Has the iPhone’s progress slowed down?

Apple launches new iPhones every year. And with every passing year, they’re evolving less and less. At least, that’s what you might think when browsing user comments. They say stuff like, «Where’s the innovation?», or «Boring!», or «The only new thing is the colour».

I, too, feel like the iPhone’s progress has slowed. Improvements made in recent years seem less significant than before. But is that actually true? In a bid to find out, I’ve attempted to capture the iPhone’s progress in cold, hard stats.

18 generations, 4 criteria, 1 subjective judge

I’ve been digging through countless old reviews and comparisons on tech portals, and have taken a trip down memory lane. My findings form my basis for rating all 18 iPhone generations on how much they progressed in relation to their predecessors. I’ve broken it down into four categories:

1. Design: case, feel, aesthetic
2. User experience: display, battery, speed, ease of use
3. Camera: photo quality, features, versatility
4. Features: new features

In each category, I’ve awarded a progress score for each generation:

0 = No or almost no progress
1 = A little progress
2 = Moderate progress
3 = Major progress
Most years, reviewers were pretty much unanimous in their verdicts. It goes without saying that my ratings are still subjective. Whether progress can be considered «slight» or «moderate» is a matter of opinion. As I’m limited in terms of space, I can’t give a justification for every verdict. If you want to know the reasoning behind a specific score, or if you disagree, let me know in the comments.

Oh, and here’s one final caveat: I’ve only taken progress between Apple’s premium models into account. Whether the iPhones were better or worse than smartphones made by other manufacturers doesn’t factor into this comparison.

Design: the dry spells are getting longer

For eight generations, Apple gave the iPhone a new case every second year. Oftentimes, they looked very different from the previous model. The iPhone 4 signified the first big leap forward. It was suddenly made of aluminium and steel instead of plastic. Suddenly angular instead of round. Apple only returned to rounded cases when it launched the iPhone 6.

A revolution similar to the iPhone 4 didn’t emerge until the iPhone X. Apple gave it a huge display, got rid of the home button and returned to the glass back – a basic design principle that’s survived to this day. The iPhone 12 Pro finally brought back the angular design. Since then, not much has changed.

The design curve reveals a slowdown in development. Mind you, «development» doesn’t necessarily mean «improvement» – different isn’t always better. The trend towards ever-larger smartphones, for example, is controversial. What’s more, older designs with rounded edges have just as many fans as today’s angular cases do.

User experience: the little things add up

The user experience score curve is more linear than the design one. Practically every iPhone has been better than its predecessor in this respect. Sometimes new handsets had increased battery life, sometimes the display was sharper, sometimes they were more intuitive to use. The only outlier in my analysis is the iPhone 12 Pro. Besides its camera, it launched with almost no improvements.

The biggest leaps were made early on. Mostly because the devices still had a lot of room for improvement. There were bottlenecks that technological progress managed to eliminate. For instance, the addition of a faster chip alone made the iPhone 3GS feel much more responsive than its predecessor. These days, chips are continuing to get faster. The thing is, most people don’t notice the change when using their phones day to day.

Even so, minor improvements do add up. You notice them when you compare an iPhone with a device that dates back several generations. Take the iPhone 12 Pro, for example. Compared to, say, the iPhone 15 Pro, it doesn’t have a 120 Hz display, its battery life is significantly worse, the antenna is poorer and it doesn’t have an Action Button. Considered in a vacuum, these are minor improvements. Together, however, they make a noticeable difference.

Camera: from gimmick to market dominance

It’s a similar story when it comes to the camera. The first iPhone took such pitiful photos that it was obvious improvements would come in the years that followed. The iPhone 4’s resolution was increased to five megapixels, while the release of the iPhone 4S saw it rise to eight megapixels. After that, development slowed down for a few years. An increase to 12-megapixel resolution only came with the launch of the iPhone 6S.

Things stayed that way for a long time. Aside from the resolution, however, other new things were gradually added over time. These developments included optical image stabilisation (iPhone 6 Plus), the telephoto camera (iPhone 7 Plus) and the ultra-wide-angle camera (iPhone 11 Pro). The sensors have also been continuously improved, as have the editing and video features.

Things have slowed down noticeably since the iPhone 11 Pro. The change of pace is connected to a stagnation in sensor technology – something that affects not only smartphones, but the entire camera industry. It’s become increasingly difficult to make further improvements to the hardware. As a result, much of the progress made in recent years has been on the software side. Even so, it’s been significant enough to downgrade «real» cameras to lifestyle products. These days, your average consumer’s happy enough with iPhone images.

Features: innovations becoming more difficult

What surprised me most on my fact-finding mission was discovering just how few new features have been introduced each year. That’s even the case when you look at the old models. Most of the time, each new handset only had one new feature worth mentioning: Siri (iPhone 4S), Touch ID (iPhone 5S), NFC (iPhone 6), Dynamic Island (iPhone 14 Pro).

The iPhone 16 Pro comes with Apple Intelligence, a major new software feature – but not at launch and not everywhere. That’s why I’ve only awarded it one point. The iPhone 3G (GPS and 3G) and the iPhone X (wireless charging and FaceID) are the only models I’ve given two points. After that, there was a lull in feature development lasting several years.

There’s been an undeniable lack of new features in recent years. This is hardly surprising given the iPhone (just like other smartphones) has been the biggest technological miracle for several generations. We’re all walking round with computers in our pockets that give us access to the entire internet. We can navigate, pay for stuff, watch videos, make phone calls and take photos – all with a 200-gramme device that hardly needs any power. What more do we want?

Total scores: slight progress is nothing new

To finish off, I’ve added up the four scores for each year. The chart below reveals how «innovative» each new model was overall. Viewed as a whole, three things stand out:

1. Only three iPhones constituted major leaps: the 2G, 4 and X.
2. Progress has slowed over the years.
3. Some early iPhones were also released without many new developments.

So has the evolution of the iPhone slowed down? Yes. But much less dramatically than I thought. As far back as ten years ago, reviews would always come to the same conclusion: «It’s hardly worth upgrading from the previous model.» The similarity between old reviews and current ones is striking.

To finish off, here’s an overview of the iPhone’s cumulative progress:

The truth: somewhere between a real trend and nostalgia

So where does the widespread opinion that Apple’s smartphones used to be much more innovative come from? Some of it can be backed up with facts. But nostalgia might also play a part in things. After all, we selectively remember good things and block out the negative. Plus, our brain compresses long periods of time into short ones. This effect intensifies the further back your memory goes.

When we think of the iPhones of yesteryear, only fragments appear in our memories. For me, it’s the iPhone 2G, the iPhone 5 and the iPhone X that come to mind. The way I recall it, these three devices appeared within a few years of each other and signified huge progress. In reality, there’s a decade and eight (!) other iPhones in between the 2G and the X. Each one signified a few small steps that add up to the technological leaps I remember.

The fact that the pace of change is slow stopped being a real problem ages ago. Especially since the iPhone’s been great on the whole for many years now. My analysis confirms what many people already know intuitively: you could skip several generations without missing out on much. If you buy a new device more often than that, you’re simply indulging in an expensive luxury.