Smartphone Design Plateaued in 2024

Sorry to be that man. Smartphone innovation has stagnated in favor of adopting synthetic intelligence. Samsung, Google, and Apple made AI the first advertising focus of every flagship cellphone in 2024. It wasn’t about svelte {hardware} or the smartphone’s capability to function a strong day by day computing system. It was about making ready customers for the AI onslaught that can inevitably drive them to replace their telephones to keep away from being siloed.

This 12 months was marred by gimmicky function add-ons and the rationalization that you simply’ll want a brand new smartphone to be appropriate with what’s to return if you wish to be on the identical web page as everybody else. Design-wise, that produced a batch of telephones that didn’t transfer the needle. The Galaxy S24 Ultra appears identical to the Galaxy S23 Ultra however with extra sq. edges. Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro doesn’t look all that completely different from the iPhone 15 Pro—you’ll be able to’t even inform them other than the bottom. As for the Google Pixel 9 Pro, it has a revamped digicam bar on the again. Nonetheless, now it simply appears just like the iPhone from the entrance, and the whole lot else concerning the Pixel lineup prioritizes Gemini over the rest.

I’m down for the thought of AI appropriately clocking in, whether or not I’m making an attempt to open up an app to get work performed or disappear into doom-scrolling. However what shall be the price of prioritizing AI-enhanced efficiency over the whole lot else? Can smartphones keep skinny if energy consumption is the precedence? Received’t they must make concessions for greater batteries and extra parts as AI turns into the primary energy draw? These are all questions floating round as we exit the 12 months into 2025.

The Meteoric Rise of AI

Samsung began 2024 proper out of the gate with Galaxy AI. It already did a few of what Google’s Gemini presupposed to do, besides this time, it additionally had a singular new function to debut alongside: Circle to Search, which turned one of the best factor to occur to Android this 12 months, even earlier than Android 15 went into developer preview. Samsung and Google mixed forces for the Galaxy S24 launch occasion to maintain the messaging honed, stating that Android would turn into a vessel for all that was occurring with AI behind the scenes.

Google adopted, peppering the 12 months with prolific Pixel Drops that enabled options like Circle to Search, Name Display, and, most just lately, Gemini extensions. When its developer convention rolled round within the spring, it was obvious that the Android platform’s trajectory centered primarily on AI. Android was not the primary occasion; as a substitute, it was centered on explaining how Gemini would enhance the consumer expertise. Probably the most important indicator of this for me was once I booted up the Gemini beta and set it as my cellphone’s default assistant. It broke a few of my Google Assistant-enabled {hardware}, just like the Roav Bolt, which I take advantage of to command my cellphone hands-free whereas driving. Fortunately, no matter Google has performed within the background since then has fastened it, although I needed to wait half the 12 months for Gemini to roll out absolutely. It was a harrowing reminder of what occurs when the corporate behind your smartphone platform all of a sudden takes a left flip towards one thing new.

A few of us had hoped that Apple can be the one to carry out on AI. Sometimes, Apple will take what Google does and “neg” it, then clarify the way it’s not attainable as a result of it could spoil the integrity of its product. However Cupertino shocked us with Apple Intelligence at WWDC, saying that it was including AI to its platforms and doing it in essentially the most Apple means: utterly rebranding what everybody else is doing and presenting it as a one-of-a-kind, bespoke new know-how, regardless that it nonetheless requires some assist from ChatGPT to sort out extra refined instructions. A minimum of the corporate stays attribute about it. On account of the title “Apple Intelligence,” the model information requires that I spell it out now and again when referring to it, which helps me keep away from the overuse of “AI.” It’s not synthetic intelligence; it’s Apple’s intelligence.

The Price of Picture Technology

Now, it’s months in spite of everything the brand new smartphones have debuted for the most recent era. We’re caught with a wealth of premium gadgets from Samsung, Google, and Apple, all centered on promoting us this new means of predictive computing. Every platform additionally has a picture rendering app for producing photos: Picture Playground on iOS and Pixel Studio on Pixel gadgets. Thanks, I suppose, however that is hardly what folks thought of after they requested for assist with pictures. As a substitute, I’d hoped to have higher lenses added to the again of those gadgets since they already price upwards of a mid-tier digital digicam. I used to be even keen to eschew thinness, figuring out the {hardware} needed to get thicker if I wished a bigger display. As a substitute, I bought a generative AI suite that makes my pictures appear like a Hallmark movie poster.

I’m not saying the cameras didn’t enhance on Samsung, Google, and Apple’s gadgets. That occurs yearly with each new smartphone; the whole lot will get a little bit higher. However this time, all three appear wholly depending on AI performing the magic to make the image. The Pixel’s complete digicam system relies on the premise that AI can mechanically do what you’ll have tried in an enhancing suite. Apple employs algorithms to make sure that any time you press the iPhone 16’s new Digital camera Management button, the picture doesn’t blur.

Right here’s the Catch-22 of picture era on the cellphone on this AI-forward period. Whereas AI and algorithms will help with battery administration, like decreasing background processes and mechanically optimizing settings based mostly on what’s occurring on display, producing photos throughout the apps takes up those self same sources, even when pulling from the cloud. A smartphone additionally wants a whopping quantity of reminiscence to carry out these duties. That’s why we now see telephones bundled with 16GB of RAM as the usual, together with the Pixel 9 Pro. All that additional {hardware} to energy AI will ultimately improve manufacturing prices. We’re already seeing increased value tags on iPhones and Android gadgets. It’s not simply the economic system. 

That’s to not say that subsequent 12 months’s telephones shall be bulbous and cumbersome. They may seemingly nonetheless arrive in the identical tempered glass chassis they got here on this 12 months. They may all have large, vibrant shows with excessive refresh charges and saturated colours. They may nonetheless match into males’s pockets. They could even be thinner than they had been subsequent 12 months, at the very least in response to rumors concerning the iPhone 17 and the Galaxy S25 Extremely. There’s even discuss that Samsung’s foldables may get greater to cater to a distinct crowd. What shall be attention-grabbing to see is how every producer manages the calls for of balancing what the business says is important for competitors and what customers need for utility. It doesn’t make the AI price it if it means piping-hot smartphones that peter out midway by the day.