Apple time is now world time When Apple says orders for the iPhone five will open on September 14th, that's exactly what the Curpertino-centric company means. We know this because El Reg's antipodean eyrie has chatted to the call centres of local carriers, and has been told they won't take any calls about the new handset until 17:01 Sydney time. That's a …
Got to buy, got to buy, got to buy........
Think for a moment, the new iPhone does not out spec anything, ok it's got a bigger screen and faster processor, but if you compare it to the 4S, except for that it has the same specification. Even the 4S will get the iOS update before the new phone ships.
No no, don't think, got to buy got to buy, got to buy..... Got to BUY.....
What's happening to me, why can't I log onto the store.............. Buy buy buy.
Surely all y'all iFad drones still have many months on your current connection contract? Why the fuck are you planning on dropping your current hardware in the weeds (despite the fact that it works perfectly!), in order to pay MORE to do exactly what you are doing now?
The mind boggles ...
I wouldn't be so sure. Where are all these hypothetical Apple customers who spend their food money to buy a new iPhone every year?
Everybody Apple fan I know with an iPhone 4 or newer has no inclination to buy an iPhone 5. The people I know planning on buying an iPhone 5 all have iPhone 3Gs or 3GSs at best.
As usual there is a big difference between the Apple fans I know in real life and how Apple fans are portrayed by fandroids on message boards.
"Everybody Apple fan I know with an iPhone 4 or newer has no inclination to buy an iPhone 5. The people I know planning on buying an iPhone 5 all have iPhone 3Gs or 3GSs at best."
However, your anecdotal "evidence" from a tiny sample size may prove to be a poor predictor to behaivior of the populace at large. When the 4s came out, there were (predominately slightly overweight young Asian) guys queueing outside phone stores every morning for new stocks for about a week, around my neck of the woods. They seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere rather than being pissy, so maybe ritual is part of it, the way midnight album launches used to be, when they mattered.
Outside of the main Apple store, they had tensabarriers and much bigger queues, and that was just an S bump. Those queues were mostly hipsters, but had a bit of pretty much every demographic in them.
I am not prepared to take a position on whether it's good or bad, right or wrong, but lots of people do it, and some seem to actually enjoy the process. Go figure.
But then we should criticise the media, who for years have perpetuated this myth that people are obsessively waiting for the next Apple product release, or queuing up for hours, etc. I'd gladly see an end to all the hysteria whipped up by the mainstream press, which just gives free advertising to Apple, when most people - including the customers themselves, as you say - don't actually care.
You don't understand the addiction, like super sized Big Macs to fat people, alcohol to alcoholics and cigarettes to smokers.
iPhone's to fanbois, they believe they can control their impulses but as addicts they can't.
Maybe setting up a self help group, ianonymous might help.
They'll be animating in a far more frustrated style when the entire world hits one call centre and is "Held in a queue" even though their call is "very important to us".
It's a rather stupid plan to be honest... Time zones are a great leveller of call volumes. They could go as far as to say that the lines will be open from 12:00 to 12:59 local time and give everyone a one hour window, a window that slowly scans round the planet.
But no, they want to appear to be fair to the entire planet (at least that is probably what they say) and will cause chaos in the process.
It's almost like Apple want to cause stories of jammed lines... No they wouldn't deliberately create a story like that would they...
The wife's got a 3GS which is starting to creak quite noticeably, she's resigned to the fact that buying new top-end phones is a stupid extravagance (well resigned to me holding the purse strings) but I'm hoping we'll see better deals on the 4GS (which as has been said is pretty damn good) once it's no longer the new boy.
Knock yourself out*- you'll have plenty of cheap cases and other accessories to choose from, plus a good chance of discounted speaker docks etc.
*I was going to write 'knock your wife out', but that loses the intended meaning and is just plain wrong. Curious thing, this language game.
Just taking a look at the relative price difference (currently) between the "4" and the "4S" it suggests that when things settle down a while after the launch of the "5" you might be lucky and see the 4S around the £350 mark for the 16Gb version. If of course your good lady really wouldn't consider a GSII 16Gb for around £325? :P
When the The Register gave us ten alternatives to the new iPhone in an article yesterday, most of the featured phone were larger than the iPhone. If you are used to the size of iPhones, but want to try Android, then you could do worse than the Sony Xperia P.
iPhone 5 124 x 59 x 7.6mm
iPhone 4 115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3 mm
Xperia P 122 x 59.5 x 10.5 mm
I'm no expert; the Xperia P is my first smartphone. I do note that my thumb can reach most of the screen very easily, something I imagine would give me cramp on a larger screen. Since Reghardware positively reviewed the phone, the Ice Cream Sandwich update has been released and has significantly improved the battery life (mostly achieved by giving an option to turn off off non-essential data when the phone is in standby)
There is no microSD card slot, but there is the option of reading thumbsticks and memory card readers with USB OTG, if you use a cable- not included. A mini HDMI cable comes in the box, though, and it happily puts iPlayer on a big TV.
I upgraded to the Xperia P from a Nexus One, lovely phone. With ICS it's a very pleasant experience and has pretty much the same feature set as the iPhone 5 (subjectively) + NFC. All for A$350 outright in my case.
I got this because I agree with those not wanting huge phones, the S3 is a powerhouse but too damn big for my tastes.
I genuinely don't understand this whole "the S3 is too big" meme. I just handed mine to my officemate, who, according to the BBC's Olympic Athlete body match thingy* is closest to a South Korean table tennis player, and he found no issues with the ergonomics.
I'm not saying maybe it doesn't happen, I just don't understand *how*?
*http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19050139
An S3 still fits in a pocket though, which is really the limiting factor for portability. I've got the Galaxy Nexus (only 4.65", but actually pretty much physically the same size as an S3), and I never go "Oh dear, I don't have room to take my phone". It's portable, and goes with me everywhere.
An Ipad is just too big. It isn't at all portable like a phone. If I've got room for a 10" device, I'll take my far more functional Samsung netbook.
Also by your logic, if I want to watch something on a big screen, I'll view it on my 17" Clevo or 42" LG TV. But just as there's a place for 10" devices, there's a place for devices bigger than 3.5", but smaller than 10".
If someone doesn't need one that big, they don't need a new phone at all, by the same logic. If you're not upgrading, then you're also a lost customer for Apple, so that still doesn't help them.
(There are also plenty of smaller non-Apple smartphones already available if one doesn't want one that's so big. Though I do have to recommend giving it a go - I quickly got used to the large size, and now anything smaller than 4.3" looks like an aging feature phone.)
"Why wait when you can just buy a very nice Samsung Galaxy S3 today?"
When are they bringing that version out? The current one looks like you are compensating for having a small penis by having a giant phone.
The other small factor is that people you know might want to buy apps that just work? As someone who's got both, the google play store is a mess, and the amazon one that's just launched is a little better (mainly due to a free app a day!)
IOS 6 launches, most apps will just work, or a new one will be there in a month. There are still loads of apps that just don't work on Jelly Bean, still nothing that android fanbois don't froth about...Flash..Iplayer, lots of games...etc etc.
I want to like android, but for the £100 price difference between an Iphone 5 and an Samsung S3, I'd pay the extra £100.
£100 on a £500 quid phone is not really an issue - certainly not by the time it's a couple of quid a month over the 18-24 months of your contract. You buy the phone you want and for most non-reg people that's the iPhone.
Will be interesting to compare first quarter sales of the S3 against first quarter sales of the iPhone 5.
No, the Iphone has never been the number one platform. It was Symbian until 2011, then Android. Latest figures show Android approaching 70%, Iphone at 16% and falling. Even on Samsung Android alone, they're outselling Apple 2 to 1. (And please don't tell me you're using the fallacy of comparing individual models, which is completely arbitrary depending on how you categorise each phone, and biases Apple who call all their phones "Iphone" - it tells us nothing about what people are buying in general. Although yes, the fact that we're at the stage now where even just one single model of thousands of Android devices is now selling on par with Apple's entire phone range, is quite amusing.) Sorry, those are the facts.
The idea that the Iphone is for the masses and only geeks buy other platforms is a myth - if anything, it's the reverse: the masses have bought platforms like Symbian and Android, whilst the Iphone gets more support from the kind of geek who only owned a 10 year old dumb phone before (and so is amazed that they can, say, send an email on a phone, or access a website).
Agree completely, they should make all the apps for the 4.3" screen or a 10.1" screen, that android has, and leave it at Gingerbread 2.3, that way you could make them all work.
What do you mean android has more than 2 screen sizes, does that mean all stuff works? Nope..oh.
But 80% of android users will be on the latest os won't they, so we can just make everything for buttery jelly can't we?
Well that's settled, everything made for 2 screens, and only works on Butter jelly and you'll be fine.
Other than that, you could split it by OS, from froyo to JB, and then by device resolution, and then you'll see why devs take on IOS first.
Do it for the last ios, in this case 6, do a normal and a hd version (iphone 5 users can get stuffed) and 85% of your users are happy..
http://www.readwriteweb.com/mobile/2012/01/more-than-66-of-users-have-upg.php
Show's 66% of users, others show 80%.
are 66% of Android users on vanilla JB yet?
Trying to keep up to date with Android is a faff - apps don't work - it wont run on older handsets. Perhaps they should take a(nother) leaf out of Apple's book - my ageing 3GS still runs iOS 5. Think it's time for an upgrade. Too many Android pushers are blinkered - you want a phone that works - buy iPhone - you want a phone that you will probably have to replace in 12-18 months and may well be a hassle buy Android. I've tried both for various models and although the hardware is getting better on Android they are not 'made' as well and the software lets it down. Too fragmented.
Iphone has the same problem - whilst you might get the latest OS, the older hardware then has trouble supporting it, or they just cut out features. I'd rather that manufacturers take the time to decide if a phone is capable of running it. Plus even if the OS still runs, the applications get more advanced - e.g., apparently something as simple as a Facebook app now struggles on an original Iphone.
I'm on a 24 month contract, and have no intention of upgrading before then. Indeed the idea is laughable. With Android software and hardware so far ahead, there is no need to keep upgrading so often, anyway. Compare with Iphone, where you have to wait a year or so to upgrade to get features like copy/paste or multitasking.
Not sure what you mean by fragmented. The hardware on my Samsung is just fine, as is the software.
Mark, You're as blinkered as any fanboy.
Everything you cite in your three posts has been a non-issue for me and the 2 other members of my family who each have older versions of the iPhone.
And the day my other half stops coming to me with her Samsung phone asking "How do I do....?" will be the day I might say that Android is better.
Never had a problem with Android, applications just work fine for me. Plus I don't have to deal with the UI-disaster that is Itunes, which doesn't "just work" in my experience. And I'm running the latest Jelly Bean. I also get loads of things as standard, rather than having to wait years whilst the platform plays catchup (Finally get copy/paste? Where's the free sat-nav?)
Iplayer also works fine, though if it didn't, the fault would lie with the BBC for catering for the minority of Apple users over the far more popular Android platform.
And Flash - since when did Apple get that support?
They are, that is why they are constantly suing the shit out of Samsung over everything they can think of. They've jumped the shark, and they know it.
Actually, that's a shame, I have no particular emotional or self-esteem interest to either side in this war, and would prefer they would keep upping the stakes by proving what's possible. As someone who used to tote around a Psion series 3, I like slightly odd portable devices.
Because of the content "lock in" lead that apple has. Apple customers have been buying content from Apple for far too long, including music, videos and apps.
While you can probably shoehorn your music and videos on your new android phone, most people balk at having to pay again for much used commercial apps.
Apple is the king of content, and it's not going to change anytime soon, I think.
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Got to look at TCO - you buy an iPhone and it's good for 2-3-4 years - you buy an S3 and it will probably be dropped about 6 months after the S4 is out. I've been there with Android before - buy a handset - get little / no support and as soon as the new one comes out you can forget it.
Then you can get Applecare for £61 I think - are Samsung going to give you the same level of cover for £61 for 2-3 years - no thought not. Reason - they can't. I can book an appointment using an app, walk in an Apple shop and they fix it there and then. My last Samsung had to be sent back - was without a phone for almost a month - YES A MONTH. Hopeless.
So factor in the support and the longevity and Apple is probably cheaper.
Sorry, wrong - you can use an Android phone for as long as you want. Yes after 5 years you might not get the latest OS, but when it would run awful anyway, I'm not sure that's high up my list of concerns.
I don't speak Apple so don't know what this "Applecare" is (why do they have to give names to completely ordinary things - can't you speak in English rather than Apple trademarks?), but if you mean they offer some kind of insurance, then you can get that for any phone. If you haven't even tried it, you're in no position to make assumptions about how it compares. Plus there are bad stories about Apple's insurance too - e.g., a case where we had to pay them to repair something, even though we'd already also paid the insurance.
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Got mine ordered before they sold out - no I'm not going to queue but the iPhone certainly appears to be the best option and for something I carry with me every day and use for several hours a day the cost is reasonable.
At least their shop managed to keep up with all the people hitting it this morning despite initial reports that sales are well up on the previous models.
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