Mobile Phone Innovation Is Dead – Thoughts on iPhone 13 – Spike In Manila – Back in Hongkie Town!

It’s a cliché but clichés are clichés because they’re true – the computing device we carry around every day and refer to as a  “phone” is a bigger part of our lives than our family or friends. It should also be obvious that the companies producing these devices release updated versions on an annual basis because that’s the way they grow their revenue. True innovation only happens rarely. And so it is goes with the iPhone.

Some of us wait all year for Apple’s annual new iPhone announcement. The rumors start swirling months before of what it might look like, what features it might have, what colors it might come in. But we’ve hit the point where every year’s announcement is pretty much the same as the year before – the CPU is a little faster, the graphics are a little nicer, the cameras are a little better, the battery lasts a few minutes longer. That was pretty much this year’s iPhone 13 announcement. Even so, I’m thinking about getting it.

At least I’ve managed to get myself off the annual upgrade merry-go-round. I’ve still got the iPhone 11 ProMax (can’t Apple hire someone to come up with better names?) and my wife has an iPhone XR (I think). The iPhone 12’s biggest innovation was significant – 5G – but 5G meant nothing to me. Thanks to the pandemic and the fact that I can mostly work from home, mostly I’m using my phone connected to WiFi. When I do go out, I stream music (Apple Music) but not video. So the faster mobile internet is useful to many people I’m sure, but I’m not one of them.

The difference in cameras from iPhone 11 to iPhone 13 is probably significant and I tell myself that since the iPhone is now my only camera, it would be worth it. Then again, the iPhone 11 takes a pretty frigging great photo.

That’s the char siu (honey roast pork) I had yesterday at a Wanchai restaurant I regularly visit called Chukfo Taipan. It’s a very popular place in the middle of the Wanchai market, which means they don’t get many foreigners, and they’re always super friendly to me. I’ve found them to be a bit inconsistent; I know there are certain times of day when the char siu is fresh out of the oven and at its peak, and there are other times of the day when it has been sitting there for hours and they’re down to the crappy bits until the next batch comes out; I just haven’t worked out their schedule. Yesterday I got there at around 6:30 PM hoping that there would be a fresh batch for the dinner rush and apparently I was correct because it was damned close to perfect. Some might complain that the meat in the above photo is too lean but that’s exactly how I like it. Char siu, rice, a bit of veg, an iced lemon tea – all this goodness for just HK$55 (about US$7).

I digress. The point is I think that photo is a wonderful representation of the food, sharp, detailed, great color and contrast – and I didn’t spend even a second on post-processing it, that’s just straight out of the camera phone.

On September 14th I stayed up late to watch the Tim Cook show, as I usually do (well, these days, with my wife away, I stay up late pretty much every night). The one thing I always notice is that every presenter seems to have been taught by the same coach. They all speak the same way. They have both hands out in front of them, both elbows crooked at 90 degree angles, the same hand motions as they speak (not quite Jewish, not quite Italian, so should we call it Applish or Applian?). They may be different genders, they may wear different clothes, they may well be brilliant in their usual day jobs, but as presenters they are all seemingly stamped from the same mold. It’s all pre-taped so no one stutters, no one forgets a line, no one tosses in a bit of an improv, it’s all so perfect. It’s too perfect. (Yeah, I’m a grumpy old fuck.)

I sit there watching and waiting for them to announce something I never would have thought of, something you would never expect a pocket computing device capable of doing, something that’s gonna blow my mind or rock my world. This year it didn’t happen. Here’s the entire presentation if you’re curious:

You’ll note that at the end, if you make it that far, Tim says, “What a spectacular set of announcements!” and I thought, “Really?” Nothing summed up my reaction to that better than this tweet:

The Apple Watch 7 has a screen that’s one whole centimeter larger! Next.

The regular iPad adds in a lot of features already available on the iPad Pro! Next.

The iPad mini adds 5G. That was almost interesting. Not a major innovation by any means, but the thought of a device that size with fast internet seemed attractive – until I started trying to think of personal use cases for it and realized that for me it would be a luxury and not a necessity.

And then finally the iPhone 13. A little bit faster. A little bit brighter. As I wrote earlier, I’m considering it, because it is now my only camera, and the advances over two generations could be meaningful to me. It’s going to come down to a budget issue mostly.

Pre-orders in Hong Kong started yesterday (September 17th). While they say they will start delivering the phones on September 24th, I can see that as I’m writing this that the earliest delivery available is October 15th. (So congratulations Apple on yet another successful promotion!) If I get it, it will likely be in November or December. It’s probably a higher priority to upgrade my wife’s phone, as hers is older than mine, has a smaller screen that she no longer likes, and doesn’t have enough storage space.

What about you? Was there something you spotted in this year’s announcement that was really meaningful? Are you going to upgrade? Let me know!