Ben Uzor Jr
It is into this ultimate war for tech
dominance that the iPhone 5 has been delivered. True to form, Apple
delivered yet another competent iteration of its money-spinning device.
But the ‘reality distortion field’ mastered by the late Steve Jobs is
starting to wear off.
Look closer (in a manner of speaking, of
course), and what we have is a device that is sleeker than its
predecessor, but not all that different fundamentally. While it is true
that smartphones have matured as a product category and we are mostly
going to see incremental changes as opposed to defining innovations
(touchscreen, apps, retina display, Siri, etc.), there is something more
at work here.
If the iPhone 5 has failed to elicit the
glowing universal admiration the product line is used to, it is because
it has been born into a world with more competent rivals than any of
its predecessors. It has in fact been shaped by competition perhaps more
than any other Apple device. In other words, after years of leading and
shaping the industry, Apple is playing catch up in the handsets
category, the arc of its domination appearing to plateau.
The larger screen is a direct response
to the success of Samsung’s Android phones with large screens. Jobs
believed that 3.5 inch (diagonally) was the optimum size for a
smartphone. Samsung’s flagship Galaxy 3 smartphone sports a 4.8-inch
screen.
It sold 20 million units in three months
of launch. Now iPhone has a 4-inch screen, and a 16:9 aspect ratio. If
there is one decision that was forced on Apple, this is it. Apple has
always stuck with compatible aspect ratios and resolutions on its
iPhones and iPads for a reason - the vast array of apps in its Appstore
should work seamlessly across devices and iterations. For the first
time, some 700,000 apps made for iOS will appear letterboxed (with black
bars at the edges) on Apple’s latest device, not an experience the
company is known to tolerate.
Apple’s decision to do away with Google
Maps as standard maps solution in iOS and opt for a proprietary solution
is in parts driven by its worsening rivalry with Google. But it is also
born out of a desire to take control of the maps experience. Nokia, for
instance, has been getting attention for its maps and offline
navigation suite, thanks to its $8.1-billion acquisition of Navteq.
Apple didn’t say much about its processor, but claimed the new A6
powering the device was twice as fast as the A5 processor. The Qualcomm
Snapdragon S4, found both in the Galaxy S3 and Nokia Lumia 920, was
already twice as fast as the A5.
There is some debate in the tech press
about whether or not the underlying chip in the A6 is the ARM A15. If
so, it won’t be matched till Samsung’s Exynos 5250 or some other comes
out. Samsung currently enjoys a 32.6 percent worldwide share of the
smartphone market, up from 17 percent last year, according to research
firm IDC. Apple’s smartphone marketshare actually slipped from 18.8
percent last year to 16.9 percent. After years of struggling to put out a
credible competitor, Nokia last week unveiled the Lumia 920, a device
with wireless charging, NFC (near-field communication) capabilities and a
camera with optical image stabilisation.
The company hasn’t yet announced a
release date or price. So not only has Apple had to play catch up in
some features, this release still does not have features rivals already
sport. Wireless charging may not seem all that different from placing a
phone on a dock, but it is still a nifty, intuitive feature that you
would have expected Apple to pioneer. And it certainly makes a
difference in dealing with an incoming call while charging. No fumbling
about and hurried disconnection of cables required. While developers on
Android and Windows phone are busy developing apps to exploit the NFC
abilities of devices made by Samsung and Nokia, iOS developers are not
going to start work on it till Apple unveils a device with that
functionality.
At least a year from now, if ever. Not
that coming late to a scene ever stopped Apple from going on to dominate
it, but nonetheless. Also, NFC is just the kind of feature that allows
for gimmicky product demos - tap a speaker with your phone and it starts
playing the song that is playing on your phone. Samsung Galaxy S3 can
program NFC chips to perform a range of tasks. At the moment, it looks
like a built-in mobile wallet with NFC will be pioneered by a
manufacturer on the Windows Phone or Android platforms.
All of which is to say, that on paper,
feature to feature, there are phones that comfortably eclipse the iPhone
5. Not to mention value for money, since that has never been Apple’s
brand premise.
But the cultural and lifestyle appeal
that comes bundled with an Apple product, assiduously built by the
world’s most advanced marketing machine, remains unbeaten. That bit of
Apple magic, along with a richly deserved reputation for making durable,
trouble-free gadgets, made sure that the most incremental iPhone
release in history was met with the most enthusiastic pre-order response
ever.
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