There may have been a handful of people still holding out hope that Apple was going to shock the world with an all-new iPhone 6, but for the vast majority of us, the 5s is exactly what we expected. As much as we'd like to see a redesigned iPhone every 12 months, it's an unrealistic timetable for a company that pays such tremendous attention to every detail.
But Apple proved once again that it doesn't have to engineer a radical case change to deliver a superior iPhone; with few external changes, the 5s is far and away the best phone Apple has ever created — and it doesn't really matter what the case looks like.
When you think about it, the iPhone 5 didn't look all that different from the 4. But it felt different — first and foremost because the screen was a half-inch larger — a sleeker, faster, lighter, thinner package that took the iPhone to a new level without needing to reinvent it.
It's not the look of the enclosure that sells phones. (If it was, the third-party case market wouldn't be so lucrative.) It's the experience. The way the fingerprint sensor effortlessly unlocks the screen. The crisp animations in iOS 7. The quality apps.
That's the way it's always been with Apple. The MacBook Pro, for example, has stayed mostly the same for the better part of a decade, but subtle modifications — battery life, trackpad gestures, retina screen, unibody case — have kept it at the top of its class. No one in the market for a laptop is going to balk at buying a MacBook Pro because it looks the same as it did last year.
So why should it be any different with the iPhone?
In an interview with the New York Times in 2003, Steve Jobs discussed how Apple approached the first ground-up redesign of its iconic iPod: "Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what (a product) looks like. People think it's this veneer — that the designers are handed a box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
And that's what sets the iPhone apart. Take away the new gold color and the fingerprint sensor, and you've still got the best phone on the market. People may knock Apple for exerting too much control over its ecosystem, but there's no other way to get the experience just right.
Just take a look at its competitors. Samsung — whose Galaxy S4 looked a whole lot like the S3, with a barely perceptible, two-tenths-of-an-inch increase in screen size — has been rolling out monthly incarnations of its Galaxy S4 to keep its flagship handset fresh. The Note 3 is wrapped in faux leather. The Moto X comes in wood.
Every manufacturer is trying to distinguish its phone from the pack with pretty packaging, but the most desirable Android phones are unadulterated, full-priced ones sold through Google Play. Samsung's TouchWiz may have a few extra gimmicky bells and whistles, and HTC Sense might bring a unique look to the home screen, but they ultimately fall flat compared to the real thing. Wrap it in whatever bow you want, but there's a reason why more than 40 percent of iPhone switchers come from Samsung and HTC.
The HTC One is a gorgeous phone. At 4.7 inches, it's not unwieldy, and its industrial, sleek metal body is something that easily could have come out of Jony Ive's laboratory.
But after a quick burst of five million in its first two months, sales slowed considerably. Despite new colors and a "mini" model, not to mention the pure Google Play edition, HTC appears headed for its first quarterly loss in history. And if Samsung didn't have so many smartphones in its arsenal, numbers would be a lot less skewed in its favor. There's nothing to compare to the pristine iPhone experience; only the Moto X, with its active display and touchless controls, sells anything resembling a true experience, a far greater selling point than its infinite array of back plates.
So, whether the iPhone 6 retains the 5's shape or introduces an entirely new form factor — and judging by the rumors of increased screen sizes, there's a good chance we're in store for something very different — it'll still be the experience that propels sales. Through seven iterations of iPhone, Apple has never tried to trick us into buying a new model with gimmicks or glitz, even making sure three-year-old models are still supported by the latest OS (minus a feature or two). Either of the two phones introduced today could have been branded as an iPhone 6, but they weren't.
Same body, better experience.
As much as our carriers want to sell us high-priced plans that coerce us into upgrading our phones every six months, the belief that we all blindly buy phones based on looks isn't exactly true. Experience is key, which is why Apple can design its phones around a two-year cycle; there will always be someone willing to pay full price to have the latest and greatest, but for the most part, the vast majority of users wouldn't be rushing out to break their contracts, even if it wasn't an "S" year.
Our iPhones look great, but that's never been the reason why we keep buying new ones. After all, how long do you really think it will be before Ive puts this argument to rest with a completely frameless iPhone?
Sent from my iPhone
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