After the release of iPhone 15, Apple began to depart from the godlike status and joined the battle of internal competition

After iPhone 15 release, Apple stepped away from its godlike status and entered internal competition

【phoneauto】In the early morning of September 13th, the Apple Autumn Product Launch, known as the “Digital Spring Festival Gala” in the tech world, was officially held. At this event, three Apple Watch smartwatches were officially unveiled, with numerous highlights. Apple CEO Tim Cook also emphasized his and the company’s efforts and goals in carbon neutrality and environmental protection. Overall, it can be said that there are many highlights. However, what netizens are most concerned about is undoubtedly the release of the iPhone 15 series models.

Although various leaked information about each generation of iPhone will fly around before their release, organizing them a little bit will give people the illusion that Apple’s “underwear” has been exposed. However, even so, the iPhone 15 series that debuted this time still brought us many surprises.

In the past, the improvement in appearance design and hardware configuration of Apple iPhones has always been relatively small, to the point where even Steve Jobs’ daughter criticized it. However, this year’s iPhone 15 can be regarded as the generation of iPhones with the greatest changes in recent years. The entire series uses flexible island screens, replaces the USB-C interface, uses periscope telephoto cameras, and is equipped with a more powerful A17 Pro chip. These moves not only bring stronger competitiveness to the Apple iPhone 15 series models, but also seem to reveal some kind of “restlessness” from Apple to the outside world…

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When Steve Jobs was still alive, Apple was a legendary company in the tech world. Over a decade ago, the iPhone completely changed the entire mobile phone industry and gave Apple a transcendent position in the smartphone market. The dividends of industry-changing success have shaped an almost irreplaceable image of Apple in the minds of consumers and helped the company achieve rapid development over the past decade.

The superior position of Apple can be seen intuitively from its products. In fact, as early as several years ago, flagship smartphones from the Android camp had already surpassed the iPhone in terms of hardware configuration and innovation. In the past year or so, technologies such as 240W super charging, over 100W wireless charging, 24GB of large RAM, and a one-inch main camera have appeared successively in Android flagship phones, while Apple’s hardware advantage is only limited to the A-series chip and Samsung’s M-base material screen.

However, even in the case of inferior configuration and significantly higher price than the competition, the sales of the iPhone have not been affected at all. In the eyes of many consumers, Android manufacturers and Apple seem to be in completely different levels. Although the hardware of the phone is not as good, the name “iPhone” itself seems to completely overshadow these shortcomings. The support from consumers has also given Apple the confidence to adopt a conservative strategy in terms of hardware.

There is an ancient Chinese saying, “sitting and eating away the mountain.” Steve Jobs, who changed the entire mobile phone industry, left a “gold mine” for Apple, but this “gold mine” is not inexhaustible. No matter how remarkable achievements a company has made, following a self-imposed restriction will only lead to decline. Especially now that the entire mobile phone industry is on the decline, the market and the industry are undergoing a new round of changes, and even if Apple and the iPhone are still in a superior position, they cannot sit still.

In terms of market performance, the performance of the iPhone in the past year has still been very strong. Especially after the release of the agile island, it significantly boosted the sales of the Pro and Pro Max models, which belong to the high-end models of the iPhone. However, as the novelty wears off, Apple’s phone sales in the second quarter of 2023 still failed to achieve a counter-trend growth, but instead, it declined along with the overall market. According to Canalys’ data, in the second quarter of 2023, the year-on-year growth rate of iPhone sales has already reached -13%, which is enough to bring Apple a sense of crisis.

While iPhone sales are declining, competitors have been rising recently. In the Android camp, Samsung’s strong performance in the foldable screen market, along with Huawei’s grand return, undoubtedly pose a challenge to Apple’s position in the market. Especially for Huawei, in the high-end smartphone market in China, Huawei will once again become a formidable opponent for Apple, which is completely foreseeable. These factors will gradually pull Apple out of its lofty “pedestal” and immerse it in the “arms race” of smartphone hardware with Android manufacturers.

In the iPhone 15 series, although Cook cannot be said to have “squeezed the toothpaste” to its limit, he has changed his conservative strategy. This situation may not necessarily be a bad thing for Apple. In this situation, making money for Apple will definitely not be as easy as before, but in the long run, the changes made by Apple itself due to the pressure it faces undoubtedly benefit the future development of the company. Moreover, from the perspective of consumers, Apple’s transformation means that we may see more powerful iPhone models in the future.

In terms of hardware configuration, there are actually many improvements in the iPhone products. Whether it is the charging system that has long been criticized by countless netizens, or the rear camera field that has adopted periscope telephoto lens this time, Apple may make major upgrades in these areas in future iPhone models. Especially after adopting a titanium alloy metal frame, the weight of the Apple iPhone 15 series has significantly reduced, and the era of “half a kilogram of fruit” has become history, which further clears the obstacles for the hardware upgrade of the iPhone 16 series.

There is no doubt about Apple’s financial strength and technological accumulation. As one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, it is unreasonable to think that Apple cannot continuously innovate and break through like Android phone manufacturers, whose strength is far weaker than Apple’s. The steady development of Apple’s iPhone in the past may have just been a matter of “timing not yet arrived”. Starting from the iPhone 15 series, with the introduction of periscope telephoto lenses and the dynamic island screens across the entire lineup, we may witness a more “radical” Apple.

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