A few hundred people retweeted one of my quips from last night, post 4S announcement. Here’s my tweet, quoted verbatim:>“We’re spoiled idiots. We call a dual-core smartphone with a 8mp camera + software that interprets language + fits in pocket ‘disappointing’” - Read on Twitter
I got hundreds of replies, and even though most were positive, quite a few people complained that Apple was now “just following competition” and that there are other smartphone models doing as well or better. I call bullshit. These people are talking about the Galaxy SII, which is indeed a beautiful, great phone, but certainly not ahead of the iPhone 4S (or the old iPhone 4, for that matter). If this claim doesn’t make you sweat, break your computer keyboard and immediately call me an idiot, read on for why I think that. You might still call me an idiot after you do, but at least you’ll know exactly how much of one I really am.
According to
a comparison by Samsung themselves (desperate much?
Yes), the Galaxy is ahead in terms of network speed (true), screen size (true, although this up for discussion -
read this), weight (true), and in the fact that it can control your HDTV. Exhale now - take perhaps a few minutes to control your television with your phone, too, because that’s an important thing to do.
Lets imagine the Galaxy SII was twice as good as the iPhone in every main specification (cpu, speed, memory, network). It would still be a worse device. What people arguing that Apple is now lagging behind competition fail to realize is that Apple is delivering consistent, polished experiences and services that integrate with one another beautifully. They’re not selling you a device because of its new CPU (they didn’t even announce CPU models until the iPhone 4) - they are selling you the ecosystem of device, software, app store, cloud, integration.
Ask someone who bought a mac for the first time recently, what they think of buying a new computer. The reason why they don’t go back to PCs is not because of any particular specs macs may have, but because things are cold, flimsy, unpolished or just plain bad on the other side. When it comes to the holistic experience, they’re not following competition - there simply is none, even though I wish there was.
(A huge idiot, right?)