In about three years iPhone will be 20 years old. If nothing drastic happens, 2027 iPhone model will be pretty similar to current ones. Which are more or less similar to original iPhone. That’s 20 years of “advancement”. If we compare it to the previous 20 years 1987-2007 the advancement looks very different. What happened?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Other Technological advancement seems to have stopped
- Thread starter Sami13496
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Because one can only innovate so much outside on a set form factor without changing way too much. It’s more or less peaked short of processor performance improvements. Maybe new battery technology can offer some much needed breakthrough? But that’s about it.
How about a phone you can wear on your wrist that may soon be able to do things like get approximate blood pressure readings and vague blood glucose readings without a needle?
Seems pretty fly to me. Not sure why you don't think anything's happening.
Seems pretty fly to me. Not sure why you don't think anything's happening.
Last edited:
Well what is the expectation here? Do we want our phones to bake cakes for us? Or fetch our kids from school?
There’s only so much a smartphone can do. In my opinion, we don’t need any technological advancement. What we need is a compromise. Adding more irrelevant techs increases the price and it will just deter people from buying. What I think we need is, a phone with improvements in core areas like battery life and cameras.
There’s only so much a smartphone can do. In my opinion, we don’t need any technological advancement. What we need is a compromise. Adding more irrelevant techs increases the price and it will just deter people from buying. What I think we need is, a phone with improvements in core areas like battery life and cameras.
I meant in general. Almost 20 years of development and we basically have just bigger screens. Not very impressive if we compare how mobile tech evolved before that. I feel like industry has started to hold innovation back to maximize profit.
We have better cameras, security, integration, biometrics and so on. These are substantial innovations from 2007, when the first iPhone launched.
There are other companies who were the ‘first to do’ - LG and Sony - the latter added actual zoom lens in the camera system. One has stepped out of the smartphone game and the other has one of the smallest market share worldwide. Smartphones do not need innovation. We are just waiting for the next seismic disrupter. The only contender at the moment is probably Vision Pro.
You sound like someone who has other uses in mind for a mobile telephone that are beyond what a telephone typically does.
I can call, text and email with my iPhone. I can even browse the web. And if my wife or kids want to see what's on the shelves at Walmart for me to bring them, I can take a picture. 99% of my pictures are that or screenshots.
Is there something non-telephony that you're expecting the iPhone to be doing?
I totally agree. It is my opinion that innovation needs to be put on hold for the next couple years, our phones do enough for us as it is. Let’s spend the next couple years working on removing bugs and improving what we already have.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Perspective: if someone is closely following Apple iPhone for 20 years, it very well may look like it's mostly only a bigger screen. If they are hanging out on an Apple-specific rumors site, every little innovation will likely be out and known well before the next actual launch.
However, this year, there will probably be MILLIONS of iPhone buyers buying their FIRST iPhone. It will be all new to them. Another pool of people will be buying their SECOND iPhone (their first update) and it will seem very new for them too. Many of them will never have seen any rumors or rumor-driven speculation about what is coming in the "new" iPhone they are buying... so all changes will be discovered by them at about the same time.
If anyone is technologically jaded with some product after "too many updates," consider some other product with new features you want. There's plenty of fish in the phone sea. New ideas are regularly rolling out with some quite different than anything we see inside the walled garden. Go sample other fruits in other gardens and then if you return later, the "same old" fruit may seem much evolved from when you left.
However, this year, there will probably be MILLIONS of iPhone buyers buying their FIRST iPhone. It will be all new to them. Another pool of people will be buying their SECOND iPhone (their first update) and it will seem very new for them too. Many of them will never have seen any rumors or rumor-driven speculation about what is coming in the "new" iPhone they are buying... so all changes will be discovered by them at about the same time.
If anyone is technologically jaded with some product after "too many updates," consider some other product with new features you want. There's plenty of fish in the phone sea. New ideas are regularly rolling out with some quite different than anything we see inside the walled garden. Go sample other fruits in other gardens and then if you return later, the "same old" fruit may seem much evolved from when you left.
I feel a fair bit of innovation happens in the ecosystem, outside of the iPhone. For example, we have accessories like the Apple Watch, AirPods and AirTags. There's the Apple One bundle, services like Apple Card, iMessage and airdrop, there's the App Store, heck, even the ability to use it as a webcam for your Mac or Apple TV.
It's a well-known trope that you really want a several apple devices for them to work well with one another, and the iPhone appears to be the glue that holds everything together. That's Apple's definition of innovation, rather than simply cramming as many features into a small slab as possible.
So, if nothing significant changes, nothing significant will have changed? 😂
When predictions are tautologies...
Hard to know for sure, but seems a safe bet for a loose definition of "similar". iPhones are mature products. It will certainly be more capable, and I imagine if people in 2027 are offered the choice of a 2023 device, they'll still prefer the 2027 one.
And here's where you've completely left the rails. The one thing that's at all similar between today's iPhone and the one in 2007 is the name.
So you're ignoring everything that's changed over the last 17 years and declaring zero change for the next 3 then asking why? Your post is provocative, but lacks any serious foundation.
I'm sure someone here is going to take it upon themselves to teach you the technological history, I hope you listen.
It does not matter. It’s 20 years of development, not 2 years. 20 years is eternity in tech world and so much has changed.
You can accuse industry leaders holding innovation back to maximise profit, which they very well may be doing right now. It doesn’t change the fact that only so much can be done given the form factor limitations.
One more question. What do you benefit from industry releasing innovations, mature or not, into a device that can define you and your life? WOW for a few minutes and go back to BAU, and accuse them for lacking innovation sooner?
Ummmm yeah... I just find it entirely unacceptable that we don't have unicorns and sparkle ponies in 2024. What a waste the past 20 years have been.
I think you’ve been watching too much TV. I have a better question; why doesn’t Hollywood understand physics and engineering?
Mature tech tends to be proven to work, new tech tends to have long-term goals even if it's held back by current tech limitations and practicalities of the tech use case
For VR in particular, Apple's headset is already innovating in some ways, like being self-contained (i.e. portable) and being driven by gestures instead of physical controllers
I can't think of any practical use for holograms, by the way. That stuff only sounds useful for theatrical performances, not a day-to-day tech for most of us.
I think the thing is we're programmed to expect innovation for the last 20 years.
Realistically, the product is just simply done. Finished. Complete.
The worry in these situations is that they overcook something and make it worse in the attempt to keep revenue. Apple have been pretty good at avoiding this so far unlike some other vendors. They focus on small incremental improvements, usability and quality. Well they try on the latter at least but don't always hit the mark.
Realistically, the product is just simply done. Finished. Complete.
The worry in these situations is that they overcook something and make it worse in the attempt to keep revenue. Apple have been pretty good at avoiding this so far unlike some other vendors. They focus on small incremental improvements, usability and quality. Well they try on the latter at least but don't always hit the mark.
Ever since I saw Hololens I thought Microsoft may retain a lead with this, even if Apple did the usual thing of taking everyone else's stuff after a few years and making it Karen friendly / idiot resistant for their core userbase, but since MS have (as is the usual Nadella leadership case at this point) basically thrown their hardware towels in, I'm now betting an evolved Vision will be the next 'everyone has one' thing.
Right now it's kinda looking like the iPod at the very start of the 2000's. While other things existed in the space, it made it cool to consumers. But it was a little too expensive for most to use as a toy, so it begat a load of Asian clones that in some cases may had better hardware, but weren't anywhere near as transparent in terms of operation for your average idiot. What made iPod succeed wasn't actually the hardware, it was the software behind it. And Apple with their dev fanbase - that still falls right in line with whatever Apple dictates, and fast - is again very well placed to be in the same position. Soon we'll see a bunch of Vision clones that will fall by the wayside because of a lack of good dev support.
I suspect the first actually portable Vision will use the iPhone as a base station in effect, but over time as wearing one becomes a) socially acceptable and b) compact enough to be worn for all-day use with the battery, that will be the inflection point that basically causes the iPhone and Vision to become one, and for that to be the new phone that everyone has.
And after that, Apple will again coopt someone else - in this instance, what Neuralink/etc are doing - and the way the Vision works will bleed evermore into what we think is cyberpunk, ending up driving social fracture / the wealth gap ever deeper. I don't doubt in the future you'll be judged not for blue bubbles among your vacuous peer group, but on which brand of neural interface you have.
Given the Hololens development timeline that I was originally anticipating, I honestly expected true dystopia to arrive a bit earlier than it will with Vision.
Last edited:
Sharks look very much like sharks from a hundred million years ago. There will be bipedal aliens on a distant planet who are perhaps using phones that look very much like an iPhone in terms of shape and size.
Maybe there will be amazing leaps in technology in the medium to long term above and beyond the look of a phone. I can imagine, for example, phone screens coming online where icons can raise the screen surface a fraction of a millimetre, so you get a nice haptic feel. I gather this is being worked on. Or perhaps holographic keyboard projectors are used to send a nerve induction signal to your fingertips. I'm guessing that weird and wonderful things like this, which are quite hard to do, will easily consume another 20 years of mankind's history.
[I won't engage... I won't engage...]
Did nobody notice that the Turing Test has become a quaint anachronism?
[dammit!]
Did nobody notice that the Turing Test has become a quaint anachronism?
[dammit!]
Hardware is fine to me as it is. The software needs some new innovations but I actually don’t really know either but it isn’t my job haha
It's not good for big business but it is good for the consumer.
iPhone users typically replace after 3 years.
Worldwide, 4 of 5 smartphones are aged 0-6 years old
Can you honestly that you'd use the 2007 iPhone 2G in the age of 5G?
Anyone who makes statements like yours are not making point by point comparisons.
You're looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.