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[……forgetit]

iPhone 4 was the pinnacle of iPhone design

The 5S is a much better design

 

[jstripes]

Why exactly are Apple processors so disproportionately more powerful than even the very fastest chips used in other smartphones?

Apple, through several acquisitions over the years, put together an A-Team of chip designers. People tend to ignore Apple's rich history in pushing and developing technology because of the company's image. They also design their chips specifically to their needs, so they don't have to worry about the risks of cutting or adding things. For example, the A11 Bionic chip is pure 64-bit. They completely jettisoned the 32-bit architecture for this beast, and iOS 11 no longer supports 32-bit apps at all. (Developers were given 2 or 3 years warning.)

 

[Just_myles]

No I don't think so. I don' t like the s8s roundness.

 

[Drackhorn]

In design absolutely.

 

[numble]

Didn't Apple just remove this "synergy" as every device now should be "its own"?

What synergy was removed?

 

[Zackat]

The 5S is a much better design

I loved this phone. Still have it.

 

[Arex]

As far as phone bezels go, I actually prefer having some bezel on the bottom part, or at least a little bit on the top and bottom part.

When I hold my phone sometimes I have my thumb rest on the front bezel and the fingers on the back.

 

[Owari]

The 5S is a much better design

Both look hideously outdated next to the X, just like every other phone with bezels.

 

[Fuchsdh]

I honestly can't tell what the point of this post was. Is to make the ZL look good or the iphone look good? I'm guessing its to make the iphone look good because the ZL has so many negative aspects including its below average battery life. A good comparison would be s8 vs x since both phones are good.. it would just pretty much be based on the preference of operating system.

I don't get the comparison because it's basically saying "I'm an idiot who likes cropping the sides off my films to watch them because I like 'full screen'."

Under normal circumstances you're not going to see the "notch" when playing back video or looking at photos.

There's a lot of criticisms that boil down to wanting Apple to crop off content to fit rounded corners, which I find a pretty nonsensical sticking point.

 

[Davidion]

If you're just comparing the aesthetics of the s8 vs the x, I think there's a compelling argument that the former is much more attractive.

If you're talking about the rest of the Design, however, I wouldn't think Apple's overall hardware and software cohesion is something that's been topped, despite lots of arguable problems with their software and lots of improvements on Android's part.

Side note: The physical interaction language of the X is an interesting thing. I can see it being potentially very problematic from an interaction design but the overall package could be appealing. I'd like to try it just as a matter of learning for my work. Other than that and maybe the animojis, the phone doesn't seem like a big deal. Honestly, it feels like an experimentation based mostly on aesthetics; not a bad thing, but not much of a leap either.

 

[kattlauc]

What synergy was removed?

iOS App store removed from iTunes, start cutting bloat etc, etc?

Goes to show you how little android people know about the products they're trashing.

What? Did you see my question mark? I don't care if people want an Android, iPhone or anything else. Oh, banned.

 

[Complex Shadow]

The 5S is a much better design

I will be switching from this phone to the X. It will be bittersweet.

 

[numble]

iOS App store removed from iTunes, start cutting bloat etc, etc?

That's not one of the synergies to begin with.
They are talking about being able to AirDrop files from device to device, loading up apps that you were looking at on your phone immediately on your Mac, taking calls on your Mac, copying and pasting between devices, etc:
https://www.apple.com/macos/continuity/

 

[Fhtagn]

Why exactly are Apple processors so disproportionately more powerful than even the very fastest chips used in other smartphones?

Apple acquired/hired a great ARM team a while back and is obsessively focused on performance per watt in a way no other company is, because they are attacking the problem in both software and hardware. Because they have a license to modify the ARM itself, they jettison paths they decide they don’t need, for example any 32 bit support at all in the A11, in favor of throwing more effort where they can leverage it to the maximum performance at the lowest power consumption. They then also sink a lot of effort into making a development tool chain and OS designed for performance at a very low level, and both teams talk to each other to make a virtuous cycle of software and hardware improvements that work together; implementing some algorithms directly in the hardware, implementing features in iOS to make multithreading across asymmetrical cores easier...

And considering the results, we have to assume they have figured out how to hire, retain and manage some of the smartest chip designers on the planet.

 

[mrkgoo]

The 5S is a much better design

It think the black iPhone 5 looks better than the 5S, because it's actually black. The home button looks better on the 5S though.

 

[borghe]

Also, the A11 is completely designed by Apple's own chip designers this year, and judging by the specs they might be the best chip designers in the mobile game at this point.

Best chip designers period. A11 beats some current entry level intel chips in Geekbench (2017 13” MBP). Almost certainly the A11X will beat every entry level laptop and maybe a few mid-range ones at the lower end when it’s released. By A12(X) Apple will likely have some serious ground gained into PC performance.