IPhones and the curse of the ’S’ years
Apple chief executive Tim Cook was reaching into the Steve Jobs playbook to try and convince the world that there is something remarkably new and different about the latest iPhone 6s models.
‘‘While they may look familiar, we have changed everything about these new iPhones,’’ Cook told the audience watching the Apple launch event in San Francisco.
The truth is, they look familiar because they are largely the same as last year’s models except for a few cosmetic tweaks and some new internal features, most of which are force multipliers (faster processor, more megapixels, etc).
Now we are into the eighth cycle of iPhone launches, most people are aware that the ‘‘S’’ model version is the poor cousin of iPhone releases, the phone that gives Apple breathing space to prepare for bigger changes in 12 months’ time.
That’s despite Apple using the three previous S years to introduce new features such as video (3GS), Siri (4S) and the fingerprint Touch ID feature (5S). Be that as it may, the S models are often associated with late adopters – people who waited before jumping onto the Apple bandwagon and found themselves trapped in the alternate-year upgrade cycle.
The Jobs trick Cook used is known as the ‘‘reality distortion field’’, a phrase coined by an Apple employee called Bud Tribble in 1981. He used it to describe Jobs’ charismatic way of convincing people that black was white.
The term itself comes from a two-part episode from the 1960s TV series Star Trek that was first broadcast in 1966. The story revolves around a group of humanoid aliens called the Talosians who are able to project illusions.
The reality distortion field is also a very close cousin of the Jedi mind trick, from the Star Wars movies. The mind trick involves using the Force to alter someone’s perceptions or plant suggestions in their minds.
So what Cook meant when he said ‘‘we have changed everything’’ was that they’ve added features like these:
A faster processor (purportedly 70 per cent faster than the one used in the iPhone 6).
Pressure-sensitive 3D Touch screen technology which is another way of navigating to features.
A new 12MP main camera that shoots 4K resolution video,
A less bendy version of the custom aluminium alloy used in the chassisa new, tougher glass face.
Strictly speaking, that’s not ‘‘everything’’. Will that be enough inducement for people to upgrade or swap over? The reality is that more than anything else, it’s the shape, or form factor, of the phone that tells the buyer when it’s new and when it’s not. And everyone knows, the new form factor is just a year away.
Apple has never explained what the ‘‘S’’ means in the iPhone model naming convention. Now we know: it means same. Or same, but different.