Very disappointed with the same old look of the iPhone 5 etc
So you think they should just change it for change's sake? Is that what you're saying?
In some superficial ways I think the iPhone 5 looks like an elongated iPhone 4, it's true -- TILL YOU PICK IT UP. Then you notice it weighs NOTHING and is HALF as thick. Suddenly it will seem very different, particularly if you have any appreciation for what it took to make all that happen.
Do you think Apple is getting left behind ? We both agreed that they were.
I don't agree at all. I think what you're experiencing there is that the competition is only just now (after several years) catching up to where you are with your iPhone 4 (which, let's remember, is nearly three years old!).
Apple's cycle is to try hard to get something right on the first go, then refine and refine and refine until they get to a point where it's either as polished as it will ever be (and is thus dropped) or they've done all they can in software and now it needs new hardware. This is why you only get one actual "all-new" model every two years or so instead of every two days as you do in the Android world, and yet ... somehow ... the iPhone doesn't seem to get out of date nearly so quickly. I guess having a device that "just works" can get boring in the same sense that a kernel panic is "exciting" but frankly I'll leave those forms of "innovation" to others.
I think you're also forgetting that hardware is only half the issue. From what I hear, iOS 7 (which is expected sometime this year) is set to be a big overhaul of the design, which in turn will make the hardware feel even newer. Android has IMO improved incrementally but is essentially as unchanged as many claim iOS is -- with the difference being that carriers and some manufacturers glom on their own junkware and skins, making different brands look somewhat different.
Then there is the issue of whether you'll ever be allowed to upgrade your OS version in Android ... for me, this is a showstopper flaw and what amounts to forced obsolescence. Maybe this isn't an issue and you're just mad for the latest shiny thing. It's an understandable impulse and perhaps Android would be a better fit for someone like you, since one of its genuine advantages over iOS is that it is endlessly customizable in appearance.
(My view on that frankly is that I wish I had that kind of time where I had nothing better to do than tweak my OS, but given the high functionality of the iPhone I'm prepared to deal with the "sameness" of its overall design. #firstworldproblems)
I have no doubt in my mind that some Android models have some features that are better or better implemented than the iPhone, particularly when we get towards the end of a cycle. But I think the stats tell the story: nobody has yet made a smartphone that beats the iPhone *hands down, no questions asked* and until that happens, it's probably smarter to stick with what's proven (and what one has invested in) rather than chase the shiny (and believe me, I'm weak for the shiny).
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