Google Inc (GOOG), Sony Corporation (ADR) (SNE) – Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s New iPhones: Here’s What the Critics Think

Motorola’s new phone, the Moto X, takes the idea of multiple color options to the next level, allowing buyers to customize their phones with a specially designed website. More than just plastic, Moto X buyers will even get the option of phone made out of wood.

Granted, the Moto X isn’t the iPhone. It’s an Android-based handset, one that’s received favorable reviews, but an Android handset nevertheless. Someone dead set on Apple product isn’t going to be swayed by wood paneling; but if colors are the real draw, the Moto X has the iPhone 5c beat in spades.

Is Apple falling behind Samsung?
Likewise, though Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has taken the unprecedented step of releasing two different iPhones in the same year, both sport identical form factors. In contrast, Samsung has been releasing phones in virtually every conceivable screen size — from 4.3- to 6.3-inches.

As if to rub in Apple’s continued embrace of the smaller form factor, Samsung’s latest phablet, the Galaxy Note 3, will go on sale just weeks after Apple’s new phones. At 5.7-inches, it dwarfs Apple’s iPhones, and though Samsung’s larger phones have been widely mocked (BGR once called the original Note “too big to be taken seriously” — its screen was only 5.3-inches), nearly all of its competitors (Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE), LG, HTC) have followed suit.

All that is, except for Apple.

Treading water
There’s really two ways to look at Apple’s new phones. On the one hand, Apple took something that wasn’t broken, and didn’t fix it. It delivered yet another terrific device, just slightly better than the one before it.

But on the other hand, you could argue that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s larger mobile strategy is broken; and there, it took no steps to fix it. Despite losing market share to Android in emerging markets, Apple has chosen not to put out a cheap iPhone. Despite the trend toward larger phones, Apple has clung to the 4-inch form factor.

Overall, the new iPhones shouldn’t be expected to set any sales records. They probably won’t drive the Apple faithful away, but they’re far from the exciting blockbuster products many struggling Apple shareholders crave.

The article Apple’s New iPhones: Here’s What the Critics Think originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Sam Mattera.

Sam Mattera has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple and Google.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.