[This article contains the opinion of the author, Daniel Austin and not necessarily those of AmongTech. ] When Apple first released the iPhone it was ahead of the curb by a mile. It continued for a while until about 2010 when Samsung took the crown. They were truly “The Next Big Thing.” They added hardware and software that absolutely killed Apple’s features. Apple tried playing hard to get until WWDC 2014 where they tried to catch up and it’s been a long time coming.
First they need is upgraded hardware. They started to fall when the LG Optimus 2X came out as the first dual core phone. It was released at the beginning of 2011 when the iPhone 4 with its single core A4 chip was already aging. It wasn’t until late 2011 when Apple homebrewed the dual core A5 processor that brought them in the lead again. It was the new standard because it was a dual core 800MHz processor that made the iPhone 4S performed flawlessly. Android had to combat it with the next thing a quad core processor which debuted with the LG Optimus 4X. When quad core became the new standard for flagships Apple introduced “The biggest thing to happen to iPhone since iPhone.” The iPhone 5 with its A6 processor could run with the big boys until the octocore started to appear. It made the iPhone 5 and its A6 processor a jalopy surrounded by Ferraris.
Apple found their solution and it was the A7 chip. They saw it as killing two birds with one stone. The A7 had a lot of things going for it like the first 64 bit chip in a smartphone and its compliance the M7 coprocessor. The A7 chip killed everything in its path including the flagship quad core and octocore devices.
This year is a new beginning for Apple. Reports say that the A8 processor with be a quad core 64 bit processor clocked at 2 GHz. Now that’s faster than most office computers. Apple will set a new standard, but for how long? With the Snapdragon 808 reporting to incorporate 64 bit architecture Apple will no longer have the fastest device or title as the 64bit phone on the market. I’m sure Apple is in no spec race once the A8 chip comes out. Plus they are still perfecting the 64bit quality. They need to optimize the A8 chip so it doesn’t drain the battery as fast as the A7 did.
Along with the inside the outside needs to be updated. I’m pretty sure that everyone in the tech community has heard about the rumor that Apple will be upgrading their current screen from 4 inches diagonal to 4.7 and 5.5 inches with a new resolution as well. I know the reason I switched to Android was for the screen. I never had a laptop to work on the go so I had to use my iPhone 5 and the screen wasn’t suitable for my needs. I bought the Galaxy Note 3 and it was perfect…for a while. The only thing that kept me from using it as my daily driver was for the fact that Samsung bloated the software like a tick sucking off an 800 pound grizzly bear. After time it slowly became slow and laggy were I had to reboot every couple of weeks. Once I had to reset it to factory conditions and after about 7 months with the device I gave up and dug my iPhone 5 out of my dresser. Beside the screen being behind new standards iPhone’s rarely lagged or froze. If it did, it was easily fixed with a minor software update.
Another thing Apple needs is true multitasking. The newer series of Samsung phones, phablets and tablets have this feature where they can have up to four apps running side by side. Of course in able to do this Apple needs to add more RAM so that the phone doesn’t freeze and crash. Most, if not all androids have 2GB of RAM with 3GB becoming the new standard. With Apple introducing new features and developer options at WWDC 2014 they would have no choice but bump up the specs. There were rumors that Apple was going to add split screen multitasking to the iPad. Sadly with it being the only device to feature it.
By the time WWDC ended last month and they didn’t reveal any other software feature some took the measure of dissecting iOS 8 and found inside the lines of code that the feature was there. Some say that there are a lot little things that make iOS 8 unique and not just a reverb of iOS 8 that Apple didn’t have time to cover at WWDC.
Apple is a wonderful innovative company that has had a rough recent history. I’m no fanboy but they do listen to customers even if it’s a couple of years late; and in my opinion for Apple to not become the next RIM they should at least take into consideration some of those features above and integrate them into their next OS if not a software update.
