201–210 of 265 posts
As others have said, Apple does this with only 13% share. The important point is Apple has to make money selling phones, that is their business model. Android's is making money in a number of other ways, mainly user's data.
Apple absolutely doesn't HAVE to make money on the hardware, they could sell them at a loss and still rake in billions thanks to the AppStore.
...with only a 13% share of units. That is, all other vendors together sold 87% of units, but earned only a combined 25% of industry-wide profit. The vast majority of those other vendors are companies headquartered in Asian countries with a long history of promoting market share, access to information, and knowledge transfer at the expense of short-term profit. They might be making less money willingly to grow/mainta…
“We got them were we want them champ, let’s finish them in last round”
I think one of the smartest things Apple did was open physical stores and not depend on carrier stores and Best Buy. I've often wondered why their competitors don't do the same thing? Why isn't there a Samsung store a block away from every Apple store? Having a physical location for purchases, repairs, and support is why I always recommend Apple devices when somebody who isn't super technical asks me what to buy. Mic…
Samsung stores are quite common in Asia.
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More likely is that cell phones all have mobile data, whereas laptops have not historically had that except on high end business models. Devices are pretty useless to the average person without the internet, so in places with poor connectivity laptops end up being useless.
OLPC also suffered from durability issues (repairs required sending the laptop back to the US, IIRC?) and cost issues (they never did hit the $100/unit price point) Even Raspberry Pi leverages the scale of Broadcom chips, which also get used in Android phones
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What differentiates those premium phones? It runs the same Android of which I rather have a stock version than the bloat-ware rubbish that phone makers install on there for me. The iOS devices link into a web of ease-of-use, and come with a reasonably well make stock version of iOS. And then there's trust. Whom does an average user trust more with their data? (Apple/USgov, or Google/USgov+Samsung/SouthKorea+...)
Believe it or not, but "stock Android" has been tried about 10 times. It failed. Only techies care. Regular users want a ton of features. Edit: Sales numbers tell you all you need to know about "stock Android" success :-)
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My bet is that AR is going to go the way of 3D TVs.
Every major tech vendor seems certain AR glasses are going to be the "next Smartphone", if you will, in terms of UI and market trends. Nothing else could explain their continued emphasis on AR tools & demos for platforms that suck to use for AR except as a novelty (i.e. all current platforms).
AR will quickly devolve into an advertising hellscape, if it takes off at all.
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Every major tech vendor seems certain AR glasses are going to be the "next Smartphone", if you will, in terms of UI and market trends. Nothing else could explain their continued emphasis on AR tools & demos for platforms that suck to use for AR except as a novelty (i.e. all current platforms).
I'm 100% certain that's because every major tech vendor sees nothing but dollar signs due to the advertising potential. AR will quickly devolve into an advertising hellscape, if it takes off at all.
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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…
And everyone I know who has a Pixel is the sort of person who is passionately anti-Apple. I'm not saying this is a universal experience, but it's certainly true for the three people I know who have a Google Pixel. I'm serious when I say I've never met a more passionate Apple fanboy than those people are passionately anti-Apple.
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> and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insane. I'm honestly dumbstruck that people like you are dumbstruck. It's not very hard, and whether you your self use powerful handheld computers/cameras much it's objectively obvious others do a lot. Just do the normal ROI calc. Apple makes a feature for this called "ScreenTime". How many hours a day is the aver…
I will grant that a small fraction of iPhone owners do a careful analysis similar to yours. And good for them. But just look at Apple ads to see what their real market is. Their ads don't argue that they're a good value. Apple established themselves as a luxury good that indicates wealth and social status. Their ads look like other ads for wealthy people. The reason Apple doesn't make a cheap phone is the same reason…
Why? I'd argue that status goods have driven technological and artistic progress throughout time. So many innovations were the result of someone trying to make a new higher status good, or trying to make a status good cheaper(so they could have more wealth/power).
Living in the 21st century, almost every good you can buy would have been a status good to someone at a time in the past.