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
This story originally appeared as an opinion piece on Abacus
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.”
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.