This is not really a review - reads more like a lover on his last moments of love, desperately rationalizing things. Personally I think smartphones have almost commoditized. Apple has added ZERO product innovation this time in software or hardware. No - making a thinner, taller phone is not innovation.
To summarize the 'review'
0. Glass was the best material for the phone till last week. Now it's aluminium. Plastic sucks because it scuffs instead of breaking but feels cheap so I hate it. Why doesn't everyone else use an inferior material that Apple just stopped using?
1. The bigger screen sucks. But after using it for a week, the old screen is too small. 3.5" was perfect till now. 4" is perfect hereon. Anything bigger is only for stupid people who have and use two hands. And if they have two sizes, stupid people will always choose the bigger one - it's better that apple decides the right size for me.
2. The display is brighter and more saturated than the 4S. But not AS bright or saturated as the S3. It's just perfect, because its from Apple. Oh wait - the display is from LG. It's got a lower resolution than the S3? Crispness is what matters.
3. The Camera is good.
4. AT&T sucks. Verizon rocks. Oh you can't do data+voice simultaneously on Verizon. But who needs that?
5. Battery life is same as on 4S. Who needs more than that?
6. The benchmark score of the processor is the highest Apple has so far. The S3 beats the pants off the iPhone 5? That's not a phone is it?
7. iOS6? There's nothing to talk about. I mean they screwed up the Maps. They copied notifications last time so there's nothing left to copy.
So this is the level of discourse the community has decided that best engages with Gruber's review? Just seven lines of banal vitriol and claims--without justification--that the review "reads more like a lover on his last moments of love" and "making a thinner, taller phone is not innovation."
The miniaturization of electronics is arguably one of the most significant trends of our technological era. Many of the great science fiction writers of the 50s and 60s, despite getting so much right, in large part missed miniaturization. What once filled rooms was reduced in the 80s to what could sit on a desk, and now to what can fit in our pockets. So making a thinner, taller phone is not innovation? Why?
I know that Apple isn't popular around these parts, but let's at least have an intelligent conversation about specifically what we find fault with instead of ranting and rage-upvoting incoherent rants.
>I know that Apple isn't popular around these parts
Except that we know from surveys that most HN readers use Apple computers, phones, and tablets. And yet, even here, you can't appreciate feats of design, engineering, and usability without s vocal minority getting amusingly angry.
Actually, I thought it was a point by point addressing his pretty large article dancing around the lacunae.
Make no mistake - I think that the iPhone5 is an impressive piece of technology - as good or better than any other smart phone. But justifying Apple's design choices and changes is a whole other game.
Could you please point out to any factual errors in what I wrote? And I stand by the fact that 'thinner, taller' phone when others have done as thin, and taller is not innovation. Esp when the thinner compromises battery life - which is much more important to most of those with iPhones.
The sad/pathetic/embarrassing thing is not that idiotic rants get posted but they are uncritically upvoted because ehrmagahd i hate x/y/z just like him! /click
I would say the relatively low level of discourse around Gruber's reviews are a reaction to his writing. The guy makes a career out of opinionated, mostly unsubstantiated one liners. Of course people are raring to give him a taste of his own medicine.
> The guy makes a career out of opinionated, mostly unsubstantiated one liners.
He also writes really good essays. Can we please also have more people delivering this kind of medicine?
Look, I agree that Gruber has blinders on sometimes. (I thought his posts today about earPods was blindingly positive until the addendum.) But people seem to react with vitriol more than arguments.
I still remember when the first iPod came out and the tech press called it boring. I was not interested at all, but when I saw one in person I was blown away. I never bought an iPod, because I didn't need one, but right there and then I understood how much the tech press didn't get it.
Same thing with the unibody MacBooks, to say nothing of the Air. Had a MacBook and a much less expensive PC laptop from the same generation in the house; I'm still loving the MacBook, while the PC is long forgotten.
Even bigger effect with the iPhone. That one looked impressive from the start, but it made a world of a difference to actually hold one in your hand.
The iPhone 4 had the Retina display, and so that time the nerds were actually salivating over it, because the higher resolution could finally be expressed as a number and put in a chart. Nah, just kidding, the nerds were adamant that nobody needed that many pixels anyway, and preferred to argue about the "Retina" monicker. As for myself: waited until I saw it in person, was blown away again.
I'm not going to buy an iPhone 5. My iPhone 4 is still serving me fine. But from past experience, I know that the only good way to evaluate an iPhone is to actually hold it in your hand and use it. That's why I'm more interested in the impressions of a Gruber holding an iPhone 5 than in those of a bean-counter holding an iPhone 5 data sheet.
PS: just a small concession to the specs game: are you sure "the S3 beats the pants off the iPhone 5"? If you do a google search, you'll find as many people saying the 5 beats the S3 as those who say the opposite. Geekbench scores for the S3 are all over the place (check the browser). Then there's the question of whether most apps can scale to a 4-core processor as well as Geekbench does. And then there's the fact that the iPhone 4 performed much better in practice than higher-clocked Android phones of the same era. I'm sure Android has gotten "snappier" since then, but we should have learned a few lessons by now.
I recently bought an SIII to replace my old, broken Galaxy Nexus (cracked screen from being hit by an SUV). I ended up buying another Galaxy Nexus, and will sell the SIII.
On paper the SIII blows the Nexus out of the water, but after using both for 2+ weeks, the SIII feels like shit to me, compared to the Nexus. It may just be because the Nexus is on Jelly Bean, and the SIII is (embarrassingly) still on ICS, or maybe its Samsung's TouchWiz that slows the phone down.
So I definitely agree with you; my anecdote matches your experience. But I'd still say the iPhone should be compared to the Nexus, rather than the SIII.
Of course, since Android has multi-tasking, at least the OS can take advantage of the cores that the front-end app can't.
Android is definitely not as 'snappy' as iOS. But JB is a LOT 'snappier' even on my single-core Nexus S.
I readily take your point - Apple's iPod, iPhone, iPad were magical when they came out. And they continued that with iPhone 4S, iPad3 displays.
But their competition has not stood still. The improvements in the iPhone 5 are not 'revolutionary' - there's nothing there that's pushing the envelope - 'merely' incremental improvements. Not that it's bad, but it's hyped way over what it is.
You're right about multi-tasking, but single-task performance is still important for many apps. Assuming Geekbench scales linearly, the S3's single-task performance would be about half the iPhone 5's.
I had a first gen iPod, iPad, a Powerbook G4, a Macbook, and now a Macbook Pro. I LOVE Apple products, and am in no way disparaging the absolute impact they've had on the rest of the industry. I've influenced a dozen people to go Apple, and told many others that the right phone for them was an iPhone, and not an Android.
But reading Gruber's syrupy review, when the iPhone 5 is just not as 'revolutionary' as it's made out to be, and as if other phones which do better on specs, size, battery life, LTE, don't exist was just a bit too much.
US model does not support. Imagine how bad people would freak if Apple shipped a significantly higher spec phone to China and the shitty version for the US.
I stand corrected on Nokias though. I had thought the new EVO was the first phone in the US with it but it looks like Nokia's whole range has it.
You must have confused innovation with improvement. This time on, they picked safe improvements from the competitors and integrated them. Very nice improvements which make a very nice phone, but nothing I would call innovation.
I hope at least the competitors will come up with truly novel ideas. Hardware improvements are more than expected from every manufacturer as time goes. But no one can predict innovation.
"You must have confused innovation with improvement."
You're mistaken, there's a good deal of overlap between improvement and innovation. Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb (nor did Swan the only other person remembered in connection to it). Edison's actual technical innovations for the light bulb boiled down to more efficient materials (higher resistance, longer lasting) and more exacting industrial standards (better evacuation). He also had a better ecosystem.
The "revolutioniphone revolution occurred at the precise time that a large number incrementally improving technologies -- processors, batteries, flash memory, screens, capacitive touchscreen, multitouch language library -- first allowed you to build something like the iphone at a consumer price.
Yes sometimes improvements are just improvements. But sometimes improvements lead to a new level of viability for consumers. Miniturization matters when you hit certain levels. A clock you can put in your pocket was one such level, the next was the pocketwatch small enough to put on your wrist. Incrementally better hardware and software has by many accounts erased Android's lag deficit. Lag still exists for all devices of all OS's but the key step is the one that takes you over a certain level of perception and if you look at early iOS they employed all sort of hacks and tricks to help erase the perception of lag. If you're making an audio product CD quality is one such plateau that matters. Audiophile quality may be the next major one. Similarly for tiny computers console quality graphics is an important improvement.
This is not really a comment - reads more like an Apple hater mocking John Gruber for cheap HN karma. Personally, I think you're just regurgitating the notion that the iPhone 5 is disappointing, based purely on the fact that features are more interesting to write about than things like design or fit and finish.
To summarize your "comment"
0. I was really just skim reading the post because I already had my mind made up before I even read it.
1. I also reinterpreted long passages of Gruber discussing his personal experiences as polemic arguments in defense of Apple.
2. And threw in irrelevant comparisons to the Samsung S3 and phrased them as if Gruber mentioned the product a single time in the entire post.
3. I knew all along the other Android fanboys and Apple haters would upvote me for this so I didn't really try that hard to say anything insightful.
Actually - I went there expecting an insightful article on why the iPhone5 is good.
Instead I got a mind-warping justification of why 4" is now great, glass vs aluminum, no mention of the Lightning plug, no mention of iOS6.
If you look at Gruber's article, you'll find that few if any of what he's talking about have major impacts on your daily usage of the phone, and what's great about the iPhone5 have been done before (screen, non-glass, display, LTE, battery life, CPU perf) - but he spins it as if Apple's doing that for the first time in the universe.
BTW, I am an Apple fan - first gen iPad/iPod, 3 Apple laptops, and a dozen people buying Apple prods because of me.
This was NOT a pro-Android, anti-Apple comment - it was an anti-Gruber spin-fluff piece comment.
> mind-warping justification of why 4" is now great
Did we read the same article? Gruber clearly seemed to think it was more unwieldy to use and spent a lot of time weighing tradeoffs on that issue. His conclusion seemed to be little more than his resignation to get used to the iPhone 5's 4" screen. I think you're expecting Gruber to be a loyal apologist, so you're a little thrown for a loop when he seems a little unsure about the merits of Apple's decisions.
He does spend the 750 words raving about the industrial design of the phone. The lede is that the iPhone 5 is "nice", not that it's a technological breakthrough (other than the manufacturing processes at least). It's clear that that's where Apple focused their innovation for this cycle. If you're only looking for technical specs and you're blind to this sort of thing, don't be surprised when other people interpret you as an Apple hater. To be perfectly honest, the fact that you now come out claiming to be an Apple fan indicates more than anything that you were trolling the whole time.
Gruber's considerable effort to rationalize about the increased size of iPhone5 is mildly humorous.
[Remember this golden scroll?](http://dcurt.is/3-point-5-inches) Yes, that article that began the mass religious revelation that revealed why iPhone 4S is 3.5 inch big, while the other Android phone, Galaxy S II is not as user-friendly it's too big.
Since Apple's bigger screen creates discrepancy between his reasoning and the reality, he is now trying to prove why he was not wrong a year ago.
>Such people surely think the iPhone 5’s display remains too small. But, trust me, there are going to be many long-time iPhone users complaining that it’s too big after they upgrade.
But what about millions of other who are happier with bigger screen? What about the possibly larger return on convenience and usability who genuinely prefer larger screen? None is spoken of.
But what about millions of other who are happier with bigger screen? What about the possibly larger return on convenience and usability who genuinely prefer larger screen? None is spoken of.
A less negative way to parse what he wrote is: "Previous iPhone users who are upgrading to iPhone 5 will feel the screen is too big, but they'll get used to it."
That's almost certainly going to be true. I fully expect to feel iPhone 5's display is too large. I also expect I'll get used to it and will eventually feel the 4's screen is too small if I ever move back. Furthermore, he ends that section with this paragraph:
But if Apple offered me an otherwise identical iPhone 5 with a 3.5-inch 3:2 display, which one would I choose? Last week, in the first few days of use, I’d have chosen the 3.5-inch one. Now, though, one week in, I’m not so sure. My trusty old iPhone 4S feels better to use for tapping those back buttons and the status bar, but, it really is starting to look squat to my eyes. Give me another week and I suspect I won’t look back.
"I suspect I won't look back." Sounds like he agrees that the larger screen is ultimately a step forward.
I love the little snarky Android comments, really makes it obvious where you stand lol.
What's the difference between the SG3 and the SG2? Slightly bigger, slightly different shape, new OS (not that this has anything to do with Samsung), slightly worse camera, slightly bigger battery, blah blah blah...
You can pretty much say the same thing about any device, there is very little "innovation" between device versions. Mostly it's just more of some and less of some in a new case.
In which case any review would be 'a lover on his last moments of love, desperately rationalizing things'.
Apple's own hyperbolic marketing is to blame. If you want to describe every new product as revolutionary you should make a little more effort to make it so.
And the jump from SG2 with 2.3 to SG3 with 4.0 is a night & day improvement.
Rumours have it Apple made it's own chip.
But that's beside the point. I really really don't understand this "no innovation, blah" attitude. I think people parroting it have the least chance to innovate at anything, they are condemned to mindlessly repeat the same stuff over and over again, and that staff is not true most of the time.
Ant btw, Gruber does criticise Apple sometimes. Those who read what he writes know that.
Well I doubt he'll be winning many new converts with this article. It is dense with straw-clutching and credulity. Some it seems to be simply borne of delusion. This sentence, for example:
"The bored-by-the-iPhone tech press/industry experts surely value niceness, but they do not hold it in the same top-tier regard that Apple does. TheyarenotequippedtodevoteanamountofattentiontonicenesscommensuratewiththeamountofeffortAppleputsintoit."
It's definitely a very "nice" phone. Innovative? Not so much.
29MP cameras taking pictures of parts to match the case? Cool, but 99% of people won't care. I know Jony does. And I have A LOT of respect for that. It's like a $30k Patek Philippe watch - a lot of polishing, precision, care, subtlety, microscopic advancements - but most buy it because of the name; the brand.
Gruber's reviews are very Apple influenced. I wonder how much cash they're giving this guy. I remember reading one of his posts where Phil Schiller met him in a hotel room to intro Mountain Lion, how perfect the presentation and the conversation was. Clearly a very pro-Apple journalist (blogger? reviewer?) There's nothing wrong with this but his iPhone 5 post is pure "this is the best iPhone yet"
Anyway - nice phone, best iPhone? Sure, why not. It's the "biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone" That kind of says it out. We're out of ideas here, thinner, smaller, lighter, different materials - whatever.
I don't remember where I read it but I remember reading a piece that mentioned a few very wise things: smartphones will become so standardized in the next few years that we won't even notice what it is we are using. After all, we can't really go much thinner and lighter, we're reaching an apex here. Smaller? Not happening. People have hands that are a certain size. Smartphones will be replaced by something - be it Google Glass, foldable displays, chips in our brains (can't wait for this one! haha) --- the bottom line is that we're reaching levels of engineering where we just can't go much farther.
Yes, it is not that many years ago that allmost all people in the HN demographics would have found the idea of using a mac as their main coding workstation amusing.
HN is about founders and the IT industry. mobile technology is the biggest growth area right now. Apple and Google are dominating, with different concepts software and hardware wise. Samsung is in there as a hybrid with many different approaches, incl. WP8 which is Nokia's and Microsoft's stake. RIM is practically dead in the water.
Instead of going full nerd retard, shouldn't you be keen on understanding what is going on? Why Apple is breaking records? Why, as Gruber notes in his review, there is a target group very attracted to Samsung (or just bigger form factors)?
Imagine you're in the automotive industry, producing accessories for various brands. wouldn't you approach customers driving a BMW differently than the ones driving a Lexus? There might be hostility and sneering between those groups, but what does it matter to you?
It feels like the horrible mindset of sports fans, just within nerd circles. My team is better than yours, even though I just sit on the sidelines and have no impact on the actual play. Cause there is nothing else in my life to get excited about.
I mean really. What is actually new? Very little is the answer.
Apple have bumped up the specs... everyone does after a year or two. That is really about it. Its a hardware upgrade. Well. A hardware upgrade with a new adapter... because that is exactly what the world needed. Fuck standardization. Realistically Apple wanted to milk more money from people. You have no choice but to get an adapter, otherwise all your docks and peripherals will no longer connect to your iPhone. YES! GET THE IPHONE5!
> The question everyone who hasn’t yet pre-ordered wants answered: Should you upgrade? My answer is simple. If you can afford it, yes.
Your answer is wrong. If your phone function's fine, you have no complaints with its responsiveness etc. No you do not need to upgrade. The iPhone5 brings nothing which is compellingly new to the table. It is a minor update. A bit like a new XBOX. Does exactly the same stuff as your current xbox, looks slightly better, loads games slightly faster.
If your iPhone breaks, hell, check out the iPhone5. If you don't have an iPhone and can justify the cost look into it. Otherwise buy a cheap android handset which - while rougher around the edges - has all the same phone functionality (You are buying a phone) for a fraction of the cost.
> Realistically Apple wanted to milk more money from people
No, they wanted to make the phone thinner and lighter. They gained 20% with an adapter that's 80% smaller.
My guess is that the Lightning adapter will be, at minimum, USB 3.0 speeds, if not better. It's also entirely digital, meaning the adapters have to have DACs in them to output analog, hence the price.
I wonder why each iteration of the iPhone has to be science fiction?
Micro USB can't do everything the new connector can e.g. digital out.
The iPhone 5 is not all-new, despite the protestations in the launch video.
It looks like a mid-season 3-series with a new spoiler stuck on it and a stretched wheelbase.
What people wanted (especially after the 4s), was a new 911.
You must be joking! The 3 series has undergone much more radical changes than a 911! And the iPhone 5 is closer to the design philosophy of the 911, which traces its history back 50 years! Hell, I can even guess how the next generation is going to look.
see, cheap and functions as well appeals to a certain demographic. by that mindset you would never by a BMW (to stay out of mobile) - which is perfectly fine, you can argue that this brand of car does not add anything useful to the table. a prius gets you from A to B as well, as a commuter you never use all that horsepower anyway.
this is one side of the argument, represents a demographic and target group. no need to invest in luxury for your products, focus on utilitarian approach. can be rough around the edges, but needs to get the job done.
but what about BMW buyers? why is BMW selling like hotcakes? is it just about the marketing? all an illusion? just like with a mobile device, you need to try it to find out. Gruber calls it "niceness", which is a pretty good term. Attention to detail, materials, the composition of it all. No rough edges. Apple is showing of the micron-precision manufacturing in their latest iPhone video. Why does a phone need that? BMW does the same, visit BMW world in Munich to get a grasp of it.
There is a target group that responds to level of detail. Even superfluous one, think of classic traits attributed to Japanese handiwork or cooking. Does sushi need to look that good? Does a wooden temple need such intricate structures?
No surprise that Jobs' was infatuated with Japan and Sony.
Do specs and factsheets appeal to everyone? Obviously not. BMW exist. Apple as well. Both can be described as overpriced, overhyped items of self-indulgence that are being surpassed by a lot of competing products. But that 'surpassed' is subjective. Once you add taste and design into the mix, it becomes a very different picture.
Now think of your target group. Is your own taste a good indicator or does it cloud what your users would actually like?
The problem with your BMW comparison is this. When buying a car, you want something that is going to last (or at least hold some value if you sell it off sooner). If you are spending $50K on something you want it to be solid, dependable. You want it to still be as solid and dependable in 6 or 8 years. The quality you get from the BMW is going to remain for the life of the car. You probably don't get that out of a $17k Hyundai Elantra. If you want it to last a long time... you need the quality build. But with a phone, meh. It'll be replaced in a year or two anyway. Sooner if you drop it in the toilet or leave it at the bar. I don't think most people (even iPhone people) keep a phone long enough to get the long term benefits of this "micron precision" beyond just that subjective "it feels nice" you might have at first. My phone is plastic. It probably doesn't have micron precision in the manufacturing. But it looks nice. And it feels nice too. It even feels like it will last as long as I need it to last before I'm ready to get a new one.
No, that's not the problem with his BMW comparison. The problem is that you think you know why people buy BMWs. You think that people buy BMWs for the same reasons as you, and that is why you're missing the point.
If you want to understand why other people do things, you have to first stop thinking about why you do things.
That is true as well. We're all talking out of our asses here. I don't buy an iPhone because I don't like Apple's business... not because it is a crap product. It is probably a fine device. I think mine is too. I'm happy with it.
> see, cheap and functions as well appeals to a certain demographic. by that mindset you would never by a BMW (to stay out of mobile) - which is perfectly fine, you can argue that this brand of car does not add anything useful to the table. a prius gets you from A to B as well, as a commuter you never use all that horsepower anyway.
Wrong analogy - these two brands have very high resale values. For every non-BMW Prius-class vehicle there are 10+ Ford Focus (gets job done, but loses resale fast).
I like to think of Apple and Google as different "eigenvectors" for building a big, profitable company. Apple represents one extreme -- closed, premium, vertically integrated, resulting in highest profits but lower marketshare. Google is almost the opposite -- open, ad-supported, trying to get its search box and ads onto everything, resulting in highest market share but lower profits.
Being able to pick pieces from each approach for your own company is the real lesson here.
And for me, personally, I could get excited working at either Apple or Google -- just like it's interesting to play chess on either the white or black side. My goal is to understand the game!
Pinaceae - I am in no way disparaging Apple here. The iPhone and Apple are breaking records.
What I really didn't like was the vapidness and hypocrisy of Gruber's review. Gruber's talking as if this is the second coming - when in reality this is a good evolutionary upgrade.
BTW - I bought a first gen iPod/iPad, have owned 3 Apple notebooks, and have made a dozen or so people buy Apple computers and iPhones. I have no hesitation recommending an Apple product to those it would be best suited for.
Funny, I've bought every iPhone to date except this one. In fact, I went out and bought a Galaxy Nexus instead. I did it because Apple's fascination with perfecting form and design has somehow morphed into this inability to innovate.
The primary reason I switched was that one day, I opened up my home screen and realized it hasn't changed in 5 years. We still open apps one at a time, each app allotted a sort of pseudo background API that allows minimal functionality. And God those apps are pretty. And the FPS is amazing. And the fluidity of the experience is breathtaking... but at the end of the day, my device is about acquiring information. I want to know when my train is coming, I want to save map info when I don't have a connection, I want to know that when I leave for work and hit the subway, Pocket auto downloaded all those articles I saved for later.
Apple still maintains the best hardware, hands down. It's not even comparable. But it's irrelevant if the apps that reside on that phone are completely crippled by a draconian sense of design and control. If the phone has a "workstation tower processor" inside it, why the hell can't they let up and let the thing actually PROCESS more information?
I'll miss the beauty of it, that's for sure, but unless Apple gets its act together with background processing and figuring out how to actually do cloud anything right, I'm moving to Google.
> If the phone has a "workstation tower processor" inside it, why the hell can't they let up and let the thing actually PROCESS more information?
Because of power. It may have "workstation tower processing" power, but it's not hooked up to a wall socket. Power consumption is the gigantic bugaboo that plagues mobile devices, and that (in my opinion) justifies Apple's policies about background processing on iOS.
I agree somewhat but I think it's more than that. Apple made a specific choice to concentrate first and foremost on experience. On the PC we sacrifice speed and fluidity for running numerous applications at once unless you're running a high end machine.
All of us have experienced how much you want to tear your hair out over lag (especially in iTunes). I think iOS eases that experience because there only is so much you can do at once and you always feel like you're in control in an environment that Apple actually controls.
I wish they'd go further, though: how much battery life could Apple get out of an iPhone if they kept their great minimization and efficiency-maximization of the electronics going, but pulled back from the thinner-and-lighter-every-time mantra and devoted all the saved space to a bigger battery?
An iPhone that's smaller than my still-pocketable non-Apple phone isn't that appealing to me (yay for having above-average-sized hands!). An iPhone that could go a week easily on a single charge would make me sit up and take notice, though.
The iPhone's battery takes up a gargantuan amount of its internal space already. Multiplying the battery size by 7 would end up doubling or tripling the device size easily. See the iFixit teardown of the 4: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone-4-Teardown/3130/1
It's truly just an incredibly hard problem to solve.
Every time I'm up to get a new phone I come this close to switching to iPhone. My wife has one, and I've switched to Macs. But there are certain utilitarian functions that keep me on Android.
As of the last two design revs, though, I also have an aesthetic aversion to the iPhone. Gruber describes the jewelry or fine watch-like quality very well. But I don't wear jewelry or fine watches. (Ok, I wear a wedding ring, but it's a plain band.)
Maybe I'm just a philistine, but there's something about old original Motorola Droids that are at this point beaten up and worn that have a really nice aged, aesthetic weight to them.
It's a sentiment similar to the one Khoi Vinh lays out here: http://www.subtraction.com/2007/07/16/designed-det but not quite, because I think smart phones become obsolete too quickly for 'designed deterioration' to be realistic.
Maybe it's more that I don't want to feel that precious about these objects. I like to be able to not have to worry that much about taking care of my phone, to be able to toss it around without worrying about damage.
Or maybe it's just an emotional, class-based aversion to luxury goods because I grew up in working class conditions.
There is something a little crass about this angle of iPhone marketing.
But marketing the iPhone as a luxury status symbol could be a little dangerous for them since they really only make one flagship phone. Even here in Vietnam I see iPhones all over the place and it just isn't a very effective signal of wealth anymore. But when I pull out my S3 people always want to look at it and play with it.
The phrase "luxury status symbol" caught my attention. More often than people realize, the utility of luxury is independent of signaling status.
There are many well designed and built items which people would own and use even if no one sees them using or knows they own it. For me, Apple products fit into this category.
I'm in Saigon and I would disagree. I pull out my Nexus 7 and nobody gives a shit. I pull out my iPhone and people ask me if its the iPhone 5 (some weird racial correlation between white americans and Apple).
You do see iPhones everywhere though, but when they still cost a good 2-3 months salary for most of the people here, it can only be a signifier of wealth, afaic. I think people still view it as the "right" pair of jeans versus Android's kind of cheap impression.
But that's just my observation, I'm probably wrong.
Edit: Also, if you're in Saigon, we should grab a coffee or something. jon@interfacelab.com
Normally I'm happy to meet up with other hackers here but you were such an extravagant douche to me earlier on HN and to other people here I think I'll pass, thanks.
>Gruber describes the jewelry or fine watch-like quality very well. But I don't wear jewelry or fine watches.
Being like jewelry isn't jewelry. The reference is to the build quality.
>but there's something about old original Motorola Droids that are at this point beaten up and worn that have a really nice aged, aesthetic weight to them.
No tech device is resistant to get beaten up. This is why there is a very healthy iPhone case market.
>Maybe it's more that I don't want to feel that precious about these objects.
These are phones. They are supposed to serve your purpose and not the other way around.
> Being like jewelry isn't jewelry. The reference is to the build quality.
Build quality of this level is inherently luxurious, IMO.
> No tech device is resistant to get beaten up. This is why there is a very healthy iPhone case market.
I think you missed my point? Which was that I prefer objects that wear well to objects you must protect with cases that sort of defeat the purpose of having something of such high aesthetic quality.
> These are phones. They are supposed to serve your purpose and not the other way around.
I agree. That's why I want a phone I'm not afraid to scratch or dent, or I have to protect with a case (see above).
>Build quality of this level is inherently luxurious, IMO.
I don't know what that means. If you're saying that all smartphones at this level are luxurious then why do you care that the term 'jewelry' is being thrown around?
>Which was that I prefer objects that wear well to objects you must protect with cases that sort of defeat the purpose of having something of such high aesthetic quality.
Your point makes less sense to me. When has metal been lees durable than plastic? Metals traditionally dent and plastic cracks. I view the latter as being far worse.
> I don't know what that means. If you're saying that all smartphones at this level are luxurious then why do you care that the term 'jewelry' is being thrown around?
Sorry, I'll try to explain more clearly. I'm saying the build quality of Apple products, especially iPhones, is far higher than that of other phones, and is in that respect inherently luxurious. So luxurious, in fact, that it's only natural to be afraid of damage.
> Your point makes less sense to me. When has metal been lees durable than plastic? Metals traditionally dent and plastic cracks. I view the latter as being far worse.
It's not about the material. It's about what the wear does to the aesthetic quality of the phone. To use a different example, compare a jeep to a BMW. I'm not afraid of aesthetic damage to the jeep, because it's built for that, and built in such a way as to wear the damage well. Not so for the BMW. (Car analogies always work, right?)
Great comment. You're arguing that there's an aesthetic that you prefer for smartphone hardware designs rather than the iPhone's.
I think, as Windows Phone and (teenagers who continue to use) Blackberry have proven, people have different uses and visions for how they use their phones. Phone makers could do well to listen carefully and offer solutions, rather than follow Apple's design aesthetic and try to beat them at their own minimalism game.
I think the OG Motorola Droid is THE phone to have: Wonderful keypad with the buttons in the right places, has a nice heft to it that gives confidence, Froyo is a fine operating system that doesn't have any frills and cruft. It can run hot from time to time depending on what the phone is doing, but it's manageable. I just love the original vision that Google had for Android with that phone. It feels like the smart people involved in that original design have long since departed and a lot of other people spoiled the pot overthinking the next revs afterwards.
I always think of Louis CK when I'm picking up my OG Droid - how amazing this "outdated" technology is in our amazing world. Nothing has convinced me yet that I need more. I've felt 4G and OLED but it doesn't really matter that much. I can't wait 3 more seconds here and there.
You probably want to get your hands on a Lumia 920 then. Much better keyboard (I compared it to SG III) Does not run hot and looks much much cooler than moto
>As of the last two design revs, though, I also have an aesthetic aversion to the iPhone. Gruber describes the jewelry or fine watch-like quality very well. But I don't wear jewelry or fine watches. (Ok, I wear a wedding ring, but it's a plain band.)
I can understand this perspective for the 4 and 4s, as it's made from relatively delicate glass. But this phone, carved from aluminum, should be extremely rugged. The chamfer polish (not the geometry) is ornamental, but beyond that it's a purely functional expression. Apple didn't say, "Hey, Aluminum's pretty, let's make a phone out of it!" An aluminum unibody requires less parts, is more structural, more rugged, highly recyclable, dissipates heat, etc.
Beauty and function are not at odds. Often they are related, especially in nature.
The Galaxy Nexus (which I love) costs 328€ now in Germany. The iPhone 5 will set you back at least 679€, and it has a much smaller screen. It just doesn't make sense to me, unless you want an expensive status symbol.
I am in De for short business trip. From which shop you can buy with 328€ as I am interested in buying one for my gf?
BTW, i m currently using galaxy nexus.
I'm glad he spent a long time on the feel. My primary criticism of my 4S echoed Edward Tufte's words here:
Last year in Cupertino, I yelled at some people about touchscreens that paid precise attention to finger touches from the user but not to how the device in turn touches the hands of the user (and produces divot edge-lines in the flesh).
Those creases between the antenna bands and the glass back combined with the 4S's weight were very noticeable the first time I held the 4S for more than 5 minutes and through the first week I had it. It faded completely fairly quickly and I laugh about it now but I have to think one of their major goals with this iteration was to erase that defect.
People seem disappointed every time Apple doesn't come out with a total redesign but total redesigns are basically admissions that what you were shipping last week was totally wrong. I have to think that a unibody metal frame is what they've been shooting for all along. They couldn't work the antennae properly so they settled on a lot of plastic and then glass and finally they got their unibody aluminum chassis. I wouldn't be surprised if by next year they completely remove the glass inlays on the back and move to liquidmetal alloys.
Great review. I'm disappointed that the screen size change is noticably awkward -- I was hoping it would be something that you'd get used to in a matter of minutes. I currently have a Galaxy Nexus and hitting the top left is impossible without two hands or hand contortion that leaves the device in serious risk of being dropped.
Also, why on earth would Apple choose to have apps letterboxed in portrait mode? Wouldn't it make WAY more sense to align them on the bottom of the display, so that the keyboard would at least be in the same place across all applications? Here's hoping developers don't lag on updating their apps.
I'm surprised by the screen size change, too; it has the drawback of reduced thumbability, but without seriously increasing readability.
Because my Japanese iPhone 4S can't do tethering, and iOS maps/navigation is horrible, I just deal with carrying a Galaxy Nexus as well.
The tradeoff is really simple; the iPhone lets you access the whole screen with your thumb, while the Nexus lets you see more usable info with your eyes.
I found that I tended to pull out the Galaxy to read things (articles, this website, etc), even though the screen isn't as high-quality. Just because it is bigger.
With the iPhone 5, it seems Apple traded away the thumb-awesome but just adding 176 pixels to the top doesn't get you much more reading-awesome.
I'd vote for slide to the middle. Bottome-aligned in portrait, centered in landscape sounds good to me. I know that sounds "ugly" but it's probably pretty practical.
Even with the letterboxing centered, it would still make more sense to always have the keyboard on the bottom -- then even old apps would benefit from a little more space when the keyboard is up.
Sorry, misread the review for the Lumia 800. I'd always been under the impression that the Lumia phones were anodized aluminum; turns out they're polycarbonate.
Still, there's the One S, for... one. And that was just a quick find among the current crop of recommended phones; I wouldn't be surprised if there are others.
I have no idea why a phone made out of glass and metal would be desirable in the least. Window frames are made out of glass and metal; should I desire one of those too?
It makes me feel uncomfortably odd, but the iPhone elicits zero desire from me. If someone gave one to me for free, it would gather dust on my shelf.
Don't know about the One X, but the Lumia is made out of strong polycarbonate(not metal), and actually feels very good in the hand, unlike the iPhone 4/4S metal glass seam that felt somewhat sharp to my hand. Also, if the polycarbonate scratches, it's the same color inside, so scratches are not very visible.
i'd note that most heavy duty military equipment, including rifle bodies and several other parts are generally made of quality polycarbonate nowadays, because its lighter and arguably stronger than various metals (it's as rigid but not as brittle, and does not rust in any way)
> And personally, I think that iOS 6 is a disappointment and no one wants to admit it. The hardware is eclipsing the software.
The actual explanation is that the iOS6 beta was made available in June, people have been talking about it for 3 months. It's old news (and felt enormously boring during the keynote as we'd already seen pretty much everything they demoed aside from — I believe — panorama). The hardware, on the other hand, is new.
As an iOS developer I was really looking forward to iOS 6. Both iOS 4 & 5 seemed like house-cleaning updates that improved the plumbing and developer experience to set the stage for more daring and forward thinking changes in 6.
It was actually when I first saw the new feature list for 6 that I began to worry that Apple had lost its momentum and the lackluster iPhone 5 only reinforces that feeling.
iOS 6 is not unique to the iPhone 5, so it wouldn't make sense for Gruber to review the latest version of the OS as a "feature" of the new phone. It makes sense to distinguish the hardware from the software.
Gruber is right to spend the first 750 words talking about something that most people won't care about, the fit and finish. Smartphones are pretty much all the same, despite parties from both camps rearing up and claiming their phone of choice is The One True Phone, so companies need to find ways to set them apart. Apple's devotion to realising their designs is what sets them apart. Whilst Joe Public won't care about precision manufacture and such he will notice how good the phone feels. There's a reason Rolex, Omega and so on still make very expensive, high quality watches, and a reason why people still buy them.
Unfortunately there's a vocal group on here who are willing to just sit and go "Gruber is an Apple shill, there's nothing in here, he makes weird justifications", and he does in places, but he's also given Apple a hard time over changing display size so it's slightly hard to cover the screen but he knows they've had to do that in response to the market.
There's plenty to like in the iPhone 5, and I'll be upgrading my 4 to one when I can because for me Apple is still producing the nicest hardware for a smartphone and that trumps anything else for me. Stop assuming your personal feelings about it are real world facts, because you love the iPhone doesn't make it the best, and because you love the Galaxy doesn't make it the best.
> But navigating the full screen while holding the iPhone [5] in one hand is worse ... Consider the windshield wipers on a car, and how, because they swing in a radial arc, they can’t reach the passenger-side top corner.
Gruber brought up a very good point about the somewhat less than perfect screen size which shows a UI weakness of iOS: the back button—one of the most used UI elements—is always at the top left. Try it yourself, go to versus io to see the iPhone 5 in its orignal size, calibrate your screen (click at the top-right corner on versus io) and place your hand next to the iPhone and see if your thumb would be able to reach the top-left corner: http://versusio.com/en/apple-iphone-5-64gb-vs-samsung-galaxy... In contrast, Android has hardware back keys always at the bottom, so even 4,8" phones could be used for a short while with one hand (just try the same experiment with the S3). Moreover, there's a huge target not bothering about bigger phones because they have space in their bag and don't put them into their pockets (women). So, I agree with Gruber to start offering two size: 3.5 and something about 4.5 or even larger (and changing the back button UI in the long run).
Interesting to see both Gruber and Dalrymple find the taller screen and letter boxing to be troublesome. Though it will take some getting used to, the main stream press will certainly clamor over this being a largely negative move by Apple.
Gotta love Gruber's continued adherence to succinct style and message. Makes for a great, consumable read.
Personally, I'm disappointed. The thing is, I know I'm totally wrong because the iphone 5 is such a beautiful beast and probably the best smartphone out there.
Still, what I liked the most about the iphone, and the ipad, and the macbook, was how innovative it was. Everything was new. New concepts, new icon, new look and feel.. a whole refreshing new feeling.
I feel like the iphone5 is mostly a simple hardware update. I.e every now and then, I'll switch my old memory for a new one 2x faster. It's not innovative or original.. it's just faster memory.
So, this is why I'm disappointed. Not because the iphone5 is not good (it's great!). It just didn't satisfied my WOW factor.
> what I liked the most about the iphone, and the ipad, and the macbook, was how innovative it was. Everything was new. New concepts, new icon, new look and feel.. a whole refreshing new feeling.
I can't help but feel that you're misrepresenting the past. The iPhone has had the same look and feel, icons, and basic design since the very first version released 5 years ago. The iPad UI is very much a scaled up version of that very same look and feel. It seems odd to stop and complain now that the phone is an incremental upgrade.
The iPhone is always going to be a simple hardware upgrade; its entire design is based around making the software front and center.
If the only nice thing you can say about a phone is the camera and how it feels, not to mention devote at least 2 paragraphs to how pedantic Apple is about design and it paints a familiar picture. Apple are losing at their own game, the game they started and now a game that others are finishing for them.
The only great thing about the new iPhone is the fact that the iOS 6 operating system is comes with has an awesome vector maps feature that blows Google Maps out of the water. I'm not prepared to spend $1000 AUD on buying an iPhone 5 when it doesn't offer anything significantly new, where's the NFC chip?
NFC is nearly useless at this point and there is a possibility it will never become ubiquitous. I don't see NFC being a huge selling point outside of the techies fpr quite some time.
Not everybody lives in the US, you know. In Europe we have NFC in our credit cards. You put your wallet close to the register, write your PIN, and pay. Few small stores support NFC, though.
I'm not saying that's the reason why Apple ditched NFC, but maybe we would need an independent study on actual stores which support NFC and consider if whether it's a useless standard. You're gonna carry your wallet anyway to pay in cash, why not put the NFC in the credit card?
In Australia credit cards and debit cards come with a wireless contact chip inside of the card as standard. I hardly see how NFC is useless, maybe in the US it is, but in Australia and New Zealand as well it certainly has a commercial use.
So, you are saying that Samsung and Nokia aren't popular enough?
Samsung and Nokia are popular enough and have the resources to back NFC but as of now they haven't done anything besides launching phones with the technology.
NFC today is just a dummy selling point and they know it, because they haven't done anything to make it popular.
This is basically where Bluetooth was in, say 2003. People are disappointed because Apple is generally forward-looking when it comes to standards and tech, but has shied away from NFC (which shouldn't be surprising given their stance on USB3.0 and Blu-Ray).
Google Maps has had navigation since November 2009[1]. Google released vector maps with 3D rotation and 3D buildings and offline caching in December 2010[2].
Apple is coming to the party one year and nine months late. Have you used Google Maps on an Android device lately?
I'd also point out that Google Maps has a significantly larger database of points of interest than Apple, who is relying upon a TomTom database.
I don't see any reason why the Apple Maps application would "blow Google Maps out of the water." Google's been doing maps for a really long time so a v1.0 release of a maps app from Apple is not going to destroy the behemoth that is Google Maps.
It's interesting to note how, unless I've missed it, the verge has been left out of the party. I enjoy reading Joshua's reviews, which are critical when appropriate, although somewhat verbose.
I'm sure the iPhone 5 is solid, I'll probably be ordering it, but it seems like the product is intentionally kept away from more critical reviewers.
In all honesty, I have no idea for what reason Apple hands out their phones for reviews but the most intriguing reviews of Apple devices are from Mossberg, Gruber and Anand in no particular order.
I do give credit to The Verge in having the best video reviews on any given topic. I find that The Verge can get too verbose in reviews. I don't mean that it contains too many words but much are used in waste.
I don't know what point these reviews serve now. we all know the facts, we can all draw conclusions. I don't need to read 5,000 words to tell me that the phone is pretty, feels good, has a bigger screen, but maybe it's too big, is quick, has an aging OS, etc... same old song and dance
Can we stop pretending that Bruner has anything interesting to say about Apple products? You know what he's going to say before you click the link. It's just self-congratulation for apple fans.
Now, I don't hate Apple, behaviour aside. They make great products. But Gruber has nothing new or interesting to say about them. It's just the same old, and is uninteresting. Anyone who feels the need to read what he thinks about Apple can just go to daringfireball; nobody's discovering any great insights here.
In an ideal world, perhaps Apple would offer two iPhone sizes — like they do
with products such as MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and iMacs. A smaller one with
the classic 3.5-inch display, and a larger (say, 4.5-inch?) one for people who
want that.
Isn't this exactly what Apple's doing? The iPhone 4 and 4S aren't going away, people now have a choice which size they want.
They only has choice for the 3.5" if they are willing to accept old version of the product. Apple did not update the spec for 4 & 4S. And when iPhone 5S and 6 comes out, I don't think Apple is still going to sell any 3.5" iPhone any more.
I'm looking forward to the slightly taller screen. It's always kind of bugged me how you couldnt see full album art + controls, and always felt a bit squished with the keyboard on-screen.
Not sure how it will feel in regards to the back buttons though that are used pretty extensively with something like the facebook app, that i use quite a lot.
No it isnt. Apple will not produce more 4's. The ones on sell now are production lot's remainings. The only reason "apple can offer them" is because it wiser to sell them than to throw away.
And people don't have a choice in size. They have a choice in sie that goes MANDATORY with other specs, such as slower CPU, less advanced OS, less functionality, heavier/thicker device, have they decide to go with smaller screen.
You clearly have no understanding of Apple's obsessive degree of supply-chain control.
The 4S is likely to be still for sale for two more YEARS. You think Apple just accidentally made a two-year surplus of the 4S, and now they are stuck with them, so they have to keep selling them? The actual figure is probably more like two days than two years.
Why are HNers totally incapable of evaluating high quality products? This situation is even more egregious since the high quality product costs the same as the low quality product.
I think if you read in between the lines you can understand the generally underwhelmed reaction to the iPhone 5. There isn't anything on the iPhone 5 that feels like a step forward for mobile computing. The biggest change is the change in screen size, which is awkward and driven by keeping up with consumer expectation.
An NFC chip. Apple already has Passbook - imagine if that were NFC-enabled. I want to be able to use my phone to enter my home and workplace, to board transportation systems, and to pay for everything. And it isn't as if I would have purchased an iPhone if they had included NFC, but more that Apple has such a widespread and mainstream user base and such collaborations with Passbook-supporting businesses that "NFC everywhere" might stop being a dream.
Seconded. I can't think of any huge, groundbreaking features that have been included in, say, new laptops over the last 10 years. Faster, thinner, lighter, better battery life, nicer displays, what more do you want? It's turning into a software game.
I would say SSD replacing disk drives has been the most jarring performance improvement. It's really a night-and-day, sudden difference. But yes, that's not a new feature, per se.
Thirded. And I think is the year smartphones finally reached something like feature and quality parity with each other. Sensor sets are mostly universal, few cameras embarrass themselves anymore, battery life is all in the same ballpark, etc...
The market is in no way stalling out, but really, the next "obvious" hardware feature isn't so obvious anymore. Putting these in the hands of five billion people is what's next.
The fact that nobody at Fox questioned it before the reportage aired is a sign of two things:
1. Fox News isn't the pinnacle of journalism, to put it mildly (seriously, how can the whole team miss the almost over-published iPhone 5 announcement details and instead find a old mockup video?).
2. Technology has come a long long way when holographic images are just considered a "cool new feature" by the average Joe. It's amazing how fast technology has changed our lives, what was total magic just ten tears ago is almost taken for granted now.
Well if I pick one thing it might seem a little silly - if I was apple I'd want to have implemented something and found it to have worked and be ready to go with it. But I think speed to access is a big deal, so maybe wake on swipe and or voice. Perhaps an api for lock screen apps - not so much a hardware thing, but I don't think Apple should care about that.
What would constitute a "step forward for mobile computing"? For me, it'd be having the computing power of MacBook Pro on an iPhone. For example, I would hook up—or more likely, wirelessly connect—this hypothetical iPhone to a desktop monitor and run OS X. Arguably, this is 3-5 years down the line and only if Apple pursues this line of thinking.
Well here's a list of directions, with the caveat that you'd actually have to try some of these to see what worked. Improving safari with smart 'readability'-esque relayout engine. Safari performance for webkit. Widgets. Lock screen apps. Built in speech-to-text api. Flutter like non-touching gestures and interaction. Augmented reality api - with maps data. A todo app and api/data store (ok you'd make a million app developers cry with that one). iCloud for data.
Of course some of these are available as third-party apps and apis. Some would suck (widgets for one probably). But I don't believe we're anywhere near running out of things to innovate on to make mobile computing worthwhile/suck-less.
I was thinking on phone processing of speech, not sure how much difference it would make. The point of that list isn't that those things don't exist, but they are areas where Apple could push hardware, operating system and web services in order to do something innovative in mobile computing.
The biggest problem with iOS is the siloing of apps. A task-centric UI just makes so much more sense and sharing information and functionality among different apps is so incredibly awkward for the user and developer.
Both Android and WP are much better in this regard but there's still a lot of room for improvement.
Please god no. Xcode is miserably slow on a 2011 Macbook Air. I don't even want to think about running it on something with a small fraction of that horsepower.
There's not much stopping Apple from enabling this right now but maybe they see the developer market as a way of generating more Mac sales? Look at the $35 Raspberry Pi - it has a HDMI port and runs Linux, with a fraction of the power of the iPhone 5.
This isn't "reviewing", it's spin. There's not much to talk about with this review, and Gruber's talent is for making the boring stuff sound great. So he talks about the color gamut of the display. He fills space with nice-sounding pablum like (yes, this is a direct quote): "Apple boasts during last week’s event that they now measure the precision of the iPhone 5 assembly in microns. A micron is one-millionth of a meter." And he does this repeatedly through a long, winding, elegant post.
That doesn't tell you if it's a better phone than the 4S (or the GSIII, or whatever). All it does is give you a good reason to want it more than the 4S.
Trying, certainly, but Gruber's criticisms always seem to be of the "if I don't put at least one critical thing in this review, they'll know for certain that I'm a fanboy!" flavor. He spends paragraphs spinning "the device has a bigger screen" into something negative, for example.
Gruber is a great writer but a terrible reviewer. His recent writing completely lacks any balance. It's obvious that he loves Apple and doesn't give a fair review. I don't have any issue with people liking Apple products but I don't understand why Hacker News upvotes his one-sided blog posts so highly.
Exactly. His writing is way too sweet on Apple. I ordered the new iPhone and when I got to the end at the part where I'm supposed to buy it just because it says "iPhone" on the back, I was nearing the point of gagging.
The rationalizing of why they would switch from 3.5" to 4" when they always make the right choices was particularly a low point for me, also. I guess I knew what I was getting myself into when I clicked the link, though.
And shockingly, downvotes for calling a spade a spade.
From the linked article: There’s a reason why, just as with all five of its predecessors, it just says “iPhone” on the back.
An awfully awkward sentence in a muddled closing, but in context he's not saying it's worth buying just because it says "iPhone". He's saying that they all have just said "iPhone" rather than additionally having the model number.
He's biased, but he DOES cater to his audience (who are also potentially biased). I was really curious to hear what he thought about the enlarged screen, for example, because I suspect his views and opinions closely align with my own.
Well, to be fair, Gruber is writing a love story here, not really an unbiased review. So, no, he doesn't blow away the other reviews, (As an unbiased review, Mossberg's is pretty good) but, for us lovers of all things Apple, his is the review we look for to give us that dopamine rush of reinforced sense of self worth from using Apple products.
I've been hitting refresh every five minutes on daringfireball since 7:00.
Note - I think his is the most well written of all the writeups so far. He put a lot of effort into this essay. I wish he did more like these, though I realize it must take a lot out of him.
He also demonstrates a bit of useful insight/balance here, that you wouldn't expect from what should be a purely apple-biased review, e.g. from the section on displays "Apple has a lead here, which is interesting, because they buy these displays from companies like LG."
his is the review we look for to give us that dopamine rush of reinforced sense of self worth from using Apple products. [...] I've been hitting refresh every five minutes on daringfireball since 7:00.
Just so that we're clear- I'm not reading The Onion right now?
As an aside, has anyone a clue how iTunes is going to represent the new Retina 4 capable apps in the App Store? They now require screenshots of apps for iPhone (4), iPad and Retina 4 displays. Where are those going to appear, and how will people access them?
The level of fragmentation of display targets is approaching Android levels. The whole point of retina being a straight linear doubling of pixels was that you only had two device form factors to worry about: iPhone and iPad. Now you have to worry about iPhone, tall iPhone, iPad and, soon, mini-iPad (same aspect, but different physical/touch target size).
It's not nearly as bad as Android, if only because new display profiles mostly obsolete the old ones -- there's a clear progression. The mini-iPad, however, may be the first device to break this rule.
Yes. And not only that but the tools for handling this are much less powerful than Android's. Add to this the fact that you have to duplicate the entire xib/storyboard for each internationalization and suddenly you've got a shitload of drudge work on your hands.
I mentioned that. It is a different physical size though, so the minimum readable size text is different, and the minimum touchable target is different.
The iphone 5 will sell like crazy given the large number of people approaching their contract expiration with an earlier version of the device. It only makes sense for most to continue to invest in the ecosystem they have already invested. The average joe is not going to take the jump,in my opinion that is.Ideally the phone I really want to upgrade to should have the Android Jelly Bean's UI with iOS' ecosystem (read apps) combined in a Nokia Lumia phone. I would pay a LOT of money for that !!!
I kept reading waiting to find the section on what he DIDN'T like about the phone. I prefer reviews that address both the good and the bad about a product.
For example, the article about the inconsistencies in Android 4.x was pretty well done and definitely points out issues I've had with Android.
I've never owned an iOS device so I want to hear all the pros and cons. Raving reviews like this one do nothing to persuade me to buy it.
The part that I like about this review is the refrain — "It's nice". It's both a positive comment about the phone and also a deliberately non-quantitative, colloquial statement, recognizing it's only an incremental improvement. It's joining the chorus but also dismissing it. The argument being that yeah it's just nice, but that's the point. Stylistically, that's a neat little sentence.
About the just right screensize bullshit: it may be just right - for exactly one use case, which is typing with your thumb. There are dozens of other use cases for a mobile internet client. I like to surf and read, in both cases I cherish the big display of my Galaxy Nexus (which still fits nicely into my trouser pockets, thank you very much).
Personally I have never typed with a thumb, and I was surprised to discover that some people actually do that.
Even if you are convinced typing with your thumb is your main desire in life, there are people with thumbs of different sizes. What if my thumb is 3.7 inches, not 3.5 inches. Apple would be stealing 0.2 inches from my optimal screen estate then, just to please the masses. Or what if my thumb is only 3.0 inches? No thumb typing for me :-(
What I am saying: yes, the 3.5 iPhone screen size may by just right - for a selected group of users with specific use cases and specific thumb sizes. Thank god there is Android with a little variation in devices.
> So the question is, if a 4-inch 16:9 display is better than a 3.5-inch 3:2 display, why hasn’t the iPhone been using 4-inch 16:9 displays from the start?
How about: Apple got this wrong?
To be fair to Apple, if they came out with a 4" or 4.5" back in 2007 it would have strangely large compared to everything else on the market (not to mention having the properties Gruber also mentions). The 3.5" screen made perfect sense then. However, what Apple didn't do was foresee that most consumers would prefer larger screens, and this doesn't fit with the Apple ideal of One True Resolution. (Yes, now there are two resolutions for iPhones, but only the vertical resolution has changed.)
In Germany there is a saying that "nice is the little sister of crap". Just saying that the review felt lukewarm to me, even by Apple's greatest fan. But maybe it was just that the first line ("it is nice") set the tone for me.
I find Daring Fireball to be at its best when Gruber pushes back on Apple's design decisions with thoughtful critique: skeuomorphism, Safari tabs experiments, this screen thing.
Even if you don't believe the link. It's just common sense. Jobs died a year ago, and he basically worked right up until he died. This phone was certainly on the drawing board for more than one year.
"I was also a little taken aback by how anti-AT&T he went"
Everybody I know felt that AT&T was being absolutely deceptive when they started marketing their (barely 3G in the bay area) data plan as "4G" one day on the iPhone. It was laughable - the iPhone _frequently_ came to a crawl, and now, all of a sudden, AT&T is claiming 4G.
In comparison, Verizon LTE on my iPad screams from Redwood City through to Foster City, and I find a lot of places where it's superior to WiFi, so don't even bother switching over. Good for Gruber for calling AT&T on their crap.
I think the new screen resolution is a terrible terrible decision, I like a phone/tablet that has about the same aspect ratio as a piece of paper. For me, 4:3 and 3:2 are ideal. I have no use for widescreen, especially when I am normally viewing the screen in portrait.
I won't be installing iOS 6, I don't think it's finished and shouldn't be released in its current state. Too much functionality is lost with new maps.
I get the feeling that it's all downhill from here...
>I like a phone/tablet that has about the same aspect ratio as a piece of paper.
Once you throw some control bars at the top and the bottom of the content, you're pretty much there. They keyboard definitely needed more screen space above it as well.
Anecdotally, I had the first iPhone from day 1, inherited a 3GS and been sporting the 4 since it came out. I've never used a case and the worst damage that's happened was a stuck lock-screen button on the 3GS after years of use.
I do see lots of people with cases, though I suspect they're for bling and to for the sense of peace-of-mind that they're protecting their shiny object.
My first iPhone 3G, I used it without a case. When I got 4/4S I got a case for them, for the reason that can be amusing: those models got a pretty decent camera so the case was meant to prevent scratching the glass covering it.
iPhone 5 got sapphire cover on the lens, so I intend to go case-less again.
Gee, I wonder why he didn't mention the maps? Apple's devices are still more compelling for me personally, but less so than they used to me. Hopefully Google builds and maintains its own iOS maps application.
To summarize the 'review'
0. Glass was the best material for the phone till last week. Now it's aluminium. Plastic sucks because it scuffs instead of breaking but feels cheap so I hate it. Why doesn't everyone else use an inferior material that Apple just stopped using?
1. The bigger screen sucks. But after using it for a week, the old screen is too small. 3.5" was perfect till now. 4" is perfect hereon. Anything bigger is only for stupid people who have and use two hands. And if they have two sizes, stupid people will always choose the bigger one - it's better that apple decides the right size for me.
2. The display is brighter and more saturated than the 4S. But not AS bright or saturated as the S3. It's just perfect, because its from Apple. Oh wait - the display is from LG. It's got a lower resolution than the S3? Crispness is what matters.
3. The Camera is good.
4. AT&T sucks. Verizon rocks. Oh you can't do data+voice simultaneously on Verizon. But who needs that?
5. Battery life is same as on 4S. Who needs more than that?
6. The benchmark score of the processor is the highest Apple has so far. The S3 beats the pants off the iPhone 5? That's not a phone is it?
7. iOS6? There's nothing to talk about. I mean they screwed up the Maps. They copied notifications last time so there's nothing left to copy.