The current entry level iPhone; iPhone SE 2020 with A13 is now faster in Single Threaded performance than ALL current shipping Android, including Flagship Android. And judging by the Qualcomm roadmap, this will likely remain the same in 2021 as well.
This is important if you are doing or using Web Apps like Discourse which requires JS processing. The Cost of javascript is still huge. [1] [2]. And While Mobile Apps are well optimised to take advantage of multiple cores, it will still be bounded by Amdahl's law[3].
And a point on devices size.
Japan, the nation which prefer single handed usage and small size Smartphone, and has a hand size smaller than average, median or general US / EU population, has overwhelmingly voted with their pocket on the 4.7" Devices, and not the previous 4" iPhone SE. Even During the iPhone 7, iPhone 8 era.
So I do suggest before people writing off 4.7" as being large, please try and give it a go first.
Another Point worth pointing out, once the tech for FaceID Shrinks to small enough or could be done under display, a 4.7" Edge to Edge Face ID Design would be exactly the same size as the previous iPhone SE. I believe this could be the long term goal for Apple.
[1] https://medium.com/@addyosmani/the-cost-of-javascript-in-201...
Regardless, the iPhone SE did not sell _as_ well in Japan due to a variety of factors, not the least of which being that the iPhone 7 introduced built-in Suica support.
Suica is a mobile cash card technology used at stations for transit, convenience stores and restaurants for purchasing, and vending machines -- among others. Given the lack of support by many credit cards for Apply Pay in Japan (for example, you cannot add a Visa card to your iPhone due to JP-specific Visa restrictions), it's no surprise that this was a major selling point of newer models.
In my opinion, manufacturers have not provided a high-end, small form factor device to sufficiently test the markets. Without doing so, it's too easy for people to make the claim that people have already voted with their wallets for larger phones. I sincerely hope the rumors of a 5.4" iPhone 12 are true (as it should be somewhere between iPhone 5 and 6 form factors, from what I gather).
Sony and NTT Docomo have a stranglehold on the Android ecosystem. No JP NFC supporting android phone ever has more than 3 LTE bands. The only unlocked Android phone that isn't crippled is Oppo's Reno A, and that's an expensive middle range Qualcomm SoC, which is slower than Apples 3 year old devices.
Apples iOS presence in Japan is VERY well executed.
For reference:
https://www.reddit.com/user/FelicaDude/comments/
EDIT: kinda curious why there are so many downvotes. There isn't anything factually wrong about this post.
Human hand size is proportional to height across races, and average height in Japan for male and female is several centimeters shorter than in other markets like the US and Europe. So it would be surprising if the average Japanese hand size was not smaller than the average hand size in US or Europe.
Of course, I have no idea whether that difference would be enough to affect smartphone size preferences.
I'm surprised about 1100+ comments, since this is, you know: just another phone
The fact that this phone is bigger doesn't sit well with this vocal minority, because they want a small smartphone and now see that medium is the only available in stock.
Expectation, expectation, expectation. It's being shattered, that leads to emotions and that leads to comments.
I'm also not too happy about the new SE, if you search my comment history I don't think you see me talking about it, but I'm in the same camp. I think other phones are preposterously big, and the SE is the only normal one.
Alas, the new SE is not normal for me. Going back to a dumber phone is now something I have to consider more seriously. I don't want my pockets to bulge out and I want to handle my phone with one hand without straining it. The old iPhone SE was perfect for that. I have pretty tall hands but with the iPhone 8, it didn't strain but felt clumsy (and I use the device quite often in order to help my grandparents with their iPhone 8).
I hope I gave you some insight into the marketing persona of people who want the old iPhone SE to come back and how that persona is well represented on HN.
See also:
Search on HN Algolia for iPhone SE to see these sentiments repeated. Example: the top comment in the this thread [1].
2006: Smartphones were boring.
2007-2010: Smartphones become magical. The pinnacle, or close to, of the 3.5 inch phone is developed in the iPhone 4.
2010+: Phones smaller than 4.5 inches disappear; by the same magic that they used to appear.
For the people who want a 3.5 to 4 inch phone, such as myself, paradise was basically snatched away. I know they can make them, I know they run every app I care about, and they are no longer available for purchase. I want an iPhone 4. I'd settle for an iPhone 5 or similar form factor. Instead they've disappeared and best-case is maybe there is some Android phone that has the right dimensions and is probably poorly fabricated because it is targeting people on a budget.
The issue isn't even entitlement, it that the form factor situation is backsliding from where it was when I was happiest. It is infuriating.
For what it's worth, I'm also a firm believer of "it should be useable with one hand without akwardness". 4.5" would be my perfect size; just slightly smaller than the current small offerings on the market. I currently have an iphone X and really dislike the form factor - it's just too large, and the rounded corners lend themselves to slipping out of the hand. The square edge design really was the easiest the grip - I hope it makes a return on the next iphone pro. The ipad pro has gone back to the square edge design already, so there's some small hope in this regard.
My comments were downvoted a lot then... yet glad to see there's demand for iPhone 8 size(my current device since 2017) iPhones. It Looks like potentially many others weren't upgrading either.
The SE is a replacement for the iPhone 7/8, which is a huge seller as it's near zero cost for big corporate accounts. It's also cheap enough to undermine the resale market for many customers. Apple will setup a production line somewhere and churn these things out for years at low cost -- I wouldn't be surprised if this is also tied to a factory-in-a-can model where production can be ramped up in places like India.
(I can't edit the post anymore)
For as insightful as the HN crowd usually is, it's funny that we all just swarm a thread about a new phone that isn't terribly remarkable.
As for it being faster than all Android phones. Ok. And? I dont look at my Galaxy and say "if only this was 1 or 2 or 5 or 6.7% faster." We are kind of past the "it should be faster!" for basically ALL smartphones in my view.
But hey, it's Apple, so everyone is going nuts.
When you are weighing iPhone 7 against a first iteration iPhone SE, there's a lot of things to consider beyond form factor. I've been holding out waiting for the smaller phones to come back. I guess I'll just keep on waiting.
Do you have a source for that, or do you just expect them to want small phones because of small hands?
The rest of Asia are the front runners of large smart phones, so I don't see the small hands thing being relevant to phone sizes.
To my recollection, phones have always been pretty big in Japan. When I first visited in 2006 I asked my Japanese friends why all the phones where so big, and they just said "It's fashionable, nobody wants a small phone", but I've never noticed a trend towards small devices, just more features and bling.
Moreover, given that Japan sees relatively little usage of computers, but historically has been extremely cellphone oriented, it actually makes sense that you want a large screen as your primary screen.
Lastly, I've noticed that young people on variety shows, when doing a gesture for "typing", swipes the air with their index finger over the palm of the imposing hand, suggesting that the primary mode of text-input is on (1) your phone, and (2) this is done with 2 hands. I don't think Japan has a special affection for one handed usage, at least not since they moved to touch screens.
Most Japanese people uses Flick input rather than Qwerty. Flick input is not getting benefits(or getting bad) from larger screen, unlike Qwerty.
I don’t know what normal size hands are, but I’m quite tall, 195cm ish, and the iPhone 8 is too big for me to use single handed. The iPhone 5s was excellent size wise for me.
I'm not sure this is impacted by the CPU speed really for many reasons.
1. For a popular app, you can't target the latest / the best model. We already cycle through the phones less often than a few years ago. By the time this gets to become popular, other phones will have comparable speed.
2. Developers will work both ways: To speed up the current code, (positive impact) and to add more features (negative impact).
If JS is required, people will find solutions. If JS is not enough, we'll get native apps. Current speedups in raw CPU are meh.
It makes sense that size is the most talked point in the HN crowd. But I think the headlining feature for most people would be the price.
I've been using Apple devices exclusively for 10 years until 2016 or so but I reckon it's become incredibly bloated UX on iOS devices, at least from my very anecdotal perspective.
Meanwhile Android seems much more 'sane' for me as a user, but more so software developer aware of the cost of bad UX.
So I'm wondering, in making this choice to go for SE rather than 4a, I'm assuming you're familiar with both OS, how do you think they compare?
I really like what I hear about the iPhone SE but immediately I remember how dreadful my experience is every time I have to use an iOS device, they're just so unnatural to me, just so weird UI/UX choices. I feel like they're maybe great for seniors but as a 37 nerd/geek I feel lost with iOS. It's just not doing what I want it to. Like Windows 10. Like Gnome. I tolerate KDE because it's great but it's not without big issues yet.
Am I too demanding? Have I been spoiled by the best products during 30 years of computing, such that 'average' in 2020 doesn't cut it for me, or did UI/UX really get worse as I suspect?
Please, someone, in this highly popular thread, help me make sense of this perception, and see where I fit in a large 'nerdy' crowd.
Really exciting times where an A9-based quality handset can be had for ~$60 on eBay. I expect prices will fall a bit further with this new SE model. And yes, the A9 is completely viable in 2020. Planning on holding onto it for as long as reasonably possible.
I was actually planning on grabbing a larger phone when iPhone SE inevitably lost software support, but then I got an old iPhone 6 to use casually and I just couldn’t use it at all with one hand without invoking Reachability all the time. Plus I can’t wrap my hand around it so it feels a bit less secure…I’m not sure I’d be happy to lose the form factor.
It was released Fall 2013.
It was also the first 64-bit smartphone, and remained that way for more than a year from what I can tell. It also has the first Secure Enclave; i.e. a fingerprint authentication system that had any hope of being secure, and a decent FDE system.
Citation please?
So assuming best case scenario for Arm perf growth and Apple remaining completely stagnant, Qualcomm would catch up in 2 years.
More realistically though, the A14 is rumored to be quite the upgrade. At least more significant a change than the A13. And Arm won’t have a very competitive design until they release their Matterhorn core 2 generations from now, where they’re rumored to finally scale up the physical size.
[0]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13226/arm-unveils-client-cpu-...
[1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/15603/the-samsung-galaxy-s20-...
Even a tiny site like HN has problems on a phone when the comment count gets large
There, the difference between the iPhone and Pixel is about 3x on that particular JavaScript and web benchmark.
Google and Samsung might have something to say about this, with rumours of their own chip in the works:
https://www.axios.com/scoop-google-readies-its-own-chip-for-...
I switched to iPhone (older SE) from Android. Size and privacy were two reasons. Then my SE broke down after 3 years (I hadn't put any protective gear). I bought 7 as I needed another phone immediately and I was going away for two months.
The last one year I have been using 7 the lack of a headphone jack is so frustrating I would never buy the new SE.
The next time I have to buy a phone I will buy the smartphone that will provide at least 2-3 years of guaranteed OS upgrades (or there's Lineage support) and has a headphone jack.
No, I don't get why I'm supposed to pay double for iOS. Then again I don't see any smartphone on the market that I'd actually pay a premium price for. They're all not quite convincing to me.
Also, $399 is not entry level compared to the first generations of the iPhone, which was already not considered cheap. I'm not a fan of this severe price drift.
The article is almost is an year old. Nonetheless, a great read to understand the techniques of profiling. There have been 4 more releases of V8 in chromium based browsers which improved the speed and memory. Other browsers like Firefox also follow the suit.
I stopped to look at Single Thread performance long time ago when comparing phones. I now look for AI coprocessor performances, new sensor types and wireless charging performance
The amount of daily time the average person spends doing tasks affected by single core performance versus the amount of time people spend doing AI related tasks or using exotic sensors makes you an outlier.
Just by guessing, I would say whatsapp/FB/instagram/Snapchat/youtube are the most browsed apps. All those apps use Neural Networks in the background, for text translation, automatic subtitles, picture and video filters, encoding, decoding, upscaling video, ...
Neural networks will run constantly in the background to analyze phone sensors data and adjust the device energy usage, infer location, etc
Even games will use them massively (see the RTX application from Nvdia)
A performant single threaded CPU can probably run those AI applications fine, but an AI coprocessor (or neural processor or DSP or whatever the marketing named it) runs those applications by using 10 times less energy (easily)
I recommend to everyone to take a look at http://ai-benchmark.com/ . The improvement in this domain is massive, like an order magnitude bigger over the last 2 years, to the contrary of CPU and single threaded performance
Edit : oh I also forgot mandatory usage of NN for facial recognition and pose recognition. Regarding sensor, the new radar in the Pixel cannot work without neural network : https://ai.googleblog.com/2020/03/soli-radar-based-perceptio...
