The Wall Street Journal:
Early reviews of Apple Inc.’s new iPhone 7 were, in a word, “meh.” Pundits praised the many improvements in the device, but a consensus emerged that Apple had not given existing iPhone owners a compelling reason to upgrade.
Why is that? Why are the iPhone, and other computing devices like PCs and tablets, not changing as quickly as they once did? There are many reasons, but the central issue is this: It is harder than ever—more technically difficult, more expensive and more time consuming—to advance the state of the art. Our devices are so complicated that, at their most fundamental level, advancing them further pushes against the boundaries of physics.
That is no reason for despair.
Leaving aside the fact that, contrary to the first sentence, there are no “early reviews” of the iPhone 7 (it’s in the hands of reviewers now but any comment from reviewers is under embargo until next Wednesday), there’s this thought process among the tech media that demands companies, Apple in particularly, “wow” us with every new announcement. Not only is that an impossible standard to meet, it’s remarkably short sighted.
im glad you commented on it — because i cant take any article seriously if it doesnt know the difference between a review and hands-on or even preview.
WSJ is anti apple anyway. wont click.
What’s a “existing iPhone owner”?
Owners of an iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s? They have a thousand good reasons to buy the iPhone 7, it is lightyears ahead of those older devices.
Owners of an iPhone 6? If your plan offers you a free/cheap upgrade to the new iPhone, you’d be dumb not to take it.
If you have to buy it yourself, it’s a bit different – it’s still a great upgrade, but not necessarily if your iPhone 6 is still in great shape and you don’t really use the camera that often or don’t need the fastest new CPU etc.
Owners of an iPhone 6s?
Why is suddenly everyone from the media expecting iPhone owners to buy every new model?
That’s not how it works, most people have plans that allow a new phone every two years and while there are certainly geeks who want the newest iPhone every year (like me), that’s not the general population.
Hey, I read jokes about iPhone owners buying every new model, ca. 2010, which was never true and those jokes were told by the guys who later bought the Galaxy S2, six months later a Galaxy Note, six months later the next Galaxy S, six months later that generations Galaxy Note…
So people joked about this kind of behavior but now it’s suddenly a sign of impending doom for Apple when people don’t buy a new phone every year?!?!
Yeah that sentence shouldn’t even have been written, let alone get past a decent copy editor.
The article reads like the WSJ wrote most of it before the actual September 7th event. With an agenda. The WSJ consistently publishes dismissive and willfully ignorant pieces like this.
They’re bitter that Wall Street needs Silicon Valley more than Silicon Valley needs Wall Street. And because Silicon Valley and SF are hotbeds of the type of disruption that Wall Street never was and never will be capable of.
The WSJ is in denial about Apple and much of the current wave of disruptive tech. They still think of Apple as doomed. To them, Apple is still “the company Microsoft almost killed.” They’re still stinging from the dot-com bubble bursting. And they’re doing everything they can to retaliate.
You mentioned the review embargo is lifted next Wednesday, do you mean the 14th or 21st?
The 14th.
cool, that’s this Wednesday then. looking forward to seeing Jim’s review.
Farhad Manjoo at the NY Times ran a whole story avout how Apple is failing because the aesthetic design of the iPhone has remained similar for the past 3 years. So if Apple kept the internals the same but had a new external design like all glass or liquid metal or whatever would the tech press then think it was innovative and be drooling all over the device? Apple used to be knocked for form over function now it seems that’s what the tech media wants. A new design just for the sake of it; just because no one will know they have the latest and greatest if it doesn’t look different. Give me a break.
Were people clamoring this much to be “wowed” yearly in the PC industry? The tech industry didn’t see instantaneously transformative disruption between 84-95. And then arguably 95-2007.
On one hand, the original iPhone set this unreasonable expectation, for the press to be shown something that wows them. That event was the perfect storm, of the perfect product but also perfect showmanship. That showmanship is gone now, so announcements won’t carry the same impact. But sometimes, people need to step back and just be happy with iterative improvements, and realize how amazingly good the things they currently have are. The original iPhone was only possible because the cell phone industry sucked so bad. Now that the handset industry doesn’t suck so bad (thanks to the iPhone paving the way), that opportunity for radical transformation doesn’t exist anymore.
People need to realize that invention like that doesn’t exist without the opportunity laying there in wait. Apple was just the first to recognize that opportunity, where others had become complacent and lacking ambition/imagination.
Right?
What tech journalists like Manjoo overlook is that the majority of iPhone users are (potentially) upgrading from pre-6x iPhones. The 7 is an all new design to millions.