Did you test the audio quality using quality headphones?
Oh, never mind...
Apple doesn't much like The Register: we don't get invited to its events and aren't among the favoured few offered early access to review products. But we can visit Apple Stores as soon as new kit goes on sale and did so today to get a First Fondle of the iPhone 7. The store we visited opened at 8:00am to admit pre-paid …
You have admitted, in public, that an El Reg staffer managed to fondle the latest iShiney well before the majority of iZombies.
I fully expect Apple will be trawling through the security footage, printing out your mugshot, and pasting them through every store in Oz, with the caption "Do not serve this man, call security/police immediately to have him removed for blasphemy".
OK, I just looked up some prices (here in the Netherlands)
Moto G4 Plus (16 GB) € 251,15
Apple iPhone 7 (32 GB) € 759,-
You may observe that the iPhone is almost exactly 3x as expensive as the Moto G.
What do you get for that extra money. Well, 16 GB extra internal storage ;-).
But NOT a higher-resolution screen: Moto G has 1920x1080, iPhone has 1334x750.
Also NOT a bigger battery, Moto G has 3.000mAh, iPhone has 1.960mAh.
Undoubtedly the iPhone has a faster CPU and a better camera (although in terms of mega-pixels the Moto G beats it).
But 3x more expensive? € 500,- extra? Who is buying this?
I don't know that diminishing returns applies. Diminishing returns is about getting reduced incremental output for a given increase in marginal input. So adding 10% more power may not result in going 10% faster or adding 10% more workers may not result in getting 10% more product. Fundamentally it applies to things you can measure and I don't see how one can measure things like "better".
Certainly the examples of wine and hi-fi1 don't apply as those are highly subjective and individualized depending upon the individuals palate or ears and preferences. For instance some folks may actually prefer a flabby bitter wine or excessive bass which can be felt more than heard by everyone within a hundred meters of the car. Cars too get a quite a bit fuzzy when speaking of 'better' because one person may prefer a more plush ride while another may like the feel of a taut and sporty suspension or the utility of a one ton truck.
No, we're clearly in the Veblen territory because it doesn't cost Apple any more than anyone else to make minor changes that may or may not be ever so slightly "better". You see it's the production costs that diminishing returns addresses, not the sale price.
1. Yes I understand that noise and distortion can be measured as can frequency response but again it's ultimately going to depend on the individual's ears.
I had never heard of Veblen before and it is very intersting that his major work "Theory_of_the_leisure_class" was published around 1925. ( according to the Wikipedia ref)
The link to the first chapter as follows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorstein_Veblen#/media/File:Veblen_-_Theory_of_the_leisure_class,_19
24_-_5854536.tif
Just goes to show that society never really changes...
Is it 1996?
I'm going out on a limb, but part of that price difference might be cause people actually WANT the iPhone, as opposed to the Motorola
Even people still associated with the devastated remnants of Motorola (hence, AC) don't really want Moto phones* Perhaps one of the reasons Google ate it and sold off the cell division to Lenovo for about $10B less than they paid for it. That's a lot to pay for what turned out to be Moto's patent portfolio.
* Yes, I'm sure there are exceptions - there always are. I'm fairly certain the CEO has one, for instance.
"going about its business as you would expect"
And just how was this surmised from a 10 minute fondling ? What do we really know from this article, "It takes pictures" and has an "unexpected haptic feedback"...
I seem to remember that store models don't have Sim Cards so it's not easy to test the "communications quality" which is after all a "telephone's" primary purpose. But why put facts in an article when supposition is all that is required.
Well I suppose that that is all that is required for the Applonions of the world to rush out and buy one.
El Reg, was there really any need for this article other than the hack justifying his own existence ?
I'm grumpy this morning so TFIF.... ( TGIF for the "deity" crowd)...
Vive le weekend
YMMV but in my long experience, even a few minutes with a phone tells you a lot. Is it fast? Is it responsive to the touch? How good is the fit and finish? Is the UI cluttered and does it get in the way of the device? In my experience, premium devices quickly stand out. Lesser smartphones just don't quite behave as nicely. Having said that, it doesn't take long for battery life to dwindle and devices to slow a little.
And yeah, I think there was a need for it. There's huge curiosity about the iPhone. We're trying to sate it ASAP.
iOS 10 Is Surfacing Hardcore Porn GIFs in iMessage
Wouldn't have happened with Jobs.
What you had with Jobs was someone who generated the hype (and believed that was part of his job), but he didn't necessarily believe all the Apple hype himself, Tim Cook is just all hype, he seems to missing the scrupulous attention to detail Jobs had.
Jobs always treated Apple as a distinct entity, that was very capable of running away with itself and needed to checked to prevent that. Having been burned once, he wasn't going to be burned twice.
His better decisions were things like removal of Adobe Flash, he got flakey over Antennagate.
Things Jobs wouldn't have let through:
The single USB-C port on the new macbook, there would have been two.
Lack of key travel of new macbook keyboard.