iPhone 7 – Success or failure?

[Daragh]

I can’t deny it, I’m an Apply fan. I’ve got the iPhone 3GS, 4S & 5S. I’ve also got an Apple watch and iPad. However, I don’t think I’ll be getting the iPhone 7.

There was lots of hype around the latest iPhone model and I was expecting big things, but i’m quite disappointed. For starPters, I don’t like the gloss look and it’s going to look even worse when it scratches (yes it will scratch, check out the disclaimer)

I also dislike the new Bluetooth headphone concept. Not only do they look ridiculous, they’ll cost your a fortune replacing them every time you lose one.

The irony is, Apple used to focus their advertising campaigns on their wired headphone devices. (please say you remember this too and that I’m not that old!!!)

So, why am I ranting on about the Apple iPhone 7? Don’t worry, I am going somewhere with this.

In my opinion, this latest product release is not as good as earlier releases. Have you ever encountered a product release that diminished in quality from the previous release, and if so, what did you do about it?

[Archana]

 

Was checking iPhone 7 reviews the other day and these are some of the issues I remember reading about:

– Battery drains quickly

– There is a hissing sound from the phone

– Not waterproof

– There are issues with the camera lens

[Alin]

Hi Daragh,

The discussion about a product release with lower quality than the previous release is a very interesting topic and the iPhone 7 can be an example. I also find a major drawback the idea of having the same connector for both the battery charger and the wired headphones. If you use your headphones and your battery is low, you cannot charge your phone in the same time. I remember the era when you needed dedicated earphones or adaptors for each type of phone because there was no standard 3.5 mm jack.

Generally speaking, I think the companies sometimes have more focus on releasing new products instead of providing quality. In IT industry you must always come with new things and these new things give you visibility in the domain and market. Apple has this tradition with releasing a new phone each year in September; so they needed to change something for giving the customers the feeling that there is a new product.

Sometimes the testers cannot do much in these situations because there can be a requirement to have that feature causing the lower quality. The product owner or customer (who pays for the products development) may ask specifically to have that feature implemented. I have encountered a case when the technology was changed to meet the company new policy and in that release the product performance was lower than in the previous one (system was slower and needed to be restarted more often). It was reported by the testing team, but the management decided to release the version into production.

From my point of view, the large names in the industry can take the risk releasing lower quality products. Their customers may not be very interested about the drawbacks of the new product; they may value other things like design, OS, apps, brand etc. But I think this works only in particular cases.

Regards,
Alin

[Author]

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