In 2007, Jobs brought a product that changed the entire mobile phone market at Apple's new product launch - the iPhone. It is also from that time period that the iPhone has become a high-end representative in the hearts of many consumers, and the annual growth in sales has also confirmed its strength in the high-end mobile phone market.
Although the annual sales of the iPhone are starting at the level of tens of millions, Xiao Lei can always see many old iPhones that are still using "non-bang screens" on the road, can this show that the iPhone is really durable, and the iPhone of a few years ago is still "still able to eat"?
In order to test this conjecture, Xiao Lei borrowed an iPhone XS Max, an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 12 Pro from a colleague, plus an iPhone 13 Pro Max to form some of Apple's most representative products in recent years.
Before the test session officially began, Xiao Lei first briefly summarized the configuration parameters of these four products, and the details are as follows:
Appearance comparison: similar style
To be honest, when Xiao Lei put together these four products, the first thought in his heart was that the salary of the iPhone designer was too good to take. In addition to the iPhone Xs Max, the appearance gap of the other iPhones is almost non-existent, and even digital enthusiasts like Xiao Lei can only identify whether others are holding the iPhone 11 series or the iPhone 12 series through the right angle bezel design.
If you have to say that the biggest difference between these four iPhones in the appearance part is nothing more than the rear camera module. It is not difficult to find that the camera module of the iPhone 13 series has evolved from the "petite cute" four years ago to the "Big Mac" that now occupies almost half of the width of the fuselage, which is also a common law of the development of the mobile phone market in recent years: the imaging ability is getting stronger and stronger, the camera module is getting bigger and bigger, the weight of the fuselage is getting bigger and bigger, and the grip is getting worse and worse.
In addition, the right-angle border design is also the biggest change point of the iPhone in the past two years, from the perspective of product aesthetics, the design of the right-angle border can indeed reduce the overall volume and width of the phone, thereby improving the grip of the product. But this point is completely unapproast in the Pro Max series, not only failed to bring a better grip feel, but greatly increased the pressure of the mobile phone and the degree of hand, one-handed holding will inevitably be framed.
Turning to the front of the fuselage, without exception, the four iPhones are all in the same vein of bangs screen design, in this Android market has been digging holes, under the screen full screen design play out of the era, iPhone's bangs screen design is indeed slightly outdated. But fortunately, Apple in the iPhone 13 series is finally narrowed the area of bangs and added a high brush screen, although iOS has a unique advantage over Android in animation fluency, but this does not mean that it can make up for the hardware gap with the Android flagship.
As for the screen material, what makes Xiao Lei more pleased is that after the iPhone 11 series, Apple completely abandoned the LCD screen material, which also disguised it as an era when the screen frame could "stop the aircraft carrier" has completely gone. This is a good thing for many consumers who are keen on high screen ratio and excellent display results, but for some LCD parties, this represents another good choice.
In general, compared with the design scheme of the Android market, the design scheme of the iPhone is more the same, you can think that this is the inheritance of "family design", you can also say that this is "not thinking of making progress", which is more common.
Four years ago, the iPhone, is it still smooth today?
Back to the question at the beginning of the article, is the iPhone of a few years ago really as netizens say, still has a smooth experience? To this end, Xiao Lei used several links such as running points, killing background tests, opening application speed and game tests to prove in many ways. (Due to optimization issues with iOS, test scores may be partially biased)
In the most basic Antu rabbit running score and 3D Mark test link, in addition to the iPhone 12 Pro, the other iPhones have a great improvement compared to the previous generation. The iPhone Xs Max, which was not favored by Xiao Lei, actually achieved good results (but the loading speed in the 3D Mark test was significantly lower than other iPhones). Considering that Android and iPhone have different scoring mechanisms on Antutu and 3D Mark, other Android models will not be added here as a comparison, and the following is the specific test data:
The second link is the application loading speed test, in this test, Xiao Lei will open Taobao, Weibo, NetEase Cloud Music, Bilibili and Yuanshen these five applications, after loading the record time, and then empty the background for repeated tests, the final score takes the average speed of 5 tests. The actual test results are as follows:
The third link is a lot of iPhone users are deeply hated by the "kill the background" phenomenon test, Xiao Lei will open 19 third-party APP and its own camera software in the same order, after all loaded to make the phone stand still for five minutes, and finally record the background application retention of each iPhone, the data is derived from the average of the three rounds of testing, the specific data is as follows:
The last link is the game test link, because most of the mobile games on the market are not high on the processor requirements of mobile phones, so Xiao Lei chose the most popular configuration of the current "Original God" as a test object. The test conditions are: room temperature 23 °C, picture quality and other items are all pulled to the highest, the brightness is unified at 35%, the whole process is connected to Wi-Fi, and the fuselage temperature is measured after half an hour, and the test results are as follows:
Not surprisingly, the performance of the four iPhones is difficult for Xiao Lei to describe with the word satisfaction, even the strongest iPhone 13 Pro Max at present began to heat up and reduce brightness after 20 minutes of running, the experience is extremely poor. The performance of the other three iPhones is more "crotch-pulling", especially the iPhone Xs Max equipped with A12 processors, which has reached a maximum temperature of 47.6 ° C after running the original god for less than three minutes, which is quite a hot level. The iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 Pro also showed a phenomenon of downscaling and brightness reduction after fifteen minutes, and the temperature also exceeded 42 ° C, and the overall performance made Xiao Lei very dissatisfied.
From the game test session, we can see that although the performance of the iPhone has always been far better than Android, this does not mean that its actual experience is much stronger than Android. After all, since the iPhone X, the subsequent iPhone is basically a double-layer motherboard design, the advantage of this is to greatly improve the integration of the motherboard, the volume will be reduced, but the defect is that it will affect the heat dissipation of the entire mobile phone, plus the iPhone will never pay attention to the heat dissipation system, which will naturally lead to the iPhone in running large games when the heat is very serious, frame drop, frequency reduction, brightness reduction, caton is the basic operation.
On the other hand, on the Android camp, most mobile phone manufacturers pay great attention to the heat dissipation system, in order to make the processor play its maximum strength, they do not hesitate to sacrifice the internal space of the mobile phone to plug in more heat dissipation components. Therefore, in this regard, Xiao Lei is more recognized by the behavior of Android manufacturers.
But in general, the netizens said that "even the iPhone of four years ago is still smooth" This view is supported by facts, although the iPhone Xs Max is not small compared with the next few iPhones, but considering the Android market, the flagship mobile phones (processors for Snapdragon 845 and Kirin 980) four years ago are basically difficult to be used by users as the main machine, not to mention what is smooth and not smooth.
However, here Xiao Lei also needs to explain that the starting price of the iPhone Xs Max is 9599 yuan, and the price of the 256G version has exceeded 10,000 yuan, which can almost buy the two Android flagships in the same period. Therefore, it is understandable that the iPhone Xs Max has a longer service life than the Android flagship of the same period.
Four years later, has Apple really improved in taking pictures?
Although the iPhone's camera module is moving towards a "bigger and bigger" trend, if you think about it, it seems that the iPhone is still using a 12-megapixel sensor, does this mean that the iPhone has not made much progress or has made little progress in taking pictures? To this end, Xiao Lei also conducted a comparative evaluation of the various camera capabilities of these four iPhones:
The first is the daytime scene with better light conditions, and the sample effects of the four iPhones are as follows:
It can be found that under normal circumstances, the gap between the four iPhones is not obvious, the overall look and feel is comfortable, the color temperature of the picture is almost the same, and the details after enlargement are also retained. The only difference is that the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max have a wider angle and can accommodate more scenery, thanks of course to the upgrading of their sensor size.
And to shoot the near object link, the test results made Xiao Lei very surprised, the latest technology, the strongest configuration of the iPhone 13 Pro Max but in this link overturned, not only failed to successfully restore the color of the doll, did not bokeh the subject and the background noise is very obvious, at a glance it looks like it is an enlarged sample. The other three iPhones, in addition to the angle is not as wide as the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the overall performance is better than it, which can be said to be a reverse upgrade.
The second is the dark and complex night scene link, in which the gap between the four iPhones is finally revealed.
It can be seen that since the iPhone Xs Max does not support night mode, when shooting street signs in the dark, not only the overall brightness of the picture is low, but the noise in the distance is also very obvious. But fortunately, the highlight part is suppressed quite well, there is no glare, and because it does not support night mode, the iPhone Xs Max does not need to carry out long exposure during shooting, and the fastest film outing speed is also another advantage.
The other three models benefit from night mode and larger sensors that can better restore the details of objects in the picture. Among them, the best performance is naturally the iPhone 13 Pro Max, not only will not pull the brightness of the picture too high, the blue light on the right side is also well restored, and the iPhone 11 Although the overall picture brightness is higher, you can see that the blue light on the right side is almost completely erased, which is not smart. As for the overall performance of the iPhone 12 Pro and the 13 Pro Max, it will not be repeated.
In this set of samples of vending machines, the iPhone Xs Max once again overturned due to the lack of night mode, and you can see that in the sample shot by the iPhone Xs Max, the lower left corner has become green, and the noise is also very obvious. This is the case for the other three iPhons, with noise control: iPhone 13 Pro Max> iPhone 12 Pro> iPhone 11> iPhone Xs Max.
When shooting extremely complex traffic scenes, the four iPhones all appeared in the classic "ghost" phenomenon, which greatly affected the picture perception. Leaving aside the "ghost", from the overall performance, the four iPhones are almost "rotten" to the same level, not only the amount of noise in the picture is extremely large, but the tree details in the distance are completely smeared. The only advantage is still the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which has better highlight rejection than the other three iPhones, as can be seen from the details of the light plate in the distance.
Almost forgot, because the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max have an independent LiDA lidar module, they can focus better and faster on the object that Xiao Lei wants to shoot when shooting at night, which is still worth learning from other mobile phone manufacturers.
Overall, combined with the configuration parameters and the actual sample, the daily shooting gap of the four iPhones is not as large as Xiao Lei imagined, due to the lack of the blessing of the night scene mode, the iPhone Xs Max naturally ranks at the bottom of the night scene link, while the gap between the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 12 Pro is small and small, not to mention that this is only the iPhone 11 and not the Pro series. As for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, due to the largest sensor size and the latest technology, it is not unusual to win the championship in many links, but it is precisely because its sensor size is "too large" that the performance when shooting close objects is not as good as the other three iPhones.
summary:
Back to the question at the beginning, is the iPhone of four years ago really still usable and not stuck? The answer is yes, although the iPhone Xs Max is different from the rest of the iPhones in the application retention link and the photo link, but the overall performance can still reach the passing line, plus this model has been released for more than four years, and having this achievement is enough to prove that the views of netizens are right.
Leaving aside the iPhone Xs Max, it is not difficult to find that the level of iPhone squeezing toothpaste is not a waste of time. If you don't care about the so-called 5G network, the cost performance of the iPhone 11 series is far higher than that of the iPhone 12 series, and the biggest advantage of the iPhone 13 series over the iPhone 12 series is undoubtedly the high brush screen, and the rest of the daily experience gap is really not big.
Apple can create a selling point for the next generation of iPhones by emasculating this generation of iPhones every time, and this selling point can attract a large number of users to change machines, as long as there is such a reason to buy, Cook has succeeded. For Apple, the most important thing is how to maximize the pursuit of revenue, rather than creating the best product for everyone. If Apple puts all the innovations and technologies it has in one product, users will naturally be happy, and the sales of this product will be very impressive. But what about the next generation of products? If Apple can't come up with a better product than users expect within a year, users won't buy again.
The business world needs to keep growing profits, and giving users a good experience must be based on the premise of being conducive to expanding sales. Perhaps Apple has developed high-power fast charging technology or a stronger imaging system, but Apple will never release it at one time, as long as it is a little better than the previous generation, there are still consumers who will be willing to pay for it.
After all, in the high-end mobile phone market, Apple really does not have a decent opponent, in the high-end mobile phone market, with the decline of Huawei, Samsung is also in decline, there is no mobile phone company can pose a threat to Apple, which also led to the fourth quarter of last year since the iPhone shipments climbed steadily, even if Apple continues to squeeze toothpaste in the next few years, consumers and the market have to accept this "arrogant" manufacturer. Coupled with Apple's industry-leading processor and intelligent ecological environment, it can sit back and relax in the short term and naturally learn to be arrogant.
Apple in the sky of the idea of Jobs, Cook's strategy is more inclined to seek stability, Apple iPhone dares to be conservative the biggest capital, or the iOS ecosystem, no matter how the hardware of android phones play tricks, unless there is revolutionary innovation, just like in 2007 Jobs took out the first generation of iPhone and flicked on the screen, otherwise conservative must be Apple's best strategic choice for households, but for users, we actually have no choice, who does not like to lie down to make money?
It's just that Apple, as the big brother in the IT company, will insist on this conservative strategy until when, and can only let time give the answer.