The latest leaks around Apple’s new iPhones show that very little has changed in the twelve months since the launch of the iPhone X. Has Apple’s financial success scared away its ability to innovate?
The sheer volume of iPhones that need to be ready ahead of the launch and release date of Apple’s latest smartphone means that it is almost impossible to hold back on any hardware secrets before the expected launch on September 12th. Throw in Apple’s tendency to double down on the lack of secrecy with the open beta of iOS 12, and the geekerati can get a good picture of the new family long before the reveal.
So the details from Mark Gurman and Debby Wu at Bloomberg should come as no surprise. Indeed they match up with details previously leaked, and allow us to focus in more detail on Apple’s approach to the iPhone this year.
And those details show an Apple that has sidestepped any major innovation or change, instead relying on incremental updates to the iPhone that are certainly welcome, but in many cases still fall short of the options being offered by the Android-powered competition.
As expected, Apple will be updating last year’s iPhone X with faster chips, potentially more memory, and more of the same. A phablet sized iPhone Plus with a 6.5 inch screen will be released, and this is expected to be the only unit to offer dual-SIM support (in a subset of countries) and faster wireless charging. Plus a ‘cheaper’ device with a 6.1 inch LCD screen that could replace the iPhone 8 or be an entry-level iPhone SE 2.
What is clear is that the key points in the hardware may be new to Apple’s range, but are all stalwarts established by the competition (notably wireless charging, large OLED displays, and the trend for near bezel-less designs in the forward aspect). Software wise the rise of gestures in Android is now coming to iOS, the user interface continues to gather new awkward elements like a katamari, and of course there’s the increased focus on using Apple’s cloud-based solutions.
That ties users into one of Apple’s few growth areas. Software and services have featured heavily in Apple’s financial reporting and it is seen as one of the key areas of growth in the trillion-dollar company.
The problem with that strategy is that significantly increasing the use of Apple services requires a significant increase in the number of Apple devices that use these services. That means making iPhones that are not just competent and suitable upgrades for the existing user base, but attractive and challenging to bring in new users from Android and other platforms.
What exactly does the 2018 portfolio of new devices offer that isn’t already on the market?
To me, this round of updates is going to be little more than a marketing exercise to sell a very slightly faster version of last year’s tenth-anniversary handset. That the iPhone X was rushed, with limited availability of stock suggests why Apple did not launch a phablet ‘Plus’ version of the new design. This year’s ‘Plus’ will be the phone that should have been launched alongside the iPhone X last year.
Apple was late to the phablet game, and the release of the iPhone 6 Plus was the last time that a new iPhone created a ‘super cycle’ which brought in significant new numbers of users to the iOS family for a device alongside those upgrading. Perhaps Apple is hoping that the iPhone X Plus will generate the same uptick in sales? Given the thinking that the iPhone X would do that last year, I don’t see it happening with the iPhone X Plus.
Or will Tim Cook and his team acknowledge that these are iterative updates after all, and go with the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Plus?
Updating the iPhone SE to the minimum specifications required to keep the entry-level handset in play for another three years is an easy update to make as well. The question is whether Apple wants an easy replacement for the iPhone SE (which would likely mean the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus become mid-range handsets if they remain), or if keeping a high selling price is important, in which case the iPhone 8S may become a reality with the new LCD screened model.
Annual sales of the iPhone have remained steady for many years now, no matter what Apple throws into the iPhone family mix. The latest handsets show the same rate of progress - a few steps behind Android, but no doubt with some slicker marketing.
Apple is not taking any risks with the hardware, it’s not pushing the envelope in terms of specifications to try to bring in new users, and neither is it risking the formula that will see the existing user base happy to update to ‘something the same but a little bit better’ when their contracts are up.
Tim Cook has managed to trap himself in the middle of the innovators dilemma, scared to make any change that will upset the fragile financial ecosystem, hoping that the sheer size of Apple will prove to be his saviour.
Now read more about Apple's plans to update the iPhone SE...
