Mobile Competition Shifts to Software Design

It is the design of the software, far more than the look and feel of the device itself, that allows a company to leap over its competitors.

Hardware features like processing speed or screen resolution or even how well a camera works offer only fleeting advantages in the constant competition among smartphone manufacturers. And with more than a billion smartphones in the world today, much of them with the same rectangular design meant to fit in your hand yet large enough to be used as a phone, it is hard to imagine a breakthrough in their general look. But changes to the software are limited only by the skill and creativity of a company’s engineers and designers and are not as easily mimicked since they appeal to softer notions like “experience” rather than speed or weight.