Addicted to Apple

With the release of the brand new and revolutionary iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+ the age old topic of Apple vs Android is bound to happen.  Similarly the obsession with this new phone will create havoc in Sprint, T Mobile, and Verizon stores across the nation.  People jump to get the brand new phone. This phone has many new features such as a "Swype to type" feature which allows users to drag their finger across the letters and type a word.  For example if one were to "Swype" the word "cross" they would start with their fnger on the C and drag along the screen to the R and then the O and then the S.  The new phone also has a feature called "reachability" wich makes the new and bigger screen more easily reachable if operating the device with one hand, and it comes with a step counter and health app.  Everybody is really excited about all of these new features however, all of these features can be found in the latest Samsung galaxy s5 which came out this past April. Actually, most of these features can be found in the Galaxy s4, which was released in April of 2013. The new phone even looks like the Samsung phones. These features are not new but people will be stampeding to get their hands on them.  Last year when the revolutionary fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s came out everyone was so excited, little did the public know but the first fingerprint scanner on a phone was actually incorporated in a Motorola phone, the Motorola Atrix 4G, which was released in February of 2011.

Considering all of this I am not saying that Apple is wrong for copying a successful  characteristic in another phone.  In fact if they didn't incorporate these types of things the company would not be very successful moving forward.  It is, however, actually ridiculous how excited people get when a new iPhone comes out. People stampede stores and buy new phones when they have had theirs for less than a year.  Apple and iPhone started with a huge and revolutionary product that changed the role of the phone and the way people communicate forever.  There was a revolution which they created!  Since then the company has gained a loyal following that will buy whatever new product comes out and will think it is the most exciting thing since sliced bread.  Because they have this loyal customer base, they can make a less reliable product.  By now, it is possible to have a waterproof phone, or at least a water resistant phone.  There are several on the market.  Apple doesn't make phones like this though because when people drop their phone in the pool or leave it in the rain they come to the Apple store and buy a new one.  There is a new material that some screens are made of that cracks much less easily than regular glass, but once again if a screen cracks the average iPhone owner will either pay to replace the screen or the entire phone.  Those who are so loyal to Apple are like lemmings following the company blindly without truly examining the value of their dollar and the things they will get out of their phone.  

Additionally, the new phone comes with a new iOS 8, which of course is available on the older phones as well.  This has improvements from the old one I'm sure, but again it is a very easy way for the company to make money. It takes up so much memory that in order to download it people need to delete most of the contents on their phones.  When the iOS 7 came out the same thing happened.  People who didn't upgrade started to see problems in the way their apps worked and most were forced over to the iOS 7.  Then  they didn't have enough memory on their phone for other things.  This causes people to upgrade, which means more sales for Apple, and I'm sure something similar will happen with the release of this software.  Maybe this Apple obsession is due to the fact that people always want the next best thing, and because of Apple's great first impression and domination of the market for so long, it has become a status symbol.  People assume the best thing is from the company that used to make the best phones.  When the first iPhone was released companies scrambled to create a comparable product and they tried to copy features, and Apple tried its best to wrap them up in litigation to protect their new technology.  Now the tides are shifting and Apple is playing catch up, trying to take the best from all the phones around it, trying to cling to its status in the market.