Android companies made a career out of talking about what Apple does that people have an issue with and how they are doing it different. The Droid phenomenon started off the saying “Droid Does i-Don’t”. But one thing that has been obvious over the years is how many of the same moves android manufacturers criticize Apple about they soon follow a year or two later.
Droid started talking about how they have a physical keyboard, removable battery, and expandable memory, things that Apple would not allow on their devices. Yet as android evolved they began to follow Apple by making batteries non removable, removing the keyboard and going all screen, and removing the SD Card (later some manufacturers put that back in after a backlash from customers).
The argument may be that many of those changes resulted in better devices. Sealed batteries and on screen keyboards led to larger thinner devices that are now water resistant. And also led to the improvement of on screen keyboards, predictive text, and keyboard gestures making physical keyboards feel obsolete. But when you continue to dive into the choices Apple made that drew criticism that later was followed by other leading manufacturers you begin to wonder who is really leading the pack. Apple removed the headphone jack and then other manufacturers followed. Apple added a notch and as you guess we are now seeing a bunch of notch phones. Out of all the manufacturers out there Samsung at least have been willing to add back the SD Card, keep the headphone jack, and forego the notch.
I brought this up because I have been one as an avid android fan who have criticized Apple for a lot of their moves. I’ve given them flack for copying android’s notification bar, adopting large phones after criticizing Samsung’s Note phones, and eventually adopting Apple pay after Google had Google Wallet. But the reality is that this is part of the evolution of tech. Companies copy each other as they evolve over the years. Apple copy Android and Android copies Apple. I just hope they continue to remain separate enough where we can still tell the differences between them.
