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The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

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Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#201

Post by m0zg »

geocar wrote: post #183
m0zg wrote: post #134

Only Apple can name their phone "excess" and price it at $1k+ and still nobody catches on. For those able to count, that's _five times_ what a decent Android Pie handset costs (Nokia 6.1, $200) for nowhere near 5x difference in anything. In fact the Nokia has a phone jack and standard USB-C power. I've been iPhone user since iPhone 1, and I currently have iPhone 8, but even I am contemplating a switch.

I don't know. I keep trying Android; I have a few Android devices (around the $600 point) and it just seems too much of a hassle. A lot of it can probably be chalked up to be how fragmented Android has, and how the handset vendors block/break things like updates, but I'm not interested in trying to research my best fit, or fight my way through online resources. There's a handful of features that I'd definitely love s…

That's what's so attractive about this Nokia model in particular (and about other phones under the Android One designation): it has pure Android Pie, without crapware or half-assed vendor customizations, with guaranteed security and OS updates.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#202

Post by vfq »

m0zg wrote: post #134

Only Apple can name their phone "excess" and price it at $1k+ and still nobody catches on. For those able to count, that's _five times_ what a decent Android Pie handset costs (Nokia 6.1, $200) for nowhere near 5x difference in anything. In fact the Nokia has a phone jack and standard USB-C power. I've been iPhone user since iPhone 1, and I currently have iPhone 8, but even I am contemplating a switch.

The problem with those Android phones is that they run Android.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#203

Post by jdietrich »

interlocutor wrote: post #173

Apple's problem is that their rate of innovation has slowed down. iPhone generates over a 100 Billion dollars in revenue. Per year. If any company has the resources to innovate it is Apple. Apple, here are some free ideas. Some of these ideas go beyond the phone and into cell networks. If Google can do that ( https://fi.google.com ) why can't Apple? - Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell…

>Fix design. Fire Jony Ive's a$$ and hire some real designers.

I think that's almost certainly unfair on Ive. I do strongly suspect that Apple has a culture problem because of the secretive nature of their design lab. A very small team working in absolute secrecy enabled them to create disruptive new categories of product, but it carries a substantial risk of stagnation in the long term. It's difficult to sustain a culture of innovation when the flow of information is so strictly controlled. There's an inevitable risk of inadvertently fostering a yes-man culture, a risk well known to anyone who operates in a classified intelligence environment.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#204

Post by zapzupnz »

r00fus wrote: post #120
zapzupnz wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone I know In the grand scheme of things, and in the overall market, everyone you know still comes out to a rounding error. Don't get too caught up in anecdata. > I really feel like the XR is a repeat of the original iPhone 7 in that it's a phone with no target audience You're right, there. If people want a high-end iPhone, they'd get the XS. If they want a cheaper phone in the X form factor, they'd get an X.…

Force touch (at least as implemented in my iPhone 7+) is horrible. I can’t reliably use Trello to move cards or delete apps in home screen. The app shortcuts are nice but I made do without them for years and now I can invoke them from Siri anyway.

Re: deleting apps on the home screen. I initially had that problem. It's a question of not pushing hard when holding an app icon. Problem solved, reliable 100% once you've retrained your fingers. Not ideal, but there it is.

I use 3D/Force Touch a lot, mainly previewing documents or web pages — especially on Hacker News and reddit where I don't want to keep going back and forwards, potentially polluting my history list with rubbish links.

Aside from the gimmicky actions like shortcuts, it also lets art apps have a basic type of pressure sensitivity on iPhone. That's great for me because I sometimes do little touch-ups and sketches on my iPhone when my iPad+Pencil isn't near me.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#205

Post by llampx »

simonh wrote: post #181
interlocutor wrote: post #173

Apple's problem is that their rate of innovation has slowed down. iPhone generates over a 100 Billion dollars in revenue. Per year. If any company has the resources to innovate it is Apple. Apple, here are some free ideas. Some of these ideas go beyond the phone and into cell networks. If Google can do that ( https://fi.google.com ) why can't Apple? - Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell…

Yep, apart from the latest iPhones having the best screens ever, the quickest most convenient and most secure unlock mechanism ever, the best computational photography ever, the fastest mobile CPUs ever released and overall being 2+ years ahead of their nearest competition, that was all a few months ago. Old news. What have Apple done for us just now?

I think a lot of these superlatives are highly debatable, starting with the photography where Google and Huawei are currently leaders. For biometrics, for example, I prefer fingerprint readers over facial recognition and I'm not the only one. Newer Android phones are also coming with 3D facial recognition and sell for half the price, eg Xiaomi Mi 8. WRT CPUs, that's great that they're very fast but there's barely any software that uses that to the max, the same way practically every iPad Pro review complains that the A12X is held back by iOS.

On top of that, iPhones have suffered negative press about battery life and slowdowns from new OS updates -- iOS 12 fixes this but a lot of people may have been soured by the iOS 11 experience.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#206

Post by raverbashing »

jdietrich wrote: post #203
interlocutor wrote: post #173

Apple's problem is that their rate of innovation has slowed down. iPhone generates over a 100 Billion dollars in revenue. Per year. If any company has the resources to innovate it is Apple. Apple, here are some free ideas. Some of these ideas go beyond the phone and into cell networks. If Google can do that ( https://fi.google.com ) why can't Apple? - Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell…

>Fix design. Fire Jony Ive's a$$ and hire some real designers. I think that's almost certainly unfair on Ive. I do strongly suspect that Apple has a culture problem because of the secretive nature of their design lab. A very small team working in absolute secrecy enabled them to create disruptive new categories of product, but it carries a substantial risk of stagnation in the long term. It's difficult to sustain a c…

Ive is a great product designer.

His weak points seems to be:

- UX and Software design

- Better integration with hardware/physical needs (see overly bendy hardware, cables that fall apart, etc)

- (Maybe) Delegating and accepting new ideas

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#207

Post by lsc »

interlocutor wrote: post #173

Apple's problem is that their rate of innovation has slowed down. iPhone generates over a 100 Billion dollars in revenue. Per year. If any company has the resources to innovate it is Apple. Apple, here are some free ideas. Some of these ideas go beyond the phone and into cell networks. If Google can do that ( https://fi.google.com ) why can't Apple? - Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell…

>- Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell phones, yet half the time our cell phones don't work because we are inside a building or not close to a tower and so on. This needs to be fixed ASAP.

Everyone wants to buy the cheapest cellphone plan, then they complain when it doesn't work in buildings. Your location matters here, but at least in the more enclosed bars in san jose, AT&T and T-mobile are super unreliable; Verizon works fine.

I mean, I understand, I also want things that are good and cheap. And when you can get it, that's great. But I don't think this one is apple's fault.

My biggest complaint about the reception on my own cell is that if I'm within range of a wifi network I've connected to in the past, but that network is broken at the router at this moment? My phone keeps trying to use wifi rather than connecting to my cellular network.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#208

Post by llampx »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #177
allenleee wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summary of the tweets of Steven Sinofsky(1): 1- Pricing not only says who can afford your product but also establishes a brand, determines channel, & more. 2- The first key to having low priced offerings is that you have to have a set of partners who are willing to compete on thin margins in order to bring the product to market. 3- When people say Apple needs a cheaper phone there are many questions to answer beyond…

Considering Sinofsky's record, I wouldn't necessarily consider him a credible authority on this. There's an obvious difference between "a cheaper phone" and making the range as affordable as it was five years ago - instead of relying on so-called luxury branding while offering very little extra and annoying customers with product issues (missing headphone jack, BatteryGate, etc) and mediocre software updates. Apple d…

I used to love going to the Apple Store and playing with the new iPhones, iPads and Macbooks, especially soon after a new product launch. Maybe its just me getting older but it doesn't have the same appeal anymore.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#209

Post by Mindwipe »

jdietrich wrote: post #203
interlocutor wrote: post #173

Apple's problem is that their rate of innovation has slowed down. iPhone generates over a 100 Billion dollars in revenue. Per year. If any company has the resources to innovate it is Apple. Apple, here are some free ideas. Some of these ideas go beyond the phone and into cell networks. If Google can do that ( https://fi.google.com ) why can't Apple? - Improve cellular reception. We are now heavily reliant on our cell…

>Fix design. Fire Jony Ive's a$$ and hire some real designers. I think that's almost certainly unfair on Ive. I do strongly suspect that Apple has a culture problem because of the secretive nature of their design lab. A very small team working in absolute secrecy enabled them to create disruptive new categories of product, but it carries a substantial risk of stagnation in the long term. It's difficult to sustain a c…

I'm not even sure Ive does that much design any more day to day. But there's definitely issues piling up in that regard. The most notable Apple design of the last few years is the notch, and that's very much in the "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" category. Apple got what people liked about the Macbook Air so completely, totally wrong I'm baffled.

Apple's design lab used to be amazing at balancing usability vs design. It feels like that has tipped far too hard towards "thinner at any cost" as a design philosophy, and that's come at a cost of clean lines and product quality. The design lab doesn't need reigning in as such - Apple needs someone who can challenge them at a senior level and call them out, which Jobs did and it feels increasingly like nobody else has ever replaced.

Re: The Phone That’s Failing Apple: iPhone XR

#210

Post by dan-robertson »

pdpi wrote: post #193
jpatokal wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are all incremental improvements. Nobody's saying Apple's phones are bad, just that they lack compelling differentiators to other phones, including older iPhones.

Their SoCs are a massive differentiator. Unfortunately I don’t think the iPhone is in a good position to leverage that.

Having much better single core performance means the chips tend to be better at running (JS) websites. However most mobile websites are awful and full of “download our app” type popups/dark patterns that means “good at websites” isn’t really the advantage it ought to be. I suppose this also lets webview and JavaScript type “apps” work better.
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