The iPhone and iPad in 2015 (revisited)
As a vain man who enjoys being right in matters of no consequence, I was pleased to see last month’s surprise Apple announcement bearing out my prediction from January: the iPod Touch is not dead.
My prediction:
iPod Touch (6th gen): 4" / A7 / 1GB RAM / 16–64GB @ $199–299
…did fall short in a few regards, though: first, I assumed the new Touch would launch alongside the new iPhones in September, but Apple dropped this one a couple of months early. This was presumably to better align with (and cross-promote) the launch of Apple Music, a service whose existence certainly gives Apple extra motivation to keep a cheap, pocketable iOS device in their lineup, particularly one with the musical heritage of the iPod brand.
I also didn’t anticipate a 128GB model (nor a $399 price point for same) — it’s unexpected (by me, at least) for Apple to launch a “luxury” (price and capacity) model within their cheapest and most bare-bones iOS device family. Perhaps it’s an olive branch to the die-hard iPod originalists still lugging around their 2007-era 160GB iPod Classics?
Lastly, I also underestimated Apple’s processor generosity: rather than an iPhone 5S-class A7 chip, the new Touch boasts an iPhone 6-class A8 chip — almost a year old at this point, but still technically state-of-the-art in Apple terms, at least for another month or two. Of course, I say “generosity”, but it’s really about strategy: to me, the A8 chip signals that Apple intends to keep the Touch in the lineup, but not refresh it, for another two or three years — in other words, to maintain the same role that the 5th-gen Touch held from 2012 until now (a capable, lightweight device that Apple can keep selling but not spend much time or money on). An A7 chip would perhaps have been harder to maintain iOS support for over that long a period, so they opted for an A8. I expect this means the Touch’s margins are uncharacteristically tight right now, but they’ll increase with time.
Crystal-Ball Retro-Gazing
This is as good an excuse as any to revisit my other January predictions ahead of the imminent official iPhone and iPad announcements and launches. It won’t take long — none of my opinions have changed. I still hold the (very boring and predictable) belief that an A9-powered, 2GB of RAM-packing, 6S and 6S Plus will be the new flagship phones. My other prediction, however — that we will also see a new 4″ phone for the first time since 2013 — is getting some traction thanks to the arrival of the iPod Touch (although, to be fair, it’s been rumoured for a while).
That said, I haven’t read any analyses that join me in making the next logical jump: that the current 6 and 6 Plus will go away altogether, and be replaced by a $99 (subsidized) iPhone 6C (6 mini) as the sole third option in the iPhone line (followed by the 5S, as expected, in the $0-subsidized slot).
In other words, the iPhone lineup will look this (unchanged from January):
iPhone 5s: 4" / A7 / 1GB RAM / 16GB @ $0
iPhone 6 mini: 4" / A8 / 1GB RAM / 16–32GB @ $99–149 (maybe 32–64GB?)
iPhone 6s: 4.7" / A9 / 2GB RAM / 32–128GB @ $199–399
iPhone 6s Plus: 5.5" / A9 / 2GB RAM / 32–128GB @ $299–499
…and the iPad lineup will look like this (also unchanged from January):
iPad mini 2: A7 / 1GB RAM / 16GB @ $249 (+$130 for LTE)
iPad mini 3: A7 / 1GB RAM / 32–64GB @ $299–349 (+$130 for LTE)
iPad mini 4: A8 / 1GB RAM / 32–128GB @ $399–599 (+$130 for LTE)
iPad Air 2: A8X / 2GB RAM / 32–64GB @ $399–449 (+$130 for LTE)
iPad Air 3: A9X / 2GB RAM / 32–128GB @ $499–699 (+$130 for LTE)
(No: I still don’t expect to see a 12–13″ “iPad Pro” this year, or the foreseeable future — my January post makes the full argument, but the TL;DR highlights are“Nobody else is making a killing with a 12” tablet right now” and “Apple’s success in the enterprise world (such as it is) has come from making products that people love to use, not from focusing on designs that businesses would like.”)
My original post listed some specific hardware improvements, which I still think will be included, but also offered this disclaimer:
I’m sure there will be more bells and whistles that I haven’t thought of (I am, of course, no Steve Jobs / Jony Ive / Tim Cook)…
…and while I’m still no Steve / Jony / Tim, that’s mostly where my prediction-revising is going to happen today. Specifically, two such bells and/or whistles have become more likely since January; in fact, I would argue that both are inevitable. The question is merely whether they’ll be incorporated into this year’s iPhones and iPads or next year’s.
Use The Force
The concept of a “force touch” (a hard press, as opposed to a tap) is pretty new in Apple-land; it was first introduced at the unveiling of the Apple Watch less than a year ago. It’s a gesture that makes sense for the Watch, where limited screen real estate restricts the usefulness of multi-finger gestures. Interestingly, however, force touch actually made a surprise hardware debut in not one but two other products before the Watch: the latest 13″ MacBook Pro (which launched Mar. 9th) and the new MacBook (April 10th). The Apple Watch launched on April 24th, and the 15″ MacBook Pro was updated with a force touch trackpad in late May.
I think the trend is clear: force touch is in, and support for it in the iPhone and iPad is just a matter of time. There’s a chance that Apple could wait until 2016 and the iPhone 7 / iPad Air 4 (?) to roll it out, but an appearance this year, in the iPhone 6S / 6S Plus and iPad Air 3, seems more likely to me.
A Trip to The C-Side
The other hardware tweak coming soon to the iPhone and iPad is also arriving by way of the MacBook: a USB-C connector.
It feels strange to predict that Apple would give up a proprietary device connector (Lightning) for a standardized one; in the 14 years since they first entered the consumer electronics business with the original iPod, Apple has used a non-proprietary connector exactly once: on the 1st-gen iPod Shuffle in 2005. Never before, and never since.
Moreover, even on the Mac side, Apple has demonstrated a marked preference for connectors which they invent and/or control: FireWire, MagSafe, Mini DisplayPort, and most recently Thunderbolt — an Apple-Intel joint venture intended to be “one cable to rule them all”. So why would things be different now?
Well, putting aside the question of why for the moment, the fact is: they are different, and the new MacBook is proof. To the surprise of many, including me, the rumours of an Apple laptop with a single port, and a non-proprietary one at that, were proved true earlier this year, when the MacBook arrived with a single USB-C port, to handle charging, accessories, external monitors — the whole shebang.
While none of Apple’s other machines have been updated to embrace USB-C yet, I think they will, and soon — in fact, I’ll stray from iOS into Mac prediction-land and say that the next MacBook Pro and iMac, both likely arriving this year, will feature USB-C ports prominently. Perhaps not exclusively, but definitely as a core feature.
I say this partly because it seems unlikely that Apple would adopt USB-C for one model, without ever intending to introduce it on their other machines, but also because in the months since the MacBook was launched, Intel (Apple’s Thunderbolt partner) has announced that the forthcoming Thunderbolt 3 standard will in fact be based on the USB-C connector. This lets Apple have their cake and eat it, too — they (and Intel) can continue forging their own path by directing the Thunderbolt standard as they see fit, but they can do so on top of a small, versatile, non-proprietary, reversible, and high-power-capable connector.
The writing is on the wall for Lightning; USB-C is the new hotness. As with force touch, Apple may wait until 2016 to bring it to iPhone and iPad, but I predict it will make its debut with this year’s models. (Hopefully also signalling a long-overdue end to the Apple cable tax…)
Apple Watch Watch
I’ll close with a quick (and easy) non-prediction about the Apple Watch: while a spec-bump “v1.5″ release this fall might help goose Christmas sales, there won’t be any new Apple Watch models until next year. I do think that Apple will, as they did with the iPad, move from a spring release cycle to a later one for the Watch, but that won’t be until next year at the earliest. When they do, it may take the form of a double-release (like the 3rd- and 4th-gen iPads, which both launched in 2012), or the “annual” cycle may just gradually slip later and later into the year. It may not move all the way to September or October — I can see Apple not wanting to have all of their products launching at once, for logistic and fiscal reasons, but the Watch is a prime Christmas gift, and I think Apple will move its release point into at least the summer going forward.
If you agree with my predictions and want to tell me how smart I am, or if you think I’m an idiot and like arguing with strangers on the internet, come let me know on Twitter: @brookinc.
