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Apple’s China Problem

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Re: Apple’s China Problem

#151

Post by threeseed »

gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

> Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS

These kind of statements are ridiculous.

(1) There is no evidence. (2) It assumes all of the Chinese think and act the same. (3) It assumes brand is the only decisioning metric when design and implementation can equally be important.

> If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere

The look & feel of iPhones and iOS has been pirated and reimplemented on Android since day 1. You can goto MBK in Bangkok or Shenzhen in China and buy dozens of different models. Guess what ? They are nasty and buggy as hell and so don't sell.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#152

Post by acchow »

mikhailt wrote: post #49

This seems to confuse some people, the author is not saying Apple have a monopoly on smartphones. What the author is talking about is the locked-in ecosystem that Apple owns, iOS and macOS (watchOS/tvOS). > Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS.…

tl;dr in China, WeChat is the Operating System and Platform and iOS is becoming "firmware".

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#153

Post by [deleted] »

mikhailt wrote: post #49

This seems to confuse some people, the author is not saying Apple have a monopoly on smartphones. What the author is talking about is the locked-in ecosystem that Apple owns, iOS and macOS (watchOS/tvOS). > Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS.…

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#154

Post by xiaoma »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #132
mikhailt wrote: post #49

This seems to confuse some people, the author is not saying Apple have a monopoly on smartphones. What the author is talking about is the locked-in ecosystem that Apple owns, iOS and macOS (watchOS/tvOS). > Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS.…

How wild is it that it took less than 10 years for a platform spanning killer-app to emerge in the largest smartphone market in the world? To put it in perspective, this is like what the web did to Windows circa '99 - '05. Lesser examples might be spreadsheets or Adobe Photoshop.

> "How wild is it that it took less than 10 years for a platform spanning killer-app to emerge in the largest smartphone market in the world?"

It's not that wild considering that the iPhone hasn't even existed for quite a decade yet and Android has been around for an even shorter time.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#155

Post by acchow »

nullnilvoid wrote: post #97
gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

I feel exactly the same way after switching away from top-tier Android. Never going back.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#156

Post by threeseed »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #102
nullnilvoid wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than the brand factor, iPhone is actually a better phone. Before the current iPhone I have, I had always been an Android user. I used entry-level Android phones, high-end Android phones such as Samsung Galaxy, iPhone is clearly a better phone. iOS feels more smooth, reliable, battery-efficient in many ways than Android phones. Honestly, I have not looked back since the switch.

Without wading into a my-anecdotes-against yours battle, I think most would agree that at this point Chinese smartphone shoppers have options from Xiaomi and Huawei among others[1] that are of equal quality to Apple hardware (and may be better designed for their market). 1: http://time.com/4547129/china-smartphone-market-oppo-vivo-xi...

The world has access to phones from Xiaomi and Huawei.

If they were equal to iPhones they would be selling out in Ireland, Australia, Cambodia - everywhere. Guess what ? They aren't equal to iPhones.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#157

Post by [deleted] »

linkregister wrote: post #113
archvile wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would iOS get pirated when the only way to install it is by using a certificate that only Apple holds? If it was easy enough to reverse engineer iOS and remove that install requirement, I'm sure it would have been done by now.

Seriously? There is a thriving jailbreak scene for iOS. It doesn't sound insurmountable at all. I think the only reason there's no iOS analogue to the Hackintosh is because nobody has bothered.

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#158

Post by [deleted] »

zeveb wrote: post #96
valuearb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applications matter.

You're not wrong, but all the applications I care about run on Linux: - emacs - vi - zsh - st - SBCL - tmux - Inkscape - sxiv - Firefox - Gnucash - GraphicsMagick - Nethack - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup - Minecraft Of those, only Minecraft isn't developed on Linux first (and maybe Firefox, depending on how you define that condition). I can be productive. I can read email (in emacs, of course!). I can play games. I can r…

[deleted]

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#159

Post by cmurf »

bobsam wrote: post #116
otos wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iMessage is the only distinguishing benefit iPhone has. If WeChat or other apps are more popular in a market, I see Apple having a serious challenge. The UI on the iPhone is incredibly challenging for me, especially web browsing. I have a long list of criticisms on Android but both platforms seem incredibly flawed. The companies appear busy concoting marketing features and not with improving the functionality and exp…

> The companies appear busy concoting marketing features and not with improving the functionality and experience. Really?? I feel Google and partners are introducing great new things and polishing existing stuff on a daily basis. Windows phone on the other hand is doing the exact opposite :(

Google, charitably, continues to step on their own d|ck at every possible opportunity when it comes to text communication (chat and sms). Apple definitely got this overwhelmingly correct with iMessage. Google can't even decide what stuff belongs in what app, and they've done the Hokey Pokey more times than I can count. SMS is now integrated in Google voice. SMS is now integrated into Hangouts. SMS is now moving out of Hangouts and into Messages or maybe Allo or maybe Duo. And optionally in a ravamped Google Voice.

Gchat is now in Hangouts. Hangouts works also in a laptop web browser. Allo and Duo and Messages do not work in a browser. And Allo will spam the recipient to also download Allo when delivering the message.

Meanwhile, in Hangouts, for two years, I can't play voicemails, I get a message that it's unavailable. One every phone I've bought including a Google Nexus branded phone, and a Motorola phone when Google owned Motorola.

Anyway, I'd say great new things sure. But there's always yet another new thing and new way of doing it. It's exhausting. There is no such thing as polishing existing stuff. They move on to new things before polish really ever catches on.

What's Windows phone? (Nevermind!)

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#160

Post by erikpukinskis »

skdotdan wrote: post #53

The problem with many tech analysts is that they are Apple fanboys without even knowing that they are. Stating that Microsoft Surface and Samsung S8 are not competitors of Apple just because their products don't run Mac OS/iOS is pure fanaticism at the very least. Nevertheless, I find that the main point of the article is right. But Apple's China problem is also a very important problem for Google (actually, it's wor…

I think you underestimate the degree of vendor lock in Apple has. If you are a heavy user of iMessage, and you are a participant in multiple iMessage group threads, and you switch to Android, you will never be able to participate in those threads again. There's no way to convert an existing iMessafe thread to a hybrid MMS one without getting every participant to delete the old thread and start a new one. Good luck communicating that fact to all of your contacts

Every time I post this on HN I get a bunch of people telling me you can deregister your phone number, or start a new thread, but iMessage won't convert its own threads to MMS automatically. Every participant in every thread has to delete it. This is considered expected behavior by Apple.

If you want uninterrupted communication with your contacts, and you can't afford a few missed messages, you have no choice but to stay on iPhone​ forever. SMS is dead. Apple owns your messaging identity now, and it's platform locked.

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