During the past two days, I've seen a few jabs taken at the iPhone 6 by the Android crowd. They are pointing out that some Android devices have had 4.7" screens or NFC payments for awhile, so Apple is "lagging behind" Google in the smartphone arena. What these people fail to realize is that Apple didn't fail to introduce these features earlier; they could have, but chose not to.
A sample of a meme attempting to point out how the iPhone is lagging behind
Why did Apple choose not to debut cutting-edge features sooner and try to beat their competition to market?
The simple answer is that first does not always mean better. Let's look at the points on the sample meme above one by one.
It is true that some Android devices have had 4.7" screens long before the iPhone 6. In fact, there are Android devices with even bigger screens, such as the Samsung Galaxy Note, which had a 5.3" screen in 2011, and they've grown to 5.7" since then. Apple could have gone to bigger screens much earlier, had they wanted to. So...why didn't they want to? The original concept of the iPhone was that it would be a device that could be easily operated with one hand by the vast majority of people. That is, if you're holding it in one hand, you can reach all four corners of the screen with the thumb of the same hand. The bigger the screen, the more people there are who can't comfortably do that.
Another part of the reason is cost, specifically the cost of quality. Apple uses better materials in the construction of their phones, including the screens, and the cost of producing larger screens with these better materials would not have permitted Apple to sell iPhones at the price points they wanted. Bear in mind that it's not just the cost of the extra material in a bigger screen, but the cost of actually making a bigger screen reliably. The bigger the screen being manufactured, the more chance there is that there will be a flaw somewhere in the screen, and when a screen can't be used, that's more money wasted. Bigger screens of the same type always cost disproportionately more than the mere size increase would suggest.
Resolution is another matter. The meme above says the Nexus 4 has "760p" vs. the iPhone 6's "750p". What exactly is this referring to? It's referring to height of the screen, in pixels, if held in landscape mode (sideways). They are attempting to draw a parallel to the way television screens are described, e.g. "1080p". (The "p" stands for "progressive", which isn't even relevant here.) The iPhone 6's screen is 750 pixels tall when held sideways, whereas the Nexus 4's screen is 768 pixels tall (which means they could have made the difference seem even bigger if they had said "768p" instead of just "760p"). What they don't tell you is that despite having 18 fewer pixels in height, the iPhone 6's screen has three times this difference more in width. That is, it has 54 more pixels in width than the screen of the Nexus 4.
Let's look at the screen specs. The resolution of the Nexus 4's screen is 1280x768, while the iPhone 6 has a screen resolution of 1334x750. So, the Nexus 4 has 983,040 total pixels, while the iPhone 6 has 1,000,500 total pixels. Keep in mind that the screen sizes are the same: 4.7". This means that because it has more pixels in the same size, the iPhone 6's screen has a finer resolution. This is called pixel density, and is measured in pixels per inch, or ppi, which is the number of pixels in a straight line, either vertically or horizontally. The Nexus 4 has a pixel density of 318 ppi, while the iPhone 6 has 326 ppi.
But consider resolution and pixel density in relation to the overall theme of the meme: "Welcome to 2012!" Ok, well let's look back at 2012, shall we? The Nexus 4 didn't come out until November of 2012, so for most of the year, you'd need to look at its predecessor, the Galaxy Nexus, which came out a year earlier in November 2011. Remember, the Nexus 4 has a pixel density of 318 ppi; the Galaxy Nexus had a pixel density of 316 ppi. Let's look back even further, to the next older model in the Nexus line, the Nexus S, which came out in December 2010. This one had a pixel density of 233 ppi. Then, before that, in January of 2010, there was the Nexus One, which had a pixel density of 254 ppi. (The older device, the Nexus One, had a finer pixel density than its successor, the Nexus S, because the Nexus S increased screen size from 3.7" to 4.0" while keeping resolution the same, so it had the same number of pixels spread out over a larger screen.)
Why am I looking back that far? Because I haven't forgotten the iPhone 4, which came out in June 2010, between the Nexus One and Nexus S. The iPhone 4 had a pixel density of 326 ppi. Remember that number? It's the same as the pixel density of the iPhone 6, yet an iPhone had this all the way back in the middle of 2010. It wouldn't be until more than a year later that something in the Nexus family (the Galaxy Nexus) came close, and to this day, the Nexus family still hasn't beaten the iPhone in terms of pixel density, and remember this is a truer measurement of how fine the image on the screen really is.
The upshot of all that is the claim or implication that because the Nexus 4 has a few more pixels in height, it has a better screen, is ridiculous. The Nexus beat the iPhone to market with a bigger screen because Apple chose to produce a better screen instead.
The other side of that coin is that in practical terms, you simply cannot notice the difference between 326 ppi and 318 ppi. Unless you use a magnifying glass, and I'd bet that most of you don't regularly use a magnifying glass when looking at your phone screen. But if you did, the iPhone screen would look better to you.
Ok, enough about screens, let's look at NFC. "NFC" stands for "near field communication" and it's a technology that allows to devices to communicate with each other, but only when they're very close to each other. Why would you want to deliberately limit the range of communication? A big reason is for security. NFC can be used for a variety of purposes, but the hot topic right now is payments. Just how far do you want your credit card number to be broadcast? That's why a technology was developed with a deliberately small range.
Android devices have been NFC-capable for a few years, and this feature is just now coming to the iPhone. Win for Android, right? Well...Forbes has classified Google's attempt to push NFC payments into the marketplace as a failure. Apple could have added NFC capability to any of the previous few generations of iPhones, but once again, they chose not to. And once again, we ask: why did they hold back?
Back in 2011, when Androids first started being NFC-capable, there was very little merchant support for that feature. For a merchant to accept an NFC payment, there needs to be a reader in place at the point of sale (POS, a common industry abbreviation which in this case does not mean "piece of shit"). There were very few of these back in 2011, or 2012, or 2013 for that matter. Your experience may be different, but personally, I haven't noticed many NFC-capable POS devices until the past several months.
Another part of the reason is critical mass. When Androids first came out with NFC, Apple had about as many credit cards on file as either Amazon or PayPal individually. Today, Apple has more than twice as many credit cards on file as Amazon and PayPal combined. That means that when someone gets an iPhone 6 and activates the Apple Pay feature, they can use a credit card that's already on file, without having to re-enter any information. This was not the case with Android devices.
A third reason is security. The security standards back when Android first had NFC wasn't as good as it is now. Today, Apple has in place technologies to protect your credit card information that are better than what Android devices do now, such as thumbprint scanners.
The fourth reason is just one of simple timing. Back then, Apple didn't think the time was right to try to push out NFC. And they were right, according to financial industry experts. I've already discussed the issue of lack of merchant support, in terms of NFC-capable POS readers. But don't even think about trying to claim that it was because of Google pushing out NFC that caused merchants to start having NFC-capable POS readers, because this simply isn't true. Why, then, are merchants now putting out NFC-capable POS readers? The answer is because that's what the credit card companies want them to do. The credit card companies are on the verge of a huge major change, one that will switch credit cards to having embedded chips instead of magnetic stripes. It is because of the credit card companies wanting this that merchants are now putting out NFC-capable POS readers, not because of Google. And Apple has worked with the credit card companies, and with that cooperation, Apple's implementation of NFC payments will be better and more secure.
And that's simply the way Apple does things. They don't necessarily try to be first; they just try to be better.
Let's take a quick look at several more of the points on the meme at once: notification actions, widgets, typing suggestions, cloud photo backup, and battery stats. Unless I'm missing something, I don't understand why these points were mentioned at all, because they're all things that iPhones have been able to do in the past. None of these features are new to the iPhone 6. I don't recall which features debuted with which iPhone generation, but I know at least some of them are older than the 2012 mentioned in the heading. Mentioning these things is just a failed attempt to stack the argument.
What have I not addressed so far? Cross-app communication, and third-party keyboards.
I only represent myself, not all iPhone users. All I can say for myself is that I have never wished for third-party keyboards. In fact, I never even knew it was something that was possible. Now that I know it is, all I can do is yawn. The keyboards I've been using so far have been good enough to get me through 6+ years of happy iPhone ownership. Nevertheless, I acknowledge the fact that some other iPhone users may want this feature, and feel free to comment on how you feel knowing that Android had it first.
I'm not sure what "cross-app communication" is. It doesn't sound like anything I've been missing. I know that iPhones have cross-platform communication. For example, I can open a spreadsheet in Numbers on my iPhone, make some changes, and see those same changes show up on a Mac or in a webpage. Same for contacts, calendars, etc. I feel this probably isn't what this feature is referring to, but without knowing more, I cannot comment on it at this time.
In conclusion, let me say that I acknowledge that Android devices do occasionally debut new features before iPhones. Sometimes those debuts truly are wins for Android. But I hope I've shown that first does not always mean best, and also that looking at one specification out of context does not necessarily mean the feature in question is better. But Apple does occasionally come out with good stuff first, too. The overall point is that Android is not better than iPhone...and iPhone is not better than Android. Not in absolute terms. One may be better for you, something else may be better for me.
One last thing, a bit of a tip for the Android fans out there: If you're going to make something like this meme, full of inflated fluff with no real substance, try to keep it to yourselves, where you can laugh at iPhone fans in blissful ignorance. Addressing it to iPhone fans was probably not the best idea. It's probably not as much fun for you once almost every point is so easily destroyed with real facts. Finally, if you're going to make a jab at the intelligence of iPhone fans (in the final line of the meme above), be prepared for the comeback: Studies have shown that iPhone users, on average, are more intelligent and better-educated than Android users. Just more proof that if you're going to put something in an attack directed at fans of the product you're attacking, you better make damn sure you know what you're talking about.
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