First off, interesting timing. On Friday, we posted a piece entitled Things Apple changed, were mocked for, then were copied industry wide, which focused purely on Apple innovation that was first mocked, then drove change in the industry.
This is a bit different, but certainly related.
Fast Company, on this year’s Mobile World Conference:
In most years, MWC is a showcase for Android at its best, with a slew of affordable smartphones, cutting-edge tech specs, and new ideas like curved screens and optical-zoom cameras. The show ultimately demonstrates how Android phones are different—and in some ways, better—than the iPhone.
This year seemed different. Instead of playing up the things that make Android handsets unique, phone makers tripped over themselves to show that they were on equal footing with Apple. In doing so, they came off as cheap imitators, unable to keep up with ideas that may not even be worth pursuing to begin with.
And:
The worst example was the use of a cutout, or notch, for the front-facing camera on phones with edge-to-edge displays. While the iPhone X’s notch is arguably an eyesore, at least it serves a clear purpose, housing the flood illuminator, dot projector, and infrared camera that allow Apple’s Face ID authentication system to work. The notch therefore serves as a statement about the technology underneath, which might explain why Apple paid such close attention to the design of its curves.
None of this was internalized by the notch purveyors at Mobile World Congress. Asus boasted that its Zenfone 5 and 5Z have smaller notches than the “Fruit Phone X,” which is easy enough to pull off when the phones have nothing like Face ID inside. And while Asus says its phones have a higher screen-to-body ratio than the iPhone X, they also have thicker bezels at the bottom of the screen that throw off the edge-to-edge design. The same was true with several other iPhone X knockoffs that appeared at the show.
And:
It doesn’t help that Samsung hints at having Face ID-like powers with its new AR Emoji feature, which creates an on-screen avatar from a scan of the user’s face. As my colleague Harry McCracken wrote, AR Emoji has “none of the uncanny polish and precision” of Apple’s Animoji, perhaps because the S9 doesn’t have any of iPhone X’s face-mapping sensor tech.
This is not an argument that all innovation comes from Apple. It’s more, Apple’s influence has grown to the point that the copying has accelerated and become much more widespread.
[H/T, Scott Knaster]
UPDATE: Add to all this the most prescient observation by Jean-Louis Gassée, from back in December, commenting on Samsung mocking the notch while, at the same time, calling attention to this branding attribute:
The iPhone X’s display has been mocked, notably in this Samsung commercial, for the “notch” at the top, the tiny area where all the Face ID organs (and other sensors) cut into the screen. An astute marketing person pointed to Samsung’s error in fingering the black notch: It’s a distinctive branding attribute, it tells everyone you’ve got a new iPhone X. (And let’s see what Samsung does when they deploy their own face recognition on a future device.)