For most of the past two decades, Apple and Samsung have battled each other with their smartphone releases. Every winter a Galaxy phone arrives and six months later a new iPhone arrives, often with similar features and upgrades to keep pace. In particular, Apple has a history of taking years-old Samsung features and improving them, as we’ve seen with always-on display, gesture navigation, face unlock, and even the App Library.
But you probably shouldn’t expect to see features from the Galaxy S23 appearing on a future iPhone. Samsung’s newer phones are faster with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip that gives the A16 some real competition and they’re better at taking low-light photos, but for the most part there’s nothing revolutionary or interesting. Samsung’s new smartphones are good (excellent even), but compared to the competition, iPhone users don’t have much to be desired.
Even compared to last year’s Galaxy phones, the S23 is pretty bland. The cameras of the S23 and S23+ are essentially the same. The designs all borrow from the Galaxy S22 Ultra. And most importantly, the whole experience is the same. It’s kind of like that with phones these days. The hardware is so good, the cameras are so great, the designs are so grounded, and there’s not much to change from year to year.
The Galaxy S23 Ultra is nearly identical to last year’s model.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
That’s why Apple introduced Dynamic Island, which is expected to expand to all four iPhone models this year. There’s nothing new or different about camera holes – you’ll find one on Samsung phones for almost a decade – but Dynamic Island is a brilliant feature that’s unique to Apple. Samsung or Google could try to do something similar, but at best it would be a cheap imitation. The Dynamic Island is both an admission that annual hardware upgrades aren’t enough to generate buzz and a testament to Apple’s mastery of turning features mundane on other phones into exciting ones.
But the S23 is so boring that Apple has nothing to steal. Nobody needs a 200MP camera on their phone and the photos probably won’t be much better than those taken with the iPhone 14 Pro’s 48MP camera anyway. With the launch of the Galaxy S23, it looks like Samsung has run out of ideas and the smartphone arms race is officially over.
Granted, there will be plenty of Samsung influences in the iPhone 15 lineup. Apple is expected to launch its own iPhone Ultra this year with periscope zoom, a feature of Samsung’s flagship phone since 2020. USB-C from Lightning, which debuted on the Galaxy S8 in 2017.
But if you were looking to the Galaxy S23 to see the next trend or big thing coming to Android phones, you’re going to be disappointed. Maybe Samsung saves all its innovations for the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
