The author makes a good argument (and I always love reading about the nitty gritty of Apple's construction and what they not merely do, but do at incredible scale and consistency), and additionally some of the structural tradeoffs involved in ceramics may be unacceptable for general survivability in a phone-sized form factor. But even so I was surprised in his 3 option list he ignored an obvious 4th. He's correct about scaling and switchover challenges, and that at least as of right now Apple doesn't seem to have any major leaps forward in ceramic manufacturing actively deployed in a product, which in turn means iPhone-scale mass manufacturer would be incredibly expensive/difficult, even for Apple.
But that's probably part of why Apple doesn't do it in the Watch either. Instead, they have an entire lineup of Watches, and then use a very expensive, niche process only for an ultra premium skin. While I still consider it unlikely (Apple hasn't done this sort of thing in one of its main lines since the TAM in 1997), if they wanted to start the playing with an advanced material they couldn't get to scale quickly one way would be to just port the Apple Watch strategy and make it exclusive to a special high end model, ie., a ceramic "iPhone Edition" for $2-3k or whatever along with the normal color options. The 10th anniversary of the iPhone would be an occasion for that too. That strategy would have the standard advantages in terms of natural market forces: very high pricing simultaneously limits demand and ensures a large margin for R&D, handling issues, and scale out.
There are still plenty of downsides and again ZrO2 ceramics may just plain not be appropriate for the future of general Apple products regardless of manufacturing. But if they had a 10 year plan to do a major material shift in their product lines, simply reflecting reality and making the new material premium at launch then moving it down the stack seems like it'd be an option they could now pursue given that they've already gone some distance to getting the public used to the idea of differently priced "skins" on an identical internal hardware platform.
I avoided writing about the structural stuff in the article, only because ceramics - beyond the basic, off the shelf stuff, are WAY above my paygrade. Some people argue that ceramics are OK for a phone (that Mi5? I think, has a ceramic shell back, and seems to be holding up OK in the field).
Ceramics are interesting in that they could be the perfect material for so many things, if only a few very short limitations could be overcome - chief among them being brittleness and ease of manufacturing. As such, there are a lot of big brains working in proprietary labs, trying to gain an edge... and getting close in a lot of cases.
So Apple could have solved that and is waiting to get closer to launch to disclose through patents. Who knows?
What we DO know is that no current ceramic process can scale to iPhone volumes, and if Apple did solve that... we would have seen at least a little bit of that tech getting tested in the Edition. Since we didn't, I can't see it working out for a phone.
If I was going to re-write it, I would be a bit clearer on that and also add the possibility of a ceramic Edition. I don't know if Apple is that in love with this as a material though.
additionally some of the structural tradeoffs involved in ceramics may be unacceptable for general survivability in a phone-sized form factor.
Um, yes. Look how much trouble Apple has with bending. Remember "bendgate". A ceramic will crack, not bend.
The other direction, flexible phones, has promise. Flexible printed circuits already exist. Flexible displays exist. Flexible batteries are probably possible. Flexible front transparent cover should be possible. Samsung has tried some things in this space, and has shipped a slightly curved phone. So far, no really flexible phones. The main problem is making it flexible while limiting the amount of bend. Maybe a stiff flat spring...
I've seen bendable batteries that can even be cut in half without danger (and they still work!) I even have some samples in my closet somewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx08CGcyuAE
I doubt anybody wants a bendy battery in their phone anytime soon, given heightening consumer awareness of how dangerous high energy Lithium Ion can be, and how sensitive they are to damage.
> given heightening consumer awareness of how dangerous high energy Lithium Ion can be, and how sensitive they are to damage.
I assume you're talking about the Note 7? To be honest, I think the details about the why and how of the Note 7 fires are lost on the general populace. Most people don't particularly care why (and they shouldn't need to), they just care that it happens.
My gut feeling is also that an iPhone Edition is coming in March 2017, and it will be ceramic at a price closer to $2k.
Apple probably also wants to update the iPhone SE (which was released last March), so it would coincide neatly. That would create a new cadence for iPhone updates:
- New "Series" introduction every even year in September
- New S model every odd year in September
- New Edition model and SE model every March
With the Watch, Apple has started using the Series nomenclature ("Apple Watch Series 2"). That would work for iPhones as well. So the current iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is really the first two models of "Series 7", and next up will be "iPhone Series 7 Edition" and "iPhone Series 7 SE".
First, I don't think Apple is likely to ever introduce an "Edition" iPhone in the mold of the Edition watches (that is, a purely cosmetic or material variation at >3X the cost of the base model). It's simply not worth pushing the iPhones the vast majority of people will actually buy out of the "top end" category. Every second in a keynote spent ogling over a $2000 ceramic iPhone is a second that's not selling to (and indeed may be discouraging) the customers who are going to make Apple real money. When Apple made a "gold" iPhone they didn't charge a penny more for it, and people went nuts.
Second, even if Apple were to go down the "Edition" route, a schedule where the "best" iPhone comes out six months after a more "boring" phone with the same guts doesn't make sense. They'd be Osborne'ing themselves every year: "Yeah, the iPhone 9 looks great, but rumor has it the Edition will be made of carbon fiber! I'm going to stick with my 8 for a few more months."
On the other hand, they need growth (market expects that) and it is harder and harder to attract completely new iPhone customers. Increasing the amount of money extracted from those who are anyways buying iPhone is one option.
More expensive models can also boost the sale of cheaper ones among certain customers. This can give the brand a luxury image. Of course if done wrong, it might also drive some other customers away.
> On the other hand, they need growth (market expects that) and it is harder and harder to attract completely new iPhone customers.
Just introduce an "Hackability Edition" of the iPhone which has many of the features that make nerds drool, as ability to allocate executable memory in apps (thus making JIT possible), ability to sideload apps, replaceable battery etc. and Apple will have completely new iPhone customers.
"Yeah, the iPhone 9 looks great, but rumor has it the Edition will be made of carbon fiber! I'm going to stick with my 8 for a few more months."
That actually seems like the perfect outcome? Currently iPhone sales are heavily seasonal towards the end of the calendar year. Seasonality always carries risks (e.g. potential supply issues).
If a group of customers waited 6 months to buy a higher-margin luxury product instead, that would be a net gain for Apple.
The danger is that some customers don't buy at all.
Either because by the time March rolls around, they're already thinking about the newer phone due in October, or because the mere existence of the Edition (even if they can't afford it) makes the "cheaper" phone less appealing.
It's also hard to see how Apple could get terrific margins on a product that would sell at (say) 4x the price but at 1/20th the volume. They'd probably do just as well if their enthusiasts keep buying a top-end $1,000 SKU of the "regular" phone annually.
> The danger is that some customers don't buy at all.
I'm still using my 3-year-old iPhone 5S. I may update to the 7, but I'm not sure I will...for exactly the reasons you state. The phone works fine, and the only thing I'm really concerned about is some future iOS update making the phone unusable. My question is: is my update cycle going to become more common (or even the norm)? How does Apple hedge against a more fragmented purchasing pattern?
They will try to make people buy watches and devices to watch movies.
The decrease on sales, specially around the world where people aren't constrained to 2 year contract renewals and stick to their phones until they die, is one of the main reasons companies are trying to diversify beyond mobile phones.
I suspect there's also more demand for ceramic in something you wear against your skin all day than something you carry in a pocket. I don't see ceramic having the same appeal in a large, flat form factor.
But the aWatch "Edition" Edition was a big failure, right? They discontinued it and replaced it with something costing like 1/5th as much? Why would they be eager to extend the branding to the iPhone?
If the ceramic aWatch Editionv2 is a huge success, okay, sure, maybe. But... you really think they're confident of that at this point?
That's why we're talking about ceramic (which was just introduced as the high end watch), not gold (which failed). I don't think it's especially likely, but the failure of a $10k+ gold watch doesn't forecast anything about the likelihood of a higher end iPhone.
A machined steel iPhone, perhaps with all the exterior dimensions 0.5 or 1mm bigger - would it be "cool"? Or would it just be the jacked-up-Hummer of the phone world?
The production issues and scaling make sense. But ignoring that, what would be the advantage of a phone made out of ceramics? The OP makes mention of luster and durability...is it lighterweight, too? Less prone to denting? I'm reminded of the way ceramic knives are often sharper than steel, but much more prone to shattering.
Edit: re-reading the post, I see that the site has chosen to indicate hyperlinks by coloring them #000 instead of the body text color of #666, so I missed the initial link to Quora, which contains a list of advantages: https://www.quora.com/What-will-the-iPhone-8-be-made-of
However, it does acknowledge the brittleness factor. Seeing how phones are prone to being dropped, I'd take a scuff/dent in aluminum over the possibility of a massive crack in my phone's body.
Yeah, I understand ceramics to be very hard but brittle. It seems like a ceramic-cased phone would shatter when dropped. I think it's OK for the smaller, lighter watch in the same way that exoskeletons only work for lightweight animals.
Agreed. I can't help but think back to a black ceramic watch I purchased. The metallic black color and finish were pretty amazing (and it didn't really scratch) but it took a whole 2 months until it slid off a table and the entire band shattered on the floor. Some of the links were replaceable but some weren't. I think I still have the leftovers in a shoebox somewhere. I'm not sure I want my phone to be that fragile.
I'm reminded of a quote from Skunk Works, attributed to Soviet engineer Alexander Tupolev: "You Americans build airplanes like a Rolex watch. Knock it off the night table and it stops ticking. We build airplanes like a cheap alarm clock. But knock it off the table and still it wakes you up."
Ceramic kitchen knives aren't a very good idea for the same reason. They are very hard and scratch resistant, which keeps the edge sharp, but they easily shatter when dropped.
Given the number of times I've dropped my iPhone, I would probably be unwilling to purchase a ceramic model.
After the glass iPhone came out and everyone started complaining about how easily it smashed, I joked that the next iPhone would be made of bone china... looks like I wasn't far off!
Aluminum is highly recyclable (although energy-intensive). I personally wouldn't assume there's less environmental impact. The structure of a hypothetical ceramic iPhone case would be different enough to make it hard to asses this claim based on materials alone.
Actually, sapphire is already more transparent than window glass and is 100% aluminum oxide. Aluminium oxynitride is a transparent ceramic that has similar properties to sapphire but is not quite as strong or as expensive.
I'm weird, but the nicest part of sapphire for me was that it meant i could keep my phone in the shop without worrying about the screen getting scratched from saw blades, chisels, or carbide marking knives i put in my pocket.
Of course, i guess i'd have the opposite problem of the phone scratching those things, but ...
This article made me really want to get a manufacturing job at Apple... So I'm applying for one now. I never realized Apple was the world's largest owner of CNC machines.
One summer in college I interned for a company that was building components of the 787 fuselage. If you want to talk about completely retooling a manufacturing process, imagine going from aluminum riveted aircraft to an entirely unprecedented full composite construction. It was something to behold.
I love my ceramic Mi5 Pro! Feels awesome and I can't imagine something else after using it. Sadly even Xiaomi probably won't build a ceramic phone again because of the manufacturing hassle.
Right? I have a black OnePlus One and the first thing anyone says is, "wow, what's this made of?" Sandstone was an awesome choice. At least it's still available as a snap-on case for the OP3.
I'm always amazed when I talk to mechanical/process engineers or designers about Apple products. They put an insane amount of effort into quality and aesthetics that many users will never notice or appreciate.
If only their software had the same quality as their hardware... iOS and macOS have been degrading noticeably over the last few years. Perhaps they ought to use software tech as hard-line as their hardware tech. A device machined to within 10um ought to have a kernel to match.
This, I feel, is so accurate and is why I bristle when people call me a "software engineer". I do not feel like an engineer as I went to a university with many engineering degrees (my degree was from the mathematics department) and I have friends who are actual engineers (not in the train-sense, in the "constructing things" sense). Very little of what I do in software conforms to what I would consider engineering practice.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't software developers who construct software with an engineering mindset. I just see so few of them.
I went to school for computer engineering with greater emphasis upon hardware and over the years I've tried to approach software the way that I've learned how reliability is increased in hardware and electrical engineering, and the business drivers are nothing alike between the two worlds to me on top of the technical differences in disciplines.
When we write ASICs in HDLs, most commercial designs have at least 10 to 100 times as many lines of code for test harnesses compared to the actual design. I've never seen a general commercial software product with anywhere near that much test code in my life (SQlite included perhaps). Furthermore, much of what allows hardware testing is through problem spaces being enumerable (or at least approachable on a statistical basis similar to how memtest works with various bit patterns aimed at different failure modes) and with cross-disciplinary lessons (materials sciences, chemical engineering, etc.). The closest we have in software is the functional programming test ecosystem, especially with Haskell's QuickCheck. But commercial software typically just doesn't care about software reliability to the extent anyone in real world systems does, and there's probably a lot more people pumping out random code now than there are hard sciences engineers thanks to the accessibility of modern software and computers. Combined with software developers as a community being more fashion driven than Milan, London, New York, or Paris we're constantly reinventing the wheel. This is both the blessing and curse of modern software.
"commercial software typically just doesn't care about software reliability to the extent anyone in real world systems does"
And there is nothing wrong with this! I'm not suggesting every line of code should be "engineered". I do think that more projects could benefit from the engineering mindset you are talking about here. Operating Systems for example.
I like this way of viewing software development: as an engineering field that is just in its infancy. Makes me excited to see what the future holds.
That said I disagree that Apple's software is bad. Sure some of it is simplistic and lacks features that some third parties have adopted, but I have never found it to be lacking in either design or usability and it's always been very stable. I sometimes wish they would utilize more flourishes of their own design language in their software, but overall I find it of good quality.
What would the point of software development be if it weren't uniquely constructed? We already have the technology to make copies. I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Perhaps I misunderstand you, but writing software is not like creating the design of a gun. Creating an algorithm is like creating the design of a gun. You can implement an algorithm poorly, and you could build a gun from a blueprint poorly, for example, using a soft metal. I am not trying to be pedantic. I genuinely do not understand your point.
The specification of an algorithm is the code. Other ways of defining an algorithm is simply a useful but leaky abstraction.
Once you understand that code is the (highly detailed)design, a lot of the reasons why software is so hard to do well makes a lot more sense. Compiling the code or running in a vm is the construction.
It explains why estimates are hard, and why software is not something pump out like manufacturing line easily.
As pretty as aluminum is, it's way too soft. I have a CNC milled android device and it's got some nasty bumps from me dropping it on the ground. Plastic, while not as shiny and fancy, is much better suited and more resilient if you value material strength and usability over looks. It's cheaper too.
If that's a materials pun, it's actually the opposite. A dent that bounces back to its original shape is elastic. Plastic deformation is the metal phone that stays dented after the force is removed.
I guess you could try to make a composite steel-aluminium material, as the steel has a yield point and will take the load when stretched. But I doubt it will work good for compression.
The author goes to the trouble of using the phrase "takt time" and linking to its definition but then misuses it. Assuming non-stop operations and 1 million units a day, the takt time (average time between unit starts) is about 85ms, not 3-4 minutes. Assuming a cycle time for interior milling of 240s, the difference is a factor of about 3000, which matches the estimate for the number of milling machines operating in parallel.
Confession? I had a better surrounding blurb explaining takt time, because people who read my (once a year) posts get off on the nerdery, but it was clunky, so I sort of inaccurately dropped it in with a link to the real definition to let people explore the term on their own.
The special properties of ceramics are what? Disc brakes and ball bearings are all I know. In neither of these situations is brittleness a problem. Given brittleness is a problem I cannot see iphones being ceramic any time soon even as a back inlay. However that could be done and the assumptions of this article all wrong. As an inlay the tolerances might be fine, no army of robots needed. The aluminium band holding it together could be an extrusion, hydroformed to have strength.
You're likely to get some generalizations, but the question is about as vague as asking about the special properties of metal. Some metals are strong, some are not. Some are tough, some are not. Some are toxic, some are antiseptic, some are explosive, etc. Some exhibit specific properties in specific conditions but nearly opposite properties at nano-scales or in composition with some other substrate.
The most common ceramics are strong but brittle and lightweight. I wouldn't assume that these would make good choices (for example, weight alone is a reason to choose aluminum over plastic...it weighs more and thus feels more expensive). But there are still some interesting alternatives out there that would be cool to consider. Like possibly monolithic and completely waterproof circuits with near perfect insulation that can be cast instead of printed/assembled. Or possibly structural batteries? Who knows?
Ceramics are extremely hard and tolerant of great heat (the latter not being particularly relevant). They can also be lightweight for their strength, at least in compression. They can also have a nice, smooth, cool feel in the hand (partially as a result of their temperature insulation properties).
They're also a huge variety of materials, it's like asking why plastic is a good material - do you mean silicone rubber, ABS, or Teflon?
>carbide, even though brittle, is much less brittle than ceramics
To clarify, "carbide" here is short for "cemented carbide", i.e. ceramic carbide particles sintered together in a metal binder. It's tougher than the pure ceramic although still somewhat brittle.
Apple and aluminum are design mates big time, I don't see that shift changing, but rather evolving as glass/touch/sizing progress continues.
Because I'm an unrepentant geek for the stuff I'm going to want a carbon fiber chassis phone eventually. Mass-production CF still isn't a reality as far as I know, but it's being tested (BMW, golf companies, etc).
"Numbers sheet busting figures we all expect from the 10th Anniversary model of the world's most successful product in history.", did we forget the lightbulb?
Interesting to compare Apple to Telsa, who is having to scale production like crazy and is designing/manufacturing some their manufacturing machines themselves
The author ignored one of the most interesting parts of the Quora post, the patent that Apple filed about a manufacturing process that casts ceramic parts and silicon/rubber parts at the same time to make a single object that has both hard ceramic structure and soft rubber. That would let them unify parts like gaskets and bits that hold other bits into one single process.
So maybe even if the ceramic part of the process takes longer, they might be able to make up for lost time but cutting out steps that are further down the assembly process. To quote the patent:
"As one specific example, ceramic materials have numerous qualities that make them particularly useful for use in electronic device housings. For example, they may be highly scratch resistant, making them particularly well suited for electronic devices that are frequently subject to bumps, scrapes, and scratches, such as wearable electronic devices (e.g., smart watches, glasses and the like), mechanical watches, and other consumer products (including, but not limited to, media players, mobile computers, tablet computing devices, and so on). As a specific example, the high hardness and optical clarity of sapphire crystal (a crystalline ceramic material) may be very well suited as the cover glass for a touch-screen of a wearable electronic device. Ceramic materials may also be relatively light, making handheld or wearable electronic devices easier to carry, wear, and use. Moreover, ceramic materials may be able to achieve a high degree of surface polish making them particularly aesthetically pleasing.
However, ceramic materials typically are more difficult to form into complex geometries than plastics, and, thus, manufacturing housing components from ceramic materials can be more difficult than for other materials. Accordingly, described herein are housing components where a polymer material is co-molded with a ceramic component to form a housing component that includes ceramic and polymer material portions. (As used herein, the terms "polymer" and/or "polymer material" encompass natural and synthetic polymers, plastics, rubbers, and the like.) For example, a ceramic housing portion may be co-molded with a polymer material to form a polymer clip that is directly coupled to the ceramic material and can be used to retain the ceramic component with another housing component. As another example, a polymer material may be co-molded with a ceramic component to form a plastic coating on a portion of the ceramic component
As described herein, a polymer material forming a polymer feature may be coupled to a ceramic component by a co-molding process whereby the polymer material is molded against the ceramic component. By co-molding the polymer material directly onto the ceramic component, the polymer feature may be bonded to the ceramic material without the use of an intervening adhesive or other bonding agent between the ceramic and the polymer feature. For example, instead of separately forming the ceramic component and the polymer feature, and then adhering the polymer feature to the ceramic with glue, pressure sensitive adhesive, heat activated films, epoxy, or the like, the polymer may be molded directly against the ceramic material.
Thus, parts that include both ceramic and polymer components can be manufactured more quickly and with higher precision than would be achieved if the components had to be manufactured separately and thereafter coupled together with adhesive. In some embodiments, the polymer material is injection molded onto the ceramic component. In some embodiments, the polymer material is molded onto the ceramic component using techniques other than injection molding, such as gravity casting, or any other appropriate co-molding process. Where the present discussion refers to injection molding, it will be understood that other molding techniques may be used in such instances instead of or in addition to injection molding."
As a reminder, on a larger scale: Apple's main focus is on design. Not build quality [0]. This doesn't exclude a unique production process of course. But I think it is important to not mix up both when forming an opinion about them.
Crazy slow on the feeds and speeds, diamond coated tooling (Harvey is where to go). Macor is highly structurally compromised compared to other ceramics to make it machinable.
Typically, production (which is to say, low volume med/aero/optics parts) ceramic machining is limited to cleaning up datum surfaces, walls, mating surfaces, holes and (god forbid) threadmilling tapped holes. It sucks. Totally not capable of meeting iPhone scale at all.
Apple continues to regress, and that's kind of sad.
The post-Steve-Jobs Apple has continued to produce superb products. And it has scaled to a truly impressive level while maintaining quality and financial statement success. However, at this point it's an old story to say that Apple has recently failed to capture our imagination and "show us the magic" the way it did throughout the 2000s. I remember being blown away by the early iMacs and Macbooks, the early-gen iPods, iPhone, iPad (don't forget how impressive the iPad was when it first came out), and the Macbook Air.
When people speculate that the next generation of Apple products may be ceramic, I think I know why: they want the magic. Ceramic? That's sounds new and interesting. Maybe it's environmentally friendly. Reading Koenig's article, the case seems pretty strong for Apple's disincentive to make such a significant change. It's the same disincentive that all large, successful companies face: they do pretty well with the status quo, so why incur the massive expense to do something new and risky?
I can't really blame Apple. But I also can't help but be a little sad. The same way I can't help but be a little sad when a talented movie director goes mainstream. It's a reminder that we all have to face reality and make practical decisions; we all contribute to the massive pile of human ambition and pass our excrement to the level below us; and we all are getting older.
The thing is, it's easy to say this, but doesn't it ignore the fundamentals of what's behind the magic in the first place. All of their major breakthrough products (Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad) came at a time when the technology that made them possible had just reached maturity. Add on top of that, their undoubted refinement of UI and industrial design and they created some major winners.
What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'. That's not to say Steve Jobs didn't have a huge roll in making all their previous products a big hit, just that there is nothing new on the scene at the moment with which to craft a break through tech hit.
Interesting thoughts. I don't wholly disagree. You are right that the maturity of solid-state drives and multi-touch displays played a big role in the timing of new Apple products in the past. Though, I could point to VR and Electric Vehicles as just-mature technologies where Apple could have made a big investment. How excited would people be if Apple released an electric car... or just bought Tesla.
VR is at that "just mature" cusp for video games, but not for general computing interfaces. I believe that's why Apple hasn't jumped in yet. They don't want to be a video game company like Steam or Oculus. They want to create a completely new general computing UI, and VR just isn't ready for that yet, nor is AR.
Personally I think/hope that the next "magic" thing will be practical and affordable hologram projectors/volumetric displays a la R2D2 (but of course better.)
Amazing new graphics cards from Nvidia, Apple have all the bits to make a nice VR headset and laptop / ipad that will drive it. I'm surprised they haven't dropped any hints yet.
So, they've thought it through and decided now is not the time... why? Why not get in there while Playstation is getting in there. I guess they aren't really a games company, yet the iPhone and iPad are both great for casual games. So maybe that's not the reason. Could be that there is something better in the pipeline (hololens) or that VR isn't consumer ready yet.
There's no way Apple would make a VR headset tethered to another device. To be on-brand it has to be elegant, which means all-in-one. It probably needs a new OS... certainly none of the UI from iOS can be reused, and it needs VR-specific heat and power optimizations, probably with a new low level graphics toolkit.
From Tim Cook's statement it seems pretty clear that they're going to wait until they can do AR glasses, which also fits their anti-nerd brand strategy. AR is more social, more human.
Although when the standalone Google/Oculus headsets hit next year I suspect people will be surprised how well they sell. The mobile VR app ecosystem should hit puberty around then. Assuming Oculus/Google can hit a $600 price point I think we'll see an iPod-like growth curve in that category, which would lure Apple into the market for sure.
The problem is that while potentially more immersive, VR is more exclusionary. By definition it's not an experience that shares well with meatspace. So it's easy to cut off and be cut off from other people in the same room. That's fine for a teenager in their room but not so much someone living with a significant other or children.
Apple has made a big investment in both VR and electric vehicles. Tim Cook has spoken publicly- really rare- about the preference for AR, so he's already positioning the companies approach. This tells me that they have a compelling solution that is being refined. (who knows when it will hit the market).
It looks like they are still working out the compelling solution to electric vehicles and so there's no reason to talk about it before they have a product ready.
>What I think Apple lacks at the moment, is any new just-mature technology on which to base its 'next big thing'.
So what you're really saying is that Apple is waiting for other technology companies to come up with something new so that they can take that idea, put their spin on it, paint it white and announce their next big thing.
Apple has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in their car project which they just cut back on significantly, so I'm not sure I buy the argument here that they're not wiling to try something new and risky because it's expensive. Just because their R&D failures aren't very publicly visible doesn't mean they don't exist.
I'm also not sure in what way they continue to regress. Back when Jobs was alive, the only Apple product I liked enough to buy was a MacBook Pro. I greatly preferred Android phones back at that time; the early iPads weren't that great; the original MacBook Air was incredibly expensive for the hardware you got; I could never even take the old colorful iMacs seriously.
Now with Cook at the helm, in addition to the MacBook I also have an iPhone 7 Plus, Apple Watch, Apple TV (4th gen.), I subscribe to Apple Music, I use and love a 5K iMac at work, and I'll probably be getting the new MBP whenever it's finally available. To me, Apple's product line is far stronger than it's ever been before.
I think at this point the mobile hard- and software industry is simply much further developed and it's harder for everyone to innovate, not just for Apple. We can't expect that magic of 2007 to come back on a year to year basis.
That said Apples products continue to be very solid. For me personally, MacBook Pros are in amazing state right now and OSX feels and looks great on high-dpi displays.
For a long period no other laptop manufacturer could top Apple when it came to build quality and durability. The MacBook Pros have definitely fallen behind in the past 4 years. I'm really looking forward to the rumored refresh at the end of the month.
I'm writing this on my late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina 13", which has become practically an extension of my body. It's lightweight, fast (SSD and decent CPU), and has decent WiFi. But most importantly, I can read text all day long without my myopic, presbyopic eyes bugging out. Thank you, Tim Cook and all the others responsible for this machine. (Oh, and I'm quite happy with its solid aluminum body.)
How do you know if they have cut back on the car project, or if there really is a car project? The latter seems clear from their job listings, but as near as I can tell there have been no public announcements or SEC offerings confirming any kind of a car project.
No-one really expects new magic in iPhones - We just hope there will be some incremental improvements and the rest stays as cool as it is.
What the people expect is rather a magic new product. The watch is merely a gadget. The iPod was a revolution. The Macbooks still are unreproduced on the market. The iPhone changed humanity (or at least it was the first to do so). Each wasn't an incremental improvement but a complete new line of products. Each didn't eclipse the previous line (the iPad didn't replace the Macbooks) but multiplied Apple's publicity.
At the level of Apple, innovation could be a VR tool that encompasses our life, a car, a teaching tool, or they might go to services and launch a global platform for press, privacy, work or start-ups. But the only reason I watch each keynote is that I don't want to miss the next time they innovate.
To be fair, it wasn't just a phone. This has been beaten to death at this point, but the innovation of the iPhone was all the stuff it could do that had nothing to do with making phone calls.
And which among those things had not already been done at that point by the likes of Palm, Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, et al?
Apple's major contribution is making consumer-grade technology look at once both cool and friendly, such as by putting an icon of a smiling, happy computer on the boot screen of a Macintosh. Their greatest strength is in making objects that might otherwise seem intimidating or ostentatious into something hip and approachable.
That isn't to say they don't innovate. They clearly do. But that is not where their profits come from. Those clearly derive from brand image and network effects.
What you are labeling as brand image is also dedication to usability that no mobile competitor at the time had. It's not that iPhones "seem hip" so much as they don't make you feel like a fumbling idiot when attempting complex tasks
What you call "dedication to usability" I am more apt to label "dedication to user interface". There is an important separation of meaning there.
The technology learning curve is less steep with an Apple product, but the capabilities of the device eventually hit a wall, unless you are willing to undertake the additional effort of learning to jailbreak. Competing devices have a steeper learning curve, but they go all the way up to the hardware ceiling without such a big discontinuity. Rooting or re-flashing an Android device is still a leap, but it is much less of a shock to someone who has gone to that point. In comparing Apple and Android devices, I'd say that stock Android is more capable, but Apple is more user-friendly. Carrier-crippled Android devices reduce the functionality to that of an Apple device or less, without the mitigating factor of the superior user experience.
It turns out that doing all your user hand-holding with soft, warm hands has significant market value.
>but the capabilities of the device eventually hit a wall.. >competing devices have a steeper learning curve, but they go all the way up to the hardware ceiling..
The problem with this line of thinking is it ignores the needs of the vast vast majority of current consumers. Most don't ever hit that wall you insist is inevitable. The ability to hit the hardware ceiling, via the investment of a steep learning curve is not attractive or necessary for most people. You are not a model consumer.
I disagree with the claim that you need to jailbreak an iPhone in order to break past some capability wall. This was true in 2007 before the app store, and maybe parts of 08 and 09 before the multi-tasking and notification API's were fully fleshed, but all jailbreaking gets you know is customization. Usually at the price of reliability. (I used to be a big fan of jailbreaking a few years back).
So if I wanted to install Chrome or Firefox, with uBlock Origin to block ads, how hard would it be for me to do that on iOS?
That seems like a relatively simple and common thing to do for an Internet-connected device. Is the hardware capable of doing that? Is the software capable of doing that? Does Apple corporate policy allow customers to do that on the devices they own?
Ok, granted, the average mobile user does not block ads. But how about moving photos off the device, or loading existing music files onto it. Can I plug in a standard USB cable and mount even a portion of the local storage of the phone as removable storage on the desktop computer?
> But none of that functionality is as important and effective as phone calls.
Wait, what? Making phone calls is almost always the least efficient last resort.
> And almost all of that is based on the foundation of The Internet.
Absolutely, but the Internet is dramatically more useful when it's always on, and always with you, and tied into sensors that help decide what you need.
BlackBerry gave us smart pagers. Microsoft gave us a microscopic desktop with all the charm and utility that implies. Neither were successful with the mass market because neither were particularly relevant to consumers.
The problem with saying iPhone was a few years ahead of its time is that iPhone defined the future. Without it we might still be divided between 10-20% of the user base with stylii and physical keyboards and WAP web browsers and the rest of us with feature phones.
"Wait, what? Making phone calls is almost always the least efficient last resort."
Right. The nuances of a voice conversation is less efficient than what? A text message with some emoji? A Facebook poke? Tagging someone? If you're going to tell me that all these apps are the communication method of choice...
"The problem with saying iPhone was a few years ahead of its time is that iPhone defined the future. Without it we might still be divided between 10-20% of the user base with stylii and physical keyboards and WAP web browsers and the rest of us with feature phones."
Eh, my phone had a HTML web browser before the iPhone was a twinkle in the eye.
>If you're going to tell me that all these apps are the communication method of choice...
I can't remember the last time I used my phone to actually make a call. In fact, in 2012 making a call was only the fifth most-used feature of the average smartphone, following after internet, social media, music, and games. I'm guessing that in 2016, with the plethora of messaging apps and the huge push by Facebook and others to drive adoption of those apps, making calls is even less of a priority for people.
Stand at a platform at a train station and look at the crowd. Everyone who is not looking down is currently talking to a person, either on their phone, or there at the station. Everyone else is looking down, fiddling with their phones. Before the smartphone, the only people who did this was the rare book-reader.
The smartphone would have come to us eventually, but the iphone hastened it's arrival by more than a few years.
For me at least, the other functionality is more important than phone calls. After all, I'd never pay $1k or even close for a device that can just make phone calls, but I would pay that much for a device that can do everything else a modern smartphone can do.
yep.. i can't overstate how annoying the change is in iOS 10 from swipe to unlock to pressing the home button. I understand they are desperate to introduce "widget" type interface, but that's only because the normal iOS experience is just mindless grids of app icons... ugh. I have to support iOS at work, but use Android personally. Once you go Android, you don't go back.
Been to Android and have developed on Android professionally. Android is widely known as a much more frustrating platform to develop with. I'm always open to change, but I couldn't leave Android fast enough.
I've been a user of Android since Eclair. It wasn't good the. So I went back to iOS. I have many friends who are android only or iOS only. I prefer to use whatever is best at the time.
I'm currently typing this from a 6S+. I was looking forward to the Pixel but I'm not impressed. So I'll see what happens after the Pixel.
I really wanted the Note 7 but you know the story...
i'm speaking in contemporary times of course, the current versions of android including the previous couple of major versions, have greatly surpassed iOS in terms of flexibility in usability.
I also hate iPhones. I used to use one for work because I wanted to try it out. I switched to the Nexus 6p this year. I still keep the iPhone around, though, just to remind me why I hate iOS so much.
I don't know where Apple will go, but those of us that were around can certainly remember how the old Apple without Steve Jobs used to be and I have a feeling that is going on the same direction.
However, given the amount of money on the bank they still have lots of time available still, so I still look forward to whatever they might think of doing next.
Besides all of the other counter-arguments presented here, remember the article isn't arguing that Apple won't create a ceramic iPhone, just says that it'd be impossible to hide such a massive manufacturing shift so it effectively can't be the next one.
I just want something other than this aluminum garbage. My iPhone 4 lasted four years (still fully functional in a drawer), all the while never accumulating a single dent. I owned my iPhone 6 for 3 days; dropped it once from less than 3 feet off the ground (was actually sitting, not standing), an act which completely destroyed the outer case.
Their aluminum build is utter Chinese trash, built to the lowest common denominator of pennies per square inch. Yes, the iPhone 4 was smaller and a heavy clunker; but it was a sturdy device compared to their pathetically fragile materials as of late. And it's done to save maybe $10-20 on what could have been a quality build. Apple used to be about good hardware, but they've fallen into the same unapologetic Chinese manufacturing bullshit as everyone else.
But that's probably part of why Apple doesn't do it in the Watch either. Instead, they have an entire lineup of Watches, and then use a very expensive, niche process only for an ultra premium skin. While I still consider it unlikely (Apple hasn't done this sort of thing in one of its main lines since the TAM in 1997), if they wanted to start the playing with an advanced material they couldn't get to scale quickly one way would be to just port the Apple Watch strategy and make it exclusive to a special high end model, ie., a ceramic "iPhone Edition" for $2-3k or whatever along with the normal color options. The 10th anniversary of the iPhone would be an occasion for that too. That strategy would have the standard advantages in terms of natural market forces: very high pricing simultaneously limits demand and ensures a large margin for R&D, handling issues, and scale out.
There are still plenty of downsides and again ZrO2 ceramics may just plain not be appropriate for the future of general Apple products regardless of manufacturing. But if they had a 10 year plan to do a major material shift in their product lines, simply reflecting reality and making the new material premium at launch then moving it down the stack seems like it'd be an option they could now pursue given that they've already gone some distance to getting the public used to the idea of differently priced "skins" on an identical internal hardware platform.