I’m really pissed that glass backed phones have become the norm. Seemingly they’re more expensive and more breakable! I wish someone would make a metal or plastic backed phone. (Looking at the fairphone…)
Metal doesn’t work with wireless charging. Plastic feels cheaper. Still, many companies are making plastic phones, and I’m sure some are making metal ones as well.
On the other hand: nothing looks as cheap as a shattered glass back, or having to use a cover because the default surface is too slippery for 1hand use.
Does it really matter when you put a case on it anyway? I’d prefer plastic. Glass is stupid and breakable. We shouldn’t be trying to put MORE of it on phones.
Qualcomm and the Rezence wireless charging standard had tech that was able to charge through metal backs since 2015. The issue is it’s not compatible with Qi which already cornered the market so no one used it.
Fortunately if you need a replacement it’s now easier to replace the back as it’s not glued on so you could replace it with an aftermarket plastic back.
That’s a big selling point for me on the 15 series. I had the back glass break on my 12 Pro this year and learned after the repair that it’s effectively getting a new phone when it’s ‘repaired’. Took me 2 months to get my eSIM deactivated on the new device for a number of reasons that ultimately ended up being a Verizon issue, but that they blamed on Apple until I got Apple to send me another new device that had the same problem.
The replaceable back glass and USB-C are enough for me to upgrade from my 12 Pro. Now my debate is between the Pro and Pro Max…
Apple has stopped being innovative for years now - they are always serving a slightly upgraded and much more expensive version of their phones each year… and people keep paying those abhorrent prices. I honestly do not understand why.
Android is not better since they try to copy Apple pricewise AND you can enjoy being simultaneously exploited by the phones manufacturer AND Google.
Much more expensive? They’re the same price they’ve been for the last 5 generations.
And let’s be frank, no one is really innovating right now. Every phone is a brick, and some fold. But nothing about how we interact with our phones has significantly changed in at least 5 years. And even the change from fingerprint as the primary biometric to face is relatively small.
Introducing double tap to the Watch is the most significant innovation in a flagship device that I’ve seen in a hot minute. But phones are reaching their limit for ways to interact due to technological limitations. Hell, I’m not even seeing sci-fi showing real imaginative ways to interact with tech anymore, just different form factors for existing technology. What else is there to really do to change how we interact with our devices at this point?
If someone seriously innovated and made something different, it would flop because people would be like “EHHH IT’S NOT WHAT I’M USED TO”
I’m posting this from my five-year-old iPhone that works awesome also lawl, the only reason I’m upgrading now is for more storage space. You’re also right about the price… this isn’t much more at all than my 5yo phone was. This phone works great, but people complaining about innovation also… what I’m getting by finally deciding to upgrade:
Much faster processor
120hz fuck yeah
USB-C (wouldn’t care if the old cables weren’t fucking USB2 speeds lawl. This is actually a huge upgrade)
Always-on display (neat I guess)
More battery (love it, but my five year old phone still lasts all day)
SO MANY CAMERAS (I actually love this)
It unlocks via face when I wear a mask (I still do that thing, so that’s cool)
SPACE (so much space for flacs)
There’s probably more shit, but when I really think about it… this XS Maxxx is totally fine and would be great another year or two, but that’s a lotta upgrades.
Did they? I didn’t see any bloatware and carrier installed applications announced though? Did they make the new CPU slower or commit to giving updates for fewer years?
a) Offering as new what other brands have offered as standard for years.
b) Offering something new that only works if you buy more Apple.
I have an iPhone, and couldn’t wait for the iOS 17 release so I installed the beta. Underwhelming is the right word, the event has no right to be named “wonderlust”.
Why would Apple go through the effort to offer you new features if it can just deny standard features to older/cheaper models so you pony up for a new phone?
The most innovative thing Apple is no longer the iPad/iPhone, by a long shot. Maybe their VR set, but it’s too early to tell.
I’m a bit out of the loop about USB C, but to me the ridiculous thing is that we have different standards with USB C at all, I guess it is because it improved over time???
It might sound surprising but it makes a lot of sense to have different standards supported over USB-C. USB-C is just a form factor of the connector.
For USB 3 or USB4 speeds you physically need more wires in the cable, while for USB 2.0 you only need 5 wires. Also if you want really high data transfer rates of 40 or 80Gbit/s the cable can only be around 1 meter or 3 feet long.
So because USB-C supports different USB versions, a charging cable can simply be USB 2.0 and be cheaper and long and do it’s job just fine.
If USB-C was only USB4 it wouldn’t be all that useful. Devices like wireless mice or DACs or game controllers wouldn’t/ couldn’t use it and the cables would all be thick and expensive and short. And for charging regular things we’d still be stuck with micro USB.
The only downside is that, yes if you are doing a thing where you need high speeds such as connecting a screen or external disk to a PC you do need to check that you’re using a high speed cable, but pretty much all good quality fast cables have the speed printed onto the connector housing.
But yes the iPhone restricting speeds to 2.0 is strange and most definitely just a trick to sell more pro models. There are plenty of devices that simply have no need for anything besides 2.0, be it because they send no data or just very little. But phones really aren’t in that category.
The CPU seems pretty decent, and quite overkill actually for a majority of users. Decent CPU, low RAM, and low data transfer speeds, but I guess Apple has to pay to license the latter two so of course they want to cut corners there. You don’t get to several trillion in valuation as a company otherwise.
I guess most people didn’t watch apple event. Pro models have new A17 cpu with usb 3 controller inside, while regular iPhone 15 has last years Pro model A16 cpu (Apple does that with every new generation) which didn’t have usb 3 controller since lightning is still usb 2. iPads have support for usb 3 because they have separate usb 3 controller (not inside cpu because more space) so claiming that iPads have it for years is true but for different reason. So logically it would make sense that iPhone 16 base models will have A17 cpu with usb 3 controller.
They must have done a cost/benefit analysis and came to the obvious conclusion that having to build multiple variants would be more costly than the profit they’d have earned by continuing to gouge all the non-EU consumers on proprietary cables and junk.
The world owes the EU a debt of gratitude for forcing apple compliance on this one.
Alas, sorting software is much cheaper to implement than differing hardware, so the cost benefit analysis would work out differently in that case I expect…
I think both things are valid. Apple should adopt RCS, but also that standard should be further pushed to include better features and not just stagnate
Well we’re already getting removable batteries which is exciting as fuck. That one will require even more of a major redesign that it will 100% come to the US.
No. They won’t. The iPad has a USB C port and has for years. They support USB mass storage just fine, as well as video and audio adapters. The files app (which is the same on both iOS and iPadOS) already read USB storage devices using a lightning to USB adapter. And both have supported USB mics over their respective ports.
Yeah they definitely made empty threats until they just succumbed. Their iPads are USB-C, their laptops are packed with USB-C ports. It’s obvious that, as one of the wealthiest companies in the world it’s not a problem to switch their hardware
It’s cheaper to manufacture one device for the whole world. Moreover, states like California are probably going to also force manufacturers to use USB C. And more than 1 in 10 Americans lives in CA.
While it might be cheaper, it’s rarely possible. Different countries have different frequencies and other stuff, so you still need to make different SKUs for different markets.
That used to be the case, but most phones now use radios that can support necessary frequencies and protocols globally. It’s also helped that the network side has also been more standardized compared to the 3g days.
Even in the US, only some high end phones support mmWave. It’s never required for service as the few areas covered by mmWave also have low or mid band 5g coverage too.
True. It basically means the connector component will be universal. Which will lower the manufacturing cost of it.
That said, it also means that the 1st party and third party peripheral market will be universal. It would be a nightmare if companies like Anker and Belkin had to make two of every damn peripheral.
There were already rumors Apple was going to switch the iPhone as it was the last device with Lightening. The EU mandate is convenient cover for deprecating all those cables and devices people have bought over the years.
There are still some accessories that still use the Lightning port. Most notably the AirPods, AirPods Max, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. I don’t know if these will get a USB-C update or not.
I just don’t understand this confusion. There really isn’t been a question of whether or not they were moving to USB-C for at least 6 months. The only question was whether it would be thunder bolt or not, and it isn’t. The narrative was always that they’d keep lightning for 10 years and then move to something new, Schiller even called it “a modern connector for the next decade” when it was announced, and at the time it was better than anything else on the market.
Now USB-C is the standard and superior, and it’s cheaper to bring the iPhone in line with that standard than to keep lightning or develop a new port/connector. As soon as the iPads went USB-C it was a foregone conclusion that the iPhone would follow suit, and anyone who was paying attention should have known it would happen this year, 10 years after lightning was introduced as a 10 year plan.
I don’t keep a super close eye on Apple’s recent products. I don’t really care enough to be in the know about what they might do next, I just hear about what comes out as it comes out and move on with my life. I also wasn’t aware that there was a 10 year plan because I was too young to care when it was announced. Sorry for the confusion :(
Then I can’t help but ask why you would hold, let alone share, an opinion when you’re so openly uninformed? You say you don’t care, but you cared enough to make a disparaging comment for… reasons?
To be honest, whenever I see someone make a comment like you did I assume that your explanation here, ignorance, is the reason. Props to you for acknowledging that.
My views on Apple are based on what I’ve heard about them from the perspective of the right to repair movement and people like Louis Rossmann. Because I’ve heard about them doing questionable things in the past, my expectation is that they would have similar ulterior motives in the present. I thought that my comment would be voicing a common opinion, and at the time it had not been expressed yet. I apologize for not doing my research before leaving a comment /srs
Wow Apple just INVENTED the USB-C port! It has so many innovations over the tired and old Lightning port, there’s absolutely no reason Apple fans to prefer Lightning. SO BRAVE! In preparation for this massive unveiling Apple has been secretly working with 51835947 different third party companies (mostly on AliExpress) to create a lush USB-C accessory ecosystem!
I would not call myself an Apple fun, but I find lighting port easier to connect, especially at night without light. Since I have iphone, I also have many lightning cables for me and my family. So, for me this change is inconvenience, and I would prefer to stay on lightning.
It is not about which side, but about at which angle I can insert the lightning connector. It is just easier to do it with lightning when you can not see it.
I’m confused by this comment. How is lightning better? I cannot think of a single advantage of lightning over USB-C. Is the c port like a few microns wider? That doesn’t seem like it would make it more difficult.
Everything uses C now. I have a lot of lightning cables, but I also have a lot of C cables.
I’ve had to replace 4 USB-C cables that have failed in the past year, and I’ve never replaced a lightning cable. Seriously, the cable from my iPhone 6 Plus has outlasted 4 company cars, and is currently pulling charge duty in number 5.
You might be thinking of the old micro USB where direction mattered. USB-c has been the standard for every other manufacturer for years now, and it’s super easy to plug in without seeing.
Apple was one of the first to go all USB-C on any computer. Then they got hit with a massive wave of people complaining that they didn’t have any supported equipment and that this just forced Apple owners to buy expensive new equipment at a time when almost nothing out there had USB-C. I think about how that PR mess probably impacted their decision to move away from lightening as well. It’s been a long time coming on the phone, but people acting like Apple wasn’t a major player in the USB consortiums push to get type C standardized for everything is always fun.
It’s been a long time coming on the phone, but people acting like Apple wasn’t a major player in the USB consortiums push to get type C standardized for everything is always fun.
Yeah no, no one is acting that way. We’re all well aware of Apple’s USB-C only push on the other devices, we’re referring to the phones. I can’t believe this has to be said.
Between the first article I already provided, and being in Cell Phone repair at the time when the switch from 30-pin to lightening happened I don’t think you realize how much flak Apple has caught each time they come out with devices with different connectors. The amount of people that quickly jump to “they’re just trying to make their customers pay more.”
I mean, the switch from 30-pin was full of people saying it was just so Apple could sell new accessories to people. Even though lightening was a better solution than 30-pin or Mirco B of the time.
I don’t know if you’ve been in the industry like me, but trust me, if you had you’d understand why Apple stuck to lightening as long as they did. It was a great connector for its time and served its purpose.
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