Smartphone upgrades are a constant, and costly, fact of modern life. Cameras perennially get better; battery life incrementally improves; phones become less likely to fail if dropped on the pavement or submerged in Jägermeister. Above all, these upgrades never fail to create buzz. Hyperventilating techies proclaim that the millennium has arrived, even while battling over which models are actually worth upgrading to compared with cheaper alternatives.

The net effect, for better or worse, is that smartphones constantly dominate...

Smartphone upgrades are a constant, and costly, fact of modern life. Cameras perennially get better; battery life incrementally improves; phones become less likely to fail if dropped on the pavement or submerged in Jägermeister. Above all, these upgrades never fail to create buzz. Hyperventilating techies proclaim that the millennium has arrived, even while battling over which models are actually worth upgrading to compared with cheaper alternatives.

The net effect, for better or worse, is that smartphones constantly dominate public discourse in the same way that the public never stops talking about Netflix and Taylor Swift. But why should smartphones be alone in this brilliant business strategy? What if other products got annual upgrades with exciting, “must-have” new features added?

Suppose that every 12 months there were a new generation of bread—soon to be known as “smartbread”—that could supposedly do things that previous generations of bread couldn’t? Bakeries could design ingenious methods each year to reduce the size and thickness of the crust to allow for ever-easier eating and storage. There could be super-flat, foldable models or loaves with more vivid coloring. Smartbread could be baked in a variety of shapes to accommodate the needs of consumers with small or oddly shaped mouths.

To make sure that the public ceaselessly upgrades, customers could be allowed to trade in their old bread—even if moldy—and get discounts on new models, such as the smart peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, arguably the most exciting new product since, well, sliced bread.

“The perpetual upgrade concept could readily be applied to many other products: smartbedroomslippers, smartyogamats, smartquinoasalads ...”

Someone might even devise a stripped-down, no-frills smartbread for cash-strapped, technologically unsophisticated Luddites who merely want something easy to eat, like back in the good old days. These cheap, bare-bones, easy-to-operate products would simply be known as Whitebread 2.0.

Innovations in smartbread design would trigger the usual furious criticisms from bread geeks, or what the French call “painophiles.” Purists would complain that the 2022 smartbread with caraway seeds had less “zing” than the model that came out last year, possibly because of supply chain problems with Finland.

They would accuse bakeries of falling down on the job, sneering that the Whole Wheat 6.45 SE was no real improvement over Whole Wheat 5 SD. They would tell followers that the new generation of smart everything bagels didn’t have it all, or that smartbagel bakers still couldn’t figure out a way to make sun-dried tomatoes taste natural. As for the latest version of smartmacaroons, what an unmitigated catastrophe!

The perpetual upgrade concept could readily be applied to many other products: smartbedroomslippers, smartyogurt, smartyogamats, smartswedishfish, smartquinoasalads. Indeed, if manufacturers of hammers and shovels and garden shears knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t let a product cycle go by without introducing the next generation of smarttrowels. Of course, if manufacturers of hammers and shovels knew what they were doing, they’d already be in the smartphone business.

A world of perpetual upgrades of everything would also be a dream come true for conspiracy theorists and naysayers. Some would warn that automatically upgrading one’s smartcheesecake every year could cause a dangerous addiction to ricotta. As if the manufacturers of smartcheesecake didn’t know that!

Yes, there would be product recalls: smartkale that spontaneously explodes, smartschnapps that drains down to empty too quickly, smartpajamas that suddenly stop working after five or six cycles in the washer-dryer.

But for every flop, there would be an electrifying new breakthrough: smartfloss, smartukuleles and eventually, one can hope, smartcornonthecob. If someone can figure out a way to make corn more exciting every 12 months, I’m all ears.

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