Comparing with laptops isn't really a fair game, as they have stopped adding features for years and simply improve on speed. Smartphones are in the middle of a very strong development curve, where we find ourselves with portable computing platform we haven't yet figured out all possibilities of.
Clearly, other companies are prepared to ship with less preparation than Apple, but Apple would not have been where they are with the iPhone if their only reasoning was to "deliver a faster replacement phone at the end of contract". They innovated on iOS, app-marketplace, Siri (still being worked on...) and Airplay, to mention a few. All of them replacing similar too-early-too-crappy competitor innovations.
That the iPhone 5 did not add "one more thing" either means Apple does not think it's necessary (exposing themselves, like Nokia did, to the risk of the "next Apple" showing up with a great re-innovation), or because they couldn't get it done in time or with the technology available (which means they should invest more in R&D - they can afford it).
I'm very happy Apple both innovates and puts the bar high - I'd rather have good NFC from Apple than ok NFC from Google. It's good for users. For the time being, I will give them the benefit of the doubt that the new stuff - NFC, fingerprint, new batteries, etc - is simply not mature enough yet. But if Apple stops trying, they won't be able to sustain their curve. Android is already grabbing most new users - at which point will they start grabbing iPhone users?
>Comparing with laptops isn't really a fair game, as they have stopped adding features for years and simply improve on speed. Smartphones are in the middle of a very strong development curve, where we find ourselves with portable computing platform we haven't yet figured out all possibilities of.
This isn't entirely true. Apple themselves have improved things a bit with the Macbook Air, reducing weight and improving battery life to a ridiculous degree. They've also added the retina displays to their higher end macbooks. Even some of the functionality you mention in phones (such as airplay) has been put into these devices.
"They also compromised on materials. Instead of the glass-backed iPhone 4S, which looked beautiful but was thick and heavy, we now get an aluminum housing, which scratches and scuffs easily and visibly — something Apple reassuringly tells us is “normal.”"
I'd say this is an improvement on the old design. Though not as pretty, it's more durable and lighter. Shattering the glass is a common and expensive problem for customers. It's nice to have one less fragile item on this expensive device.
Out of left field contrarian thought: Is it conceivable at all that one day these scratches and scuff marks could be considered cool? In fact, could they one day become so cool that we'd get pre-scuffed iPhones? Happened to clothing... :) Probably not, but I thought it was a fun thought.
I doubt it but you never know. However the original iPhone's aluminum back scuffed too, and it never bothered me one bit. Same with my iPad. I expect it will be a bit more noticible on the 5 as I got the black one, but at the end of the day I have much more important things to think about than some scratched aluminum.
More to the point, Apple tends to go for simple design and ignores fashion trends. They have the colored iPods but that's more to appeal to kids and people that want a little more personalization rather than because yellow and green are in.
Also, I'm going to slap the next pundit that refers to this as "scuffgate". Protip, guys: Watergate was a proper noun, not a random mashing-together of words.
I was thinking the same thing. And it's even more of an improvement when you consider who the smartphone customer base is spreading to. Out of all the tradesmen I know, I don't think any of them have owned an iPhone that wasn't shattered on at least one side.
It also fulfills the 'bar of soap' design strategy, wherein, after time, users become less and less enamoured by their 'personal' device, because of the little knicks and dents and impersonal scratches and so on .. leading to 'upgrade desire' when the next model is released.
Its not designed obsolescence, but rather a triggering with our general Western inclination to eschew any flaws in what is usually an extremely personal, desired object: the bar of soap.
The more our gadgets progress towards 'soap' in terms of physical usability, the more this factor comes into the design. Slight dings in perfect surfaces beget more dings, until eventually the device requires replacement..
I never expected to read an article urging a technology company to hold back on innovation. This is really the saddest piece I've read in a while (meatspace news included).
The author has some very misguided assumptions beyond the fallacy of the general idea:
1. Apple is not the only game in town: Android is gaining market share (and not just on the low end devices, either), Jelly Bean is fantastic. Nexus 7 has converted few loyal Apple fans around me already.
2. Apple needs an appealing device to get the masses to buy new phones: they can't pull another 4S. Has to have a significant enough change to get the sales they are after (and frankly, expected to deliver). The 5 is a very good compromise between not alienating existing iPhone users and catering to the owners of the 4S.
3. The screen size of the iPhone was no longer competitive. The market clearly wants larger displays and there's only so much that people are willing to overlook to remain with their favorite ecosystem.
Apple won consumers by radical innovation, disruption in its fullest sense. Apple has proved that you don't make middle of the road products to appeal to all users, but rather that you can actively reeducate the general population using wonderful products.
Just 5 years ago, an iPhone-like device would have been considered an overly technological and complicated relic with usage far removed from anything in the market, and here it is used by elders. This is not because Apple (well, Steve) aimed at what the general population wanted, but because they gave users something exciting and useful, and everyone embraced it.
This quote is usually attributed to Henry Ford - "If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse"
Apple shouldn't be giving us better horses, or locomotives or even cars. They should be giving us wonderfully designed and greatly usable spaceships that just work.
Comparing the iPhone to what we imagine Apple might do is just lazy and self indulgent.
Or you could instead compare it to the competition and realize Apple is leaving a lot of interesting and useful features on the table. The new hardware is nice but the software is either sitting still or actively regressing.
We don't have to imagine what a more innovative mobile UI would look like because they already exist.
> ... the software is either sitting still or actively regressing
The software isn't just bundled applications, you know. It's the OS APIs and what 3rd party application developers can do. iOS 5 and 6 are both great leaps for iOS. It still lacks many features, like "intents", but calling iOS 5 or 6 "actively regressing" is more than hyperbole.
The "actively regressing" part I can only presume is a jab at Maps - which honestly is a huge capability regression for the end user.
And as an iOS dev I'd argue that the API advancements between iOS5 and 6 are fairly minor in comparison to the pace that Google is moving at.
I'm an iOS user, and my living comes from Apple's platform dominance, and even I will gladly admit that Apple has lost the initiative. Google now leads the pack in unearthing the next step in the smartphone evolution.
I will gladly admit that Apple has lost the initiative.
Yep, as unlikely as that seemed even a year ago. I've been doing iOS dev for the last 1.5 years too but I'm cross-training on Android now because the momentum there is just too huge to ignore.
Android had market-share, but will you get paying customers? Every article I've ever read on the subject is that iOS customers are far more willing to pay for apps than android users.
Of course, if you're making a companion app for some other service which makes money it's largely irrelevant, but numbers alone don't tell the whole story.
> "Android had market-share, but will you get paying customers?"
The age of direct app sales being profitable enough to float a startup are long over. iOS users are still massively outspending Android users, but overall profitability has sunk like a brick on both platforms over time.
Like you said, "companion apps" and games are pretty much the only viable routes now. Direct app sales at this point in the market's lifetime is a great way to make a modest pittance and then be committed to support forever.
I very much doubt this, but if it is true I am glad you are moving to Android—I wouldn't want to use any app developed by a person who hates Apple that much.
Certainly. Comparing with Android, iOS is not moving that fast. But they're improving iOS as well, not rapidly, but steadily. ARC, storyboards, better and easier core data support (now with iCloud), new CoreImage APIs, etc. are all nice additions. And, being able to customize the look and feel without a million lines of code (Appearance framework) is certainly a major improvement. Life is quite good if you want to support only iOS 5 and 6!
(Again: I'm not arguing that you're wrong, you and I are both in an understanding! I just wanted to point these out in case someone who isn't an iOS programmer gets the impression that as cageface was implying (in humor, as you said) that the APIs are really regressing)
> The "actively regressing" part I can only presume is a jab at Maps - which honestly is a huge capability regression for the end user.
Here I can finally have detailed, reliable and readable traffic information. Google Maps one was hard to read, and often simply wrong, while now I get much better coverage in all of time, space, and information (not only traffic jams but road work and accidents). Also now the official city's app for transit will be able to plug itself into Maps.app. I'm still looking into what I have lost.
Now, if you're willing to talk about the iTunes Match mess that came to be in Music.app, well yes, this is a huge regression. For those that missed it, Match is now stream+cache, and optionally download — really, force cache — whole albums, and can't delete anything except by obliterating the whole music library at once, or disabling Match. Previously it was brilliant and missed just the ability to stream without downloading. Now I might just as well stick with Spotify.
>New-feature lust is a phenomenon driven by the tiny minority of people who make their livings writing about technology...
>We advocate Google’s augmented reality glasses not because we’ve analyzed the consumer marketplace and considered human psychology ...
>No, we advocate them because we’re bored, and we want to try them ourselves.
Respect to Mike Elgan for breaking out of the normal tech story narrative routine. I hadn't really thought of that perspective. The rest of the article seemed to be the old dualistic battle though.
It's not that the iPhone 5 was too radical or not radical enough; it's that there was no master salesman at the helm this time. Previous iPhones had a main selling point that people came to crave after a little talk from SJ, even if they never really used it once they actually got the device (Facetime and Siri, for example). With iPhone 5, all you got was a nebulous "better".
Sure your assertion may be valid for the HN demographic who have iPhones, I am not convinced that Steve Jobs's presence or absence was the main USP for the wider population of people who buy iPhones.
Given Apple’s One-Phone-To-Rule-Them-All strategy, the upgrade is too radical in a bad way for everyday users.
It's not like Apple only has one phone available. You can still buy the 4S or the 4, each for $100 less than their successor. So I don't agree with the point on compatibility, I think Apple is smart to get it all out of the way (screen size, connector) in one upgrade.
Besides that though, I think this guy makes great points about Apple fanboy psychology and why people get "disappointed" about their releases like this. It's hard to remember what most "normal" folks are thinking when all you read is Hacker News. :)
Hacker News crowd are waaay more rational than average "tech pundits" and gadget site frequenters... People have been a little harder on Apple here lately because of the Samsung case, that's all.
I think the response to the iPhone 5 so far (because of lack of new features, flaws or whatever) can also be explained by something I claimed back when it was clear that the iPhone had its sales-figures beaten by a single Android handset (Samsung Galaxy S3):
> This is the first visible sign of a trend which began quite a while ago: iPhone has peaked (just like the iPod did)
What the results of this will be in the long run, especially with consequence to iOS-design, we'll have to wait and see.
> I think the response to the iPhone 5 so far [...] can
> also be explained by something I claimed [...] iPhone
> has peaked (just like the iPod did)
That doesn't explain anything, unless you consider a vague and, given current data, false prediction causally revealing. Peaking is not an inevitable feature of product life cycles; you're not stating much here. ("Lukewarm response to the new iteration is due to lukewarm response.") At the very least, the article makes an attempt at elucidating reasons for a potential iPhone peak.
I have quite a few mixed thoughts after reading the article, but one thing I agree with is the Lightning connector. Actually, I really like the idea of the new connector and look forward to its widespread adoption. The ability to plug it in correctly the first time and not worry about bending pins or getting it sideways is a huge win over the Micro-USB connector used everywhere else. I appreciate the ubiquity of the small USB port but every time I plug one in I do it gently and sometimes have to make 3 tries to get it orientated correctly.
The Micro-USB connector has big problems and I look forward to a new standard. Remember, Apple was the main driver behind USB with the original iMac's and it's missing floppy drive. I think they can do it again.
Rarely do people mess up plugging in that end of the USB, it's the other rectangular end of the USB that people typically mess up, which this cable still has.
Bent pins are only ever the result of blunt trauma, like if you rolled over your cable with your desk chair. I see no evidence that this cable can withstand more brute force than a USB cable.
Also, I don't know what country you're from, but I've never seen anyone get frustrated by "getting their cable sideways".
Should we support NFC? Should we launch a digital wallet? Should we build a robotic Prius? Should we develop augmented reality glasses and launch those glasses by doing a live Google+ hangout with skydivers jumping out of a blimp over San Francisco?
The answer is "Yes". Without having an ok NFC, you are not going to get a good NFC. Apple can come out and make it perfect, awesome, amazing, but there has to be something to start with.
I can't help but think that this hand-wringing over the iPhone5 is really an unspoken, collective wonderment: what would Apple have released if Steve was still alive? Would it look like this? Would it have had one more thing?
This is collective, delayed bereavement, and it's not the last time we'll see it. The world really lost something when it lost Steve; he was a lightning rod for great products and great marketing. He made you believe.
We still want to believe, and we still want to feel that wonder. But we wonder if we'll ever feel that way again about an Apple product.
I'm always assured by those who I presume are more in the know than I am when it comes to Apple products that all Apple decisions for two years after Steve's death had been planned and approved by him. I assume this is kind of how the script for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie was co-written and approved by Douglas Adams years before his death; yes, that can be verified, but the final product was still ultimately controlled by someone other than the original creator.
I think your point is valid. I have no doubt that Steve had his mind on the iPhone 5 well before he died, and may have even signed papers approving the exact final product. The question that remains is, in the year between his death and the release of the product, how many times would he have changed his mind or added something else? The answer to that determines if the current leadership at Apple knows how to properly shepherd the creative minds working for them or if they're merely following a directive set by someone who had bigger plans they might not be in alignment with.
I guess all we can say at this moment is that the new Apple is never going to be the same as the old Apple. The immediate question is, is that necessarily a bad thing?
Your last point is really spot on .. and I gauge the answer, personally, with one question: do I have a desire to buy a new Apple product?
Well, I already upgraded to iPhone5. I'm really not terribly interested in upgrading my aging Macbook Pro, 17" model, however. It bereaves me to no end that they have EOL'ed the 17" form factor, and have no solution for those of us who really need Pro features, like ExpresscardPCI slots, and so on.
My only beef is the lack of NFC. Yes the local Starbucks doesn't support it but if iPhone had it, they soon would've. Read that the aluminum back is not compatible with the rather large antenna needed for the NFC chip. Or maybe Apple didn't figure out a way to take their cut of mobile payments yet. But it sure is disappointing to see the tech being held back by the lack of adoption.
I heard from a source that it's has to do with the extreme space and weight constraints of the iPhone 5, but that Apple wants to put it in eventually. But I am more concerned with the ecosystem - it's not just enough to put it in the phone, Apple needs to make super-easy to sign up for, both as provider and user.
I learned something interesting about NFC recently that I hadn't considered before: for all the wallet kind of applications, where the phone acts like a VISA/Msatercard/etc credit card there has to be a trusted module that takes care of the authentication - e.g. the SIM of the phone. This module is very restricted in who can write things to it, and there's all sorts of power struggles between carriers, manufacturers and service providers about who should be in control of letting apps add things to the trusted storage.
Before that is sorted out, I think that mass adoption of NFC is unlikely, and it's very likely that we'll end up with either the carriers or VISA et al in control - not a very promising prospect, IMHO.
Clearly, other companies are prepared to ship with less preparation than Apple, but Apple would not have been where they are with the iPhone if their only reasoning was to "deliver a faster replacement phone at the end of contract". They innovated on iOS, app-marketplace, Siri (still being worked on...) and Airplay, to mention a few. All of them replacing similar too-early-too-crappy competitor innovations.
That the iPhone 5 did not add "one more thing" either means Apple does not think it's necessary (exposing themselves, like Nokia did, to the risk of the "next Apple" showing up with a great re-innovation), or because they couldn't get it done in time or with the technology available (which means they should invest more in R&D - they can afford it).
I'm very happy Apple both innovates and puts the bar high - I'd rather have good NFC from Apple than ok NFC from Google. It's good for users. For the time being, I will give them the benefit of the doubt that the new stuff - NFC, fingerprint, new batteries, etc - is simply not mature enough yet. But if Apple stops trying, they won't be able to sustain their curve. Android is already grabbing most new users - at which point will they start grabbing iPhone users?