Macworld’s  Michael Simon dedicated half of a story about how wonderful the iPhone 15 was and then devoted the rest about how dull it was.

“For all that’s new, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, arguably the best smartphone ever made, is still kind of boring… while titanium is nice, it’s resulted in a pretty bland assortment of colours,” Simon sulked.

Then the writer got a bit dark, confessing that it had been like this for a while and Apple’s next phone would be the same.

“It’s been this way for a while, but the Wonderlust event seemed to drive home the point that the iPhone doesn’t have any room to wow us in its current state. And unless something major changes between now and then, the iPhone 16 launch won’t be any different,” he muttered.

Part of the problem is that Apple “holds upgrades back,” which means it waits for Android designs to make the first move and then copies them.

“Take the iPhone 6 Plus, which finally increased the screen size to over 5 inches after years of large-screen Android phones. Or the iPhone 7 Plus, which finally added a second rear camera. Or even the iPhone X, which finally ditched the home button for an “all-screen” design years after Android phones had stretched their screens.”

So, in other words, it is a final admission that Apple is not an innovator or produces significantly different phones it just copies other premium phones and waits for TAPs to hawk them. It is starting to look like even the most rabid fanboys are getting bored and quoting Catch 22.  

“And so it goes. Anyone hoping for a massive year-over-year jump of the iPhone is going to be disappointed. There have been three such changes throughout its 16-year lifespan: the iPhone 4, iPhone 6, and iPhone X. Every other update has been chiefly iterative, bring slightly larger or brighter displays, better cameras, faster processors, and design tweaks,” Simon wrote.

Just when we assume Simon was planning to collect his P45 from Macworld HR after posting, he ended the article with a standard bit of Apple arselicking.

“It’s all boring, yes, but it’s also exactly as exciting as it needs to be. Apple understands the whole world is watching whenever it unveils anything, let alone an iPhone, so it still gives people something to want in the latest model… Apple doesn’t do big and splashy with the iPhone, so no one should have expected something like Samsung’s 100X Space Zoom. Apple’s annual updates are about making the iPhone better in a practical sense, not offering gimmicky features they’re going to try once and never use again.

To paraphrase that, “I know it is boring, but Apple must know what it is doing.”

This is precisely why Apple can keep doing that to its users. It lacks a media telling it that its antics are shonky.