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Comment by askonomm | Hacker News Reader

Not the best in _any_ category? Really? Not in a single one? Do you have any evidence for this?

At least when it comes to phones Samsung phones are actually better. Better screens, better camera. But Apple has the branding and other options are frowned upon. At least in the US, outside Android is the leader.

As an Android user, yes Samsung has the superior HW like display and stuff, but Apple leads on SW, simplicity and ecosystem. If you already own a Mac computer then the choice is a slam dunk in favor of buying an Apple phone as well. There's no 1:1 equivalent ecosystem for PC/Android even though apps that replicate certain functions of the ecosystem exist: KDE Connect, Microsoft PhoneLink, Samsung whatever, they can never match what Apple does since neither of them owns the full SW & HW stack across phones and laptops plus the adjacent services like Music, video streaming, etc. Then there's the network lock-in effect of iMessage, in the US at least.

Samsung's HW and Android implementation and skin, is in many ways superior to Google's Pixel but the overall packaged is hammered thanks to their bloat trying to replace Google's apps with their own offers to replicate Apple's ecosystem but with Samsung apps instead of Google and it ends up with a confusing duplicate mess. Observe:

Google Chrome and Samsung Browser, Google Wallet and Samsung Pay, Google Keep and Samsung Notes, Google Drive and Samsung Cloud, Gmail and Samsung Mail, Google Photos and Samsung Gallery, etc.

Oh, and the "best" part is, the functionality of certain Samsung apps like Pay is region locked for some reason, so in some EU countries like Germany you can end up with Pay refusing to work if you didn't buy it locally(even though this is the EU so region shouldn't matter). So if you buy your Samsung phone online from some small retailer running a sale you need to make sure the retailer is selling the right SKU for your region otherwise you can end up with Pay refusing to work with some obscure error. Thanks Samsung, great UX. The EU should look into this and maybe fine them as well.

iPhones have better CPU/GPUs though.

Customers don't care who has a better CPU or GPU. They care that the phone does what they want and gives them a good experience. Not saying the GPU or GPU doesn't affect that, but I think we're to the point where phone performance (at least at the higher end, where both Samsung and Apple live) isn't much of an issue anymore.

Having a better screen and camera, like GP points out? Yeah, that's something actually important to customers.

> Customers don't care who has a better CPU or GPU. They care that the phone does what they want and gives them a good experience.

So they don’t pick apple because it has a better CPU or GPU. They pick it because it gives them a superior experience and does what they want.

Usually you don't know what is the experience before buying. Most people buy expensive things primarily out of network effect and or influence by marketing and person of relevance.

And I don't mean this as to diminish iphones usage experience or capabilities. It is the same for people buying one of those über expensive Samsung folding phones, cars, clothing or the latest Thermomix.

Except those of us who don't pick Apple because it doesn't give us what we think of as a superior experience and doesn't do what we want.

It is a whole package that creates a different experience. And customers are not one thing. There are different stuff that different groups may prioritise, and not all care about "better screen". For example, people may go for lower resolution screens because they prioritise batteries. And cameras nowadays are much more than purely hardware. Having better processing hardware and OS results in a phone that can last better and longer for instance, and this is a strength of iphones.

I can't stand Android compared to iOS. I buy Apple stuff despite their corporate shenanigans. But Google and Microsoft are just worse. I also use Linux a lot in embedded and server roles, but in daily interaction, for now, a MacBook and an iPhone it is.

There might be more people thinking like you than other way around... in America. But I bet in Europe it's the opposite: More people can't stand iOS compared to Android. (I'm one of those.)

Also, Europe is more price sensitive.

Raw specs mean nothing. You can throw 16GB RAM at an Android, and for some reason it can still be perceived to be slower than a 4GB RAM iPhone. Likewise, MKBHD has given iPhone the best overall camera system award many times now, simply because the results are so much more consistent as well as being the best in taking videos.

> Really? Not in a single one?

Really. At least they're not the clear favorite. It's not like 2010 when the best phone and laptop hardware was clearly, indisputably Apple.

Samsung phone hardware is better, vanilla Android is better than iOS (ex: recent HN threads raging about iOS not even having schedule-to-send for SMS), many laptops are better than MacBooks or are at least very competitive.

M3 chips are be the best laptop silicon available, but I don't think the average consumer knows/cares much about that.

> Do you have any evidence for this?

It's an opinion, so no.

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