“For about four months, gadget bloggers along with tech writers at South Korean newspapers have tried to uncover the details of Samsung’s next high-end smartphone, likely to be called Galaxy S IV after consecutively numbered versions over the past three years,” Evan Ramstad reports for The Wall Street Journal. “They have suggested it will have a bigger screen, thinner case, come with a pen, have no buttons and, of course, have a faster chip to run it, as well as better battery life. Some reports back in November suggested the new phone would have an unbreakable screen, and others have said it would be waterproof. Pictures of invitations to a March press event in South Korea have even circulated on some websites.”
Ramstad claims, “It all adds up to iPhone-like hype for Samsung…”
MacDailyNews Take: Rather, a pale imitation of it – just like their phones.
Ramstad reports, “While its product releases haven’t sparked nearly the kind of fervor seen at Apple’s iPhone launch events, Samsung is proving to be a formidable challenger at the top of the mobile-device market.”
MacDailyNews Take: If it’s not “nearly the kind of fervor,” why do both your headline and subheadline lie?
Ramstad reports, “Its Galaxy S III phone, which launched in May and uses Google Inc.’s Android software, is considered by many potential buyers to be the first phone to meet or surpass the iPhone’s attractions.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, puleeze. How much did Samsung pay for this ad? Their phone is plastic, has noticeably poor build tolerances (you can pick up two Samsung Galaxy S III phones of the same model and see differences in the plastics), have inferior app versions, if they even have the app at all, has malware and security issues, can’t be operated with one hand, sports inferior screen resolution, has numerous inferior workarounds in methods of operation in order to skirt more patent infringement lawsuits, etc. Looking at an iPhone 5 next to Samsung’s flagship iPhone wannabe is like looking at a Ferrari next to a Kia. And, using an iPhone 5 vs. Samsung’s best is like driving the Ferrari vs. a Kia.
We encourage everyone to stop into a carrier shop and take a look at an iPhone 5 and a Samsung Galaxy S III. It’s a joke how awful and chintzy Samsung’s “flagship” is next to Apple’s.
Ramstad reports, “Samsung made the phone’s screen larger than the iPhone, enhanced its resolution and used a plastic case to reduce its weight compared with earlier versions. The Galaxy S III, however, is still slightly heavier and thicker than the iPhone 5.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oops, you made a mistake and typed out some truth, Evan! Of course, this little nugget lies buried way, way down in this yarn, well under the headline and suheadline that the writer himself has proven to be a lie. (So, we’ve now arrived at the place in the ad where Ramstad attempts to not completely obliterate the WSJ‘s credibility.)
Ramstad reports, “Samsung executives have declined to answer questions about the upcoming version—not even when the phone will emerge, though observers believe the company will keep with past practice and roll out the new model in April or May.”
MacDailyNews Take: Nobody with a brain outside of South Korea cares. By Ramstad’s own admission above, this is a handful of blogs and “some tech writers at South Korean newspapers.” That, the WSJ calls “feverish.” To attempt to equate some Samsung Android phone to the worldwide anticipation generated by each new iPhone is absolutely ludicrous.
Nobody wants a Samsung phone, they settle for it. Like every Android “smartphone,” it’s just a fake iPhone. Everybody knows that. And, as Samsung themselves plainly tell us with their ads: Nobody lines up for days for Samsung phones, either; people only line up for iPhones.
Ramstad reports, “Samsung, as one of many Android phone makers, doesn’t have the level of customer loyalty that Apple does.”
MacDailyNews Take: Nope, not even close. That’s the second line from the end of the WSJ’s Samsung ad. Nice fact to put under that headline and subheadline, WSJ – and quite incongruous, to say the least.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Well, there’s a shitty Samsung ad disguised as an article in the WSJ to start the day off on a sour note. Ramstad and the WSJ should be embarrassed.
This is precisely the type of thing Apple’s PR team should not allow to go unanswered. Letting lies go unchallenged only leads some people to believe them.
Related articles:
Raymond James analyst: Apple iPhone outsold Samsung 1.7 to 1 over the last 10 quarters – January 17, 2013
Apple iPhone takes 53.3% of U.S. smartphone sales, Android falls to 41.9% – January 7, 2013
Mossberg: Google Maps better on Apple iPhone than on Android phones – December 19, 2012
The Google Tax: Android phones hit by cyber thieves’ spamming malware – December 18, 2012
Says who? The WSJ? Phhhhht.
The WSJ was once a real newspaper, now just part of Rupert’s sick and twisted playpen.
As antiquated and worthless as that other Murdoch ‘asset’, Dow Jones.
In all fairness to the WSJ, the reporter did write gadget bloggers along with tech writers at South Korean newspapers have tried to uncover the details of Samsung’s next high-end smartphone ….
No doubt those Korean papers, if not owned outright by Scamdung, are in some way beholden to them. So they generate froth in Korea for the next Gag-axy phone.
Just business as usual in SK. An not that the WSJ doesn’t routinely leave itself open to criticism.
Dear people : please expect to see big Samsung sponserships and ad commitments to WSJ for the next 12 months
The Ferrari/Kia comparison is a little unfair, because Kias aren’t trying to be Ferraris.
WSJ again? What is the next bad news of Apple that u are thinking ?
well thats pretty much confirmed it. WSJ is now in Samesung’s pocket
I wanted to see what the hype was about, so I purchased a SG3. Took the phone back after two days for an iPhone 5. SG3 almost set my pocket on fire due to heat. Poor build quality. Very poor software. Felt as if I was driving a VW bug that wanted to be a Lamborghini, but could not get out of reverse.
Did it have 2 forward and 5 reverse gears?
Looking at an iPhone 5 next to Samsung’s flagship iPhone wannabe is like looking at the United States of America (even in its current state) next to South Korea.
They’ll be calling it the Samsung Galaxy S IIIS and not IV next because slavish copying is in their DNA.
You are wrong. People go to work in South Korea. No food stamps for their inner-cities.
US government props them ipso that full employment can be achieved. There’s the issue of the people to the North with the leader with the worst haircut of any world leader to contend with. The US government. likes to keep its capitalist showcase close at hand.
Korea has welfare too don’t try to pretend it doesn’t. It is just one of the inconvenient truths keep hidden. Like alcohol abuse, divorce, and teen pregnancy. There are plenty of home people in the streets and trains stations.
wsj=fox=mudroach=phonehacking=illegal
And the hits keep on coming. The perception is Samsung’s now great advantage. Regardless of how MDN answers all these issues, regardless that they are right, regardless that the iPhone is a superior device… the reality is Samsung has, through its very effective PR machine and compliant media, knocked Apple aside. Go in any phone store, or any tech gadget store, anywhere, and you see something that you used to never see – more people fooling with Galaxy stuff, Android stuff, other stuff than the iPhones. Sometimes you don’t see anyone even picking up and examining the iPhone. And, you hear the sales staff in all these places explaining what the other phones can do that the iPhone can’t do. No matter that it’s sort of useless and designed to capture that pop culture impulse buyer (like all of us), it’s what’s happening.
Tim Cook doesn’t know what to do about this. Samsung keeps eating his lunch leaving him starving. Wall Street sees this, everybody else sees it, and still the Apple world is confounded about what is happening. How, they ask, could all these wannabes have actually become what they have dreamed of. Until there is an answer, AAPL is a $400 stock, at best, and Apple is Sony.
How long do you think the Samsung hype will last in the absence of a quality product? As in every phase of a hype, if the hype doesn’t live up to expectations, then people will very quickly abandon the platform.
I don’t see Samsung offering a seamlessly integrated experience with an operating system that is developed in house that is tailored to its hardware. The moment Google drops the ball with Android or places more emphasis on its Motorola investment, Samsung is f***ed.
Maybe, but even then, it will be too late for Apple to recover to where they once were. And, AAPL won’t recover at all. Once the “has been” dye is cast, there’s not much chance of removing the stain. Celebrate the extraordinary financials and fundamentals, and still – it doesn’t matter anymore.
Trying to drive AAPL down as far as we can, are we?
@p-peter-son~ appropriate name for such a dick…
Thank you. I knew if i looked hard enough on this site I find a mature voice of reason.
Apple – Beta
Samsung – VHS
Samsung = fun, evolving, exciting.
Apple = “oh yeah, I had an iPhone 2 years ago, what’s new?”
Samsung wins.
I wish it wasn’t the case.
This isn’t about Samsung paying off WSJ…this is just one more piece of stock price manipulation as they try to hold AAPL share price down below $550 till their options expire. Someone (or group) is seeding these stories in the Journal in an effort to manipulate the price during the time when traditionally Apple itself is silent. It’s all just a matter of following the money.
How can the SEC stand inactive when the price of the world’s most valuable company is so flagrantly manipulated?
Who is all the little bitch comments?
How pathetic can the hacks at the WSJ get? Comparing hype now, are they? Maggots.
The overall perception of any well heeled consumer of tech products is that ‘Samsung’ = ‘Samdung’. Nothing has changed!
WSJ got 1 out of 3 words right: hype.
Hype: The life blood of Murdoch/News Corp rags, including WSJ.
I think Kia’s build quality is better than Samsung. I would compare it more to the likes of a Yugo. The car you would leave the rear window defroster on to warm your hands while you have to push it.
MDN, I was with you until the last, bold, statement. Apple’s PR going after a report on hype about a competitor’s expected next phone? Think that through: How would that make Apple look, other than scared?
I see this as — first — Samsung paying bloggers to write hype and buzz that they (Samsung) won’t address, hoping to further create buzz; and — second — as a sign that Samsung is slowing down the introduction rate of phones, which is only good for Apple and the crowd of reviewers who create noise every time a slight iteration of crapdroid phones happens, since that appeals to the “must have the latest” crowd. What it really means is that Samsung is trying to elevate the profit levels associated with their flagship phone, which will also mean no more BOGOF — which I think will seriously hurt their adoption rate. As you said in your Take: No one *wants* an Android phone, they settled for it because it was cheaper (ala BOGOF). When that is no longer true, watch out Samsung!
Apple: Hello Samsung… mmmm, yeah, hi, it’s Apple calling.
Apple: We’re calling about the one billion dollars you owe us.
Samsung: Oh, so sorry, nobody here right now. Call us at a quarter past Galaxy 4. Too busy copying right now.
Another day, another piece of yawn-inducing Apple Bearishness from the AnalCysts. Wake me up when it’s Pie-In-Their-Face time. I’ll be flinging Capsaicin Cream Pie. 😆
Cook is responding alright: silence is golden. There will be plenty to crow about next week OR the projections will cause a stock sell-off. Then the fun will begin bethat Apple needs more than anything is a better ad agency. Te one they have now SUCKS.
Android ROCKS!!!! Way better than Iphone. Come on, you know it.. the market share say so!
No, for real, Android is becoming a formidable competitor to iOS. Many in the industry view iOS as dry, stale, for old people. That’s a dangerous viewpoint. Apple does need to ensure that they keep it at the forefront of people’s interest. Reliability and simplicity aside, it needs to maintain that “WOW!” factor. Android is able to do that more than iOS due to the lower standards that platform enjoys. Less consistency from release to release. Apple is awesome at consistency, and that extra edge of coolness and freshness is a challenge that I know they can step up.
Please explain where all of this “iOS is dry, stale, for old people” bullshit comes from?
What exactly do high end Android phones do that the iPhone 5 doesn’t anyway? NFC? Nice try, but virtually nobody uses it anyway and it’s insecure. Where is the “WOW!” factor in that??
Please give some real and specific examples, otherwise it’s just a load of crap being spewed forth. I’ll be waiting…
“They have suggested it will have a bigger screen, thinner case, come with a pen, have no buttons and, of course, have a faster chip to run it, as well as better battery life.”
Sounds like they are changing a couple of specs and renaming the Galaxy Note II. Real innovation there!!
That’s what I can’t work out with the media’s love affair with Samsung.
They bag Apple for evolutionary updates to their products, but praise Samsung for the same thing.
Samsung releases 40 new phones a year, the differences between the first of the year and last may look fairly substantial, but if you laid all models out in order of chronological release the improvements would be incremental and very minor.
If Apple did this, they would get lynched. Just look at the crap written , when Apple released the iPad 4. According to the the idiot analysts, it was released too soon and Apple should have left the iPad 3 flagship model on the market without the lightning connector and being easily beaten in performance by the iPhone 5.
GooSung’s phones looks like they come from a toy store. Just a big plastic square with a big screen slapped on it. No innovation at all. Heck they don’t even make the operating system themselves.
The way things are now with Apple’s share price hitting rock bottom, every product that competitors make are better than Apple’s products. It’s amazing how that happened in just a few months time. With Apple’s share price fall starting with the introduction of the iPhone 5, I guess Apple is in the perfect position to get smeared by everyone. I’m hoping it will blow up in everyone’s face when earnings are announced, but I’m willing to bet Wall Street is again going to be disappointed with Apple’s numbers. Apple shareholders just can’t catch a break.