
The maturing of the smartphone industry is cause for celebration - hvo
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/01/12/the-maturing-of-the-smartphone-industry-is-cause-for-celebration
======
irrational
Is it mature, or has all the low hanging fruit been plucked?

I want things like a phone that I can set on a flat surface and it will
project a large monitor view onto a white wall and also project a
holographic(?) keyboard in front of the phone that I can type on (I'm not
expecting to feel the keyboard since it is just light - but when I hit the A
"key" it should type an A).

I want a battery that lasts a week.

I want a wired headphone jack.

I want it to be fully waterproof.

Etc.

~~~
taurath
Personal devices need to focus harder on actually improving people’s lives
rather than their time using the devices. All these antipatterns that arise
from the overuse of information can be solved with the right focus.

~~~
butlerian_jihad
perhaps a radically new approach is required. machines should serve us, not we
them.

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whytaka
I wish high-end manufacturers like Apple will take the opportunity here and
further minimize the environmental and social externalities to justify a
premium price.

I'm happy to pay a premium for high-end quality, especially if I don't have to
feel guilty about it.

~~~
crazygringo
Which externalities exactly?

With battery replacements and iOS upgrades improving performance, it seems
like nobody has done more than Apple here, and indeed their stock price is
even suffering for it.

What more are you looking for, honestly?

~~~
ndnxhs
The end of marketing phones as fashion devices. Phones should be seen as tools
and they should be expected to last about 8-10 years. There is no reason they
can't other than apple and the rest make a lot of money on people throwing out
working phones to stay on trend.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I just don't see phones regularly lasting 8-10 years. I use my iPhone daily
and don't have a strong urge to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading, but
even I tend to replace my phone ever 2-3 years - it just makes financial sense
to do so, and battery replacements can only go so far with that.

As phones become more and more powerful over time, I can see my phone
replacing my iPad or (perhaps) even my laptop - but I don't see them lasting
as long as that. They're smaller (and therefore more prone to being dropped),
with you constantly, and are mostly glass. Even with technological progress
aside, I would expect most people to go no more than five years between
replacements.

~~~
ndnxhs
Just about anything can last that long if maintained. Current phones struggle
to last that long simply because that's what works best for companies and
there is little consumer demand for change.

Our current lifestyle of buying a new phone every 3 years is incredibly
selfish and is destroying our planet.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Actually I think buying a new car every three years is much worse.

------
nostromo
I'm very optimistic that Apple is going to be forced to innovate outside of
the iPhone for the first time in many years.

Mac users: rejoice!

------
jonquark
There is a related story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18895064](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18895064)

I think (as I said in the previous discussion) that the key issue with the
lengthening phone upgrade cycle is security patches.

Manufacturers are trying very hard to have built-in obsolescence:
[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/31/dutch_court_says_sa...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/31/dutch_court_says_samsung_has_no_obligation_to_keep_old_phones_patched/)

Unless this fundamentally changes, most non-techy users will have to
needlessly upgrade perfectly good devices, run insecure software or become
much more savvy about which manufacturers are better in this regard - and the
outcome is likely to be some malware has a very large distribution followed by
a lot of press.

~~~
flukus
> Manufacturers are trying very hard to have built-in obsolescence

This would be a golden opportunity for a manufacturer to come out with a
promised 5+ year support cycle. I think one of the reason they don't is
because each manufacturer has 78 slightly different models every year to
support, but in a maturing market they should have a better idea on what the
market wants and cut that down. Why does know one learn the limited SKUs
lesson from apple?

In that respect the Librem phone is arriving at almost the perfect time, it's
close to PC levels of supportability.

~~~
megaman8
Yup, I totally want that. I want a phone that will last 5 years or longer...
ideally about 10 years, like the old ones used to.

~~~
LyndsySimon
The "old ones" were fundamentally different devices, though...

------
tramGG
It comes down to innovation. I bought iPhones because they were innovative.
People aren't buying new phones because there is little marginal utility in
upgrading anymore.

We can break the innovation opportunities down into several areas:

1\. _Hardware_

2\. _Operating System_

3\. _Software /Apps_

 _Hardware_ hasn't been innovated. The closest thing we got was the hope of a
modular phone that was bought for the patents (?) and killed inside of google.
The best thing we get is better cameras, biometrics, and screen resolution.
Not many people care about cameras (not including selfies), biometrics is sort
of a lame duck (who needs their face constantly scanned? or fingerprints as
passwords for everything), screen resolution doesn't anymore because the
screen size is so small -- majority of people play easy games, like LoL, PUBG,
and Candy Crush clones.

 _Operating system_ experience is converging on features between iOS/Android
to the point they are really indistinguishable.

 _Software_ is limited because of hardware specs, walled gardens, and the
learning curve -- but much more nefariously I software devs might just be
afraid if they build something cool these companies would just turn around and
steal it/bake it into the OS.

Alternatively we could see adoption start moving horizontal into other
peripherals like VR/AR/IoT devices (watches) -- but I'm not holding my breath
on that until I see a company come out with something amazing. For instance
the precursor to the iPhone was the Samsung i300, the leap from the i300 to
the iPhone wasn't that big for me, but it changed a lot of things that just
made sense.

The leap for peripherals right now would be too great to expect a magical
turnaround in adoption -- but I would love to be first in line to be proven
wrong.

So where does that leave us? Well we need to rethink things from the ground up
again. We've hit local maxima with experience.

~~~
LyndsySimon
> The leap for peripherals right now would be too great to expect a magical
> turnaround in adoption -- but I would love to be first in line to be proven
> wrong.

I have a feeling that Apple forcing the move to AirPods is laying the
groundwork for that. I would love an iPad that was just a battery and a
screen, that connected wirelessly to my phone for processing. Likewise, I'd be
interested in a laptop that did the same - but it has to be wireless, and the
phone's battery would have to be at least two or three times the capacity of
the iPhone X.

------
CapitalistCartr
Phones still have a long way to go. They have all the corporate controls PCs
don't, because corporations missed that boat.

I want a removable battery, micro-SD slot, audio jack, and control over the
OS/interface comparable to my desktop. I don't give a crap about shaving a
millimeter off the thickness, or 3 grams of weight. And I'm one who trims my
backpack straps extra short.

~~~
charlysl
Granted: buy Android.

~~~
ahartmetz
Except for the non-crippled software part, even with LineageOS or similar. A
desktop OS has a lot of software infrastructure that Android doesn't have.

------
zepto
Apple has a stated goal of increasing the usable life of iphones.

These people need to realize it’s strategic.

[http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-
longer/](http://www.asymco.com/2018/09/13/lasts-longer/)

------
smileypete
Apple phones are relatively standard hardware with good software and a
(unjustifiably?) high price tag.

So it should be no surprise that they last the same as other phones with
similarly standard hardware (but considerably lower prices).

Nevertheless some Apple owners choose to ignore this or do not appreciate it
being pointed out. :)

~~~
dasmoth
_Apple phones are relatively standard hardware with good software and a
(unjustifiably?) high price tag._

In some ways, I wish this were the case. But my reading is that Apple's custom
processors are still far ahead of the competition, and last time I looked it
was hard to match Apple's fit and finish, especially if you are looking at
anything other than the _very_ top of the Android market. And for something
that you keep in your pocket and handle regularly, a feeling of solidity is
worth something.

It's a tragedy that you can't buy an iPhone with an unlocked bootloader.
There's some interesting potential for innovation there.

(This is even more true in some other market segments. The hardware for the
last couple of generations of Apple Watch is amazing, and that makes OS-
imposed limits on what third party apps can do tragic).

~~~
smileypete
The A12 is peerless I admit, and a good 4-6 months ahead of the rest of the
market.

It's a shame that Huawei phones can no longer be unlocked too, part of a trend
towards dumbed down consumption devices I suppose.

