Why can not Apple reconcile its dominance with the iPhone?

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In the annual and largely predictable unveiling of the new product introduced by Apple this week in Cupertino, only 19 minutes of the scene were devoted to what is arguably one of the company's most innovative products, the Apple Watch . The talk time on the Watch Series 5 was less than half of that spent on new versions of the iPhone 11, which – since there were three handsets to describe – is perhaps understandable .

Of course, the iPhone is also the flagship product of the company, the favorite child of Apple. It can not do any harm. However, that has not happened as well in recent times. In May, it had been announced that iPhone sales had fallen at a record pace, an enormous drop of 17% over the same period of the previous year, reaching $ 31 billion. In fact, at the end of July, Canalys technology analysts revealed that, for a third consecutive quarter, iPhone sales declined, with year-over-year deliveries down 13% to 36 million iPhone delivered in the second quarter of 2019.

The fortune of the Guard could not be more different. In the second quarter of 2018, according to Asymco 's analyst, Horace Dediu, Apple had transferred more than 46 million units. Apple does not publish figures on watch sales, but LG, which manufactures all of Apple's laptop screens, confirmed it shipped smart surveillance panels of $ 10.64 million in 2017 representing 41.4 % of the market.

Then, posting phenomenal growth, Apple Watch has apparently accounted for half of total smartwatch sales of 45 million in 2018. Half. To put these numbers even more in perspective, Fitbit came in second, very distant, with 5.5 million units in 2018, Samsung in third place with 5.3 million, and then Garmin with 3.2 million. In addition, Counterpoint estimates that Apple Watch sales increased 49 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of this year.

To put it plainly, Apple is at the top of the smartwatch industry. In fact, as it is expected to sell more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry this year, it could be said that it is at the top of the watchmaking world.

If you read our reviews of different versions of the watch, you will see a steady increase in score and praise. Each improved version on the last, with updated key features or missing features added. Increased speed, tightness, eSIM and ECG. Now, with the new 5 series, the watch corrects the bugbear on a black screen with a Retina display "always active", so you do not lift the wrist or tap on the watch face to check the time.

Anyone who has ever worn an Apple Watch watch knows that it's almost impossible to check the surreptitious hour on one to four versions. It has almost become acceptable for a Watch user to look down at mid-conversation or mid-meeting to check if he's portable, forgetting the fact that it's been happening. A mechanical timepiece, such behavior would be considered discourteous. Now you can be discreetly discreet. What's more, Apple has corrected this design flaw while still maintaining the 18-hour battery life throughout the day, a winning feature of the first model.

If Tuesday's Watch 5 news did not talk about Fitbit, Samsung and Garmin in their corporate beer, then the announcement of lowering the price of its Series 3 watch, which will benefit from all the new features of Watch OS6, already has waterproofing and cell capacity, at just £ 199, has surely had to cause water works. This new price roughly matches its smartwatch competitors who have been selling in this price range for years, at ease as they operated below the Apple price premium.

"I think Apple Watch is one of those products for which Apple has not been the first to market this category, but has been able to define this one and come up with a powerful formula." says Carolina Milanesi, smartphone analyst at Creative Strategies. "It's worth noting that by talking about innovation, Apple Watch is not often a product considered. I'm sure Fitbit is very concerned because switching from watch to watch groups has been their way to an average selling price and higher incomes. "

Of course, the iPhone still sells a lot more units than the Watch, with the "budget" of the iPhone XR surpassing its more expensive siblings with 47 million units launched from October 2018 to June 2019. The iPhone XS and XS Max were shipped at 20 and 28 m respectively. But the fall in Apple's cash cow growth is probably due to the fact that the iPhone is not as innovative, as revolutionary as it was (or shows it now), and users do not want not perform an upgrade.

Take the new 11 Plus. At the back of the phone, there are three cameras: a wide, a telephoto lens and an ultra-wide lens. All three work with the A13 chip of the phone to assemble images captured by all cameras. Impressive, certainly, but Huawei introduced the configuration of the triple camera with a very wide angle lens on the Mate 20 series in October 2018. Samsung then launched its Galaxy S10 and Note 10 in February and August of this year.

Apple has also announced that it will ship the Pros (not the standard 11) with an 18W fast charger. Android phones are charging fast charge at 15W, 30W and 45W for years. The Huawei P30 Pro can easily last two days of regular use, which gives the battery an improved lifetime of 1 to 5 hours (depending on the flavor) on the new iPhones. And that's not to mention the lack of 5G iPhones.

With its new iPhones, Apple follows the high end of the market and does not dominate. Which raises the question, why can not Apple imitate its success, its market share and the innovation of the watch with iPhone?

Well, the smartwatch market compared to the smartphone is less mature, which obviously gives Apple the opportunity to innovate, but this advantage then applies to all players in the market of portable clothing. Neil Shah, director of research at Counterpoint Research, believes that one of the main reasons is that many of Apple's smartphone components come from third parties.

"For smartphones, while Apple is fairly vertically integrated, the majority of hardware innovations come from partners such as Sony for cameras, Samsung and LG for screens, Western Digital or SK Hynix for memory or Qualcomm for cell technology, most rivals, "he says. "The only space left to innovate and differentiate is found in iOS, processors and the user experience – it's there that Apple's is differentiated, but its rivals are the only ones left to innovate and differentiate. have caught up and even passed. "

"That's, of course, one of the reasons why Apple is focusing on privacy, key differentiator, a major advantage over the open Android camp," Shah said. "Apple is good at integrating technologies and marketing it better than its competitors, so it is not an innovator, but with Watch, Apple has acquired companies to adapt wrist innovation and differentiate itself from the essential features needed to make of the watch a significant health sensor. "

There is, however, good news for iPhone fans. The most interesting feature of the new iPhone is actually a new chip inside called the U1. Blink and you missed his mention the 10 because a reference has sprung on the giant screen for a brief moment.

This chip allows "ultra wide band" (UWB) positioning, described briefly by WIRED US as "Bluetooth on steroids: faster, more accurate and more efficient". Check the full story here. Apple describes it as "a full-size GPS in your living room" adding that it would improve AirDrop file sharing because the phone will be "perfectly aware" and will be able to determine which other phone it is pointing to, and thus push this device back to the top of the share list when iOS 13.1 is deployed later this month.

UWB has major advantages over Bluetooth Low Energy or Wi-Fi. It can locate objects in a 30 cm range, as opposed to the measurement range of existing Bluetooth devices. It can transfer data four times faster than Bluetooth, operates over a wide frequency band so that physical walls pose fewer signal problems, updates its position every 100 milliseconds, and does not interfere with Wi The applications of this technology are really exciting and go far beyond file sharing.

Volkswagen and NXP have introduced a UWB system to unlock cars. As UWB uses "flight time" to determine its location, it could prevent relay flights, in which a false radio signal is used to steal cars equipped with wireless keychains in homes. If Apple hires a car manufacturer, your new iPhone could potentially unlock your car if you head to it.

Imagine if your local supermarket or mall was loaded with compatible U1 sensors. Your iPhone would not only know which store you were in, which aisle you were walking in, but perhaps also the exact product you were looking for or planning to buy. Then imagine combining that with the already impressive understanding of Apple's Mobile AR for an over-played world with contextual data at the moment you need it.

The U1 chip is a real innovation in the new iPhone. Just the kind of thing to run as well as the watch compared to its market. If only Apple had spent more time talking about it.

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