The iPhone Air is a sales disaster with some media outlets reporting “virtually no demand.” The latest Samsung S25 is also facing disappointing sales results. Both phones have doubled down on a feature that was supposed to matter more than any other: thinness. In the quest to make a thinner phone, these latest versions compromise on camera quality, feature less powerful batteries and generally leave out features that their predecessor versions all offered. The result is a common miscalculation that could have been avoided.
Consider the point that Ogilvy legendary ad man Rory Sutherland often makes about “the power of ideas that don’t make sense.” It’s a classic case of optimizing for the wrong thing. When every phone maker optimizes getting the handset to be as thin as possible, they miss out on the other aspects that might be even more appealing for people – such as a battery that lasts the entire day without needing a mid-afternoon recharge.
The example offers a good reminder that even the world’s most innovative companies can get caught in the trap of chasing the wrong metric. Unfortunately, the worst way to learn this lesson is by having too much product sitting on warehouse shelves. Ironically, Samsung is going the opposite direction with a tri-fold phone that may be popular because it’s so different to anything else in the market. Which sort of proves the point that it’s better to be completely unique than to chase the same expired metric.