[ryandrake]

It's not just the lack of ideas, but the direction they are taking their existing ideas in is just not interesting anymore.

One thing I'm kind of having a mini midlife-crisis over is that I'm slowly realizing that I am no longer the target market for tech products. I didn't see anything... anything today that resonated with me. Aren't marketing materials supposed to do that?

It's all about things I don't care about, like the camera. Oh boy, more megapixels. Yawn. I don't really even use my phone's camera that much. Dynamic Island notifications? I turn all notifications off to avoid distractions. Display brightness? I'm constantly turning it down because it blinds me at night. Gaming? I have an old Playstation 3 and a nice size TV for that. Carbon neutral? Unpopular opinion but that doesn't even rate as a top-10 driver of my purchasing. As you say, give me a replaceable battery!

The marketing all depicts people 20 years younger than me horsing around taking selfies, people who, I suppose, care about things I don't. I didn't even recognize any of the music. I'm a boring, frugal, old white guy, who uses his phone as a tool, not as a lifestyle, and my wallet is apparently not interesting to Apple. Sad to be left behind.

[whynotminot]

Brother, what would actually excite you other than the replaceable battery? You game on a PS3. You're self admittedly boringly frugal. At this point, frankly it's not just Apple that isn't marketing to you -- no one is going to market to you except maybe Depends in a few more years. Companies make products for people who spend money.

This is not Apple's problem.

[ryandrake]

Wow, that Depends comments cuts to the bone, LOL oh my! Well done..

I guess what I'm looking for is a "Wow, that improvement is significant enough that, this time, early-adopting will make a huge difference" announcement. I remember around 2011 when hard drive prices-per-gigabyte took a huge drop to the point where what you got for your money was astoundingly better than what you could get a year earlier. I haven't bought a hard drive since then. Yes, prices have continued to go down, but the slope is not what it used to be. I'm still on a computer from 2014 because that was the last major increase (in my judgment) in what you got for your money. CPUs and GPUs are getting better, but only incrementally so. I typically look for those inflection points/discontinuities to make a tech purchase.

For example, if a phone manufacturer suddenly came out with a huge sci-fi level leap in battery technology, where, maybe paired with a stripped down OS I could get a week of battery life... That would be exciting. Or, if the phone's hardware and OS suddenly became powerful enough to plug in as a true desktop replacement and run desktop applications natively, where I could actually throw away my desktop workstation, that would be pretty awesome.

[wayfinder]

OK but you changed, not Apple. Apple was leaving behind older people when you were young, so I don’t see why everyone is entitled to be part of a product’s target market.

Some of us do still appreciate these improvements. I greatly appreciate a better camera for example. I actually don’t know if the 15 has as an appreciable improvement but the 14’s camera is still a far cry from the quality of a professional camera in every situation but a un-zoomed shot in moderately bright daylight lighting. There is still major work to be done.

Do you need a high quality camera? No. The movie Tangerine was shot on an iPhone for example… but visually, it does not look fantastic. Some people don’t care about image quality but for the people that notice and care, they appreciate it.

[saurik]

Do you feel like the changes Apple is making to the camera are improving the camera along the axes you care about?

[wayfinder]

I went from the 10 to 14 and that was a massive improvement. Highlights (the brightest areas on a scene with both very dark and very bright spots) were massively overblown on the 10.

It’s much better on the 14, for example, although you can still tell the parts that would have been overblown previously, especially with HDR mode on, and I don’t love it — but at least you can still see some detail now.

Was 12 to 14 an improvement? Don’t know - didn’t have a 12.

Is the 15 improved from the 14? Until I get my hands on it, I couldn’t say. It’s just a lot of marketing right now.

[madeofpalk]

> The marketing all depicts people 20 years younger than me horsing around taking selfies, people who, I suppose, care about things I don't. I didn't even recognize any of the music. I'm a boring, frugal, old white guy, who uses his phone as a tool, not as a lifestyle, and my wallet is apparently not interesting to Apple. Sad to be left behind.

Today a company announced a marginally better product to remain competitive with it's competitors. When you need to buy a new phone, Apple is hoping that they've made the n+1 (or the n, or n-1) version that you will prefer to buy.

You haven't been "left behind" because a company made an ad with young people in it.

[maxerickson]

It's okay to just not care. "My phone/pocket computer is good enough" is a nice place to be.

[pocketarc]

It's just the routine of it. It's been 15 years of "better than last year". It's hard to be excited about that for so long. It's just a slightly better phone. And that's OK.

[bee_rider]

I think I’m in a same demographic (maybe not old, but not young), and… I have no idea what Apple couple possibly add to their phones that would interest me.

Like, please, no more resolution or LIDAR on the front facing camera, it might start picking up wrinkles.

[dahwolf]

Same, I'm a middle-of-the-road user. I piggy back on the better hardware once every 3-4 years but haven't noticed a meaningful difference in my total experience since the iPhone 6s. Almost every new iOS feature is also entirely lost on me. I recently even needed to Google how to fully shutdown my phone. If there's any growing value, it would be in apps. There's an app for everything.

Nothing wrong with any of this. Most products in my home are no longer exciting.

[gnicholas]

> Oh boy, more megapixels. Yawn.

There aren't any even any more megapixels this year. It's the same 48 as last year.

[mettamage]

> It's all about things I don't care about, like the camera. Oh boy, more megapixels.

Ok, it's the same 48. I'm not in the market either, but I would be if I'd be single. I currently have an iPhone 12. To get the newest 48 pixel camera would help me make killer photos for my Tinder profile that I just couldn't do that well with an iPhone 12. I think I'd see a 10 to 20% improvement in Tinder matches.

It doesn't matter whether that's true or not. I know that's how I'd feel if I'd be single.

I'm happy I'm not single, lol. Given that I'm in a relationship, I don't feel the need to shoot the sharpest pictures so I can have an edge on Tinder. However, I can imagine there are many social media savvy people that would feel that way.

[s3p]

The cameras seem to have the same number of megapixels. Maybe you, as a frugal old white guy, would appreciate having USB-C and no longer having to pay for the proprietary Lightning connector.