I've been holding back on both Samsung and Apple's latest phones just because of the asymmetric bump. It is so annoying. Sticking with my old Note 8 for now even though it is out of support and receives no security updates.

I looked through the announcement and didn't see an answer to this question: does anyone know what the display technology is? LCD or AMOLED or...?

Then you buy a thin phone on paper and make it fat with a case, better if they would put more battery and less glue in. But as always designers/marketing complicate everyone life so they push their new idea: "Form over Function"

I’d be interested to know your general age group.

I have a theory that skeumorphism is a cross-generational design trend that serves a purpose to articulate a radical new technological paradigm in a language that makes sense to people that have never experienced it (i.e. A radio app that looks like an actual radio because that’s what everyone grew up using). I think once people are fully immersed and familiar with the tech, though, skeumorphism is limiting and ugly. We don’t need radio apps that look like radios anymore because everyone should now know how digital interfaces work. We can abstract away dials and knobs and make better use of the space for something that fits better with the constraints of a screen rather than the constraints of the physical world. This harkens back to the old discussions around the save icon and how there is an entire generation clicking an abstract symbol that holds no meaning to them while the generation prior comfortably recognized this symbol as “equivalent to archiving on my floppy disks.” Skeumorphism is really only intuitive to the first generation. Everyone that comes after just sees another (possibly ugly) abstraction that makes just as much sense as the next one. Screens don’t need metal dials, plush felts, and eye-popping gauges where a simple shadow would otherwise suffice.

I mean this with no disrespect. We all have our own sense of aesthetic. Just a thought I’ve been ruminating on. Personally I find neumorphism [1] to be a pleasing blend of the positives of both skeumorphism and flat design and I hope to see more of it going forward.

[1] https://uxplanet.org/neomorphism-the-hottest-design-trend-in...

FWIW, the iPhone mini at least fits in my hand, so they get bonus points regardless of sharp edges. It does kind of stink needing a case to prevent it flying away.

I might just be a curmudgeon, but a lot of the newer tech products (iPhones being the exception) look really ugly to me. Pixel 6 and MacBooks being the most recent and serious offenders.

I think I’ve just accepted that we’re in a weird time for design and as long as the function is fine I’ll overlook the looks. Pixel 6 looks to me like it was deliberately designed to be so ugly people would talk about it. Same with new MacBook notch, which I wouldn’t mind if it looked exactly like the iPhone notch but larger. The curves are just off.

I guess this is karmic justice for me being so in love with Metro and flat UI ~8 years ago. I take comfort in knowing it’s cyclical and in a few years we’ll wrap around to Fisher-Price XP-style UI.

I felt this way too. I recently (and reluctantly) switched to an iphone 13 pro max. I've dropped it unto asphalt from > 2m without a case twice now (not on purpose) and neither front nor back has shattered. Whatever apple did to that glass is working! Maybe everyone else just needs to do the same thing to their glass?

Though ultimately I get why slate/phablet phones won out with their larger screens.

Only weight is valid statement. Matte glass on iPhone is unbreakable.

Marques Brownlee on YouTube generally gives them good reviews. They're good for the ~vanilla android flavor vs manufacturer skins.

Maybe you just haven't met anyone with one or even noticed people who do own them. I've owned almost every pixel phone. In my opinion, they're some of the best Android phones available with great cameras and less crapware pre-installed.

The recent camera bevels are bad enough.

https://store.google.com/product/pixel_6_pro?hl=en-GB

[EDIT] On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says, "Guaranteed Android version updates until at least: October 2024" and "Guaranteed security updates until at least: October 2026" for Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

I think this is another classic bit of Google branding. Tensor is their custom SoC with CPU, GPU and an ML co-processor (think this was codenamed Whitechapel). Not the ML processor itself. Whereas Google's Tensor Processing Unit is a large scale ML accelerator. Why they've decided to use the same name for two totally different chips with different functions is anyone's guess.

If I'm unlocking my phone, I have my hands on my phone, so using my fingerprint isn't a hassle. Plus with COVID and needing to wear masks, I can still unlock my phone easily without needing to pull down my mask.

If you doubt that, here are some quotes from Apple's new product pages from yesterday: 'most powerful', 'scary fast', 'scary faster', 'best display ever', 'super fluid'

Not to mention the product names: 'pro' vs 'max', 'liquid retina', ...

Yet I don't see people complain about those.

I have yet to get the AI assistant to book anything for me. The only related function I do use is the call screening piece, but that's hardly AI...

Well, it's getting scarier by the second. For example, 'Magic Eraser' was a requested feature by Stalin.

You cannot believe any image on the internet anymore these days. This time it is getting much worse.

Let people stand the way they feel comfortable. Tim Cook yesterday appeared like his feet are glued to the ground in the process of squatting. Naturally people never stand with feet this far apart. But the trend continues and shitty directors at Apple don’t get it.

This type of production gets zero points from me. It’s just terrible.

When I was at Google the cloud unit, there is always a vibe that "we are the best" without much substantiated from the products and etc.

At least they realize that something better is done for the phone department. Although I guess it's so much more obvious than cloud.

They do indirectly increase value of the Android ecosystem by providing new features and benchmark for other manufacturers to copy, but it is not essential.