Apple’s new iPhone 15 is an underwhelming ‘slap in the face,’ say disappointed fans::Apple unveiled its new iPhone 15 models this week, and some fans say they lack innovation.
I don’t know why people expect massive jumps every single year. There’s only so much you can really change year over year at this point.
You don’t need to upgrade every damn year. Apple supports each phone for a minimum of 5-6 years.
Yeah, I’m sure if you just upgrade every 3-4 years there’s plenty that’s been added that makes it worthwhile.
Most definitely. Phones are no longer really throw away devices. They’re full fledged little supercomputers in your pocket and they’re expensive as fuck.
Nobody upgrades their laptop or PC every year. Hell, the most important components like CPU, GPU, and RAM don’t even get new releases every year.
Phones are damn near as powerful today. Nobody but someone that is already pushing the most powerful flagships to the limit can or will take advantage of the incremental updates.
I’m 85% sure I’m going to get the 15. I’m upgrading from my XR so hopefully it’ll be pretty major for me.
Agree 3-4 cycle makes it feel amazing.
Also on an XR and just bought a 15 Pro.
The XR is still snappy. The battery only is at 80% of its original life, but otherwise it’s fine.
I’m very excited for the USB-C and wifi 6E. The rest I don’t care about, but I imagine I will be impressed by the speed when I get it.
I’m at 85% battery
I’m mostly excited about better battery, usb-c, and 5g cellular. Mag charging is interesting but I already have qi chargers all over the place.
XR to 15 is more like 5 cycles, so I think this upgrade is going to be a huge improvement for you. I upgraded from it after a mere two (though to the 12 Pro and not the 12) and the difference was very noticeable, especially in the display and camera, but also just in how much smoother and snappier everything got.
I honestly don’t understand. I’m on my 11 pro at 86% battery. Might just use it for many more years after a battery swap, why would I want to change every year? I love the sharper edges of the new ones, and now also the dynamic island and USB C, but I’m not going waste money when my current phone still can do anything as fast as the day I purchased it.
I upgraded from 11 to 14 pro and was pretty underwhelmed. It was kinda worth it for the camera but besides that, it’s the exact same phone.
Then they shouldn’t release every year and create a new batch of endless ewaste and demand in natural resources mined by exploited labor.
Your talking about where you place the blame: the drug dealer with no regard for human life as long as they are profitable, or the drug user who is weak, sick and often incapable of breaking their unhealthy habit.
There’s no requirement for you to upgrade every year if you don’t want to but without it, what would the people who need something new do? I’m upgrading this year from an iPhone X that is really on its last legs. Broken screen, charging more than once a day etc. It’s served it’s purpose well but now is the time for a new one. A two or three year refresh cycle would mean I would be potentially buying a two year old phone today. Why would I want that when I keep things for several years?
Because we had massive jumps from like 1999-2008. Bring those back.
Because cellphones were just emerging then. The technology was rapidly changing all the time
And when you look back, a ton of the innovations were trying to solve a part of the problem that modern smartphones have solved and then some.
When texting took off, companies tried to innovate better ways than T9 to do that. So you ended up with variations of full keyboards. Slide out, on the face, swivel, etc.
Flip phones and other slide outs tried to maximize screen space before touchscreens were around or good. When the screen is only useable as a screen you have to get creative to still have a keyboard.
When cameras first got out into phones they sucked. So companies put a ton of effort into innovating that. Hell cameras are still one of the main focuses on innovation. It’s just that there are diminishing returns with what you can package in a phone. So it takes a lot more work to get a small improvement.
Beyond that, most of the innovation is under the hood and less noticeable. Improving the chip architecture to be more powerful and more efficient. On device encryption for security. Lidar scanning for 3d modeling. Better integration with the ecosystems.
Beyond those you still have innovations like the foldable, which right now still kinda suck. Just like phones did when they started trying to innovate. Foldables will lead to crazier innovation down the line with the added space. Right now they’re still just trying to get the folding screen decent.
Once a technology matures, you stop seeing massive jumps and innovation becomes evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Another 10-15 years and you may see phones slow down to laptop pace, where a new model is only released every few years and then the jump between generations is bigger by comparison because you’ll have three years of work into it rather than one.
What would you add to a flagship smart phone that hasn’t already been done and is actually possible with the technology available?
The solution here is to vote with your wallet and not pay $1000+ for the latest flagship if you can buy a $300 phone from a couple years ago that’s pretty much the same thing.
I’d add a personal assistant that lives up to the promise. It can make reservations for you, find out when your friends are available, navigate phone trees, etc.
Find out when your friends are available might be kind of creepy. Unsavoury people knowing that you’re away for a week and that your house is empty sounds like a dream for criminals, I also wouldn’t want people phoning me saying “I can see you’re free tonight, let’s do something” or a boss saying, “I can see you’re available for overtime this weekend, that’s good!”. It would also depend on people making their schedules available to the cloud and to make them accurate.
The make reservations thing could be interesting as could the phone tree navigating, but I wouldn’t put these ideas on the same scale as capacitive touchscreens, hd screens, front cameras, fast charging, wireless charging, amoled displays, 3/4/5G, bezeless phones, folding screens etc. Do you see what I’m saying?
So stop releasing “new” phones every year.
This year’s new phones are for people that last bought a phone in 2020 or earlier. If the average user is on a three year upgrade cycle (what the data shows as I recall) then you’d expect roughly 1/3 of people to upgrade every year.
This is better for Apple, as it keeps their revenue more spread out instead of heavily concentrated in year one of a three year cycle.
This is better for consumers, as it means new features and upgrades are constantly being made. If they want to upgrade early they can, and they’ll get new features even if it’s only been two years.
This is also better for both Apple and consumers because there’s more opportunities to course-correct or respond to feedback over issues. If Apple only released a phone every other or every three years, it’d take that much longer for the switch to USB-C.Just because a new product is launched does not mean you need to buy it. Nvidia released a new GPU last year, but I didn’t buy it even though it’s newer than what I currently have. Arguing that new phones shouldn’t come out each year is like arguing that new cars shouldn’t come out each year. It makes no sense.
Yup. I’ve got a base 12. Jumping to a 15 pro max will be a pretty huge upgrade for me. Almost double the battery life, pretty much all the cameras will be massively better, I’ll get the third telephoto lens, the chip is massively faster than the one I have, usb-c, the dynamic island, the action button. A ton will be a jump for me.
For someone with a 14 pro max, there’s no real reason to. Nor is it really intended for them. Now, Apple sure as shit isn’t going to come out and say “no don’t buy our product”, because that would be stupid. But they make it easy to keep a phone for longer with the support for those of us that want to do that. Most companies will maybe give 3 OS and 3 years of security updates. Apple does 5-6 years for OS and still randomly patch old phones like the iPhone 5s with security updates.
I’m planning to upgrade from a 12 mini, which partly influenced my choice of years too (having seen 3 year data was the main part!). If I had a 12 Pro I think I’d have kept it for an extra year, but the battery is just not sufficient for how my phone use has changed.
I think furthering your extra details here too is I saw someone point out that one of Apple’s slides for the base 15 was comparing its performance to the base 12. Apple knows how often people upgrade. Picking the 12 as a comparison point wouldn’t be an accident — we’re the single largest target audience for the 15. And in a year, they will in all likelihood compare the 16 to the 13 for the same reason.
Fully agree. It’s like people have no impulse control, and feel like they need to have the shiny new gadget, then cry when it’s not radically different from last year’s model. I’m still on my 11 pro, was holding off for the arrival of USB C, but it’s still working perfectly, so I might just upgrade in 1-2 years.
Person with iPhone 11 can still upgrade. Not everyone buys phone on same cycle. So they have to release it. But you don’t have to buy it.
And most people are not buying new phones every cycle these days. Unless there really is a major experience change - which is rare now that the product is mature.
That doesn’t solve anything though. There are improvements every year, just not enough to upgrade every single year.
And there are always people that do keep their device for several years upgrading in any given year.
Stop buying $1000+ flagships if they’re not worth it. No company is going to stop producing anything that people are willing to pay for.
What’s funny is this is the biggest update in years. The action button and USB C by themselves are a much bigger difference than last year was. Base models also got dynamic island. Smaller bezels, rounded edges, new colors. I dk how much more could change visually besides those things anyway?
The pros also have 3nm, armv9, wifi 6e, thread connectivity, new cellular bands, ai 5g modem, ray tracing, more ram, Qi2, 10 gbps port, increased repairability, titanium. 5x zoom on the Pro Max.
I think the problem that people are picking up on is that the base model is turning into a budget version of the previous year’s pro model. If you want newer tech you are forced to pay over $1,000 now. Before they had the same internals as the pros.
correct me if I’m wrong, but literally the first 3nm computing devices to land in consumer’s greedy paws. 12-atom wide transistors. what a SLAP IN THE FACE
WHERE ARE MY 11-ATOM TRANSISTORS?? HOW CAN YOU SLAP?!!
3nm does not refer to the size. It refers to performance
3nm refers to the smallest possible feature size - the transistor would be bigger than this.
It can correlate with performance, but it is not performance.
there is no 3nm feature on a 3nm transistor, that’s wrong too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process the gate pitch is 48nm, metal pitch is 24nm
How is USB C a big deal?
Because Apple were slow to implement the standard
I think “reluctant” is the word
Because people lost their shit when the iPhone moved from the 30 pin to the lightning.
Apple significantly helped develop USB-C. They were always going to move to it eventually, and have been staying with the Mac and the iPads.
People buy a LOT more accessories for iPhones though that a port change obsoletes. You see videos now about how many of your accessories you’re going to have to rebuy or buy an adapter for.
It’s not a minor change at all. They said 10 years for lightning when they introduced it, and went exactly 10 years.
I’m so happy iPhone is now USB C. My partner and I have had their mother on road trips with us so we’ve had to have a mix of USB C and lightning cords. It’ll be nice to not have to look at the end of the cable to see which Belkin white cable it is
I wish that USB-C would have been just like a bigger lightning port to handle usb 3 and higher. I like the form factor of lightning better than C.
It’s a more robust connector having the pins protected in the port than having a weak little piece sticking out in the middle. I’ve had a few USB-C ports break on me on the device because they cheaped out. My galaxy S9, my Pixel 4, and my pixel buds all had the port on the phone get wonky and wouldn’t charge from any cable.
It’s not that USB C is amazing, but that it is a big change for iphones. Especially compared to the past couple of years where they changed even less.
“New iphone sucks”, says fans while standing in line at the store the night before the launch.
Absolutely this, we made them this big. Well, some of you lot not me. Android 4 life!
Android 4 is a pretty old version, try and update to 13
I cringed when I thought about how insecure this user’s device is.
Fuck yeah, android ftw
And this is why Lemmy is absolutely less about “techy people who know security” and more about people who just want everything to be free for some damn reason.
I think most people want to be able to afford health, home, and happiness if they are working a full-time job in the US. Not sure how that gets confused with free. I mean, I understand why, just more boot licking of capital over labor.
Have those lines died?
I haven’t heard of anyone doing this in a long time.
Slow news day at Business Insider, I see.
I think that we’ve reached the peak of that form factor. Every real change will have to deviate so much that we wouldn’t call it smartphone any more.
Indeed. The issue for these companies. If phones aren’t enticing enough and people start hanging onto devices for an extra year that effecticely cuts their revenue in 1/4.
That’s why icloud got more expensive, it’s why google is trying to monetise your web history for ads. They’re looking for further revenue.
On the Google point, Google has always been an ad company first, and then started making hardware. Advertising is like 90% of their revenue
deleted by creator
We were there 10 years ago and that’s being generous. Phones have been fucking boring for over a decade.
And that should be a good thing because by now you should be able to pick up a great smartphone for a hundred bucks… except that all these phone companies have to keep the money flowing in so they keep inventing shitty gimmicks and charging thousands of dollars for them.
Or they strip out features to make you use their shitty clouds and subscription services.
Or they keep bloating the OS so much that the hardware can’t keep up - but God forbid you want to ignore their shitty update that brings 100 new emojis! They’re gonna force that shit on you whether you like it or not.
Tech industry is a desert of wasted talent nowadays.
But the little assistants could be so much better.
Like I want to ask Siri to do complicated tasks. Make me a reservation. Find a picture of a cow and send it to Jeff. Change my background to StarCraft. Stuff like that.
My complaint is with the bulky camera island - barely sticks out on my 11 pro, would like to see smg similar in the future (without a loss in wuality of course)
How about they add a 3.5mm audio jack? That’d be a killer feature!
I don’t object to them as an optional feature, but they are about as useful as optical drives to the typical user.
Why not bring black floppy drives too while they’re at it?
Hell yeah!
I used to be one of the angry people pissed off about losing the jack.
Now that I have a few wireless earphones, I wouldn’t go back to wired. It’s a mild inconvenience to have to charge them but the battery life is decent and not have a cable getting caught on stuff whilst I’m working is super useful.
The audio quality is a tiny bit worse than wired, but unless you’re an audio engineer, you’re not going to notice.
There was always a Lightning to headphone adapter if you really wanted it but most of us had given up the headphone jack long before Apple stopped providing it
Based
It’s just a phone. Here’s an idea: You don’t have to rush out to pathologically buy the latest thing that Apple makes. You and Apple don’t owe each other shit. If your old phone works, stick with it. And if the new iPhone doesn’t do it for you, just fuckin’ buy something else.
This article isn’t even relevant to anything. It’s just quotes from like… 5 people who posted on twitter that they were disappointed. That’s not a useful sample size, and who cares about some strangers opinion on something that isn’t for them? It’s just weird how many of these articles are coming out saying “these users” think this.
In reality, it’s more like “these cherry picked tweets match my narrative for this click bait article that will spur divisive discussion”.
The action they’re talking about is the action button… nothing to do with the usb port lol
deleted by creator
Randos on Twitter left negative comments with little to no substantive feedback. Fire up the article!
People say this every year. The vast majority of true innovation is behind us. Why was an article written this year? Is it just because some reporter browsed X and thought, “eh, why not?”. This is not news.
Phones are maturing. Are they upset when the new Toyota Camry is only modestly different than last years?
You know, it’s funny. I’ve never in my life met a Toyota Camry fanboy who was willing to fight me to the death, or at least bitterly argue with me incessantly in the comments, over their allegedly superior choice to buy a Camry or my allegedly inferior choice not to. Damn strange.
You haven’t been to car forums
Oh, I have. But I hang around the ones that are specific to some brand or car that I already have, so everyone is on the same page. Probably safer that way…
I have a 14 Pro, and the changes in the 15 Pro are tempting to me.
I want USB-C, I want the lighter titanium, I want the rounded edges, I want the new camera effects, I want to try the new case options, etc.
Anyone coming from an older phone would find a LOT to look forward to in the iPhone 15 or 15 Pro.
It sounds like your life is pretty sweet in order to be underwhelmed by a magic $800-$1000 device.
You’d drop a $1000 for usb-c, round edges, new camera software and case options?
Are you rich?
I’m not saying that it’s a bad phone, but presumably your current phone works just fine, which means you think those features are worth $250 each. I personally think I could use that money for better things elsewhere.
You do know that Apple gives pretty damn solid trade ins right?
If you have a 14 pro and want to upgrade to a 15 pro, you get $570 for your 14 if it’s in good shape. So a 15 pro is only $429.
If you really enjoy having the latest and greatest, it’s not that hard to put away $35 a month towards upgrading.
The trade in value is a great point but it still ends up with four new features costing you over $100 each.
Each to their own, I’m sure that some gadget and tech lovers would absolutely be willing to pay that to have the latest and greatest, but I’d argue that the average person would probably rather have the $429.
The average person isn’t buying their phone outright either. They’re getting an upgrade from their cell carrier, and most of them do “free phone on us” as long as you stay under contract for 2 years.
T-Mobile for example (just who I’m with) will give you a $1000 credit towards a 15 pro if you trade in an “eligible device” over 24 months.
Relatively few people are just outright dropping $1000 on a phone.
Theyll still buy one.
Lack of Innovation is their business model
For me it’s the always-on portrait mode that wins for me. And better cameras.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but is portrait mode just a blurred background? Google photos has had the ability to blur backgrounds ( at least on Pixel) on old photos for a fair while.
It is bokeh - in some ways similar to a DSLR - I’d say the apple implementation is better - but that’s just me
Discover this one simple trick to get rid of clickbait influencers hate! Wait till the end!!!
