Smartphone innovation is dead, longer release cycles can revive it

Market penetration for the US is 70 percent iOS, 30 percent Android. The cost to even make a dent in this market is astronomical because of the refusal of the majority of Americans to change habits and adopt new things. The money is in the high end devices and both Samsung and Apple have that cornered. LG, Blackberry and others tried to bring unique form factors into the high end equation in order to create a new segment in that market. Yet they failed because most americans carry a lemming mentality. In India, the cost to enter that market is substantially less than America. Plus the fact that carriers in that market don't dictate who gets shelf space and who doesn't. Meaning people tend to buy what's in their budget and not what can I get with my trade in. Low end and mid rangers sell like hot cakes because of that. I feel that in China, things are about the same and therefore gives many Oems the ability to compete and sell. Helps that the consumer is not stuck in just one brand like in America. I might be wrong but that's how I see it. Sorry it took me this long to reply my friend.

I some very valid points in your take. Here's mine: from what I saw here in the US, especially working in wireless during that heavily innovative smartphone era, LG, HTC & Motorola all had a fighting chance; BlackBerry, not so much as they stubbornly tried to keep the physical QWERTY relevant. The 2013 LG Optimus G Pro was almost a *ahem* noteworthy rival to the Note 3, but the latter had 4K video, a better shooter & the display was more vivid, making for a better overall camera experience. Samsung also had a little more features than LG. While LG did give Samsung a run for its money for a few years, it seems like they were complacent with what they were doing & didn't feel the need to compete with Samsung.

HTC was hell bent on just being themselves & not changing much on their phones. The next thing you know, they're no longer offering phones on any of the 4 (at the time) major carriers here.

BlackBerry, they held onto having physical QWERTY's until it was too little, too late. The other OEM's got rid of them by 2012. Palm even had plans to before they were bought out.

So it was Palm in 2011, BlackBerry in I'd say 2013 (they were still around, but people weren't buying them sh¡ts), HTC in 2015 & LG in 2020. They all had their chance, they just didn't bring anything to the table that kept them in the running with Samsung & Apple.

After being screwed over by Google for patent rights & then sold to Lenovo, Motorola wisely focused on midrange phones, which has kept them slightly still relevant, but unless they start to bring something groundbreaking to the table it's only long before they meet their demise.

It will transition to a two year cycle, or a nondisclosed "cycle" when upgrade hype dies. They've had a great run, much thanks to aggressive planned obsolescence. It'll probably end soon, as the flagship models are getting quite expensive, while also losing a fair amount on resale. At the moment it's mostly kept alive by tricking contract customers that they're getting "free" upgrades when signing up for 150 buck per month contracts. That'll end fairly fast too, I think. When enough of people ends up in debt they can't handle.

The problem with the minor phone brands is that they often have short, sometimes comically short, software and/or security updates support period. That does not make them a good fit for people who like to hold on to their devices for a long period of time, even if the hardware is good enough to do so.

android has peaked, what more do you want? samsung can release os upgraded more years because they release 99% same phone every year and android is 98% the same from one year to another, i already got android 14 on my x90 pro+, it will get android 15 too but by that time i'l already buy the next mode, do i feel any difference between android 13 and 14 ? no beause only gimmicks are left to be added, is a mature operating system

We need our unlockable bootloaders back, full stop.

Being unable to unlock them and install our own updated firmware, for those who know how to perform such tasks, can be a make-or-break deal for most phones - especially in the hands of North American devs. Samsung, for example, has a history of permanently locking bootloaders from as far back as the Galaxy S5. LG similarly did the same, around the same time.

Carriers in North America have pressured manufacturers into effectively neutering the cores of our phones, removing important functions from the very root of the Android OS, all in the name of security. When our devices are no longer updated by the manufacturers, who releases security updates? Who can?

In the US and Canada, Samsung flagships require something called an "engineering kernel." These are leaked from Samsung's R&D team, and can more or less "turn off" the verification of the system image, allowing user modifications. This is flawed, because these kernels can cause heating and stability issues, and have in the past - the S7 is a good example of that, with phones becoming uncomfortably hot. Even then, you can't replace Samsung's OS, even if it's newer or recently patched, or you will brick your device and require system repair.

After the Galaxy S7, the S8 and higher rely solely on files we cannot make on our own, if their software revisions are low enough. Using a "device ID" and a token file, you can unlock the bootloader on these devices... but it requires paying an unassociated third party in amounts from 40 to over 100 dollars per device, and not upgrading the stock software past a certain point.

This can be even more dangerous, given the fact that it requires purposefully treating your Android device like a jailbroken iPhone, defeating the purpose of getting a device you can play with. Other manufacturers are starting to follow suit, and if they continue... we may lose more control over the devices we paid for than we have already.

North America killed LG? That's quite the take. How it is North America's problem that LG couldn't survive? There are tons of brands that don't sell well in North America that are still around. LG had more market share than Google, Motorola, and OnePlus in the US before they quit the game.

I was a huge fan of LG when they were around. I didn't buy their products because it was tough price to pay when it was lacking in areas like software support, camera quality, etc.

Oh, of course, the final and biggest goal of these companies is to bring profit to their shareholders. However, I remember when iPhones used to have S versions and people were buying new ones with a similar pace. I had many friends who were swearing on buying only the S releases as more refined ones, while others wanted only the fresh designs.

Personally, I think the driver of the annual upgrade cycle are the hardware manufacturers, so until there’s a new chip every year, there’ll be a new phone every year. However, as some people here mentioned and compared, laptops, cars, and some other types of products have similar destiny to current smartphones. So getting an iPhone 12 2023 edition sounds about right and when the next big update is released we get a new number, again with the year.

Anyways, I don’t want to be the marketing expert who puts this philosophy on the market :D.

I agree with you.

I completely understand the sentiment. The excitement around new smartphone releases has indeed waned due to the incremental nature of updates. A longer release cycle could definitely make each new model feel more groundbreaking and justify the cost of upgrading.