Following Wednesday’s media event that marked the debut of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR, Huawei took aim at Apple on social media, posting multiple tweets that seemed to criticize the company for not making too many significant changes to the current year’s latest iPhone models as opposed to their predecessors.
On Thursday, Huawei took to Twitter to promote the imminent arrival of its latest flagship phone, the Huawei Mate 20, but as ZDNet noted, the company did so by bashing an unnamed company that was implied to be Apple, based on the language and images used in the tweets. One of the tweets read “Thanks for keeping things the same,” while another used a graphic similar to the one used on Apple’s iPhone XS invitation and thanked people for “supporting us as innovators.”
None of the tweets, however, seemed to throw more shade than the one that thanked viewers for “letting us be the real hero of the year.” Like Huawei’s other apparent Apple-bashing tweets, this post hyped the launch of the company’s Mate 20 flagship phone, which will take place on October 16 in London.
According to ZDNet , the “hero of the year” tweet stood out because Huawei has been accused in several countries of releasing phones that have security issues. According to the Verge , the Chinese phone maker was also accused of cheating on performance tests by reprogramming the P20 and three other devices to improve their 3DMark benchmark scores. The company later issued a statement to Android Authority , stressing that it focuses mainly on its devices’ user interfaces rather than the results of benchmark tests.
“Huawei always prioritizes the user experience rather than pursuing high benchmark scores – especially since there isn’t a direct connection between smartphone benchmarks and user experiences. Huawei smartphones use advanced technologies such as AI to optimize the performance of hardware, including the CPU, GPU and NPU.”
Thank you for letting us be the real hero of the year. See you in London.16.10.18. #HigherIntelligence #HUAWEIMate20 pic.twitter.com/blwOcweRj1
— Huawei Mobile (@HuaweiMobile) September 12, 2018
Given the allegations of security issues and benchmark cheating, ZDNet opined that it doesn’t sound right for Huawei to bait Apple and refer to itself as “heroic,” adding that several other companies have tried similar tactics, only for the Cupertino, California-based company to “stand and smile.” More so than most other phone makers, Samsung has been quite notable in its attempts to target Apple’s iPhones in its advertisements and had most recently released a series of commercials that seemed to poke fun at Apple employees whose job is to talk customers through potential purchases of the company’s products, according to Quartz .
