iPhone 6: The pain of mobile phone design revealed

On September 9, the long-awaited iPhone 6 finally unveiled. Apple fans were as excited about the new iPhone as a bride unveiling her veil. Perhaps the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment. After the iPhone 6 appeared, there were far more complaints than praises. One can't help but wonder, is this the only way a mobile phone can look?

Sameness

From the product itself, iPhone 6 has few highlights. A8 processor, 8-megapixel camera, 4G LTE, iOS 8, 5.5-inch screen, these selling points that Apple mainly promotes seem to be simple upgrades of the previous generation of products. Moreover, the configurations of some domestic mobile phones are obviously higher than those of Apple. Many friends around me who have iPhone 5 and 5S are saying that 4 or 4S is the most comfortable in terms of size and feel. And then they can't help but say that it is the work of Steve Jobs! From the recent generations of Apple products, we can already see that Apple is lacking in innovation, and this lack of innovation is not only a problem faced by Apple.

Why did we buy iPhones in the first place? The emergence of iPhone, especially iPhone 4, can be said to have opened the era of smart phones. First, Apple launched the IOS system and built sensors into the body of the phone. In terms of model, it opened the APP store, allowing developers to make profits and users to get more functions. However, innovation is easy, but revolution cannot be completed in one or two years, otherwise it would not be called a revolution.

Design pain

In the non-intelligent era, every evolution of the mobile phone is reflected in the design. Looking back, no one could have imagined that the mobile phone could be transformed into a device with telephone, radio, GPS and Internet access functions in just 17 years, and it could still be easily put into the user's pocket.

When mobile phones first appeared in 1995, they had a long antenna similar to today's cordless phones. However, by 1997, the mobile phone antenna no longer existed. In 1999, mobile phones had become pocket-sized and the imaging was much better, which received a lot of praise. In 2000, the first touch screen mobile phone was launched. Although it was not as good as today's mobile phones, it also achieved a huge technological breakthrough.

With the emergence of Ericsson mobile phones from T18 to T28, the concept of Bluetooth was officially introduced to China. In 2003, Motorola's V3 exploded around the world. In addition to its fashionable design, its MP3 function was also a highlight. In 2005, it can be said that color screen mobile phones and music phones gradually penetrated into the mobile phone purchasing population.

With the emergence of Nokia's L series, Bluetooth became popular to the same extent as WeChat is today.

2006 was the year when Nokia started to have a good harvest. In this year, Nokia launched the N72, N73, 5300XM and other models, and the above three models became the street machines at that time. The N73 was the flagship product of that year.

2007 was a year of rapid development in mobile phone technology. Many new technologies were born in this year, and there were also many news that could make people think. In general, it was an extremely turbulent year. The sudden appearance of Apple's iPhone and the announcement of Google's Android platform had a shocking impact on the industry.

In 2007, not many people believed that Android would catch up with Nokia in the next three years, let alone surpass it. At that time, it was not Android that influenced Nokia but Microsoft's WM. At that time, WM system had already begun to show its edge, and its more intelligent operating platform attracted many mobile phone enthusiasts. The launch of iPhone brought mobile phones into a new touch era.

During this year, Nokia was still the focus. The launch of 6300 quickly became the street machine at the time, and the launch of N95 allowed Nokia to sit on the flagship throne.

2009 is destined to be an extraordinary year in the history of mobile phone development in China, and it is also a year worth remembering, because this year is the first year of 3G in China. Since 2009, China's 3G network has begun to be popularized, this year mainstream camera phones have entered the 10 million pixel level, this year Android system began to rise.

However, in the era of smart phones, the designs of our mobile phones are similar, that is, the materials and sizes are slightly different. The imagination left for us in industrial design is getting smaller and smaller. The current innovation is the innovation in materials, such as sapphire glass or aviation aluminum.

Configuration upgrade pain

Smartphone manufacturers have been trying to attract consumers with higher configurations. The 20 million pixels are higher than the entry-level SLR. In terms of functions, they also integrate radio, flashlight, game console, MP3, navigation and other functions. Such saturated functions and configurations seem to indicate that it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract attention by relying on higher configurations.

Power consumption, the pain of battery

Today's mobile phones have 4 or 8 cores, and the efficiency of the processor is close to that of PCs. However, as the screen size of mobile phones increases, the functions of mobile phones are becoming more and more similar to those of PCs. But the question is whether we need this? At present, no matter how smartphones change, batteries and power consumption are always issues that cannot be avoided. When we add graphics processing or other technologies, power consumption and battery life seem to become the biggest problems.

In my opinion, the current mobile phone functions are sufficient to meet the requirements of general users. More advanced functions and more powerful configurations do not seem to be very attractive.

This is even more true for the Android camp. Therefore, continuing to compete on configuration does not seem to be a good idea or a path to sustainable development. We must find new blue oceans to seek breakthroughs.

Platformization

Although the current smart hardware market is extremely fragmented, it will definitely become an irresistible mainstream. Platformization is also what smart devices urgently need.

It can be said that smart devices and smartphone platform services complement each other. With the development of smart platform services, the fragmentation of smart devices has been solved.

In the future, the competitive points of mobile phone manufacturers should not be limited to configuration and functions. Platformization and more humanized services are the direction of their efforts.