The
I say this because one of Forbes’ highest ranked iPhone (and Apple products in general) related stories was speculation about the future of the headphone jack by Forbes' Gordon Kelly. That article generated over 1.7 million views and counting. My rumour about the possibility of two different sized iPhone's also did well, garnering 383,000 views.
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How different will next year's iPhone be?
The actual iPhone 6 review also by Kelly? 358,000 views, which is great. But it doesn’t hold a candle to Kelly's opinion piece. Clearly, people were expecting more. The headphone jack rumour presented a radical change in direction for the then rumoured iPhone. It gave them optimism and hope that in this age of the identikit smartphone, Apple still had the magic.
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The build up was huge, the anticipation was palpable and the reality was, well, underwhelming. Of course, a large part of this is about desire being a more powerful emotion than the experience and reality.
But it’s also because the iPhone 6, whilst a great and popular phone, didn’t fulfil the fantastical promise the public had forced upon it. It’s an upgrade and not an uproot. As Kelly explained in his review
“So to return to the hyperbole I discussed at the beginning of this review: are the severe criticisms justified? Absolutely not. Is all the gushing praise and use of superlatives justified? Not entirely.
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“Yes the iPhone 6 is the best iPhone ever made (the iPhone 6 Plus is a phablet) but so it should be. Technology doesn’t go backwards. But while the iPhone 6 redefines the iPhone it doesn’t redefine the smartphone sector. The design and build are excellent, but matched by the
This is a problem that all manufacturers are facing at the moment. You could easily swap out “iPhone 6” from that paragraph and insert any of 2014’s flagships. Innovation is slowing down and the differences between devices are meagre. Most high-end smartphones will run the latest
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A contact of mine at a major smartphone manufacturer told me that next year’s device (more info on that later this week) won’t be much of an update. The hardware will be slightly upgraded and the OS will look slightly different and have a few new shiny features. He did not sound excited.
And who can blame him, how much further is there to go? More RAM? slightly faster processor? Maybe, but they’re hardly the salacious details that people crave. Screen sizes are already at the 'tablet or smartphone?' tipping point. And your phone’s screen resolution is already at the point where your eye can no longer distinguish the difference in pixels on such a small screen. So next year’s devices will probably look and feel very similar, but they’ll come with a few of this year’s kinks ironed out.
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Yeah there might be a few gimmicks like a 3D screen, or a profile shot of Ashton Kutcher giving the thumbs up etched into the rear-casing. But it’s all based on the same slab-of-metal-in-your-hand concept. Until we hit the next stage of mobile communication - palm holographs and transparent smartphones or anything else I’ve un-creatively nicked from Hollywood - then we’re pretty much stuck with what we have now.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It means that consumers are likely to get an excellent smartphone that’s the result of years of tinkering. If you pick up a flagship, you probably won’t have much to complain about. But it does mean that there probably isn’t much to get excited about either.
Expect the iPhone 7 and every other flagship launched next year to be a minimal, incremental upgrade on the previous model - à la
