The Last iPhone

It seems Apple has plateaued. iPhone 15 is identical to iPhone 14. Just has a different (mandated by the EU) charging connector. Everything else is the same. I mean of course there are changes / improvements, but probably none of them are noticeable for the users.

Not to discredit Apple's work: the insane price aside, this is probably the finest phone ever made. Thanks to the USB-C connector, after 15 years it will likely be my first iPhone. And maybe the last one? I am replacing the 6-years old Blackberry, which has aged beyond hope. Still works, but is slow by today's standards and - my biggest complaint now - is not waterproof.

But it seems all that could have been invented in a phone, has been invented. Of course you can start adding foldable screens and other fancy concepts, but it is disputable they make the device better (which is very subjective). The #1 feature i want from a phone is that it is robust, always working. Foldables are not as robust as simple one-piece-brick phones. Waterproof construction of course helps the device to be way more robust. That also includes the cameras (an essential feature of every phone today), which simply after several years do not become dirty from the inside, decreasing the quality of photos.

What may be surprising to many, my personal analysis indicates some aspects of iOS make it a better productivity tool (contradictory to the common wisdom that iPhones are more for leisure and Androids for professional work). In particular some of my professional workflow today includes working a lot with images, picking them up from different sources, commenting and posting elsewhere.  iOS really shines in that area - from object lifting to the Freeform app to how copy/pasting of pictures is supported across all iOS apps. Then there is the super useful WiFi calling feature, which generally is available on Android too, but my carrier supports it only on iOS.