Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#41

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:10 PM UTC

berberich wrote: post #31

trezor wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung makes eerily close copies of the iPhone As a former iPhone-owner gone (Samsung) Android I resent that comment. iOS is a one-dimensional, inflexible and locked down platform which bored the hell out of me and this was the primary reason I went over to Android. Android and Samsung's phone (the Galaxy S, which I have and which they are sueing for) is nothing like the iPhone and every single day I'm very happy fo…

Android the platform might be nothing like iOS, but Ir does appear that Samsung went out of its way to make their phones look like iPhones[1]. [1]: http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...

The article is well written but fails to point to any one particular phone that carries all of these iPhone similarities. A customer only buys one phone at a time.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#42

Post by poppysan » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:11 PM UTC

AllenKids wrote: post #34

poppysan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are merely trying to intimidate a competitor...

What you think is not important in the court. I too think these kind of lawsuits are boring as hell, luckily there is a system to sort it out, it may not be perfect, but that's what we've got and a whole lot better than a flamewar.

I never intended my opinion to be law, just my own view. No flamewar on my side...

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#43

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:16 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #39

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they have to decrease profit margin?

Because you can now buy an Android phone for less than £100. If Apple want to compete with that they'll have to compromise on both quality and profit margin.

Right now Apple is only competing in the high end mid-sized slate smartphone segment. You're pointing out just 1 other smartphone segment that they could compete in, the lower priced segment. There are many ways Apple could compete. They could release 2 or 3 new styles of iPhones while retaining the same price.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#44

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:19 PM UTC

mistermustard wrote: post #25

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary mark…

Apple has consistently claimed the highest share of the mobile phone market's profit without selling the most phones. Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-smarphone-profits-2011-... And the quarter before that: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/01/31/apple-is-still-suckin... And the quarter before that: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/21/pie-chart-apples-outr...

If they want to maintain the same (or better) share of profits they must take market share. Smartphones are only 28% of the total phone market today. That is what the article is talking about; future growth potential.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#45

Post by MrScruff » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:19 PM UTC

trezor wrote: post #15

Derbasti wrote: post #2

I don't see Apple being fearful to be honest. They are still growing like crazy and they are serving a somewhat different market than Android is. You simply don't buy an iPhone because you want 'some phone'. This is not to say that an iPhone is better than some Android phone, but this is certainly perceived to be something different than 'the rest' by most of my friends and colleagues.

I work in software development. Almost everyone in my department has Android-phones bar a few self-confessed iAddicts (and one daring Windows phone 7 beta-tester). Despite its huge commercial success, the iPhone is among my peers considered a rather lulzy thing and a the undisputed weakest and least sophisticated of all the mobile platforms when measured on its own merits. Not saying this is absolute truth either, bu…

I also work in software development. Among my colleagues there are a mix of iPhone & Android users, but the divide seems primarily related to cost with the juniors much more likely to own Android.

I've played with a few Android devices and they're ok but to be honest, the whole thing seems to be playing out just like 90s Mac vs Windows, with Android users insisting iOS is a toy and iOS users berating Androids unpolished interface.

For me it always boils down to the same thing, if you're willing to accept the constraints imposed by the products designer, Apple stuff is the best out there.

> the undisputed weakest and least sophisticated of all the mobile platforms when measured on its own merits

This is fairly obviously not true. The iOS SDK is still widely considered the benchmark for people that work cross platform. It doesn't really matter that your developer friends think on the relatively technical merits if they're no more informed than the average Android user.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#46

Post by pooriaazimi » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:22 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #14

What I don't get is why they aren't offering choices of different handsets. They offer 4 different versions of the iPod and 1 version of the iPhone. There should be at least 3 iPhones - the standard version, one with a 4.3 or 4.5 inch screen, and one with a slide out keyboard.

That is called fragmentation. It's hard for devs to optimize their apps to look good on different resolutions or aspect ratios. Even making your app to look & work "well" on both portrait and landscape modes is hard (by well I mean pretty, slick and sound).

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#47

Post by hypotguy » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:26 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #11

tomjen3 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe your friends and colleagues but that isn't universal -- indeed I much prefer my HTC.

The best Android devices may be as good or even better than the best iPhones but the worst Android devices are much worse than any Apple device has ever been. I say this as the not-very-proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Europa in addition to my iPhone and iPad.

The Samsung Galaxy Europa is cheapest entry level Android phone I've seen - where I'm from the i5500 can be picked up for about €70-100. I have one and it cost 1/5 that of an iPhone and is a pretty competent Android phone. For the price it's great value in my opinion and as far as I'm aware Apple makes nothing in that price range so I can't see how you can make any sort of comparison.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#48

Post by admiralpumpkin » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:27 PM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #24

jordanroher wrote: post #3

Except Apple doesn't seem to care about achieving huge market share for the iPhone. They care about money, and by delaying the iPhone 5 they've managed to make even more money than usual. It must be habit that we go for the market share argument so often. A corporation's responsibility to its shareholders isn't to spread its logo across the land like a religion, but to return value (real dollars, not imaginary market…

Here's the thing, even if you grant the premise: Samsung copied the iPhone and iPad from top to bottom and Apple will win their lawsuit, I still think it looks fearful. First, by suing, Apple has vouched for the quality of Samsung's products . It is the Windows look-and-feel lawsuit all over again. Right or wrong, Apple has just stood up and admitted that Android (or at least Samsung's take on Android) is "good enoug…

The Apple lawsuit doesn't vouch for Samsung's quality, quite the opposite. Their argument goes something like: Samsung is purposely copying iOS's appearance and iOS's products' appearances, creating confusion in the marketplace as to which product is the original HIGH quality product, and which is the LOW quality knock off. __

Your second argument is falsely premised on the idea of limited resources. Apple can easily have a good upcoming product portfolio AND pursue lawsuits. They are not resource-limited. They don't have to choose between lawsuits and good up-coming products.

___

Being a huge multi-faceted corporation, it is difficult, in my opinion, to discern their motivation down to a simple, single human emotion.

That said, if I had to guess, or put myself into Apple's mind, I would focus on Jobs' thinking. In my opinion he isn't scared, he is offended. He views his products as acts of creation--as art--and here is someone aping his art, and poorly at that. This offends him deeply.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#49

Post by AndrewDucker » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:28 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #43

AndrewDucker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can now buy an Android phone for less than £100. If Apple want to compete with that they'll have to compromise on both quality and profit margin.

Right now Apple is only competing in the high end mid-sized slate smartphone segment. You're pointing out just 1 other smartphone segment that they could compete in, the lower priced segment. There are many ways Apple could compete. They could release 2 or 3 new styles of iPhones while retaining the same price.

Apple pride themselves on making the iPhone simple, and not fragmented. I can't see how they can do that and still release the iPhones in different styles, unless we're talking nothing more than different covers.

The massive market growth in smartphones is being caused by the smartphone becoming cheaper - if they want more of the market then they have to enter that area.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#50

Post by MrScruff » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:28 PM UTC

anghyflawn wrote: post #23

rimantas wrote: post #19

There we go again. Market share. Author did not even bother to consider, at whose expense Samsung and HTC are gaining said share. Apple did grow too. Now 47% of their revenue comes from the product which was launched into the market where Apple had zero marked share and was laughed at for even trying. Another 21% comes from product which did not even exist 1.5 years ago. Author did forget to include these graphs: htt…

Um, no. He pointed out that as the smartphone market grows (at the expense of feature phones, probably), HTC and Samsung are riding that wave much better. It's not horribly surprising, since Apple's product is not likely to be immediately affordable to many of those switching from feature phones, but as the smartphone (and eventually tablet) market becomes commoditized it is not a given that Apple will be able to suc…

From the article, HTC's market share growth in the given interval was 4%, compared to Apple's 3%. Considering they achieved that growth on significantly lower margins than Apple (and consequently much less revenue growth), I don't think it's reasonable to claim HTC are riding the smartphone market growth much better than Apple.

Samsungs 10% growth is more impressive, but again was achieved with much lower margins. Apple could afford to cut their margin significantly if competitive pressure forces their hand, and unlike RIM they have a product which is high demand.