Apple doesn’t
need a miracle, but clearly the marketing department thinks the company needs
to step things up. To wit: Apple’s latest iPhone web page,
which touts “There’s iPhone. And then there’s everything else.” It’s a brassy,
ballsy statement worthy of Steve Jobs himself and it seems to show an Apple
undaunted yet clearly aware that it can’t just say nothing about the
competition.
For most of
the past few years, Apple has ignored other manufacturers. Except for the Mac
vs. PC ads, there has historically been a sense that Apple is above the fray
and is not fighting down. They produce, others imitate.
However, now
that Samsung has finally figured out how to build a phone that everyone (who
doesn’t have an iPhone) wants, they’re in a slightly more offensive stance.
I’ll call it the forward stance – that stance in Karate where you stand
sideways, arms up to block, knees bent. It’s not as rigid and obvious as, say, Iron Horse,
but it suggests a certain readiness.
Where am I
going with this? Well the fact that Apple is ready to fight at all – albeit the
the same cold calculation as they usually express in their advertising – is
important. It means that people can now point to the Samsung line of mobile
devices and say, “Oh, hey, you can multitask on that big phone thing” and that
“You can print a book right from your photos and it makes an album from
everywhere you are!” It shows that finally, after a decade of fumbling around
in the dark, Samsung has finally switched on the light.
I won’t give
my opinion on the Galaxy S4 yet – I’m still slightly high from the time they
apparently hot boxed Radio City Music Hall – but I will say this:
They figured out that people didn’t care about specs. Instead, they care about
use cases. For years, Apple talked up the features: The iPhone can make video calls veryeasily, help you have as much fun as Zooey Deschanel, play Angry
Birds and take fun videos. With the Galaxy Note you could be kind of a petulant snot or Mrs. Claus’ sexpartner. Apple was aspirational, everyone else was confrontational.
Samsung was dysfunctional.
I would argue
that the S4 marketing is a step away from that tone (although it’s still pretty
rough). The idea, however oddly implemented, is that this is the phone that
works and does lots of cool stuff and you can, for one shining moment, use a
Samsung product to woo the girl or make your mom happy. That’s important.
Apple’s
response is to remind us that nothing Samsung (or anyone else does) is new or
particularly noteworthy and that no launch can diminish the laurels iPhone
receives on a daily basis. As Mark Gurman notes, Apple’s response page is all about how
iPhone was better before Samsung (or anyone else) was even in the game.
Apple wasn’t
rocked back by these launches. But Samsung is pulling something off that it has
never pulled off before: accessibility. It is a human product, not a product
for robots and, barring further missteps, I suspect the S4 will sell very well.
Does Apple care? Clearly it does, but it’s been in the game a lot longer and
has a lot more to lose. I think the company under Tim Cook still has a lot of
tricks left and getting into fighting stance is just the first one. [Source]
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