Everything "new" feels old

This week has been full of announcements, which has made me think and eventually prompted me to write this post.

Yesterday, I watched the announcement of Apple’s iPhone 16. Most of the information had already been leaked before the event, so there wasn’t much of a surprise. Although the announced AirPods Pro 2 software update now provides clinical-grade Hearing Aid features, it can be viewed as reasonably priced compared to some mid- to high-end hearing aids, which, to me, seems pretty awesome. However, after the Apple event, Huawei upstaged Apple by releasing a new phone—a phone that I had predicted and envisioned as the next logical step after the first folding phone was announced back in 2018: the triple-folding Mate XT Ultimate Design phone by Huawei. So the question arises, if you could see this coming, does it still count as something “new”?

Today, Sony announced the PlayStation 5 Pro—another logically predictable iteration that doesn’t feel like something “new”, similar to the iPhone 16. Something new to me means something I couldn’t imagine or predict would exist in the future, like the first PlayStation 1 console or the first iPhone. Everything after that is just an enhancement of its predecessor’s success.

Innovation has changed the trajectory, rather than inventing something “new”, we are stuck in a loop of enhancing the old. But how could a visionary with novel ideas compete with the big overlords of the tech world?

Everything that’s new seems bleak to me now, possibly due to my growing older and becoming a father. However, I do find old things quite enjoyable, which no longer appears boring at all.

By the end of this month, there will be two new announcements: a cheaper Meta Quest 3S VR headset and the Nintendo Switch 2 console. We will see what this new iteration brings.