Has the iPhone lost its charm?

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in January, 2007 at the Moscone Centre in San Francisco, the world was forever changed. It signalled the advent of the age of the smartphone, digital apps, and online media. While all the other, so called, smartphones of the time were still using the awkward-to-use styluses and sub-par and buggy operating systems, the iPhone became the first to use an actual touchscreen and a true smart operating system. These things may make you believe that this was the perfect product, but it wasn’t. It had its own share of drawbacks, such as a lack of support for third-party apps, or MMS capabilities, or a camera that lacked essential features. But despite all of these drawbacks, it was a revolutionary product, one that had the capability to change the smartphone once and for all. Lev Grossman of TIME even called it the ‘Invention of the Year’.

Now let’s fast-forward to 2018, Apple has released the its 3 flagship smartphones for the year in September- the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS MAX, and the iPhone XR. Apple claims that they are the best smartphones in the world. They claim that it has the most durable glass ever to be used in a smartphone, which tends to shatter from normal everyday drops (and costs a whopping $599 for a back replacement, this much may get you another phone), or a Breakthrough dual-camera system, that is just marginally better from last year’s iPhone X.

It seems that the innovators at Apple have lost their knack for making breakthrough products, and are now simply slightly improving past devices and naming them like revolutionary devices. For example, in 2014 we got the iPhone 6, which was a great leap in terms of design and technology. But for the next 4 years, we got the same design, the same size, marginally better cameras and processors, the only difference being the ever-increasing prices of these devices. The iPhone XS MAX now tops out at an eye-watering $1449 for the 512GB unlocked version. This seems like a totally insane price for a device that you’re likely to use only for a year, till the next iPhone releases. You can get a high-end laptop and a good phone for this price. Add to that, iPhone has also stopped providing the headphone adapter in-the-box with the iPhones, which tells us about their never-ending greed. There are similar flagships from other manufacturers that offer more features, better specs, and more battery, that too at a much lower price.

There was a time when I used to excitedly wait for the release of a new iPhone every year in September, wait for Apple to release the next big thing in smartphones. But now, the only thing that they do is release an upgrade over the last iPhone, and test the customers will to pay higher prices.