Why You Can't Build a Smartphone • Hacker News Board

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#171

Post by mason55 » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

Pxtl wrote: post #72

mason55 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every attempted "competitor" I've seen that stands against the iPod Touch either costs more than the touch or is reviewed as unusable garbage. Maybe this speaks to Tim Cook's operations wizardry? If no one can get components at the same quality or price as Apple then they're stuck either selling a crappier device for the same price or a good device at a higher price. If you can't beat Apple in hardware price or har…

Samsung made a line called Galaxy Player. The cheapest one was $150 and sported a 3.6in 480x340 pixel screen, at a time when you could get an iPod Touch for $200. There expensive one, the Galaxy Player 5, cost more than Apple's offering. And they all ran Android 2.3 Similarly, there was Archos. They made a whole family of Android player devices at the 2.3 era, and where infamously buggy. Sony made the Walkman Z as a…

So do you think they're not trying? Or it's just really difficult because of Apple's operations efficiencies? It seems like they could make up for Apple's hardware lead (cornered market on flash, vertical integration) by starting with Android and winning on software development time but maybe iOS is mature enough now that the cost to continue building it out is the same as the cost to repackage Android.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#172

Post by gcb0 » Tue, Dec 03, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

paulftw wrote: post #78

gcb0 wrote: post #75

The article is kinda paradoxal... > the iphone changed the game > no device can enter the market without carrier help. The iphone was successful exactly because it sold to rich people before, with no carrier help. in fact, in the beginning the carriers would throw anything at you to move you from an iphone. In fact, the reason you have to pay a "smarphone fee" until recently was because AT&T greedily charged a mandat…

iphone started without carrier support, maybe. (There was some sort of an at&t deal, i dunno, doesn't matter) But the point is that was then, we now live in a different world. Apple gave invented the smartphone market as we know it. Nowadays market is mature - it's nearly impossible to disrupt it.

apple is for a long time ridding the frivolous upgrade market. I bet if it wasn't so easy to sell your phone on the grey market (for it to be consumed on the grey market overseas) nobody would be justifying upgrading to the latest number or "s" every year.

That is a fragile market as the market nokia had before. which everyone assumes to be "nearly impossible to disrupt" as you put it.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#173

Post by paulftw » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 12:44 AM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #104

paulftw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every european country has own laws, culture and language. They are individual markets, and each market is too small to break even after all the R&D and hardware costs.

> Every european country has own laws, culture and language. You're completely disregarding the EEC and European Parliament. As an aside on language, while on the train to Brussels from Köln, I was chatting with some Young Greens who were en route to a pan-European Green conference. One was from Serbia, one from Germany and one from France, and we were all speaking in English, it tends to function as a lingua franca,…

Your "counterexample" is young political activists, probably local party leaders. Those are multicultural, openminded and all. What about the average middle class, representing probably 90-99% of the buying power?

I agree that it's not impossible to sell in multiple countries at once, but it's just times bigger investment to get smaller combined market than US.

For Apple starting with US was a justification to spend probably billions on iPhone. Market was big enough for this gamble to make sense. You can't justify huge investments if your plan to start in Poland and then expand to Romania and Turkey. Or did that company go into all 3 countries simultaneously? And, btw, combined GDP of Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Turkey is 1.65 trillion. GDP of USA is 16.86 trillion.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#174

Post by paulftw » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 12:47 AM UTC

collyw wrote: post #133

paulftw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every european country has own laws, culture and language. They are individual markets, and each market is too small to break even after all the R&D and hardware costs.

Is that not similar to how the individual states in the US work? (Laws, culture to a degree, but obviously not language).

Similar? compare California to Texas, and then compare Spain to Czech Republic. Apple needed to partner with one carrier - AT&T to sell phones in all 50 states. What's the minimum number of carriers you need to partner with in order to have a friendly carrier in each EU country?

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#175

Post by hoi » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 1:41 AM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #140

hoi wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carriers don't mean squat. They are the king makers. They control a section of the market that every smartphone mnnufacturer relied on. The Radio frequencies. This gives them power via their marketing subsidies, and it was this power they leveraged before they screwed up and ceded control to the platform. It used to be the case that the carriers controlled your wallet. Every single thing you did on the phone, the mon…

The fact is that in a lot of European countries, they don't even have AT&T.

They let the cat out of the bag.

Once AT&T ceded control and the popularity of iPhone as a carrier switcher came along the other carriers had to fall in line. This is not the case with Android, they don't control the updates. (Except in a stealthy way).

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#176

Post by sbuk » Wed, Dec 04, 2013, 8:03 AM UTC

hoi wrote: post #175

guard-of-terra wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is that in a lot of European countries, they don't even have AT&T.

They let the cat out of the bag. Once AT&T ceded control and the popularity of iPhone as a carrier switcher came along the other carriers had to fall in line. This is not the case with Android, they don't control the updates. (Except in a stealthy way).

And Google put straight back in in a bid to gain carrier favour with Android.

Re: Why You Can't Build a Smartphone

#177

Post by hrrsn » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:02 AM UTC

dmd wrote: post #161

hrrsn wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps has come a long way since the iOS 6 launch. Google Maps is still undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it. iOS 7 is not bad. People are still afraid of change (look at what they said about the original iPhone, now look where we are) but ultimately it was in need of a refresh.

> Google Maps is still undoubtedly better, but Apple have been working hard on it. The big difference is that Apple only allows Apple to make things better, where Google allows the world to do its work for it. Example: The URL for the Boston subway system (the T) is "mbta.com". Nearly every single T stop showed up as "mTBa.com" in Apple Maps when it was released. In the intervening time, they've fixed maybe 1/3 of th…

Again, Google has had a lot longer to get this right. I still use Google Maps whenever possible but Apple are hiring for multiple positions in my country for Maps staff shows they're at least /trying/ when we don't even have an Apple store.