In technology, we’ve always gotten excited about so-called “speeds ‘n feeds.” The stats, the specs, the numbers that indicate performance. There’s a whole benchmarking industry for computers, for instance, that allow you to run the same test suite on your computer and check it against other models. In theory, that will give you an objective sense about how much faster/better one is than the other.

Except that when things are generally fast enough, or sharp enough, or have enough capacity, the speeds ‘n feeds don’t matter so much anymore. For the majority of the population that uses their computer to access the web and do office productivity stuff, the difference between a 2.7GhZ and a 3.0GhZ processor isn’t going to matter. Neither is 6GB of RAM vs. 8GB.

(A quick side trip – part of my mind still reels when typing those numbers; I remember when it was $100+ per MB of hard disk storage, and if you had 64K of RAM, you were rockin’ the best machine around. 8GB of RAM? 4TB of HD space? Amazing.)

So when the numbers stop mattering so much, what’s left? Experience and, to a lesser degree, features.

I was thinking about this yesterday, when the new iPhones were announced. As has been pointed out elsewhere, the new iPhone 5C is essentially a buffed-up plastic version of the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5S is a faster version (and 64-bit, which is actually a pretty big deal), with enhancements made to the camera and a new fingerprint sensor.

Now I’m an iPhone user, and we develop apps for the iPhone and other devices all the time. But I found myself stifling a bit of a yawn at times. Other than the 32-to-64-bit move, the hardware was an incremental step forward, but other than for fanboys and those at the end of their contract who need a new phone, it’s not going to move the needle much.

No, the ‘killer app’ of the presentation was the first part, where a slideshow-based demo of iOS 7 was done. Now this just might sell more phones. Parallax views, new sharing technologies, redesigned interface, easier access to more frequently-used things, intuitive use of calendar and mapping — this spells the foundation of a new experience altogether.

I think, at least in the phone world, we’ve entered the zone that PCs entered about a decade ago: speeds ‘n feeds aren’t so important anymore. How will the new thing (phone/PC/whatever) make me feel differently? Work differently? Live differently?

Should make for an interesting run for device makers everywhere.