iPhone 5: Why Apple is still the king

Ben Uzor Jr

In 2016, phone makers will ship a billion smartphones, according to research firm NPD DisplaySearch. That will be one smartphone for nearly every sixth person on the planet. The pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow is pretty gigantic, and it is little wonder that vicious battles are being fought in courtrooms and markets around the world. It is into this ultimate war for tech dominance that the iPhone 5 has been delivered. True to form, Apple delivered yet another competent iteration of its money-spinning device. But the ‘reality distortion field’ mastered by the late Steve Jobs is starting to wear off. Look closer (in a manner of speaking, of course), and what we have is a device that is sleeker than its predecessor, but not all that different fundamentally. While it is true that smartphones have matured as a product category and we are mostly going to see incremental changes as opposed to defining innovations (touchscreen, apps, retina display, Siri, etc.), there is something more at work here.

If the iPhone 5 has failed to elicit the glowing universal admiration the product line is used to, it is because it has been born into a world with more competent rivals than any of its predecessors. It has in fact been shaped by competition perhaps more than any other Apple device. In other words, after years of leading and shaping the industry, Apple is playing catch up in the handsets category, the arc of its domination appearing to plateau. The larger screen is a direct response to the success of Samsung’s Android phones with large screens. Jobs believed that 3.5 inch (diagonally) was the optimum size for a smartphone. Samsung’s flagship Galaxy 3 smartphone sports a 4.8-inch screen.

It sold 20 million units in three months of launch. Now iPhone has a 4-inch screen, and a 16:9 aspect ratio. If there is one decision that was forced on Apple, this is it. Apple has always stuck with compatible aspect ratios and resolutions on its iPhones and iPads for a reason - the vast array of apps in its Appstore should work seamlessly across devices and iterations. For the first time, some 700,000 apps made for iOS will appear letterboxed (with black bars at the edges) on Apple’s latest device, not an experience the company is known to tolerate. Apple’s decision to do away with Google Maps as standard maps solution in iOS and opt for a proprietary solution is in parts driven by its worsening rivalry with Google. But it is also born out of a desire to take control of the maps experience.

Nokia, for instance, has been getting attention for its maps and offline navigation suite, thanks to its $8.1-billion acquisition of Navteq. Apple didn’t say much about its processor, but claimed the new A6 powering the device was twice as fast as the A5 processor. The Qualcomm Snapdragon S4, found both in the Galaxy S3 and Nokia Lumia 920, was already twice as fast as the A5. There is some debate in the tech press about whether or not the underlying chip in the A6 is the ARM A15. If so, it won’t be matched till Samsung’s Exynos 5250 or some other comes out. Samsung currently enjoys a 32.6 percent worldwide share of the smartphone market, up from 17 percent last year, according to research firm IDC. Apple’s smartphone marketshare actually slipped from 18.8 percent last year to 16.9 percent.

After years of struggling to put out a credible competitor, Nokia last week unveiled the Lumia 920, a device with wireless charging, NFC (near-field communication) capabilities and a camera with optical image stabilisation.The company hasn’t yet announced a release date or price. So not only has Apple had to play catch up in some features, this release still does not have features rivals already sport. Wireless charging may not seem all that different from placing a phone on a dock, but it is still a nifty, intuitive feature that you would have expected Apple to pioneer. And it certainly makes a difference in dealing with an incoming call while charging. No fumbling about and hurried disconnection of cables required. While developers on Android and Windows phone are busy developing apps to exploit the NFC abilities of devices made by Samsung and Nokia, iOS developers are not going to start work on it till Apple unveils a device with that functionality.

At least a year from now, if ever. Not that coming late to a scene ever stopped Apple from going on to dominate it, but nonetheless. Also, NFC is just the kind of feature that allows for gimmicky product demos - tap a speaker with your phone and it starts playing the song that is playing on your phone. Samsung Galaxy S3 can program NFC chips to perform a range of tasks. At the moment, it looks like a built-in mobile wallet with NFC will be pioneered by a manufacturer on the Windows Phone or Android platforms. All of which is to say, that on paper, feature to feature, there are phones that comfortably eclipse the iPhone 5. Not to mention value for money, since that has never been Apple’s brand premise.

But the cultural and lifestyle appeal that comes bundled with an Apple product, assiduously built by the world’s most advanced marketing machine, remains unbeaten. That bit of Apple magic, along with a richly deserved reputation for making durable, trouble-free gadgets, made sure that the most incremental iPhone release in history was met with the most enthusiastic pre-order response ever.