Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#251

Post by gumby » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #236

gumby wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Olde Days you could schedule a return; when the fedex driver stopped by you could ask them to wait and pop your laptop into the box and hand it back, and have the repaired machine the next day. No more.

My daughter's new Alienware laptop broke. We contacted support and they dispatched a repair person to her house and he fixed it on site.

I’ve heard that Dell does this for business. Good for them for looking after their gaming customers too!

Apple makes you jump through hoops these days. I am sure it’s because they are bigger and because they are no longer the underdog. But mix this change because “things no longer scale at their size” or “we are so big we don’t care as much”?

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#252

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #125

creshal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most regular users want as many features as they can get, for a reasonable price point. And Samsung is king in that market – their A series phones have a huge sales volume. Some users can afford real premium phones. And Samsung's offerings mostly just kinda suck software wise, even when the hardware is decent. Techies know this and have a huge variety of stock Android alternatives to choose from (which, somehow, cont…

> Google Pixel phones just work, unlike Samsung's Everything I've heard about Pixels tells me you're not right. They have a ton of bugs, besides the mediocre to bad hardware. And Samsung moves more premium phones (aka S-series) each year than all Pixel phones ever sold. You probably live in the US, but Pixel phones are also almost impossible to get outside the US (though things are getting slightly better) and their…

> And in many countries flagship Chinese models are sold more than Apple phones.

Is any one disputing this? The OP of this thread is about iPhones being 13% market share.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#253

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

015a wrote: post #153

creshal wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most regular users want as many features as they can get, for a reasonable price point. And Samsung is king in that market – their A series phones have a huge sales volume. Some users can afford real premium phones. And Samsung's offerings mostly just kinda suck software wise, even when the hardware is decent. Techies know this and have a huge variety of stock Android alternatives to choose from (which, somehow, cont…

This is just... wrong. I mean, I don't know what bubble you're living in, but my bubble is not like this. Every single person I've ever met, except one, uses either an iPhone or a Galaxy. Probably a sample size of 100 people. The one exception uses a Pixel, and he's a software engineer. The reason why I'm confident enough in saying you're wrong, is because my experience tracks with US smartphone shipment metrics. App…

Is your bubble only physically local or constrained in some other way?

My bubble is mostly white collar college educated people, but spanning across the western world. I would have thought the same about Pixels but just the other day i found out someone I know in the US has an older Pixel device.

Most people won’t know what a pixel phone is, is true for sure.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#254

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #158

tbrock wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did they would be dead in a year. They sell a fraction of the >$1000 phones apple sells by the shipload. Their bread and butter is the cheap stuff. The same way nobody wants to spent $35k on a honda when they could have a tesla.

>"The same way nobody wants to spent $35k on a honda when they could have a tesla." Depends on who's that nobody is. The only things I personally value in cars are: 1) It *reliably* gets me from A to B 2) It accommodates my vacation stuff so I always get van. I would not pay one single penny for car's "coolness". If I was getting car instead of van Tesla would not be in the picture despite the fact that I could buy i…

If that is all you care about. You aren’t spending $35K for a car. Even if you plan on keeping it for 15 years. Unless perhaps vans that accommodate your vacations cost more. Which still means you aren’t getting a sedan-ish vehicle.

I don’t think you’re refuting the point since you’re not one of the people that fits in the hypothetical scenario the OP presented.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#255

Post by skinnymuch » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #227

dhritzkiv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people want the Fold? (No snark - genuinely asking)

Folding tech/gimmick itself isn't what people want (I believe). It makes possible tablet can be folded so fit on my pocket. There's no switching cost from smartphone to tablet. It changes my digital life. I no longer use narrower smartphone to read web/books in everywhere. Personally I don't know how Flip3 useful, but it seems to sold well, maybe cool for some people.

You’re saying a foldable tablet fitting in your pocket would be good for you? Then why call folding a gimmick at the beginning? The iPhone was called a gimmick when it was new. Same with the iPad, less so but still with the Apple Watch.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#256

Post by reayn » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

maxwell wrote: post #248

reayn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Half the reason people buy iPhones is to show other people they aren't poor While I'm pretty sure you jest here, this simply isn't true. iMessage, FaceTime, consistency with family and friends, and the (whether founded or not is up to you) trust in a machine that'll last you quite a few years and "just work" is the main reason people buy iPhones. Not saying that this is my thought process (i have my own reasons for…

> iMessage, FaceTime, ... Right, the top two reasons to use an iPhone are iMessage and FaceTime. And those are the two apps that are still basically impossible to compete with with PWAs due to unimplemented functionality. They have seemed to make more progress on this over the past couple years after getting called out with very astute questions from Rep. Cicilline: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20190716/10…

PWAs come with their own suite of functionality issues these days, but I'm sure they'll be able to compete with Apple's native solutions sooner or later.

FaceTime does support sharing links so far but it's something I have yet to test myself.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#257

Post by reayn » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

diffeomorphism wrote: post #234

reayn wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please, no one's out here trying to "rise above the unwashed android masses" when they buy an iPhone, it's just what they are used to. It's not a status symbol, it's a fucking phone. And despite what you believe, there are many legitimate reasons for choosing an iPhone over the competition, ones that don't revolve around "social status" or "flexing" or anything like that. Even the anecdotes you hear of girls not d…

Sure they do. Just like Gucci makes good bags, a large factor is that it is a luxury good that people recognize. Same for expensive watches, same for clothing brands. Nothing bad about that. > look around you, who really gives a shit aside from nerds on HN? You to an unhealthy degree, apparently.

Once again I don't really understand the comparison between a PHONE and a gucci bag/expensive watch.

Unlike the iPhone, the products you mention cost orders of magnitude more than their competition, I can buy a $30 bag from Ross and a $2000 bag from Gucci and get basically no extra functionality, they are both bags. Despite what people say, iPhones are priced relatively competitively with their competition and don't really have the same "Luxury Appeal" that a Rolex watch may have in comparison to a Casio one.

> You to an unhealthy degree, apparently.

?

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#258

Post by fomine3 » Fri, Oct 15, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #255

fomine3 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folding tech/gimmick itself isn't what people want (I believe). It makes possible tablet can be folded so fit on my pocket. There's no switching cost from smartphone to tablet. It changes my digital life. I no longer use narrower smartphone to read web/books in everywhere. Personally I don't know how Flip3 useful, but it seems to sold well, maybe cool for some people.

You’re saying a foldable tablet fitting in your pocket would be good for you? Then why call folding a gimmick at the beginning? The iPhone was called a gimmick when it was new. Same with the iPad, less so but still with the Apple Watch.

I'm not a native so maybe used wrong word. Flexible OLED was also used for smartphone like LG G Flex, Galaxy Note Edge/S6 edge and its successor, but those aren't welcomed well. Samsung widely used the edge "gimmick" but it's not welcomed by majority from what I see because it shows curved content, makes accidental touch, and makes (a bit) hard to put screen protector.

Finally they advanced to foldable OLED and developed game changing Galaxy Fold. Fold3 is really good but I think final product is important than the tech itself. But maybe, without Galaxy Edge phones, Fold won't be developed.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#259

Post by fomine3 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 12:02 AM UTC

wayneftw wrote: post #240

fomine3 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone is also sold well in Japan. Market share is a bit decreased but still about 40-50%. Take our money!

They will take your money and if you keep giving it to them they will continue taking more and more of your freedom too.

Yes this is more problem than importing phones (anyway actually we import from China mostly). Our freedom is censored by foreign US company because we buy Apple.

Re: Apple Captures 75% of Global Handset Market Operating Profit in Q2 2021

#260

Post by sudosysgen » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 12:18 AM UTC

owenversteeg wrote: post #243

sudosysgen wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really the Marxian concept at play here. There's no measure of the organic composition of capital and of returns on capital to measure the exploitation rate that a Marxian economist would use. A Marxian economist would rather find that the rate of profit per unit of capital which is equal to the average rate of exploitation is relatively within norms. A Marxian economist would probably consider that Google a…

No, I'm sorry, the "rate of exploitation" is purely a Marxian economic concept, and it is a simple ratio: that of the total amount of surplus-value to the total amount of wages paid. The article we are discussing here clearly refers to the Marxian concept and not anything else. You are conflating so many different things (gross profit margin, net profit margin, rate of return on capital, rate of exploitation) that I…

Do you suggest another way of quantifying exploitation? How do you judge who is more or less exploited? It stands to reason that if you're getting paid less but your employer is making a lot of money, you're more exploited than otherwise.

There is no good way of approximating the rate of exploitation of Google. All we know is that it is lower or close to the gross profit margin unless cost of raw resources are significant.

We also know that the rate of exploitation is necessary higher than the rate of return on capital for capital heavy industries, which was the case of the mills in 19th century England. So despite low quality data on the rate of exploitation we know that it's higher than for Google.

Also net income is closely related to the rate of exploitation. I'm not confusing them, they're just the closest proxy. If you take the "non-labour costs" as themselves a sum of indirect labour costs and ultimately rents, you will understand why.