It’s an occupational hazard among gadget geeks to fixate on new hardware, and yesterday’s introduction of the gorgeous Galaxy S8 by Samsung made that easier than ever. I could write for days about how pretty and pleasant that new handset is. But I also notice that the traditional competitive narrative of my smartphone versus your smartphone is starting to fade out of relevance. Samsung may still measure its mobile ventures by the iPhone yardstick, but its bigger challenges these days are coming from Google’s suite of connected services. Yes, the same Google on whose Android shoulders Samsung’s Galaxy S8 stands.
To appreciate the importance of software today, ask yourself what was more disruptive: Amazon’s Alexa virtual assistant or the Echo speaker that was its first home? Is it Snapchat’s social sharing or the Spectacles camera-glasses that Facebook is trying to copy to death? And, as nice as the Nintendo Switch hardware may be, isn’t it the marvelous Zelda: Breath of the Wild (and the promise of more excellent Nintendo games) that’s pulling in the majority of new customers? Hardware serves as the foundation for each of those experiences, but it’s in the software that the biggest changes and revolutions happen. Software and the services it enables will be the thing that keeps Samsung going once all of its design and hardware optimizations have been tapped out.
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As far as hardware and spec battles go, Samsung is a grizzled veteran. It outlasted HTC, outdid LG, and easily outsold Sony. The Galaxy S is deservedly held up on the same premium tier as the iPhone, however the old idea that consumers are making a free choice between the two is now retrograde. In mature smartphone markets, most people have laid down roots inside either the iOS or Android ecosystem, and that familiarity — along with the timing of when their mobile contract expires — carries great sway in their ultimate purchase decision. The iPhone 7’s record-breaking sales were in part driven by the built-up demand of millions of iPhone 6 owners coming off two-year commitments and looking for an upgrade.
There’s enough ecosystem and brand inertia in the mobile market for us to already know that both Apple and Samsung will sell hundreds of millions of phones this year. And though the cross-comparisons between their devices will be fun, most purchasing decisions will ultimately rest on more practical considerations than the beauty of their design or pixel-level differences in camera quality. Life would be easier for Samsung if the iPhone didn’t exist, of course, but that challenge is familiar and has gone relatively unchanged for a few years now.