To be clear, they're all excellent products that CNET scored 4 stars
and above. But they all suffer from Apple's "S" phone factor: this year's tech wrapped up in last year's design.
That shouldn't be a problem for the iPhone 7.
Apple's presumed next-generation iPhone should should follow in the
footsteps of previous even-year iPhone releases, offering big design
changes and (maybe) larger screen sizes.
But that iPhone will be debuting in the uncharted waters of the "peak smartphone"
market. It's the new world where every manufacturer of premium phones
-- the likes of Apple, Samsung, LG and HTC -- is dealing with the fact
that most customers (at least in mature markets, like North America and
Europe) have already made the transition from an old-fashioned flip
phone to a do-it-all smartphone.
What's fraying nerves, both in Cupertino and on Wall Street, is
Apple's outsize reliance on its monster iPhone sales volume -- more than
two out of every three dollars of the company's revenue comes from
sales of its handset. And those numbers are set to go negative
(in terms of year-over-year units sold) for the first time ever in
2016. (Earnings for the first quarter will be officially announced
Tuesday afternoon.)
For Apple, the stakes on its flagship phone
couldn't be higher. The iPhone 7 can't just be "the best iPhone ever."
It needs to be the "drop everything and upgrade to the iPhone 7 NOW"
phone, even if you already have the iPhone 6 or 6S.
For you, the potential buyer, that means a can't-miss combination of must-have new features wrapped up in a killer design.
The problem? It's possible that Apple just won't be able to deliver that one-two punch in 2016.
iPhone 7's feature challenge
Every time a new iPhone is introduced, a parade of Apple executives
take the stage, trumpeting what's special about the new model. For last
year's iPhone 6S,
we got the requisite specs bump -- faster processor, better camera --
along with a smattering of 6S-specific features: a pressure sensitive 3D Touch screen, Live Photos (which sorta kinda turn every picture you take into an animated GIF) and always-on Siri.
So what will Apple add for iPhone 7? (Don't count any nifty new iOS 10
bells and whistles -- some of which we could see as early as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June
-- since most of them will undoubtedly be grandfathered into most
recent iPhone models.) Maybe a higher-resolution screen, a faster
processor and a better camera--the same sorts of upgrades, in other
words, that Apple conjures up nearly every year. But I've rarely if ever
heard anyone complain about the screen quality or speed of the current
iPhone models.
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