I’m definitely an Apple fan and own all their ****. But man, they have released the same thing every year and we all buy it because of “specs” improvements. The battery had gotten no better unless the phone is huge. Their is no design innovation. Makes me really apppreciate what Nokia did way back when. Sliders. Bar phones. Even lipstick case looking things. Gaming devices. Real choice and innovation. Apple has taken a shape which admittedly is very nice and ran with it for years in succession. Pro is It’s been great for resale etc so you can’t have it all.
I can’t wait for the iPhone 12. Hopefully it’s good
The issue with looking back at previous innovation, is that those past “innovations” that didn’t move forward, be it design, feature or technology-wise proved out that those things were not functional, wanted, needed, etc. And when you add to that, the fact that back then the volume that any cell phone did in sales was a fraction of what it is today, made it less risky for companies to try different things.
Today, most companies do far more internal testing to vet any and every product decision before it comes to the consumer, because they recognize that launching something that will cause more problems than it solves could kill all good will a company’s other products have. For Apple in particular, they have so few iPhone models offered at any one time, they absolutely are not going to take a chance on something like a folding screen that can fail because of a piece of pocket lint.
We’re both fortunate and not that technology has gotten phones to where they are currently. Even the least expensive devices have processing power that desktop computers from just 10 years ago couldn’t imagine offering. But our own expectations for battery life, screen size, pocketability, etc., has effectively forced companies to focus on the rectangular slabs of glass and metal we’re all used to using.
An interesting example of trying to go back in time to use a device shape / style that for many was the pinnacle of cell phones, is the Blackberry. I saw some company is planning on releasing a new Blackberry with conventional keyboard, just like they once had, and I think that for both consumers who thought they wanted that form factor again and the company producing it, they’re forgetting that our smart phones today aren’t just used to write emails, which is what Blackberry’s were designed to do, because they hadn’t figured out how to do all the things that Apple’s iPhone could, even when launched initially. So they’re making the screen smaller just to accommodate the keyboard that will get used some of the time. Again, that‘s not a smart decision because physical keyboards died for a reason - that is our expectations of what our devices do for us daily expanded beyond simply text based emailing.
