Is Apple's iPhone 6 just Google's Nexus 4?
A graphic wandering around Twitter suggests Androiders had an iPhone 6 two years ago. Can this be true?
Apple's launch events tend to stir emotions even more than Justin Bieber taking his clothes off.
The Apple acolytes swoon with joy that there are new designs to behold. The Apple detractors emit fumes that would choke a medium-sized city.
So it was that when iPhone 6 was revealed, a comparison graphic began to drift about the Internet, courtesy of Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo. At its heart was the idea that Androiders had an iPhone 6 two years ago. It was called the Google Nexus 4.
Yes, it too had a 4.7-inch screen and NFC payments. It too had 3rd party keyboards and cloud photo backup (so useful these days). It even had 760p resolution against the iPhone 6's 750p.
So why wasn't Nexus 4 a pounding success? Well, Google wasn't terribly good at marketing hardware.
Moreover, the Nexus 4 also suffered from not being an iPhone. The reason Apple users continually upgrade is because they have bought into the ease of use, simplicity, beautiful design and in-store customer service that only Apple offers.
It's a painful truth for competitors and for those who believe that iPhones are inferior at the engineering level.
Clearly, this graphic picks at details that seem favorable to the Nexus.
Omitted, though, are essences such as iPhone 6's (hopefully) excellent camera and processor. And then there's that fingerprint scanner, which promises to keep your identity as secret as it can be. (I'm not sure if you can hold the iPhone 6 with crossed fingers.)
Apple is rarely the first with anything. It ponders longer and harder about what it wants to market. It considers details a little more deeply. And it has a ready-made audience of the relatively monied that buys into its essential ethos, not merely into any specific product.
Apple's loyalists are exceptionally forgiving because they believe that Apple does, indeed, add things to their life. (Including, of course, a chest-puffing sense of self-worth.)
So even if the Nexus 4 was ahead of its time, what did it matter? Not too much, it seems.