Samsung can’t blame Apple’s iPhone monopoly for a lifetime of terrible software
The The US government says Apple is blocking smartphones. Using tactics that make the competition look worse, instead of making its own phones better, Apple has unfairly hurt competitors like Samsung and Google, the Justice Department says. Whether the government is right or not, one thing is clear: Samsung has been making terrible software for years, and Apple cannot be blamed for that.
Of all the major smartphone makers, Samsung saw the threat from Apple’s iPhone before most. Among the largest phone makers at the time (2007), Blackberry executives dismissed Apple as a consumer play, and Nokia stuck with its outdated and unfriendly software. Only Samsung quickly changed course to accommodate the iPhone.
Unfortunately, Samsung thought the iPhone was all about features. It never understood that the real advancement of the iPhone was making these features so incredibly easy to use with intuitive software.
The iPhone’s first Samsung competitor was the crazy little one Samsung instinct, a feature phone with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, with a better-than-average web browser, music player and even basic apps. It was terrible, especially compared to the iPhone. But it looked like an iPhone, if you squinted closely. It was a poor replacement, but it ticked most of the same boxes.
With Android came a victory, but it was the wrong victory
Samsung’s first Android phones were equally terrible. Before the Galaxy came along, we had the Samsung See, which was the worst smartphone I’ve ever used. It stacked the TouchWiz feature phone interface on top of Android. On a features spreadsheet, the Behold matched the iPhone row for row, but using the phone was a terrible ordeal.
When the Samsung Galaxy phones hit the market, they represented the first victory for Samsung, but this victory only sent the company more strongly in the wrong direction. What made the original Galaxy phone great, especially compared to the iPhone, was its OLED display. Apple only adopted OLED on its iPhone display panels iPhone. Samsung’s OLED Galaxy phones gave the company a win on paper, and that’s the only win that matters to Samsung.
Why is OLED better? First of all, OLED looks fantastic, especially on a small display where you can see the difference in contrast up close. Colors pop on an OLED screen and because black areas are completely dark, the contrast level approaches infinity. Secondly, OLED ensures minimal battery savings, because the dark parts of the screen do not consume power. In practice it is a small benefit, perhaps 5% per day, but it is measurable.
Samsung had a spec win. It won with a feature that the iPhone wouldn’t match. It still used terrible software, still a version of the same terrible TouchWiz interface it used on the Samsung Instinct phone. Even with hardware that could compete with the best, Samsung was hampered by software that emerged when phones were still plastic toys.
Fifteen years of spec improvements and bad software
Over the next fifteen years, Samsung would follow the same pattern. It would aim to beat Apple in terms of specifications and hardware features. On paper it would win. It would launch phones with more and more.
First we got phones with larger screens. We built in a stylus, even though we all knew the styli were dead. So we have more cameras, zoom cameras space cameras. So we have curved glass glass that folds. Features upon features. No software improvement.
In all those years, Samsung has never made its software better, not better than Apple. We heard about every superlative, every clockwork feat, but no matter how much reviewers bitched and moaned about poor, confusing, and overwrought software, Samsung never relented. It has never improved significantly.
Samsung could give up shiny plastic phones, removable batteries, home buttons and everything else just to beat the iPhone. Somehow the company never cared enough about improving its software. Otherwise, it would never have been thought that it would be possible to beat Apple in software.
Maybe Apple wins because… it’s better?!
There are many reasons why Apple has the huge market share it claims, and Samsung lags far behind in the US. I’d say Apple simply makes a superior product. The iPhone, and I mean every iPhone, from the smallest to the best iPhoneis better than the Samsung Galaxy S24. Unless you buy the very best Galaxy S24Ultrayou buy an inferior phone.
The reason is software. Apple’s iOS 17 software isn’t just better, it’s quite an experience. The features and the hardware and the software all work together seamlessly. Sometimes works so well it’s possible be scary.
Despite the software, Samsung’s Galaxy phones are good, just barely. The best Ultra phones are so packed with useful features that we have to forgive the terrible interface, clogged menus and overwhelming home screens. However, if you don’t find these features useful, or if you never find them at all, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra won’t be a phone you enjoy, unlike the iPhone.
Whatever the Justice Department decides to do with Apple, I hope Samsung turns a blind eye, because the issues have nothing to do with Apple’s market power. Samsung has been dealing with the same problems for years, and if it expects any sympathy for falling so far behind, it needs to fix its terrible software first.