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I don't know what, I'm not a phone engineer!
That's true on the hardware because they don't make it themselves, but that's kinda the point - Asia is coming up with the innovations, Apple just follows.
This hits the nail on the head:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-apple-iphone-breakingviews/breakingviews-new-iphones-take-features-from-asia-and-add-profit-idUKKCN1BO09N?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social
Fox-
There hasn't been much I'd consider innovation from any phone manufacturer though. Batteries, screens, chip speeds etc have all just improved incrementally. Apple, Samsung, OnePlus etc have all just bought what's available.
It was a decent OS and the app store that really marked the early iPhones apart. Android then did the same and since then everyone has just been making little adjustments without anything particularly impressive.
You can't really pick out what's innovative until someone else has done it though. If Apple knew then they'd do it and everyone would fawn over them again like they did 10 years ago. If someone else figures out the next big thing then Apple could go the way of Blackberry and Nokia. Animoji probably aren't the next big thing however.^of course everyone knows all of this
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This hits the nail on the head
But we're now back to what the true 'innovation' (i prefer value) is in Apple phones - the OS / Hardware walled garden.
It's all very well that many phones from Asia have similar innovations but, if you can't buy them here or if they run Android (and you don't want Android) or they're straight out of China, with questionable code included, then where's the value?
Apple put together an undeniably slick package of very high quality tech with super slick software and customer support, wrapped in the most supported OS from a dev perspective. That's their innovation.
Amstrad managed to put email on home telephone before anyone else which was an 'innovation' in terms of tech. Look how that worked out:
duncs
Soul
By doing what though?
The annual release cycle of phones (and most other tech) has warped our perspective of innovation. We expect a leap forward when only steps are possible most of the time.
Apple control the development of certain aspects of the iPhone's tech (namely chip design and software) which you could argue are right at the cutting edge of what's possible. They don't have control over the development of large portions of the actual hardware; screen tech, camera tech etc and must work with third parties and their own dev roadmaps.