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New iPhone SE

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Re: New iPhone SE

#731

Post by octocop »

andrepd wrote: post #214

I was itching for this announcement, not because I want to buy an iPhone, but because this will finally mean other manufacturers will start to make compact phones. It drives me up the wall that I simply cannot find a reasonably competent phone (i.e. mid/upper range from the past 4 years) which is not absolutely fucking huge. It's insane that the "phablet" standard from ~5 years ago is now not even the new standard, b…

This has me furious, i've used the other iPhone SE before and the size is perfect.

Re: New iPhone SE

#732

Post by camelNotation »

Razengan wrote: post #709
spurgu wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's insane that the "phablet" standard from ~5 years ago is now not even the new standard, but the only standard. Utterly insane. I replaced my SE with a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact yesterday. It has a 5" screen and decent specs (2018 flagship). About as small as you can get a mobile nowadays, sadly. And wow how I've missed Android, the UX is soooo much better in most aspects. I can't believe I was stuck with iOS (as…

> And wow how I've missed Android, the UX is soooo much better in most aspects. iOS has its problems, but every time I have to handle somebody's Android (i.e. to help them do something faster than telling them), I want to give it back as quickly as possible.

I feel the same way when someone hands me an iPhone. In 2020, the operating systems are equally capable and refined, it's just a question of what you're used to. If you had a great Android phone for a few months, you'd probably be just as comfortable with it as you are an iPhone.

When someone asks me what phone to buy, my answer is always "what phone do you have now?" because frankly, there is no reason to switch from one to the other. It's just a waste of time and energy to go through that.

Re: New iPhone SE

#733

Post by coder543 »

benbristow wrote: post #697
coder543 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22879752 There are plenty of reasons to dislike the new iPhone SE, but I don't think lack of 5G should be one.

4G around the UK is pretty grim. I struggle to get any signal in the centre of Glasgow, especially around the Central train station. Even on 3G. Anything that helps is welcome.

I don’t see how 5G would help with that... that sounds like a carrier problem, not an LTE problem.

In my personal (and possibly wrong) opinion, even a very popular train station shouldn’t have enough people to oversubscribe the LTE airwaves and cause signal congestion.

The Atlanta airport has 3x to 4x as many passengers per year as Glasgow central station, and I’ve never had trouble getting good, solid cellular connection when I’m there... so I don’t think the number of people in close proximity is causing oversubscription of the airwaves.

The carrier you use probably hasn’t put up enough towers, or the towers just don’t have enough backhaul bandwidth to do anything useful.

Re: New iPhone SE

#734

Post by fjni »

The 5/5s/SE form factor is beautiful. Why mess with it? Give me upgraded internals on that and I’ll buy it immediately. It feels a bit like they have to justify to themselves that they’re doing work by proverbially and literally smoothing out the edges until all phones just look alike.

Re: New iPhone SE

#735

Post by 0ld »

mng2 wrote: post #672
dagrha wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice choice on the XZ2. Like you I picked up a phone from the Xperia line. It's an older model than yours, namely the Z1 Compact, which I chose after filtering for form factor, LineageOS support, and price. I wrote about it here: https://hallau.world/post/the-perfect-android-phone/

Wow, the Z1C is pretty old. Do you have any trouble with battery life? I used to run a Z3C, but after some of the seals got loose I upgraded to an XZ1C. It's near perfect for me, and I don't know where I'm going to go next for a compact phone.

> Wow, the Z1C is pretty old. Do you have any trouble with battery life?

z1c battery is cheap and not too hard to replace. all you need is a hair drier, credit card and adhesive to stick the back cover again.

i’ve replaced mine in like 10 minutes after watching instruction on yt

Re: New iPhone SE

#736

Post by hombre_fatal »

dijit wrote: post #446
koheripbal wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...as someone who absolutely loves big phones - I am on the other side of this argument. I read and watch shows on my phone constantly, and screen size is a major factor for me. I specifically buy clothes with larger pockets to accommodate. I agree that choice would be better - but I imagine that economies of scale sometimes means having only one size for everyone if you want to keep them cheaper than the competition…

Here's the rub; I'm glad you have your fill of phones to choose from. But consider that I (and many others) have nothing. If the situation was reversed I would not argue against larger phones, in fact, I was part of that generation when the iPhone 4, 4s, 5 et al. were being released and over in Android Land the OnePlus One was coming out (legitimately called a Phablet)- I welcomed the choice. It wasn't for me of cour…

Did I really just read this?

You're upset that someone likes big phones because there are so many big phones?

This is really one of the most bizarre comments I've seen on this website.

We're not talking about rationing our food resources during a great depression where someone chimed in with "but I like excess rations!" while you get none. Nobody here has the power to change the size of manufactured phones with their two cent internet comments. What's the emotional bargaining for?

I really hope we can find a way to move beyond our hysterical fixation on gadgets and their grapple over our happiness. It's just a phone. It's just a laptop. It's just a smart toaster.

Re: New iPhone SE

#738

Post by baxuz »

wiremine wrote: post #397
ivraatiems wrote: post #64

As a current iPhone SE user, here's my assessment: Pros: * Feature set in terms of processor, camera, etc., is exactly what I want * Continued presence of Touch ID is a huge plus, I don't like Face ID * Price point is, admittedly, fantastic Cons: * Lack of headphone jack is still unacceptable * Form factor is, candidly, still too big for my tiny hands * Color schemes aren't as nice as the SE's (can I contribute to CO…

> Lack of headphone jack is still unacceptable I think I'm in the minority, but I haven't really missed the headphone jack in my iPhone 11. I have the Echo earbuds, and those have been good to great for my use cases. This continues to feel a bit like the 3.5 floppy and CD-ROM removals from the Mac: a lot of people hated it, until it was a nonissue.

Bluetooth earphones mic quality is absolute ass, and has huge delay. You can tell who has bluetooth earphones (no matter the brand) on every call.

Re: New iPhone SE

#739

Post by amatecha »

Huh this is interesting. It looks totally indiscernible from the iPhone 8 I'm using now. I guess it's got a better processor though, at least :)

Re: New iPhone SE

#740

Post by totalZero »

graeme wrote: post #584
totalZero wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if a major world event convinced Apple management to optimize their product line for consumers who have less money to spend on devices. Not sure what could have caused that, though.

This has been in the works for a year or two at least. Hardware cycles don’t happen in weeks.

It is not a coincidence that MSRP is announced at a "sane price point" (uncommon for Apple, which sells a monitor stand for $1000) right when the mobile phone market shrinks.

Apple's mobile handset prices have been cut by 10% or more in China. In the US, new iPad Pro and Macbook Air prices have been discounted about 20% by authorized retailers and new old stock of the fully loaded MBP15 was discounted 35% by Best Buy a couple of days ago.

Apple typically reports a profit margin of about 1/3 for its devices on average, and 2/3 for its services. My understanding based on gross margin numbers from competitors is that handsets fall on the higher side of that average, and PCs on the lower side. In times when consumer demand for devices is expected to be price-elastic (eg when 15 million Americans get laid off in the span of three weeks and vast numbers of people are staying home so they don't need to replace mobile devices as frequently), margin can come down to increase unit sales and optimize net profit.

Handsets are not sold in a free market; prices are set by Apple and its partners. If they don't bring the price down, there are some consumers who will say "this is nice; I want it, but I can't afford it right now." That cohort of near-miss buyers would constitute a deadweight loss -- an inefficiency between supply and demand, caused by the pricing scheme set by Apple itself.

You can entice those shoppers to buy anyway (ie, eliminate the market inefficiency) by reducing the price. Pricing products expensively to widen gross margins works to increase profit in a time when demand is strong, but when demand is depressed and consumer discretionary spending becomes scarce, prices must come down to optimize for the new demand picture.

On a separate note, this particular device re-uses many components from past Apple devices (as did the previous SE), so you ought to differentiate the timespan of its development cycle from a new flagship handset for which a new processor is developed and most third-party components are being implemented for the first time.

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