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Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

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Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#81

Post by ceejayoz »

trezor wrote: post #56
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 dev…

> 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?

Having just built an iPhone and Android app, it won't be 80/20. It'll be 20/15/25/20/20. Our iPhone app works essentially the same way on all iPhones/iPod touches. Our Android app was a horrendous bear to test - lots of "on one device it does this, on another device it breaks" from our testers.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#82

Post by ceejayoz »

jff wrote: post #68
pooriaazimi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's somehow worked out for the incredibly fragmented Android environment. Their method of creating images that specify which parts of themselves can be safely stretched (NinePatch, http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/Nine... ) is a pretty neat technical aid for that situation.

NinePatch etc. are neat, but break down on complicated design elements.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#83

Post by demallien »

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?…

Apple cares about market share in two very different ways. Firstly, they care about it for the simple reason of making money on each handset sold. In that respect, those charts actually show Apple crushing every other smartphone manufacturer out there.

Secondly, they care about marketshare of the iOS platform because this is one of the determining factors in how much support a platform will get from developers. Here it could be an issue if the get swamped in volume by the Android platform. But marketshare isn't the only factor that helps developers make the choice to support a platform. Developers care about how much money they can make by developing on a given platform, and this is not determined uniquely by the marketshare. Other factors include discoverability of the developer's application by users, the demographics of the marketplace (are they users that tend to hand over money for a product, or do they prefer free stuff), and ease of development (how good is the SDK, how fragmented is the platform, how restrictive are the T&Cs of the marketplace).

In this second aspect of marketshare, Apple may end up losing out to Android overall. But firstly, that day is not yet come - when talking about platform marketshare, there are also the iPod touch and the iPad to toss into the mix, which changes the final numbers. Even when (and I do think it is a question of when) Android takes over as the leading platform, the factors outlined in the last paragraph mean that it is not an automatic given that developers will flee iOS for Android. Indeed, unless Android can claim more than 80% of the market, I would expect developers will show equal preference for supporting both platforms. We are a long way from 80% marketshare for Android, so I doubt Apple is particularly worried just at the moment.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#84

Post by div »

jokermatt999 wrote: post #57
nextparadigms wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ran…

iOS may be more valuable to developers today, but if marketshare keeps developing according to the current trend, there will be an inflection point.

It's widely reported that iOS users are more likely to spend money on apps than Android users. Let's assume that the percentage of users spending money on apps for iOS vs Android is something like 80% vs 40%. For a developer this means, ceteris paribus, there need to be twice as many people on Android to make the same amount of money he would make in the Appstore.

If you look at marketshare trends, Android is slowly getting to the point where you stand to make as much money developing for Android as you would developing for iOS. In fact, if trends hold, there will be more money in Android than in iOS in the long run, making it the logical step for developers to jump ship (or at least develop for both platforms).

This is why market share matters.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#85

Post by fpgeek »

admiralpumpkin wrote: post #48
fpgeek wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

First, if Apple is suing Samsung over their alleged knockoffs, then they are good knockoffs, not bad ones. Apple loves bad knockoffs. Bad knockoffs enhance the reputation of their products by emphasizing how special and hard to copy they really are. Why would they even dream of shutting down the kind wonderful advertising that money can't buy?

Second, of course Apple is resource-constrained. Every company is resource-constrained, but the resources they are constrained by are not always the same.

In Apple's case, the resource that I suspect is most constrained is the time and attention of their top, strategic managers. That's why I find the Samsung lawsuit so telling. Unlike most of Apple's other lawsuits (e.g. HTC, Motorola), the Samsung lawsuit / situation drains a lot of that top-level time and attention. What are the drains?

We can start with the huge supplier relationship. What do you keep sourcing from Samsung? What do you transition? What are your contingency plans if Samsung pulls together a piece of technology you want (e.g. an iPad-size "Retina Display") before the supplier you are transitioning to does? And think of all of the negotiations, planning and so on that go on around this. These are all particularly important because one of Apple's key advantages over its competitors is how it manages and captures key parts of its supply chain.

Next, Samsung is a large, diverse technology company with a robust, complex patent portfolio of its own. You can staff out the analysis of the countersuits, but deciding what to do based on that analysis is a different kettle of fish. If there are problematic patents, how hard are they to work around technically and operationally? What sorts of unexpected legal developments affect not just the legal strategy but Apple's technical and/or business strategies as well (and what do you do about them)? What about depositions and testimony (see Larry Page and Oracle)? And by the way, Apple and Samsung don't just have a simple US legal battle going on, they are lawsuits going in something like 10 countries on 3 continents. The sheer number of moving parts in this mess is a problem by itself.

The more I look at the Samsung lawsuit, the more I see Apple spending a large chunk of their most constrained resource on it. I've drawn my own conclusions about what that means.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#86

Post by fpgeek »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #65

Flamebait. Jobs played up the IP that went into the iPhone at its launch and (paraphrasing from memory) vowed to defend it vigorously at the time, well before a single Droid or Galaxy S or iPhone shipped. I'll dig through the WWDC transcript if someone forces me ;). They knew that they'd be copied, presumably by low-cost imitators as their products have always been imitated, and were always prepared to use IP law to…

In a different context, I remember "Redmond, start your photocopiers!" That's Apple knowing they were going to be copied, but being supremely confident that it wouldn't matter because they'd stay far enough ahead anyway. I don't think I've seen that particular side of Apple in a while.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#87

Post by jokermatt999 »

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.

They are serving a different market, and I've seen less demand since Android came out. I know at least a dozen people who have Android phones (that are quite happy with them) off the top of my head, and I can only think of two who own an iPhone. The Android people don't want iPhones, but the iPhone people look jealously at Androids.

This isn't a "techy" group either, it's mostly regular 20-somethings.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#88

Post by anghyflawn »

MrScruff wrote: post #50
anghyflawn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Ap…

Percent is not the same as percentage points, you know. Growing from 6% to 10% is actually a growth of 66% percent, which sounds much more impressive. Fair point about the margins, but the fact is that Apple's entire business model is built on ensuring their margin stays high by charging large premiums for products that are clearly better than the competition. This is not guaranteed to last forever. The other companies on the other hand are used to living in commoditized markets with razor thin margins. I'm not saying Apple are doomed, but they clearly cannot just write the whole competition off, and they obviously aren't.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#89

Post by MrScruff »

anghyflawn wrote: post #88
MrScruff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Ap…

Percent is not the same as percentage points, you know. Growing from 6% to 10% is actually a growth of 66% percent, which sounds much more impressive. Fair point about the margins, but the fact is that Apple's entire business model is built on ensuring their margin stays high by charging large premiums for products that are clearly better than the competition. This is not guaranteed to last forever. The other compani…

Sure, but by a similar logic going from 0.1 to 0.2% represents 100% growth.

But yes, I agree that Apple are very aware of the competition and the pitfalls of potentially losing marketshare. It would be silly for them to be otherwise. I just don't thing they're running scared yet in the way the original article infers they are.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#90

Post by saturdaysaint »

fpgeek wrote: post #86
saturdaysaint wrote: post #65

Flamebait. Jobs played up the IP that went into the iPhone at its launch and (paraphrasing from memory) vowed to defend it vigorously at the time, well before a single Droid or Galaxy S or iPhone shipped. I'll dig through the WWDC transcript if someone forces me ;). They knew that they'd be copied, presumably by low-cost imitators as their products have always been imitated, and were always prepared to use IP law to…

In a different context, I remember "Redmond, start your photocopiers!" That's Apple knowing they were going to be copied, but being supremely confident that it wouldn't matter because they'd stay far enough ahead anyway. I don't think I've seen that particular side of Apple in a while.

I don't see the change of character. They encouraged the prosecution of a journalist for getting his hands on an iPhone before release, they sued several mp3 manufacturers for copying the iPod's look and feel (wonder why you didn't see other mp3 players with clickwheels on US shelves?), they were similarly aggressive (albeit not litigious) in blocking the non-threatening Pre from accessing iTunes, they've been fighting toe to toe with content companies since iTunes debuted, they've routinely cornered the market for critical components (small hard drives and flash memory, most notably) for the better part of a decade. This is a company that's played hardball every day for as long as I can remember.

The main difference here is that the stakes are higher.

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