Differentiate Or Die: Why iOS Will Help Apple Differentiate

With our phones heading for that inevitable 100% screen to body ratio, our phones are undoubtedly more attractive but there has been unintentional fallout.All our phones are starting to look the same, admittedly a big reason as to why most of the phones today look the same is that they're trying to rip off the iPhone X. But eventually when the true full screen phone hits the metaphorical shelves, you won't be able to tell one flag ship from another.

You can already see this starting to happen, in attempt to differentiate phone manufacturers have started experimenting with the backs of phones to make them more noticeable. You have Xiaomi with its fake internal circuit board look on the Mi8, Huawei with its new tangy colours on the P20 Pro and of-course  the Google Pixel line up with their semi glass back. But making the backs of phones really unique doesn't mean that you'll stick out. After all you spend far less time looking at the back of your phone when compared to the screen.

Cue The Software

When you're a flagship you need a unique, differentiating feature 
otherwise your phone is not going to sell. Just look at the Google Pixel for proof. As we've seen hardware differentiation is getting harder and harder, and to make matters worse its expensive and risky. Thats why companies often go out of their way to slap their own skins on stock Android, just to make their phone  stand out in the crowd. Besides developing ROMs are cheap and aren't the least bit risky. Despite the unequivocal hate for ROMs from the tech community, Companies aren't likely to change their ways anytime soon.

Now on the iOS side of things things are really different. iOS puts iPhones in a class of their own. From the different design language to the way the phone is used. iOS does stick out in the market. But what really sets iOS apart from everything on the market is its integration with your other devices. You can drop your phone off and still continue a conversation on your computer, you can quickly and easily share files between your devices. Just look at what MacOS Mojave does in the Keynote app with an iPhone ( My favourite is when you can turn on your phones mobile hotspot without even getting up). These are all features customers love and enjoy, And something that they cant really get on another platform without extensive work on the user's part. I guess you could say that iOS will help iPhones remain distinct in a tech space thats starting to look a lot like this