Smartphone Design Plateaued in 2024

Sorry to beryllium that guy. Smartphone innovation has stagnated successful favour of adopting artificial intelligence. Samsung, Google, and Apple made AI the superior selling absorption of each flagship telephone successful 2024. It wasn’t astir svelte hardware oregon the smartphone’s quality to service arsenic a coagulated regular computing device. It was astir preparing users for the AI onslaught that volition inevitably unit them to update their phones to debar being siloed.

This twelvemonth was marred by gimmicky diagnostic add-ons and the rationalization that you’ll request a caller smartphone to beryllium compatible with what’s to travel if you privation to beryllium connected the aforesaid leafage arsenic everyone else. Design-wise, that produced a batch of phones that didn’t determination the needle. The Galaxy S24 Ultra looks conscionable similar the Galaxy S23 Ultra but with much quadrate edges. Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro doesn’t look each that antithetic from the iPhone 15 Pro—you can’t adjacent archer them isolated from the backside. As for the Google Pixel 9 Pro, it has a revamped camera barroom connected the back. Still, present it conscionable looks similar the iPhone from the front, and everything other astir the Pixel lineup prioritizes Gemini implicit thing else.

I’m down for the thought of AI correctly clocking in, whether I’m trying to unfastened up an app to get enactment done oregon vanish into doom-scrolling. But what volition beryllium the outgo of prioritizing AI-enhanced show implicit everything else? Can smartphones enactment bladed if powerfulness depletion is the priority? Won’t they person to marque concessions for bigger batteries and further components arsenic AI becomes the main powerfulness draw? These are each questions floating astir arsenic we exit the twelvemonth into 2025.

The Meteoric Rise of AI

Samsung started 2024 close retired of the gross with Galaxy AI. It already did immoderate of what Google’s Gemini purported to do, but this time, it besides had a unsocial caller diagnostic to debut alongside: Circle to Search, which became the champion happening to hap to Android this year, adjacent earlier Android 15 went into developer preview. Samsung and Google combined forces for the Galaxy S24 motorboat lawsuit to support the messaging honed, stating that Android would go a vas for each that was happening with AI down the scenes.

Google followed, peppering the twelvemonth with prolific Pixel Drops that enabled features similar Circle to Search, Call Screen, and, astir recently, Gemini extensions. When its developer league rolled astir successful the spring, it was evident that the Android platform’s trajectory focused chiefly connected AI. Android was nary longer the main event; instead, it was focused connected explaining however Gemini would amended the idiosyncratic experience. The astir important indicator of this for maine was erstwhile I booted up the Gemini beta and acceptable it arsenic my phone’s default assistant. It broke immoderate of my Google Assistant-enabled hardware, similar the Roav Bolt, which I usage to bid my telephone hands-free portion driving. Thankfully, immoderate Google has done successful the inheritance since past has fixed it, though I had to hold fractional the twelvemonth for Gemini to rotation retired fully. It was a harrowing reminder of what happens erstwhile the institution down your smartphone level abruptly takes a near crook toward thing new.

©Charles Anthony Davis/DreamSmith LLC

Some of america had hoped that Apple would beryllium the 1 to clasp retired connected AI. Typically, Apple volition instrumentality what Google does and “neg” it, past explicate however it’s not imaginable due to the fact that it would ruin the integrity of its product. But Cupertino amazed america with Apple Intelligence astatine WWDC, announcing that it was adding AI to its platforms and doing it successful the astir Apple way: wholly rebranding what everyone other is doing and presenting it arsenic a one-of-a-kind, bespoke caller technology, adjacent though it inactive requires immoderate assistance from ChatGPT to tackle much blase commands. At slightest the institution remains diagnostic astir it. As a effect of the sanction “Apple Intelligence,” the benignant usher requires that I spell it retired each truthful often erstwhile referring to it, which helps maine debar the overuse of “AI.” It’s not artificial intelligence; it’s Apple’s intelligence.

The Cost of Image Generation

Now, it’s months aft each the caller smartphones person debuted for the latest generation. We are stuck with a wealthiness of premium devices from Samsung, Google, and Apple, each focused connected selling america this caller mode of predictive computing. Each level besides has an representation rendering app for producing images: Image Playground connected iOS and Pixel Studio connected Pixel devices. Thanks, I guess, but this is hardly what radical thought astir erstwhile they asked for assistance with photos. Instead, I’d hoped to person amended lenses added to the backmost of these devices since they already outgo upwards of a mid-tier integer camera. I was adjacent consenting to eschew thinness, knowing the hardware had to get thicker if I wanted a larger screen. Instead, I got a generative AI suite that makes my photos look similar a Hallmark movie poster.

© Florence Ion / Gizmodo

I’m not saying the cameras didn’t amended connected Samsung, Google, and Apple’s devices. That happens each twelvemonth with each caller smartphone; everything gets a little spot better. But this time, each 3 look wholly babelike connected AI performing the magic to marque the picture. The Pixel’s full camera strategy is based connected the premise that AI tin automatically bash what you would person attempted successful an editing suite. Apple employs algorithms to guarantee that immoderate clip you property the iPhone 16’s caller Camera Control button, the photograph does not blur.

Here’s the Catch-22 of representation procreation connected the telephone successful this AI-forward era. While AI and algorithms tin assistance with artillery management, similar reducing inheritance processes and automatically optimizing settings based connected what’s happening connected screen, generating images wrong the apps takes up those aforesaid resources, adjacent erstwhile pulling from the cloud. A smartphone besides needs a whopping magnitude of representation to execute these tasks. That’s wherefore we present spot phones bundled with 16GB of RAM arsenic the standard, including the Pixel 9 Pro. All that other hardware to powerfulness AI volition yet summation manufacturing costs. We’re already seeing higher terms tags connected iPhones and Android devices. It’s not conscionable the economy. 

That’s not to accidental that adjacent year’s phones volition beryllium bulbous and cumbersome. They volition apt inactive get successful the aforesaid tempered solid chassis they came successful this year. They volition each person big, agleam displays with precocious refresh rates and saturated colors. They volition inactive acceptable into men’s pockets. They whitethorn adjacent beryllium thinner than they were adjacent year, astatine slightest according to rumors astir the iPhone 17 and the Galaxy S25 Ultra. There’s adjacent speech that Samsung’s foldables mightiness get bigger to cater to a antithetic crowd. What volition beryllium absorbing to spot is however each shaper manages the demands of balancing what the manufacture says is indispensable for contention and what consumers privation for utility. It doesn’t marque the AI worthy it if it means piping-hot smartphones that peter retired halfway done the day.