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Comment by hej | Hacker News Reader

It seems even many of those who really love Android are extremely underwhelmed by this phone. It’s just another boring Android phone, there are tons of those. There is nothing exceptional or special about it.

There is only one iPhone every year.

You might say it’s not fair, but that different strategy is paying off for Apple.

(Hey, and there was lots of coverage. I saw it everywhere, no matter the medium. From The Verge to a German weekly news magazine. That’s not so much less than what the iPhone gets, in fact it might even be about equal. Is that your persecution complex flaring up?)

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It's not really a different strategy though. There is only one Galaxy every year, and I don't see anything that an iPhone can do that this phone can't.

Some people love the iPhone and that is fine- to each his own. I just refuse to believe that the love affair is based on anything other than marketing.

> (Hey, and there was lots of coverage. I saw it everywhere, no matter the medium. From The Verge to a German weekly news magazine. That’s not so much less than what the iPhone gets, in fact it might even be about equal. Is that your persecution complex flaring up?)

Really? You did? Hmm, if my memory serves me, I remember seeing CNBC and CNN covering the last iPhone launch all day like it was the Presidential inauguration. Worldwide television vs. niche tech blogs. Yep, you're right, that is about the same. I retract my statement.

This really isn't hard to understand. One SAMSUNG phone per year.

Still wrong - one revision of this specific model per year, they still launch a dozen other similar devices.

> Some people love the iPhone and that is fine- to each his own. I just refuse to believe that the love affair is based on anything other than marketing.

I would argue that the iPhone and indeed most Apple products embody a "Quality without a name" as originally described by Christopher Alexander in a "A timeless way of building" http://www.munnecke.com/islands/qwan.htm . Very few other companies are able to achieve this. I believe that it is for this reason that people develop a greater emotional attachment to Apple products then the products of companies like Samsung. For example Apple products generally feel great to hold and touch while the same cant be said of Samsung's products.

I agree with you, however my love afar with their quality faded when my MacBook Pro fried from spilling some coffee on the keyboard.

Right now I have a shitty laptop I bought for $400 that has sipped coffee, water and soda. I did have to clean its keyboard as it got sticky, but it's running just fine.

It's the same with my iPhone 3GS ... my son dropped it on the floor, and the screen cracked. He's 2 years old and he likes to throw things ... he did the same with my Galaxy S1, like 3 times already and it isn't even scratched.

The point I'm trying to make here is that Apple's products look and feel great, but I'm kind of disappointed about their fragility.

Don't give stuff made of glass to a kid - at least get a strong protective case.

Your requirements for water-proof and hardened equipment are trumped by other features in most Apple products. Motorola makes phones just for you!

> I just refuse to believe that the love affair is based on anything other than marketing.

Sigh. Is it really so hard to believe some people prefer an iPhone because they genuinely prefer certain aspects of the device/platform? This isn't the 90's, were you could argue that the product sucked and many of the people using Macs were doing so out of some misguided emotional attachment to the company. The iPhone is a world wide phenomenon with far higher adoption than the Mac ever, or likely will ever, have.

Do you seriously believe the millions of people around the world who opt for an iPhone are doing so because of the magic pixie dust in Apple's marketing?

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