As the Apple-Samsung trial goes to the jury, both companies are plowing along with their plans for the holiday season. From Apple, we hear rumors of a new iPhone. From Samsung, we're hearing rumors about a new, 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II and a 5.8-inch Galaxy Player.
That would mean Samsung would have phones and tablets currently on the U.S. market with the following screen sizes, rounded to the tenth of an inch: 1.5, 1.8, 1.9, 2, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.8, 3, 3.1, 3.2, 3.5, 3.7, 4, 4.3, 4.5, 4.7, 4.8, 5.0, 5.3, 5.5, 5.8, 7.0, 7.7, 8.9, and 10.1. (Thanks to PhoneScoop.com for the well-ordered list; see below for more details.)
Apple, on the other hand, even with the rumored new iPhone and smaller iPad, is pretty much here: 3.5, 4, 7, 9.7. (I'm counting the iPod touch, but not the nano or classic.)
This raises the critical question of when Samsung will release a 6-inch device (and before you start laughing, that's a standard size for e-readers.) But it also shows how tremendously different Samsung's strategy is from Apple's, and why consumers need both of these companies in the market.
Something For Everyone
Samsung and Apple make something for everyone. They just define that differently.Apple creates one product for as many people as possible. The company is comfortable leaving people out if including them would reduce its products' elegance; thus, there's no AWS 1700Mhz version of the iPhone, because Apple doesn't want to build more SKUs than absolutely necessary. It's confident that it's hit the now-rare sweet spot of mass appeal; in an era of 500 TV channels, it wants to be the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. Apple wants to bring people together in a common experience.
Samsung sees a diverse world and wants to create products for every possible taste. Some of those will appeal to you. Some will appeal to other people, but not you. That's okay. People have different tastes, and Samsung's here to serve every niche. With such a diverse product line, the company can experiment, too, trying different form factors and different features (like the Galaxy Note's S Pen, for instance) without betting the company on them.
Both companies' strategies are good. Both strategies are profitable. They're just different. And we have a much richer landscape and better choices, because the two companies take such different approaches.
Don't Scorch the Earth
The Apple vs. Samsung lawsuit has been cast as a death match. We keep going back to Steve Jobs's "thermonuclear war" comment, where he declared something of a holy war against all Android-powered phones.But hopefully the jury in this trial will see the benefit in Apple's and Samsung's overall approaches to the market. Unlike The Verge's Nilay Patel, I'm not a lawyer, I haven't sat in the courtroom and I can't judge the points of law involved. But I know that thermonuclear wars leave uninhabitable wastelands, and not even the apparent winners truly win them. The worst outcome here would be a verdict that would in some way cripple one or the other company. It would be a Pyrrhic victory for the winner.
The best mobile phone market is one where you're free to build 26 different screen sizes, or four, and let the buyers decide. The buyers may decide that everyone's right.
For more, check out the slideshow above, as well as the list of Samsung phones and tablets, one per screen size:
Samsung SGH-T101G for TracFone (1.5); Samsung Entro for Virgin Mobile (1.8); Samsung Stride for U.S. Cellular (1.9); Samsung Factor for Boost Mobile (2.0); Samsung Rugby II for AT&T (2.2); Samsung Gravity 2 for T-Mobile (2.3); Samsung Freeform 4 for U.S. Cellular (2.4); Samsung Replenish for Boost (2.8); Samsung Intercept for Virgin (3.0); Samsung Brightside for Verizon (3.1); Samsung Transfix for Cricket (3.2); Samsung Admire for MetroPCS (3.5); Samsung Galaxy Exhibit 4G for T-Mobile (3.7); Samsung Focus 2 for AT&T (4); Samsung Galaxy S Lightray 4G for MetroPCS (4.3); Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket for AT&T (4.5); Samsung Galaxy Nexus (4.7); Samsung Galaxy S III (4.8); Samsung Galaxy Player 5.0 (5.0); Samsung Galaxy Note (5.3); Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (5.5); Samsung Galaxy Player 5.8 (5.8); Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0; Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7; Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9; Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1