“Apple will drop its incremental ‘s’ iPhone release next year in favor of jumping straight to the iPhone 8, claims Barclays analyst Mark Moskowitz,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac.
“Moskowitz backs up previous suggestions that the iPhone that launches in 2017 will boast the biggest upgrade since 2014’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus — with OLED displays and wireless charging, but lacking a physical home button,” Dormehl reports. “He predicts the massive revamp will lead to what he calls a ‘mega cycle’ upgrade.”
“As for this year’s iPhone 7? He’s not so optimistic,” Dormehl reports. “According to Moskowitz, the iPhone 7 will be ‘more of a replacement cycle’ iPhone, in line with an incremental “s” release, than a full-blown reinvention. The main improvement is likely to be the elimination of the headphone jack (possibly in favor of some smart wireless EarPods), but nothing much else beyond the usual tweaks and component upgrades.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If Apple is done with the stupid iPhone “S” years, hey, better late than never!
We’ve been advocating “death to the ‘S'” for years and as recently as last Tuesday:
Apple should strive to execute annual iPhone updates, in three display sizes if the SE is successful (which we think it will be), and drop the off-year “S” model concept. Apple is certainly big enough and rich enough to do a new iPhone family each and every year. Apple should have killed the tock year “S” model idea years ago.
What’s happened with iPhone is painfully obvious: Apple was at least a year (more likely two years) late with properly-sized iPhones. When iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus finally, blessedly materialized, buyers quite literally stampeded to get them. Then, when faced with such a “tough compare” this year, Apple was still sticking with their ill-conceived “S” model concept – making the tough compare much, much tougher.
The “iPhone 7” family – three models with the same case design and all with 3D Touch — comprised of the 4-inch iPhone 7 SE, the 4.7-inch iPhone 7, and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus — should have debuted last September. That would have taken care of the current tough compare with iPhone 6/Plus. Then, this year, the iPhone 8 family, again with a new case design, but now waterproof, with dual cameras, etc. would debut this September. In 2017, perhaps Liquidmetal and AMOLED will be ready go for the iPhone 9. Etcetera. No more “S” years, Apple. Duh.
Had Apple done as we’ve just described, they’d have sold millions more iPhone units this year and millions upon millions more each year going forward.
Apple’s raison d’être is to delight customers. “S” model “tock” year iPhones do not delight customers in the same way as new “tick” year models. Obviously. They’re still the best smartphones on the planet, but they’re just okay. A bit of a meh. We all know that “S” models exist so Apple can wring out nice margins from existing designs and tooling, not expressly to delight customers. When Apple strays from its main goal is when things get wobbly. Just delight customers, Apple, and the world will beat a path to your door.
If we didn’t work for MacDailyNews, we’d have skipped the iPhone 6s Plus and held onto our iPhone 6 Plus units with no qualms – and we’re the most rabid Day One iPhone buyers you’ll ever find.
Why have an annual iPhone upgrade program, if you’re not going to wow us annually with new iPhones?
SEE ALSO:
Analyst cuts Apple price target, says ‘iPhone 7’ doesn’t look like a must-have upgrade – April 20, 2016
Why the 2017 iPhone will be made of Liquidmetal – April 18, 2016
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s 2017 iPhone to feature new ‘all glass’ enclosure – April 18, 2016
75 percent of teens say their next phone will be an iPhone – April 13, 2016
Mossberg: Apple’s iPhone 7 had better be spectacular – March 23, 2016
Macdailynews needs to start being iCaled as well. I still remember them making fun of bigger screened android devices. And now they are stating that apple was late to the bigger screen game:/
I’m waiting on my MacBook Pro to get a touch screen. I know everyone says it sucks including Apple but the reality is, as a long time Mac user, the touch screen on my UHD Windows 10 device is so much better than using a mouse. I rarely use the mouse when I’m out and about and that’s on a Wondows machine. Just think how much better it could be if Apple would implement their touch technology from the iPad into a Mac. It would revolutionize the Mac brand again.
Go ahead and down vote this comment. I don’t care. I’m right and won’t change.
I was actually one of the few who disagreed with MDN on the larger iPhone when they shamed anyone who said they wanted a larger screen and now look at them. MDN makes it sound like they were the ones who came up with the obvious idea:/
17″ and touch screen (with lots of screen cleaning wipes) with Apple’s innovative takes would be nice in a new MBP, along with lots of RAM, battery life, CUDA GPU acceleration and SSD Tb storage.
I think mdn was very fair about that entire situation honestly. It wasn’t until the larger phones were seen to be something that a lot of people wanted that they changed their mind. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind when new information comes in that renders your previous belief moot. Just say “I was wrong” and move forward, it’s what we should do as educated humans. And from what I remember mdn did do just that, and also continued to advocate for Apple to make small phones for people who wanted them.
I have a 6s and I love it. But after picking up the SE a couple weeks ago, it does feel great in the hand, fits better in my pockets, and I agree with mdn that the iPhone 5 series design was excellent (my favorite is the 4/4s) but the 5/5s/SE is excellent.
The problem with these analysts that make these claims, and why mdn ICal’s them, is because they never admit when they’re wrong. Those that do a “mea culpa” mdn cuts slack to and takes more seriously. Just as any person who is capable of changing their mind with new and better data is taken more seriously than someone who sticks with what they believe even if it’s demonstrably wrong.
The real ZT was registered.
I have a WordPress account. The old MDN app recognized my ID and inserted it automatically when I commented. But the newish MDN app doesn’t recognize me and I must type my user ID and email in every time to comment. What a pain in the ass. How do I correct!
It’d require a massive reworking of the OS X UI, errr, MacOS (hmmmm – what’s in a likely name change?) to make it as touch friendly as it’s been click-friendly, which would have to ripple thru the whole app ecosystem, but hey, as another interaction option, I’m down…..
That sure would be nice.
Sent from my iPhone
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I was going to upgrade to iPhone 7 but this news makes me want to want for a more kickass upgrade in Windows 8, assuming the news is accurate and we all know how that can go from unofficial sources. I am still quite satisfied with my iPhone 6 Plus but my slowing iPad 3 not so much. It’s definitely more in need of an upgrade than my iPhone.
I for one can’t wait to get rid of my 6+ and get a smaller iPhone (as soon as my AT&T contract is up so I can also dump AT&T). I despise the large iPhone.
I have a bad feeling about the dump-the-physical-home-button rumors. The reason to do that—other than pure Ive-ism—would be to increase screen space. But then there will need to be some kind of new gesture to invoke a virtual home button, which exacerbates the hide-and-seek UI infestation that leaks from iOS to OS X, and degrades the OS X UI with each iteration.
Ive-ism (n): A form-over-function design philosophy that prioritizes minimalism and understatement, at the expense of major negative impact on capability and ease of use.
Preach…! As well as I heard it said in just a few words.
Touch ID is here to stay. It uses the Home Button real estate. It requires the Home Button real estate. Dump the Home Button and make it into a 24/7 touch sensitive spot on the screen and watch the battery life drop as well as no more Touch ID.
The no-more-home-button rumor is now ancient and proven worthless. We have lots of worthless rumors this week! Creativity is great, but not vacuous creativity.
I hope you’re right. But they could put the touch id on the back, say. Ergonomics? How about the SD card slot on the back of the iMac?
Concept! Thank you. As for stuff stuffed on the back of iMacs, that seems to be about aesthetics over functionality.
When I came back to Mac (no choice for a few years), I thought “save as” had simply disappeared for about six months before stumbling over the fact it’s there, but you have to invoke the option key to see it.
And yada, yada, etc. (plus all the stuff I dunno where if/it is yet, ‘cos I no longer have the patience to read books about using UI’s after decades of personal computing).
I also tried to memorize all the trackpad gestures by watching and doing the how-to vidlets multiple times (the ones that work as advertised at least, which AIN’T all of ’em on my MBA), and use about exactly none of ’em that weren’t there by Tiger ‘cos they just don’t stick.
User-friendly and intutive, my butt.
And forget iOS (and all mobile OSs). Great for media consumption, web searches and directions on the go, always having a camera, but I viscerally dislike trying to do what I consider real computing on all of ’em.
Even fb drives me nuts on the small screen although it’s mostly a scroll and click/tap thing…
I’d do away with the incremental numbering scheme and simply name the phones with a year suffix. Next September, they could offer the iPhone 18, the iPhone 18+ and the iPhone 18 SE, adopting the car manufacturer’s convention of releasing next year’s model towards the end of the current year.
There would be no pressure to significantly change the look every couple of years. Major changes could be incorporated as and when it makes sense.
Yeah! All those worthless features in the S models:
1080p 8MP camera
Siri
64-bit
M7 motion coprocessor
Dual-LED flash
TouchID
3D Touch
Always-on “Hey, Siri”
Selfie flash
Pull your head out of your ass, MDN.
Either I misunderstood or you missed the point. I thought the point was that some really great features were introduced in the S models but, because the PERCEPTION was that it’s just last year’s model with some tweaks, the S models don’t sell as well. Either way, you make the same point that MDN is making. With all those great features, why hide them behind an S when they really deserve a model of their own. Well – except always Hey, Siri. That was the biggest pain in my ass til I finally disabled the stupid thing.
You completely misunderstood and missed his point at the same time.
The S model is genius. Why in the world should they redesign the whole aesthetic every year? That’s moronic and not the kind of stupid shit Apple does. What car manufacturer redesigns the look of their cars every year?
Apple could change the naming convention to just a model year, but the success of the 6s is clear proof that MDN has their head up their ass.
And, always on “Hey, Siri” is the best thing to happen to Siri since Siri.