Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple’s China Problem

stratechery.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 190 posts

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#141

Post by eridius »

shmerl wrote: post #139
eridius wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lock-in is a natural consequence of having a platform. It's perfectly normal and happens without even making any explicit attempt at having lock-in. Any time you provide a platform and people build on top of it, you have automatic lock-in. This has nothing to do with "fair competition".

Lock-in can be avoided, if platform is designed to be open. It's only "natural" when non portable or non standard things are used. Problem with Apple and MS is that they use the later on purpose.

An "open" platform is still a platform with lock-in. The only thing "open" does is allow other vendors to decide if they want to support that platform too. But, for example, you can't take a web site and use it on a platform that doesn't support web pages (e.g. you can't browse the web on an AppleTV).

> Problem with Apple and MS is that they use the later on purpose.

There are really significant downsides to open platforms. They're harder to build, develop much more slowly, generally have a big issue with multiple implementations not actually behaving identically (just look at the development of the web for a plethora of examples), end up being design-by-committee which usually ends up as a worst-of-all-worlds design, etc. Companies like Apple and MS build closed platforms because that ends up being hugely better for their users. They don't do this out of a desire to have lock-in, lock-in is just a natural consequence of using closed platforms.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#142

Post by jack9 »

skdotdan wrote: post #53

The problem with many tech analysts is that they are Apple fanboys without even knowing that they are. Stating that Microsoft Surface and Samsung S8 are not competitors of Apple just because their products don't run Mac OS/iOS is pure fanaticism at the very least. Nevertheless, I find that the main point of the article is right. But Apple's China problem is also a very important problem for Google (actually, it's wor…

> Moreover, this sort of growth is exactly what you would expect given Apple’s iOS monopoly: iPhone users very rarely switch to Android, while a fair number of Android users switch to iPhone, which means that even in a saturated market Apple’s share should grow over time.

I'm confident that this isn't true. Economic mobility and movement goes down more often than up, and EVERY single person who has changed their phone plan goes cheaper (eventually into Android). Every vendor (ask anywhere from Sprint to ATT) knows this downgrading (into a superior android ecosystem) is close to 100% of the time, that his statement is an indication of how utterly ignorant or purposefully misleading the whole article is.

Ironically, the link embedded in that quoted sentence links to STOP DOUBTING THE IPHONE, THE MACINTOSH COMPANY Posted onWednesday, October 28, 2015, not any attempt to display the contradictory data to support the statement.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#143

Post by shmerl »

eridius wrote: post #141
shmerl wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lock-in can be avoided, if platform is designed to be open. It's only "natural" when non portable or non standard things are used. Problem with Apple and MS is that they use the later on purpose.

An "open" platform is still a platform with lock-in. The only thing "open" does is allow other vendors to decide if they want to support that platform too. But, for example, you can't take a web site and use it on a platform that doesn't support web pages (e.g. you can't browse the web on an AppleTV). > Problem with Apple and MS is that they use the later on purpose. There are really significant downsides to open pla…

As you said, open platforms allow untying them from specific owner. If you use any platform, it's a dependency, sure. In this sense it can be a hard to replace dependency. That's a separate problem though from platform being available from one place only. The later is vendor lock-in, which I was talking about.

> There are really significant downsides to open platforms.

Comparing downsides makes sense only if competition is on merit. MS and Apple don't compete on merit, because of the lock-in above. One of the glaring examples of this garbage is Apple banning competing browsers on iOS.

> Apple and MS build closed platforms because that ends up being hugely better for their users.

No, they do it to get that insane retaining percentage caused by lock-in. When they are forced to compete on merit, it quickly shows they aren't anywhere "hugely better", and often they are simply worse. The article highlights this point.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#144

Post by dep_b »

dmix wrote: post #134
skdotdan wrote: post #53

The problem with many tech analysts is that they are Apple fanboys without even knowing that they are. Stating that Microsoft Surface and Samsung S8 are not competitors of Apple just because their products don't run Mac OS/iOS is pure fanaticism at the very least. Nevertheless, I find that the main point of the article is right. But Apple's China problem is also a very important problem for Google (actually, it's wor…

The fanboyism is strong on this one. > iPhone users very rarely switch to Android, while a fair number of Android users switch to iPhone > this is the point that was forgotten the last time Samsung was held up as an iPhone threat — a Samsung smartphone does not run iOS. That has always been Apple’s trump card Considering this is a stats blog these bold claims are both made without any proof. And Android being a far c…

These switching numbers do exist but they're coming from Apple so take it with a grain of salt. It's like DXOMark never reviewing the iPhone 7 Plus while Google claims how much better their phone is compared to the iPhone. The numbers are true but the bias is strong.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#145

Post by eridius »

shmerl wrote: post #143
eridius wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An "open" platform is still a platform with lock-in. The only thing "open" does is allow other vendors to decide if they want to support that platform too. But, for example, you can't take a web site and use it on a platform that doesn't support web pages (e.g. you can't browse the web on an AppleTV). > Problem with Apple and MS is that they use the later on purpose. There are really significant downsides to open pla…

As you said, open platforms allow untying them from specific owner. If you use any platform, it's a dependency, sure. In this sense it can be a hard to replace dependency. That's a separate problem though from platform being available from one place only. The later is vendor lock-in, which I was talking about. > There are really significant downsides to open platforms. Comparing downsides makes sense only if competit…

> MS and Apple don't compete on merit, because of the lock-in above.

That's bullshit. Of course they compete on merit. You don't have lock-in until you actually acquire the customer, and until they've been using your platform long enough to buy into the lock-in. The platforms are absolutely competing on merit in order to attract new customers, and to ensure the current customers are happy enough that they don't pay the cost of jumping platforms.

> When they are forced to compete on merit, it quickly shows they aren't anywhere "hugely better", and often they are simply worse. The article highlights this point.

You completely misunderstand the article. It's not saying iOS is not better. It's saying that Chinese users are using WeChat as their platform and largely don't care about the underlying software platform that WeChat is running on. For the most part it doesn't matter whether iOS or Android is better, because the Chinese users are completely ignoring that and using the common WeChat platform. So the fact that Chinese iOS users might switch to Android doesn't mean iOS is worse, it just means the fact that it's better is irrelevant.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#146

Post by shmerl »

eridius wrote: post #145
shmerl wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said, open platforms allow untying them from specific owner. If you use any platform, it's a dependency, sure. In this sense it can be a hard to replace dependency. That's a separate problem though from platform being available from one place only. The later is vendor lock-in, which I was talking about. > There are really significant downsides to open platforms. Comparing downsides makes sense only if competit…

> MS and Apple don't compete on merit, because of the lock-in above. That's bullshit. Of course they compete on merit. You don't have lock-in until you actually acquire the customer, and until they've been using your platform long enough to buy into the lock-in. The platforms are absolutely competing on merit in order to attract new customers, and to ensure the current customers are happy enough that they don't pay t…

Competing on merit means no dirty monopolistic tricks, like saying "you can only use our browser here. Tough luck if you want to use something better than that". So they clearly don't compete on merit when they make all those weird restrictions.

> You completely misunderstand the article.

I understand it well. The article says, that in China the situation ironically managed to undermine Apple's lock-in (though replacing it with Wechat lock-in). This way Apple only serves as another hardware option. So Apple has to compete on merit with other hardware makers.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#147

Post by btian »

siproprio wrote: post #117

If the situation in China is similar to the situation in Brazil, then it is not a surprise Apple products aren't successful there. Apple services here are very poorly supported and localized, and Apple products are too expensive compared to the relative benefit we would receive. Why would you purchase a significantly more expensive device, with worse features, that sometimes don't work at all? We still haven't gotten…

But you can install Google Maps or Waze on an iPhone.

I like my iPhone because it's the fastest phone in the market. Pixel costs the same, and Galaxy S8 costs more than iPhone.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#149

Post by LiweiZ »

mikhailt wrote: post #49

This seems to confuse some people, the author is not saying Apple have a monopoly on smartphones. What the author is talking about is the locked-in ecosystem that Apple owns, iOS and macOS (watchOS/tvOS). > Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS.…

> In other words, people aren't buying iPhones for its integration with Apple services in China, which could lead to an increase in growth due to the halo effects. Instead, they run WeChat and they buy things through there, which leads to no growth in Apple's services and revenue. Which also means, the customers have no desire to buy another Apple device. They can do the same on any device that can run WeChat.

The root cause for this is it's a high-walled market. If you can compromise and be allowed to grab a spoon as an outsider. It's already a win. Just look at other big name service providers.

Apple is a huge winner among outsiders in China market since they can make nice profit through physical product alone.

Re: Apple’s China Problem

#150

Post by LiweiZ »

gnrlist wrote: post #56

Chinese people want the Apple brand they don't care about iOS. If iOS was the status symbol it would get pirated and installed elsewhere. Apple has a strong brand because of it's history as a premium device company internationally, that's all. Their brand was their first mover advantage in China but now Chinese companies are closing that brand gap and since WeChat rules the software side Apple is going to have a hard…

Consumers in China do know iOS and iPhone are better. As I mentioned in another comment, it's just very hard for an outsider to get into China market as a service provider.
Post reply on HN