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

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#51

Post by trezor » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:29 PM UTC

MrScruff wrote: post #45

trezor wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unpolis…

Just replying to say how you are confirming my point either you intend to or not: What people think about different things differ, and there is no "universal" consensus about most things.

Like there is no universal consensus on the iPhone being "better" than its Android rivals.

I guess we somehow agree even though we seemingly don't.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#52

Post by eftpotrm » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:33 PM UTC

rimantas wrote: post #16

watty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think they don't care about market share and money or being the top dog, you're wrong and they've fooled you. That's their number one concern, they're a business.

Indeed they are the business. Business means making money not market share. That post misses one small graph: the profit share of Apple in mobile space.

But the reason they're currently able to extract the profit they are from the market is that they've been able to build an aura as the only true 'premium' quality device, in some people's mind I've no doubt the only device of its kind.

That isn't sustainable. Both awareness and quality of competitor devices (primarily Android) is rising, and if unchecked will become a truly serious competitor to Apple. Who are then left with a premium but niche device that's incompatible with the software base of the largest platform and more expensive, and they're left selling look, feel and image over functionality for a premium - otherwise known as the 1990s MacOS strategy.

This leaves them two alternatives:

* Try to remove competitors from the market to protect your position and so margins. This seems to be the current 'patent war' strategy.

* Start trying to compete on volume. Low-end devices to get customers into the iOS ecosystem, price competition on the premium devices. It's working with tablets after all, where the major competitors to the iPad are still baffling me by producing half a netbook's components for twice the cost rather than merely 1.5 times the cost as Apple have. Problem, though, is that the whole market volume strategy increases costs and workloads, decreases margins and starts chipping away at the premium image.

Short answer: I don't see how Apple's current strategy is sustainable in the long-term. If that revenue graph is accurate, I'd be shorting Apple's stock.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#53

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:39 PM UTC

AndrewDucker wrote: post #49

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They release different styles of Macs and iPods, why is the iPhone the one product of theirs that has no differentiation?

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#54

Post by AllenKids » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:42 PM UTC

poppysan wrote: post #42

AllenKids wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Oh, I'm not accusing you of that.

It's just how things supposed to be handled, Apple and Samsung are all big boys. We as costumers really should not be bothered with their petty squabble to be honest. Nothing drastic will come out of this case.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#55

Post by wynand » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:42 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #37

rimantas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this even mean? Which is better, having 80% of the market and 10% of profits, or having 20% of the market and 50% of the profits?

That's the picture today with smartphones accounting for 28% of the total phone market. If Apple's market share doesn't keep up with smartphone adoption their profit % will go down. That's simple math . The notion that Apple doesn't care about market share is absurd .

Right, but we have to limit ourselves to the upper segments of the smart phone market. If we include the cheapo Androids when talking about smart phones then Apple's relative market share may very well drop in the coming years (unless they come up with a lower-end iPhone but even a low-end iPhone would probably not exactly be low-end).

But I agree that they cannot afford to lose ground to HTC, Motorola, LG and Samsung's high-end phones.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#56

Post by trezor » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:42 PM UTC

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…

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.

Fair point, but Apple's growth is clearly in a decline compared to earlier years.

And once the established smartphone market stabilizes at something with Android clearly in the lead (like 80% Android and 20% iOS) which platform do you think will get the attention of developers? Which platform do you think will get the apps first? Which platform do you think will get the exclusive apps?

If (and I say if) the divide gets big enough for these kinds of mechanisms to trigger and start playing in, iOS as a platform will slowly but surely lose users, and have the process reinforce itself until the platform wither off and dies.

So in that regard, while market share isn't everything, it is still important for lots of other strategic concerns which most certainly are.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#57

Post by jokermatt999 » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:49 PM UTC

nextparadigms wrote: post #22

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…

Apple cares a lot about market share. Why do you think they keep bragging with statistics every chance they get? Being a leader in market share is very important for developers and it's important for customers, too. Also more market share means more sales - so more money and profit. Why wouldn't they want that? You don't think they cared about their market share with iPods, or their market share in the tablet market?…

I'm an Android fan, but marketshare between Android and iPhone doesn't tell the whole story, at least for developers. I haven't seen numbers on it in a while, but iOS is much better for devs in terms of making money. iOS users buy more apps, and if you're developing to make money, that's pretty good deciding factor.

Of course, may not want to develop for Apple for other reasons (store policies, not wanting to get randomly rejected, etc), but I'd assume money is the driving factor for many.

Now, that isn't to say that Android won't be making good profits. It's just that Apple has a cash cow with their App Store's 30% cut (and now mandatory payments in app). Actual market share matters less, because that's not necessarily where they're continuing to make money.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#58

Post by MatthewPhillips » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:53 PM UTC

pooriaazimi wrote: post #46

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).

Consumers have chosen fragmentation and rejected sameness. We're never going to live in a world where everyone carries around the same phone with the same resolution and all the same features. Devs, of which I am one, have to conform to reality. Apple and other platform companies have to make it as easy as possible for their developers to create applications that work on multiple resolutions (separate .xibs for iPhone and iPad is not the way), but their #1 concern is their customers, and if their customers want different styles (I think they do) then they should provide them.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#59

Post by white_devil » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:55 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…

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

Oh my fucking God, please. I wasn't sure before, but you just outed yourself as a huge Google -fanboy.

Yeah what's Apple's platform got going for it? -It just changed the whole industry and showed How It's Done. It's also regarded as technically very solid, and pleasant to develop for.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#60

Post by GHFigs » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #37

rimantas wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this even mean? Which is better, having 80% of the market and 10% of profits, or having 20% of the market and 50% of the profits?

That's the picture today with smartphones accounting for 28% of the total phone market. If Apple's market share doesn't keep up with smartphone adoption their profit % will go down. That's simple math . The notion that Apple doesn't care about market share is absurd .

I don't think you understand the math there. Unless competitors claw their way up to Apple-like margins, market share (or share growth) will decline much faster than profit share will. Even if profit share declines, that doesn't mean that actual profits decline.