I thought the rumour mill, or at least some of it, was saying that stacked battery technology might not be appearing in iPhone until 2024. Unfortunately I doubt that we’ll find out the answer on the 12th, Apple tends not to talk about that level of technical detail (they don’t even tell us the battery capacities!), so we’ll probably have to wait until the first tear-downs to find out for sure what battery technology ends up in this year’s models.
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iPhone 16 OLED Panels May Use Micro-Lens Technology to Increase Brightness/Power Efficiency
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It was a renewal from my carrier. I get a special discount every two years with my plan, so you can say it was sort of subsidized but the rebait is never very high, mostly 100-200€. I used my "special price" last year for my wife's phone, an iPhone 14 (normal size, not pro), which was way over a grand with the storage she needed.
And considering how Apple operates, I'm not confident AT ALL that the price increase will be US only. We'll see.
Personally the only thing that doesn't either give me a major headache or cause me to see everything blurry when I look up from the phone are LED screens.
I hope the micro-LED technology will be here soon because I'd like to just keep my current phone until that's out. If it takes longer than iPhone 20 I'll get that but I'm happy to wait until then.
I hope the micro-LED technology will be here soon because I'd like to just keep my current phone until that's out. If it takes longer than iPhone 20 I'll get that but I'm happy to wait until then.
Most people are not doing yearly upgrades. They keep their phones until the cumulative year over year improvements bring enough change that it is worth them upgrading. Not everyone is on the same cycle so the yearly upgrades ensure that those that are ready to upgrade this year have something to buy.
Other manufacturers are also upgrading their phones which means that no one manufacturer can wait out this year or risk being seen as behind and lose market share.
Phones are optimized for minimal size and weight to meet their functional goals. Trying to optimize for longevity would likely increase size and weight. There just is not enough demand for that. IPhones are supported for 5 years or more. (Android phones not so much.) By that much time, their owners are generally ready for something new and not in keeping their old phone around.
While you might get the impression that people are eager to upgrade to every new phone that comes out from posts on forums like this, this is not representative of the majority of phone customers. Most people don’t care that much about upgrading their phones and they don’t care to come onto a forum and post about it.
In the past when there were actual S models, those were the ones to get. The S was usually when Apple released new, noticeably faster processors. The “S“ stood for speed. The non-S years were when they did design iterations but the internal tech didn’t change as much.
Do you have examples of year after year EU iPhone price increases?
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You say that like it's a bad thing; the S upgrades have always been the best phones to get.
Everyone’s decision is entirely personal so I completely respect yours, and for me a brighter screen is definitely a big plus for bright sunlight and better efficiency when running at “normal“ brightness indoors also of major interest to me. On screen size though your post makes me wonder, if the rumours that 16 Ultra screen will be 6.9” are true, whether an extra 0.2” will even be noticeable to me.
I’d still go for a 16 Ultra just for the brightness & efficiency (if that’s how it pans out next year) and I wouldn’t say no to a bit extra size-wise but I suspect that 0.2” bigger will be a very small deal for me.
Stacked battery tech is coming next year.We need a breakthrough in the battery department.
Yeah, the 16 lineup is shaping to up to be a bigger upgrade year when it comes to the display tech, battery tech (stacked), faster RAM, camera upgrades, design, etc.
I can't wait for iPhone 3692 Pro Ultra Extreme Mini Me Max Plus. That's the one to hold out for.
More power efficient displays will be good. Should help to get longer battery life
Tim doesn’t like this so-called ideal world, but at least the EU will give us somewhat of a glimpse into this ideal world with the easy to replace battery requirement in 2027.
I am typing this message from my day 1 iPhone XR. I use this thing every day, all the time. It still looks brand new and uses the original battery after 5 years, which is at 84% health. It’s running iOS17. It is still plenty fast, only a few things have slowed down a bit, like the camera app, but it is perfectly usable. I think I’ll keep it for another year, maybe with a new battery. I think it’s a gross exaggeration to talk about a one-year shelf life.
Well, 1 year is the time taken by planet Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun, so technically each iPhone is a revolution!
But the sun - and the whole solar system - is moving. So the actual trajectory looks more like a corkscrew...
Have a watch of this:
I would like to see an illustration of the various movements and rotations of the planet, sun, solar system, galaxey, local group, etc. That video is odd in that it seems to start that way and but them breaks and spends most of its time on an visualization of the the cycles of the various ways that we measure time as represented by rotations. Interesting but not what was promised by the title.
Probably, but only the first rumors about the 17 will surface in December or January …
"Why the yearly cycle for flagship phones?" is a good question, given that the model seems to falter a bit:
- Apple iPhone 14 is a mere repainting of iPhone 13, with same chipset. iPhone 15 also seems to be a low iteration.
- Samsung S23(+) is just a chipset replacement of S22(+), plus little bells & whistles. Same for iPhone 15.
With S years, Apple more or less acknowledged a development cycle of 2/3 years. So far, they make most profit by issuing yearly phones, but this might be a defensive move:
a) if they wait for too long, they look outpaced, esp. since they're trailing in innovation (OLED, USB-C, Flip/Fold...).
b) Sadly, the only way to upgrade an iPhone is to buy a new one (same for Android flagships).
Nowadays, they're more "polishing edge" than "cutting edge", with ease of use, build quality, brand ecosystem increasing average revenue per user, etc. Would be happier with longer cycles though, this industry has gone a bit "waste while you can" imho.
And what more do people want in a phone, which are not fantasies?
In the real world, two things to work on are:
1) durability; and
2) cost.
Neither of which are some shiny new toy.