> When Apple did release a model named “iPhone 5” that was far better than the 4S [...] it was a huge update that gave them everything they asked for, plus more.<p>Whoa, hold the hyperbole train their Marco. I wouldn't exactly call a slightly bigger screen, slightly improved camera, slightly snappier performance (all expected in a yearly update), a new custom connector that invalidated all your previous peripherals and cables, and a new scratchable, slippery exterior "far better" or "a huge update that gave them everything they asked for, plus more".<p>Factor in how woeful Apple Maps was (and is), and how much steam the competition had picked up, and yes, the iPhone 5 was simply disappointing.
<i>No matter what they release and no matter how well it sells, they won’t win over the press, the pundits, the stock market, or the rhetoric. Not this year. They could release a revolutionary 60-inch 4K TV for $99 with built-in nanobots to assemble and dispense free smartwatches, and people would complain that it should cost $49 and the nanobots aren’t open enough.</i><p>Speaking of rhetoric...
I think this post is the main problem Apple could face; their PR essentially falls into the Android ditch of promoting specs instead of ideas and features. It's the kind of thinking that results in gadget sites using side-by-side comparison tables, which helps no one buy their next phone. Buying an Android phone must be hell, since that's how most people have come to explain why one model is preferable to another.<p>Marco's description of the improvements is basically incrementalism: it's "harder, better, faster, stronger" - X% more Y.<p>The 4S was a bit of a disappointment, because Cook - and Apple's engineers - did a pretty measly job of touting Siri as something profoundly new. But otherwise incremental changes to hardware are just an opportunity to focus on the software instead in terms of iOS (which won't run on all devices, which directly makes the new phones that more attractive).<p>There's a reason we shouldn't see keynotes talking about how dashboard navigation is now 13% faster, and Spotlight search is 8% better at indexing and uses 7% fewer system resources.<p>In the Android world of PR, Retina was just a DPI number, whereas Steve Jobs sold it as a level of detail that met the limit of visual perception by the user. That made it a genuinely interesting feature instead of just another case of numbers wank.<p>I think in some sense the expectations game has been lowered ever since iPhone 4, and that it's suddenly O.K. to just judge an iPhone by its spec changes - and as a result, Apple apologists like Marco are just moving the goal posts as a subtle concession to the disappointed critics.<p>This also means that people missed how much better the iPhone 5 camera is in low-light environments, for one, which could just as well have been touted as a great feature instead of an incremental increase to the camera, or in whichever vacuous incrementalist ways people like Marco choose to put it these days.
-- snip --<p>Now, Apple pessimism is even stronger. No matter what they release and no matter how well it sells, they won’t win over the press, the pundits, the stock market, or the rhetoric. Not this year. They could release a revolutionary 60-inch 4K TV for $99 with built-in nanobots to assemble and dispense free smartwatches, and people would complain that it should cost $49 and the nanobots aren’t open enough.<p>-- snip --<p><a href="https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman" rel="nofollow">https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman</a><p>"You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack.
By exaggerating, misrepresenting, or just completely fabricating someone's argument, it's much easier to present your own position as being reasonable, but this kind of dishonesty serves to undermine honest rational debate."
Author vastly overstates the importance of the tech press: do I really need to point out that the iPhone 4S and 5 both sold (and continue to sell) like crazy, mostly limited by their availability?
Looking around me I get the feeling I'm not the only Apple-fan that didn't get particularly excited about any iPhone after the 4.<p>I really couldn't be bothered with the 4S or the 5, still using the old 4. Android phones have never excited me because of their boring derivative design. Except as a useful tool, I'm pretty much over smartphones as objects of desire.<p>Unless Apple manages to rekindle that by making the next phone something more exciting than an upgrade on the iPhone 5, I might as well upgrade to something like the HTC One, just to see what that's like.<p>I won't <i>love</i> it though. Not in the way I loved my first iPhones.
The point he makes about the iPhone 5 not being received well seems to contradict the entire point of the article. If the iPhone 5 wasn't received well by name alone (after all, it doesn't have an "S"), why should the iPhone 6 be?
They should call it the iPhone 13.<p>It would leapfrog the Galaxy S 4 by 9, and it would be a number that they coud increase every year.<p>It worked for the Xbox 360. That was a mix of the PS3 and the Nintendo Revolution. Of course, now the next Xbox will need to be something absurd like the Xbox 720 or 9 or Blue or some silly name.<p>OR...<p>Apple could just call it... "iPhone" and drop all the numbers business. Worked for the iMac and the iPad and iPod.
It's uncharacteristic of Apple to compete on individual specs, but I think they've got to put something special into this release. Maybe this new sapphire glass for the display, or NFC, or an even beefier chip / battery life. Something. Or all of the above.<p>I totally get what Marco is saying: it's not just the tech press, it's Wall Street, it's the public. There's a general feeling out there that Apple is done pulling rabbits out of the hat and it's not just from the echo chamber. I don't think this portends their decline, but Android, Samsung, et al., have really been pushing the envelope. The fact that a 4S is still like $100 under subsidized contract feels almost criminal when you compare it on specs to other Android phones that are available for the same deal.
<p><pre><code> The iPhone 4S was a huge improvement over the iPhone 4, but
the press and fans shat all over it because it had the same
case design and therefore wasn’t “an iPhone 5”.
</code></pre>
Are we talking about "actual specs" or "perceived difference"? Because I have a 4 and a 4S and while the specs may be better, the average person cannot tell a whole lot of difference outside of Siri. Sorry, but it's truth. "Reaching" is the only word I can think of to describe OP's rant.
So, the disappointment is merely a naming problem that Apple baked for itself by starting/sticking to a numbering scheme when most device makers have an "internal" code and then there's the name that each carrier tacks on. The only time you get iterations is when a device "hits" (Razor, Galaxy, One, etc.)<p>The disappointments surely aren't because, spec-by-spec and material ounce-per-ounce, bloggers and the public look at the value proposition and shrug about the AAPL premium. The former certainly would also never try to clickbait fanboys to their ad-laden pages to profusely pound the Book of Jobs upon heretics.
"A year later, when Apple did release a model named “iPhone 5” that was far better than the 4S and had an external redesign"<p>Huh? I thought the iPhone 5 had the same external design as iPhone 4.