Apple is absolutely on the right path with the boring iPhone 18 Pro design

The mere fact that the iPhone 17 Pro is considered a major redesign over the iPhone 16 Pro is proof that smartphone design is rather stagnant. Calling the switch from a camera island to a so-called camera plateau and sticking to the same basic elements that have been around since the iPhone 12 is hardly groundbreaking. Recent rumors suggest that the iPhone 18 Pro will change even less, but that doesn’t seem to bother too many people.

Redesigns don’t matter that much

Most of our readers appear uninterested in a major iPhone redesign, according to the results of a recent poll about the potential iPhone 18 Pro upgrades. Over 70% of the votes were supporting minor or non-existent changes for the upcoming phone, while just under 30% of the votes indicated that a major redesign is necessary. For that third of you, the visual refresh is something that could justify a higher price for the iPhone 18 Pro.



However, most of the votes, or close to 35%, were in support of an iPhone 18 Pro with minor design changes and zero changes in the pricing. A little over 12% of you went even further, saying that a bunch of new colors would be enough to make you happy. All in all, almost half of you wouldn’t change your purchase decision because of the iPhone 18 Pro design.

Unsurprisingly, almost 24% of the respondents said that they don’t care about the looks of the iPhone 18 Pro because they’re not planning an upgrade this year. Considering the success of the iPhone 17 Pro and the fact that few people upgrade their phones on an annual basis, such an answer makes a lot of sense.

Improvements on the inside

These results demonstrate that Apple is very likely on the right track with the iPhone 18 Pro. The company is expected to keep its price unchanged and focus on incremental updates such as a smaller Dynamic Island, a more efficient 2nm chipset, and a polished iOS 27 with several major AI upgrades. In the context of the rising smartphone prices, this is very likely a winning strategy.

That’s another set of bad news for anyone who’s dreaming of major changes in smartphone design, as other smartphone companies are unlikely to have a different strategy. The Galaxy S27 series is probably going to look a lot like the Galaxy S26, and the Pixel 11 could look like a carbon copy of the Pixel 10. Hopefully, those will also come with meaningful specs upgrades and software improvements.

The not-so-new normal

I’d love to see smartphone companies returning to the old ways of rethinking how their devices look every few years, but that’s unlikely to happen. We’ve probably reached peak smartphone design, and resources are better spent on things other than rethinking what already works well and is liked by the consumer. 

Paired with the longer upgrade cycles, such a strategy doesn’t make sense for smartphone manufacturers. People change their phones less often than before, so a redesign every 2-3 years appears to be more than enough for both manufacturers and consumers.