Median Smartphone Theorem

With the new releases of Apple phones/gadgets being so publicized, it had me thinking about how the new specifications or "specs" of the technologies are so similar to other leading brands. For example, take the Apple iPhones and the Samsung Galaxies. From my layman's perspective, it seems that these phones are increasingly similar, and I'm not the only one curious about the similarities - with Apple switching to the full touch screen model in the iPhone X, similar to that of the Samsung phones, and with the focus selling point being camera quality in both of the brands.

In class, we learned that the median voter theorem predicts candidates in a two party system to "race to the median" in order to capture the most votes. If we apply this to the smartphone industry and hold the hypothetical assumption that Apple and Samsung have a duopoly, we can see how the Hotelling model applies: when both firms have the objective to "win" the most consumers, they will want to appeal to the most people, causing them to race to the median in terms of focusing on similar specs that the consumers are looking for. In other words, the product differentiation decreases, just as Downs predicts party platforms to more or less converge in the middle.

At this point, the parties compete on giving the voters what they want; in the smartphone case, the firm that figures out what consumers value most will be able to dominate. Of course, the product specs are not the only thing that are at play which is what causes the product differentiation - for the smartphones, there are other effects like networks effects (having an iMessage with someone vs the "green messages," integration with other technologies like Macbooks) and application integrations (iOS vs Android). However, it would be an interesting take to see these other effects as a part of the "product" as both firms strive to offer similar integrations within their operating systems, resulting in similar technologies overall.