this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Why someone keeps chasing the latest gadgets when the old ones work just fine is beyond me.
Nobody is waiting every year for the brand new line of washing machines. Why is there a need to swap phones this frequently?
Good point, I need to check when the new washing machine from LG is being released.
I hope mine connects to Wi-Fi so I can automatically Tik Tok my spin cycles!
Don't give the idiots ideas
Too late.
Not only have they thought of that, they charge a premium for it. Of course it doesn't work and the accompanying software is lowest bidder shit that has never been tested in the real world... but what do they care, they have your money.
Thanks for reminding me this is the last LG phone I'll ever own. :(
I heard the new OS sparkle dream from Venture Industries is a game changer
Back when smartphones actually had big leaps in tech in made sense pre 2015 or so. Now, it's very small interative changes. It makes no sense.
This is part of the reason. For a decade every year the new devices actually came with new and actually improved features.
However, the other part of the problem is the way these devices were and continue to be marketed. Having a big event to talk every little improvement up and overhype the new devices works to some degree.
I mean the big event used to talk about big new features.
Phones like desktops have become pretty stable. There's not much in terms of major missing features that anyone has come up with recently.
Maybe they have a six year old phone and are interested in upgrading? I don't think that many people are doing yearly upgrades nowadays, it's expensive and pointless.
Not even six. I switched from SE 2020 to 15 pro. The battery was awful. This one should easy last me till the next major change, which is replaceable batteries forced by EU.
This is my situation. My SE 2020 battery is complete shit, and the screen is getting more messed up by the day, with two permanent thin lines going down the center of the phone. I'm a reluctant Apple user, but I think I need to upgrade--and I've been eyeing the 15 Pro. I'd like it to last a while. How are you liking it?
So smoooooth compared to the SE. Night and day. I love it. The island is fun to watch (when music is playing the waveform actually reacts to it, it’s not a looped animation :3). Finally I don’t need the lighting cable. I charge the battery to 80% overnight, from 7:30am to now (11:43pm), without charging during the day, now I have 26%. Although that’s after 3h of screen time + AOD. No overheating so far, and idk if the back will break, I’m not planning on bending the phone lol. Can’t say much about the titanium as I’m always wearing a case (shoutout Spigen <3). Face ID is so much better than Touch ID. As long as you don’t wear sunglasses glasses (maybe I need to create another profile). The cameras are fun for a bit but they’re a gimmick after a while for me. The selfie camera is MUCH better and so is low light performance. I don’t like that it’s hard to reach notifications and control centre, but ig that’s the price of a bigger screen. Sorry for jumping from topic to topic lol. Let me know if you have any more questions ;)
Ahh thank you for all the details! You called out all the stuff I care about, I think I'm sold. I'm psyched about the USB C cable, that's the main reason I haven't just gone for a 14. I was and still am a little worried about Face ID though, I never had any problems with Touch ID and thought I might miss it. I don't want my phone to have to look at me before it unlocks...seems weird. Whatever, gotta give up something. Might just switch back to a PIN.
I’ve got a 12 and will be upgrading to a 15 Pro mainly due to my current phone having a scratch and I really want the USB-C charging option so that I can finally have a single charger type for everything.
Outside of the USB-C change, I don’t see much of a difference between my current 12 and the base 15, hence why I’m going for the 15 Pro. If not for the USB-C, I’d be sticking with my lightly-scratched 12.
Always on portrait mode is a killer feature for me 😄
Why not use an Android phone? All of them have been using USB-C for ages, and they generally have more options for privacy and customisation.
Nah, that’s not an option. I’ve been on iOS since 2009. It’s not really beneficial to move to Android.
Plus I’ve got an Android as my second phone and I’m not a fan of moving to the platform as my main device.
Samsung is silly with their extra store that I can’t remove, I don’t find that the same apps are as polished as their iOS counterparts, I don’t like the way Android does app-switching, I don’t like that there are some apps like Facebook that can be disabled, but not actually removed from the phone, and on my previous phone (moved from an S8 to an S10e) I repeatedly received Samsung ads about newer devices being available. I dislike that the apps themselves are constantly running in the background and that I feel like I have to be conscious of my RAM usage or mindfully close out apps. On iOS, I can have 2 apps or 200 running with no difference in how the phone runs.
There’s also a lot of work necessary to remove things that I don’t like on Android, like removing their extra “gaming overlay” that’s entirely unnecessary, and then there’s general things that I don’t like such as not having a “tap to top” like iOS has.
I do like that Android let’s you sideload apps and choose/customize your launcher, but given that I’ve never really taken advantage of things like extra Home Screens on iOS and the only apps I sideload are emulators, those aren’t game changers for me. I’ve also got an Apple Watch and iPad and things all work best when they’re all within the same ecosystem.
As for privacy, between the two, I would rather let Apple harvest and hold my data over Google. I don’t even like to use Google as my main search engine, and when I do, I’ve got on my VPN and I’m signed out of any account. Apple is selling the info as well, but their money-maker is more about hardware and less about data collection.
I get why some folks may prefer Android to Apple and even make the switch, but I’m not one of them.
Might I suggest your next Android phone be a Pixel so you can avoid having that bloat to begin with? I only buy pure android devices as my primary phone so don't need to deal with the crap preloaded and locked down. Not suggesting moving to Android as your primary due what you mentioned but there is a night and day difference between pre installed bloadware phones from 3rd parties and pure Android OS ones from Google. Pixel 8 will come with 7 years of OS updates too; Just my 2 cents.
I have no idea how Samsung is rated so high. It's just a bloated mess.
Couldn't agree more.
I agree default Android is only slightly better than iOS, I would recommend a custom Android ROM like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS so no one gets your data, neither Apple nor Google, and you can fully customise the device, including getting root access and removing/sandboxing system apps.
Updated from iPhone X to 14pro.
Even then why have yearly releases if a phone release can last 2 years easily, but no they need the newest possible tech that only scales in increments.
Because with almost billion iPhone users you could still have several million sales even if your entire customer base for your new phone are upgrading from old phones?
Or in short; it’s profitable enough to keep doing that.
Though we’ve clearly gotten to a point where twice-yearly releases aren’t worth it.
True, but with a two year release people would just take that phone instead of the newly released one.
If year to year sales were to not be profitable enough they might do that. As it stands development of a new phone is clearly not cutting into the margins enough to make an annual release not worth it.
When it comes to Android, updates. Especially for some of the cheaper phones where they don't support updates past the next version of Android.
Which really only matters to people that actually give a shit about updates. A lot of people in Android spaces online seem absolutely flummoxed by this but many people simply do not care or actively dislike "the latest and greatest" updates. They tend to change things people liked, they increasingly break functionality in the name of "security", and they often come with UI changes people find frustrating.
If the user is comfortable with their device, many would like it to stay that way. And that's not an invalid feeling.
I used to anticipate Android updates, but ever since 10, I've had zero desire to upgrade further. I'm not buying a new phone for the benefit of having my file explorer broken.
Some people will call you stupid for this, because it leaves you vulnerable to exploits that don't get patched, but whatever.
Pixel 8 comes with 7 years of OS updates. Also pure OS so no preinstalled bloatware. For all Pixel devices so far, with a click of a setting can unlock the boot loader to root and flash custom roms as suggest by user below. IDK why anyone would use anything but Pixel phones for their Android experience.
I would use a custom ROM/root the phone, but I also hate SAF. If you like cuatomisablity, and control over your own device however, it would make no sense to get an iPhone.
For Apple products there is the petty "status symbol" thing. If I share my experience, my father has a mania of buying such stuff only for the sake of imagining that he is on some position where he is like, "Oh I own this and that, you peasants won't understand." The macbook he bought many months ago now lies dusted on a shelf because it is practically useless to everyone in the household at the moment. It's a total waste of money for something no one cares about but him. I do not argue about it as it is a waste of time for me. It's his dogma and his money. I have a more rational mindset of looking at things with a materialistic approach i.e. analytically measuring an object's use value rather than its prestige.
Yah, good job I have zero interest in Apple products so I can't actually tell the difference when they start to brag about their phones!
Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I don't know how many people do upgrade that frequently tbh.
I mean, anecdotal obviously, but the 15 has been out for a couple of weeks now and I don't know anyone (IRL) who has one. Most of the people I know are rocking phones that are two or three years old at least at this point. My mum has a 14PM that she's had a year that replaced her X. My wife has a regular 14, which was a replacement for an 11. Those are the only two people I know that have a 14.
I think it's fair to say that people as a whole are upgrading less frequently, which is reflected in how much these things cost now, which is part of the reason people are upgrading less frequently...
Usually the camera or other things. I usually upgrade every year because I’m on the upgrade program. Last year added the satellite SOS which meant I didn’t have to worry about no service. That and I took the opportunity to switch to the max because my eye sight got worse. I didn’t bother upgrading this year, I saw no reason. I don’t need USB-c, I use a MagSafe charger and have more lighting cables than usb-c. The feature to locate your friends using the ultra wideband chip is neat but requires your friends have a 15 as well. And I don’t really have a need for the shortcut button.