Just smaller and faster with new technology, never before seen delivered at this size, capability or scale.

What does Apple have to do to impress people? Do all this then give the phones away for free?

Louis CK - everything is amazing... but no one is happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ

Easily one of his best bits and he did it on a talk show.

It helped spawn an app too: https://theymadethat.com

People used to bitch about why people thought the MacBook was so cool when it was “only” 5mm thinner than anything else on the market.

The low end doesn’t understand why people pay so much more for fit and finish.

Except automobiles. Everyone seems to accept and even approve of the high end for cars.

Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian.

Oh..I didn't know that your Ferrari had a shit finish, you must have been quite unlucky...

I can personally attest to the poor quality of Lamborghini paint and coating from 98 til 2011.

The dashes split apart, all the clear coat on the carbon elements falls off, the paint oxidizes.

Park a 2003 Murcielago next to a 98 Lexus or Toyota (of any kind). You'll be real surprised which one weathered better.

Anyway, I digress, but I can agree with the point that 'high end car' is a lot different than 'high quality car' or 'long lasting car'.

So do you mean as soon as it was sold in 1998 to Audi, a German group, right? And what it has to do with the "abysmal" finish of Italian high end car?

Well shit, this thread didn't prepare me for this big a goalpost move

Edit: That was overly sarcastic but it went from talking about italian cars, to Ferrari specifically, to implying that the Italian brand is fine as long as it has Italian owners. Discussions are pointless if everyone's going to be arguing different points

I am sorry, but I think you didn't follow properly the discussion. The first quote I answered was exactly: "Fit and finish on many "high end" cars is actually pretty abysmal. Especially basically anything Italian." So, as everyone can see, the discussion was specifically around high end Italian cars, unless I'm missing some tricky and specific nuance of the English language in this context. In that case please enlighten me instead of writing sarcastic comments, it will be appreciated much more. Ferrari, if I'm not mistaken, is the archetype of high end Italian cars. And then when someone starts bubbling about the abysmal quality of 1998 Lamborghini I duly make it clear that they were not Italian for a long time at that point and they have been just acquired by a German automaker. I honestly can't see any contradiction in this very linear reasoning. Please let me know what I'm missing.

The point I found missing was why ferarri was brought up if you could point to 1998 as the time is was no longer high end for a legitimate reason, the foreign ownership. Someone could have conceived a child after that point in time and the child would be able to vote by now, why use it as an example?

It seemed like either you knew what the other poster meant by Italian high end cars, the Ferrari brand, and chose to defend it despite knowing that it was bad for other reasons. Or you thought he was discussing Italian owned Italian brands when it turns out some famous Italian brands are not Italian owned.

Either way that looks like you two were using different definitions for the same words to my third party view

Ehm.. Are you aware that Lamborghini and Ferrari are two completely different car brands right? Ferrari is Italian, Lamborghini was Italian and was sold to different parties since the 80's or something like that. From 1998 Lamborghini is German. In my original comment I said that I would be very surprised to find a Ferrari with a shit finish, and another user said that Lamborghini from 1998 to 2011 had abysmal paint quality. So I don't see any contradiction in my comments.

I just re-read the thread, completely missed that 'serf replied with Lamborghini when you spoke about Ferrari. My apologies for the snark, it was uncalled for

Land Rovers are designed, manufactured and (around the corner from me in Herefordshire) tested in the UK. Jaguar Land Rover is owned by Tata. Does that make them Indian cars?

Quality apparently is on par with other tata models, so from my humble point of view I'd say yes.

I've driven ferraris in las vegas racetracks. Affordable experience. The fit and finish was far below any luxury vehicle by far. The R8 was miles ahead in comfort and luxury details, but then those cars are not not designed as a luxury vehicle.

My Fiat is awful! ;)

Why do you get so defensive? What in “is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier“ is not accurate?

It’s not accurate because there is more, the front facing sensor array to make faceid possible is completely new, the OLED display is completely new.

OLED is something a lot of high end phones had for quite some time now.

As for FaceID, I am not convinced yet. I would be more impressed with an under the screen fingerprint sensor.

But I guess I will try it in a couple of weeks, when I get mine, and form a better opinion.

IMHO component costs are not the reason Apple increased the price; they increased it because they could.

Not all OLEDs are made equal...

You haven’t used faceid yet are not convinced... Maybe wait until you’ve used it? I am using it right now, and so far there are very few times I’ve missed touchid, and I’ve been reminded of all the times that Touch ID would fail, like getting out of the shower etc...

I don’t understand the longing for an underscreen finger print scanner, does the computer in Star Trek require thumb print? Does the UI in minority report? If you imagine futuristic computer interfaces the computers just know who is using them, this is one of the first steps along that road...

As to the price, Apple price there phones where they want to price them to make sure they have high profit margins. I’m not sure why people complain about this. If they don’t do this they don’t make as much money. I do believe this phone costs significantly more to make than others, and the price fairly reflects that, though it is only £200 premium over the 8+...

How do you think Apple should price there products? A lower overall cost?

Got it today. I have to say, faceid is pretty cool. The screen however is disappointment; the hue/color temperature changes significantly to be distracting with tiny changes to viewing angle.

>>> Just smaller and faster with new technology, never before seen delivered at this size, capability or scale.

That was happening every year and marginal at best.

FaceID sensor array is literally as I describe, not a year over year improvement.

The Phone feels like it is from the future.

>That said, as many have suggested, the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.

FaceID is a huge leap and affects how people use their phones. The phone can behave differently if you are looking at it. For example: showing sensitive info only if you're looking at it, and not playing notification sounds as loud (or at all) if you see the notification as it comes in.

There's an interesting article from the folks at Wired who have been attempting to fool Face ID without any success so far.

https://www.wired.com/story/tried-to-beat-face-id-and-failed...

Doesn't Samsung do that as well though? They make screens, and CPUs and many of the other components in a modern phone, don't they?

I'm wondering when Apple will start making their own camera sensors.

Multiple differences between Samsung and Apple:

1. Samsung was a semiconductor maker, that successfully moved up to make phones. Apple was a integrator of third party chips that successfully went down to own many of the chips.

2. Apple's chips are significantly better than the competition. Partly because the chip division has a captive customer whose requirements are more apparent, plus no middlemen thanks to the vertical integration

3. Samsung's components need to serve multiple segments of the phone market, and other external customers. Apple only builds for Apple's specs

4. Every new breakthrough on the iPhone has been because of a chip that Apple alone had. From the very first iPhone's capacitive touch sensors to the new IR sensor system, no one else has the access for a couple phone cycles. Apple put out a 64 bit ARM processor even before arm had finalized the instruction set

Number 4 got me curious about the latency for the competitors catching up with the various hardware advances.

Capacitive touch screen:

  iPhone: June 29, 2007
  HTC Dream/G1: October 20, 2008 (479 days later)

Fingerprint sensor:

  iPhone 5s: September 20, 2013
  Galaxy S5: April 11, 2014 (203 days later)

ARMv8 (64-bit) ISA:

  iPhone 5s: September 10, 2013
  Galaxy Note 4: October 17, 2014 (402 days later)

Tiny bezel:

  Galaxy S6 Edge: April 10, 2015
  iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (938 days later)

OLED screen:

  Samsung Galaxy: June 29, 2009
  iPhone X: November 3, 2017 (3049 days later)

4. Is absolutely wrong in every aspect. Most "innovation" was bought tech (primesense, for instance). The ARMv8 ISA was finalized ages before the chips got designed. Middle of 2011 IIRC.

Having the foresight and capabilities to make the right acquisitions at the right times is just good business. Splitting hairs over whether the technology was internally developed or purchased is irrelevant to the point being made about the exclusivity of the hardware.

True - They bought 3rd party companies with the tech. Still doesn't change the observation that they made it better, and tailored it specifically for the iPhone. None of those sensors have drop in replacements. And Apple put out the 64bit proc prior to ARM having IP --> FACt

Samsung has a problem with adding features to their devices that are simply not well executed.

For instance, from the NY Times review of the Galaxy Note 8:

>Some of the biometrics, including the ability to unlock your phone by scanning your face or irises, are so poorly executed that they feel like marketing gimmicks as opposed to actual security features.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/technology/personaltech/s...

Samsung's screens are excellent, but their CPU/GPU performance is a generation (or more) behind Apple. Plus they are way behind in integrated functionality such as motion coprocessor, ai processing, and secure enclave.

I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones, in color fidelity especially. Partly because of Apple's attention to detail, but also because Samsung's flagship phones ship in much higher volume than the X is expected to.

>>> I don't know how true this is, but I've heard that the Samsung OLED screen on the iPhone X is significantly better than the ones Samsung puts on it's flagship phones

I can't believe that. I just can't.

All iPhone X reviews mention the screen tech difference, all of them say how they don't notice a difference.

Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity. Jon Gruber was just talking about how Google spent the time/effort to make the colors of the Pixel display more accurate and natural, and then people complain they don't "pop" and look as good as the super-saturated colors on other android phones.

>>> Most reviewers (and people) don't appreciate color fidelity

It's not about "appreciating". It's that it doesn't matter. Everyone talked about retina resolution, then about "true colors".

Today we have Samsung making all the screens.

The point is, nobody except professionals care.

I very much care.

The colour reproduction on Samsung phones is just awful after spending so much time on MacBooks and iPhones. Over saturated and as you increase brightness it washes everything out.

I spent time with the iPhone X today so can comment on the screen first hand.

What makes the screen different is that the colours aren't oversaturated like Android phones. It was identical to the iPhone 8 screen (LED) only significantly brighter.

From what I've read what makes it better are things like the reduced blue-shift that occurs when moving the phone and the significant reduction in burn-in effect. But what most people will think is that it is the colours that make it better. Even though that could largely be software.

I can believe it. The quality is all about cost. What level of rejected units can you accept for price $X? If Apple can pay more (due to cost, scale, or just where the price of the phone is allocated between parts) they can buy a better screen.

Yeah the S8 and S8 Plus had (has?) significant top/side edge colour shift.

(Speaking as the owner of the Plus, who has his first replaced and the second is somewhat better but not perfect. Wife's S8 is also affected but she doesn't see it or doesn't care. I would still take that slight imperfection over the horrid notch though).

Not quite. Samsung fabs chips. They may even design chips. But they don’t work ‘together’.

Samsung makes 5 processors and puts them on the open market.

The another part of Samsung buys those chips off the shelf and used them in their phones.

My understanding is the two units don’t work together hand in hand like Apples teams do, they work together the way Samsung and HTC do.

Basically, yeah, they don't make the OS. I think the parent comment was more aimed at software companies. Though, you could look at it from the opposite point of view as well.

> the new iPhone is no more than just another faster, smaller, and costlier.

I'm sold. I'll take it.