The Budget Mobile Era Arrives

Scott Valins and his wife, Liz, are New York-based graphic designers with all the latest gear at home: iPhones, iPads, a pair of high-powered Macs, an assortment of digital music players, portable speakers, and an Apple TV. And they only use a fraction of it. Their barely touched iPad Mini lies buried under some mail, and with a young child, they rarely have time to turn on the TV. Once early adopters, the couple has abandoned routine upgrades. “Most of the incremental changes now seem less revolutionary and less of a must-have anyway,” says Scott, the creator of photobook app CanDoBaby, whose primary personal computing device is an iPhone 5S that he doesn’t feel any need to replace.

The Valinses may be anomalies in the world of fervent Apple fans, who obsess over the latest features and line up outside stores for new releases even if last year’s model works fine. But it’s characteristic of a shift in consumer thinking that poses a problem for the tech industry. Seven years after the introduction of the iPhone, mobile devices are closer to commodities than novelties.