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Chinese smartphone makers focus on gimmicks, not innovation

You may think the iPhone 11 is boring, but innovation is hard to find in the smartphone sector

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This story originally appeared as an opinion piece on Abacus

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There’s a narrative out there that you’ve probably seen before. It popped up again in the wake of Apple’s (unsurprising) new iPhone announcements: Apple isn’t a leader anymore, and the real innovation is coming from China.

It’s a narrative that I can’t disagree with more.

As an iPhone owner, you’ll call me biased. Sure. I probably am! But at the same time, as an iPhone owner, at no point do I look at any of the wild handset announcements from China and go: “Damn. Apple’s really falling behind here.”

I’m not going to argue that this is innovative. It’s good! But it’s not innovative. (Picture: Apple)
I’m not going to argue that this is innovative. It’s good! But it’s not innovative. (Picture: Apple)
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To be clear, I have no interest in arguing that the iPhone 11 Pro is somehow a towering achievement in innovation. It’s not. It’s a pretty standard upgrade to a very good phone, but it’s not an innovation.

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