Ah, Samsung the company once sued for copying Apple. Whatever happened to that? Well, I read the Wikipedia page on it and I think I’m even more confused than when I started. It’s just a mess of lawsuits, appeals, and more appeals. But I believe they must have eventually settled their differences in 2018.
As of mid 2018, the trials over the patent dispute have been resolved, resulting in Apple being awarded $539 million.[108]
But that was a long time ago. Samsung has grown up. And that is perhaps most evident at Samsung’s recent unpacked event.
Unpacked
So Samsung focused on a few devices during unpacked. Most notably their folding phones. Now as much as I’d love to dunk on Apple for not having a folding phone I just can’t do it. Because Apple does not have anything comparable. But what I can dunk on them for is everything else.
Take the Galaxy Watch. It has 30–40 hours of battery life. Now it’s not the best.
In fact it’s not even that good. Many devices can get over a week of battery life. But those watches do not have quite as many features or have very inaccurate sensors so they don’t quite compete with the Apple Watch. The Galaxy Watch does compete with the iPhone. Well, it would… if it were compatible with the iPhone. But the Apple Watch is only compatible with iPhones so I guess it’s not too different.
But considering that Apple made a huge marketing push of how the Ultra has 2 whole days of battery life it’s pretty impressive. And these are the standard watches. Samsung will probably release the Pro later which will double the battery life just like with the previous generation.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about here. I wanted to talk about something else: the Galaxy Tab S9.
I wrote a piece a while ago titled ‘I wanted to love the iPad’. In it I complained about two things: cost and water resistance. The iPad is just a giant iPhone. The iPhone is water resistant. So why isn’t the iPad? It makes no sense.
Especially not the ‘pro’ model. The pro model you’d expect to be the very best the iPad offers. But it seems to be only a minor upgrade over the iPad Air. In fact it could be seen as a downgrade considering many people do not like the Mini-LED panels.
I always expected the iPad to eventually be waterproof. And now that Samsung has beat them to it it’s just…. so disappointing.
This year Apple is rumoured to be bringing a periscope camera to the iPhone. Well, that’s nice, but it’s too little too late. And now the competition has leapfrogged Apple again with watches with more battery life and a tablet that is waterproof.
I remember a time when Apple was just lightyears ahead of the Android competition. They kept on adding features like live photos, 3D touch, and better haptics. But now they’re actually getting rid of features while other companies are leapfrogging them with better specs and better AI.
I’ve been very negative on Apple recently. But I’m curious what you think Share your thoughts in the comments. I do read them. Eventually.
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