I wonder if it's because I'm getting old and jaded, but I really fail to get excited by this continuous flow of new devices (and "stuff" in general). I could get a new iPhone from my company, but I don't even see the point.
Coming from a still enthusiastic tech person who loves iPhone, I don’t think it’s a you problem. This is clearly another S revision in all but name, for the second year in a row. I want to be excited but there’s nothing particularly compelling unless you’re coming from pre-2020 (or maybe pre-2019). I’m still loving my 12 mini and will probably use it for at least another year, maybe two.
Compelling upgrades would be: another small variant (or smaller than 14 pro at least), something foldable (maybe, if done really really well), significantly improved battery life, bike computer functionality (CarPlay for bikes), or significantly improved performance (in a few years, maybe the 12 mini will be noticeably slow in 2024).
The curse of releasing devices with hardware that’s 3-5 years ahead of the competition in delivered performance (not just feature checklists) is that unless you wait 4+ years, new models don’t always feel like upgrades.
I have iPhone 11 and I still don't think it is worth upgrading to 14 or 14Pro yet. I consider myself tech savvy person but I don't see a point to buy a new phone if my current phone takes good enough pics for myself and my family and friends to enjoy. Also if the speed of browsing web and opening and using apps is still good enough then what's the point of buying a new phone and polluting environment? As I see it, the latest iPhones are capable of at least 5 years of use and only may need to do is replace the battery once in that life span and I am happy with this approach.
I switched to 13 pro last year, and gave the 11 pro to my girlfriend.
There is a significant difference in cameras between the 11 and 13 - especially during the night photos. To the point where, in our case, I often need to tell my gf to use my camera for a shot when we’re together, because it will
be so much better.
If you take a lot of photos then for this reason alone it’s worth to upgrade imho.
One justification that I can see is the trade in values. Here in the US, you can get a "free" iPhone if you're on a specific plan. Might as well take it if you already have the plan.
How are you able to make your battery last so long? I have an iPhone 12, and up until 6 months ago the battery was easily making it through the end of the day, but now with the same usage pattern I’m charging by noon.
On the note of will it be “noticeably slow in 2024” I have to say you might not even notice.
I’m using an iPhone X here in 2022 and honestly other than the battery life being a bit lower than usual, the phone is super snappy, even on these latest iOS releases.
It’s basically 5 years old and it’s still doing amazingly well.
I have an X myself and decided to throw the towel this year. I'm out of memory with the 64GB and have to keep pushing 5 years worth of photos and messages out. I also had to replace the battery once already and had to replace the camera (wobbly lens, all of the sudden) too.
I had to replace the screen twice (first time under the extended warranty/recall, second time I had to pay; it just becomes unresponsive and you get locked out of the phone). To make matters worse, the new one is arriving on Friday and the screen stopped working again last Monday. More than 90 days passed since the previous repair, so nothing to do and I'm locked out of the phone again because you can only unlock iphones through the touchscreen.
The phone is everything but snappy these days. I don't have tons of apps, but it stutters significantly from time to time.
One detail, phone doesn't have one scratch and is in perfect condition outside. Dropped it very few times and it was always inside a good case.
Wait? That unresponsive time is from the screen?! I get that for a minute or so sometimes but then it goes away. I thought it was the iOS software glitching out. Is it maybe a faulty digitizer?
I luckily have only had to replace the battery once for a small cost out of warranty. My storage is 256 GB, so that isn’t an issue yet.
I’m going to go look into unresponsive iPhone X displays now cause I feel like I’m having the starting signs of this issue with mine. It’s not a huge issue, as it rarely happens, but I’m curious now.
Sorry to hear your phone is super slow. I have a slew of apps on mine and it behaves rather well for me. shrug
Well, the iphone 11’s CPU is roughly on par with the best the Android side can offer today. So it is not that surprising, especially given apple’s care for their older devices. Even an 8 is plenty fast/smooth for usage today.
I’ve leveled with myself that this is the pace of future mobile device hardware releases. “Peak phone” has been a topic of discussion for a while now. Are we there yet? I think so.
Apple has gotten a lot of flack for releasing “new” hardware and software features that aren’t really new or groundbreaking. I’m starting to see the genius in their planning. The slow trickle of improvements (I like how you call them “S revisions”) are for the sake of momentum, the long term survival of the company. Especially when Apple is already battling the longevity of their own products. I’m rounding off Year Two of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and will likely squeeze out a third year.
Not many people upgrade every year. Apple sells a ton of phones but most people keep them for 2 to 3 years, so it’s just a lot of people on a cycle.
If they only introduced a new phone every 2 to 3 years people might be tempted by the new stuff on other phones. Or you could buy a new phone (to you) that is actually a two year old design.
This way you always get the newest thing, even if it’s not significantly better than what you could’ve bought last year. But it’s a nice upgrade if you’ve waited two years, and for people who wait like 5+ years it’s incredible.
Pro features in a mini device (specifically, 120hz oled AOD). LiDAR with real applications. Non-emergency satellite use/oceanic connectivity. 30+ hour battery life. Extreme ruggedness (I wouldn't mind "portless" if it meant everlasting 50M waterproofing).
I haven't thought about "carplay for bikes" but as e-bikes get more sophisticated, it may make sense.
You probably wouldn't want to use an iphone for a bike computer anyway. The vibrations of being mounted to handle bars can apparently damage the cameras. Much better to just spend a small amount on an actual bike computer, these days they all connect to apps on your phone can can make use of real maps navigation and show notifications from your phone.
I’m thinking about the use case for normies who don’t picture anything when you say “bike computer”. There’d need to be solid ecosystem support - the device would need to be vibration hardened (I’m sure they could make $$$$ on that alone), there would need to be great mounting and charging options, a bike version of collision detection, bike-optimized turn-by-turn, and probably integration with bike telematics+rear collision systems, when that inevitably becomes a thing. It should probably double as a dash cam using the cool wide angle stuff they’ve shown with continuity camera.
Wouldn’t it be great if your phone could call 911 automatically when the guy rolling coal on you decides to just run you down?
See that would be an interesting feature to add. They have sensor-shift image stabilization and some sort of focusing, perhaps they could add a feature to lock all of that so it couldn’t be damaged by vibration while riding a bike.
I think it’s probably a case where they’d tell you to use the right tool for the job. The Apple Watch Ultra is their answer for fitness tracking which does everything you need for post ride analysis. It’s just missing all the live info you get from a bike computer.
But bike computers are likely always going to be nicer to use than a phone because part of what makes them good, makes them bad for normal phone usage. Their displays are quite washed out and dull but are extremely visible in direct sunlight while using minimal power.
Depends if you are delivering food or cycling for sport. The dedicated devices have extremely good battery life (around 20 hours screen on with gps), have connectivity for ANT+ accessories, have large physical buttons designed for use while cycling with gloves, have reflective displays with great visibility in the sun, etc.
Sure, you don’t _need_ them but they don’t cost very much compared to your other gear and the minor improvements stack up.
So the new Pro phones are capable of going down to 1 Hz refresh rate. I don’t know if the app has to opt into that but I don’t think so. My guess/hope would be that if you were not changing the image it would just slow down automatically, so perhaps things like the Kindle app would benefit without a change?
They didn’t have to manually opt into the 120 Hz smooth scrolling.
It’s still an emissive screen, but it’s better than an emissive screen that is refreshing 60 times a second.
The usual. Faster, better camera, the various new features like the satellite and emergency communications. The high refresh rate display might be a really good improvement.
The small upgrades build over the years, so you would notice a difference. But it’s nothing massive like when they went from LCD to OLED or added the plus size.
There’s nothing wrong with an 11 Pro. If it’s still working for you it’s perfectly reasonable.
As a ~normal person who uses their phone at least 4 hours per day, it's the single most important tech device in my life. I enjoy getting the best thing out there every upgrade cycle (2 years). The progress feels incremental, but going back and using an n-1 gen phone reminds me how much slower things were. All of those extra half-second waits between interactions add up, and I enjoy having a quality camera with me wherever I go. There are also things like phone speaker quality that while hard to objectively measure and promote, have really improved over the years to the point where I don't hate doing things like watching educational or fun YouTube videos in bed in the morning.
Are you sure those half-second lags were there when it was new, or it’s just software becoming more inefficjent as usual, as newer models set a new performance baseline?
I don’t think any of the apps truly make an iphone from the last 4-5 years sweat at all - I would even question the “lag” parent commenter claims. It’s just probably a psychological effect of the new being better + promotion does make everything appear smoother.
This is generally my attitude towards OS software updates, previously a topic I’d follow closely. I get where you’re coming from!
My interest in hardware revisions has only grown in recent years, particularly in mobile devices. I’m not gonna go rush off and buy a new iPhone, I’m quite pleased with my 13 Pro Max and upgrading now would feel horribly wasteful. But I’m continually awed by advancements in mobile camera technology, and whenever I do upgrade it feels as much like magic as when I got my first newer game console (NES -> SNES) as a kid. But to be clear, my interest here is almost completely in the camera, and I pretty much view my phone as a really nice camera with convenient computing and network affordances included for some almost inexplicable reason.
To a lesser extent, recent advances in chips has also had me pining to upgrade a perfectly good laptop which again would feel wasteful to do now, but I expect when the time comes it’ll feel similarly revelatory even if that’s more incremental just because I’ve been upgrading the same sorts of things for much longer.
It’s okay, probably even good, that you don’t feel the same way about the device upgrade treadmill. A slower upgrade cycle would be objectively good for a lot of more important things. I’m not going to try to convince you a new iPhone is something you should want even for “free”. Just offering personal perspective why I find the new one exciting even if I’ll skip it.
My family is excited for it simply because of the hand-me-down supply chain - someone gets a new phone, someone else a few hops down gets a gently used iPhone X and we donate/sell a still functional iPhone6s.
Meant to mention this in my comment. Oftentimes when I feel compelled to upgrade sooner than I need to, I know that someone in my family or community will benefit from getting the device I no longer need. Often much more, maybe for much longer, than I’ll benefit from a purely as-needed upgrade formula.
I agree… but I also think it’s a great sign of slow but steady progress. The kind that will really standout in a few years. Comparing todays phone camera to a 2010 phone, makes me feel pretty good
I helped someone upgrade from an iPhone 7 to a 13 Mini. They’re both basically the same physical size. But it’s night and day.
The 13 is DRASTICALLY faster. The OLED screen looks far far better than the old LCD, and because the chin and forehead are gone it’s significantly bigger despite the similar case size. The 13‘s battery life is supposed to be significantly better despite more demanding software than the 7’s battery life was when it was brand new. The cameras are barely comparable quality wise.
That’s a top end 2016 phone compared to a medium+ end 2021 phone. And the difference is incredible.
If you go back to 2010 that would’ve been the first retina phone, the iPhone 4. With it’s little 3.5” display. At this point it almost looks like a different device.
5 years is quite significant and I would say that the progress reached a steady point around 2-3 years ago. There was likely much more difference between the 7 and the X than between the latter and 13
If you don’t benefit from the upgrades, of course you aren’t excited about them. If you do benefit from them, it’s more exciting.
I was excited when I got the iPhone 13 Pro because of the LiDAR ToF sensor and being able to utilize Apple’s new object capture API. I was also excited to have a zoom lens, as my old phone (iPhone 7) did not have one. These were all things I had a clear use case for, so it makes sense I was excited for the upgrade.
I think it’s okay to not be excited when you don’t have a reason to be. Don’t assume that means you’re old and jaded.
The average person doesn't get hyped up over it every year either, but once you are 3-4 years behind, the latest one looks real nice. I'm on the 13 pro and the 14 pro is not compelling but stack up a few years of the same scale of upgrades and I'll be sold.
I like to use and have my close friends and family use the newest possible iPhones. The reason is that they collect photos and video of each other and in some cases these will be looked at or treasured for years to come.
I have a pal who has a baby coming and I reminded him to make sure he gets his iPhone upgrade program replacement done in time.
My mom's partner, I ask him to keep his updated because these are photos and video of my mom who won't be here forever.
Not only do these devices capture the most consistent, high fidelity data, you almost have to try to screw up having the data automatically backed up.
The cost of keeping the devices updated is relatively low, and the device switch process has improved __every__ year.
New devices require new OS's which get the most attention and latest patches, etc.
But if you have an iPhone 12 or 13 you don’t need a 14 to capture all those moments. The cameras don’t differ that much and the os archiving and viewing features are the same.
I went from the 13 pro to the 14 pro and the video and photo quality is already clearly much higher.
The device is zippier, and the 13 was no slouch. Using a 12 or as other commenter said XS, there are delays and moments get missed waiting for the device.
I contend it makes horse sense to keep people you care about on the newest iPhone. In all liklihood they spend large amount of time using the device anyway, they might as well have the best display and other features as well.
What? My Xs is able to capture 4K 60fps video just fine and has a perfectly good camera and runs the new iOSs just fine. Having THE newest iPhone is hardly a requirement. My phone gets the same patches and security updates as any other iPhone
Yep, you're old and jaded. I can relate. iPhones and almost all of their features are old news and they're mostly pushing iterative updates or advanced features most people don't have a use for yet (satellite connectivity).
Still fantastic technology no doubt, but certainly not the wow of 10 years ago.
I don’t read it as outrage but rather lamenting how developments used to feel more fun and exciting when the phones were new (whether buying them or not).
Besides getting jaded, this feeling is maybe the case with any maturing technology. PC developments in the 90s were crazy year to year, and now I don’t bother to follow the scene.
If being skeptical of technological advancement identified as such isn’t a hallmark of HN, nothing is IME. So much so that it has a reputation for being aggressively unkind and judgemental. But GP was neither.
Maybe he is here to be curious about why other people get excited…
I know I am excited for when stable diffusion/DALLE level manipulation is built into the photo app and iMovie to compile cinema level clips while I sleep.
