[hyp0]

Apple has the technology headroom to keep making more powerful iphones for several more generations... but will it reach a point where people don't need a more powerful phone? (that they don't get any benefit from it, so that power is not utilized). I would have thought they were more powerful than a phone needs to be already, but obviously not! One view is that they are still replacing desktops, suggesting users will value increases in power until they are as powerful as a desktop. Of course, gaming use is unlimited, but I'm not sure that's a key usage.

I would expect something like the Apple watch is essential for Apple, because that small form factor has lots of runway, as each increase in power would be a benefit to users.

[james33]

Why wouldn't gaming be a key usage? On iPhone alone it is a multi-billion dollar industry. I think gaming could be one of the big driving forces moving forward once they get serious about Apple TV. Give it a few years for the processing to catch up to today's consoles and you no longer need an Xbox/Playstation.

[hyp0]

It's important, but not enough. I don't think it's important enough, to buy a super-powerful (future) iphone, for just that, for enough people.

Consider PCs: also used for gaming, and certainly much more powerful than xone/P4, but PC sales have slowed.

[far33d]

Never underestimate the human ability to consume power / CPU / memory / sensors / etc. So far we've never had "enough" of any of these.

[hyp0]

And yet, people buy SSDs even though they could get more memory in a HDD. Because they value speed over capacity.

"The Innovator's Dilemma" traces back the disk drive industry, and in each generation, people choose smaller memory capacity, for the sake of a smaller package (there used to be 8 inch drives, for example). The theoretical idea is that once users' need for performance is satisfied (it's "good enough"), they turn their attention to other issues - such as price, convenience/ease-of-use, customization etc.

It has happened with desktops: that's what caused the brief "netbook" popularity, and what made smartphones successful. Desktops had overshot what was needed for many tasks (browsing, email); but the smaller devices were just becoming powerful enough to manage. So although desktops were more powerful, that extra power didn't matter to many users.

The underlying idea is twofold: (1) all technologies improve over time, as engineers find better ways to do things (Moore's law is just one example); (2) what users demand also increases over time, but at a slower rate

Therefore, if you start with new approach that really struggles with many tasks, eventually it will become powerful enough for what users need; during the same period, the old technology started off powerful enough, and became even more powerful - but users didn't care, because it was more than they needed (or, at least, they didn't want it as much as they wanted other qualities, like convenience etc).

[robotresearcher]

They are finding it easier to sell skinny phones and long battery life than CPU speed. Phones could be quite a bit more powerful if they were as thick and heavy as they used to be.

The Google Project Tango prototype phone is chunky but has lots of CPU.