Ask HN: Why did Apple skip 7s? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why did Apple skip 7s?

6 pointsarkj10 comments

Ever since 3G there has always been an 'S' revision. Any clue why Apple decided to jump straight to 8 ditching the rightful 7s.

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Really, the iPhone 7 was just the 6SS. The 'S' revision was spec and camera bumps, but no major case changes and the 7 made no case differences over the 6S.

But probably a 6SS or whatever wouldn't have sold as well, so they shipped a 7, and now the 8 actually does change the case significantly (glass back) and so thats not a 'S' revision.

No product cycle will play out perfectly in a versioning scheme, and your only surprised about the missing 'S' because they have had a naming scheme that has been surprisingly consistent for this long!

Next year will be the iPhone A...

The 7 dropped the headphone jack, changed from physical to "virtual" home button and added water resistance so there were more structural changes than just spec and camera bumps.

I'm more curious to why they skipped 9 (or maybe that is still coming...)

They also redesigned the antenna lines to conform to the curves of the phone. The back of the 7 looks a lot nicer than the 6s in my opinion.

Marketing. They really wanted to make the iPhone X for the 10th anniversary. Everything else worked backwards from there.

And now they're likely working hard to figure out how to continue on next year. Marketing doesn't usually like numbering things beyond 10, and XS is extra small.

I had assumed once they used X for ten that they would use roman numerals moving forward

Perhaps this is why they changed OS X to macOS. They wanted the X for the iPhone.

8 is basically 7s but since it got a glass exterior and wireless charging capability, they probably decided it deserved a full "major version" bump.

The real question is, why did they skip 9?

Because, 7 8 9 - according to Microsoft. http://www.itproportal.com/2015/05/07/microsoft-reveals-the-...

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