This is kind of broad for just the iPhone forum, but the recent sales figures for the iPhone have been making me think a lot about the future of technology in general and a big part of that is the iPhone.
I feel that technology across many segments is maturing. Take my Sony a7R III, for instance. It has nearly everything you could ever want in a camera. I can shoot portraits of people with the sun over their shoulder and not worry about it because the dynamic range is so crazy that I can just bring up their faces in post. It throws a lot of the photography rules out the window. 10fps at 42MP RAW? That's crazy town. This camera is over a year old now and rumors are starting to leak about a 60MP sensor that can do 8K video and I am not even the least bit excited. What is the point of 8K video? You'd need a TV the size of an entire wall to enjoy it on. You probably wouldn't even notice it in most theaters. It's just going to eat up a ton of space and need a much faster computer to process. And my 42MP is already plenty and gives me room to crop while still making large prints, while the 4K recording is already more than enough.
The same goes for the iPhone. For the past few weeks I've been thinking about why I even bother upgrading every year. Part of the reason is because I have the money and love the iPhone, but is it actually worth it? I'm on the iPhone Upgrade Program which makes it easy to get hooked. And I've always said I couldn't last two years anyway so no point in not upgrading at my scheduled time. But I've been thinking about it and realistically I could use this XS for 3 years and still probably be happy. And if even a tech-obsessed weirdo like me is starting to think like that, just imagine what the average person must be thinking!
Computers have been largely in this same position for a long time—primarily due to the silicon slowdown we've seen with Intel. I think soon mobile will slow as it catches up to desktop. Moore's law is approaching an end for silicon, and when it comes down to it for the average consumer, do they really need massive increases in processing performance? For many years the advances were driven by a need. Displays were small and pixelated. You could only do one or two things at a time. As resolutions increased and multitasking took off, the need was there for additional performance. In the consumer space the only place I see this need, even potentially, is in machine learning done by consumer apps. But then you have many services that are just performing these tasks in the cloud and sending the result back down. So what else does a person need? Display resolutions in some devices are approaching and in others are beyond what human eyesight is even capable of perceiving. We can run hundreds of tabs in our browsers without breaking a sweat, along with many professional apps at the same time. So what else is there a need for, outside of a few niche professional industries such as science and motion pictures?
I guess what I'm saying is something that a lot of people have already learned, and many others are still working out about when it's time to get off the upgrade cycle. Maybe it has something to do with age, though I'm not very old. I am now approaching my mid-30s. I was born at a time where I grew up during the transition from analog to digital. The rise of the internet during my youth paralleled my own growth as a young man. It shaped every part of who I am today—including meeting my wife online. At the same time I am also informed by what came before. I remember thumbing through index catalogs at the library to research things. I remember as a kid going for long road trips without a phone and being stranded. So I feel well-positioned to comment on what I am seeing, which is to say that I think a lot of technology is plateauing hard. There are some other areas in science and medicine that are advancing at a rapid pace, but I just get the sense that a lot of the technology we use in our everyday lives has matured to the point where it doesn't make much sense to upgrade unless it's broken. Perhaps this has more to do with silicon than anything else. Maybe once we find a suitable replacement that is as affordable we can make more progress. But like I said before, finding reasons for faster chips is becoming harder. Maybe something like consumer AR will necessitate that, or machine learning in things like self-driving cars, or maybe some other client-side machine learning tasks. But for now I just feel like everything is plateauing and maybe it's time to get off the frequent upgrade cycle. And maybe that needs to start with the iPhone. Anyone feel the same? Or am I just going to be suckered into upgrading again later this year (probably, lol).
I feel that technology across many segments is maturing. Take my Sony a7R III, for instance. It has nearly everything you could ever want in a camera. I can shoot portraits of people with the sun over their shoulder and not worry about it because the dynamic range is so crazy that I can just bring up their faces in post. It throws a lot of the photography rules out the window. 10fps at 42MP RAW? That's crazy town. This camera is over a year old now and rumors are starting to leak about a 60MP sensor that can do 8K video and I am not even the least bit excited. What is the point of 8K video? You'd need a TV the size of an entire wall to enjoy it on. You probably wouldn't even notice it in most theaters. It's just going to eat up a ton of space and need a much faster computer to process. And my 42MP is already plenty and gives me room to crop while still making large prints, while the 4K recording is already more than enough.
The same goes for the iPhone. For the past few weeks I've been thinking about why I even bother upgrading every year. Part of the reason is because I have the money and love the iPhone, but is it actually worth it? I'm on the iPhone Upgrade Program which makes it easy to get hooked. And I've always said I couldn't last two years anyway so no point in not upgrading at my scheduled time. But I've been thinking about it and realistically I could use this XS for 3 years and still probably be happy. And if even a tech-obsessed weirdo like me is starting to think like that, just imagine what the average person must be thinking!
Computers have been largely in this same position for a long time—primarily due to the silicon slowdown we've seen with Intel. I think soon mobile will slow as it catches up to desktop. Moore's law is approaching an end for silicon, and when it comes down to it for the average consumer, do they really need massive increases in processing performance? For many years the advances were driven by a need. Displays were small and pixelated. You could only do one or two things at a time. As resolutions increased and multitasking took off, the need was there for additional performance. In the consumer space the only place I see this need, even potentially, is in machine learning done by consumer apps. But then you have many services that are just performing these tasks in the cloud and sending the result back down. So what else does a person need? Display resolutions in some devices are approaching and in others are beyond what human eyesight is even capable of perceiving. We can run hundreds of tabs in our browsers without breaking a sweat, along with many professional apps at the same time. So what else is there a need for, outside of a few niche professional industries such as science and motion pictures?
I guess what I'm saying is something that a lot of people have already learned, and many others are still working out about when it's time to get off the upgrade cycle. Maybe it has something to do with age, though I'm not very old. I am now approaching my mid-30s. I was born at a time where I grew up during the transition from analog to digital. The rise of the internet during my youth paralleled my own growth as a young man. It shaped every part of who I am today—including meeting my wife online. At the same time I am also informed by what came before. I remember thumbing through index catalogs at the library to research things. I remember as a kid going for long road trips without a phone and being stranded. So I feel well-positioned to comment on what I am seeing, which is to say that I think a lot of technology is plateauing hard. There are some other areas in science and medicine that are advancing at a rapid pace, but I just get the sense that a lot of the technology we use in our everyday lives has matured to the point where it doesn't make much sense to upgrade unless it's broken. Perhaps this has more to do with silicon than anything else. Maybe once we find a suitable replacement that is as affordable we can make more progress. But like I said before, finding reasons for faster chips is becoming harder. Maybe something like consumer AR will necessitate that, or machine learning in things like self-driving cars, or maybe some other client-side machine learning tasks. But for now I just feel like everything is plateauing and maybe it's time to get off the frequent upgrade cycle. And maybe that needs to start with the iPhone. Anyone feel the same? Or am I just going to be suckered into upgrading again later this year (probably, lol).
