on on iPhone 6/6s, and due to being a 2x retina device, image quality is noticeably reduced. This isn't seen on 6+/6s+ due to that device being 3x. On 4 inch devices at 2x, image quality is still quite satisfactory.
- Apple still differentiates products by storage GB. This differentiation should be abandoned. Instead build in 128GB, at the 16GB price, into all devices as the minimum and increase GB with new models. Differentiate only by device screen size. Customers don't need to know about how much storage they need.
- Apple isn't engaging in forward thinking, or thinking differently, it's been engaging in a lot of looking at the competition or maybe some random focus groups. There is no leadership in the iPhone space.

A good part of this list is just hogwash.

 

[The.Glorious.Son]

The Galaxy S6 had 16 Megapixels. The Galaxy S7 dropped down to 12 MegaPixels to copy the iPhone 6s. I don't understand your argument.

MP play little in the quality of pics unless you are printing huge pics or posters. It is the aperture, sensors, etc that allow for sharper pics, better low light pics, etc. Apple didn't focus there on the 6S. They bumped up to 12mp and did little elsewhere. Hence the reason the 6S gets beaten in just about every camera comparison.
That's my point.

 

[maflynn]

A good part of this list is just hogwash.

You said it better then I did

 

[bodonnell202]

I basically like iPhones. Apple is the all-around winner for my business. And that the "only made" 40b while "losing" market share is quite an achievement.

Nobody can predict where sales are going to go. I would like to see Apple make 170-200b this year just to shut the critics up.

I agree, it will take more than a camera that has somewhat better performance in low light or a higher resolution screen to get me to abandon the Apple ecosystem. I think most people are fairly brand loyal and don't run out and switch every time their brand of choice falls slightly behind in one benchmark or another.

The iPhone is still a hugely profitable product, but the focus is all on that Apple didn't sell more iPhones than last year. It's not enough for a company to be profitable, a company has to be more profitable every year to be considered successful. Seems like an impossible standard to live up to forever...

 

[bufffilm]

You said it better then I did

Of course.

He wants to make the base w/128gb storage. Fat chance of that happening and limited base storage is not why phone sales are expected to go down.

Agree that the base needs to be bumped to 32gb but won't happen till 2017. Apple will milk the 16gb base one more year.

 

[mattopotamus]

The design is from 2012 and has been recycled a third time in 2016 (5S, 5C, SE). Irrelevant of whether or not the internals have been updated, it's not an acceptable situation for a brand like Apple to say it innovates, but does rehash jobs in reality.
One storage size does fit all, at the lowest price point. 128GB this year. Two years from now 256GB etc. Users do not want to ever see a storage error message. But they do and that's just poor design. 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB have seen that message, 128GB, it's very unlikely to see that message. Storage is ultra cheap these days, there is no reason to differentiate storage. It's a progressive move in the right direction.
If we go the opposite direction, why not flesh out all the other options and make it more confusing for customers: 5MP, 8MP, 12MP cameras etc. Customers don't care about this, they just want the best possible photo. Extra options the user needs to think about is an extra minute the customer hasn't settled and made their purchase.

I would argue it is the best designed phone even in 2016.

Back to the OP, phone technology has peeked. Anyone who has bought a phone in the last year can easily get several years out of it, unless apple/samsung cripple it by not supporting it with updates. We are past the point where each year hardware upgrades will be noticed.

 

[TommyA6]

Camera and frontside design (bezels should be reduced this year, but most likely won't).

Some basic OS features as well (we all know which ones)...

 

[smacrumon]

A good part of this list is just hogwash.

That's your opinion, baseless, but still an opinion.
[doublepost=1461861056][/doublepost]

You said it better then I did

A lot of my points are valid, well considered and not hogwash.
[doublepost=1461861491][/doublepost]

Of course.

He wants to make the base w/128gb storage. Fat chance of that happening and limited base storage is not why phone sales are expected to go down.

Agree that the base needs to be bumped to 32gb but won't happen till 2017. Apple will milk the 16gb base one more year.

I'm discussing a new fresh strategy for Apple to remain competitive and attractive to a new segment of users. There was once a brigade in the 1990s and early 2000s that discussed CPU figures. Storage GB is just as dated a concept as CPU figures. Customers don't need to know or choose between them, all customers need to know is can they takes photos without storage full error messages popping up and interrupting the experience. It's as simple as that. A great user experience from Apple.

 

[PaladinGuy]

Had a bunch of phones, both android and apple, including the 6S Plus. My current Galaxy S7 Edge is so far superior to the current Apple product that it is laughable.

What makes you say this? I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Michael Goff]

That's your opinion, baseless, but still an opinion.
[doublepost=1461861056][/doublepost]
A lot of my points are valid, well considered and not hogwash.
[doublepost=1461861491][/doublepost]
I'm discussing a new fresh strategy for Apple to remain competitive and attractive to a new segment of users. There was once a brigade in the 1990s and early 2000s that discussed CPU figures. Storage GB is just as dated a concept as CPU figures. Customers don't need to know or choose between them, all customers need to know is can they takes photos without storage full error messages popping up and interrupting the experience. It's as simple as that. A great user experience from Apple.

Except bigger storage costs them more money. Do you want them to increase the cost of the phone to give everyone the 128gb? I thought we wanted more people on the iPhone, not fewer people.

 

[Armen]

What makes you say this? I'm genuinely curious.

He can pour champagne on it and it won't blow up.

 

[smacrumon]

Except bigger storage costs them more money. Do you want them to increase the cost of the phone to give everyone the 128gb? I thought we wanted more people on the iPhone, not fewer people.

Storage costs between 16, 64 and 128 are minimal. Apple can absorb that cost. The new direction will increase customers and retain more current customers.