
Smartphone Sales Are in Freefall, and That’s Okay - mrzool
https://www.ifixit.com/News/smartphone-sales-are-in-freefall-and-that-is-totally-okay
======
jandrese
IMHO some major brands have been pricing themselves out of the market with
their newest phones. They've been letting the prices creep up much faster than
inflation for several years now and they've hit the point where people can't
afford the flagship phones anymore. Combine that with the feature sets
leveling off and you have a recipe for not upgrading your phone every two
years.

The big question we should be asking is "what's the next big thing?"
Smartwatches seem to be the answer Apple is going with, but I'm not sure
they've broken out of being a niche device yet. They feel more like tablets to
me, something that hits its peak way too early and ends up being mostly
neglected after a few years.

~~~
Retric
I think Apple is aiming for a cycle of computer, phone, tablet where you get a
new one in the sequence every 1-2 years.

~~~
jbverschoor
Tablet -> never got used to them (iPad). Maybe with the new iPad OS Computer
-> once every 5/6 years Phone -> every 2.5/3 years

I know that tablets last a long time for most people I know.

And that’s all fine. Why do we need to buy new hardware? No need. At least not
for now.

I’d like to buy a new MacBook. One with more disk space than 512gb. Hopefully
more than 16gb, but 16 works. Maybe a faster cpu, because things are bloating.
But I will wait.. wait until I’m able to get a proper keyboard.

~~~
sehugg
I'm using a 2011 MacBook Air right now for dev, and the only roadblock is that
I can't upgrade the OS past 10.10.5.

~~~
dangus
You sure can: [http://dosdude1.com/mojave/](http://dosdude1.com/mojave/)

~~~
snazz
Also: [https://github.com/rmc-team/macos-patcher](https://github.com/rmc-
team/macos-patcher)

------
blakesterz
"Smartphone sales will drop 2.5% worldwide by the end of 2019, according to
research firm Gartner. In North America, the drop is 4.4% from 2018 levels"

I don't know what the actual definition of "freefall" is, but I was surprised
to see the actual numbers were low single digits.

~~~
jandrese
It's a bigger delta from the 50% or so growth year over year that they were
seeing just 5 or 6 years ago.

Again people see exponential growth and they extrapolate it out forever for
unlimited profits but then get disappointed when the actual growth is an S
curve.

~~~
nabla9
Norvig's Law: Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double
again (in any number of months).

~~~
jandrese
Well, it could double again if it crashed first. If your growth is purely
unidirectional that seems rather obvious.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcTcSbGMmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfcTcSbGMmo)

------
sampleinajar
As a single anecdotal datapoint, I haven't bought a new phone since my iPhone
SE, and I got that on an installation plan. I also have not upgraded my OS for
quite a while either. Ultimately, I can't afford to just buy a new phone in
cash without thinking ahead, and I am loathe to add another $30+ a month to my
expenses for little perceived benefit. I don't care about the camera. I don't
like the bigger phones, and I do not like how each new OS update from apple
slowly "breaks" the older phones. I'm pretty much going to hold out until
either all my apps no longer work or the phone actually has a hardware
failure. I still get a great battery life. I'm pretty sure I'm just an old man
yelling at a cloud though.

~~~
tfandango
I think there is a big market for the SE. Aside from people like yourself who
like the form factor, I want buy them for my kids. A) They are cheap, B) with
an otterbox they are pretty much indestructible, C) I can use the apple
ecosystem to do a bunch of stuff like backups, tracking, remote wipe, reuse
apple music subscriptions and purchased music, etc. D) if it breaks or gets
lost, I only get 50% mad.

My son has had one for 3 years, it's still great. I stupidly bought my
daughter an iphone 8 because they didn't have the SE in stock anymore, and she
dropped it 100 times (with case) and then finally dropped it in the toilet. I
have $250 left on the installment plan, so she's sans phone until I buy her
the cheapest Android imaginable as that's my only choice these days.

~~~
snazz
How did it not survive the toilet? Unless the screen was badly cracked or
something, it shouldn’t admit any water for a very long time at that depth.

~~~
tfandango
She previously dropped it so many times that the glass was cracked and chipped
off in places, so water just rushed in I'm sure. Not blaming the phone at all,
it was amazing it lasted long enough to take a swim in the toilet.

------
dmortin
Maybe people realized they didn't need the newest phone.

I have a 5 year old phone and I could buy a new faster one with fancy
features, but for what?

This one can do calendaring, maps, notes, todos, web browsing, apps, so there
is no compelling reason to upgrade.

~~~
phil248
For what? My answer was always for the camera! But now I have a 2-year-old
phone with a pretty great camera and I'm not sure I need a slightly better one
for $1000. All I need is a new battery.

~~~
dmortin
I don't care about the camera, so I have absolutely no reason to upgrade.

Maybe if they come out with a phone where the battery will last for a week or
more then I'll upgrade.

~~~
frabbit
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jellyphone/titan-
uniher...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jellyphone/titan-unihertz-
rugged-qwerty-smartphone/description)

~~~
craftyguy
> come out

~~~
frabbit
It's available for purchase now. Uniherz have a track record of delivering.
Two phones now delivered as per promises of their previous Kickstarters. I
have one of them (the Jelly Pro) and am completely satisfied with it.

If someone wants a rugged, long battery life phone (this has a 6000mAh
battery) it would be a reasonable bet. No different from pre-ordering from any
other hardware manufacturer.

------
_bxg1
I bought an iPhone XS last year. I don't know if I've ever been this
completely, holistically content with a digital device before. Literally the
only hardware improvement I can think of that might convince me to upgrade
before it breaks is a smaller screen, for easier one-handed use.

I'm sure they'll come up with something eventually. But as a gadget
enthusiast, it's weird not to be clamoring for details about the next model.
My phone is like my car now.

~~~
iamnotacrook
"Literally the only hardware improvement I can think of that might convince me
to upgrade before it breaks is a smaller screen, for easier one-handed use."

Out of interest, why didn't you go for the XR?

~~~
_bxg1
The XR is bigger, has a worse screen, and is generally uglier. I'm not saying
those things don't matter; it's just that incremental improvement is no longer
enough for me to buy a whole _replacement_ device. I wouldn't retire the phone
I have just because an even-sleeker one with an even-better screen came out.

------
anbop
When the iPhone 6S came out the iPhone 4S seemed like a dinosaur. Now even
though the iPhone 10S is out the iPhone 6S works just fine. It happened in PCs
and now it's happened in phones -- the annual increase in specs eventually
passed the needs of most of the market.

~~~
jseliger
Last year, I replaced an iPhone 6 or 6s with a 7. It works fine and was about
half the cost (or less) of the new hotness. Presumably a lot of people are
thinking the same.

~~~
lostgame
Not to mention the environmental benefits! I always encourage the use and re-
use of older machines - especially those that can be updated.

The trend of soldered RAM is so awful for the environment. :(

------
JTbane
It seems (to me at least) that each new generation of flagships don't have
enough incremental advancements to justify the price tag ($1-2k).

~~~
pochamago
This is the biggest reason the Samsung Fold, for all its very big problems
right now, is so exciting to me. That seems like a major change with exciting
possibilities

~~~
tomjen3
It is certainly new, but I have a really hard time thinking of a single time I
wished my phone could fold out. Better battery? Check. Better handling of
notifications? Check. Better one-handed use? Check.

Fold out? I appreciate the newnes, but no.

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awareBrah
There’s hoards of people out there waiting for a new phone with new specs and
camera but without anti-features like removal of headphone jack and faceid

~~~
quantumhobbit
How about multiple day battery life?

You probably don’t even need that much more battery, just a smaller screen and
slower cpu/gpu.

~~~
mantap
Battery life used to be an important issue but now people have gotten used to
carrying power banks around and it seems less important than it once did.

------
Havoc
Pay 1k+ for the privilege of exchanging one black slab for another black slab
with incrementally better specs?

Maybe next year Apple...maybe

~~~
throwaway07Ju19
One could argue that it isn't the stabilization of specs but that of
appearance that is harming sales. Many consumers purchase an over-priced
product/brand _because_ it is over-priced if they can show it off in public.
But that only works if it looks different from the lower cost or older models.

~~~
m1sta_
Yep. Also, they straight up stopped improving from a user perspective. Better
specs doesn't mean more value.

------
kapnobatairza
Echoing some of the other comments on this story, we've reached a point where
the marginal return on value for upgrading your phone is very low at the
moment. From a design perspective, the thin bezelless/buttonless slate makes
it difficult to differentiate your product. The apps you use will be the same
and will more or less run the same, since mobile applications are rarely
bottlenecked by the CPU. Any improvements in camera quality are almost
imperceptible. Same with screen/display quality. What is the incentive to
upgrade?

It is possible that the "smartphone" form factor has become a commodity and
the market is overly saturated with products. I think we won't see another
consumer electronics explosion until other form factors start to become more
ubiquitous (smartwatch, smart AR/VR HMDs, actually smart TVs, smart speakers,
smart automobile infotainment, etc.). Specifically, I think smart HMDs are
going to be the future once chipset and battery technology are advanced enough
to make them sexy.

~~~
clairity
> "From a design perspective, the thin bezelless/buttonless slate makes it
> difficult to differentiate your product."

this plays directly into apple's strengths (build quality, UX, etc.), and i'd
be very impressed if it had been a conscious strategy employed by apple over
the years (apple still captures the majority of industry profits). by
collapsing the feature space along (roughly) one dimension, it's easier for
consumers to recognize the premium positioning of apple's iphones.

------
jjrh
From a end user we aren't really seeing drastic changes in quality of life. My
midrange Android phone is going on 3 years and is still snappy and fast. Used
to be after 3 years you were starting to rethink your app choices, constantly
closing stuff, and looking for replacement phones.

Also seems I see fewer spiderweb phone screens which is probably a combination
of more durable screens and reasonably priced screen replacement services.

So folks who like new things are handing down their functional devices to
family members, selling used, etc. when they upgrade.

------
bluedino
I thought iPhones used to be cheaper. I paid $599 for my iPhone 4S (my first
iPhone) and paid $699 for my iPhone 8 Plus (my current phone)

~~~
blackflame7000
Early iPhones were subsidized by carriers so maybe that's why they appeared
cheaper. Its always been expensive for a new unlocked version.

~~~
umeshunni
4S is hardly an early iPhone. The iPhone 2g (original) and 3g were the only
ones sold purely subsidized. In 2010, Apple began selling the iPhone 3GS
unsubsidized for $399.

------
segmondy
Who wants to spend a $1000 on a phone every year or every other year? My
smartphone is 6yrs old, I have rebuilt and rebuilt it many times. It's pretty
much EOL. When I replace it, I don't want to spend more than $300. They need
to figure out ways to make them cheaper.

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m1sta_
There are so many features I want in a phone, and can't get. It's very
frustrating.

------
hugh4life
I've seen youtube reviews of some pretty nifty game controllers that turn
phones into something like the switch/vita/psp... I have to wonder if there's
some low hanging fruit in bundling such controllers with the phones.

------
stcredzero
A 2.5% yearly decline while sales are sky-high isn't a freefall, yet.

------
gioscarab
For privacy reasons I have never had a smartphone and tend to use cash for
real life expenses. My friends 10 years ago were joking at me, now they
understand.

------
vladojsem
> About 1.46 billion smartphones were produced in 2018, while 1.56 billion
> were sold. If production drops back to match lower sales, that could mean
> 38.44 million fewer phones made. And if all those phones were about the size
> of an iPhone X, that would mean about 400 pounds each of mined ore, water,
> and other resources were conserved, a total of 15 billion pounds.

The problem is that capitalism is running on selling always the latest
products. The product, in general, shouldn't last long. So even if you don't
need a new phone, they are going to force it to you. I don't think this latest
trend is going to last. After all, "Smartphone sales will drop 2.5% worldwide
by the end of 2019" as it is stated in the article. Not a huge drop.

