But come we here to the aforementioned quandary. I'm disappointed in Apple. There, I said it. Tim Cook has not been wowing me like Steve Jobs did. The 3rd gen iPad was released to very little fanfare and lack lustre reviews. I'll grant the display upgrade was phenomenal, and a dual core processor was a nice boost. But how about the camera(s)? 5Mp is nothing to sneeze at, but when the competition is using 8Mp cameras, it leaves the consumer a little wanting. Even the iPhone 4S has an 8Mp iSight camera, so why doesn't the iPad? Yes I know, it's still 1080p. I know, it sports Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11 a/b/g/n, and 4G LTE. I know. But they hardly even tried to wow us with its release. And honestly, Tim looked like an attempt at Steve Jobs 2.0 as he delivered the keynote address. I'm sorry, but he needs his own style.
But ok, the iPad isn't my biggest gripe. My biggest gripe is the lawsuit. These Samsung lawsuits are already ruining Apple's public image. Apple wants to make the statement not to mess with them. Not to steal from them. (Whether or not Samsung *did* steal anything from Apple is a topic for a totally separate debate.) But that's not the message they're putting out there. The message the public is seeing is that Apple fears Samsung. Apple fears Samsung's innovation. The public is seeing Apple saying "Samsung's products are just like ours but less expensive." Now of course, that's not what Apple *wants* to say. But it is what the public is seeing.
And to be totally honest, Samsung's products are becoming as good as Apple's, and are indeed less expensive. There was a day when I'd have backed Apple's refutation, and their rebuttal that their products cost more because of the higher cost of manufacturing such high quality products and designs. And I don't know, maybe this is a case where Apple spend millions on R&D to come up with these great manufacturing processes, and along comes Samsung and follows those same processes, but because they didn't have to spend the millions on R&D, they can sell it to the consumer for less. Maybe, I don't know. But even if that's the case, it's time for Apple to stop trying to recoup the R&D money. They have to stay competitive, especially if they're going to survive Steve's death. And maybe that means they have to stop trying to recoup that money, and instead, price their products more at par with their competitors.
Has anyone reading this really looked at Samsung's latest offerings? Their hardware is really, really good. And paired with Android 4.0 ICS, they have a really good platform. Steve once commented on how the reason why he didn't think Android would be as successful in the developer marketplace, and therefore in the consumer marketplace, was because it was Linux-based, and therefore inherently insecure. Not meaning that the Linux kernel was insecure, but that the Open Source model is insecure, because if anybody can write code for it, anybody can break it too. I thought he may have been right at the time. But Android has come a long way since then, and I haven't heard of any significant security issues or exploits.
So, to the specifics of my quandary. With my cellular providor, I have the "new every 2" option, meaning every 2 years, I can upgrade to a new phone and extend my existing contract, as though I were a totally new customer. That 2 year mark will arrive in January 2013, and I'm faced with the choice of upgrading to an iPhone 5 (which is supposed to be coming out around October of 2012), or totally switching and picking up a Samsung/Android phone. If the latter, I would also likely sell my iPad and pick up a Samsung Note 10.1.
I'm going to wait and see if Mr Cook manages to wow me in October. What are your views? And please, let's keep the Apple or Android bashing to a minimum. I'm looking for reasoned input, not inflexible and often untrue dogma. Comments of the latter variety will be removed. This blog is not a democracy, it's a totalitarian dictatorship. :)
~Mahalo~
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