Apple is sort of a separate thing as you can't just buy their chipset as an OEM, and their chips are just *way* ahead of everyone else at the moment. With CPUs it's so bad that an Android phone with a Qualcomm chip you buy two years from now will maybe be competitive with last year's iPhone.
I don't know how to quote certain pieces of a post, so I'll do my usual log-ass post addressing everything
It's pretty incredible how far ahead Apple is in terms of hardware compared to the rest. The more you explain what's going on in the industry to me, the more it's surprising this isn't a bigger issue, especially on Android forums. While I understand hardware or software alone isn't everything, it makes non-Apple news about a new model of hardware silly to read as they rave about its performance when another OEMs like Apple is so far ahead but just on a different OS/platform. We hear so much about Apple's walled-garden in reference to their ecosystem and services (FaceTime, iMessage, the App Store) but I don't think many people think about the hardware implications of that, either. Sure, not
every component is built by Apple, like rumors of the AMD-built GPUs they may or may not have been using, but the final product is an Ax chip that is only available in their iOS devices and not sent to anyone else. So while this walled-garden approach may irritate anti-Apple users and even Apple's own users at times, there are clearly some benefits to it with superior hardware being one of them. Also, on the software side, Apple having its hand in every dev's money jar and ensuring that apps are developed up to spec for all iOS devices is probably a big reason why apps get updated first on iOS and why they look and perform better, too.
You're right about the Android pricing scheme and it's been a complaint by many people for the past several years. 2015 or so. When did the Nexus 6p come out? If I remember correctly, it was the Nexus device that saw the big price jump from the Nexus 4 or 6. Maybe it was the 6? One of them had a big jump in price that deviated so far from the original Nexus lineup pricing that people started to question whether Google was trying to do what Apple was doing, which was the pricing climbing closer and closer to $1000. Today, we're already there and people bat their eyes a few times and still pay $1000 for either an iPhone or some Android OEM's flagship. Samsung, namely. With what you've explained to me, I can understand Apple fanboys BSing themselves and citing the superior hardware as the reason to pay the premium. But with the iOS flagship as
the standard to compare everything else to, I don't see how one can roll over and pay the same, or more, as an iPhone and still be happy with the BS that Qualcomm pulls with its chips (that 5G radio always being on). Even an $800 Android device is a lot, but we've long since accepted anything over $500 as "OK." But if the gains are so minimal year over year and so far behind the competition in Apple, it really is a shame people cheer at a new flagship announcement or a new chip announcement while knowing the competition's hardware is head and shoulders above what they're getting now.
I think it's good to be critical of whatever we're fans of. I'm fortunate to be a part of both Apple's and Google's/Android's ecosystem and have several devices to use them on. Apple and iOS aren't perfect but boy do they do some things better than Windows and Android OEMs. I don't think I'd enjoy iOS on my phone, namely because of the sideloading of apps that I do. But I also don't think Android would be good on a tablet, although I haven't used a modern Android tablet in some time. Maybe the Galaxy Tab S3 or S4? Was there ever a Note Tab, that was bigger and had the S Pen? Whatever the flagship was in the Winter of 2013 lol. I tried it out at Best Buy and while it was neat, I would take an iPad any day. But back to about being critical, I linked to a video about two weeks ago by Geeky Ranjit and he emphasized how OEMs fall complacent because they hide behind their fanboys who try to do the PR damage control for them when they mess up. He specifically mentioned Xiaomi and their bad advertising practices within the OS, but he extended it to Sony and some other OEMs that are more popular internationally and that I'm not familiar with. But he was exactly right about what happens when OEMs lose their place in a market and I think you make the points for what Samsung is doing and what could possibly happen to them. Two or three years from now, the Galaxy S-whatever may not have the shine and prestige it has today. The S20 seems to have put a dent in the reputation and who knows what the Note 20 brings? We might see someone new or another OEM rise up from the ashes and reinvent themselves. lol Microsoft could expand in to mobile hardware, who knows?
About the headphones/AirPods, yeah I meant we got used to the look of having them in our ears. We still might think it looks silly but the memes have died down and their usage is more and more commonplace. I think something leaked today about Apple making over-ear headphones with the AirPods moniker. Sort of the Beats Studio Pros, I think, but probably still aiming at the professional crowd, whereas Beats are still more of a fashion trend promoted by celebs. It'll be interesting to see how they compare to the Bose and Sony ANC headphones, especially since these are rumored to be priced $50 cheaper.
And I know your feelings on the Roku. You explained it to me a few months back when discussion TVs and TCL's usage of Roku and how great it is. My dad is still looking at a TV but I'm going to have to sway him away from looking at OLEDs. After really paying attention to what he watches, it's a good bit of static images from the news and then some live Indian comedy shows. It may not be too big of a risk for burn-in, but he also doesn't need the true blacks of OLED to enjoy those lol. I've been seeing some of the 85? 88? inch Sony flagship TVs go for about $3K on sale and I bet the pricing changes after the Summer when this corona shit is done and supply starts to increase. I think he'd appreciate like 90% of OLED quality but a bigger screen and no risk of burn-in for less than an 80+" OLED TV. Plus, I hear Sony's processing on both OLEDs and regular LED TVs is the best out there. You just pay a big premium over LG's OLEDs and other OEMS for LEDs. I looked in the TCL 8 series but a deal site I visit said people complained about smushed blacks and some other stuff on TCL 8s. They all have a hard on for the Samsung QLEDs, I think the Q80? 90?
