Or is it not yet time to 'bury' them?
In the fall Apple will release iPhone with a new design, and the fact that the company decided to postpone the new look and leave the design iPhone 6 for three years instead of two, maybe mean there is something about Cupertino that will grab attention. However, it will be 'just' one more iPhone. At the same time, there are signs of ongoing work Apple on augmented reality glasses and more old news about the car project, however, none of these products will appear on the mass market in the next year, or even two. So get ready for more 'death of innovation in Apple!'
In my opinion, a parallel can be drawn with Android: in the new release Android O, there is work done for developers and there are quite a few worthy innovations, but nothing revolutionary. And again, there will be cries of lack of innovation.
In fact, today's situation illustrates our position in the food cycle. Any new technology in its development follows an S-shaped curve: at first, as fundamental concepts are developed, the process of improvement and innovation seems to be slow, then a period of rapid evolutionary changes and expansion of functionality follows, and then significant improvements slow down, at this time the market 'ripens' and 'empty space' is filled. An example of this development can be seen in the automotive or aviation sectors (the most obvious changes in the middle of the 20th century than in the first decade of the 21st century), and now a similar process is observed in PCs and, to a greater extent, in smartphones. The 'curve' in the part of the PC has for many years remained at the same horizontal level, to which smartphones are gradually arriving. We will see significant development of cameras and GPUs (as a consequence of the development of VR), but the war is over.
From creation to implementation
This means that other questions will arise. We are not asking if it will work or who will win, won Apple and Google (outside of China of course), and this is unconditionally, as was the triumph Microsoft in 1995. Instead, we ask ourselves what to do now, when two and a half billion people own smartphones and in a few years that number will double?
Perhaps there is a paradox here: slowing innovation in iOS and Android does not mean weakness ('Apple is doomed!', 'Android is lagging behind! '), but indicates a strong position, it reflects the inaccessibility of the positions of the leading OS at this stage. Almost all the gaps are filled (big problems solved) and this in turn proves that we have passed the part of the S-curve in which a new idea or skill of execution can overthrow the 'top'. These operating systems are too feature rich and are of course widespread across many devices within a single ecosystem.
Of course, all this will be so before the first round of the new S-shaped curve comes and everything resets to zero, which iPhone did with Microsoft and Nokia. This year it is fashionable to say that the next round will be driven by devices with voice control (hard to believe) or artificial intelligence (yes, it is, but I'm not sure that this will somehow change the dynamics in phones). AI is undoubtedly a new milestone in the mobile technology industry, but in the context of the devices we carry with us, I am increasingly inclined to believe that the next fundamental shift will be driven by the augmented reality platform. AR could be the new universal interface that replaces multi-touch displays, similar to how the latter replaced the 'Windows mouse and keyboard' model.
This will take time. For example, 'multitouch' started in three steps: first there was a demo version from Jeff Khan in 2006, a year later iPhone and after 2010 there was a jump in the growth of units sold due to popularity Android. The new curve will begin with a short period of horizontal development. And here's the funny thing about this kind of innovation: when you are at the end point of the curve, then everything that was at the beginning seems terribly boring. At the moment, this is not observed. Today this video about iPhone sample of 2007 is practically confusing – all phones are like that! At the wrong time. Many even claimed that it was a fake.
Original material by Benedict Evans
A fresh look at the problems so often encountered in articles. A certain stagnation and decrease in the rate of innovation is only part of a natural process and does not mean the decline of manufacturing companies and their products. A new paradigm will come and the product cycle will restart, this is inevitable. However, you should not get discouraged and complain that 'it was greener before Android', development is going on, albeit mostly in the background.
What do you think will be the catalyst for a new round – AR or AI? Or are they voice controlled devices?