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Ask HN: Are Phones Good Enough?

by mariusseufzer on 9/20/22, 11:04 AM with 7 comments

Everyone complains about the new iPhones. „The new iPhone is exactly the same as last years!“ I agree! But also I don’t know what I want to see in terms of new features. I think todays phones are perfectly fine and don’t need to be revolutionized. What do you want to see in the iPhone 15?

  • by superchroma on 9/20/22, 11:09 AM

    A technology leap. Order of magnitude better battery, or a perfected, flexible form without issues like dust behind a screen at the hinge point.

    I don't play games on my phone, so it really does everything that I do often that I want it to. When I look at what else I own that it could replace, I can't see other easy wins.

  • by ksec on 9/20/22, 2:29 PM

    OLED Improvement, thinner and more energy efficient, along with all the improvement from current iPhone 14 Pro.

    Modem and CPU efficiency improvement from Shrinking Node.

    Thinner iPhone, Sub 6mm from its current 7.8mm.

    Battery Capacity improvement, Super Fast Charging, Battery Cycle ( Which Apple has kept it just above 2 years under normal usage ).

    All while staying within the current 170g weight if not lower.

    That is a lot of iteration, and enough work for at least 5 version of iPhone.

    For a lot of people, Phones has reach a good enough point and buying another one is simple because of MNO contract expiring or Battery degrading they are buying a new one.

  • by toast0 on 9/20/22, 4:01 PM

    I've never had an iPhone, but I might try one if it had usb-C charging and a headphone jack. I'm not buying another phone without those; usb-c seems like it'll eventually happen, I don't know if Apple will be brave enough to return to a headphone jack, but I'm not using bluetooth and I'm not doing dongles again, and I'm not going to get headphones with usb cables either. If I don't like it, which seems probable, they have great resale value.

  • by vmoore on 9/20/22, 4:46 PM

    My iPhone 7 is more than capable. The only caveat is that I won't get the latest and greatest iOS and apparently I'm stuck on iOS 15 now unless I upgrade the phone. This planned obsolescence should be outlawed...it just leaves people vulnerable because they don't have the latest patches.

  • by regularperson26 on 9/21/22, 4:28 PM

    there's a lot of unexplored features in the phones we already have, like the newest iphones Lidar sensor, such many use cases, it could lead to great stuff

  • by desindol on 9/20/22, 11:08 AM

    Apple took the time and changed a lot internally [0] for better repairability I think the candybar format is on it's last leg and can only get iterated on but as soon as flexible screens mature we will see a new spring in creativity.

    [0] https://www.ifixit.com/News/64865/iphone-14-teardown