Remember when smartphone announcements were pretty much the coolest thing ever? Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but after yesterday’s big Apple event, it’s difficult to picture a world where we were all so blown away by a phone that many of us felt the need to camp out in front of stores waiting for its release. Yesterday, Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 (in two sizes), the Apple Watch, and several other additions to their mission to dominate the tech space, but this announcement event had a slightly different feel to it than previous ones like it. It was…. Underwhelming.
Maybe it’s because basically everything Apple unveiled already exists in some form under a different brand. Samsung beat them to (perhaps ridiculously) larger phone screens, Android’s smart watches have been on market since the beginning of summer, and possibly the most functional thing Apple announced yesterday, Near Field Communications payment, has actually been possible on other handsets for quite some time. Yes, perhaps people are less excited about these things because they already exist, but I don’t remember anyone lining up to by the 5.5 inch Galaxy Note II either.
I think it’s something else.
I think people are used to having smartphones now. So used to it that launching a new device that is essentially the same as the old one aside from being slightly larger, slightly faster, and slightly thinner, doesn’t make people scream, “Take my money now!” We’ve grown used to this kind of technology, and it doesn’t really impress us like it used to. The iPhone 6 isn’t a must buy item the way we thought the original iPhone or iPad was. Most people are looking at this iteration of the world’s most famous smartphone thinking, “If I’m eligible for an upgrade I’ll probably get that one, as long as my hands are big enough.”
The Apple Watch is a slightly different story however. Sure, Android already has their line of smart watches on the market, but the Apple Watch should be garnering more praise simply because, well, it’s Apple. Many Apple loyalists are as uninterested in the Apple Watch as their Android counterparts were in Android Wear. Maybe it’s because Apple, a company known for its brilliant product design, allowed the Apple Watch to be out-designed by Motorola’s Moto 360, maybe it’s because the Moto 360 is priced at $249, while the Apple Watch is $349. In all honesty, however, it’s probably because smart watches, while very cool toys, don’t provide our lives with enough additional functionality. The Millennial generation has largely ditched timepieces altogether because their phones are infinitely more useful. Developing new watch technology to supplement the technology that essentially replaced it is like designing a new car to pull a horse drawn carriage, except in this case the carriage allows you to send friends your heart rate for some reason.
Probably the most useful thing Apple announced yesterday is also probably the least likely to be mentioned today at your water coolers. Near field communication (NFC) payment allows users to store their credit card information on their phones, and pay by touching their phones to sensors at stores and restaurants. I mentioned earlier that this technology already exists on several non-Apple handsets, but the great thing about Apple adopting the technology is that more stores will start offering this method of payment. Sure, after Apple’s recent iCloud privacy disaster this might scare some people, but the company is going to put extremely extensive security measures in place to protect user data.
People won’t be getting overly excited about NFC payment, however, because it’s not sexy the way new technology is. Will it have a bigger impact on our lives than a larger screen in our pockets and a smaller one on our wrists? Probably, but nobody is going to brag about it either.
The Future
What does a tech company have to do to insight the same craze that the original iPhone did? This isn’t necessarily a sign that Apple is losing some of its lustre. The iPhone 6 is an outstanding phone that people who prefer iOS should absolutely consider buying. It’s simply not a big enough advancement from its predecessors, and at the moment, it’s hard to imagine a smartphone that will include enough new features to blow us all away.
We’re only going to get over-the-top-excited about groundbreaking announcements. Things that we’ve never seen before, that are going to significantly change our lives for the better. The first smartphones were exactly that. They gave us thousands of incredible tools and nearly unlimited knowledge in our pockets. That should still send anybody over the age of 15 into a state of awe. I have no idea what the next big thing will be, but Apple didn’t show it to us yesterday, and I’d highly doubt it’s another phone.
