Still, I disagree with that “need” phrasing. The other companies that are so-called innovators, aren’t innovating anything that customers want to buy. The most sold Android phones are also just refined versions of standard smartphones. Apple doesn’t need to change what a smartphone is, they just need to make the best one.
The smartphone market is maturing, and there’s nothing any company can do about it but tag along. This is good for consumers (and the environment), because we won’t have to buy a new one every year.
Remember when flatscreen TV manufacturers crapped their pants because the market flattened out? They “innovated” by coming out with lots of features no one asked for, like 3D and curved screens. Show me a curved TV with 3D on sale today. I predict similar things for the gimmicky “innovations” that Android makers are throwing against the wall. It already happened for several of them, like screens that wrap around the edge, or phones with styluses. If they even still exist, they are niche products now.
All this being said, I prefer a market with different form factors to choose from. A world where every phone is a copy of the iPhone form factor is boring. I just don’t think that Apple needs to be the one to provide the outlier use cases. If anything, it is Apple’s competitors that “need” to start innovating.
Edit, added after thinking about my answer in the post below: I will argue that Apple doesn’t just take a niche product and brings it mainstream. They take a use case where the current solutions are poorly executed, and creates a solution that is joyful to use. Smartphones were annoying to use before iPhone, and MP3 players were annoying to use before iTunes and iPod. The “problem” is that the current state of smartphones is not poorly executed. People LOVE smartphones. To the extent that they use them in unhealthy amounts. Ask people which product they would keep if they could only have one tech product, and most would say their smartphone. No one is searching for something to replace it, except tech geeks like us who get bored with the status quo.
If you want to bring a product to the masses like the iPhone has done, it needs to make it easy and simple to perform tasks that otherwise could not easily be done. Not simply be a more fancy way to perform the same tasks. This is why I’m claiming that folding phones will never be more than niche. But, I may be wrong. RAZR was a hit product, no question.
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