For years Samsung played the role of Android’s fearless innovator, the company that pushed risky ideas first while Apple moved slowly and cautiously. Lately, though, the mood in the smartphone crowd has flipped. More and more users joke that Samsung is starting to feel like the old Apple: confident at the top of the market, tweaking details rather than shaking up the formula, and quietly hoping that if it isn’t broken, they do not have to fix it while people keep upgrading anyway.
On paper, the Galaxy S line is still one of the most complete flagship families money can buy. 
In reality, many loyal fans look at each new launch and see the same phone with a slightly different name. That is where the comparison with Apple’s slow S-year updates comes from, and why phrases like Samsung is the new Apple spread so easily online. Samsung has not collapsed or lost its touch, but the gap between what the competition is trying and what Galaxy phones deliver is wider than ever.
Ultra phones, non-ultra batteries
Nothing exposes Samsung’s conservative approach quite like the batteries in its Ultra models. Back in 2020 the Galaxy S20 Ultra arrived with a 5,000 mAh cell that felt huge for the time and helped cement the Ultra as the powerhouse of the Android world. Five generations later, rumors for the Galaxy S26 Ultra talk about a possible bump to 5,400 mAh, and even that is not guaranteed. In other words, a flagship line that sells itself on power and productivity has barely moved the needle on one of the most important specs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the industry did not stand still. Chinese brands have embraced fresh battery tech and 7,000 mAh cells or larger in mainstream phones, often paired with extremely fast charging that fills them in minutes rather than hours. They are not afraid of building bigger, badder, flashier devices because they know boredom is dangerous in a mature market. Next to that, another 5,000 mAh Galaxy Ultra, however refined, feels safe rather than exciting, like a luxury sedan that has been polished for a decade while everyone else is showing off aggressive new sports cars.
When you stay number one for long enough, it is tempting to assume the ship will keep gliding forward on momentum alone. That attitude once cost American car makers their global crown; they ignored what customers were asking for while more agile rivals took bolder risks abroad. Samsung is nowhere near that crisis, but the warning signs are familiar: the competition moves fast, while the market leader keeps polishing the same template and trusting that brand loyalty will do the rest.
Base Galaxy S models stuck on repeat
The feeling of repetition is even stronger on the regular Galaxy S and S Plus models. Year after year, the headline changes tend to be the chipset and a slightly tweaked design language. Line up the Galaxy S22, S23, and S24 on a table and most people would struggle to tell which is which at a quick glance. These are still solid phones with good performance and dependable cameras, but solid is not what excites enthusiasts or convinces a bored user to upgrade ahead of schedule.
The displays tell a similar story. Samsung usually delivers excellent panels with strong brightness and color, yet the most interesting tech remains exclusive to the Ultra. Anti-reflective coatings that make the screen usable under harsh sunlight and the most aggressive brightness improvements are kept at the top, while the cheaper models get small, incremental bumps that sound better in marketing copy than they feel in daily use. It is hard not to think of those quiet iPhone S-years where the phone looked and felt mostly the same, with one or two upgrades you had to squint to notice.
The 3x camera that time forgot
Camera fans used to love the base Galaxy S because it offered a telephoto lens at a price where rivals often skipped it. The Galaxy S20 and S21 used a 64 megapixel sensor that achieved 3x reach through clever cropping and high resolution. With the Galaxy S22 Samsung did the right thing and switched to a native 3x telephoto module, which brought more consistent zoom quality. And then the evolution simply stopped.
Since that jump, the hardware has been effectively frozen while the rest of the market moved on. The rumors for the Galaxy S26 suggest the very same small sensor might be used again, despite years of progress elsewhere. During that time, many Chinese manufacturers have jumped to far larger sensors in their mid-range and flagship models. Telephoto modules with bigger pixels, brighter apertures, and longer focal lengths are becoming common, which means noticeably cleaner zoom shots at night and more detailed portraits with natural background blur.
Put those photos next to what the base Galaxy S can capture and the difference is obvious to anyone who cares about cameras. Samsung still relies heavily on heavy processing and marketing phrases while others quietly ship the better glass. For a brand that once defined itself by pushing camera hardware forward, living with the same tiny 3x year after year feels uncharacteristically timid.
One UI slowing down while Google speeds up
On the software side, One UI remains one of the most polished Android skins. It has a distinct visual identity, excellent customization options, and a feature set that feels rich without being a carbon copy of iOS. Many long-time users still prefer it to what other manufacturers ship. However, the pace of fresh ideas has clearly slowed. Recent releases focus on reorganizing menus, renaming toggles, and sprinkling a few quality-of-life options on top of what already exists, instead of introducing bold new ways to use the phone.
The loudest new tricks are almost all labeled AI, yet much of that magic arrives via Google rather than Samsung itself. Features built around Gemini and cloud-powered processing are fantastic to have, but they do not prove that Samsung is still the one driving the smartphone experience forward. For long-time users, it starts to feel like a carefully maintained operating system rather than a playground where bold ideas appear first. It is telling that some people now joke Google’s Pixel line became the new Apple years ago, with opinionated software and slow-but-steady hardware, and that Samsung is simply sliding into the same lane.
Foldables: from pioneer to reluctant follower
If you want a symbol of Samsung’s stubbornness, look at the Galaxy Fold series. Samsung deserves real credit for bringing mainstream foldables to market early and dealing with all the painful first-generation problems, from fragile screens to awkward hinges. But after that early burst of bravery, the design settled into a very narrow cover display that never quite worked for everyday messaging, maps, and quick browsing. The phone practically begged you to open it up for everything, even when you just wanted to reply to a message with one hand on the subway.
Only once Oppo, Honor, Vivo, Huawei, and others released multiple generations of more balanced foldables with wider outer screens did Samsung finally pivot to a more practical shape. Instead of staying half a step ahead, it waited until everybody else proved the point and then followed. That is exactly the behavior that once made Apple an easy target for being slow and conservative: wait, watch the competition, and move only when the risk has been reduced as much as possible.
Listening to accountants more than fans
There is also a quieter frustration among long-time Samsung users: the sense that the company listens more to spreadsheets than to its core audience. The death of the microSD card slot is the clearest example. With modern high-speed cards, expandable storage could still make a lot of sense on a productivity-focused device, especially for people shooting 4K or 8K video. Yet Samsung removed it on flagships and never looked back. It is hard not to see the upside in pushing people toward expensive higher-storage variants instead.
From a business perspective, none of this is irrational. Samsung is managing a huge, complex lineup, and predictable year-on-year changes are safer than risky experiments that might upset carriers or investors. But customers notice when the balance tilts too far toward stability. Some already enjoy the silver lining: Samsung’s stagnation pushed them to discover how many interesting Android phones exist outside the Galaxy bubble, from value-focused Chinese brands to Google’s Pixel line. For the first time in years, many long-time Galaxy owners say their next upgrade probably will not be a Samsung at all.
So is Samsung really the new Apple?
The short answer is not quite, but the comparison is no longer ridiculous. Apple still runs a locked-down ecosystem and moves at its own deliberate pace, while Samsung lives in the wild world of Android and has to negotiate with Google, carriers, and dozens of component suppliers. Yet in practice, both companies now treat phones a bit like laptops: you get a nicer screen here, a slightly better camera there, maybe an AI buzzword or two, and then the marketing machine does the rest.
What made Galaxy phones feel special in the past was the sense that they were a glimpse of the future. Curved displays, experimental cameras, bold color options, and the first mainstream foldables all helped Samsung earn that reputation. Today the Galaxy portfolio feels comfortable, safe, maybe even a little smug. In a market overflowing with aggressive rivals willing to throw 7,000 mAh batteries, giant sensors, and daring designs at users, comfort quickly turns into boredom.
Samsung does not need chaos for the sake of drama, but it could definitely use a bit more ambition. Listening more carefully to its fans, taking bigger swings with hardware again, and leading instead of merely validating Google’s software direction would go a long way. Otherwise, the idea that Samsung is the new Apple will stop being a meme and harden into accepted wisdom: a company that makes excellent, reliable phones that people respect, but no longer dream about.