Month: September 2012

So, who’s buying the new iPhone?

Taura Khuluma Say it!!Leave a comment

Well you know how they say somethings never change? For Apple this is starting to ring too true with the iPhone family! Well they change but only to get bigger.

2 weeks back I spoke about how they were winning market share battles in the court, I feel they will need it even more now that many people are starting to think the iPhone 5 still falls short of the Galaxy S3, way short!. One of my colleagues said, the iPhone 5 is what the 4S should have been in the first place. It seems many of us were expecting the new iPhone to be mind blowing, just like the 3GS and the 4 did but maybe Apple have reached their limit on what they can invent for the product.

Endgadget did a spec contrast between the Iphone 5 and Galaxy S3, despite being on the market for what is an eternitty in tech times, the Galaxy wins many like for like contrast! How come Apple didn’t do a copy and improve or at least buy a Galaxy S3, tear it apart and build a better product. It works for Toyota, Samsung, everyone. How can they come to the market with a product that can’t beat an old product for specs?

And what happened to the baby iPad?

The problem with Apple vs Samsung: Is this situation going to lead to more marketing share battles being fought in court and not on the marketplace?

Taura Khuluma Say it!!, , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

So it has come and gone that Apple have taken the fight wth Samsung for smartphone and tablet market share beyond basic marketing strategy. I worry that there is a possiblity of setting an ugly trend here were companies that feel insecure about their marketing positions can use legal instruments to win their battles in the shop.

So if Apple could win, who else has a chance to sue their rivals and get ahead in the market. Word is NOKIA still contributes significantly to the antenna technology in all mobile phones. Imagine NOKIA saying F OFF to everyone in the mobile phones game. Apple won’t like that one bit.

The whole thing reminded me of the Olympics in Athens when NIKE wanted to get Adidas to remove some of its branding from products and have just one trademark like NIKE does. They were suggeting that Adidas either has the 3 leaf mark or three stripes or the more modern 3 blocks on the chest but not all three or 2 as is usually the case. Apparently NIKE felt this was unfair advertising and Adidas were getting more out the money they paid for advertising at the olympics, which, incidentally was the same as what NIKE paid at the same time.

The problem I have with all this is it kills competition and creativity from marketers in their quest for market dominance. With budgets topping £28 billion in 2011/12 there is hope yet for marketing to prevail, perhaps the creators of products should stop focusing on their rivals’s product and invent new ground braking technology rather than this endless chain of innovation that has lead Samsung to pay a king’s ransom in fines.

But, maybe we have reached the end of our inventiveness as a generation. I often ask my students – “is it possible to come up with something totally unique and not a copy of anything on the market at the moment?”