THERE WERE FEW SURPRISES AT APPLE’S IPHONE EVENT ...
And that’s OK, since its forte is improving user experience, Josh McConnell explains
The surprising thing about Apple’s big announcement of three new iPhones and other devices last week is that there ended up being, well, few surprises.
While the venue itself — the Steve Jobs Theater inside the swanky new Apple Park headquarters — was impressive and full of its own “wow” moments, very little of what was actually presented on stage was unexpected, in part because of a series of hardware leaks leading up to the event.
Apple Inc., which revolutionized the way we communicate with the iPhone a decade ago, rolled out its new smartphones in succession starting with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.
Phil Schiller, the company’s senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, whizzed through all of the device’s new bells and whistles at a dizzying pace for attendees, but 20 minutes were all it took to dethrone the iPhone 8 as the latest, greatest device. Soon afterward, chief executive Tim Cook announced Apple’s new flagship device: the iPhone X.
Some of the new features included with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus will also be featured in the iPhone X. A new A11 biometric processor with support for neural networks is in each model to give extra processing and graphical power, plus both have durable glass backs that allow for wireless charging (Apple took the side of Qi versus PMA in the ongoing wireless standard wars).
The iPhone X is nearly all screen on the front — known as bezel-less — with front-facing sensors and cameras that allow for secure facial recognition to unlock the phone and make purchases, as the home button has been removed (Apple created a modified version of iOS to handle this). The screen itself uses OLED technology for “super” retina resolution with HDR and Dolby Vision support for better blacks, colours and lighting.
If many of those features sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been already available in some form in competing devices such as Samsung’s Note 8, the Essential phone or LG’s V30. Of course, new technology usually has the typical Apple polish to them when added to make sure they are ready for mainstream and secure, but on paper it can feel more like the company playing catch-up.
While the company has excelled in introducing disruptive technology in the past — the iPod, iPhone or iPad, for example — Apple seems more content to stick with its long-running policy of iterating on its popular devices and refining the technology inside them, focusing on executing new features and upgrades well to retain its customers instead of being the first mover.
“Apple is doing a great job at releasing products and functionalities when they feel they are ready for end-users and when they believe a value proposition justifies those functionalities,” Jean Philippe Bouchard, IDC Canada’s research vice-president of mobility and consumer, said in an interview.
“As an illustration, the entire technology stack included in Face ID for iPhone X goes beyond the simple face recognition. It also allows for developers to create experiences centred around face tracking, which will become increasingly important with the growth in augmented reality.”
Fingerprint scanning or copy-and-paste — to name other examples — also came later to the iPhone, but Apple’s implementation was more secure or arguably intuitive. To Apple, being first to the market is not as important as doing it right, despite the finger pointing of Android enthusiasts. Experts who watch the company don’t seem to mind.
“While there were few surprises, we generally liked the iPhone X design and features, including the much larger screen, Face ID biometrics, and inductive charging,” BMO analysts said in a note following the event.
“Apple did an outstanding job of showcasing the experiences consumers can have with its products (during the event),” Julie Ask, vice-president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, wrote in a blog post. “Getting consumers to upgrade devices isn’t easy, and experience improvements will be more subtle as we go forward and are more dependent on AI.”
Apple is poised to soon become the first to hit a US$1 trillion market valuation — its market cap stood at US$819.9 billion at market close Tuesday — but it needs to continue to sell iPhones to get there.
During its third-quarter earnings report, Apple said it sold more than 41-million iPhones, beating expectations despite a normally sluggish quarter. There wasn’t a new model released and rumours were heavily swirling about the soon-to-be-announced iPhone 8 and X.
The danger of a strategy that iterates on a popular product is that competitors can replicate features and put them into inexpensive phones — OnePlus, Xaiomi and Motorola come to mind.
Apple has fended them off by bifurcating the iPhone line, offering a less expensive “value” phone for budget conscious consumers, and a “premium” phone for the high-end market. That, combined with its marketing and retail expertise, keeps sales consistently high, and the company’s philosophy of designing hardware and software that work seamlessly together is often cited as a competitive advantage.
“Navigating different functionalities from various smartphones manufacturers will be increasingly difficult for end-users and this is why the end-user experience will matter the most going forward,” said Bouchard.
Though product leaks have risen to unprecedented levels for the company and surprises may be fewer during recent keynotes, what is important is that Apple continues to keep customers hooked and the cash registers don’t stop ringing. For now, it would seem the company doesn’t have anything to worry about any time soon.
“Apple has a loyal base of users who will (purchase),” Forrester’s Ask said in her blog post. “They are accustomed to paying a premium and appreciate the quality of the experience and the seamless integration with other devices they own.”
Getting consumers to upgrade devices isn’t easy, and experience improvements will be more subtle as we go forward and are more dependent on AI.