Mobile phones have been stagnant for five years when it comes to innovation. There is an explanation

Mobile phones have not innovated for years. Or, at least, not too much. There was a time when jumping from one generation to another was a box of surprises. New designs, completely new features, and crazy innovations to surprise the public iteration after iteration.

For a few years now, the meme of Smithers and the doll with the new hat has become more true than ever. The new phone will be the same as last year, with a little more power, a slightly better camera and AI features that we may never use. All this has a reason for being.

The times of innovating are (almost) over. There was a time when manufacturers were not afraid to break the mold to create different devices. Samsung did it with the curved screen of the Galaxy Round, LG had a G Flex 2 self-healing, and Xiaomi dared with pop-up cameras from the body with the 9T Pro.

There was a time when manufacturers dared to innovate.

A few years ago, jumping from one generation to the next meant a significant leap. Going from a Galaxy S2 to an S4 was a brutal change. The same thing happened between LG G3 and the G5. It is true that the brands were taking some blind steps, completely changing the phone from one generation to another: there was not much consistency, but there were significant changes.

Apple, which has always moved at its own pace, was one of the few that continued to maintain designs and advance specifications discreetly, without disruptive changes between generations. On Android, every year was an adventure.

Being groundbreaking doesn’t work. The most innovative ones have not fared too well. LG ended up closing its mobile divisionNokia stopped inventing and started selling traditional, simple mobile phones under the HMD umbrella, and major manufacturers like Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei began to make iterations that were increasingly similar to each other.

No matter how many critical voices are heard against continuity, continuity works. Or so the data says. If we look at the list of best-selling devices in the world We found that, year after year, the iPhone and Galaxy (both mid-range and high-end) are the ones that repeat the podium year after year.

Those phones that precisely “innovate” the least are the ones that sell the most.

A path to refinement. The image you see above is a good example: it is even difficult to distinguish last year’s model from the new model. Manufacturers have changed the philosophy: if something works, don’t touch it. For approximately four years now, improvements between generations have been slight.

Changes in the camera, small refinements in the design, updated processor, and some technologies such as WiFi, Bluetooth or USB that change protocols. The great innovations of these years have been camera buttons, longer telephoto lenses and the arrival of AI (which, no matter how much it is sold as a gimmick, plays a very secondary role in daily use).

And it’s not a negative thing.. Smartphones are at a point of maximum maturity. So much so that it is difficult to think about how to improve them.

• Screens: we have as much resolution as practically that of a television. Very high peak brightnessand calibrations worthy of studio monitors. The big leaps will involve the implementation of matte screens and better drivers so that these panels are increasingly more efficient.
• Batteries: 2025 has been the key year for the implementation of carbon-silicon, bringing with it more capacity in a smaller size. 6,000 and 7,000mAh batteries are a realityguaranteeing two days of full use in many cases. There is still a way to go, but the great leap has already been made.
• Microprocessors: today mobile phones they are so powerful That, in many cases, this is a problem. We have not reached peak power, but we are at a point where a phone is capable of playing triple A games as if it were a console.
• Cameras: It is one of the points where there is the most room for improvement, but this does not happen through the hardware, but through the software.
• Formats: Manufacturers want to break with traditional formats, and that is why they are betting on form factors such as folding ones. These grow slowly, but they represent just 1% of total sales. Again, innovation does not sweep.

We are far from the real peak. We have been thinking for years that we are approaching the peak smartphoneto that point of no return where it will be practically impossible to improve what we already have. We are right in our approach: progress is becoming less and less and, to appreciate it, it is necessary to be more and more thorough.

Despite this, progress is present and, although they are minor changes, they are there. Your 2025 mobile has a processor that allows it to run the applications with the best performance. The quality of its microphones is getting better and better, its fast charging system is very far from those 2/3 hours necessary to charge your old phone and, in short, if we look back 3 or 4 years, the advances are still present, for small as they seem.

Image | Xataka

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