Lots of talk about innovation and/or lack of it here, here’s my 2 cents:
For me, FaceID has been an improvement over Touch ID, although this isn’t a deal maker or breaker to me. As a personal preference, the notch doesn’t bother me.
I don’t like the removal of the headphone jack. No ones earbud style headphones fit well into my ear. Not Apple’s or Jabra or Bose or Panasonic or Sony. This isn’t a new situation for me, the included wired Apple earphones never worked for me either. My solution in the past was a set of noise canceling Bose over the ear headphones for serious listening and cheap 10 dollar wired earbuds for general use. The cheap sets were available almost everywhere and the wire meant they were harder to lose when they did pop out. And for me, it’s always been a case of when not if they would fall out.
AR hasn’t done anything for me. This seems to be the advancement that Apple was betting on.
As of right now, and with what I know about them, folding screens aren’t something I will initially be interested in. Way too expensive and very limited benefits for using them, even if you ignore the reliability factor. The ‘X’ line of phones, and the Android equivalents, are already too expensive. I don’t think I will spend $2000 on a phone. I know I won’t spend that much on a phone 2 years in a row. Reliability is something that anyone who releases a folding phone is going to have to prove, I’m not going to pay that much on something that doesn’t last.
I don’t know what new feature or ability would be a must have in an upcoming phone, from anyone. I don’t think anyone making the phones really knows either. You could double down on reliability and cost reductions but then what do you do in the following years?
