My iPhone 7 is a tool. It does its job, I don't feel any need to hack it, mod it or change it or upgrade every year. I text people, call people, take pics, browse the web, install other apps for things like ordering food, maybe play a game, etc.
In my opinion, most features that have come out in recent years for smart phones don't really matter to users. They are marketing checklists.
My 4 year old Apple phone continues to work great, while every Android phone I've used would get progressively slower and less capable with each Android update.
Also there was a plethora of Android features to support local advertising that I considered very invasive of my privacy. One example was an ad campaign for a children's clothing store called "Charming Charlie" which would pop up on my phone whenever I walked past their store at the mall regardless of whether Bluetooth and Wifi were on or off.
Finally, I can actually talk to a live human when I'm having problems with my Apple phone.
I dont know, for me the phone with just one button (no physical back button like on android) is incredibly clunky.
You constantly hover your finger over the top left (?) of the screen because the options are there.
Meanwhile android has 3 nice buttons at the bottom that are there always.
That's subjective. Many people prefer iPhones. They may find the features of iPhone more desirable or some other aspect about it like the Apple ecosystem.
I'm referring to features that were in Android and later implemented on iOS - presumably those are desired features, and at some point Android had it and iOS didn't. There's likely features that Android has today that will at some point be implemented in iOS in the future. Yet those features aren't enough to encourage switching.
(For context, I'm writing this not as an Android fanboy, but as an 11-year iPhone user, though I've often had a secondary current gen Android for testing, etc, and have constantly evaluated switching and never found a compelling reason for doing so, despite some of those attractive line-items)
This is true, but for the most part the Android features come earlier but are very poorly thought out and usually have usability issues which prevent people from using them effectively. In contrast Apple usually waits a couple of years and ends up releasing something that solves the problem in a usable way.
Let's talk about cameras specifically. Samsung has this "burst mode" feature which lets you take 100 or 200 shots in rapid succession. This was linked to a long press of the "take picture" button, so when I would use my wife's phone if I paused for a moment with my finger on the button it would fill up the memory card with hundreds of identical JPEG images that she would then have to sort through and delete individually.
Contrast this with Apple's "Live Photo" feature which takes a short 2 or 3 second video around the moment when you take your picture. You can still sort through each individual frame and pick the best one but it doesn't completely fill up the device's memory with hundreds of identical JPEGs. And it gives you this cool video of the moment for every picture.
Being first to market doesn't matter if the feature isn't actually usable.
Different people value different things. What's desirable is not the same for everyone.
Also, never underestimate the magnitude of inertia. There's a point many of us reach where we're more interested in your tools being consistent and predictable, rather than bleeding edge. We dread OS updates rather than look forward to them, because it means we'll need to allocate brain cycles to something that's changed and that's just not that important.
We'd rather be allocating those brain cycles to a project that we consider interesting and maybe even important, rather than adding fancy stuff to our phone's home screen layout.
My Galaxy S7 is 4 years old. It's still very fast (never had to reset it) and still gets security updates (last one in August) although no more OS updates.
If I played AAA games on my smartphone, I might want an upgrade, but I do my gaming on PCs. Otherwise newer models don't really have that much appeal, except for the better camera (although I am not impressed by the fake bokeh effect). However, even for the camera, it always feels like a compromise whenever I use it, in that I put up with lower quality in exchange for convenience.
They last longer physically. Apple supports them with updates and security fixes for absurd lengths of time (like 5 years or something). So if you take care of your phone it's better for the environment.
This is anecdotal of course. But I was an Android user since the first Galaxy S until the Galaxy S7 (with Nexus and some others in between).
I don’t know if this is still the case but every single time I had one of the big updates my phone just started getting slower and slower, most of my phones got a crack in the screen, battery started draining really quickly. I couldn’t spend more than 1.5 years with the same phone without wanting a new one really bad.
Then I got my first iPhone almost three years ago, and I still have the same phone and I don’t feel a need to get a new one. After several major updates my phone still works perfectly (even better I would say). Battery is in 85% and still lasts a whole day.
Do I miss some features? of course, but the same would be true if I switched to Android, I would miss Shortcuts, Airdrop and other small features, plus at present time I can’t think of a big feature I’m missing from Android.
If you want your phone to last forever, you need to take control of it yourself. Get a Lineage OS compatible phone and ditch the play store. Not only will it be faster, the battery life will quadruple.
They were fined for not telling people that they were slowing down older phones. It's a subtle difference. I'm not saying the fine was unjust, only that it doesn't reflect on the performance or quality of the product. Instead now we know that a simple battery change will restore the speed.
There are very few things in my life where I’ve purchased the highest-features version. I have a regular Medeco lock on my house instead of a Smart Lock. I didn’t give my TV internet access so it acts as a “dumb TV.” I own two kitchen knives instead of a set with a knife for every single scenario. Instead of the fancy closet organizers I have a regular bar and a set of shelves. Phones are no different — I rarely prefer the one with the most “stuff,” I like the thing that has the best execution on the stuff it has.
In my opinion, most features that have come out in recent years for smart phones don't really matter to users. They are marketing checklists.