Apple is well known to have spent a fortune whilst it regained its place as the pride of many technology consumers. They took aim at Microsoft and the beige box manufacturers in those Mac vs PC ads, but more regularly they remained above the fray making fun, interesting, and creative ads that drew people in to their products and impressive industrial design.
It is because of that history that the latest marketing from Apple seems so out of place. Coming swiftly after the launch of the iPhone’s biggest rival, the Samsung Galaxy S4, Apple sent an email to its users entitled “How will you love it? Let us count the ways” which went on to describe ways that having an iPhone was better than the competition in a similar fashion to what’s now on this page. Except that for the majority of the reasons listed on there Apple does not lead the pack.
The first claim they make is the winning of various awards, which is something that pretty much every other smartphone manufacturer has also won plenty of – it does nothing to make Apple stand out and makes the marketing look like it should be for a Volvo not an iPhone. And then Apple gets into the dirty game of comparing specifications – something Apple has managed to stay above until now.
“Only the iPhone has the Retina display” – well that is true, but the leading smartphones from Sony, HTC, Nokia and now Samsung all have similar and sometimes much higher pixel densities than a Retina display. The iPhone 5’s 326 ppi pales in comparison to the S4’s 441 ppi for example – so why are Apple drawing attention to this?
Then they compare battery life? The iPhone is hardly leading the world in terms of battery life, and many users would prefer that Apple used a slightly bigger battery that gave them a little more breathing room when using the phone all day.
Apple’s A6 chip is also looking rather long in the tooth right now. The Samsung S4 is going to be coming with an Octa-Core Samsung Exynos 5 for those of us in Europe, and the A6 does not come close to it on performance.
And all leading smartphones have wireless and LTE for faster download speeds.
I have no doubt that the iPhone 5S (or iPhone 6 – you never know!) will be able to match up to the S4 and its other competitors in all of the areas listed, but for Apple to bring out marketing now that highlights how far behind the iPhone 5 has become is a very strange move from Cupertino. More importantly, however, it was not a move that Steve Jobs would have made – because he knew very well that for Apple to succeed it needed to keep above the competition warring below it, it needed to rise above the Android race on specs – but apparently that is not the Apple of today.