The Curious Case of the iPhone 7

Article 07 - April 26, 2016

I’m genuinely excited for the new iPhone.

I know, I say this every year, and it’s starting to get real boring. But I am.

They say it will have the antenna bands dropped. Good. Wireless charging? Not too much a possibility, but still might be coming. Waterproofing and dust-proofing? Heck yes!

But the real reason I am anticipating the 7 is the feeling I get with a bigger phone. The iPhone 6 sitting next to me is a 4.7-incher. It’s by no means small, but it isn’t big either. Compared with the other flagship phones, it isn’t big.

Otherwise I love my Space Gray device. It fits my hand, but it doesn’t fit my needs. The software doesn’t lag and runs fast still after seventeen months. The fingerprint sensor still does its job. The screen is vivid and bright. And the processor doesn’t slow down.

Yet this is not a 6 Plus. If I had a 6 Plus I won’t be considering.

You can say the aforementioned feature list is bogus after hearing why I want the new iPhone that isn’t even announced yet. And I do agree with you if you did say that. It is bogus.

I kinda want to talk more about this “peak iPhone” thing I have been hearing lately. You know, when demand kinda burns up people will stop buying your products? They say it will happen to this iPhone 7. The US market is all but saturated. China is fast reaching that. India doesn’t really care, according to them, for pricey phones.

They say that the sales numbers for the iPhone will begin to falter after the year-over-year sales figures smashing expectations and overjoying investors. People will stop buying iPhones as much. 

I kinda already have seen it with the iPad. I mean, where’s the mentality of “I need this in my home” after everyone bought an iPad 2 in 2011? That thing was so popular, and demand for it is so finite, since they treat them as regular computers, sales fell quarter-over-quarter starting in 2012.

This exact same phenomenon will befall on the iPhone: No one is buying it because everyone already had one. They don’t all need the latest features. And Apple doesn’t exactly have the most eye-catching things anymore.

That’s why I spent a few lines taking notes from the rumor mill. Normal people just want to plug-and-play. As long as it is not slow to a point where it’s unusable, as long as the phone can still run the apps they run and play the music they play, there is no real reason for the iPhone 7 to be in their pockets— because their existing iPhone already does what they need.

Apple will need to make something radical to stem the tide. If they fall behind in their own footsteps, then they will drown in their own smoothie pool. It’s a dangerous thought, but one that I think they have the resources to overcome.