Apple’s unusually direct attack on Android phones leaves bloggers surprised

Last night, Apple executive Phil Schiller went to Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg to trash Samsung and Android.

The reason: Tonight, Samsung reveals its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S4. Over the past year, Samsung has emerged as a real threat to Apple's ownership of the smartphone market. 

Schiller gave all three outlets the same quotes.

He said Android is a "fragmented" platform where users have to sign-up for nine different services to get their phones working properly. He said that Android's marketshare is only so high because feature-phone owners are getting free upgrades to Android phones. He said that four times more Android users are switching to iPhone than iPhone users are switching to Android.

Schiller's move surprised the Apple bloggers.

Daring Fireball's Jon Gruber called it "unusual."

It’s clearly no coincidence that Schiller granted this interview the day before the Galaxy S4 launch in New York, and it is an unusual thing for Apple to do. (Usually, when they want to deflate attention from a competitor’s announcement, they do it by releasing a minor update to an existing Apple product.)

MG Siegler was more negative:

I’m not sure which is more strange:

1) That Phil Schiller would say anything the day before a big Samsung event.

2) That Phil Schiller would say anything, period.

3) That Schiller doesn’t mention Samsung, but mentions Android.

4) That WSJ sort of throws him under the bus with their headline (and rightfully so, in this case). It’s so rare for this type of interview; normally you only see one that is heavily teed-up to help Apple in some way. The very lede: “Apple Inc. is on the defensive.” — does not help Apple in any way, shape, or form. Good for WSJ.

5) That this article has two authors — Ian Sherr and Jessica E. Lessin — and it’s less than 300 words.

I guess you could argue that Apple is fighting up here, since Android is “winning” the market share battle. But I fail to see how this statement is a smart maneuver. It makes Apple look vulnerable. Weird.

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