In retrospect, it seems like everyone is the first iPhone They were eager to buy, but they weren’t: In its first year, 2007, Apple sold just 1.4 million iPhones, compared to 23.18 million last year.
In the beginning some users Apple Criticism was harsh, with complaints that it would break quickly and lacked key features.
Not everyone who was against the new phone was wrong. It was incredibly expensive at the time – the cheapest model was available for $499, although today’s models cost double that. It didn’t have apps, video, or 3G, and it had very limited speeds.
But, very soon, the world was convinced not only about the iPhone, but about smartphones in general. And with this new belief in the product, life and spending patterns became completely different: assuming people would spend money on huge contracts every month, and get new versions every few years.
This routine continues even today. And as summer draws to a close, we’re in the midst of the peak of the annual cycle: Samsung and Google have introduced their new devices, and Apple is due to follow suit in a few weeks. (Rumors are about an event in California on September 10.)
Every year, these companies take to their stages and introduce a new range of new devices. But every year they start to feel a little less new: as smartphones have become so predictable, so have their annual updates.
Sometimes it feels as if every company was moving towards a dream that has now become a reality: a smart, thin and strong, with a camera on one side and a display on the other, that fills people’s entire digital lives. has happened
Consumers seem to have come to the same conclusion. In recent years, iPhone sales growth has slowed and seen occasional declines, and its latest results earlier this month saw a one percent year-over-year decline.
In 2015, when the iPhone 6 was still a new model, research firm Argus Insights said consumers were experiencing ‘upgrade aversion’. Graphs of ever-increasing sales are easy to point to as a counterpoint, but they usually show how many people are buying phones, not how happy they are while doing so.
But, this year, the big three and many other phone companies have come up with a new plan to connect people with their devices: artificial intelligence.
They showed off different versions of this technology – both in the form of software updates and new hardware – in an effort to make people’s lives easier.
For example, according to Google, the new Pixel is in the ‘Gemini’ era, a reference to the branding the company has done for its artificial intelligence devices. For example, it will use AI to organize screenshots, create entirely new images or add itself to them.
Apple decided to brand its artificial intelligence tool as ‘Apple Intelligence’, but they were based on many of the same ideas. It will summarize notifications, you’ll be able to create Memoji, and Siri will be more understandable and useful. When the new iPhone 16 arrives in a few weeks, it’s likely to have even more such Apple Intelligence-based updates.
Apple has long been reluctant to use the term artificial intelligence: in fact, it generally preferred to describe features rather than how they work, then actually coined the better term ‘machine learning’. ‘, before the word ‘AI’ was used under pressure from investors and the media, it was called by different names.
All of these companies hope that these AI features – and the phones that will bring them into our lives – will be enough to rekindle our relationship with our devices. We won’t be able to predict whether this new technology will work until the new smart phones go on sale next year and data about them is released.
According to the company, the ‘flex in and out’ display can be folded both inwards and outwards in a full 360-degree range (Image: Samsung Display)
What’s notable about many of these new features is that they’re not aimed at forcing people to spend more time with their phones – at least the marketing focus is on ensuring that they do. People should enjoy their life not devices.
While it’s hard to know why the growth in smartphone sales has stalled, it seems that people no longer think much about the impact of their mobile phones on their lives.
Device makers know we have anxiety about our relationship with our devices. For example, in 2018, both Apple and Google introduced new features to get people to use their devices less, including tracking how much time spent in apps and encouraging people to close them.
Over the years, these features have become an important part of the product, and when Apple launched its Vision Pro headset last year, a lot of its marketing was about how it would make people more connected to the world. are, rather than cut off from it.
Perhaps this headset is also a sign that a new phase of smartphone development has begun and the focus is now on future technology.
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Rival companies have tried to suggest that the AI revolution will come not from shoving artificial intelligence into our existing devices, but from creating entirely new devices.
But efforts to do so have been largely unsuccessful. Both the Humane Smart Pin and the Rabbit R1 attempted to put artificial intelligence into specific hardware and were panned by reviewers; Even the touted meta-smart glasses have yet to make it to market. Maybe it’s because artificial intelligence can’t do it yet, or maybe our smartphones are the best. Even though we complain about being bored with our phones, people aren’t particularly interested in something that can replace it.
This is perhaps the central problem facing all device makers today: if people have one complaint about their smartphones, it’s that they’re too interesting, and so aim to make them more interesting. There is both a hope and a danger in the ongoing improvement.
After all, we love our phones – but that won’t stop some of the world’s biggest companies from making us love them all over again this year, with the help of artificial intelligence.
After all, we love our phones – but some of the world’s biggest companies are using AI to try to make us fall in love with them again this year.
#Apple #Google #plan #users #fall #love #phones
2024-08-27 07:12:04
