Smartphones have just been so boring for the past few years. Ever since they all started getting full screen displays and multiple cameras, every year has felt like small incremental upgrades. You probably wouldn't gain very much by upgrading even from a 3 year old phone.
iPhones won't be interesting to me again until they get a completely new form factor like folding or something.
Apple'd never do it but that dock thing would be so cool if you could just plug into any USB monitor and have a legit MacOS computer running on your phone.
Ubuntu phone was close…just maybe a touch early in the market. Now that we are over 8GB of RAM in a lot of phones and 1TB storage is an option….all we need is more interest in it. Apple might not do first but as soon as there is one successful phone/laptop hybrid they might be forced too.
Biggest upgrade for me were foldable screens and 120Hz refresh rate. High refresh rate feels so good when you first try it. But generally speaking it is all incremental and not worth yearly investment. In general I buy devices every 4 years or so but most of my devices end up being used at least 6-7 years.
Honestly the last iPhone I felt truly excited for was the iPhone X. That felt like the phone Apple was leading up to for a decade. Then the 14 Pro came out and I'll admit, the Dynamic Island was very creative. Not really innovative, but creative.
What was so cool about Jobs is that he had this brain that wanted to take risks and come up with crazy shit that may have only been theoretically possible, and push the talented engineers to make it happen.
That being said, I don't know why people are so surprised. Jobs isn't around anymore, and smartphones have matured to a point where there's nothing to push. What exactly are people hoping to change?
I have a 12Pro as well, and, honestly, I think the cameras on this thing are kinda trash. I like the phone and it still works well, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued with the new phone.
To each their own. I carry a mirrorless when I want good photos. Apple’s post processing is obnoxious and if I’m going to shoot RAW I’d rather have options on glass and settings.
USB-C is nice (although I don't relish having to replace all my Lightning accessories), and the camera improvements are always good, but I think I'm still happy with my 13 Pro for now.