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author | zhu ming

editor | ji ran

the two most exciting events in the technology circle recently are the press conferences of apple and huawei.

huawei and apple have always been compared. when the two companies launch new products on the same day, the competitive atmosphere reaches its peak.——on the same day, september 10, apple and huawei held their respective new product launch conferences, and both launched the most anticipated new models of the year. even from the themes of the two launch conferences, one can feel the atmosphere of tit-for-tat confrontation: apple's is "highlight moments", and huawei's is "extraordinary moments, highlights at all times".

the new products released by the two companies have become the subject of heated discussion among netizens. apple released new products such as iphone 16, apple watch, airpods, etc., especially the iphone 16 series, which is called "apple's first ai mobile phone."

huawei released new products such as mate xt, m9 five-seater version, and r7. in particular, mate xt, as the industry's first mass-produced three-fold mobile phone, attracted a lot of attention. its three-screen display is 10.2 inches, equivalent to a small pad.

interestingly,apple's press conference, which is usually regarded as the "spring festival gala of the technology circle", did not attract much applause this time, but instead received a lot of complaints. huawei is clearly better, which aroused more extensive and positive discussions. before the press conference, the number of reservations for mate xt in huawei mall had exceeded 3 million.

so, why is huawei better than apple?

iphone 16, the “highlight” ends at the press conference

many users' feedback on this apple conference was that it was bland, lacking innovation, and disappointing more than hopeful. this was because almost every selling point failed to bring a refreshing breakthrough, and could basically be considered an upgrade like squeezing toothpaste.

in june this year, apple launched apple intelligence. as apple's first mobile phone designed specifically for apple intelligence, the iphone 16 series is undoubtedly the highlight of this conference. apple also spent nearly an hour introducing it - but still continued the "squeezing toothpaste" style.

specifically, the new iphone 16 still has four models, standard version, plus, pro and pro max, with starting prices of 5,999 yuan, 6,999 yuan, 7,999 yuan and 9,999 yuan respectively.

in terms of appearance, the iphone 16 series still continues the right-angle bezel design of apple's recent generations of models, which is not much different from the iphone 15 series. however, the screen size of the iphone 16 pro and 16 pro max has been slightly increased, and the bezel has been narrowed by about 1/3, which is not very noticeable to users.

instead, the color became a major complaint of iphone 16. after the press conference,the term "apple's color combination is ugly" became a hot searchsome netizens compared the color of the iphone 16 with the color of autumn clothes and autumn trousers, saying that it was "a very cheap color", "the saturation was too high" and "it looked like the color of a garbage bag".

the camera of the iphone 16 has been upgraded to a certain extent. the main camera has reached 48 million pixels and supports 4k 120 frames of video shooting. the night mode, depth shooting and portrait mode have also been optimized, and the performance in low-light conditions is relatively better.

but,compared with iphone 15, the shooting experience of iphone 16 has not made a qualitative leapwhat is even more embarrassing is that compared with domestic brands such as huawei, xiaomi, and ov, apple's camera does not seem to be amazing. on the contrary, in recent years, domestic mobile phone brands have made more obvious breakthroughs in imaging technologies such as photo algorithms and ai photography.

the above are just relatively routine upgrades, and the mobile phone ai function is the focus of this apple conference.

at the press conference, apple ceo cook stated that the new generation of iphones is built from the ground up for apple intelligence, and the a18 series chips on the iphone 16 series phones are also known as "born for apple intelligence". the ai ​​end-side computing power has more than doubled compared to the a16 used in the iphone 15.

ordinary users have no perception of concepts such as intelligence and computing power, so apple demonstrated many application cases of ai on the iphone 16.

for example, users can use ai to proofread and polish articles on iphone 16, generate emoticons based on language descriptions, etc., they can also find corresponding photos and videos in the album through language descriptions, and the mail app can use ai to generate summaries of email contents, etc.

these functions can actually be achieved on many ai software and hardware, but apple's advantage lies in its killer feature of iphone.

the new camera control button on iphone 16 can enable the ai ​​function - visual intelligence, which is also the feature that apple focuses on.

for example, when you see a restaurant, you can use the iphone 16 camera control button to take a picture of its facade, and the phone will automatically call up the restaurant's business hours, reviews and other information, and you can further book the restaurant. you can also identify a bicycle, and the phone will give the price and purchase channel.

although apple regards the ai ​​function of iphone 16 as the biggest gimmick to attract users, it may have forgotten that after the advent of chatgpt, the world has already set off an ai craze, and a large number of users have already tried various ai experiences.the so-called innovative visual intelligence of iphone 16 can actually be experienced on some other ai large language models.

overall, apple did not lead the ai ​​phone market like it did with smartphones. not only did it not lead the market, but it was still confined to its existing product ideas, providing some simple optimizations and failing to achieve the breakthroughs that apple fans expected. therefore, this press conference was more like a daily product iteration, far from being worthy of the so-called "highlight moment" theme.

nabila popal, senior director of idc's global data and analysis team, said that although apple's smartphones launched this year have many highlights, it is difficult for new products to bring much growth, and it is more about preventing apple's decline.

apple was once undoubtedly a leader in the technology world, but now it is more like a "follower". in the wave of the ai ​​era, compared with its peers in the technology circle such as openai and microsoft, apple's actions are actually lagging behind. now, it seems to be eager to prove itself in the ai ​​era, but it has failed to show real innovation.

this also makes people increasingly miss the real highlight moments when jobs released the iphone, ipod, and macbook.

huawei threefolding screen, a breakthrough for chinese mobile phone manufacturers

more than ten hours after apple's press conference, huawei also held its press conference.

the biggest surprise of this conference was that huawei released the mate xt, a three-folding screen mobile phone. its biggest selling point is the screen. the mate xt has single-screen, dual-screen, and triple-screen modes. the thickness of the single-screen mode is 12.8 mm, and the thinnest part of the triple-screen mode is 3.6 mm. the screen size is 10.2 inches, and the weight including the screen surface layer is 306 grams.

some netizens joked that using the three-fold screen looks like the emperor reading memorials.

on the evening of september 9, the day before the press conference, huawei mall showed that the number of reservations for huawei's three-fold mobile phone - huawei mate xt extraordinary master has exceeded 3 million. according to tianyancha intellectual property information, huawei technologies co., ltd. applied for two "foldable electronic device and housing device" patents in march 2022. among them, the utility model patent was authorized in november 2022, and the invention patent was announced in september 2023.

at present, netizens have polarized comments on mate xt: on the one hand, they believe that its ultra-thin features can bring a new experience, while on the other hand, they believe that the three-fold design has poor durability and is prone to creases and cracks.

indeed, with the addition of a screen and a hinge,tri-fold screens are relatively more prone to creases and quality problems, which requires manufacturers to improve screen and hinge processing technology.at the press conference, yu chengdong introduced that it took huawei five years to achieve technological breakthroughs in screens and hinges. the world's first huawei tiangong hinge system realizes dual-track linkage and enables internal and external bending.

another breakthrough of mate xt is mass production.

previously, domestic mobile phone brands such as honor and oppo, as well as foreign mobile phone brands such as samsung, have actually demonstrated three-fold screen concept phones, but none of them have been mass-produced. the mate xt is the world's first mass-produced three-fold screen mobile phone, turning the blueprint into reality.

however, the mate xt is not without its flaws.

first of all, the most complained thing is that it is too expensive, the starting price of 19,999 yuan is very controversial. on the second-hand platform, the price of the three-fold screen mobile phone mate xt has been hyped up to 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, or even 80,000 to 90,000 yuan or even more than 100,000 yuan, while the price increase of the iphone 16 series basically does not exceed 2,000 yuan. some people think the price is too outrageous.

in fact,mate xt is an "electronic luxury"its target customer groups are entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized bosses, etc. it focuses on making money from the rich, and ordinary workers are not within its target range.

another thing is that mate xt may face the test of yield rate after mass production and delivery.

shanxi securities' related research report pointed out that the median yield of hinges in the industry is about 50%-60%, which is the biggest threshold for the assembly of folding screen panels. the triple-folding mobile phone with a double hinge structure is even more difficult. although huawei claims that the mate xt has overcome technical difficulties, it still needs to accept the real feedback from users after delivery. if the reputation collapses due to quality problems, it will be a failure even if it is mass-produced.

finally, the question is how much help the mate xt can bring to huawei.

although the mate xt has attracted a lot of public discussion, the share of foldable screens in the mobile phone market is not large. according to trend force, global shipments of foldable screen phones will reach 15.9 million in 2023, accounting for about 1.4% of the overall smartphone market. in 2024, it may increase to 17.7 million, but the share will only increase by 1.5%.

how much power the mate xt can bring to huawei in the mobile phone market remains to be seen.

apple down, huawei up

judging from the confrontation at the press conference, huawei undoubtedly overshadowed apple.

overall, in the past two years, the development trends of apple and huawei have shown one downward and one upward.

idc data shows that in the first half of 2024, huawei once again became the number one in china's smartphone market with a market share of 17.5%. its mobile phone shipments in the first and second quarters increased by 110% and 50.2% respectively, leading the industry in growth rate.

in the high-end market, huawei's momentum is also beginning to gain strength.according to canalys data, in the chinese mainland market for mobile phones priced above us$600, apple still ranked first with a market share of 54% in the first quarter of this year, but its sales volume fell by 25% year-on-year, while huawei's sales volume increased by 67% year-on-year, with a market share of 26%. in the second quarter of this year, apple's market share further fell to 52%, while huawei's market share increased to 30%.

in addition to the mobile phone hardware market, huawei has also begun to surpass apple in the operating system software market.

counterpoint data shows that the hongmeng operating system continued to maintain strong growth in the first quarter of 2024, with a global market share of more than 4%. in the chinese market, thanks to the hot sales of huawei's flagship products, hongmeng surpassed ios for the first time and became the second largest operating system in the market.

on the other hand, apple has begun to enter a turbulent period, with poor sales of iphone 15, declining market share, its stock being sold by buffett, and it being unpopular in the ai ​​era, etc.

why has apple started to fall behind, especially in the ai ​​era? one important reason is that it rested on its laurels and became careless.

last year, bloomberg quoted cook as saying: "apple has been working on generative ai technology for years. but i can tell you that apple executives were caught off guard by the industry's sudden ai boom and have been busy making up for lost time since the end of last year."

after experiencing strong suppression from the united states, huawei has been moving forward under heavy pressure, survived the darkest time, and successfully withstood the stress test. now it is beginning to radiate vitality and show strong momentum.

this also brings a business revelation, that is, the situation changes over time, and no company can always be in an advantageous position. only by constantly maintaining a sense of crisis can we always stay in the forefront.