Are We Suffering From Phone Apathy?

No, I’m not going to advertise the new iPhone X. I’m not even into it myself, and I’m usually pretty techy. This year there’s been a noticeable rise in concerns that people aren’t upgrading their phones as mindlessly and rapidly as they used to; there are smartphone users out there who, although they use them every day, haven’t upgraded their phones in five years. When the iPhone 6 family launched, that would have been unthinkable, especially among young people. So the big question here is – why don’t people want new phones these days?

Well, one major reason for most people is (surprise!) money. Smartphones from the major companies have been getting ever pricier as they’ve become more ‘deluxe’ – we’ve all seen and uncomfortably laughed off the iPhone X’s base price of £999. I imagine a handful of brave souls were like me, and dared to venture beyond that figure to discover that the phone can set you back as much as £1,149. Clearly, no ordinary person could fork out a thousand pounds in one go – they would get a contract and pay it off slowly. Except even the contracts are ludicrously expensive – the mobile network Three will furnish you with one for £117 a month (even The Telegraph were so shocked they messed up the headline), and its competitors aren’t much better. This isn’t a phone for everyone; I assume it’s safe to say you wouldn’t just be annoyed if you cracked this phone’s screen. It’s worth noting that the previous two generations of iPhone (that is to say the 6S and 7 along with their respective Plus models) are individually outselling the iPhone 8 family significantly – there are many possible reasons for this, however I imagine a major factor is still price. A two-year old smartphone will be much cheaper than a new one, and frankly the 6S is still a very viable phone. 

It isn’t just money, though – things are never so simple when people are involved. As mentioned at the start of the piece, there are those who haven’t upgraded in half a decade, and still are unwilling to do so despite their devices serving well beyond their expected lifespan. Dixons Carphone has put it down to what it calls “incremental” innovation in recent models, despite the rocketing costs. From what they’re seeing, new phone handsets simply aren’t making big waves anymore – we’re having to wait several generations before it’s worth contemplating an upgrade. It’s similar to home computers in a way; PCs and laptops from, say, five years ago still do everything we need them to do now (such as write articles about how we don’t need to upgrade devices anymore) and the more modern offerings provide very little in the way of benefit for a consumer. As mentioned above, many customers are turning to previous generations to upgrade their phones – an iPhone 5 user isn’t necessarily looking into buying an iPhone 8 or X but a 6S or 7. If these models can do everything a customer needs, what’s the point of the newer models? There aren’t any eye-catching upgrades around at the minute, despite the big push from Apple to direct public attention to its Face ID feature on the X (which it may now be regretting). The lack of innovation has even put off some of the most diehard Apple fans – Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak, normally a staple of iPhone launch day queues, won’t be upgrading to the X over concerns that it will be ‘too similar’ to the 8, as well as technical issues.

I’m not against upgrading. The issue is in determining when an upgrade is worth it. It’s different for every person, and consequently these individual desires collate into a massive obstacle for companies. They need to make a game-changing leap with every new generation of phones to ensure that they’ll be received enthusiastically on launch day, and that’s getting harder to achieve every year. So, should companies like Apple and Samsung up their games, even if that means fewer announcements per year? Or should we as consumers lower our expectations? 

• phones
• technology