iPhone update, enter the era of chaos

Love Fan'er

2024-05-29 18:24Posted on the official account of Guangdong Aifaner

Which model was the last iPhone change in your mind?

Is it the "Dynamic Island" on the iPhone 14 Pro? Is the iPhone 12 series going straight from curved? Or did the earlier iPhone X lead the way to full screen?

Everyone has a different answer to this question, but perhaps everyone has a consensus: the iPhone in recent years seems to have changed less and less, and the previous prediction of "a big change in two years" and "a big change in three years" is no longer accurate.

The iPhone update is like entering the "chaotic era" in "The Three-Body Problem": the star system where the Trisolarans are located, because of the gravitational pull of the three stars, their movements are irregular, resulting in irregular and unpredictable seasons and day and night changes on the planets where the Trisolarans are located.

The pace of iPhone updates is getting slower and slower

The era of "big changes in two years" for the iPhone has come to an end after the iPhone 11 and even the iPhone 6.

The "big change in two years" is actually in the era of the iPhone and the "s" series. The digital series generally does something about the appearance, while the S series focuses on the upgrade of features and processors.

For example, the white moonlight iPhone 4 in the hearts of fruit fans, the appearance of the classic "sandwich" design is used for the first time, the whole machine is thinner and more stylish, of course, the highlights at that time were focused on the function, almost the definition of "smart phone". The iPhone 4s, as the first "s", makes up for the shortcomings of the iPhone 4, with a single-core processor becoming dual-core, and a new Siri feature.

▲ There is almost no difference between the appearance of the iPhone 4 (left) and the iPhone 4s (right).

The iPhone 5s is special, compared to the iPhone 5, the fingerprint unlock, 64-bit processor and other updates are obviously more "epoch-making", and more important than other "s" updates.

▲ iPhone 5s

The iPhone 6s was criticized for not much difference with the iPhone 6 back then, but the processor performance has jumped a lot, so that this model has updated 3 more system versions than the iPhone 6, and finally supports iOS 15, comparable to the iPhone 7, becoming a generation of "nail households".

▲ iPhone 6s

After the iPhone 6 (2014), the iPhone slowed down the pace of updates and entered the era of "three years of big changes". In the next update, the only ones that really changed in shape were the iPhone X (2017) and iPhone 12 series (2020) with full screens.

As a result, the iPhone 15 series, which should have undergone a big change in 2023, has become Apple's least surprising iPhone in recent years.

However, compared with the previous generation, the iPhone 15 standard version is not completely "new", at least it also follows up the Dynamic Island that was only available in the previous generation of the Pro version.

This also reflects the new pattern of iPhone updates: the update on the Pro version may only be decentralized to the standard version in the second year, widening the gap between the standard and Pro versions of the year and boosting the sales of the Pro version.

According to this year's iPhone 16 series revelations, fans who are still waiting for a generation of "big update" iPhone may be disappointed again, the iPhone 16 series is still the previous generation's patchwork, and the biggest update point may only be the rumored to add the "photo button", and "bigger than bigger", zoomed in to the 6.9-inch Max model.

▲ Preview image of the "photo button" on iPhone 16

However, the iPhone 17 series may add a higher-end "Slim" model than the Pro Max to replace the existing "Plus" lineup, which is rumored to feature a smaller "Dynamic Island", a thinner and lighter body, and a centered rear camera.

▲ Renders of the iPhone 17 Slim made based on current rumors

If the rumors are true, then the "big update" of the iPhone, after a full five years, can be called the longest delay in the history of the iPhone.

The "overhauled" iPhone sells well, but it doesn't necessarily work well

Everyone is thinking about when the iPhone will be overhauled, so in the so-called "big year" of iPhone updates, will the new products really sell well?

The data shows that it is.

▲ Data source: Statista

As you can see from the sales chart, there are two "peaks" that are far ahead: 231 million units in 2015 and 242 million units in 2021, the highest in history. Among the "troughs" of the 2016-2020 years, 2018 was also a small peak, with 217 million mobile phones sold.

Since the iPhone is released in September every year, the main iPhone sales in a year are generally the models of the previous year, so the sales in 2015, 2018, and 2021 mainly come from the iPhone 6 series, iPhone 8 series and iPhone X, and iPhone 12 series.

Putting the three series together, you can see that these models have a big shake of the look: the iPhone 6 series not only has a larger screen, but also has curved edges; iPhone X adopts a new design of full screen + notch; The iPhone 12 series is back with a boxy bezel design.

The design overhaul was accompanied by new models: the "bigger-than-big" iPhone 6 Plus, the iPhone X itself a new model, and the iPhone 12 mini.

▲ 左：iPhone 12 mini，右 iPhone 12，图源：Mobile Syrup

Therefore, it can also be said that the combination of form change + new model is a magic weapon for Apple to increase sales.

After all, people have a little bit of vanity, and it's understandable to want others to find out at a glance that they have bought a brand new iPhone.

In contrast, if the mold does not change, the product also gives people a feeling that the upgrade is not large.

However, the dismal sales of the mini and Plus series also show that adding new models to the product line does not necessarily have a good response. In these two models, the mini version is positioned lower than the standard version, and there are a lot of hard injuries; The Plus version is stuck between the standard and Pro versions, and what is more awkward than positioning is the pricing.

▲ The market performance of the Plus series is not much brighter than that of the mini series

The iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone X are positioned to go straight to the highest level, and they also come with the largest screen in an iPhone at the same time.

Apple seems to have discovered this pattern, and the introduction of a higher-level iPhone is more helpful to boost sales than a major overhaul of the standard version, so the rumored iPhone 17 Slim has become a model that will be priced higher than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

But just because an iPhone has high sales doesn't mean it's a "good" iPhone.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus' A8 processor has limited performance gains, 1GB of RAM is stretched, and the larger screen and higher resolution bring more load, making the iPhone 6 series, and the iPhone 6 Plus in particular, not very good.

▲ The iPhone 6 also has the problem of being easily bent, so the iPhone 6s has also been strengthened in sturdiness, source: Medium

The iPhone 12 series is also due to the weakness of the A14 Bionic processor in energy consumption and temperature performance, and the iPhone is not mature enough for the first time on 5G, which led to the birth of a new generation of "dragon fruit": the mobile phone battery life collapsed and the heat was severe, which brought a big debuff to the small body of the first generation mini.

The updates of these two models, the iPhone 6s series and the iPhone 13 series, have hardly changed in appearance, but in other configurations, especially the processor, they have made up for the shortcomings of the previous generation.

▲ Domestic netizens ridiculed: "Thirteen incense"

This also reflects Apple's consistent update strategy: the new form has been changed, the processor and other configurations are put aside first, and the next generation has not been updated in the appearance, so it is good to optimize the inside.

This also corresponds to the saying: Apple products don't buy the first model of the new mold.

Behind the chaotic era of renewal, industry innovation has encountered barriers

The popularity of the iPhone with a facelifted look illustrates a phenomenon: consumers prefer "have-to-have" updates over "have-to-have" updates.

It's easy to understand, because most consumers are "novices". They may not understand how many times the camera supports telephoto and what sensor can bring much improvement, but adding a camera directly gives people the impression of "not knowing how powerful".

▲ iPhone 7 Plus,苹果首款双摄手机

It's just that there are not many "changes" left that can be seen at a glance and are truly meaningful. The Dynamic Island may still be able to impress with its innovative UI, but the iPhone 15 Pro's "action buttons" and the rumored new "camera button" for the iPhone 16 series give people a bit of a snack.

In fact, Apple is not alone in hitting the innovation barrier, the entire industry has slowed down.

This is also why the new domestic machine is updating the old ones back and forth. There is still a lot of room for growth in the image, so roll hard; The quality of the screen is already very similar, and it begins to roll up to protect the eyes; The performance is basically Qualcomm's TSMC SOC, so roll up the heat dissipation and volume adjustment.

▲ The vivo X100 Ultra released in May is a very standard "new domestic phone"

And like in 18-19 years, the industry actively explored the "lifting camera", or the grand occasion of "super curvature full screen" may not appear again in the short term, because the innovation that can be played, the update that can be played, have been played all over.

At present, it seems that Android mobile phone manufacturers at home and abroad are taking "AI" as a breakthrough, Samsung and Pixel have deeply integrated AI into mobile phones, and domestic manufacturers have also launched many AI-driven functions and played the name of "AI mobile phone".

And Apple, which has been criticized every year for "losing innovation", can be said to have been routinely updating its mobile phones every year in the posture of a king.

And Apple's backwardness and conservatism in some aspects have also made the iPhone always have a lot of "room for growth". For example, in the case that domestic thousand-yuan machines are equipped with high brush screens as standard, the standard version of the iPhone is still 60Hz; Obviously, he was one of the formulators of the Type-C interface, and he was reluctant to abandon the backward Lightning connector until last year.

▲ The iPhone 15 series is finally equipped with a Type-C port, insisting on fulfilling Lightning's promise of "being able to use it for ten years".

These small changes have nothing to do with innovation, nor do they involve too much technical difficulty, but Apple is deliberately accumulating a bunch of slots and slowly solving them from generation to generation.

Of course, Apple has the confidence to be capricious and paddling, no matter how small the iPhone update is every year, or there is a huge consumer base to pay, it is difficult to find a rival in the global market, because it is ahead, so it has always been ahead.

So, Apple doesn't have to, and can't do, a major overhaul of the iPhone in a few years like it did before. Rather than how to build an amazing new iPhone, Apple's strategy now is to take the good cards apart one by one and update them a little bit.

▲ iPhone 14 标准版更新幅度不大，被吐槽为「iPhone 13s」

The rumored iPhone 17 Slim, next year's big update, is more like a "big move" that Apple has been forced out to cope with the poor sales of the iPhone 15 series.

For us consumers, it is best to adjust the expectations of iPhone updates, and there may not be a "big and small year" of iPhone updates in the future, or a big change in a few years, configuration upgrades + small function updates will be the norm, and big updates will be an unexpected joy.

It has been 14 years since Steve Jobs released the iPhone 4, and it can be said that the generation of computing devices in smartphones has reached the middle and late stages of the "20-year life cycle".

Perhaps it's time to look forward to when the next generation of computing devices will arrive, rather than an innovative iPhone.

▲ Will Vision Pro be Apple's next-generation computing device?

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