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US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

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Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#141

Post by alexdbird »

bitsandboots wrote: post #100
drcongo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lower end iPhone still outperforms the higher end Android.

In what? What are you doing that hasn't become so fast it's imperceptibly different on all modern phones? They all seem to text, browse, email, and play media at the required FPS and load time to me. Yes I have seen synthetic benchmarks. But, they haven't had any relevance to what I do on my phone since like 2012, so I'm wondering what other people are doing?

The performance becomes more relevant when it's running the latest OS update over 5 years later. Software only ever gets heavier, as a rule.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#142

Post by gcbirzan »

runako wrote: post #109
didntcheck wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp takes about two clicks to setup. My 60 year old and generally technophobic mum and all her friends have managed to set it up and use it themselves (including group chats and profile pictures)

> mum This is perhaps a giveaway that you're not in the US, where WhatsApp is generally not something people use to communicate. (Anecdotally, I have seen it primarily used among people who have families outside the US.) FaceTime, on the other hand, is widely used here.

But he was talking about how hard it is to set up, not whether people use it.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#143

Post by sebzim4500 »

duskwuff wrote: post #120
sho_hn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both types of phones, an Android one privately and an iPhone for work, and in direct comparison I honestly prefer the Android user experience. It's not that I love Android, but the iPhone feels so often clunky to me. - There's a greater reliance on gesture-based tricks, which I find unintuitive and undiscoverable - I often feel stressed when using the iPhone because I can't figure out how to do basic things wh…

> There's the green bar at the top indicating I'm still in the call, but I cannot figure out how to get back to it. You may be overthinking things. Just tap the bar. :)

If I were in the situation the guy described I definitely would have tried swiping down and then got confused when that didn't work. I guess I'd eventually try tapping it.

I haven't used iOS in years though, maybe if I was used to it then tapping would have been my first impulse. Do you often have to tap on the top/bottom of the screen to do things?

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#144

Post by meepmorp »

joelfried wrote: post #112
meepmorp wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, outside of the tech world, nobody really cares about USB-C - or at least - not enough to drive upgrades. It's just what one end of the power cord looks like.

For people who already have USB-C phones and are considering switching it means "All of the cords you have right now will still be useful", which is a definite improvement over "All of the cords you have right now are junk you will throw away and have to replace with new cords". I'm not trying to say that will drive massive upgrades in and of itself, but I can definitely see it being a nice-to-have at the margins and…

I'd think most potential upgrades to the next iPhone would be current iPhone users. If anything, I think the switch to USB-C would be a deterrent to people who are sensitive to cord changes.

I don't understand the need to have a single connector vs a block with interchangeable cords, but I also don't care that much about it so I might be missing something.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#145

Post by rifty »

throw9away6 wrote: post #49
thedriver wrote: post #41

iPhones end up being cheaper in the long run. They get software updates much longer than almost any Android phone, and at least here even small cities have local shops that repair them. It's also just a superior user experience. I wish they kept on making the mini models though. I'm using a 13 mini, which has been really nice. Most modern smartphones are uncomfortable to carry in the front pocket of slim pants.

A lot of mobile sites break on the mini phones it’s a huge hassle. Would not recommend. I have one and that’s my biggest gripe with it. There are restaurants I can’t checkout at for example because the button is stuck just below the fold and I can’t scroll to click it due to shitty ui

I've found just setting the browser to always load sites at 75% zoom solves a lot of these issues. There is also the option 'Hide Toolbar' behind the 'aA' button on Safari which also helps as well

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#146

Post by Jtsummers »

duskwuff wrote: post #120
sho_hn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both types of phones, an Android one privately and an iPhone for work, and in direct comparison I honestly prefer the Android user experience. It's not that I love Android, but the iPhone feels so often clunky to me. - There's a greater reliance on gesture-based tricks, which I find unintuitive and undiscoverable - I often feel stressed when using the iPhone because I can't figure out how to do basic things wh…

> There's the green bar at the top indicating I'm still in the call, but I cannot figure out how to get back to it. You may be overthinking things. Just tap the bar. :)

Also works for maps which also adds an indicator in the status bar. Very handy.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#147

Post by dopamean »

djhworld wrote: post #131

I'm thinking of making the switch to iPhone this year once the USB-C model comes out Whether I regret it, not sure, I mean Android isn't _that_ bad really and the Samsung phones are good, but I think Apple have nailed the ecosystem thing a lot better than what google have.

I made the switch at the end of 2021 after only having an android phone since the very first one. I wouldn't say I regret the change but I would say I'm not impressed. The way so many of my friends mocked me for having an android phone and talked up their iphones made me think I _must_ be missing something. Alas, I don't feel that I was. Every once in a while I boot up my old android phone (oneplus 6) and use it and it's snappier than I remember and feels way better in my hand than my iphone does.

I kinda want to go back but we'll see.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#148

Post by jwells89 »

vanilla_nut wrote: post #35
sho_hn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung also makes quite a few phones with decent cameras. Are you saying the SE2 specifically fills a hole in their line-up?

Long support (5+ years), physical first-party stores for support every 100ish miles in the USA, compatibility with Apple's proprietary iMessage and FaceTime protocols. An OS that's generally considered easier to use, with more walls in place to protect users from malware. A simple $400ish price point. Not a huge difference from Samsung's cheaper offerings on paper, but a lot of little things that add up to a better e…

Also, entry level iPhones and iPads don't have anemic SoCs. They're just a generation or so behind what gets put in the flagship Pro models, which are still more powerful than what you'll find in many less-than-flagship Android phones.

I have an upper-entry-level Android tablet I bought for development/testing which has a price that's within spitting distance of that of a refurbished iPad, and it's stunning that something as weak as the SoC it's built with is on store shelves in 2023. It lags and stutters all over the place, and even an entry level iPad from 4 years ago carrying around the extra weight of the latest version of iPadOS would destroy it in terms of performance.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#149

Post by Jtsummers »

sebzim4500 wrote: post #143
duskwuff wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's the green bar at the top indicating I'm still in the call, but I cannot figure out how to get back to it. You may be overthinking things. Just tap the bar. :)

If I were in the situation the guy described I definitely would have tried swiping down and then got confused when that didn't work. I guess I'd eventually try tapping it. I haven't used iOS in years though, maybe if I was used to it then tapping would have been my first impulse. Do you often have to tap on the top/bottom of the screen to do things?

You aren't really tapping on the top/bottom of the screen in an arbitrary way. There's a green oval indicator that you're on a call (or a blue oval if you have map navigation as I mentioned in my sibling post to yours). You tap on that indicator. It's been that way for years now. Perhaps it's not the most intuitive, but it's not totally unintuitive and it makes a lot more sense to tap an indicator object than to try swiping randomly.

Re: US smartphone shipments fall sharply, but Android more than iPhone

#150

Post by macintosh-hd »

meepmorp wrote: post #46
tiahura wrote: post #23

I wonder if the 15 and USB-C might be a surprisingly big upgrade driver?

IMO, outside of the tech world, nobody really cares about USB-C - or at least - not enough to drive upgrades. It's just what one end of the power cord looks like.

We're about a decade out from them changing from 30 pin to lightning and I still occasionally hear someone complaining about apple "always changing the charging cable" so I imagine it's actually going to piss off the general public.
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