Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

Apple announced their new watches and phones yesterday. The new Apple Watches are now controllable with a hand, which is crazy. And now the iPhone is… new. Let’s dive in.

The iPhone, like the rest of the smartphone market, has hit this plateau of innovation. There is always a time where a product’s development slows, which, in the case of a phone, means fewer and fewer new features come out. The iPhones have all looked the same since the iPhone 11. For example, I bet your didn’t realize that the cover for this post is the iPhone 13, not the new iPhone 15. Minor adjustment, larger phones, better chips, but the changes made between the original iPhone and the iPhone 2 probably surpasses the number of changes between the iPhone X to this year’s iPhone 15. This is not all that surprising, because at some point you are almost at the apex of a phone, like a exponential parent function graph except the x is negative (sorry…), which reach a certain point where the changes are so small that they practically don’t matter. But what’s concerning is that the rest of the industry is still trying new things. Androids are known for their audaciousness in new features, but Apple has set the standard so long that risks aren’t necessary. They play it safe, which is the right move. Apple sits back, watches what features will work, and then polish up the feature for Apple products. Apple has become to comfortable, but nobody can do anything about it.