Apple's iPhone launches no longer excite
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 8:01AM Back in 2006 I launched a blog where I pretended to be Apple CEO Steve Jobs. My alter ego, "Fake Steve," had a good run, but I shut it down in January 2011 when it became apparent that Jobs was in poor health. Nevertheless, even now, I'm constantly wondering what Steve would think about whatever Apple is doing.
This week it's the the iPhone 5. Everyone pretty much accepts that Apple will introduce it, and there have been so many leaks that everybody pretty much seems to know what it's going to be. Word is it will look a lot like the last two versions of the iPhone, except a bit thinner and a bit taller, with upgraded guts and a refreshed operating system.
If that's correct, I imagine Steve is not happy. First of all, he'd be furious about the leaks. Steve liked surprising people.
More important, is this really the best we can expect from an outfit that claims to be the most innovative company in the world? This is the sixth version of the iPhone, and the user interface still looks almost exactly like the original iPhone in 2007.
The hardware on the iPhone has been the same for two years, since the iPhone 4 and 4S were virtually identical.
Scathing point of view from Dan Lyons at the BBC.
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Reader Comments (10)
Strikes me much of the article is based on rumours of what the new phone will have. Naturally the author will retract his view if it turns out to be wrong?
I think they could release a phone exactly the same shape and size, but with a faster processor and better battery (Ie. almost no difference), and it'll still sell out on pre-order. On that basis alone, "iPhone launches no longer excite" seems to be an interesting statement?
If iPhone launches no longer excite, how come every media outlet is talking about it? There are posts about "new iPhone Day" all over my Twitter and Facebook.
Is the reason these launches don't excite is because the devices aren't revolutionary but evolutionary, or is it because most of the "big" news has been leaked or rumoured. Or a bit of both.
Is it the same with Samsung for example? Or Amazon with the Kindle Fire? Are there this many rumours and is the actual announcement therefore a disappointment?
So the pundits, the critics, and the analysts will be disappointed. And Apple will sell millions upon millions of new-old iPhone 5s to thrilled consumers. What's wrong with this picture?
In the meantime, I expect to buy an iPhone 5. It will do some new things that I may not need but can use. And it will do the old things faster. And it will be fun and enjoyable to use and pretty much just work. Not like all that fancy leading edge technology, but like my coffee maker. Actually better than my coffee maker. And I will be very comfortable with it.
Interesting about Apple's R&D spend, but he's under the misapprehension that Apple's a technology creator.
It's isn't; it take what others have created and puts it into the iPhone. Often it tells the other companies what to create, but it's still the other companies that have to work out how to make it a reality.
There's still a lot of R&D spend that goes into the iPhone; it's just not spent by Apple.
I guess we'll get an idea of just how much R&D there's been later today.
"Apple's iPhone launches no longer excite" - forget that. It will sell by the millions, exciting or not.
What used to excite us geeks now excites the world. Just today I heard my pop radio station announce in the 5-minute news update about the iphone RUMOURS. That would never have been newsworthy 5 years ago, but now it's its fair game as a common topic of conversation.
That being said iphone launches are indeed less exciting because of all the leaks. I agree Steve would not be happy, but I think Apple is at the point that no matter how hard they try they will never be able to surprise the world like they used to, simply because of the economies of scale of having to manufacture a device that sells in the millions (far greater than any Apple computer).
I used to stay up for them, often the launches are 3-4am local Aussie time, but now I just wake up a bit early instead :-)
The hype around this launch, which is just the usual incremental upgrade, is incredible. One analyst is suggesting today the iPhone 5, alone, will add half a percent to the GDP of the United States. Nonsense.
I don't expect Apple to revolutionize anything with the iPhone 5 and nor should they. How immature are we as a society, to expect a radical redesign of an already wonderful product, every year and be disappointed when we don't get it?
I'll wager that shares in Apple will fall, post event.
Yet, the iPhone 5 will likely be a better slightly product than previous iPhones - extraordinary products that have remade whole industries and changed the course of major multinationals, for better or worse. A product that continues to top customer satisfaction tables year after year, a league ahead of the competition. I will buy one, not because it's different, but because it's substantially the same.*
* And I've figured out how buy the iPhone really, really cheaply. In fact, I've figured out to make it a cash positive purchase, but it won't work for everyone.
"It's isn't; it take what others have created and puts it into the iPhone. Often it tells the other companies what to create, but it's still the other companies that have to work out how to make it a reality"
Really? Wow, no wonder Apple got their bottom spanked in that recent big patent court case with Samsung.
Murray that case wasn't about the technology.
The next one will be; Samsung's said it's going to sue Apple if it releases an LTE iPhone.
So the iPhone 5 is faster and has the expected 4" screen.
Talk is that the A6 probably runs on a dual core A15 architecture. Qualcomm's dual core S4 is very A15-like although not quite the full deal. Also thought to probably be using Samsung's 32nm HKMG process the same as the S3's quad core Exynos chip. So the CPU will probably still be under-powered compared to the competition, although apparently twice as fast as the 4S..
No word so far on what it's using for a GPU, but Apple's always been strong in that area and the new one's supposed to be twice as fast as in the 4S. How useful that is on a 4" screen I don't know, but too much power is better than too little.
The camera's got HDR and panorama like the S3. Sounds like they've made some improvements to quality but too early to know what effect they'll have.
The interesting thing is that with the S3 Samsung barely mentioned how powerful the phone was; it was all about the features and ease-of-use. Apple's barely mentioned anything in that vein; perhaps that's what comes of announcing the new OS version separately.
Personally there's nothing here that makes me regret in the slightest that I'd never buy an Apple product. It seems more dull than I'd expected; I really thought they'd throw in some cool new stuff. Not necessarily technology-wise, but something geeks have been doing for ages that they'd now bring to the masses, give it a cool name and pretend they'd invented.
So do you guys think this deserves to be called the iPhone 5 or iPhone 4S2?
I do think that even if there hadn't been any links, I think that the general response still would be under whelming. Lets face it the biggest announcement of the iphone is that it is 2cm taller, and its LTE.....
Its been a while since seen something really innovative from hardware or software.