Are consumers rallying against the excess of the smartphone market or is this just a product of the quality of new devices? The yearly improvements feel more incremental than ever, so I'm inclined to think it's a little of both.
The other factor, besides the two that you mentioned, would be that smartphones are a “mature” product category and new models are not introducing significant improvements compared to last year’s. I still remember when I upgraded from an old Symbian-based Nokia to my first “modern” smartphone (an iPhone 3GS): it was a big change! My latest update (from an Android Moto G 3rd gen to an iPhone 7 Plus) was just an incremental improvement.
I think at this point the only real reason to upgrade is the camera. I have a iPhone 6S and couldn't see any reason to upgrade especially given that I prefer smaller phones. My wife's Nexus broke and we bought her the iPhone XR Max shortly before a trip to Iceland. I frequently going myself borrowing her phone whenever I had a shot I really wanted to take because it looked so much better with her camera(s). And that was before I discovered the phones incredible portrait mode.
That said, how much longer can they do big leaps on the camera without the price going completely bonkers? The iPhone XR Max with Apple Care already clocked in at $1500!
To me the real innovation in looking for with phones is that they can connect to an external screen and keyboard and in that case just give me something very close to regular macOS. To me that will lock off another wave of valuable phone upgrades for a few years because we again need more computation power to drive that setup. Maybe we could do something where the screen includes the GPU...?
Gotta say, I could afford to upgrade my iPhone X to the shiny new version. And I usually do. But each time I'm stopping in the middle of the process because I just can't find the justification, and at that price too...
Still rocking an iPhone 6 here as well. I just can’t lose the jack... :P
My battery life isn’t what it used to be, but I can still make it a full day with slightly less usage (restricted to browser/text based mediums). Should have taken advantage of the battery upgrade. Meanwhile my sibling’s 6S(?) Plus drains charge like someone is bloodletting it.
I have a 6s plus, and had the battery replaced, and still drains the battery like that. I’ve tried all the obvious tricks. I’m befuddled by this, it’s the worst battery life of any phone I’ve had. I thought the bigger case would have helped, but maybe the bigger screen out weighs it.
What I find mystifying is why as an average user it’s impossible to figure out why it happens, is it normal, is your phone broken?
Apple docs and support provide no insight into one of the primary usability issues.
Other than that, it’s quite a nice phone. I picked it up cheap on Craigslist and it’s going strong for two years.
You should have availed of the $29 battery replacement which was available until the end of 2018. My 7 is like new and I’ll keep it for two more years.
