The (R)evolution of the Smartphone and Apple’s Battle to Stay on Top

Trolling for tech stuff one day (non-geek translation: “I was surfing the internet”), I noticed that Apple is suing Samsung because they believe that Samsung copied its iPad and iPhone in terms of style and interface by releasing the Galaxy S series phones and the Galaxy Tab tablet computer. According to Apple’s lawsuit, “When a Samsung Galaxy phone is used in public, there can be little doubt that it would be viewed as an Apple product based upon the design alone.” When I read this, I naturally cried foul.

Here is a brief history lesson on “the Smartphone”:
The Palm Pilot was a really nifty invention. It had a touch screen, could do a host of things, had developer support for applications, organized all your data, and cut into the profits of those companies making binder/organizers like the “Day Runner”. Remember those cute, eight-ring binders with leather covers and built in calculators if you had the deluxe model? They are still around, by the way. Then Handspring took a Palm Pilot, added a phone to the expansion slot and the Smartphone was invented.
Microsoft had been competing against Palm with their line of Pocket PC’s and when they realized that they were missing out on the cell phone action, they released Pocket PC Smartphones. This had a competitive advantage because it took everything good from Palm (touch screen, apps, organizer, phone) and added seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook. Now businesses had a powerful tool that could sync all of their calendar and contacts far easier than Palm. Lawsuits abounded, accusations flew, more advancements took place, and before you knew it, Palm was looking for someone to buy them out. HP bought them out, by the way, and I am looking forward to the launch of their latest product which I may review next month.
Blackberry came on the scene with their “push email” technology and before long everyone had a Blackberry if they had any major decision-making role in their business.  The Smartphone/Blackberry wars raged. Blackberry got sued by a company in New Jersey for patent infringements in 2008, and with Blackberry’s future uncertain, people started looking elsewhere for a “do-it-all” device.
Apple found popularity with their iPod MP3 players and, taking a page from Microsoft, found they could expand their device to include a phone. The iPhone was born. It was new, it was slick, it had a “bio-touch” screen so that the stylus (those little pen thingies that people lost all the time) was replaced by your finger, and it came with one huge exception to the current line-up of Smartphones: it was made dummy-proof.  All you did was download an app (a program that runs on a handheld computer) and that was that. Since you couldn’t customize iPhone beyond a few simple tricks, you couldn’t screw it up. Market research found that the average person was intimidated by the Smartphone being, well, smart. They didn’t want to buy something that required a lot of reading to master and could turn into an expensive paperweight if they pushed the wrong button. So Apple’s iPhone grabbed the non-business sector of cell phone users who wanted to do more with their devices. It is a device that still appeals to the baby boomers and aging American population that grudgingly accept technological evolution.

All the while, Microsoft and Palm have been making Smartphones. Their devices sent email, had apps, a calendar—just like the iPhone. But Apple had something the other guys didn’t. They had marketing genius. They created an image with their device that left you in the “out-crowd” if you didn’t have one. Blackberry was still hanging on because it had secured recognition as a “business phone” but iPhone’s branding dominance proved that you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. All they had to do was get enough people to think that their iPhone was the only one for them and that nothing else existed.
It wasn’t long before Google got into the operating system market. They found that they could take the Linux open-source OS (another non-geek translation: any developer could use Linux and put it on any system because the code is not licensed) tweak it for mobile use, license it, and put it on a phone, too. But Google decided to add the functionality of its maps, search, and email applications in order to compete with a market that was already flooded with Smartphone devices. According to the latest Nielsen figures from blog.nielsen.com, Google’s Android OS is pulling away from Apple and Blackberry as of November 2010 – January 2011 with 27% share of the market. This could be due to the fact that young people want the customization that iPhone and Blackberry can’t accommodate. This shouldn’t be a surprise: Apple branded their products as easy to use and did a remarkable job at snatching up the baby boomers and people who want to keep it simple.
But with Android OS winning the Smartphone battle, Apple must do what it can to compete. This is problematic since Apple only has one line of Smartphones—the iPhone (granted they have several generations and a few colors, but there is no choice in manufacturers)—while Android is available by a litany of companies with a host of design capabilities. Because Android can be used by any manufacturer, Motorolas, Samsungs, and HTCs out there have to compete through design and equipment innovation. Meanwhile, Apple is stuck with their single release of equipment that, if not released with huge technical innovations built in, can quickly become obsolete.
Case in point: Motorola released the Atrix with the Android 2.2 operating system. This phone has a total of 6 processors, including a graphics chip made by nVidia (nVidia is a graphics chip manufacturer owned by Advanced Micro Devices, whose graphics cards power some of the most sophisticated and powerful computers). The gem of the Atrix is it’s CPU (yet another non-geek translation: the central processing unit that does most of the thinking in computers and Smartphones) – it is the first dual-core processor in a Smartphone and has twice the processing horsepower of any phone at the time. Meanwhile, other companies are hard at work to make multi-core Smarphones an everyday occurrence.
Stuck with branding, the need to innovate further into the future than is possible, and with the early-adopter young person demographic (where all the money is) turning to Android, Apple is now forced to protect its branding. Branding is not something that is designed on the technology drawing board or innovated in a lab. Branding is something that marketing guys do with the help of psychologists and business people to make value from something intangible. It almost seems like a slap in the face to critical thinkers and innovators alike that Apple has resorted to their latest commercials in an attempt to keep consumers hooked on iPhone. In these commercials a pair of hands is seen using an iPhone, showing off the things it and every other phone can do. At the conclusion, a voice-over says, “If you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone.”  If I were to say to you, “If you don’t have a jet plane, then you don’t have a jet plane,” you would say, “Thanks for the report, First Mate Stupid of the S.S. Obvious.”

To say that Samsung has infringed on design patents from Apple is to ignore the fact that Apple took a majority of their ideas from Palm, Blackberry, and Microsoft. So here is a little advice to Mr. Jobs – it is time to sell the techies on your innovation and technology and not on your brand.  Oh… and a price reduction is also way overdue (still charging $200 for a phone that isn’t even 4G is a crime).

Edward Burns has worked in wireless retail sales for nine years, including seven years in management.  He left wireless to get his English degree at U.C. Berkeley, but still loves to keep up with the happenings of wireless equipment.  He is a gadget freak, builds his own computers, and is an early adopter of new technologies.