Apple and Samsung dominate the US phone market, and they’ve done so for years. Together with Google, they’ve shaped our sense of what a smartphone is and what it can do, pushing the boundaries of mobile photography, software, and processing power. But over the last few years, they’ve sat back, content to iterate rather than innovate — and in the interim, China’s tech giants have plowed ahead. Now a gulf is growing between the phones on sale in the US and those available in the rest of the world. US phone buyers are missing out. Some of the blame for that gap lies with Apple. Where it goes, the market follows, and in recent years it’s gone slowly. But with new CEO John Ternus — a longtime hardware guy — ready to take the helm from this September’s iPhone 18 launch onwards, one can dream that Tim Cook’s cautious approach to iPhone spec updates might be behind us. If Ternus decides to pick up the pace, the rest of the US market might just follow.…