Can the iPhone disappear forever?

The iPhone is one of the products for which Apple is best known in recent years and that has elevated them to be a recognized brand throughout the world. Therefore, the simple fact of proposing a hypothetical disappearance of it sounds absurd. But is it really so? Is there any trend that could give clues to what happens?

Can the iPhone disappear forever?

Difficult in the short term due to the current context

We start from the basis that, regardless of whether they involve more or less innovation, Apple smartphones continue to dominate the main sales rankings around the world. Competing even with brands that offer a multitude of mobiles at much lower prices. And it is true that this competition is far from that 2007 in which the original iPhone broke the mold, but Apple still works .

And this is not opinion, but data. For several years now, the iPhone has been crowned Apple’s main product, being the one that generates the highest percentage of income. And according to the latest quarterly results, not even the sum of the rest of the income is equal to that of the iPhone.

apple q1 2022 por productos

And it is true that Apple’s commitment to other categories such as services or its recent innovation in Mac chips are causing these other categories to grow. However, the iPhone remains a safe bet and without which Apple would not have achieved milestones such as being the first company to reach a trillion dollar stock market valuation in 2018 and more recently a trillion.

With this perspective, making the iPhone disappear would be suicide for the company. And it is that this product is also the axis of many others, being essential for the Apple Watch or for the AirPods. Not to mention everything that is generated indirectly with repairs or accessories such as official covers.

The element that could change everything in 10 years

Once a short-term disappearance has been ruled out, we cannot rule out its disappearance in the medium-long term. With what we have previously commented on, it sounds contradictory, but it would not be the first time that a flagship product of the brand has ended up ostracized. See but the iPod, a device that in our days has completely lost prominence despite continuing to market the ‘touch’ version, with ridiculous sales figures.

Precisely starting from the example of the iPod we can foresee the future of the iPhone. And it is that this was the one that condemned the player and in the same way we can intuit that a future device ends up eating the ground. Without going any further, some analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo predicted it a few months ago, stating that in 10 years it will be a product that has disappeared or, at least, will be very secondary, as is the case now with the iPod.

And it is not that these types of analysts have sources that affirm this, that they do, but that it is a fairly logical prediction based on what is to come. The commitment to mixed reality (virtual and augmented) could be Apple’s next big boom, together with the metaverse that companies like Facebook (AKA Meta) are already exploring.

cascos ar apple concepto

If all goes as planned, the company will present a first mixed reality helmet prototype this year with a forecast that it will go on sale in 2023. However, it would be a kind of market testator, since the development of lighter elements such as glasses continues, clearly being the device with which Apple intends to break the market again.

Of course, the feat will not be easy this time. Google has already experienced a resounding failure with its Glass, something that Cupertino took good note of. It is known that Apple not only wants to improve Google Glass, but also completely change its concept and introduce an accessory that will ultimately become essential, overshadowing any type of smartphone.

Therefore, and by way of conclusion, stay calm if you have an iPhone. It’s not going to be obsolete yet. In fact, you may have to renew it a few times before it happens. However, with the continuous evolution of technology and a very latent world of unexplored possibilities, imagining ourselves in 2 decades with a device like this seems unlikely to say the least.