I think Apple has a bigger plan! Hear me out
Last night while going to bed I was just thinking about the actual reason why a Trillion (2T) dollar company like Apple is taking an environmental angle towards the controversial removal of charging bricks from the future line of iPhones.
No! It was never the environment. Yes Apple has done a lot in the last 10 years like starting an iPhone recycle program, getting rid of harmful chemicals and metallurgical processes while manufacturing the iPhone but this decision was rather unacceptable. No matter how much I juggle the possibility, I keep feeling there is more to this.
Why not USB-C
If I was in charge of the “Let’s save the environment” position at Apple, the first thing I would do is get rid of the proprietary lightning interface from the iPhones. This won’t be a ground breaking thing for Apple as they already have USB-C port on the premium iPad Pro lineup and it works just fine! Now when you buy an iPhone (regardless whether you’re upgrading from an older model or getting a new one) will be stuck with a USB-C to lightning (NOT USB -A) which cannot be used with your previous 5W (super slow) brick 🧱. It’s literally a brick. Unless you’re upgrading from the iPhone 11/11 pro, you will have to buy another 18W brick either from Apple (One more additional box) or from a third party. We will get to this in detail right after the next heading.
Why 5G?
5G is not coming to you in 2020, you have to go to 5G! I still remember the Original iPhone launching without 3G when a lot of it’s competitors like Nokia was on a 3G launching spree. But Apple didn’t care. They are and always have been perfectionists. Apple has such a user base too. Users even expect beta builds to be perfect. That’s what Apple has turned it’s users into. Nothing but the best.
The decision to go with 5G than 120Hz screen was a surprising decision from Apple.
Apple always cared about the user experience than giving you a new technology that’s not even fully implemented. At first I thought this is sort of like future proofing the iPhone 12 line up. Maybe it has something to do with stocks and shareholders. 5G is literally the only “New” feature on the iPhone 12 that could be highlighted in a Keynote. Imagine if they had gone with the 120Hz screen? What would that keynote would have looked like? We just brought back Jony Eve’s 2011 design in 2020? 5G solves 2 problems for Apple: Shareholders and Apple device cycle. 5G is designed to kill your battery.
Why did I write this in the first place… Read on
Batteries.
Apple has doubled down on the battery capacity this year
Apple phones have a running shelf life of over 4 years. I still know people comfortably using their iPhone 6/6s from 2014. That’s a big loss for Apple. It’s affecting their upgrade cycle while also one of the main reasons for shifting to the iOS ecosystem.
Now that kind of a situation can be tricky. Apple can always bundle 8gigs of RAM on their Pro lineup and future proof it for 8+ years if they want.
So how do you make people shift quicker to a newer device without slowing down their phones? You guessed it. Battery life.
Try walking into an Apple Store to change your battery. Imagine you have an iPhone with 79% of original battery capacity and you want to change the battery. Apple will not let you do that until the iPhone has experienced at least one shutdown due to the battery (which is rare). You can’t change your iPhone battery officially from Apple without them approving it first no matter what your battery life is.
So what do you do. A third party right? Yes. The thing is a third party will never have access to an original Apple battery. The one they replace will always be a grade lesser than the original thing. That will further degrade the experience and also you can never submit your phone to apple once you have done a third party repair. Who wins here? I don’t know.
Pro features are now split.
When you purchase an iPhone Pro model, you were guaranteed cutting edge features on both the smaller Pro and the Max versions. A lot of people prefer the Pro simply because of the bigger battery and not necessarily for a bigger screen. This year, you’re forced to get the better camera along with the bigger battery. What if you just want the bigger phone and don’t care about the improved camera? No way around that!
The future
Apple has a good and strong line up of ‘value for money’ phones including the new iPhone 12 mini. All we want is a bit of clarity on how we can properly get 100% of the money we spent. 5G was totally unnecessary this year. They could have totally avoided that. Apple needs to think beyond USA and see what people actually want outside their shareholder bubble. There is strong competition from Samsung and other brands like OnePlus and Xiaomi. Apple still can’t say they are the market leader outside the US, but Apple, please don’t be rattled. This is not you.
Thank you for reading.
