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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

"The end result, though, despite Apple’s best efforts to convince us otherwise, is a phone that is reactionary rather than revolutionary, or even evolutionary."

I've been struggling with the right word to describe this update and "reactionary" hits the nail on the head. Almost everything this phone has, the competition has had for quite some time. It doesn't quite feel like catchup, with typical panache Apple has built a best-in-class phone design. But it just doesn't feel like something anybody wants to be chasing any more.

Bigger picture, I'm not sure what this means for the smartphone ecosystem as a whole w.r.t. innovation. The heat of competition feels like it's finally let off.

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Even the very first iPhone was "reactionary". It wasn't a class leader if you're looking at it from a bulleted-list perspective. The first iPhone was EDGE only at a time when everyone was clammmoring for 3G phones, and it wouldn't run third-party apps. Many feature phones can run third-party apps; albeit crappy ones. The iPhone couldn't run third-party apps for a full year after its release. Talk about reactionary!

The tech press does the same thing every time a new iPhone is released. They look at it on paper and say dumb things like:

> Don’t get me wrong: the iPhone 5 is a beautiful phone, and in true Apple fashion its design and construction are probably second to none… but is that really enough?

So, there is no other phone that can beat its design and construction, but "is it enough"? Is being the best enough?

That has to go down as one of the dumbest, most contradictory rhetorical questions in history.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Consumers don't care about implementation details. They care about the experience, and year after year, Apple delivers the best experience (proved by JD Power's smartphone satisfaction results).

>So, there is no other phone that can beat its design and construction, but "is it enough"? Is being the best enough?

The Nokia N9, Lumia 800, 900 and 920 are pretty well built and designed too. If you haven't, try going to a store and playing with one.

Coming to the design itself, it's tied in with fashion and at this point the design has not changed(except for the new back) since the iPhone 4 over 2 years ago. Design and fashion do age. The iPhone 4's design was a leap over the 3GS and combined with other features warranted a new version number, while this iteration feels that it should've been named iPhone 4X, X for extra long. Why get a new iPhone 5 when you already have an iPhone 4 or 4S and can add a Galaxy or Lumia and keep the old phone around as a iPod Touch music player?

Also, even if the design is superlative and timeless, for many consumers it is just one factor. The other factors are raw power, technical specs, camera quality and features(which the Lumia 920 is going to have a head start on). If the iPhone 5 cannot compete on specs with this years phones, what chance does it have with the Android phones of the next year?

However, there's another bigger factor that I previously commented on:

I think their problem right now is that users' choice is overwhelming them and the one-size-fits-all approach of the iPhone has diminishing returns after a point. The variety, choice of screen sizes and price ranges of the competition is only getting better by the day.

A new iPhone is released only once a year, so it better be very good with a lot of new technologies, features, new designs etc. for sales to last all through the next year. iPhone 4S sales started lagging in the 3Q itself this year, compared to the 4th quarter for the iPhone 4. This is because people start waiting for the next version or switch to the competition because they have better specced devices with more features. I think Samsung timed their Galaxy S3 launch perfectly to coincide with the iPhone 4S getting old enough to beat, and they beat it in monthly sales for the first time, which is a noteworthy thing in itself.

The whole situation is reminding me of the PC wars in the 80s, where Apple had a seemingly unassailable innovation lead, and then squandered it away by offering limited choice and higher prices, while Microsoft very smartly licensed DOS to Compaq and others like Dell and HP, and the rest is history. Apple's marketshare is now 17% vs. Android's 67% which is about 4 times more. No wonder Apple is going crazy with the patent war against Android. That's probably their only weapon against the equivalent of the attack of the hordes of beige boxes' that previously took them down.

The iPhone 5 is good enough to get great sales and beat all sales records ever, but the key is how well it does starting about 6 months from now.

> That's probably their only weapon against the equivalent of the attack of the hordes of beige boxes' that previously took them down.

This totally ignores the fact that Apple later took on those beige boxes, with the same general strategy they're using in the phone market, and carved out a perfectly nice, massively profitable niche in it that I imagine they're quite happy with.

Agreed, but not before they went through very painful times in the 90s and came close to getting shutdown. OEMs fell into a rut so Apple had a chance to ramp up the design, and OS X was amazingly better compared to OS 9, not to mention that Vista was terrible as Microsoft tried to remedy some of the issues with XP like everyone running as admin.

Probably companies go into a pattern alternating cycles of leapfrogging innovations and then to milking cash cows and then back again to innovation as the cash cows go dry. But it does feel like Apple is transitioning into milking cash cows w.r.t. to the iPhone (while perhaps concentrating on things like iTV).

That niche became dangerously small in the 90s. So small that many doubted Apple's survival.

Granted, they still need to compete with other phones, but if you ever watched people shop for phones basically nobody cares about specks.

So, is it enough is all about upgrades. And phone sales in the US are strongly linked to upgrade cycles which tend to be 18-24 month range. The percentage of people that upgrade mid cycle without breaking their old phone is tiny. So, is it worth the 800$ upgrade no, is it worth the 200$ upgrade on a 2 year old phone with some scratches and diminished battery life? probably, and that's what apple is going for.

>but if you ever watched people shop for phones basically nobody cares about specks.

You're right to some extent, but I wouldn't say "basically nobody", or the S3, Nexus etc. would be dead by now instead of selling tens of millions.

Taking an extremely wild guess based on personal interactions, I would say 40% don't care, 20% care, and the other 40% ask the pople who care about their opinion.

>So, is it worth the 800$ upgrade no, is it worth the 200$ upgrade on a 2 year old phone with some scratches and diminished battery life? probably, and that's what apple is going for.

The only issue is that the iPhone 5 design is pretty similar to the iPhone 4, except longer. So looks wise, it's like getting a new iPhone 4 or 4S that you see in almost everyone's hands, except taller. That might steer some of those people onto other devices. How many? I don't know, it's not going to be 90% but I think it won't be just 5% either.

I would be surprised if 20% of people with cellphones knew how much RAM their phone has or how fast the CPU was within 50 MHz or 1% of some specific benchmark. Ditto anything specific about their GPU or Battery.

Knowing the RAM or CPU is different from the comparisons made at point of purchase. Someone who'll pick the S3 because it is quadcore or more RAM over other phones will not necessarily remember the amount of RAM or the exact CPU speed one year down the line, just that it won in specs at the time of purchase.

It's a different size and different material. How does it look like the other ones again? In that it runs iOS? It's also a rectangle?

> A new iPhone is released only once a year, so it better be very good with a lot of new technologies, features, new designs etc. for sales to last all through the next year.

Regarding this, my question is why? Year to year non-computer products have fairly mundane upgrades. Cars get a bit more efficient, a bit safer, a bit roomier. Appliances get a bit more efficient, a new chrome, etc.

Apple's computers aren't major upgrades every year. Every once in a while, sure with the Intel switch, the retina display, the Macbook Air. In general though, once it's released it's a mundane upgrade: better CPU; better GPU; more RAM.

What is making phones so special that they need this high rate of change? 2G -> 3G -> 3GS were all major upgrades. That's a reflection of their time. 3G tech was just getting serious when the 2G came out, so the 3G upgrade was significant. The 3GS offered much better graphics/CPU performance as a reflection of new developments in the mobile CPU/GPU space. Much like how PCs have reached a stable point with their CPUs the same is happening to the mobile space. Why does it need to be so revolutionary every single year?

> iPhone 4S sales started lagging in the 3Q itself this year, compared to the 4th quarter for the iPhone 4. This is because people start waiting for the next version or switch to the competition because they have better specced devices with more features.

I think one of the major differences between the 4S release and the 5 release was the expectation. The 4S was not expected to be a major leap from the 4 so people kept buying it, also the 4S release date was months later than originally anticipated.

"Is being the best enough?"

I was speaking about industrial design.

In most markets and in most segments it isn't enough.

The Toyota Camry is the best selling car in America but it doesn't compare design-wise to a Porsche or a BMW...hell the best selling vehicle in the U.S. in a pickup truck.

Design is a very important differentiation point, and it certainly adds to sales, but it doesn't appear to be enough to dominate an entire market in the general sense.

Sales figures in the mobile space seem to indicate that while consumers like and appreciate top-notch industrial design, there are other factors that come into play. I don't think the iPhone 5 is dominant in those other factors to makeup for a ho-hum design update.

See, I don't think it matters. I think the "big update" that we (knowledgable tech folks) expected is lost on consumers. Did you catch that Jimmy Kimmel bit where he sent someone out on the street with a "new iPhone 5"; spoiler, it was an iPhone 4S. People on the street loved it.

I don't think that your average consumer needs a "big update". When a consumer buys a new Apple device, they're buying a couple of things that we (techies) don't connect with. They're buying:

* A device that they feel confident they'll be happy with (high user satisfaction rates support this)

* Peace of mind that they've got the latest, greatest device from a company they appreciate (Apple grand rating and a simple line up support this)

Neither of these factors show up in a feature comparison.

Customer satisfaction ratings for the iPhone are great. Why? I don't know. It's probably really, really hard to quantify, but I'm not sure it matters. What matters is that consumers are satisfied, and that they stay satisfied. Figuring out how to achieve that is Apple's job. I'm just calling it as I see it.

I believe the latter factor is more important than many people recognize. When you go to buy an Android phone, you're given a choice of many different models with some absolutely insane naming conventions. Have a look at the Verizon Shop page for smartphones:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=pho...

On the first page, there are 7 iPhones, but only 3 appear at the top, so the choices appear much simpler. In-store, there are only one or two iPhone models on display. There are 40 (maybe more) Android options in the online store. In-store, the models line shelves.

Which one is the newest? Which ones can get updates? Many consumers are aware that they might not be able to get "updates" with Android phones. Which ones come with "Ice cream sunday [sic]? My nephew says I should ask for that."

The rep in the store can guide you, but do you trust them? After all, he's telling me this one is the best, but how can he know that this is the best one out of the 39 other choices I'm staring at?

It's much easier to feel confident in your iPhone purchase. All you need to ask is "Am I getting the new one?" Apple holds a huge press event that makes headlines in the paper that my mom actually reads. She occasionally hears about a new Android phone release, but I guarantee you she can't tell me the name. Just that "it's some new droid phone." She doesn't know there's a difference between a Droid (the phone) and Android (the operating system).

I think certainty has a lot of value to consumers.

I don't think I disagree with you on any particular point. Even figuring out which Android phone is the latest and greatest is a multi-hour exercise in Google usage.

But I think your salient point is this "Peace of mind that they've got the latest, greatest device"

There is a risk, I can't say how strong, that the iPhone 5 might actually not be sufficient to provide that peace of mind. It might feel like a 3 or 4 year old phone model when the competition is constantly frothing up with newer and even more latest and greatest models.

We'll see over the coming year how this will play out. My prediction (and I'll be glad to be wrong) is that it won't play out well for Apple.

IMO, Phones have been pretty much commodities feature-wise for at least two or three years. The iPhone was the first modern smartphone, and I'd call the 260+ ppi Droid the first "truly modern" smartphone. Apple leapfrogged that screen density a bit further with the iPhone 4, but the usability/readability jump for text was biggest in that first jump made by the Droid.

There aren't any current truly game-changing features out there. Heck, despite missing free turn-by-turn navigation for years (and there being much complaining about this from iPhone users) iPhones still sold in ever-increasing numbers. Even if the geek crowd is feeling like the iPhone is increasingly just more of the same, I think it'll take a long to for that feeling to permeate the masses. And it would probably take some serious marketing/design failures on Apple's part for it to happen any time quickly. So while Android's carving out a ton of sales in the cheaper/free-smartphone area, Apple still has a ton of mindshare as the premium smartphone for heavy users, which further drives development of the latest apps to be targeted for iOS first, etc. (And that's without mentioning the iPad sales beast.)

But unless someone figures out something truly novel to do with NFC or whatever other new features introduced, people aren't going to care much. Right now those features look promising to people in the know, but they're still far from essential.

Apple gets some more help in the US with the subsidy situation—for instance, on AT&T, the new-customer unsubsidized price of the 16GB S3 is $100 less than the 16GB iPhone 5, but the two year contract one is the same price. The One X is $200 less unsubsidized, but only $100 less with a two year contract. Some quick searching makes it appear that the S3 was only $50 less than the current iPhone 5 price unsubsidized at initial launch, but that's still a nice little trick on Apple's part to have AT&T sell a pricier phone for the same price.

> doesn't feel like something anybody wants to be chasing any more

A reasonable speculation. Of course the best data will take a while to become available.

The one data point (showing in headlines this morning) is that, judging that it took only 1 hour for iP5 shipping time to move back from 1 week to 2 weeks, this phone is selling several times as fast as any iPhone predecessor.

Apparently some body is "chasing it."

Just because something sells well doesn't tell us everything. It's a good data point though.

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240080531/Windows-Vista-...

It's a very very pretty screen. People are going to be chasing that.

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