[jonathanyc]

OP, this reply to your question ought to give you some insight: many people simply can't tell the difference.

And if you can't tell the difference, you certainly won't budget resources towards making Apple-quality products. Then you'll spend years wondering why Apple has such ridiculous profit margins before coming to the erroneous conclusion that it must just be everyone else that's wrong.

[smoldesu]

Uhh... Apple goes to every length to make sure people know the difference. You don't buy a smartphone, you buy an iPhone. Your phone doesn't have a punch-hole camera, it has a Dynamic Island. They market every product like it's a Disney amusement park ride and throw product announcement festivals, everyone knows there's a difference. Apple's job is convincing customers that they're special for enjoying Rich Corinthian Leather or lickable UI elements.

Apple has huge profit margins because their software margins are literally larger than their hardware ones. If you're familiar with the history of Microsoft/Google products, that should be a big flashing light telling you to leave ASAP.

[pwinnski]

Apple goes to great lengths to make their case, absolutely. And yet still, even leaving aside your comment which seems to attribute the perception of difference to marketing rather than actual quality, still we get this response: "This question is silly. The Pixel or any top-end Samsung is equivalent or better than the iPhone in hardware."

The poster clearly believes what they are saying, despite other commenters pointing out the counter-evidence for the statement.

So GP is right: many people simply can't tell the difference, despite Apple's best efforts.

[1123581321]

He's saying that user Siddarth1977 thinks Samsung is as good or better at interface design, when it clearly isn't. People who use uglier or less well integrated devices are used to it, and when they see something better designed, it reads as a subjective difference to them, or possibly objectively worse.

Whereas you are talking about how Apple's current customers perceive their devices. And you're absolutely right. Apple sells phones to a lot of people who don't have good taste, and it works hard to persuade them that Apple==tasteful so they don't get confused and wander off.

I'm artistically useless myself, to be clear. I'm not immune to marketing where my lack of taste leaves a preference vacuum.

[Siddarth1977]

This is a weird take. I can certainly tell all sorts of differences between Apple and non-Apple products.

A short list of the major things that I think set Apple-quality apart: Zero effort towards backward-compatibility or longevity, just force users to buy new hardware constantly. Actively hostile towards hardware interoperability, just force users to buy adapters. Actively hostile towards independently developed software and interoperability, just steal ideas to incorporate into an apple-owned product or use marketing to convince your users they're superior for being locked into your platform. Don't bother to make software that works for diverse users, just use marketing to convince users that flexibility and functionality are inferior to whatever the Cupertino designers decree is the one right way to do things

Apple isn't a technology company, they're a fashion company. They can sell an iPhone for huge premiums for the same reason that Chanel can sell a purse for $10,000. It's not a product-quality question, it's a brand-quality question.

[mcphage]

> Zero effort towards backward-compatibility or longevity, just force users to buy new hardware constantly.

Is that why you can install iOS 16 (the most recent version) on an iPhone 8 from 2017?

[calciphus]

It's why you can't install the same app that worked on your iPhone 8 when you bought it, today. It's the reason you can't install one that worked two years ago unless the developer is constantly keeping up with Apple's mercurial and inscrutable os-level API changes. Apple breaks APIs regularly and you're left hoping a dev wants to do free work to keep it working for people who already bought it.

Edit: clarity

[such12]

> Zero effort towards backward-compatibility or longevity, just force users to buy new hardware constantly.

This can't be taken seriously as a comment given that iPhones are typically supported with software upgrades for twice as long as Android phones.