For the longest time ever, every iPhone that Apple released was more or less a guaranteed hit, with each version outselling its predecessor by a huge margin. This is at least until this year where for the first time ever, Apple experienced a decline in iPhone sales. Of course the company still sold millions of devices, but it did seem to indicate the future of iPhone sales.
So much so that according to a report from Nikkei (via Mac World), the Cupertino company is said to be considering moving the iPhone refresh cycle to once every 3 years. Apparently this is due to the lack of major advances in smartphone hardware, and that the reason to upgrade every year becomes less.
This makes sense as every year what we’re seeing is essentially phones getting faster with support for more RAM, better power efficiency, better cameras, but other than that nothing particularly major has come up. In fact this year’s iPhone seems to be rather lackluster in its rumored specs, with its most exciting feature probably being a possible dual lens setup.
Next year’s iPhone is already being more look-forwarded to as it is said to sport a brand new all-glass design, and edgeless display, the removal of the home button, and also the move to OLED screens. In any case take it with a grain of salt for now, but with 2016 and 2017’s iPhones already rumored, this 3 year refresh cycle doesn’t look like it will be kicking off anytime soon.
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