Abstract:
According to the "Wall Street Journal" report,
The release of Apple's iPhone Duo sparked a craze for folding machines and also made some Samsung folding machine users feel "understood."
Rasheed Richmond has used several Samsung foldable screen phones, and the process was quite lonely.
Apple releases iPhone Duo
In work meetings and social gatherings, he's often the only one not using his iPhone. To make matters worse, people didn't even recognize his phone.
This situation did not change until Apple launched its first foldable screen phone, iPhone Duo. Since then, Richmond has received the same message on her phone: "Now I know why you use a folding screen."
Richmond likes Samsung folding machine
The 48-year-old CEO of a Los Angeles technology company has been trying to persuade people to try Samsung's foldable screen phone, but few people are willing to try it. "They feel like they don't have the guts to try it yet," he said.
"Second class citizen"
Being in the Samsung camp, users never seem to be welcomed. Samsung and its users have long resented its second-class status, and last week's release of Apple's new iPhone reignited that resentment.
“That’s it (iPhone Duo)? Still the same old thing.” said a Samsung social media account. Fans, tired of hearing others refer to features they've used for years as "new," began spreading conspiracy theories about the new phone and berating those who might "defect" from Apple's camp.
Although Samsung users have an inferiority complex, they are also confident because Samsung is indeed ahead in innovation.
Samsung is ahead of Apple in terms of large screens, 5G network connectivity and the industry's first mass-market foldable phone, which it launched in 2019. Since then, Samsung has released about 20 foldable phones, including one that can be folded twice. Just weeks before the iPhone Duo was released, Samsung launched a device that looked almost identical.
Samsung’s three-fold phone
But being first to launch does not necessarily mean you will win, especially in the United States, where blue bubble text messages (sent using iPhones) dominate. In the United States, the vast majority of consumers who are willing to spend $1,000 or more on a smartphone will choose the iPhone. And, they're quite proud of it.
In a video introducing the iPhone Duo, Apple CEO John Ternus admitted that competitors have already launched folding screen phones. But he added that these existing products feel "like two phones slapped together."
In contrast, Ternus said,
iPhone Duo features an "all-new design" while retaining "everything you love and expect."
Samsung has a different view. Its official U.S. mobile phone account wrote on
Praising Apple
For loyal Samsung user John Lee, this is just another example of the technology media worshiping Apple.
“To talk about it as if it’s the first great foldable phone in years is just overhyping Apple,” said the 35-year-old stay-at-home dad from Fresno, California, “because other manufacturers have already done it.”
For Apple fans, this is reality. Comedian and iPhone 17 Pro user Richard Bruckner said in a viral social media post that Samsung often comes out to enhance its presence when Apple releases new phones, but iPhone users have no idea when the Samsung Galaxy will be released.
"This one-sided war of words should end." He said.
However, this post only made the feud worse. Samsung loyalists were offended, while Apple fans defended Bruckner. "It's fun to have arguments," the 35-year-old comedian from Lindenhurst, N.Y., said in an interview.
Samsung said that its foldable screen phones have become the industry benchmark, and increasingly fierce competition shows that this category continues to maintain momentum. Apple declined to comment.
Smartphone War
The smartphone wars started very differently. In 2007, about four years after the iPhone was released, Apple sued Samsung, accusing the Korean company of infringing its patents and trademarks by copying the appearance, product design, packaging and user interface of the iPhone and iPad. After a U.S. jury ruled that Samsung had to pay Apple $539 million for infringing iPhone patents, the two parties reached an out-of-court settlement seven years later.
Today, the number of smartphones worldwide has exceeded 5 billion. That includes about 1.4 billion iPhones and more than 1 billion Samsung devices, according to research firm Counterpoint Research. The competition is fierce.
Samsung owns display and semiconductor businesses, so it often pushes the envelope in terms of technological achievements. Apple is even using Samsung's chip and display technology. But Apple firmly controls its product ecosystem through its iOS operating system and proprietary software, and has a large and wealthy user base.
Apple once sued Samsung for plagiarism
According to Counterpoint's forecast, in the growing folding screen mobile phone market in the United States, iPhone Duo is expected to approach Samsung's full-year sales this year with just a few months of sales, and then occupy the majority of the market share in 2027.
"No matter what Apple does, it will become the focus." Counterpoint global smartphone industry researcher Tarun Pathak said.
Many Samsung users have had enough. On forums and fan accounts, they spread various conspiracy theories about the iPhone Duo: Are the fingers of the hand in Apple’s promotional photos (originally meant to show how easy it is to hold with one hand) look unnaturally long? Does iPhone Duo discriminate against left-handed users?
Samsung foldable screen phone users are still sharing the experience of strangers excitedly asking them "Is this the new iPhone?", which resulted in Samsung users rolling their eyes.
Blindly follow Apple
Jeff Pritz, who owns more than a dozen Samsung devices (including foldable phones), said that not long ago, loyal Apple users thought foldable phones were pointless. Now, the iPhone Duo makes them "completely crazy."
This is a "typical Apple mentality," Pritz said.
iPhone Duo
“These Apple users don’t know there are better options,” said the 35-year-old Las Vegas resident, who works in sales. “Because it’s made by Apple, it’s the best.”
TJ Pompos, who recently switched to Samsung, has to admit that he is very interested in the new features of iPhone Duo. The Army recruiter from New Mexico switched from Apple to Samsung last year because he liked the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s larger screen, which he could use to edit photos, take notes and read sheet music while playing bass on stage. But he expects the iPhone Duo to surpass even Samsung's top models.
"As a latecomer," Pompos, 25, said,
"Apple has plenty of time to research various features that people like."
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