If you don’t want a camera upgrade every 2 years then there is zero reason to upgrade. But the camera upgrades alone are usually worth it.

> But the camera upgrades alone are usually worth it.

That assumes you have any sort of use for the camera, otherwise it just makes the phone look freakier and freakier for no reason.

Yes that assumes you have use for the camera. Anyone who doesn’t really has no reason to read new phone launch press releases (since about 5 years ago). They are now cameras with other smart phone features tacked on. Incremental increases to cpu/memory/battery/storage but big improvements to picture quality (such as a full stop or two of sensitivity)

> Yes that assumes you have use for the camera. Anyone who doesn’t really has no reason to read new phone launch press releases

There are plenty of reasons to do so e.g. new IME or security systems, hardware upgrades (e.g. computational engines or dedicated hardware), etc…

It's subjective, but cameras are already so good that it hardly makes a difference.

If you have kids, better low light photography is extremely valuable. Many moments with kids are indoors and lighting indoors is usually terrible.

If someone comes out with a point-n-shoot that's about as good as a semi-recent iphone camera, does live photos(!), and has backup-over-wifi I'm back on a dumbphone on release day of that device.

And yeah, entirely for kids.

Live Photos are probably the best feature to ever happen for parents. They are pure magic.

That is what I thought until upgraded from 7 to 10s. Difference in photo quality is 4x.

You get at least two or three stops more sensitivity if you upgrade from 7 to X. It’s an enormous difference when you need it. You can’t take a picture in broad daylight and say “looks nice and crisp, can’t be better”. Take a photo of something moving, indoors and you’ll see it.

Good. I'm glad to be off the upgrade treadmill from the early days of smartphones, on both the hardware and the OS level. When my current one breaks, I'll upgrade.

Still on 6s. Battery life is my reason to upgrade. I'm at 3.5hrs browsing, 14hrs standby on a replacement battery <1yr old.

Mine has been great since I got it changed under the replacement program last year. Usually around 60-70% when I get home from work.

That’s what I did too - it’s at 54% right now, 5 hours after waking. Maybe I got a dud battery.

To be fair when I'm at work I don't use it much and it's connected to Wifi. If I'm traveling and actively using it for hours it definitely doesn't last this long.

That doesn't sound right. Is this a official, genuine Apple battery or was this done by a third party?

Done at the Genius Bar. I replaced the battery because it was even worse and wild shut down due to not enough voltage. It doesn’t do that anymore, but especially in low signal places it drains very very fast.

I hear you, I upgraded from the 6S to the XS last year. I love both phones, but the 6S was simpler since I didn't need a dongle for headphones. The jump was great for the screen size, but I hate sacrificing the headphones.

Last year I bought some bluetooth earphones (Bose rather than Apple) and honestly I don't miss wired earphones one bit. In fact it surprised me just how much I don't miss wired earphones.

The biggest annoyance for me is that Nintendo's Switch requires a bluetooth dongle to work with bluetooth earphones despite having it's own bluetooth radio built in.

Are you pairing your earphones with multiple devices ? (your phone and switch ?)

That’s the last point that makes me pause, as pairing/unpairing/switching is a PITA and I have four devices I want to hear audio from. I though only airpods and Beats could switch seemlessly so I am intrigued.

My Bose earphones can be connected to two devices concurrently. However it can be paired to a multitude more devices but not connected to them. Which means if you have 3 devices turned on (eg laptop, Switch and phone) it might only be connected to the laptop and phone. So you either have to switch the connection via the phone app (which isn't the prettiest nor most intuitive of apps but it's "good enough" for what it is) or turn off one of the devices and the earphones will auto-switch to the next available pared bluetooth device.

I don't think there is a way in the Bose app of setting an order of preference for which devices will take precedence (eg when I pared with my laptop, the laptop would take ownership and stop the phone from playing everytime the laptop was turned on - which was rather annoying to say the least). But it was a while ago when I last checked.

So you don't have to pair an unpair all the time but there are some annoying edge cases. However it's still easier than unplugging and replugging the cable.

One thing I will say in favour of wired earphones is that the wire itself is actually rather nice tool for not actually losing your earphone. The bluetooth earphones I have are connected via a cable between the two ear pieces (which goes round the back of your neck) which means I can take the earphones out to talk to someone and not worry about dropping or losing an earpiece. So often on the London underground I see people dropping an AirPod and then scrambling around a busy escalator trying to pick the damn thing up. I dread to think how many people have lost or broken their AirPods directly because of their form factor. So if you're the clumsy sort or struggle to find earphones which stick in your ear, then you might be better off sticking to wired earphone or buying headphones instead.

Thanks. Having an app to switch seems a pretty good compromise to me.

Headphone jack’s ship has sailed anyway, so it’s mostly a matter of making peace with it with decent alternatives.

The way Bose does it can be a little awkward (sometimes you have to manage devices from the app), but it definitely works.

Waterproofing could perhaps be the main feature, the 6S being the last one who didn’t get it. I also wonder if they increased screen durability, with all the shots of phones getting into purses against keys etc.

Also I feel the camera is getting slower as time goes by, and I already replaced the battery.

If you are “feature-shopping”, you may want to check out Android phones, which ship with lots of gimmicks (which they call “features”).

Apple is for quality - which is why you are still happy with your 6S. ;)

Yeah, problem is I want both features and quality. :)

I am 100% sold on Apple devices in terms of quality, reliability and privacy issues. I don't think I'd buy an Android anytime soon. I just wish they had a few more exciting hardware features.

What kind of exciting features were you hoping for? What does Android phones have that is missing on iphones? Beyond 5G which isn't deployed widely yet

I wasn't really hoping for these since it was pretty clear they wouldn't be announced, but:

TouchID sensor under the screen, getting rid of the notch, USB-C and 5G

... or something unexpected that's so innovative I couldn't have predicted it.

> TouchID sensor under the screen

YES

Galaxy Note 10+ user here. This limits the availability of screen protectors. Samsung was nice enough to include one pre-installed, but this slows down the fingerprint reader performance.

Perhaps Apple's 3rd party accessory ecosystem and their attention to detail and polish would avoid these issues.

On Android: You can set default apps for certain links (YouTube, browser, mail client, etc). You can leave spaces or add widgets to the home screen. You can plug the phone into a computer and access the file system like a USB drive. Those are all pretty nice. Of course, iMessage, Apple Wallet, and other features are nice on iPhones. Both are different and good in their own ways.

Why do you keep grilling them about Android? They never mentioned Android. They're not comparing iPhone 11 Pro Max to Android phones.

They're comparing it to iPhone 6S. And it's not worth their upgrade.