The iPhone is Dead
By: Musings.Rand
Tags: iOS, Apple, Samsung, iPhone, Android

iPhones don’t age well

On my iPhone 6+, most apps crash on first open. Apps freeze for 5–10 seconds whenever launched or switched to. I lose 3–4%/min on my battery and Apple Support insists that my battery is perfectly healthy. I went through “apps using significant power” and uninstalled most of them.

On top of all of this, it was recently discovered that Apple is intentionally degrading the user experience based on your battery quality. Yes, they’re releasing a software update to give transparency to users and reducing the cost of a battery replacement (which is on a months-long backlog — more on Apple support later), but it feels like planned obsolescence and they’re just trying to avoid losing a class-action lawsuit.

The video app is busted. Many times I record a video and all I see is a zero-second-long black frame saved. I’ve given up on taking photos because the camera app takes forever to start up and has seconds of shutter lag.

This phone worked just fine three years ago. The minimal benefits of the previous iOS updates are far outweighed by the horrible user experience it’s created.

I have the original Moto X (from 2013) and it still runs buttery smooth.

AppleCare and Apple support are incompetent

This isn’t related to my previous iPhone, but it illustrates the lack of quality of Apple.

Recently, a bottom rubber foot on my MacBook came off. It was still under AppleCare so I took it into the store, my first time to the Apple Genius Bar. They told me that AppleCare wouldn’t cover the replacement because it was cosmetic. How the rubber foot isn’t part of the laptops utility is astonishing. When you typed on it, it would wobble. To fix it, the entire bottom chassis had to be replaced, which would cost $250.

I told the Apple rep that I was surprised and I’d call Apple Care later. I asked him to file a ticket for tracking and he replied that he had.

Later, I called Apple Care and they assured me that the replacement was covered. They also said they didn’t find a ticket in the system from the Apple rep that I had spoken to earlier. I had to go back into the store to get a rep to look at the physical laptop again and verify the foot was missing. Frustrated, I asked them to call the original store I had visited to confirm. They agreed and eventually confirmed it.

Before this, I had asked them to send the part to an Apple store that was closer to my house and not the original Apple store that I had visited. A week later, I received a call confirming the part had arrived at the store furthest away. Surprised, I asked them to send it to the other store (which was ~15 miles away). They said that they’d have to send it back to the warehouse and then the other store would have to order the part.

A week later, the other store finally receives the part. I visited the store, they took my laptop, and I waited a couple of hours to replace the bottom. The rep came back with the laptop telling me that it’s ready. I inspected the bottom and the rubber foot was still missing. Confused, he sent the laptop back. The rep returned five minutes later with a new chassis, fixing the rubber foot. So not only had they somehow not repaired the bottom originally, in reality, it only takes a tech five minutes to repair it, not hours.

The cascading incompetence at Apple support was mind-blowing.

Related to the battery issue above, if you try to replace your battery you’re facing months-long delays. On top of that, you have to mail your phone in or take it into a store, with both options facing the risk that you’re without a phone for as much as a week. Who can really live without their phone that long? Is this incompetence or intentionally meant to drive people away from replacing their batteries?

iPhone’s hardware design feels dated

Even the iPhone X feels dated compared to the S8. This is much more of a personal opinion, but the S8 feels damn sexy in your hand. When I watch a movie, the true blacks of the OLED screen just blend into the body. It feels like a bezel-less phone from a science fiction movie. Whereas the iPhone’s design still separates the screen from the chassis with bezels.