June 7th, 2010
Today Apple launched the iPhone 4 and marked the day where Android officially took over as the leader in mobile devices… I’m sure we all remember Apple throwing a bunch of patents around, saying that HTC has been copying their iPhone, but now Apple is following HTC.
On June 4th, Sprint officially launched their new phone, the Sprint EVO 4G by HTC with Google, which immediately broke Sprint’s one-day sales record. The EVO is the newest and best Android on the market. It has a 4.3 inch, 800×480 pixel display, 1 Ghz Snapdragon processor, 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video conferencing and an 8.0 megapixel primary camera, support for a micro SD card of up to 32 GB of space, stereo Bluetooth, as well as the ability to share its Internet connection through Sprint 4G and Wi-Fi; not to mention GPS Navigation and other Google services.
Flash forward three days… and Apple is launching their iPhone 4 on AT&T with a slogan of “This changes everything. Again.” What does it change? This is three days after everything’s already been changed! Front-facing camera for video conferencing? We’ve already seen that, Apple. Multitasking? We have definitely seen that for a while now.
So what new technology did Apple actually announce with the iPhone 4? Retina Display… FaceTime… hardly valid reasons to upgrade your 3GS. Retina Display is definitely an advancement that we can give to Apple’s credit. The iPhone 4 will have a display that has a higher pixel density than the human eye can perceive (although with a little bit of controversy); 960×640 resolution that makes “text and graphics look unbelievably crisp and sharp.” FaceTime, a new Apple video conferencing app that borrows a lot from iChat Video Calls, is a great new Apple app. But we’ve had video conferencing apps for a long time… Skype is still the leader in that market and Verizon’s Droids have had Skype for months. Is a nice, new screen and clean, new video conferencing app enough of a reason to upgrade your iPhone? Is it a valid enough reason to stick to Apple instead of moving to the open source Google Android?
I think the most shocking part of Apple’s launch today is that they have finally integrated ‘Categories‘ and some of the other “Bests of Cydia.” So not only is Apple falling behind in hardware, they are officially copying the coders who they have shunned from their AppStore. How does this follow the company slogan “Think Different”? It looks more like Apple is playing catch up, rather than leading the pack. But this should be expected… we’ve seen the release of at least three powerhouse Androids this year and only this one new iPhone.
UPDATE: just wanted to include a few links and images.
- iPhone 4 vs Droid Incredible vs Android Evo 4G vs Nexus One tech specs
- Apple iOS 4 vs. Google Android 2.2: How Do They Stack Up?
- Apple vs. Android: Which OS Outpaces the Other?
- Jobs: iPhone sales spank Android ‘You will read this survey. And only this survey’
- Android Steals Market Share from iPhone
Are you kidding me, Apple?
Even your marketing is ripping off Android now?
By the way… does eyeOS break a trademark on iOS? Uh Oh… but wait, does Apple iOS break a trademark on Cisco iOS? (apparently Cisco has given the OK). Has the tech world run out of creativity and reverted to just stealing each others project names?
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