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.
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…
Same is true for the non pro 14 series, they have easily swappable back plates
Ah, so they just made it easier to repair in the 15 series then?
They’re so fucking slippery too. I can barely use my phone without a case because it tries to slide out of my hand if I attempt to one hand it.
I am incredibly underwhelmed.
iPhone reveal events have become basically:
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”.
USB-C worldwide? That surprises me, I thought it’d just be the EU. I wonder what the catch will be 🤔
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.
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 still supports usb2 data rates, reportedly.
I’m ok with that, but if you have to move lots of data that’s a bummer.
You get usb 3 speeds on iPhone 15 pro. Still it’s ridiculous that you don’t get usb 3 on the base model
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.
Thank you for the explanation!
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.
I don’t think too many people use the USB port on their phone for data transfer, other than flashing phones and debugging stuff.
Now if only the cost of the device reflected it’s severely outdated hardware.
Like the CPU?
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.
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.
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
No replaceable battery though?
If only they would fix their hotspot functionality…
Sold my last iPhone because it kept turning off randomly and it still happens to all my friends who use an iPhone.
So, Apple just announced a Samsung phone that has existed for years already?
EDIT: Watch out folks, the fanboys have come to wage war.
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?
fanboys have come to wage war.
= Anyone who disagrees with me must be a fanboy!
Yeah, the mythical Samsung phone that still gets six years of manufacturer OS updates
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.
Wonderful times.
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.
Idk… except from the foldable phones I feel like this a general trend for all phones.
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!
c o u r a g e
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.
I wish lightning was fast… USB2 speeds are awful when I’m backing up 20k photos hahaha
Other than changing, what do you use lightning for, where you require speed?
Slow charging is good.
I need speed for transferring tons of photos to my computer.
Lightning is more or less the progenitor to USB-C, so the benefits are the same since you can plug in USB-C either way.
This also means you can charge your iPad with the same connector as these phones if you have of the models that came with a USB-C charger.
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 don’t find that to be true, and I would be surprised if many people do. But your experience is just as valid.
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.
