Samsung is already responsible for creating the world's most popular smartphone line-up with the Galaxy series, and the Galaxy S4 is expected to sell by the boatload, but in many respects the company is still considered to be operating under the same rules created by Apple. The Galaxy S5, though, is expected to change the game entirely.
At least, that's what one analyst thinks: In 2014, Samsung will finally surpass Apple and the iPhone with the Galaxy S5. Considering the big year the company is expected to have this year, it will be Samsung's last ranked below Apple.
"Right now that is where it is stuck [under Apple]. With Apple's form factor and Apple's design language, chipping away and trying to make a good iPhone, iPad-like product," wrote Haydn Shaughnessy, who spoke with analyst Jefferson Wang of the consulting firm IBB for an article in Forbes.
"Samsung is probably taking its last steps in Apple's shadow," he added. "In 2014 it will transform the computing and online experience, in a way that is unique to its own vision. Critics who think it lacks vision need to think again."
Shaughnessy claims that in the near future, Samsung will use its innovative screen technology (bendable screens and whatnot), in combination with its new, internally developed Tizen operating system, "to break away from the Apple form factor, the Apple UI and today's smartphone design language."
That's a pretty bold claim, but it's one that the two writers think is actually quite obvious. Apple's "retreat" from television means that Samsung will take over the field, while even Cupertino's iWatch plans are dismissed as creating a peripheral and not a lifestyle.
"Look a little down the road and Samsung has put in place all the components to redefine the online experience," Shaughnessy wrote. "It won't be called mobile or desktop but it might be called pervasive or 'lifestyle.' And it will take place wherever Samsung can fit a (flexible) screen (an industry it dominates)."
It would be foolish to count Apple out, but there's definitely the sense that the company has failed to live up to expectations lately. Whether it's because the masses are expecting too much or it's something deeper, though, we'll have to wait and see. Samsung made its move with the Galaxy S4. Now it's up to Apple to let everyone know if it's not abdicating its crown anytime soon.
