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Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

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Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#101

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #53
AndrewDucker wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

To make development easy and to make it easy create good user experiences across all iOS devices. None of their iOS devices have multiple versions in a single product cycle.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#102

Post by Hyena »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #44
mistermustard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not true. Expanding market share can mean selling at lower price points, which in turn means lower margins and potentially lower ROI. Moreover, the simple ways around this, like keeping older product lines longer, have risks in the technology sector not present in other areas. There's a lot of incentive to be not more than two models behind on mobile phones, not so much with cars.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#103

Post by fpgeek »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #90
fpgeek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fighti…

I absolutely agree that Apple has always played hardball. There are, however, different kinds of hardball you can play. Back in the day it was laughing, confident, grinding down and humiliating the competition because you were just that much better.

Today... it looks more like the desperate, defensive hardball you play when you're backed into a corner. Throwing everything out there because you feel like you have to, rather than stepping back and focusing, first and foremost, on winning.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#104

Post by Synaesthesia »

p0ppe wrote: post #18
allenp wrote: post #10

The author makes the mistake of equating market share with revenue - it is quite possible that Apple's 19% market share is makes more for them than Nokia at 24%, or even Nokia at 40%.

"iPhone share of phone market in Q1: 5% volumes, 20% revenues, 55% profit" - http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/16/iphone-share-of-phone-marke...

Q2: 66% Profit (!) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820784

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#105

Post by kelnos »

gonzo wrote: post #96
rufugee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow...troll much?

I also own both Android and iOS phones. and I've also never purchased an app on Android. So either we're both under the bridge, or you've mis-labeled the troll. (Look in the mirror.)

I've owned 2 different iPod Touches over the past 2-3 years, and I've owned an Android phone for a year and a half. I've bought apps for both platforms.

The plural of anecdote is not data. There are apps worth paying for on Android. But for whatever reason -- maybe it's quality, maybe it's customer sentiment -- iOS users tend to spend more money in the App Store than Android users spend in the Market.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#106

Post by white_devil »

trezor wrote: post #61
white_devil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It just changed the whole industry and showed How It's Done. I may not like your tone, but if nothing else you are correct about this point. Apple was clearly the company who made everyone else understand that delivering a good smartphone involved good software in addition to hardware and that good hardware alone was worthless. For this they deserve recognition. That being said: They created a platform, a very simple…

It has aged and evolved well. A platform cannot both be weak and unsophisticated and show the world how a platform should be done.

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#107

Post by white_devil »

steverb wrote: post #95
white_devil wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The iPhone did change the industry and it is technically very solid. However, it is NOT pleasant to develop for. Having developed private apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 I personally find Windows 7 to be the best platform for development, with Android a distant second. iOS is by far the most painful dev platform of the three. Unless you really like programming like it's 1985 (a not insignificant number of p…

Unless you really like programming like it's 1985

Care to elaborate?

Re: Illustrated: Apple's Fear of Android

#108

Post by prodigal_erik »

white_devil wrote: post #107
steverb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone did change the industry and it is technically very solid. However, it is NOT pleasant to develop for. Having developed private apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7 I personally find Windows 7 to be the best platform for development, with Android a distant second. iOS is by far the most painful dev platform of the three. Unless you really like programming like it's 1985 (a not insignificant number of p…

Unless you really like programming like it's 1985 Care to elaborate?

It's 2011, and iOS developers are somehow persuaded to accept a crude imitation of Smalltalk and waste time on "do I need to box this int in a NSNumber?" and "did I get a SIGSEGV because I called [super dealloc] before [field release]?", when the first Smalltalk implementation handled this minutiae automatically on less powerful hardware nearly forty years ago.
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