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'It's Time to End the Yearly Smartphone Launch Event' (vice.com)
Owen Williams, writing for Motherboard: Thursday, at a flashy event in New York, Samsung unveiled yet another phone: the Galaxy Note 9. Like you'd expect, it's rectangular, it has a screen, and it has a few cameras. While unveiling what it hopes will be the next hit, it unknowingly confirmed something we've all been wondering: the smartphone industry is out of ideas. Phones are officially boring: the only topic that's up for debate with the Galaxy Note 9 is the lack of the iconic notch found on the iPhone X, and that it has a headphone jack. The notch has been cloned by almost every phone maker out there, and the headphone jack is a commodity that's unfortunately dying. However, the fact that we're comparing phones with or without a chunk out of the screen or a hole for your headphones demonstrates just how stuck the industry is.
It's clear that there's nothing really to see here. Yeah, the Note is a big phone, and it has a larger battery too. It's in different colors, it's faster than last year, and it has wireless charging. Everything you see here is from a laundry list of features that other smartphone manufacturers also have, and the lack of differentiation becomes clearer every year. It's the pinnacle of technology, and it's a snooze-fest. This isn't exclusively a Samsung problem: Every manufacturer from Apple to Xiaomi faces the same predicament. The iPhone's release cycle that Apple trained the world to be accustomed to, with splashy yearly releases and million-dollar keynotes, is clearly coming to an end as consumers use their existing phones for longer every year.
It's clear that there's nothing really to see here. Yeah, the Note is a big phone, and it has a larger battery too. It's in different colors, it's faster than last year, and it has wireless charging. Everything you see here is from a laundry list of features that other smartphone manufacturers also have, and the lack of differentiation becomes clearer every year. It's the pinnacle of technology, and it's a snooze-fest. This isn't exclusively a Samsung problem: Every manufacturer from Apple to Xiaomi faces the same predicament. The iPhone's release cycle that Apple trained the world to be accustomed to, with splashy yearly releases and million-dollar keynotes, is clearly coming to an end as consumers use their existing phones for longer every year.
You could just ignore new product launches. If you're happy with your current phone, keep using it. The reason they do the yearly updates, is because people buy them.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If your phone needs to be exciting, you need to get a life.
I think we're about to see a hasty retreat in the average smartphone price.
My girlfriend recently picked up a Nokia 6.1 - it's fast enough, it's got a good enough camera, a good enough screen, enough memory and it's a pretty good looking phone. It's $250. Certainly there are people who'll have some need for the top-of-the-line, but for the vast majority of people that's a perfectly good phone.
I really think that's the direction things will trend. The "entry level" phones will steadily advance and the "flagship" ones will argue about screen notches and stuff like that. I can't see myself buying another flagship one, and I'm sure i'm not alone.
Good- I don't want any more of what is recently called "innovation." I am ready for CHOICE instead. Give me a SMALLER, not LARGER phone. I don't care if it is a bit thicker because I want better battery life and serviceability.... and would be happy to have a replaceable battery at that. Give me a headphone jack and no buttons or sensors on the back. Give me regular UPDATES to fix annoying bugs and security flaws.
If giving me that is "boring", the boring is great. Bring it on.
I don't want to lose all my connectors, nor have a huge phone, nor a fragile/ultra thin phone with poor battery life and impossible to service batteries, nor a 100MP camera, nor notches, nor stupid OS mods and forced bundled crapware, nor something that costs twice as much as it should.
Surprised it's lasted this long. The reason we're not seeing "innovation" is because a smartphone is a smartphone is a smartphone. We're pretty much topped out on what the useful purpose a smartphone is for. Everything else is just maybe nice to have, but not absolutely necessary. However, I'd like to see more advancement on the camera side. Like a real optical zoom in a reasonably sized package.
You sound like a luddite... Not that I disagree, I'm a luddite too..
I used to think, who wants all this stuff on a cell phone? when the iPhone came along. I also thought "Who in their right mind would pay that much for a phone? But they sold and made money for their makers. I've decided that, if the manufacturers can sell these things doesn't mean I have to buy one.
Manufacturers will stop doing this yearly hype thing when it stops being profitable. Personally, I don't think innovation in smart phones is done quite yet so the yearly marketing blitz for the manufacturers will keep going. Even when they run out of new things to stuff in that handset, they will tweak things, up the model number and keep up the appearance (here's looking at you Apple and Samsung)..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
But it's not entirely true. Last year, Apple came out with FaceID, a phone that has a unique screen shape, a phone with no home button that normalized gestures as the primary input method, and they raised the bar on prices and proved that people would pay for more features in the iPhoneX.
Oh, and it had more cameras, a faster CPU, a better battery, and all the rest of the usual stuff. And that was the most recent keynote. People are upgrading, which is why in its last earnings report, Apple posted record sales for the quarter, to the tune of 40+ million sales of iPhone, the new one (X) being the most popular.
Just because Samsung is in a me-too funk with the rest of the android ecosystem, doesn't mean the industry is done innovating. Evidence points out that Apple certainly isn't. Their last keynote was a smashing success.
Does Qi inductive charging work through ridged aluminum?
Is this post cleverly disguised as a troll to get yet more comments going about a anddroid/iphone religious war?
LOL.. Yea, I miss the Emacs / vi debate too. Nothing lasts forever, but many things just have the names changed when they get recycled....
Ya, but at least vi died a well deserved death of obscurity.
You know what I really miss on Slashdot? John C. Dvorak articles. Here's one: The Traditional Laptop is Dead