Why? I actually still have a 6S and I find the physical button feels mushy in comparison to the new solid state / haptic button. Is there a disadvantage I'm missing?
I had a 5S which has the first generation touch ID paired with a physical button, which I considered to be the best home button on any iPhone I'd owned. I've since switched to the 7 plus and now think the haptic/solid state button is superior. Having the whole bottom of the phone simulate a click feels really satisfying, and knowing that no physical hinge is involved gives me confidence that the effect won't deteriorate with time or use.
Just as moving from a physical keyboard to touchscreen reduces moving parts and therefore many points of failure, moving to a solid state home button eliminates a very common and critical point of failure.
Really? Interesting to hear, I love there new 'button', with its multi pressure level sensor and it's feedback I think it's fantastic and hey - it's one less moving piece (maybe the last?).
I actually switched to iOS for the past few months as part of an experiment. I have mixed feelings about it.
I think it's greatest advantage and disadvantage is that it's a sterile environment. No third parties can mess with it. Unfortunately at times those third parties include me, the user.
Overall, I miss my Windows tablet for web browsing which is what I do mostly on my iPad. However, I am waiting for the next round of Windows tablets to see if I can find a 10 inch that is worth my money. I also miss having a (Android) back button on my phone.
The Android back button is a concept that doesn't really exist on iOS (except as an informal protocol with inconsistent UI cobbled together between a handful of apps, many of which were written by Google...): swiping left is more like clicking "parent folder" than "back"; think what happens in a file system or web browser when you click a symlink/shortcut or hyperlink: that is closer to the Activity/Intent model of Android, and back serves the universal purpose of not just going "up" the folder/breadcrumb trail inside of an application and an actual "back" in Safari, but also allows for global "back" during tasks like returning to the web browser from an app you might have entered, or back to Yelp from the Maps app, or back to YouTube from a web browser.
It's not the same thing as the back navigation on Android.
Also I find swiping very imprecise compared to a statically located back-button near the bottom of the screen. Apps implement swiping differently. For some of them we have to go all the way to the edge of the screen to swipe and for others you do not. Swiping is also a completely different experience on the iPad compared to an iPhone.
iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s were the three most popular smartphones in the US at the beginning of the holiday period, for a combined 31.3% share. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge were the fourth and fifth best-selling phones in the US, with Samsung capturing 28.9% of smartphone sales.
I remember the days when Apple completely dominated the smartphone market, competing favorably with Android, and eclipsing any single Android manufacturer. I was surprised to hear that Apple has now dropped to 31% market share. This means that Android now has almost double the market share of Apple, and Samsung alone is going head-to-head with Apple.
I think we've just witnessed the end of Apple's golden era.
Apple never achieve a dominant market share position, but they have always maintained a dominant profit share position.
We haven't witnessed the end of Apple's golden era, we've witnessed the end of the smart-phone adoption curve. Everyone who has ever wanted a smart phone has got one. Or two. Or probably three or four by now. They're buying fewer phones because the differences from one generation to the next are more incremental.
If there's a fundamental shift in how phones are used that demands a new kind of hardware or some kind of vastly more powerful software there will be an impetus to upgrade again. Until then it's more steady-state.
There's still tons of opportunity to innovate in the watch space, and the tablet market, while having cooled off, might continue to nibble away at notebook sales.
We're in a bit of a lull technology wise. Consoles, phones, laptops, they're all "good enough" for now.
When did Apple have dominating market share? Though they have near total profit market share, isn't their non-dominant market share what has kept them clear of any anti-trust scrutiny?
I was a diehard android user for a long time and I switched when the 7 came out. Ios has some annoyances and it is clearly not built for a phablet sized phone. However the battery life I get with the 7 plus makes it all worth it.
- New generation haptic feedback
- Improved camera system and dual cameras for the Plus
- Stereo speakers
- A10 Fusion SoC makes the 7 the fastest phone on the market by a wide margin
- New solid state home button
- IPX67 water resistance and dust proofing
- Bigger battery without increasing thickness
- Wide color gamut display that's up to 25% brighter
- OIS for the smaller model