TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Daniel Pasco:

Most of our everyday tools – table knives and forks, claw hammers, steering wheels – have not seen any radical changes because at some point, someone figured out the best form to suit the function. It is hard to find a way to change these things that will actually result in something better. iPhone is no exception.

Apple captured the essentials of the iPhone’s design before they released the original model in 2007: a dominating screen, one simple button on the main face, touch-based keyboards and as few switches and ports as reasonably possible. The primary purpose of the device is to get out of the user’s way and what they are trying to do. When you’re running an app, or making a call, the iPhone becomes that app. When powered down, the device is beautiful in a minimalist, modern way, but every single aspect of the hardware serves an important function.

Absolutely true, and it’s also true that this approach—refining an already excellent design rather than radically changing it for the sake of change alone—is a much better one.

But once you’re to the point where you’re simply refining something that already meets most of people’s needs, which the iPhone 4S did, the amount of leverage—the increase in usefulness for people versus the amount of effort necessary—is much, much smaller. The iPhone 5′s engineering achievements are undoubtedly exciting, but being thinner and lighter while retaining the same amount of battery life doesn’t change much for users. It’s a better device, and the improvements are certainly welcome, but these changes are more like improving the exhaust system on a Porsche than the original iPhone or the iPhone 4.

What is a big change, though, is LTE. Much faster data is important not just because it’s more convenient for browsing the web, but because ubiquitous, fast network access for mobile devices will allow new kinds of applications and devices. Now, the limit isn’t on the client hardware end—it’s on the network. The limitation now is that while fast data access is ubiquitous (between 3G and LTE), it’s still very expensive and constrained. We need fast, ubiquitous, cheap and unlimited data for mobile devices. So far, we’ve gotten the first two.

What this points to is that there isn’t anything at all wrong with Apple’s approach for developing the iPhone. It’s exactly what they should be doing. But there’s a lot less leverage for change on the client hardware side for mobile phones compared to 2006 or even 2009, so they have less headroom for making impactful changes. The leverage is on the software and network side now. Which means, for Apple, they should be pushing to make iCloud and Siri as incredible as possible, and if at all possible, should be pushing networks to make the last two pieces of mobile data access a reality.