It’s time for the common iPhone to shine

Folks aren’t shopping for telephones like they used to, so Apple’s actually gotta put the squeeze on us each improve cycle. And just lately, that has meant pushing extra folks towards the Professional iPhone, relatively than the common one. Yearly for the previous few years, Apple has withheld increasingly more options for its Professional telephones, deliver them right down to the usual iPhone at a drip. However that could be altering this yr, if the rumors are true, and to that I say: it’s about rattling time.

Up to now couple of cycles solely the “Professional” fashions have gotten the newest Bionic chipset. That doesn’t simply imply that the Professional fashions are extra highly effective — it additionally signifies that the common iPhone gained’t be eligible for a similar characteristic updates that the Professional fashions recover from the approaching years. The iPhone 15 Professional fashions are eligible for Apple Intelligence whereas the usual fashions aren’t.

This yr might look completely different. Rumors counsel that the entire iPhone 16 sequence would get an A18 chipset, although Apple may still reserve probably the most highly effective model for the 16 Professional fashions. Even when that’s the case, it’s very doubtless that the entire iPhone 16 fashions will be capable to run Apple Intelligence, which Apple is hoping shall be an enormous improve driver.

Different rumors additionally level out that the common iPhone would possibly get not one however two new buttons this yr: the motion button launched on final yr’s Professional fashions and the seize button we’re anticipating to see on the iPhone 16. Extra buttons! On this economic system! It’s nonetheless attainable that the seize button shall be a Professional-only characteristic, however I feel that may be an actual disgrace. You don’t have to be an expert cellphone person (what even is that) to understand a devoted shutter button.

By all accounts, this could possibly be a yr the place the common iPhone catches up slightly to the Professional, and that’s music to my ears. Personally, I’d like to see Apple do much more for the common iPhone, beginning with the dang display screen refresh charge. It’s 2024 and Apple nonetheless prices $799 for a cellphone with a 60Hz display screen. That’s probably going to hold true for one more yr too. Appears fairly shabby when Android telephones up and down the price range spectrum supply 120Hz shows.

On the very least, it seems like Apple is about to deliver slightly extra steadiness again with the iPhone 16 sequence. I feel that’s the way it must be — the Professional iPhone ought to really feel such as you’re getting one thing further, not being cornered into paying extra for an important characteristic. All Apple has to do is deliver again the Mini; then all of my hopes and desires for the common iPhone will come true. I can dream, proper?