I ended up going to an iPhone 6s, which is Apple's latest and greatest, but still only a minor improvement over the phone that took an accidental bath.
Then I felt stupid, twice over.
Not only did I send my phone to a watery grave, but Apple is expected to unveil the fresh new iPhone 7 in September 2016, in keeping with its classic "tick-tock" schedule of major vs. minor iPhone upgrades.
And here I was in May dropping hundreds of dollars on something that would be obsolete a few months later.
Well, the word came out today that the next iPhone is going to be really boring. If the reports turn out to be true, this year's model will be slightly thinner, and lack a headphone jack (wait, what). But it'll be a lot closer to the iPhone 6s I just bought, than to the all-new, fully-redesigned phone that might have been expected. That's because Apple is apparently moving away from the 2-year "tick-tock" schedule, in which the company completely overhauls the handset every two years.
Phew. Buyer's remorse avoided.
The scuttlebutt holds that the iPhone 8, slated for a 2017 release, will be the really huge update, timed with the 10th anniversary of the iPhone's 2007 introduction. I feel way better about the prospect of buying a new iPhone next year, knowing that I'll enjoy at least another year of being on, or at least near, the very cutting edge.
In the meanwhile, the forthcoming iOS 10 operating system for the iPhone is looking pretty great, adding all kinds of improvements the the lock screen, Messages, Siri, and everything else. So while I still feel dumb about the inciting incident here, I'm glad that my iPhone 6s will at least get a little smarter.
