New iPhone 7
Today merhawk and I took the plunge on buying new iPhones. We both got the 7 model with 128 GB RAM. These replace the 5S iPhones we bought 3 years ago.
Even though our phones were 3 years old this was not driven by "Gotta get the new thing!" No, it was much simpler than that. We replaced them because they were getting worn out. Hawk dropped hers and cracked the screen, after she'd already broken the screen and replaced it several months ago. Mine was developing a finicky Lightning port. Sometimes it'd start charging when I connected the cable, sometimes it wouldn't. And sometimes it'd flick on and off the charger.
So far there's nothing that's made me say "Wow!" in my first 6 hours with the new phone. I didn't expect that, anyway, as there really haven't been any headline improvements in the past few generations of iPhones. It's incrementally bigger. That's nice for screen real estate but a mixed bag in terms of pocketability. The camera is better. And there's an extra row of icons on each screen. Nothing earth-shattering.
But that's okay. Smartphones are a mature technology now. We don't expect gotta-have-it new features every year that render the previous model obsolete. Indeed, the 6S is selling for just $100 less than the 7, implying that it's still selling well despite the newer model.
Edit from the future: That extra row of icons seemed small-potatoes as an upgrade, but once I got used to it I found that using someone else's older, smaller phone felt like, "What is this toy I am holding?"
Even though our phones were 3 years old this was not driven by "Gotta get the new thing!" No, it was much simpler than that. We replaced them because they were getting worn out. Hawk dropped hers and cracked the screen, after she'd already broken the screen and replaced it several months ago. Mine was developing a finicky Lightning port. Sometimes it'd start charging when I connected the cable, sometimes it wouldn't. And sometimes it'd flick on and off the charger.
So far there's nothing that's made me say "Wow!" in my first 6 hours with the new phone. I didn't expect that, anyway, as there really haven't been any headline improvements in the past few generations of iPhones. It's incrementally bigger. That's nice for screen real estate but a mixed bag in terms of pocketability. The camera is better. And there's an extra row of icons on each screen. Nothing earth-shattering.
But that's okay. Smartphones are a mature technology now. We don't expect gotta-have-it new features every year that render the previous model obsolete. Indeed, the 6S is selling for just $100 less than the 7, implying that it's still selling well despite the newer model.
Edit from the future: That extra row of icons seemed small-potatoes as an upgrade, but once I got used to it I found that using someone else's older, smaller phone felt like, "What is this toy I am holding?"