Welcome to the Year of Boring Smartphones

Welcome to the Year of Boring Smartphones

Samsung’s latest Unpacked event was everything we expected — nothing, we didn’t.  The entire new Galaxy S25 line-up is now official and while these phones are almost certainly going to be the best-selling and best-performing Android devices of 2025, they also confirm a growing trend – smartphones are getting boring – something I have been saying for the last couple of years but, it’s only more obvious now.

This isn’t just a Samsung problem. It’s an industry-wide crisis of creativity and innovation. Be it Apple, Google or their Chinese rivals, almost everyone is serving the same dish with different garnish. The story for the last few years has been around refinement. But at some point, refinement turns into stagnation. And, dear readers, we are now well into that phase.

Hardware Innovation? A Thing Of The Past

There was a time, not too many years ago, when phone launches were exciting. All the smartphone companies would try to outdo each other with innovative designs, futuristic features, and cutting-edge hardware. Curved screens, in-display fingerprint sensors and even the failed pop-up cameras, all felt fresh when they arrived.

But what’s new in 2025? The Galaxy S25’s most talked-about design change is…slightly rounded corners. Groundbreaking! The same story applies to other brands as well. Apple has essentially been using the same iPhone design since 2019, tweaking camera placement and throwing in minor gimmicks like the Dynamic Island and Camera Control button.

It’s like all phone manufacturers are playing a game of “spot the difference” with their own products.

The Refinement Era is Overstaying Its Welcome

The smartphone industry officially entered the ‘Refinement Era’ post Covid. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was kind of necessary because early smartphones had all sorts of rough edges — poor battery life, slow processors, and cameras that needed a lot of work. Software was another major issue. So, it made sense for the companies to improve what they already had on offer.

Now that the phones are really really good, the story of “we made it slightly better” isn’t cutting it anymore. Samsung, Apple, Google — everyone is struggling to make their phones feel exciting. The Galaxy S25’s main selling points? A better chip, slightly improved cameras, and more AI features (which we’ll get to in a moment). These are all good things, but they don’t make you want to rush out and upgrade. At this point, buying a new smartphone is like buying a new AC: you only do it when the old one stops working.

The Art of Doing the Bare Minimum

As I mentioned earlier, Apple is equally in this. It has mastered the art of making small changes sound revolutionary. The iPhone 16 series gave us the ability to control the camera with a new button (because, apparently, that was a problem crying out for a solution). Meanwhile, the last real design shift was in 2020 with the iPhone 12’s flat edges. Dynamic Island was a fun distraction for about five minutes, but does anyone really feel like it changed the way they use their phone? I don’t see this change with iPhone 17 as well.

AI Hasn’t Delivered Yet

Speaking of gimmicks, let’s talk about AI. Ever since ChatGPT took the world by storm, tech companies have been desperate to shove AI into everything. The Galaxy S24 series felt good that way — it did AI and it did it well. There were some really useful features like Circle to Search or live interpreter. But, what happened this year? More of the same. And, not a lot of actually useful features. Again, Samsung is not the only culprit. We are yet to see anything substantial from Apple Intelligence too.

So far, AI on phones has mostly been about enhancing existing features — better photo editing, slightly smarter voice assistants, and predictive text that still gets things hilariously wrong. It’s hard to argue that AI has fundamentally changed how we use smartphones.

What’s Next for Smartphones?

So, where do we go from here? The foldable phones were supposed to be the next big thing, but they remain niche. Also, they seem to have their own innovation problem and seemed to have hit saturation sooner than expected. Rollable screens feel like they’re always “just a few years away” and why isn’t anyone doing anything about the battery life — we’re still charging our phones overnight just like we did a decade ago.

The truth is, we might be stuck in this cycle for a while. Smartphones have reached a level of maturity where major leaps are increasingly rare. It’s possible that we’re just in a lull before the next big shift. Maybe AI will truly be a game-changer. Maybe there is more of foldable phones to come. And, maybe all of this is just fine. Maybe we don’t need a new revolution every year. But for those of us who remember the thrill of seeing something truly new, this era of iterative upgrades feels… dull.

Manas Tiwari
Digit.in
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Digit.in
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