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Other Will there be a time when Apple just skip a year and not release a new iPhone?

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ian87w

macrumors G3
Original poster
Feb 22, 2020
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Anybody thinks that phone hardware improvements are reaching its peak?
The A14, although great, seems not giving too huge of improvements over the A13. Apple can go into smaller nm, but there will be time when you cannot cheat physics. Battery tech is still practically the same for decades. Camera, radio, and screen are probably the components left with some room to grow. But for how long?

I'm asking this because the peak can already be felt on the low-mid Android, where OEMs like Xiaomi, Realme, Vivo, etc are now releasing the same phone with just a new lipstick and an OS upgrade. Eg. releasing the same phone with Android 11. The chip, everything, is the same. Maybe more/less RAM/storage, but that's about it. And in the low end, I'm still seeing new phones using low end chips from 2018. It kinda tells me that there's less and less room for improvements, even in cost.

In the future, maybe Apple could make a beast Ax chip and skip a year. Or will they just trickle things even tighter to maintain the yearly cycle (eg. each year will only see even minor improvements over the previous year). We already see the revenue jump everytime Apple release a new iPhone, so it won't look good on their books if they skip a year.

Or maybe when that time comes, the phone would've evolved into something else we have yet envisioned.
 
There will always be gimicky adjustments available for Apple, Samsung, etc to justify releasing a new phone yearly. They won't stop since it makes them tons of money.
 
That's like asking will their be a year car manufacturers skip a year and not make a new model. Why would they do that? There's always improvements so why not offer them to customers who are due for a phone that year?

Just because they make a new phone every year doesn't mean you have to buy one that year. They make new cars every year but most people don't buy one every year because of that.
 
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No that would be like Samsung not releasing a new device or GM having their entire marquee lineup skip a year making cars. You don't leave money on the table for certain types of devices. I'm sure now Apple will be releasing new MacBook Pro's every year also with ARM Processors since with the exception of one or two models they are no longer having to deal with Intel and it's delays.
 
Why would they? I think with the volumes they are producing and selling, the continuous development of the iPhone and yearly release cycles make financial sense.
Especially in the phone market, many replace their device bi-annually, which gives a strong incentive for Apple to release in very periodic cycles. They appear to do the same with the watch, other product lines do not have such a clear annual cycle, as people replace them less frequently and definitely not tied to phone contracts.
 
As long as it still makes money they'll release new phones every year.

How long they can keep it up though I'm not sure. The differences are already becoming marginal from even a few years ago.
 
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As long as they make money and until the next evolutionary stage of communication. Perhaps we'll all be implanted with a small iPhone, that connects our minds to the net 24/7. When we want to call someone we just think of them and we'll be connected. Imagine that?
 
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You're gonna hit that plateau, it's inevitable with all things. There's only so much you can do with a glass covered metal slab. Where the manufactures are smart is the deeper integration, and the evolution of what your phone can do externally of itself that will be the future. Okay, what the hell does that even mean? Idk. Like said above, as long as they continue to sell hundreds of millions of units each year, you can bet on a new one. I just read that last year as of the July 30 2020 quarterly report, they made $111 billion from iPhone, that aint chump change.
 
No, iPhone is their bread and butter.

That being said, will there still be annual iPhone upgrades in a hundred years or two hundred years from now? I’d assume the world would have moved onto something new, assuming it’s still around at that point.

__

I think about this surprisingly frequently: at some point the iPhone is going to run out of significant potential upgrades. The performance, cameras, and display will be so good that any changes will become negligible at best. They’ll have to continue innovating and finding new groundbreaking features to add.

That’s why I think they’re going to hold off on eliminating the notch for as long as possible. That’s the next obvious desirable upgrade and design change. After that point, where do we go? Folding phones are one direction, and I’d hope by the time we see a foldable iPhone the design is perfected.
 
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russell_314 said:
That's like asking will their be a year car manufacturers skip a year and not make a new model. Why would they do that? There's always improvements so why not offer them to customers who are due for a phone that year?

Just because they make a new phone every year doesn't mean you have to buy one that year. They make new cars every year but most people don't buy one every year because of that.
Click to expand...
That's pretty much it. Even car manufacturers will sometimes have a new year models that are essentially the same as the previous year just with a current year label to make them the latest new model.
 
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They will release a new one every year because people are willing to pay for it. As long as people are willing to top dollars, they will always release a new version.
 
No. I doubt there will ever be a biannual release cycle. As others have mentioned, it’s still a cash cow for the most part—services are trending up. However, I am attempting to move to a biannual upgrade cycle.
 
When we've become stricter and more conscious with e-waste. When that will be I don't know. All these millions of phones (not just apple) being produced yearly can't be sustainable.
 
From consumers perspective, I think yearly update is a good thing. So that many people can enjoy the latest and greatest technology without missing out too many when their device is couple years old or whenever they need to update their gadget at certain time. Incremental updates is good nowadays.
 
It’s nice that upgraded new cars don’t make older cars not work anymore... too bad phones didn’t work like that.
 
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