Pretty much my thoughts on the iPhone5... a big ol' pile of 'meh'.

Oooh, a 4" display, that's... um... smaller than my hardly cutting edge Galaxy Nexus
Aaah, a lower resolution screen too.
Eeeeeh, no NFC (Not that I particularly care being that I've used it all but once)
Eeerrrr, LTE... finally
Iiieeeee, video calling over the mobile network. Hello there 9 years ago!
Ughghghuhuhuh, Panarama photos... oh, gee... wizzo, sure can't do that on my current phone.

I'm sure it's well built, I'm sure it works well but:
* iOS looks REALLY dated and old now, it seriously needs a new look, it feels antiquated.
* You're forced to use iTunes, which is a loathsome piece of software

It doesn't stop people climbing over the top of each other to get them, doesn't stop people who have no idea about tech at all thinking that there is none better than the iPhone5. Doesn't stop Apple's continued market dominance.

But still... Such a huge pile of 'meh'.

4" - So they're supposed to not bother because you've already seen it before? It IS cutting edge, it's still the best screen/OS on the market in terms of colour, ppi and font rendering, you're only using one factor to determine what's the "best". It's also completely a user preference, some of us don't want 5" screens in our pockets, I don't even want the iPhone5 screen, I prefer the old size but market pressure is forcing us all in to these stupid sizes.

resolution - ppi is more important at these sizes, cramming higher resolutions in to screens this small achieves little. If a phone has the ppi to use retina (or xtra-high density for Android) resources for its size, that is all that is required.

nfc - I feel like people want Apple to include this so it actually gets any traction in the real world because right now, the only people who give a shit or even know of it, are Android tech enthusiasts. That's not a problem, I'm glad you like tech but reality is that this is not in anyway an important feature. It'll be in the 5S probably and it'll get popular and then you'll probably hate Apple for copying or something. Or scoff that you've had it for X years except that your phone had no influence to change the retail sector.

LTE - Yes finally and with some good international support.

video calls over network - Yes, never was a lack of capability, it was network enforced to disallow it. It is nice to finally have it natively supported.

Panorama - Yeah I got nothing on this one, I couldn't give a flying fuck but hey, not like I couldn't give you an equally stupid list of features from any manufacture about all their "awesome exclusive" features. It's called marketing, no need to cry over it.

iOS is hardly stale, it is just not what YOU want out of it, it has been faithful to me for many long years and iOS 6 while boring in new features, is the smoothest it has ever run. I don't think it is a crime to like stability in your OS. Also people always like to call the general public stupid but they're really not, my mum doesn't like her iPhone/iPad for no reason, she likes them because they're the first product EVER to understand her needs. It is a common story, you'll hear it time and time again, Apple understands the needs of regular people, not necessarily tech junkies. The regular people market is MUCH bigger, hence Apple dominance, it ain't rocket science.

On a side note, this parody was pretty funny

>> ^spoco2:

Pretty much my thoughts on the iPhone5... a big ol' pile of 'meh'.
Oooh, a 4" display, that's... um... smaller than my hardly cutting edge Galaxy Nexus
Aaah, a lower resolution screen too.
Eeeeeh, no NFC (Not that I particularly care being that I've used it all but once)
Eeerrrr, LTE... finally
Iiieeeee, video calling over the mobile network. Hello there 9 years ago!
Ughghghuhuhuh, Panarama photos... oh, gee... wizzo, sure can't do that on my current phone.
I'm sure it's well built, I'm sure it works well but:
iOS looks REALLY dated and old now, it seriously needs a new look, it feels antiquated.
You're forced to use iTunes, which is a loathsome piece of software
It doesn't stop people climbing over the top of each other to get them, doesn't stop people who have no idea about tech at all thinking that there is none better than the iPhone5. Doesn't stop Apple's continued market dominance.
But still... Such a huge pile of 'meh'.

@yellowc A fine rebuttal sir, except lacking in a great deal of thinking things through.

First you say the screen on the phone is the best due to colour, ppi and fonts, and then say that ppi doesn't matter. (Higher resolution in a smaller screen = higher ppi) Personally? I think this pixel density bullshit is some finely crafted bullshit by Apple to create a metric that no-one cared about before, and really kind of shouldn't, but they tout it because they like to make sure they win it... so, their 4" screen with its weird 1136 x 640 resolution is apparently better than a 4.64" screen with 1280x720 (so native 720p HD)? I too wasn't sold on larger screens. My last phone was 3.5" just like the current iPhone, and I thought I wouldn't want a phone with a larger screen as then it wouldn't fit in my pocket, and would be a pain in the butt. Then I tried on the Galaxy Nexus in store and found it fit in my pocket better (by being thinner) and was soooo much nicer for viewing content on than 3.5"

I said myself that I'd only ever used NFC once, don't much care about it. Can see that it could be cool having stickers/pads in your car and on your bedside table to automatically put your phone into various modes based on what you're doing, but I've cared so little I haven't ordered the tags to try it.

Video calling... who actually uses it? As I said, we've had it here in Australia for 9 years. Most feature and smart phones have supported it. I've been able to do it for years. Have I once felt the need? Nope.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with iOS as an operating system, what I'm saying is that it LOOKS amazingly old, feels really quite antiquated. I look forward to Apple redesigning it and making it fresh again. Without being an Android fanboy, I find the look and design of ICS and Jellybean Android to be so much more fresh than iOS. This is nothing to do with functionality, just look, something which Apple could change so easily, it's odd that they are letting it get so stale.

In terms of Apple 'understanding' the regular Joe... what I don't get is how such a large number of my friends have ended up completely wiping their entire iTunes library because of the insanely stupid way in which iTunes handles moving your device between computers and how it handles syncing them. That is not user friendly, has been going on for years, and yet never addressed.

Horses for courses. Look, there are plenty of reasons to go with an iDevice... but the ever burgeoning market share of Android (now more than Apple) demonstrates that not everyone wants to be locked into the Apple ecosphere.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

As I'm getting older, I'm understanding the platform wars less and less. I don't understand why we deride others for their enthusiasm in a product. Then again, I don't understand why our brain is short-circuited into feeling enthusiasm for a brand or product. I'm as guilty as the next guy.

In my case, it's wrapped up in a lot of nostalgia for days gone by. It's also hope for the future- but I have to agree with this guy that everything is broken and nobody is upset.

Also hoping that something is going to come along to sweep all of this crap under the rug- in the same way that the telephone destroyed the telegraph. My bet is on a true AI assistant that we just talk to - to do everything. Something that Siri, most definitely isn't - Closer to Watson, but with the ability to take action on our behalf. A real, C3PO type robot, just without the body - at first.

Sorry, perhaps I should of worded that point differently, I meant that a ppi that allows for retina (android equiv) is sufficient, after this point we need to compare screens on more noticeable differences. The S3 and the iPhone5 are both at 306ppi, the differences is screen size/resolution, colour, rendering algorithms and screen tech (pentile vs IPS). Which is a preference, I have no problem with you liking larger phones, this is just not a point of advantage or disadvantage you can target as a phone fault, it is a user choice. Some people also prefer looking at over-saturated colours, they find them more "real" or "vivid" etc, that's all fine.

The other points I think we can leave as is.

Yes iTunes is a heaping pile of shit, I'm not about to defend it, I got my N7 with Jellybean and saw how refined the Play experience is, switching accounts on the fly, loads content for that account etc. It was simply put, light years ahead of the syncing bullshit that Apple puts me through. In fact the N7 is really the first Android device I've been actively recommending to people, it is undeniably a solid good product, I can not fault it (other than lacklustre 3rd party support but I won't be blaming Android for that).

But really, these days, you can ignore iTunes and I'm guessing a lot of people do or are content with what it does. To stick with my mum, her iPad has never plugged in to a PC (except when she couldn't do OTA updates but she didn't have to deal with that), she does everything on the device. In fact, she wouldn't go near a computer, Apple or otherwise, she has absolutely no interest in them fullstop. My mother-in-law is the same, it took me about a year to convince her to pick-up an iPad, now she does her shopping online, uses email etc but she has no desire to touch anything else and still won't step out of the apps she knows. These two weren't a market just a few years ago, you wouldn't even dream of bothering with them.

I don't know what it is that makes it so appealing but Apple seems to and they focus all their attention on it. I know also this is anecdotal (but you don't have to look far to see more). Everything you see isn't aimed at us, I find most Apple's marketing over the top and cheesy, this is why I can find this video funny even if I do prefer Apple products, it just isn't for us. The "lens...cover" line had me in tears.

I know we like to think we can understand how non-tech people work but we simply don't, I have been teaching the basics to people for a long time and I'll still freely admit I'm still bewildered by how little people actually understand. They're not stupid people, we just take it all for granted, it is a different mindset entirely and is why the tech world has such a hard time understanding Apple. For instance, do you know how useful iOS is to the accessibly challenged? It is light years ahead of Android or any body else, it isn't even a choice for this market, no matter what the other phones offer. iOS is the only realistic option.

I've probably gone a tangent here but it all comes back to why Apple is what it is and why I try to defend against attacks that compare it at a tech race level. I don't want the world to go back to what it was, there is room in the market for the needs of everyone to be met.

>> ^spoco2:

@yellowc A fine rebuttal sir, except lacking in a great deal of thinking things through.
First you say the screen on the phone is the best due to colour, ppi and fonts, and then say that ppi doesn't matter. (Higher resolution in a smaller screen = higher ppi) Personally? I think this pixel density bullshit is some finely crafted bullshit by Apple to create a metric that no-one cared about before, and really kind of shouldn't, but they tout it because they like to make sure they win it... so, their 4" screen with its weird 1136 x 640 resolution is apparently better than a 4.64" screen with 1280x720 (so native 720p HD)? I too wasn't sold on larger screens. My last phone was 3.5" just like the current iPhone, and I thought I wouldn't want a phone with a larger screen as then it wouldn't fit in my pocket, and would be a pain in the butt. Then I tried on the Galaxy Nexus in store and found it fit in my pocket better (by being thinner) and was soooo much nicer for viewing content on than 3.5"
I said myself that I'd only ever used NFC once, don't much care about it. Can see that it could be cool having stickers/pads in your car and on your bedside table to automatically put your phone into various modes based on what you're doing, but I've cared so little I haven't ordered the tags to try it.
Video calling... who actually uses it? As I said, we've had it here in Australia for 9 years. Most feature and smart phones have supported it. I've been able to do it for years. Have I once felt the need? Nope.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with iOS as an operating system, what I'm saying is that it LOOKS amazingly old, feels really quite antiquated. I look forward to Apple redesigning it and making it fresh again. Without being an Android fanboy, I find the look and design of ICS and Jellybean Android to be so much more fresh than iOS. This is nothing to do with functionality, just look, something which Apple could change so easily, it's odd that they are letting it get so stale.
In terms of Apple 'understanding' the regular Joe... what I don't get is how such a large number of my friends have ended up completely wiping their entire iTunes library because of the insanely stupid way in which iTunes handles moving your device between computers and how it handles syncing them. That is not user friendly, has been going on for years, and yet never addressed.
Horses for courses. Look, there are plenty of reasons to go with an iDevice... but the ever burgeoning market share of Android (now more than Apple) demonstrates that not everyone wants to be locked into the Apple ecosphere.

@yellowc I think we're on the same track really. I do think a case of comparing devices based purely on specs is a bit infantile. But it's something that Apple invites with their hyperbolic presentations and marketing. If they didn't describe every part of their devices as 'Revolutionary' or 'Unsurpassed' or 'Magic', then there'd be no need to pick them apart. Google didn't do that with the Nexus 7, they went with the 'experience' angle, and from what I've heard it hits those marks (as you've said too). AND it's stupendously cheap. It almost made me want a tablet (I really see little use in tablets for tablet's sake... which is why the Surface excites me, it's a tablet and a laptop without lugging around a keyboard/mouse as a separate thing... but I digress).

Yes, I think we both agree that Apple do something just 'right' that hits a chord with so many people.

What gets me more than anything is their horrendously self important marketing (it started with the Mac vs PC pushing untruths about how Macs never crashed and Windows PCs always did), and how people just believe it to be true, how I hear people mindlessly regurgitating the Apple marketing spiel about how iDevice X has the best Y ever... and how Apple invented feature Q.

I don't think anyone can deny that Apple created this smartphone world we live in, the iPhone was a landmark device, but that doesn't mean that everything they do is the best.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

@spoco2 - tablets are awesome mainly because of the form factor. The fact that you can be standing up in a bus and hold one like you would a book - makes them very versatile - and something you can't do with a laptop. Form factor use cases are hard to explain to people though until they experience it, and work them into their own lives.

>> ^dag:

@spoco2 - tablets are awesome mainly because of the form factor. The fact that you can be standing up in a bus and hold one like you would a book - makes them very versatile - and something you can't do with a laptop. Form factor use cases are hard to explain to people though until they experience it, and work them into their own lives.


Yeah, I get that people do use them. I have three different tablets sitting in my drawer beside me (for app development)... I could take them home and use them whenever I want... but I've never felt the need.

I think it's due to my hatred of typing on screens for anything more than a quick SMS. That's why I love the idea of the Surface, with the keyboard/mouse just built into the cover, and that it's running full windows so I can do real work on it, at real typing speeds if I want. But still use a tablet touch interface for all those things that it makes sense for.

For me, it's the first tablet I've seen the point in, but the market size and share of the iPad shows I'm in the minority!

The screen on the iPhone 5 is very close to sRGB, which is optimal, but only because that's what most content is designed for. If you count subpixels, it has a higher resolution than the 1280*720 pentile displays.

I think the display on my phone is 96*96 pixels :-)

Hay what are you guys talking about?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=280983765335668&set=a.165478833552829.25043.160066790760700&type=1&ref=nf

How black is the IPS screen's black? This is something I never hear discussed yet is more important than the difference between 300 PPI and 330 PPI. An AMOLED screen showing black in a dark room is invisible, as it should be, while my back-lit monitors and TVs throw out almost enough light to read with.

The marketing is hyperbolic. That doesn't mean that macs didn't actually get fewer viruses or crash less often than the windows machines of that era. It's annoying when people won't see through the marketing to the truth. It is a better product. It's just not that much better.

This comment on screens is interesting. OLEDs aren't my favorite display technology, although for a mobile (short lifespan, small size) they are probably a good choice. I agree, people should pay more attention to the blackness of blacks, dynamic range, etc. I really like LED backlit TVs for this reason. Even then, the entire room is often illuminated by a screen displaying solid black.

>> ^Quboid:

How black is the IPS screen's black? This is something I never hear discussed yet is more important than the difference between 300 PPI and 330 PPI. An AMOLED screen showing black in a dark room is invisible, as it should be, while my back-lit monitors and TVs throw out almost enough light to read with.

I'll get whatever phone is best in 1.5 years when my contract is up again. Until then, who gives a shit?

I wonder if this has anything to do with Steve Jobs not being around anymore.

The seeing tits thing wherever I want really resonates with me.