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by sedivy94 1373 days ago
I’ve leveled with myself that this is the pace of future mobile device hardware releases. “Peak phone” has been a topic of discussion for a while now. Are we there yet? I think so.

Apple has gotten a lot of flack for releasing “new” hardware and software features that aren’t really new or groundbreaking. I’m starting to see the genius in their planning. The slow trickle of improvements (I like how you call them “S revisions”) are for the sake of momentum, the long term survival of the company. Especially when Apple is already battling the longevity of their own products. I’m rounding off Year Two of my iPhone 12 Pro Max and will likely squeeze out a third year.

2 comments

Not many people upgrade every year. Apple sells a ton of phones but most people keep them for 2 to 3 years, so it’s just a lot of people on a cycle.

If they only introduced a new phone every 2 to 3 years people might be tempted by the new stuff on other phones. Or you could buy a new phone (to you) that is actually a two year old design.

This way you always get the newest thing, even if it’s not significantly better than what you could’ve bought last year. But it’s a nice upgrade if you’ve waited two years, and for people who wait like 5+ years it’s incredible.

It’s been always like that. Every other release of iPhone was called „S” for that reason.

So if there ever was a peak with iPhones, it was with the iPhone 3G, and it just went downhill from there ;)