Ask HN: What's the point of making smartphones slimmer and slippery?

Re:Ask HN: What's the point of making smartphones slimmer an... by niftich on Thursday September 08, 2016 @11:51PM (#12459532)

They look nice in carrier-run stores where phones are displayed for purchase. In the Android world, phones compete on style (fashion), brand, features (including battery life, but also cameras, NFC, etc.), and price.

In the Apple world; I have no idea. I can't imagine a significant number of people switch between ecosystems deliberately -- in either direction. Apple could make the phone thicker, and people would still buy it, but there's still a desire to have the iPhone set a fashion trend, and to maintain rough parity with high-end Android devices.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the point of making smartphones slimmer an... by lgieron on Friday September 09, 2016 @07:48AM (#12461269)

> I can't imagine a significant number of people switch between ecosystems deliberately -- in either direction.

When my current 5s dies, I'm almost certainly buying an Android phone. From what I've seen, with the right phone I can get very similar UX for about half the price.

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Re:Ask HN: What's the point of making smartphones slimmer an... by niftich on Friday September 09, 2016 @10:08AM (#12462319)

Interesting. If I may ask, what is your investment -- or if you prefer, sunk costs -- in the Apple ecosystem with iTunes/Beats, App Store, iCloud, and the like?

I think if I had a number of paid apps, lots of files uploaded, and were paying for iTunes streaming, those investments would keep me with Apple as opposed to switching to a platform where nearly all of these are unavailable, and had to migrate my data and find alternatives.

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