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During today's earnings call covering the first fiscal quarter of 2025, Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about whether he felt there was room for form factor innovation in future iPhone models, with the question hinting perhaps spurred by rumors of the upcoming
"iPhone 17 Air."

iPhone-17-Air-Size-Feature.jpg

Cook often declines to provide insight into future products during earnings calls, but he did give an encouraging answer. "I think there's a lot more to come," Cook said. "I could not feel more optimistic about our product pipeline."

Cook went on to say that there is indeed room for change in the iPhone lineup. "I think there's a lot of innovation left on the smartphone," said Cook.

Rumors suggest that Apple is designing a super thin version of the iPhone that will replace the "Plus" model in the series. The device is expected to be between 5mm and 6mm thick, which would make it the thinnest iPhone to date.

In a separate question, Cook was asked whether the super thin design of the 12.9-inch M4 iPad Pro was driving iPad revenue, but Cook said that wasn't the case. It's the iPad Air and the iPad that were responsible for the 15 percent revenue growth the iPad category saw during the holiday quarter.

That's not a surprise given the high price of the iPad Pro. Rumors have been split on how much Apple's super thin iPhone will cost, but it is expected to be less expensive than the Pro models. Apple will focus on design, with the device set to use a lower powered chip than the Pro models and a single-lens camera.

Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook: There's a 'Lot of Innovation' Left for Future iPhone Development
 
I primarily took his "I think there's a lot more to come" as a nod towards entirely new form factors, such as foldables.
There seems to be lots of stuff Android phones have nearly ironed out the issues on that Apple could be waiting just a little longer on adopting, lots of rumours of apple foldables, underscreen cameras etc.
 
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"I think there's a lot of innovation left on the smartphone," said Cook.
Tim Cook doesn't care about innovation on the iPhone. For example, the latest iPhone 16 is using practically the same design as the iPhone 11. A more honest name for the iPhone 16 would be iPhone 11sssss.

Aside from not caring about innovation, Cook is clueless when it comes to innovation. Clueless Cook is CEO of Apple, yet failed to realize that Apple's skeuomorphic design on iOS and Mac OS X was based on four decades of painstaking research on user-friendliness. Clueless Cook allowed Jony Ive to completely get rid of skeuomorphic design and replace it with that user-unfriendly monstrosity known as flat design, which was pioneered by Microsoft. Yes, under Steve Jobs, Microsoft copied Apple, but under Clueless Cook, Apple copied Microsoft.

The most innovation-focused employee Apple had was the head of iOS, Scott Forstall. Forstall was the most Jobs-like employee at Apple. Clueless Cook was too clueless to realize Forstall's value when it comes to innovation, and thus Cook fired Forstall.

Cook only cares about maximizing profits for shareholders, and he has correctly realized that he can do that by rejecting innovation. Cook correctly understands that by saving money by not innovating, and also by not passing those savings on to customers (and by also sometimes going even further by raising prices), he can increase profits even further.

Actions speak louder than words. Just because Cook says the word "innovation" doesn't mean he really cares about it. Innovation often requires being willing to make less in profits. Cook is not willing to do that because he cares about shareholders more than customers. Jobs was the opposite because he cared about customers more than shareholders. That's a reason why Jobs made less money for shareholders than Cook, and that's a reason why Apple's products under Jobs were more innovative.
 
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here's a revelation... treat your existing customers well - this goes a long way for getting new customers.

spend time fixing bugs instead of releasing emojis, wallpapers and other non core features. apple has been consistently pissing off its long term customers with increasingly buggy software - some bugs have been going on for years.

stop purposely creating e-waste by tying the browser, notes, music, etc to the OS. (didn't microsoft get sued for this a long time ago?!) let them be separate apps so older devices your customers have can be secure. it probably takes more work to not break older devices than to just let them update those apps (no, i'm not talking about new features here).

give us expand-ability for that matter. at least we're getting a few ports on devices lately after they stripped them all out. i cannot even connect an external GPU for actual work to M-series macs anymore.

stop outright ripping people off... it is noticeable when you charge through the nose (4x) for storage and allow for no user upgrades. the good will from your customers is quickly disappearing... this is coming from someone who has been using apple stuff forever and has a closet full to show for it.
 
There's plenty more they can do. For example, move the front facing camera on the M4 iPad Pro back to portrait orientation.
 
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