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iPhones Are Priced 'High in the Extreme' But They're Worth It, Says Apple Co-founder Wozniak (scmp.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Apple's iPhone has been losing ground to domestic competitors in China. That is because Chinese smartphone makers offer sophisticated functions at reasonable prices, according to Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder and one of the pioneers of the personal computer industry. "Here is what I admire about Chinese phones: really good, intelligent decisions about how to lower the cost but keep enough of the functionality in, because I am into products that are good, well designed, nice looking, but at prices that the average person can afford," he said. Still, Wozniak believes the quality of Apple's product makes it worth the high price tag. "In life I don't believe in quantity as much as I do in quality. So you may not have the hugest share in the market or be the No 1, but you should have the best product you can possibly build and Apple qualifies for that," Wozniak, told reporters after he discussed artificial intelligence with Liu Zihong, chairman and chied executive of Royole, in a technology forum held at Tianan Cyber Park in Dongguan, Guangdong province, on Tuesday. Unlike Chinese smartphone brands that prioritise cost-effectiveness, Apple's popular and more expensive iPhone handsets are still the leader in innovation in certain features despite being more of a "safe product," he said. "Apple products are safe. And Apple's pricing is high in the extreme. It's a safe bet for a lot of people, and when you love Apple you are willing to pay for it," he said.
>> Woz: "Here is what I admire about Chinese phones...(but Apple is more good-er)"
How is an iPhone not a "Chinese phone"?
Most people basically replace their phones every two to three years, so what does it matter if your phone is built to last longer? All that matters on modern phones are features, and on that front Apple tends to lag a bit.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Like removing user replaceable batteries and removing headphone jacks and not including features.
Yeah, the only difference between Apple and landfill is the price tag. They led the race to the bottom, and now my 4+ year old phone is probably the last phone I will own due to their "innovations."
Samsung S5 - replaceable battery / rear case. Wireless charging. Waterproof. OLED display. Lineage OS support (think free as in speech).
--WooooHoooo--
We don't all replace a perfectly working gadget every few years just for shiny shiny!, not just because of the monetary cost but because of the ethics and enviromental costs. So some of us do care that they're built to last.
They didn't, but you have to admit, with the iPhone they really did Lead The Way.
There was a period when most phones, even Apple's, were pretty good hardware. They were expected to outlast the battery and you would probably change it at least once. Apple was one of the first to have the "courage" to use a cost-reduced integrated battery design, which of course everyone, even companies that previously had a reputation for quality (e.g. Samsung) had to copy.
If Apple hadn't sucked, lots of other phones wouldn't suck yet either. They made suckiness accepted, and if you listen to some people, they even made suckiness become a good thing.
That said, I do hold accountable the manufacturers who mysterious felt they had to copy Apple. My current 3-year-old Samsung phone (S4) is definitely my last Samsung phone, ever. No more money for you, Samsung, unless you decide to stop copying Apple and go back to making quality hardware.
I've used both Android and iPhone, and I found the iPhone just "cleaner" and more straight-forward. Apple controls the user experience carefully, and refuses most junk and clutter.
It may not be that Android is "bad" per se, but various phone vendors either don't give enough thought to a clean UI, and/or put junkware and play games to get you to buy their crap. It's more wild-west in flavor. On the upside, Android may have more potential options and shortcuts if you fiddle and dig enough.
It's much like the old Mac vs. Windows debate: Mac is easier to "just use" out of the box, while Windows is less expensive and has more potential software, but needs more babysitting of the machine to do it and keep running, and UI design that sometimes makes you cringe. Google is the new Microsoft, for good or bad.
Table-ized A.I.
Hopefully, this will clarify what the general public sees in Apple products...
As Slashdotters, we're used to telling computers "do what I say". If you've ever had a Google search that came back ignoring a critical part of a search term and having gotten mad at it for doing so, it's because Google didn't do what you said. We are the types of people who have unusual requests and explicit commands that we expect our computers to honor. Complex routing and firewall rules, always clicking "custom" when installing software, selecting which software updates get applied, and the inherent nature of software development - these are all the result of a "do what I say" mentality...and it's why we're very, very good at what we do - we know what to say.
The general public does not have this.
The general public knows they want the data on their phone to survive if the hardware doesn't. Do most think through it enough to consider which server it should live on, or how to ensure text messages are properly backed up (and in what format), or whether a TLA can access that data without their knowledge? If prompted, maybe, but for 99.9999% of iPhone users, the sequence of "having their phone fall from a roller coaster", "having Apple replace that phone with a new one", and "all the pictures of their kids being where they were before" is a far superior experience that requires no thought or action from the user; "make sure my data is safe" is a "do what I mean" command that iCloud basically provides far better than some amalgam of what Google offers - Google will back up your text messages, but gets inconsistent with MMS if Verizon is handling text messages with their proprietary app that comes standard on Android, as one example.
Asking a friend how to do something on an iPhone, even if they're not exactly the same model, is pretty much guaranteed to work consistently. Go ahead and *try* walking someone through setting up an e-mail account on an Android phone. Which Android version? Which carrier? Motorola launcher, Samsung launcher, HTC launcher? Are they using a third party mail client? Are they doing so without knowing it, since later versions of Android tend to handle Exchange through the Gmail app? While a somewhat-informed, not-IT person can walk another user through adding an e-mail account on an iPhone, it's all but hopeless on Android. Rinse and repeat for many tasks, and it's abundantly clear why Apple has a far greater grasp on the social aspect of owning an iPhone. Now, don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate the customizability of Android and use it quite extensively. However, it's only useful with the understanding that effectively customizing an Android device requires a "do what I say" mentality.
Finally, let's discuss safety. While sure, I think that the "toxic hellstew" comment is ridiculous, the fact of the matter is that you probably know someone who has called "Microsoft Support" and gotten taken for $400 and likely left a mess for you to clean up. It's a sad reality that such a scam works, but it does. The "do what I say" crowd decries the walled garden because it keeps us in, preventing us from accessing lower level system functions, greater customizations, nontraditional apps (oh ctorrent...), and the principled stance of owning a purchased device. However, the "do what I mean" crowd wants a device where they don't have to worry about something happening that they didn't "mean". The walls on the garden are for their safety, and even though they might disagree with a few aspects of that configuration if pressed, the fact is that an "Apple Support" scam is a nonstarter on the platform and for most iPhone users, that is a fair trade in exchange for low level functions they wouldn't know how to use anyway because they don't know what to "say".
And that, fellow Slashdotters, is why the iPhone remains popular.
Apple is very much a mixed bag when it comes to product longevity in real live.
You can't just drop a statement like that without backing it up with some evidence. While we can point to a handful of instances where Apple dropped support for things earlier than some people, particularly nerds, would have liked, calling their product longevity a mixed bag is a gross overstatement of the actual problem facing most users, in much the same way that saying "Malware is thousands of times more common on Android than iOS" is a way that the media (and Apple fanboys) like to lie with statistics. Sure, it may be true, but it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation (i.e. that malware isn't really a common problem on either platform).
Certainly when it comes to iPhones, Apple has a rather good track record for product longevity, and it's widely understood that they support old devices with the latest updates for longer than any of their Android counterparts.
For my part, the iPhone 5s I bought in 2013 and still use today as my primary device will be fully supported in iOS 11 that is coming out later this year. Generally speaking, it still runs just as well today as it did on the day I bought it. It's only been in the last few months that I've even started noticing a performance difference between apps on my iPhone and the same apps running on newer devices, but the differences are nowhere near sufficient to warrant an upgrade. The phone still holds enough of a charge that it can (admittedly barely) last from work on Friday to work on Monday without needing a charge over the weekend, so the battery hasn't forced an upgrade, and I don't expect that it will anytime soon.
In fact, I've had the money set aside in my budget since 2015 to buy a new iPhone outright, given that I had anticipated upgrading on the stereotypical two-year cycle, but my iPhone 5s continues to run like a champ, much to my surprise and delight. As such, I've held off upgrading for the last two years, and given the rumors circulating so far and the continued performance from my current device, I expect that I'll do so again this year, meaning that by the time I finally do decide to upgrade, I will have had a fully supported, still-useful iPhone running the latest OS with the latest security updates and the latest features for a period lasting no less than 5-6 years.
My Android phones last just fine.
Define "just fine".