It is a widely overlooked assumption among the general population that one human year is roughly equivalent to seven years for a dog. If we make the same general assumption with the lifespan of an average smartphone, a calendar year could also be a century. The world of consumer technology is extremely fast-paced, new chip announcements, software developments and more keep us going, and in the politically turbulent times we find ourselves in, this is just that; exacerbated. This last year of the decade, 2019, was no exception to the rule, but many things have happened, some of which will have lasting consequences. As such, we took the opportunity to helpfully produce a "cliffnotes" version of the year almost behind us, with all the most important developments to remember, divided by quarter. The stories that are essential are the ones that really defined the speech, making this year an unforgettable moment.
January to March - Folding Dreams
The first quarter of any year in tech tends to be pretty spread out, a lot happening in a very short period of time. With CES and MWC, there are smartphone announcements across the board, and many manufacturers (enter Samsung) are hosting their own product launch events. Of course, it was a word that dominated this part of the annual cycle, the folding. Or the Galaxy Fold, which the Korean giant teased at the end of 2018 and launched in earnest at the end of April. However, it was not Samsung that presented a foldable prototype to the public, but the Chinese upstarts Huawei. The firm presented its well-hidden Mate X unit to the world at MWC in February, carefully stealing the series. Although the press was not allowed to keep the units present, this device was a true vision of the future, a glimpse of where phones stand in five years, as opposed to continuous iterative updates. As such, it gained a lot of balance and was a statement of intent from Huawei, intensely ambitious to become the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world. Although foldables dominated, another launch deserved a special mention, that of the Honor View 20. This completely competent smartphone ushered in two trends that would also dominate phone design in 2019, the first of which was the punch-hole display. Also adopted by the Galaxy S10 range, it was a counterpoint to the notch design that was so popular in 2018. We also saw here the 48-megapixel camera enter the market, marketing teams had to have a field day, with almost all new smartphones in all market segments soon with an astronomical number of megapixels.
April to June: folding madness and political tensions
Of course, the foldable story in 2019 did not end with the Huawei Mate X. Of course, we're referring to the tortured existence of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. For phone fans, that was a dream: a tablet crossed with a phone, without the compromises that such a design would apparently entail. Reviewers received their units in late April, eager to see and feel a piece of history in the making, something that seemed like a prop in sci-fi movies. Problems soon followed. To make a foldable phone, it turned out there were certain compromises to be made, the main one being the use of glass, which is well known for, well, not bending. Instead, plastic was used to make the screen foldable, but that meant no scratch protection, because in order to fold it, it also had to be soft. This, and the units sent for examination, simply broke, or were found to be totally incapable of resisting dust ingress. In short, although they sold for almost €2,000, they were functionally unusable, an alpha phase device of their production and one that should not have been made public. Samsung quickly recalled all review units and removed the retail version line. It has since reissued the phone, with an improved and stronger skeleton, but the damage has already been done and the dream of foldable devices in the mainstream remains anything but inevitable. Huawei also found itself dominating the latter part of this cycle, for reasons that were not of its choosing and that were almost entirely negative for the manufacturer. The ongoing trade war between the United States and China has spilled over into the technology field, and due to concerns over networking equipment provided by Huawei to Western governments, the company has been blacklisted. In reality, this did not mean access to Google services, nor to several essential software and hardware components for the future devices it was going to sell. Those considering purchasing Huawei phones suddenly had to make a very difficult decision, to see if they could survive without Google services, such as Gmail or YouTube. This in turn hampered Huawei's ability to compete with the rest of the market; indeed, competitors like Samsung, Xiaomi and Oppo breathed a sigh of relief and were happy to step in and fill a hole in the form of Huawei in the market. This move continues to haunt the company and, with no end in sight, it remains to be seen if Huawei's western market share will survive until 2020.
July to September: launch of the iPhone 11 range
The annual iPhone launch remains the biggest and arguably the biggest single phone launch of the year. Although they are not always at the forefront of the adoption of new technologies, the design trends and orientation of the iPhone tend to become those of the general market because they are 'adopted'; & # 39; (copied) by other manufacturers to appeal to a wider audience. This year, the Cupertino company adopted the multi-camera concept, providing even the cheapest model with a second snapper. We also saw the overall profile of each device getting a little thicker for what could be the first time (to provide better battery life) and the start of several very competitive camera features. These included a near industry-leading "night mode" and several improvements to the excellent video capture. We also saw the overall price drop a bit, with the base iPhone 39 launching to lower demand than its previous year's predecessor, the iPhone XR. Apple's sales were subsequently strong, although it began to direct its revenue streams towards services and equipment, it was a successful year for the company in which it played Sure Things.