• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

iPhone 5

frskeptic said:
It's a benefit for Apple, simpler to integrate everything together. But it's not sure how much it changes things.
One thing to consider from all this thing with the A6: A lot changed from the A5 to the A6, process dimensions (apparently 32nm instead of 45), the architecture (apparently based on cortex A15 instead of A9), so we can't be sure what the improvements are due to: the process (which every chip manufacturer can get), the architecture (which is chosen by phone manufacturer and everyone can get too) or the apple in-house designed customisations (which are limited by the chip needing to support the same set). I wouldn't bet my ass on the 2x improvement being fully due to the customisations.
It's easier for apple to design stuff if there is only one platform to support, sure, but it's not that much difficult for other manufacturers. Probably wrong (don't have sources) but I heard that the new snapdragons and similar will be or are optimized for the dalvik JIT compiler, so for Android, and that means many different phones with different manufacturers will get the benefit. I might be wrong but I haven't seen any massively insane improvement in benchmarks between an iphone's chip and a similar phone' chip. As as been shown by how software updates behave on the iphone platform, the OS can mean a large increase or decrease of the overall phone performance, so I wouldn't bet my ass that the iphone's famous (maybe overrated, IDK, never had one) responsiveness/speed is entirely due to its chip.

As always, it's a lot more complicated than the headlines and hype are saying, it's not to say that iphones aren't marvels, they are, every single chip with billions of transistors is a technological marvel, let's not get over hyped, or over-credit a company, with stuff that might be more nuanced.
Click to expand...

All good points. Bottom line, apples model (controlling the entire process) is an advantage to them for a variety of reasons, some of which we will likely never be privy to, and some of which we can probably never verify. :)
 
kajata said:
What is it about cell phone reviews (cell phones for chrissake) that cause the readers' comment sections to be more hostile and tribalistic than posts about politics or football (soccer)?!
Click to expand...
Because iPhan is a religion.
 
a_unique_person said:
More a case of taking standard 'components' and putting laying them out on your own silicon flooring. According to that link, they have chosen a custom layout to maximise speed and minimise power usage, but it's using standard pre- designed 'components' to do so. Much as they buy standard components to put on the circuit board, but have a unique mix when they do so.
Click to expand...

I don't think you appreciate how non-trivial processor chip designs are even when you have cell libraries you can place as units.
 
frskeptic said:
Apple has only one phone model, in essence the comparison is not fully relevant.
Click to expand...

Apple fans love to use that excuse, but technically it is not true. They are currently still selling and still supporting 4 iPhones:

3GS, 4, 4S, and 5
 
BenBurch said:
Still they sell. If other devices are so superior, why is that?
Click to expand...

Surely you know by now not to plead your case to popularity...

According to that logic psychics and ghosts and gods exist. More people buy into it than not after all....
 
BenBurch said:
Still they sell. If other devices are so superior, why is that?
Click to expand...
They do indeed, but the point is that other smartphones sell a lot more, because they are considered superior, or at least just as good. Hence Android as an OS overtook iPhone share globally a year or two back, and are now way ahead.

Anecdote alert: Here in Hong Kong, whose population is often portrayed as brand obsessive, 2 years ago the phones on display by users of the local subway/underground/MTR used to be exclusively iPhone, with a mixture of Nokias and BBs thrown in, and the odd HTC for flavour. You either had an iPhone or you didn't, it was as simple as that. Literally, everywhere I looked, there was an iPhone.

Now, I have to look hard to find an iPhone. Samsung is the clear leader, for better or worse, and the most popular models are the new s3, the Note phone/tablet, and a smattering of that solid workhorse the s2. What I find amazing is that from that limited sample, the Note (with its 5inch screen that was initially laughed at as too big to use, store in pockets or hold to one's ear a la Dom Joly) is overwhelmingly popular with women. And when you think about it, that makes a lot of sense, as in general more women than men tend to carry bags with them that can easily accomodate the larger screened phones, so for them its a no brainer. Huge, bright screen, light and portable, easy to use.

Another anecdote: A friend in Bangkok, listening to a few high-society types in an elevator discussing the new iPhone, and being distinctly underwelmed. Normally they would be a shoe-in for the 5, but now thinking of swapping to the Samsung s3, simply as they felt it was more modern. For them the iPhone had become safe, dated, dare I say boring?

I know that there is a different situation in the US, where Apple is more strongly represented, but globally, they lost the crown a long time ago.

I have no doubt that die hard Apple fans around the world will continue to buy iphones, and they will continue to do well financially, after all, they are really good devices! But for the average man in the global street, it is simply no longer necessarily perceived as the best choice available, whereas a year or two ago I think it was.

As someone else has already pointed out, it is all a bit tribalistic. But I believe that came about because of the perceived air of superiority Apple fans (Im not going to stoop to Fanbois!) had about their products, the alleged innovation, the massive marketing spin, Steve Job's famous Reality Distortion Field and the convenient forgetting of history.

People like me objected to being told that the iPhone was the first phone to do this and that and the other, when I knew from first hand experience it was not true. Back in 2005 I was downloading apps & games from an online App store to a full touchscreen iMate Jam (one of HTC's early offerings), easily writing dictionary translation apps for it using Visual Studio, playing full screen smooth DivX video, taking photos, using GPS navigation etc etc. All 2 years before the iPhone!

Being told that iPhone Facetime was now perfect, as it was the first video calling app not to need buddy lists was particularly laughable, when I was doing exactly that a year before it came out on my HTC Diamond, dialling directly from the contact list and seeing perfect video quality. And all over 3G, no need for wifi. And no, Im not talking about Skype.
Being told that phone to phone video calling would now take off because Apple had "invented" it, despite Apple's designers forgetting something quite practical and fundamental (as they are on occasion prone to do, they are just humans after all!), no one really looks their best when the camera is pointing up their nostrils. When you hold a phone in the normal fashion, that is exactly what the front facing camera shows. To show any more flattering poise you have to dip your head unnaturally or hold it out a lot higher, which is tiring.

Being told by Steve Jobs that 7 inch tablets were DOA, when that seemed like (and is!) the perfect size for me, the size of a paperback book. Apparently I must sandpaper my fingers to a smaller size to use my 7 inch tablet compared to the perfection of the 10 inch iPad, conveniently forgetting that sandpapering is not necessary to use the interface on the much smaller screens of phones. I mean, come on. That really is insulting my intelligence a little bit!

Being told that Android phones were for geeks only, and hard to use, when actually everybody and his dog has one now, and dont find them remotely hard to use or require 'geek' skills. Yet I still hear this argument now, even when Android outsells Apple 2 to 1!

Being told that the iPhone was the best because it sold more, then when Android phones started to sell way more, the important metric now being shifted to Apple's company value, which is now apparently more important in describing the popularity of a phone.

So these kind of attitudes have not helped. However, the tribalism is I think overblown out of proportion and doesnt actually spill out in to the real world. Yes, a lot of Apple/Android/WinPhone fans foam at the mouth at each other on forums, and a few more technical minded people might argue with each other in the pub, but for your average person (who outnumber rabid forum users 1000 to 1), a phone is a phone, they usually don't know or care what OS it runs and are swayed by marketing and practicality, i.e. can it do what I want it to do.

Marketing for other manufacturers is also now a priority, so they have caught up to Apple there (the Galaxy s3 had 10 million pre-orders!), their product hardware has been as good as or better than Apple's for quite a while, but most importantly, Android is a full featured OS that is just as easy to use as iOS, and in many ways easier to use with more functionality.

So your average person when considering a new phone asks:

Can it take nice photos? Check
Play Angry Birds? Check
Email? WhatsApp? Check
Is it nice looking? Check
Lots of memory for my stuff? Check

And these days the iPhone is just one of many phones that fullfil those criteria, all at different price points, so honestly is it any wonder that its market share is dropping?
 
GraculusTheGreenBird said:
Now, I have to look hard to find an iPhone. Samsung is the clear leader, for better or worse, and the most popular models are the new s3, the Note phone/tablet, and a smattering of that solid workhorse the s2. What I find amazing is that from that limited sample, the Note (with its 5inch screen that was initially laughed at as too big to use, store in pockets or hold to one's ear a la Dom Joly) is overwhelmingly popular with women.
Click to expand...

heheheheh that's funny :D :D :D

Extra credit to everyone who gets the Dom Joly reference. Those were some of the funniest skits ever.

It would be funny already just because the phone is big. But he also screams into it! Apparently the bigger the phone, the louder you have to speak. Too funny.

In that first few paragraphs GraculusTheGreenBird has summed up why Apple fans would rather no one bring up the rest of the world, no matter if it relates to PCs or phones or tablets. There is more than one walled garden that relates to Appledom.

I'm pretty sure iPhone is still huge in Japan though.
 
GraculusTheGreenBird said:
They do indeed, but the point is that other smartphones sell a lot more, because they are considered superior, or at least just as good. Hence Android as an OS overtook iPhone share globally a year or two back, and are now way ahead.
<snip>
Click to expand...

http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/14/aging-iphone-4-iphone-3gs-still-best-selling-phones-in-q3/
Led by continued steady sales for Apple’s iPhones, the top five best-selling mobile phone handsets in Q3 were as follows:
Apple iPhone 4
Apple iPhone 3GS
HTC EVO 4G
Motorola Droid 3
Samsung Intensity II

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/pr_120502/
While handset models running Android’s operating system continue to own the lion’s share of the U.S. handset market, Apple’s iPhone devices held onto the top three spots in NPD’s overall handset ranking in the first quarter of this year:
iPhone 4S
iPhone 4
iPhone 3GS
Samsung GalaxySII
HTC EVO3D

Etc....

Are you sure other smart phones sell a lot more ? Really ? And it's becuase they are superior, not becauss they offer them BOGO ?

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/07/verizon-wireless-droid-razr-bogo/
Verizon Wireless is planning on introducing a number of promotions starting February 10th, in addition to availability of the Motorola DROID 4. The DROID 4 will sell for $199.99 with a two-year agreement. Starting on the 10th, all Motorola RAZR smartphones will be buy one get one free, and this includes the recently-introduced DROID RAZR MAXX,


Yes, if you compare all android phone manufacturers against the one iOS phone manufacturer, they outsell Apple vis-a-vis Android -vs-iOS. Worldwide, I believe Samsung is the only single manufacturer that outsells apple in smartphones. I'd say that is pretty impressive considering:
1) Google gives android away for free
2) Apple didn't make a phone until four years ago
 
TheL8Elvis said:
Are you sure other smart phones sell a lot more ? Really ? And it's becuase they are superior, not becauss they offer them BOGO ?
Click to expand...

Careful, my friend, he's clearly talking about the global market, where Apple is a sizable competitor but it doesn't sit on the top.
 
chulbert said:
Careful, my friend, he's clearly talking about the global market, where Apple is a sizable competitor but it doesn't sit on the top.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I do understand Android >> iOS globally.

I understood the point that other smartphones (combined) outsell apple, but few smartphones alone do, even globally.

It's difficult to measure - do we count all the 'galaxy' phones -vs- all the 'iphones' , or certain model -vs- certain model.

I'm still not sure that it's a valid point to say other smartphones sell a lot more. But I could very well be wrong, and if so, I don't doubt someone will be along to show me :)
 
The maps on iOS 6 are getting hammered on Apple forums and tech blogs.

I was pretty underwhelmed myself. On my iPad the 3D flyover reminded me of Inception when the buildings fold in and out.

The navigation works great but I'm also in NYC which I'm sure got lots of attention.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom