The truth is that the provenance of smartphone design hasn’t mattered for a very long time. The iPhone 4 was the last major leap forward from the original iPhone. Since then, we’ve watched years of cross-copying and iterating from every hardware manufacturer. Where we can expect to see innovative design is in software–and in particular, how tech companies are embedding AI in their products (even if it’s largely been through voice assistants that don’t seem all that smart, for now). Meanwhile, the technology underlying all smartphones will keep iteratively evolving, with faster processors and cameras that are incrementally better than the previous model. Just like computers did before smartphones. Or fridges. Or cars. Or any other invention that changed the world.
It isn’t just the sheer quantity of apps that is threatening to drown our poor smartphones either. Most of them have ballooned in size becoming bloated messes, filled with feature after feature that you probably don’t use, and taking up far too much space and clogging up your phone in the process.
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But it doesn’t have to be this way. The new push towards lite apps can help – stripped-down versions of your favourite apps that bring the experience back to what made you download it in the first place. Gone are the needless features and with them so too are the countless megabytes of precious storage space they took up. As a consequence they launch way faster and often simply work better.
Gone are the narrow product tables and metal shelving that were once built into the store’s walls. In their place are new fixtures that will look familiar to anyone who’s visited a modern Apple store recently. Wood shelving and displays known as Avenues now line the sales area. These displays change seasonly and highlight current areas of Apple’s interest. A splash of greenery provides a quieter place to sit for a moment.
As directors like Steven Soderbergh and Sean Baker have shown, you can conjure movie magic with an iPhone.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature for administrators in groups. Similar to a feature offered by Telegram, this gives administrators the ability to be the only users in a group capable of sending messages.
The new page touts the fact that the company is supporting over 1.7 million jobs with the tech giant spending €10 billion last year alone. Apple also states that Europe-based App Store developers have earned over €20 billion in App Store sales worldwide saying that ‘this is only the beginning’.
If you want see where streaming audio is headed, the current state of streaming video is a good place to start. The business models, content trends, and user features on video platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are increasingly making their way to podcast platforms like CastBox and Stitcher.