Apple is smarter than you think; a year-long lull may be intentional

Going by Apple, who is known for not going against the grain, one would have ideally expected a new design overhaul this year after the ’s’ year. But that’s most likely not happening. The company has not planned a design overhaul this year and it is keeping all the major changes and what could potentially be a brand-new iPhone in true sense for next year. This year, it does plan an iPhone 7, which will most likely come with minimum changes like the ones we’ve been hearing about . Why would Apple not put its best foot forward when the sales are sliding off a slippery slope and wait until next year? The new parts or plans could take some more time would have been an ideal answer, but a new report now points out it could be intentional. Timothy Arcuri and his team of analysts at Cowen & Co. reveal a theory of Apple getting into a yearlong lull calling it “powder keg is forming in the installed base”. Arcuri says iPhone users who are expected to upgrade to iPhone7 are about 33 percent (consistent figure for the past six quarters), and by the next five quarters this number will go up by 43 percent. The 43 percent upgrades will bring in more sales next year than 33 percent this year. He calls it a super-cycle for the year 2017. iPhone 7 is described as a bridge to get to the super cycle. Thought iPhone 7 brings massive changes like force-touch home button, waterproof ability, bezel-less screen and pulls out the headphone jack, the old iPhone/ iPhone s design paradigms are ‘breaking down’. He further explains that, “The iPhone 7 won’t be a big design innovation is because it realises the ageing dynamics of the base and saw this coming years ago, choosing to save the true cycle of innovation for when the base would be incredibly ripe. Ergo, we conclude that either 1. iPhone 7 sells better than expected due to this ageing base, or 2. iPhone in 2017 will be a super-cycle, especially if we are right about a new innovative OLED-enabled form factor.” Moreover, there’s another reason to go big next year as the iPhone turns 10 in 2017.