In my quest to get a new cell phone, I visited an AT&T store. I thought maybe they had a secret inventory out back that included iPhone 6’s that they weren’t selling. I was pretty focused in my search for a new iPhone, being an Apple fan and all (ok, some would say obsessive, but I prefer persistent). I mean, Apple products usually don’t require a user to have any real knowledge of how to make things work – just plug and play. They keep it simple.
When I had to face the cold, hard reality that getting an iPhone 6 as a replacement just wasn’t going to happen any time that day (soon, but not that day), I started walking around to look at my options. I was considering getting an Android OS phone or – heaven to besty! – a Microsoft phone. My concern was how the data currently in my phone would translate over, but at this point I was only window shopping so I was in dream land.
What I noticed right away in the store – all of the phones looked the same.
(Notice any real differences below? I didn’t either.)
iPhone 6
Samsung Galaxy 5
LG Optimus 190
LG Optimus 4x
Nokia Lumina Icon
Surprisingly, it didn’t seem like Apple was the leader in the design department – the new iPhone 6 is nothing more than a very thin Samsung Galaxy. The LG looks like the Samsung Galaxy and iPhone. All of the phones had the glass touch screen and rounded corners to some degree. I felt like I was looking at product clones.
So disappointing.
It was as if no one had a unique idea for how to get a phone to work, except to copy what a competitor was doing. I was hoping to see a different way of interacting with a device – maybe a smaller device that was based on voice commands, for example?
I didn’t feel like there were any competitive advantages to any of the devices. Sure, some may be faster than others. Some may have better touch interaction than others. Some may have been voice recognition than others (but that’s a software issue). How would anyone know this looking at the same general product design throughout a store? I was browsing through a bunch of little tablet/phone hybrids.
I hope in the future this changes, or else why buy from one company vs another if they are all offering essentially the same product and pretty much the same experience.
In response to mobile phone wars/comparisons/fans, I quipped: Perhaps in 5-10 years, they will be commodity products running the same software and the only distinction in in buying the logo. All phones browse the web, have Facebook, Yelp, and Plants versus Zombies. The changes we see now are incremental, regardless of what the vendors tell you otherwise.
I opt for the phone with the lowest operating cost, and that is largely influenced by the mobile plan.