Sure, I’m a gadget guy who likes shiny new toys as much as the next geek, but I do try to refrain from upgrades for their own sake – admittedly with mixed success.
My biggest challenge is with the iPhone. I’ve historically described this as my least-important Apple gadget, and therefore one that I ought to upgrade least frequently. For years now, however, I’ve fallen victim to the annual camera upgrades …
My annual iPhone upgrade cycle
Ah, those innocent days of 2016! I said back then that my iPhone was my least important Apple gadget.
My MacBook Pro is definitely my primary Apple device. I use it all day in my office, and in the evening carry it to the living-room where it becomes our main Netflix device and music system.
My LTE iPad is clearly the number two device in my personal ecosystem. It goes pretty much everywhere with me, and is my go-to mobile device for everything from writing through web access to apps […]
My Apple Watch does some of the things my iPhone used to do. Checking notifications, calendar appointments, weather, quick replies to messages and so on. So my iPhone now plugs the gap between Watch and iPad […]
So the iPhone has a role in my personal Apple ecosystem, but a relatively small one – and that puts me in a rather luxurious position when it comes to deciding which phone best suits my needs.
That all ended with my purchase of the iPhone X in 2017. The camera was a key part of the upgrade for me – and that’s been the case every year since.
Yep, I bought the iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Each time, it’s been the camera capabilities which have sold me on the upgrade – and indeed, the switch to the largest size.
I said a couple of years ago that I’m now resigned to buying a new iPhone every year for that reason.
iPhone cameras have improved so dramatically over the past few years that the iPhone is now undeniably my primary camera – and that makes it a way more important device.
By 2019, it was good enough that I used it as a travel camera – albeit with reservations. I still have some reservations today, but in truth, I do now consider that the convenience-quality balancing act has swung far enough in favor of using an iPhone as my primary camera, even when travelling. And that’s true for video as well as stills.
Which feels like a retrograde step in some ways
I’m old enough to remember the days when a camera was something you bought, then held onto for a decade or more. In my case, I owned a Nikon FM for more than 25 years (and still kinda miss it, to be honest). The Nikon D3 which replaced it also lasted 10 years before I sold it, and that was only because by that stage mirrorless cameras offered remarkably similar quality in a much more compact form-factor.
From that perspective, switching to a device I replace annually to get new camera features is an incredibly retrograde step.
The cynical view
There are cynics who accuse Apple of deliberately holding back features – including camera features – from one year’s line-up to the next, to encourage an annual replacement cycle.
It’s true that Apple has been focusing more and more on recurring monthly income – the holy grail of companies which have historically seen their customers make irregular and unpredictable purchases. Services have obviously been key to this, but the iPhone Upgrade Program was Apple’s attempt to effectively turn hardware into a subscription service too.
While I haven’t joined the iUP, I pretty much operate a DIY version, buying a new iPhone outright and selling my old one for roughly half what I paid for it.
But it’s not Apple’s fault
The cynical argument has never made much sense to me: By the following year, Apple will have new-new features to help sell its latest models, so it doesn’t need to hold anything back.
It’s true that the company is very conservative when it comes to offering new camera features like denser sensors and periscope lenses, but I do generally believe that Apple wants to ensure that it can do these things right, rather than rush them to market.
In truth, the days of holding onto cameras for a great many years has changed not for cynical business reasons, because today’s cameras are hi-tech devices. Mechanical SLRs were beautiful machines, but they were effectively rendered irrelevant by the fact that modern tech was enabling very similar quality and capabilities in a much smaller device.
Smartphones are now beginning to encroach on the mirrorless camera market in much the same way. Again, that will be a very gradual process, and it will follow the same path of casual amateurs first, enthusiasts later, and pros decades after that. Even as I write, I can hear the furious sounds of commenters ridiculing the idea of smartphone cameras replacing mirrorless ones, but the idea of mirrorless replacing DSLRs was once even more ridiculous.
Top comment by Rex Videos
The tech for smartphone sensors is getting really good. Just looked at Sony's new stacked sensor for the Xperia V, can't wait to see that in the iPhone.
But the one thing I am most excited about the Vision Pro is the trickle down effect of the tech. That thing manages 12 cameras. It will be really interesting to see how some of that tech and maybe some R1 tech rolls into the iPhone cameras over the coming years.
In the meantime, I still have my mirrorless camera, but it’s my iPhone I use most often.
So yes, I’d kind of prefer not to feel trapped into an annual iPhone upgrade cycle – but the fact that I am is simply down to the pace of development in digital photography, not to an Apple plot.
See you at the Apple store in September.
Photo: Eugene Chystiakov/Unsplash
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