Latest iOS 13.4 beta code (3) shows OS Recovery to be possible to restore the iOS directly over-the-air
So … adding to earlier rumours about a Portless iPhone…
Wireless Charging becoming a standard for iPhones for charging and no ports ( no USB-C or lightning port) will be interesting to see l!
Logical for fully portless waterproof phones and wireless power for phones being as fast as wired. Phones specifically suffer more hostile environments, pockets, rain, etc so fully portless phones has a certain logic.
It would also make sense in the same year to have the iPad to be still wired charged but have wireless output charging.
Then your iPad becomes your iPhone charging mat, copying the innovators like Huawei.
I look forward to this Portless iPhone … i use wireless charging all the time … may use the Anker Powercore with Powerwave wireless charging 
People refresh phones on average 3 years, and iphone sales in 2017 being 217M units being the prediction for 2020 refresh you’re talking a fair few wireless chargers and portable chargers being required.
I’ll repeat this only really makes sense if it comes with an iPhone with a Graphene cell to allow faster recharge and less damage from the heat of wireless charging.
Graphene adds 30% to cell costs in 2020 so is likely adding only $10 to a $1000 phone so background noise. So when product launched hear about how you don’t need wired charging.
Anker is well placed to benefit from this but the obvious gap in their product set is a wireless portable charger. They would logically also benefit from Graphene but would add a lot more than $10, more of the order of $30 so adding the Qi loop is going to add $40 to a Powercore cost. So you’re talking a $60 minimum Anker Qi Powercore of which you’re going to need 15Ah to get two recharges. Anker doesn’t really need to invent the chargers, already a good spread 18W-60W.
I still see portless smartphones as being a niche product.
I can’t imagine buying a product that doesn’t have the possibility of wired charging or wired data transfer. And no, I never said this about disk drives, cd/dvd drives, wired earphones, or other technology that were removed from older devices; I welcomed ALL those changes.
Apple Watch and Homepod don’t have any ports for data connection… but still they are being used, Homepod is a dud though and Apple watch a winner.
Matter of time before phones become Portless…
I don’t see Huawei as an innovator at all. For one, Samsung released products with this capability (one device charging another device) for a while now, and I’m fairly certain that this feature has been on the Apple product roadmap for many years.
Like I eluded to on the other thread, Apple had wireless charging on their product roadmap years before Android OS even existed. They just waited for technology to catch up before implementing it. Just because Palm, HTC, Google, LG, Samsung, and others(?) released smartphones with wireless charging before Apple does not mean that Apple was copying them.
I’m not implying that Apple never copies their competitors. They definitely copied oversized screens as that was NOT on their product roadmap until Samsung had huge success with larger screens. And they copy various features in their OSes from Android and Windows.
And the same goes for Samsung (and Google and LG and other manufacturers). They have many features in their product roadmap that they will be implementing in the future. Just because LG releases a phone with feature XYZ before Samsung does not necessarily mean that Samsung copied LG. It could actually mean that LG stole the idea from Samsung then released it before Samsung … and this happens a LOT.
Never used a Homepod. Looked like a dud.
I own an Apple Watch. It doesn’t need a data connection because it doesn’t really have any useful apps. 
To me, it is strictly a notification device plus a semi-acceptable tool for talking/texting. The OS and the apps are both very light. Very VERY light. iOS and its apps, OTOH, are very complex.
Oh so Apple has a folding phone for years in a lab waiting?
I don’t claim to know the specifics of all their designs. They may or may not have had a folding design on their product roadmap. Quite possible they took the idea from Samsung’s failed folding phone and added it to their roadmap.
I’m simply trying to point out that Apple doesn’t just work on the next iPhone/iOS. There are Apple product managers currently working on iOS and iPhones to be released in 2025. At least that’s how they used to do it where they had a 5 year product roadmap with very specific feature ideas for each release of HW and SW.
For example:
The original iPhone (2007) did not have an App Store (2008). It didn’t have the capability to do copy-paste (2009). No multitasking (2012). No front camera or facetime (2010). But these were all already on the product roadmap before the first iPhone was released. Yes, multitasking was on the product roadmap before the first iPhone, before Android smartphones even existed. But I distinctly remember Android fanboys saying iOS copied that from Android because Android had released it the year prior. 
BTW, sorry for derailing this discussion to something else. I’ll try to stay more on topic.
Back to portless, I get that it may be inevitable. I’m just not a fan. Seems like this may be a tech support nightmare as well. Having worked in tech all my life until recently, I like being able to troubleshoot offline. Can’t do that if there’s no port.
I see how it could be okay for the general public. But I’d like a “pro” version to have a port.
So a roadmap is innovation?
It is hard to know if an idea is good or is required, an ivory tower of product managers is not the same as releasing a product, flawed, and try and fail and filter out bad ideas.
So you’re claiming being a consumer of others’ successesses and innovation is itself innovation?
Hey @professor, let’s either continue this is a PM or in a new thread as to not hijack this thread. I will just answer your questions, then step aside.
So a roadmap is innovation? Yes.
So you’re claiming being a consumer of others’ successesses and innovation is itself innovation? No. This is exactly what Huawei does all the time. Blatantly. Hence I don’t consider anything they do innovation.
I would be uneasy getting a phone without any ports. But I said the same thing about a phone without a home button and here we are 
Well we’re speculating but for example the current IP68 could become IP69
Or it allows a bezelless chinless display
Also allows room for Apple to copy the Android innovation of in screen fingerprint, over a year after for example the OnePlus 6T.