A tale of two tech giants

Virtually entire smartphone world has been divided between two players for the last few years. Either a person is a fanboy or the maverick who wants to break the shackles and fly out of fenced garden created by the one of the best design engineers. Yes, I am talking about Apple and Samsung.

It was January 2007 when the landscape of mobile phones changed forever of course for better!! Who can forget the iconic statement from Mr Jobs"its not one product, its three products in one" and thus first iPhone took birth. Since then it has gone through seven iterations and current range of iPhones are eighth version of breakthrough device and the most successful till date.

On the other hand, Samsung was a player in the smartphone space even before iPhone was announced, though an unrecognized one, the smartphone space was then largely dominated by Blackberry and Nokia. However, with the introduction of Iphone, things changed for forever, not only for Apple but for Samsung too! Samsung was the first of the few players who recognized the potential of these rectangular  shaped communication devices which carried a minimalist design language and were far ahead of the existing products in the market. Google also tapped the opportunity by creating android version of mobile softwares which mostly picked up its features from apple mobile software(now iOS). The major differentiation Google's android had was its openness and its unimaginable customization capabilities. Samsung had the natural strength of hardware and with the support of android, it could emerge as the biggest challenger to Apple's dominance. 

The blatant copying of IOS by Google invited sharp reactions from Apple catapulting to  famous quote from Steve Jobs of going thermonuclear against Google. Google had seriously ripped apart Apple in Software whereas Samsung had done the same  with hardware by manufacturing a replica of the rectangular shaped glass with capacitative touch capabilities. Android in its earlier days was a shoddy, complex and user-unfriendly software. However, with each iteration, it did away with its major flaws and added new features which were distinctive. Soon due to its openness, it became darling of those who were ready to break free, the unconventional and the mavericks.

With the release of fourth generation of IPhone, Apple was declared as undisputed king of design and the flag bearer of exquisite and premium devices like its other iconic products iPod and mac. Apple was collecting more than 80% of entire smartphone industry's profits with less than 15% of total sales of the industry.

Samsung on its part developed its own wherewithal and started devising ways to beat Apple on its own turf. It adopted a multi pronged strategy which included products at multiple price points to cater to the requirements of left overs( those who wanted to own an apple phone but could not) , launch of galaxy range of devices( those who had the capability to own iPhones but did not want to be confined within beautiful walled garden created by the Apple). Ironically Steve Jobs  used to say Apple is for those who wants to break free and those who do not want to live by rules but in reality this philosophy was served to the consumers by its biggest competitor in the making. If Apple gave the people a device which could be used as an alternative to computers or which could perform most of the functions, a computer could , it was Samsung's big screen phones which made people realize the actual potential of these devices. With the launch of note range of devices in 2011, it hit that sweet spot where experience met utility. The same smartphone became more immersive, consuming and addictive. 

Often success makes a person or company arrogant. Whether this was true for apple or not, only history will tell but one thing was clear that apple's persistent ignorance of large screen sized smartphone requirement by consumers was weighing heavily on the IPhone's sales. In 2012, it realized that something needs to be done with screen sizes and with introduction of IPhone 5, it introduced 4 inches screen size devices. The phone was a massive hit. However this half hearted realization by Apple was not able to stop Samsung's march and apple's tick tock policy for its yearly update cycle did not help it either. Finally in 2014, with their current versions of iPhones, they realized the potential of big screen sizes phones which blew away the competition by a huge margin.

Yesterday on 1st March 2015, Samsung unveiled galaxy S6 range of devices which featured a complete metal and glass chassis unlike their earlier plastic versions along with couple of changes( discontinuing micro SD card and removable battery options) which unconventionals wont like. Life has come a full circle for Samsung, from a company of mavericks to the Company of rule followers which again reminds us of Jobs who once said " Consumers do not know what actually they want until and unless you put it into their hands".Probably Samsung has understood its meaning now!!