iPhone 4 Vs. Galaxy S

Apple unveils its latest smartphone model to compete with Samsung’s Android OS-based one

The global smartphone market is becoming more hotly contested than ever as Samsung Electronics and Apple have released their latest smartphone models.
Samsung Electronics held the “Galaxy S Media Day” event at its Seocho Headquarters in Seoul on June 8, shortly after Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the new iPhone at its developers’ conference in San Francisco.
Samsung’s Galaxy S will make its debut via major telecom providers simultaneously in 110 countries around June 14, including SK Telecom in Korea. Galaxy S offers a smartphone experience with the 3Ss ― “super apps” for different depths of life-friendly applications, “super AMOLED” for the existing super resolution and “super design” for a 9.9 mm super-slim phone with battery replacement.
Shin Jong-kyun, president of Samsung Electronics’ mobile division, unveiled the latest smartphone based on Google’s Android operating system. Amid the media coverage of some 500 reporters from Korea and abroad, Shin introduced Galaxy S as the best phone based on Samsung’s 20 years of mobile handset technology.
Joining the event to fend off Apple’s offensive were SK Telecom President Ha Sung-min and Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google. President Ha praised Galaxy S, saying that it is the beginning of the new smartphone era and it is different from the existing ones. Robin also commented that the event as another innovation moment.
In Korea, Galaxy S offers not only pre-loaded applications, but also different application experiences via such multi-app stores as Samsung App, T Store and Android market.
Apple’s iPhone 4 is more impressive compared to its rivals that use Google’s Android operating systems in terms of video-calling features, a sharper screen and its array of 225,000 applications, analysts in Korean and abroad said. Apple’s latest smartphone is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, they said.
Jobs told the presentation session for the recent iPhone 4 release, “This is beyond a doubt the most precise thing and one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever made.”
The iPhone 4 sports a camera that offers high-definition video as well as software that allows for video chatting. The retina technology boasts four times as many pixels in the 3.5-inch screen to deliver higher resolution text. It is getting slimmer with 9.3 mm thickness, 24 percent thinner than its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, and the 9.9 mm thickness for Galaxy S.
Samsung and Apple are fitted with a central processing unit developed using their own technology, the S5PC111 and A4, respectively.
iPhone 4 has some shortcomings ― it does not offer territorial digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) and the battery cannot be changed.
iPhone is better than the Galaxy S in terms of the number of applications, a measure for gauging a smartphones’ functionality.
However, business analysts predict that Google’s open-door policy toward its operating system, Android, in which any handset manufacturer has free access to it, will see its applications for Android-based handsets quickly catch up with iPhone.
Currently, Samsung Electronics said applications for purchasing Galaxy S prior to its release from over 100 countries have surpassed 1 million units, but it remains uncertain how many units it could sell due to the rave reviews of the iPhone 4.
KT has decided to release the iPhone 4 in July, so the already taut ties between the Korean telecom provider and the handset manufacturing giant are expected to be further exacerbated.
Korean business analysts agreed that once the Apple’s iPhone 4 and Samsung’s Galaxy S have built a solid foundation, the smartphone market will be expanded.
Lee Chan-jin, president of DreamWiz, said that the iPhone 4 and Galaxy S are the hit smartphones and they can get a jump-start in their respective markets since AT&T and Verizon supply the iPhone 4 and the Galaxy S, respectively. nw

Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S (left) and Apple’s iPhone 4