Remember the term iPhone Killer? It’s one that’s rarely used these days, but after the original Apple iPhone went on sale in 2007, it was used with reckless abandon to describe almost every competing smartphone subsequently released. The trouble was, none of the phones were even vaguely capable of striking down Apple’s hugely popular phone. The reason for their feebleness in the heat of battle wasn’t because they were technically inferior – often quite the opposite – it’s that they were fighting the wrong battle in the first place. The irony is, now that there really is an iPhone Killer available, nobody really uses the phrase anymore.
Most of you will already know the identity of the iPhone Killer, but we’re still going to save its reveal for the last minute, murder mystery style. Before the unmasking, here’s a look back at a few of the warriors – from the admirable to the pathetic – sent to strike down Apple’s all-powerful iPhone since its 2007 debut.
2007: Touch Pro and Prada
In 2007, the iPhone’s year of release, most of Apple’s rivals thought using a touchscreen – any touchscreen – was the key to success. HTC did it best with the beautifully styled HTC Touch, a smartphone that featured the TouchFLO UI, HTC’s precursor to Sense, but sadly it ran on Windows Mobile 6, which was hateful. The 2.8-inch screen was resistive too, which meant you had to press down on it with pressure, and it came with a little stylus to help press Win Mobile’s ridiculously minuscule buttons.
The only phone which came close to challenging the iPhone for popularity was the Nokia N95. Released before the iPhone (which is why it’s relegated to being an honorable mention), it had a 2.6-inch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, GPS, a cool dual-slide screen and the Symbian operating system. It was the smartphone to have at the time.
LG takes the crown for worst attempt with its overly flashy, terribly conceived attempt at iPhone killing, the KE850 Prada. Sure, it was attractive enough, but it was outrageously expensive, and had a painfully imprecise resistive screen and a stylus on a keychain. It, along with the Samsung Armani, ushered in a string of fashion phones too, none of which were any good at all.
2008: The G1 and the birth of Android
This was the first year Google came on the scene with Android, and it’s difficult not to see it’s first phone, the T-Mobile G1, without feeling nostalgic. It’s the little details that make it something of a classic, from the trackball below the screen to the scissor action to reveal the keyboard and of course, the Android operating system. Subsequently released without carrier branding as the HTC Dream, this is the one that started it all. If you’re wondering why the G1 didn’t kill the iPhone, it was Android’s age-old problem, it was just too geeky.
Elsewhere, manufacturers were struggling with Windows Mobile, on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and Samsung Omnia i900 for example, or weird modified feature phone systems, like the LG Voyager and Samsung Instinct. Again, they were relying on a touchscreen to attract punters. None were as bizarre as the Neonode N2 though, a tiny 2-inch screen phone with a modified version of Windows Mobile CE and a gesture control system to make up for the fact the whole thing was just too damn small.
Right at the end of 2008, Research in Motion gave us the BlackBerry Storm, with its SurePress (read: a button under the screen) 3.2-inch touchscreen and no Wi-Fi. It wasn’t a success.
2009: Droid and Palm Pre
Now, things start to get serious. Palm came back on the scene with the Pre, one of the better challengers of the year thanks to its innovative operating system, but a bungled international launch, questionable build quality, and limited public interest meant it never even had a chance to challenge Apple’s all conquering iPhone 3GS, released in June that year.
Just as 2009 was about to end, the Motorola Droid was released on Verizon and later internationally as the Milestone, along with Android 2.0. This pushed Android and Motorola into the limelight and thanks to a good product and an exciting ad campaign, the first Droid sold very well. But it still looked a bit old-fashioned next to the iPhone, as it combined its 3.7-inch touchscreen with a slide-out keyboard.
Less successful new phones include the flawed-but-attractive Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, Toshiba’s TG01, the Nokia N97 and Sony Ericsson’s Satio, which took almost eight months to go on sale after its announcement, only to be withdrawn because of problems with its Symbian operating system.
2010: The Evo, Galaxy S, and Windows Phone 7
2010 was a massive year for mobile phones, but the Apple iPhone 4 stood resolute, with its impressive new design and high resolution Retina display. It was joined by a series of strong competitors such as the first Samsung Galaxy S, the Nokia N8 and the Google Nexus One. However, the HTC Evo 4G was the year’s most exciting new hardware, with its 4G WiMax connectivity, massive 4.3-inch screen, 1GHz processor and Android 2.1 OS, while Microsoft debuted the most exciting software – Windows Phone 7.
It was also a year of sequels and phones that began to blur into one. Devices such as the LG Prada 3.0, the Droid Incredible and Droid X, Palm Pre 2, and the BlackBerry Storm 2 weren’t bad phones (well, the Storm 2 was a bit) they were just faceless, and that was a big problem when trying to compete with the iPhone 4.
2011: Galaxy rises
Here’s where everything started to change and Apple only has itself to blame, thanks to the lackluster iPhone 4S – a great phone that looked identical to the iPhone 4 on the outside, at a time when the public was demanding innovation. Samsung swooped in with the Galaxy S2. Equipped with a dual-core processor, an unfeasibly thin chassis and a gorgeous Super AMOLED Plus screen, it was more exciting than any Samsung phone before it. HTC tried valiantly with the Sensation series, as did Motorola with the Razr, but this was the year when the fight for supremacy became a two horse race.
2012: A true iPhone equal arrives
That brings us to the denouement, and it has taken five years for someone to realize that to kill the iPhone you first needed an army, and only Samsung has managed to build one strong enough to take it on. Pockets of resistance have existed before, but only amongst the geeky, and it wasn’t until the Galaxy S3 was announced that the people had a champion. Samsung’s marketing machine has pushed the Galaxy S3 so effectively, often using extreme, rabble rousing techniques, it has been embraced by legions – in exactly the same way as the iPhone. Now, with an army behind it, the strength of the Galaxy S3’s hardware can finally be used to Samsung’s advantage.
So is the iPhone dead? No, of course not, but for the first time in five years, it has met its match.
The iPhone has not met it’s match, it has met it’s better.
I am happy to say that my sister just recently came over from the dark side by ditching her iPhone in favor of the S3. I’ve never been so proud of her!
Samsung is the one that bring innovations these days. The iPhone is one year behind on technology and features.
Not
Innovate (n) – introduction of new things or methods. By the definition of the word ALL technology companies are in the innovation business as they’re coming up with new methods to complete tasks.
Windows Phone 7 introduced a new way to manage your home screen with constantly updated widgets. Apple developed a new way to manage movie passes, sporting event tickets and membership cards like Walgreens with Passbook. Android developed Google Now to aggregate your entire life into a single stream of information among other things.
Technology, as fast as it’s moving, is beginning to normalize. Nowhere is this more evident than the reveal of the Galaxy S4 that proved that even Samsung doesn’t really have a heap of new ideas themselves. A similarly designed S3 that’s slightly lighter, thinner and with a screen that’s closer to the size of the Note II is hardly what I would classify as truly innovative but it is “different” in some regard so you could technically classify it as innovative.
I’ll give it to you in terms of what windows and Google are doing in the smartphone market place. But Apple is just playing catch up. And what’s funny, people will still buy there crappy phones.
I have Galaxy S II X, my wife has iPhone 4S, she loves my phone! I would say that they are equal but thge larger screen and the many ways I can customize it makes it a winner at the end.
Oh ya, and the way Android makes it so easy to go from searching for a location to getting there with a voice command and a couple of clicks.
Beautiful!
This dude overlooked something very important, and it really makes me think this article is so flawed. One of the phones he calls “iPhone killers”, the LG Prada, was, in reality, out in the market around the world, albeit not officially in the U.S., months before Apple’s official iPhone announcement in the Spring of 2007. It is one thing to forget about its significance and existence. It’s another to call it a “terribly conceived attempt at iPhone killing.” Seriously, if he wasn’t too lazy to simply Google a query on the phone, he wouldn’t have made such a faulty statement. While the Phone might not be the world’s most sophisticated phone, it’s an absurd untruth to call it an “attempt at iPHone killing”. iPhone wasn’t even announced at the time the Prada phone hit the market.
You should do a little of your own Google searching, or Wikipedia to be more exact. The Prada was announced Jan 18th 2007, the OG iPhone was announced 9 days earlier on Jan 9th.
I’m just glad there’s real competition. Apple got lazy with the development of the iPhone 4 & 4S because there wasn’t any real contender forcing them to innovate. Once we got some real competition, Apple dropped the iPhone 5 and delivered an excellent phone. Let’s hope another phone steps up and brings even more to the innovation.
This is a horrible article. People leave all these great 5 star reviews immediately after receiving the product, but I would like to see them if they could go back and edit a month later.
The Droid OS is amazing; I just wish I had gotten it on a more durable phone like the Razr Maxx I replaced this one with. The Note II is made to be dropped–it’s seriously like the thing is oiled before it leaves the factory– and it will crack very very easily, and stop working shortly thereafter. I know this from experience, and I expect better from a $700 piece of technology (I don’t want to hear this crap about I should have paid another 30 dollars for a semi-protective case that should already be on the phone when you buy it, I mean, come on it replaces the battery). As someone who has owned everything from the Nokia 3360 (indestructible) to the Iphone 4, this is the most expensive and least durable phone I have ever seen, by far. The stylus and note-taking features were the initial draw for me, but the program for taking notes is setup very poorly, and you can’t take notes on a phone that doesn’t work. Now I am just sad I wasted my upgrade on this “phablet”; so much so that I elected to pay 200 for a refurbished Motorola, rather than paying for the Samsung repair. I will be getting a Xyboard for all my note taking, internet surfing needs (which, by the way, is also cheaper than the Note II).
Also, Samsung has very bad customer service, and is known for cheapening out on their products. It takes a class action lawsuit (literally) to get them to address their own design flaws.
Thhankyooou!
The Galaxy is a great phone, but I am not sure that counting out the Droid Razr Maxx HD as a contender makes much sense. I think Motorola, now that it is owned by Google, can expect to receive an unprecedented level of support.
And honestly I don’t want the iPhone killed. In competition companies must innovate. Android is a great example of that. Time will tell…
ITs not about the Hardware IT is Android OS VS iOS!
SAK
LG Prada came out a year before the iPhone