New iPhone SE • Hacker News Board

Re: New iPhone SE

#871

Post by SECProto » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:27 AM UTC

kdtsh wrote: post #868

People will get it or they won’t, the HN crowd is probably a fairly small demographic compared to who Apple is trying to gear this towards: people who want an affordable, new iPhone. For my part (SE user of 2 years, and before that a 5s user), this fits my needs pretty well, and it’s got the latest hardware. The lack of a headphone jack was always going to happen, that’s just the way of the world and nothing will cha…

> The lack of a headphone jack was always going to happen, that’s just the way of the world and nothing will change it

I just got a Galaxy s10e which has both a headphone jack and an SD card slot. I choose to purchase phones that have the things I need in a phone.

(If I were committed to the apple ecosystem, I'd get one of these new SEs because of the smaller form factor and lower price.)

Re: New iPhone SE

#872

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #854

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well. This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse…

[deleted]

Re: New iPhone SE

#873

Post by adtac » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:29 AM UTC

mleonhard wrote: post #870

Apple's side-by-side comparison shows that their new phone is essentially an iPhone 8 with a newer CPU. https://www.apple.com/iphone/compare/?device1=iphone8&device...

iPhone 8: Lasts about the same as iPhone 7

iPhone SE (2nd gen): Lasts about the same as iPhone 8

Hahaha

Re: New iPhone SE

#874

Post by bruxis » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:34 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #854

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well. This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse…

I'm not sure why you cite Japan as an outlier regarding size preferences and smaller-than-average hand sizes, which I generally do not believe to be true and could not find any hard data to cite (source: I live there).

Regardless, the iPhone SE did not sell _as_ well in Japan due to a variety of factors, not the least of which being that the iPhone 7 introduced built-in Suica support.

Suica is a mobile cash card technology used at stations for transit, convenience stores and restaurants for purchasing, and vending machines -- among others. Given the lack of support by many credit cards for Apply Pay in Japan (for example, you cannot add a Visa card to your iPhone due to JP-specific Visa restrictions), it's no surprise that this was a major selling point of newer models.

In my opinion, manufacturers have not provided a high-end, small form factor device to sufficiently test the markets. Without doing so, it's too easy for people to make the claim that people have already voted with their wallets for larger phones. I sincerely hope the rumors of a 5.4" iPhone 12 are true (as it should be somewhere between iPhone 5 and 6 form factors, from what I gather).

Re: New iPhone SE

#875

Post by mettamage » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:43 AM UTC

justinator wrote: post #858

ksec wrote: post #854

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well. This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse…

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. I'm surprised about 1100+ comments, since this is, you know: just another phone

No it's not. The HN crowd has a vocal group of people who advocate for phones like the iPhone SE. The main complaint of this group is that other phones are too big. So a new release of the SE brings a lot of hope for extending that experience.

The fact that this phone is bigger doesn't sit well with this vocal minority, because they want a small smartphone and now see that medium is the only available in stock.

Expectation, expectation, expectation. It's being shattered, that leads to emotions and that leads to comments.

I'm also not too happy about the new SE, if you search my comment history I don't think you see me talking about it, but I'm in the same camp. I think other phones are preposterously big, and the SE is the only normal one.

Alas, the new SE is not normal for me. Going back to a dumber phone is now something I have to consider more seriously. I don't want my pockets to bulge out and I want to handle my phone with one hand without straining it. The old iPhone SE was perfect for that. I have pretty tall hands but with the iPhone 8, it didn't strain but felt clumsy (and I use the device quite often in order to help my grandparents with their iPhone 8).

I hope I gave you some insight into the marketing persona of people who want the old iPhone SE to come back and how that persona is well represented on HN.

Re: New iPhone SE

#876

Post by zanderwohl » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:43 AM UTC

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 think one of the main problems with Android is how _varied_ different versions are. When I pick up anyone's iPhone I find it equally easy to do everything. Even when I had an Android, picking up anyone else's phone and trying to change settings (you know, being the only computer person around, I had to help people fix problems) was an enormous difficulty. Just because I had figured out my phone well didn't mean I could even find the same setting on someone else's phone. It's been a few yeas - it may be more standard by now.

Re: New iPhone SE

#877

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:51 AM UTC

mtzaldo wrote: post #399

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…

Try the pixel 3a

[deleted]

Re: New iPhone SE

#878

Post by viraptor » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:52 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #854

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well. This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse…

> This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse which requires JS processing.

I'm not sure this is impacted by the CPU speed really for many reasons.

1. For a popular app, you can't target the latest / the best model. We already cycle through the phones less often than a few years ago. By the time this gets to become popular, other phones will have comparable speed.

2. Developers will work both ways: To speed up the current code, (positive impact) and to add more features (negative impact).

If JS is required, people will find solutions. If JS is not enough, we'll get native apps. Current speedups in raw CPU are meh.

Re: New iPhone SE

#879

Post by reaperducer » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

touristtam wrote: post #622

reaperducer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can I contribute to COVID-19 research without getting a bright red phone? Yes. Write a check. Mail the check. Done.

What's with the US and Checks? Can your financial institution not get on with the time and offer internet/mobile banking? Not to be an arse but it seems very backward in many ways.

Not to be an arse

Too late.

but it seems very backward in many ways.

In America we have both checks and online banking. It seems very backwards to have only one method of doing things.

A single point of failure is a hallmark of a bad system.

Re: New iPhone SE

#880

Post by JoshuaRLi » Thu, Apr 16, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #854

1163 Comment right now, ~800 Are about Size of Devices. I thought there was another important point. The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well. This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse…

Yes. I've long been impressed with the single core performance and power efficiency of apple's mobile SoCs. Same-generation SoCs used on a variety of androids can't even compare. Google Maps for example was running like total shit on my old Galaxy S6, switched to iPhone SE (2016) and never looked back.

Really exciting times where an A9-based quality handset can be had for ~$60 on eBay. I expect prices will fall a bit further with this new SE model. And yes, the A9 is completely viable in 2020. Planning on holding onto it for as long as reasonably possible.