Samsung-vs-Apple

Is this going to be another Samsung S5 vs iPhone 6 thread ? Yes and I'll do my best !

Is Samsung Galaxy becoming the new iPhone, or is iPhone becoming a new Samsung Galaxy?

Yesterday I was having dinner with a few friends, one of them works at Samsung, and after a few hours of discussion over sports, world news and old-fashion TV shows, the unavoidable topic of which phone is better came up. I particularly enjoy these discussions because it helps me to glance marketing in its full extent, from consumer behavior, to branding loyalty, to satisfaction, and so on. It also takes me back to the time when we were kids and compared our toys, only that now we're grown ups and have, well, let's just say that our toys have grown with us ; )


So what I'm going to do next is bring back some of the most heated showdowns I recall, and yes, at the end I'll give you my opinion on the current subject of Samsung vs Apple

Sega Genesis vs SNES

Man those were the days....

If you are a Gen X or a Millenial, you're probably showing a smile on your face, just as your blood pressure starts to rise, as your memory sends you back 20 years ago to the time you could kill, just for the sake of being loyal to either Nintendo or Sega, in one of the most fierce and greatest console wars of all time. You should also like (or hate with your guts), what I'll be stating in the upcoming lines : )

As always, the first thing I'll do is put everything into perspective here and that includes mentioning something that 90 % of the people who get (or got) into this debate, normally forget, which is the following: before all the Super Nintendo vs Genesis hype and eventual war, there was in fact another previous console wars held on the 8-bit real, between the Nintendo (NES) and the Sega Master System. The thing is that it was a one-sided war, as the NES sold more than 110 million units, compared to 14.8 million Master Systems sold. I was lucky enough to actually play on a Master System. I remember the game was Double Dragon (which had already been released on the NES), and I remember thinking something along the lines of "this isn't so bad... it's just that the NES is better. Way better". So how did the console wars exploded between the Genesis and the SNES ?

Being oversold by Nintendo, Sega decided to release a leaping-new-technology console which was the Genesis, which offered 16-bit technology... double to the NES's 8-bit. There is no question the Genesis was a superior console than the NES, graphically, on audio, and even on technical CPU details. Nintendo's market share however was so big, they could afford to take more than two years to launch a console to rival the Genesis. So when the new 16-bit Super Nintendo came out, the Genesis had already a lot of miles on the market and a decent market share, as well as the percepcion of being "more powerful" in the gamer's mind. Don't quote me on this, but I'm willing to say that the phrase "console wars" was born at this time.

You see, when Super Nintendo came out, Genesis had already sold over 20 million units, so it was up to the SNES to either catch-up or surpass the sucess seen by Sega taking advantage of the less capable NES. That's when the daily fights at recess time in schools escalated:

-Why would you buy a Super Nintendo? Genesis is faster
-Why would you buy a Genesis? Super Nintendo es newer
-Why don't you sell your Genesis and buy a new Super Nintendo?
-Why don't you go @#~€!!!! ??

(and then the punching and kicking began)

Now that that time has passed, we can be objective and go with the facts:

1. Sega had a terrific marketing campaign

The ads for the Genesis were just plain awesome. Two things stood in the minds of SNES fans forever:

BLAST PROCESSING

and Genesis does what NINTENDON'T

Great marketing campaign.
Eventually it became that "SNES does what Genesiscan't" 

Those are two of the most inventive and brilliant slogans ever created. You see, technically speaking Super Nintendo was superior than the Genesis: it had more RAM memory, a larger color palette, more audio channels, a control pad which was way more comfortable than Genesis's, but... the CPU wasn't as fast as the Genesis. In fact, the SNES CPU was only half speed fast of Genesis's CPU. So I guess Sega marketers instead of telling consumers that Genesis had a faster CPU (which was the only technical advantage it had against the SNS), they went with some resonating commercials that stated GENESIS HAS BLAST PROCESSING ! I remember seeing that on TV and I was like "wow, that's cool. It sucks that SNES doesn't have BLAST PROCESSING". Of course, I didn't know what it was, but the commercial made it clear that the video games on Genesis were faster than those on the SNES.

And then of course, the NINTENDON'T quote... which to this day still cranks me up.

2. The Super Nintendo was superior

I think I've stated this clearly in the previous point, but just to be a bit more specific on what I mean when saying "was superior", the SNES could do things the Genesis simply couldn't (not at least with the help of add-ons). Some of the games have exceptions to the rule, but overall the SNES had better graphics, sound and playability capabilities. It was a smart thing from Nintendo to release an eight-button controller, against Sega's four-button controller. It was simply impossible to play games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter on a Genesis controller.

3. The Super Nintendo game library was way WAY superior

Both consoles had their decent and fair amount of games. Some good, some bad. They also had those "VIP games" and those "exclusive games", as well as those "should be tossed in a garbage disposal and burned for eternity games". However, for every GREAT Genesis game, the SNES had three. I believe this was the crucial difference that decided the winner of the console wars.

Even if you call a tie between Mario (Super Mario World) and Sonic (which ever version you want), the SNES had:

-Chrono Trigger
-Final Fantasy III
-Super Metroid
-Super Megaman 7
-Super Castlevania IV
-F-Zero
-Super Mario Kart
-Turtles in Time

and if that's not enough....

Zelda: A link to the past

I could go on, but I have to close this section and move on to the next topic. So I'll state the fact that between these two giants, the better console came out winner, not only because it was better, but also because it had better stakeholders.

SNES eventually outsold the Genesis, selling over 60 million units against Sega's 40 million. Remarkable considering -like I said- it came out two years after the Genesis had already been in the market.

Coca Cola vs Pepsi

You can't write an article about product wars, without mentioning the cola wars. That's like writing a physics history book and not include Newton.

For this case I will take reference on the 1985 infamous "New Coke" event that almost brought down the nearly hundred year established Coca Cola empire. If you haven't heard of "New Coke", chances are you probably missed on of the greatest executive management blunders of all time.

During the early 80s, the Coca Cola Company felt threatened by the so called "Pepsi Challenges" done years earlier by rival company Pepsi, which were a series of trials and blind-tests done that discovered that consumers overall preferred the Pepsi flavor over Coke's. The decision made by the Coca Cola Company was that they had to change their cola formula in order to taste more similar to what the consumer wanted. Hence New Coke was born, an entirely new product to replace the almost 100 year-old formula that had built and developed the business to its monumental shape.

Meet one of the greatest corporate blunders of all time

New Coke was released during mid 1983 and although initial reaction was positive in the first days, the overwhelming amount of hundreds of thousands of calls, letters, threats and other factors denouncing how Coca Cola had sold out its brand and beliefs for another product that wasn't Coca Cola. The pressure became so high, that top executives had to concede and re-launch the original Coca Cola and began recalling and halting production of New Coke. I was a little kid when this came out, but I do remember the flavor of tasting New Coke, and I'll never forget the feeling and thinking after the sip went through my mouth: "wow, this tastest good, but you know what?....it's not Coca Cola"

Coca Cola's top executives admitted to underestimating their marketing, their brand, their consumer's loyalty and in a few words, the name Coca Cola. They learned that sometimes consumers like your brand more than they like your product. As soon as the original Coca Cola was re-launched, sales increased as never seen before and Coca Cola once again, only that this time by accident, landed another blowing punch to Pepsi, in the eternal Cola Wars.

I consider myself a neutal guy when it comes to foods and drinks. I like my products to be good, able to satisfy me and rewarding. I won't say which one I prefer between Coca Cola or Pepsi, but I will say this: while I don't mind trying one or the other, I DO have a defitive preferece of one over the other everytime I am presented with the opportunity of picking just one.

Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo

You'll probably thinking how dare I, using Messi and CR7 in a blog of product comparison. While I'll say I do have this rivalty reserved for a future sports article I'm planning to post in the upcoming day, I have to take a few key elements of it in order to base my point around the topic my original topic.

The reason I bring them into the discussion is because I like how their different styles which contrast on a weekly basis since 2005, reward us football fans on how effective they can be in their own ways: on one corner we have Ronaldo the CR7 machine and in the other one we have Messi the atomic flea

Messi was brought to the senior Barcelona team by coach Frank Rikjaard in 2005 who made a huge bet on lining a young 16 year old who barely topped 1.70 m (5'5). Messi got the chance, took it, seized it and haven't looked back since. Today he sits with three champions league tournaments and more than 350 goals scored in his career. His dribbing ability as well as being able to keep the ball near his feet while moving pass defenders make him virtually unstoppable on the field.

Cristiano Ronaldo was also a prodigy, acquired by Sir Alex Ferguson in Manchester United in 2004. Contrary to Messi, Cristiano is tall, strong, and a superb athlete with an extraordinary work ethics, including a Ryan Giggs recognition of how able he is of doing over 1,000 abs on regular team training. Cristiano holds two champions league tournaments (one with Manchester United, one with Real Madrid) and more than 350 goals in his career. Cristiano dribbles, powers through and crushes his way through defenses like a hot knife through butter.

Pick whoever you want for now... I'd say it is us fans who have become winners 

So is one better than the other one ? The answer to that question won't come in this entry : ) The point I'll state a point that over the years they have proven to set the bar of comparison in the football world. Every football player wants to be just as good as CR7 or Messi, and if possible, better. The year of their respective teams is measured on how well did they perform. More importantly for us fans: every year, Messi wants to top Cristiano Ronaldo, and Cristiano Ronaldo wants to top Messi. Even though they have never publicly stated this (or even privately), their actions demonstrate that they are under constant competition and working to outdo the other one. If one scores a hat-trick, then the other score a hat-trick. If one scored a curved free-kick, then the other one scores a bullet free-kick. In other words, they push each other to be the best, while being best among the rest.

VHS vs Betamax

Some millenials won't have any recollection of putting a huge rectangle black tape inside an even larger cassette player that made like 82 different noises just to load the tape, took like 50 seconds to start playing the movie, took another 50 seconds to stop and rewind, and the another 50 seconds to resume playing. I guess that's why DVD manufacturers make us now sit through all those trailers.

A lot have been said about the so called "videotape format war", held between Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS:

-The Betamax was superior
-The VHS could record longer
-The Betamax could record with better quality
-The VHS was faster

I (well, my parents) was fortunate enough to own both recorders and I distinctively remember the VHS being annoying. It was just too big of a tape. The tapes couldn't fit anywhere, while the Betamax tapes could easily be stored vertically or horizontally. I will say though that by the time I began toying with both Beta and VHS, the recording time issue had been a thing of the past.

You see, when Sony launched the Betamax, the recording time of the tape was just one hour, which was absurd considering the average movie playtime is two hours. The VHS offered time to spare, giving consumers three hours of recording tape. But like I said, when I was getting around them, this was a thing of the past. My first VHS tape could record up to 6 hours on EP mode, and the Betamax could go up to 4 1/2 hours on Beta III.

Thing is, the VHS's EP mode was just terrible. The video was blurry and the sound unhearable. Just until a couple of years ago I got rid of my last EP VHS tapes, after converting/digitalized them to DVDs, and I remember doing the conversion process while watching the recording and thinking "oh my, I can't believe I used to think this was a state-of-the-art recording". The Beta III 750 tapes offered 4 hours and 30 minutes of good quality; of course, non comparable to DVD, but in essence, way better than the VHS; even better than the 2 hour SP VHS high quality mode.

Pundits still argue today about reasons why did VHS came up as winner when Betamax was the better product. The most accepted answer, like I said before, was the fact that Sony took too long to provide tapes with recording duration longer than an hour, and by the time they did it, VHS had already too much market share.

I do have to say, that I don't remember people disagreeing on the fact that Beta was better, while agreeing that VHS was annoying. I guess it's interesting to see that this war was won because of a "second-best" choice. It's like consumers said "well, it's absurd to buy a Betamax, since it can't do what I want it to do, so I guess I'll have to buy VHS".

time for the showdown... Samsung S vs iPhone

I'll be honest: I consider the iPhone the greatest invention of the 00s.

When Steve gave the conference to announce the so called "phone-internet communicator-music player", I payed little to no attention to it. I could buy into the features of it and its functionality, but it was at the time where Apple was still turning around and wasn't the solid $700 Billion valued company it is today. In essence, I was a bit skeptic and I thought "I have to see it to believe it". A few months later I was able to hold an iPhone.

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, he didn't just launch a product.
He launched a new culture, a new religion, an entire new way of living

To sum up the previous cases I went through we have:

• Super Nintendo beats the Genesis, because it IS a better product
• Coca Cola beats Pepsi, because it IS a better brand, despite consumers preferring Pepsi in blind-tests
• Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi, IS the better player because of how he works within his team.
• VHS beat Betamax, because it was the product that did what consumers NEEDED and WANTED.

If there is one thing that I believe the iPhone has done, hold on to and be true to, is its size. I don't know if it's my hands, my face, or the distance between my ears and my mouth, but somehow I feel the iPhone has the right size for a cell phone. Not long, not short, not wide, not narrow, not thick nor thin, just... perfect. It perfectly fits in your hand, as well as in any of your pants pockets, car door hand held, hiking koala, passport holder... it just fits anywhere perfectly. Clearly, Apple has been playing the Coca Cola card here on the subject of the phone's dimensions. The Samsung S phone series, has been spending a lot of years trying to find its own identity. One phone is small, then the next gen is big, then the next one is smaller and so on. The S3 was particularly huge in my opinion, as well as the S4. Recently, the S5 has nailed the size that adjusts best to what a phone must be.

Samsung has learned by making mistakes, trial and error and by listening to their consumers.
It has been a long way, but they are learning and learning fast.

Regarding the OS Software, one can state preferences of how fast, slick, nice or catchy your phone's OS is. One thing for sure is that they are years ahead anything that came and went before them. Personally, I think it's a matter of preference and to fall under the OS wars stating that one is superior to the other, when in reality, they are both pushing each other to be the best, while being better than the rest.

The one aspect that I think decides the outcome of this battle, is the evolutionary one. Darwin said it best in the late 1800s, when one must develop stronger characteristics in order to survive among the fittest. That's where I think Samsung S has the edge over the iPhone. Over the last seven years, we saw the emergence of the iPhone as a superior unique and outstanding product. As Steve Jobs said it, it's not just a phone, an internet communicator or an mp3 player. It's all of that combined and more. iPhone did a great job differenciating itself from the rest, even when competitors began showing up grabbing some of their market share. This includes Samsung, whose S and S2 phones were clearly one level below the iPhone. Then came in the S3 and things started to change.

While the S3 looked more like a machine rather than a phone, it was the first real threat to the iPhone when we talked about capabilities, features and overall performance. The first thing I thought when I saw it was: "wow, this is awesome but it's like a brick block. It's large, heavy and kind of uncomfortable". Apparently Samsung thought the same thing. More handy products followed like the Mini and the S4, until the present S5 we have today.

This feels like Game of Thrones !
Kind of like trial by combat 

So where are we at?

Like Coca Cola and Pepsi, against Samsung, Apple continues to be the better brand -quite confirmed by their $700 Billion evaluation-. But how can you value the iPhone brand vs the Samsung S brand? Personally I'd say the S brand is on par here.

Like the Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi comparison, each phone with their own style, works within you, responding their features to what is demanded and expected from them.

Like the VHS and Beta, the iPhone may be a slicker product and it may have been living from the glory of its first years, but right now I believe it is Samsung S who does exactly what consumers want and need.

Because of all these factors, I have to conclude that just like the SNES and Genesis, there may not be a perfect product, but the overall combination of brand, features, capabilities, expectation and performance, as well as ability to do what the consumer wants, the Samsung S5 is clearly the better product.

: )