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Samsung announced the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5 (among a few other products) today at Unpacked in South Korea. And one thing really stood out to me, how Samsung is turning more and more into Apple. And honestly, that’s not a bad thing.
So what do I mean? Well, we often make fun of Apple for being late to adopting different things, like the always-on display that came with the iPhone 14 Pro last year, or widgets, that came with iOS 14 a few years ago, among other things. A big reason for a lot of this is, scale. Apple waited so long to do an always-on display because it was waiting for LTPO. While LTPO has been around for a while, they could not get enough LTPO displays to satisfy their sales, until the iPhone 14 Pro.
Keep in mind that Apple will typically sell 10-15 million iPhones during the first weekend that it is available. For the iPhone 14, it hit 26 million sales in the first two months, across four models. No Android OEM can do that. Samsung can sell that many, but not of the same model – Samsung has literally hundreds of different models of phones.
Samsung is starting to do the same
Samsung is starting to do the same thing as Apple now, waiting to add new features or change up the hardware – even though it makes the majority of the components in its foldables and others from its competitors.
Just take a look at the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It has barely changed from the Galaxy Z Fold 2, three years ago. The biggest change has been, the better cameras that came with the Fold 4 last year, and the new hinge that allows it to fold flat with the Fold 5 this year. That’s not a lot of changes in an area that is still very new, and that is foldables. Meanwhile its’ competitors like Huawei, Honor, OPPO and even Google are running laps around them.
Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Samsung seems to be allowing others to take the fall with the new technologies being added to foldables each year. And that could be due to the issues with the original Galaxy Fold.
Being more cautious following the Galaxy Fold recall
In 2019, Samsung announced the first Galaxy Fold, it’s first foldable. It went on sale later that year, and was handed out to reviewers and some early buyers. But it didn’t take long to notice that there were some big issues. The main one was, that the top layer of the screen didn’t extend to the edges of the main display. This made a lot of people – mainly reviewers – feel like they could remove it, as it was a screen protector. It was not. It was the top layer of the display. And removing it, virtually killed the phone.
Another issue it had was debris and dirt getting into the hinge. So Samsung recalled the devices. Fixed the screen issue, and then put caps on the hinge at the top and bottom of the phone to keep dirt and debris out. That cost Samsung a fortune. And since then, we have not seen a lot of innovation in foldables, from Samsung.
Of course, this is just a conspiracy theory, but it does seem like Samsung is still trying to recoup some of those losses from the original Galaxy Fold, and trying not to repeat that again. Similar to the charging speeds of its phones, following the Galaxy Note 7 debacle in 2016.
Samsung is almost as good as Apple, with software updates
On the bright side of Samsung becoming more like Apple – software updates. In the past few years, Samsung has really turned around their software and updates. It used to be that Samsung was one of the last ones to roll out new Android updates – ahead of LG. Now, they are one of the first. Often times, beating Google to rolling out the latest security patch. Samsung is also promising more updates than Google, which is rather interesting.
Samsung now promises four Android OS upgrades (instead of years, it’s just four OS upgrades), and five years of security updates. So that means that the new Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5 will get Android 14, 15, 16 and 17. That’s better than any other OEM out there right now. Better than Apple? Not quite. Appel doesn’t guarantee updates for a length of time. But they typically update their phones with new versions of iOS for about 6 years. Security updates are far longer. In fact, they just sent out a security update for iPhones on iOS 12 – we’re currently on iOS 16 now, so those are quite old phones.
Samsung and Apple both realize people are not upgrading phones every year. And to keep customers as customers, they need to provide them with better software support. Which is exactly what they are doing here.
Samsung knows you aren’t upgrading yearly, it’s releasing phones for when you are ready to upgrade
I’ve heard from a few people that Apple’s strategy isn’t to get you to upgrade your iPhone every year. It’s to have a new iPhone available for you with the latest features, so when you do need to upgrade, there is something available for you. It’s smart. Because most people are not upgrading yearly, or even every other year. With the smartphone market plateauing, customers don’t need to upgrade as often.
Samsung has started to do this as well. Samsung is keeping relatively the same design each year, and giving us some nice upgrades each year, but not huge upgrades. And not a huge redesign every other year. While us tech nerds are likely going to upgrade every year, your mom and dad, or siblings aren’t going to. They’ll keep using that phone with the shattered display until the phone’s battery can no longer hold a charge. So having a phone released and ready for when they are ready to upgrade, is a great strategy. And it’s great to see Apple adopting it.
Does this mean you shouldn’t buy a Samsung foldable?
No. Of course not. Samsung still makes really great foldables, and have some of the best software around for them. Samsung’s software takes the best advantage of those dual displays and different aspect ratios, compared to other foldables. Take the Pixel Fold for example, it’s really barebones compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. With apps that don’t use the full screen, multi-tasking isn’t quite as easy, and even pop-up windows aren’t available.
However, you should vote with your wallet. You should always vote with your wallet. If you don’t like what a brand is doing, be vocal, but the best thing you can do is, not give them your money. When sales drop, brands tend to listen a lot more than when sales are up. So do keep that in mind.