Smart Isn't Smart Enough

Yes, the tech we have in our smartphones now is the best they’ve ever been. But are the features in your latest smartphone really revolutionary anymore, or just incremental upgrades from what came before?

IT’S OFFICIAL. THE SMARTPHONE IS THE SINGLE MOST USED DEVICE IN OUR LIVES TODAY.

We rely on it for communication, entertainment, recreation, some of us actually do work on it, and some even treat it as a status symbol.

Yet, even the most hardcore iPhone fan will have to admit – it’s been a while since anything truly revolutionary shook up the smartphone world. Take a sweeping glance into any mobile phone store, and you’ll probably be hard-pressed to tell one model from another just from the front. Let’s take a look at the four main differentiating aspects of any smartphone: Form factor, Display, Camera, and Connectivity to see where’re they at and how they could be better.

HOW DIFFERENT DO WE REALLY WANT OUR PHONE TO LOOK?

Today, one of the loudest complaints you’ll hear about the newest smartphone is that it looks too much like last year’s model. Words like “iterative” get thrown about in every review. The iPhone 11 Pro Max? Oh it’s great, but it looks the same as the iPhone XS Max! To be fair, not all of these statements are intended as criticism – the 2018 and 2019 iPhones do look very similar and it’s impossible to get away from that fact.

But you’ll also hear the average consumer lamenting that the latest kid on the block doesn’t feel exciting enough. After all, we’ve gotten so used to smartphones as slabs of glass and metal year after year that you can hardly blame people for looking for the next big thing.

That said, it’s almost easy to forget the massive changes the mobile phone has undergone over the past couple of decades. We’ve come quite a long way to get these slim and shiny pocket computers, and the 2000s alone saw us make the leap from good old Nokia feature phones to the very first iPhone.