Innovations Who Wins Apple vs. Samsung:

The Korean company with 3 CEOs recently overtook Apple by revenue and now seriously threatens it in the post-Jobs era.

2 questions:

1. So who actually is the best company today?

2. Who is going to win going forward?

Innovations Who Wins  Apple vs. Samsung: 

Now neck-and-neck?

Historically this was a no-brainer as Apple leapfrogged everybody with its new product breakthroughs: iPod, iPhone and iPad. However, since Tim Cook took over as CEO in 2011, the charge is that Apple has become more of an iterator rather than an innovator.

For years, the Apple rumor mill has forecast (wrongly) the imminent arrival of the iWatch and the iTV, while Samsung has brought these products to market, with the Galaxy Gear and Smart TV. Google too is pushing ahead with new product categories, like the Google Glass smart-glasses.

Jong-Kyun Shin, the Samsung President/CEO who runs its mobile division, said: “Innovation is what will get consumers to buy new devices… The Galaxy S4 has features unique to Samsung like Air Gesture that detect hand gestures. In the process of developing and making the Galaxy S4, we have filed around 120 patents related to user interface and software. We've also hired a number of software engineers from India, Russia, China and Europe to develop unique features internally.”

Is this innovation strategy working? Reviews of the hand and eye gestures in the Galaxy S4 suggest that they are not “fully-baked”, actually slow the phone down and are more like gimmicks. Critics’ reviews of the Galaxy Gear smart-watch have also not been great, and it has only sold 800,000 units since its launch two months ago. However, Interbrand's Moon Ji-hun argues that its more about positioning: “Probably Samsung knows better than anyone that Gear will not become a mainstream product. Still, they are trying to convey the message that 'we are first with such technology,' which they hope will help build their brand as an advanced technology firm.”

By contrast, the fingerprint sensor unique to the new iPhone 5s has been well-received and is thought to have been well-executed. In what Apple claims to be “the most forward-thinking iPhone ever”, the iPhone 5s is also the first smartphone to market with a 64-bit processor, the A7, which ironically is manufactured by Samsung.

An unlikely Samsung admirer is former Apple CEO John Sculley, who led the firm while Steve Jobs was pushed out in the 1980s. In a piece welcoming Oh-Hyun Kwon into the 2013 TIME 100, Sculley wrote:

“Product design, marketing and complex supply-chain management are the trifecta of success in consumer electronics. Excelling at all of them simultaneously is a rare feat, much like throwing a no-hitter in baseball. Akio Morita did it at Sony with the Walkman and Sony Trinitron. Steve Jobs did it with the iPhone and iPad. With the Samsung Galaxy, Oh-Hyun Kwon joins those business giants. Kwon’s first principles of leadership are remarkably simple and clear. Galaxy phones have a signature design feature: big, beautiful, highest-definition screens; an integrated supply chain allows for a family of products at more price points than competitors’; and their brand advertising is bold, tasteful and executed with a cheeky self-confidence equaled only by Apple’s.”

Apple’s recent ‘This Is Our Signature’ ad is very much a restatement of the core Jobs philosophy: its strapline states, “We simplify, we perfect, until everything we touch enhances life.”

So it seems we have a battle between perfection and getting it out new products fast and refining them later. If it continues on current product feature trajectories, then I would favor Samsung.

But what Apple fans and stock analysts alike are crying out for are bold, new product categories which could rest the game back in Apple’s favor.