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Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

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Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#31
post #2

> Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago. This claim is made, but it's not very specific. In what way did Apple win the smartphone wars ?

Profit and PR. When people think about buying a phone, it's always between an iPhone and something else. Something else is the entire rest of the world, iPhone being the reference for the consumer.

Even for companies, latest Google flagship was described as an attempt to pass iPhone quality. Everybody still wants to out-apple Apple; which says something.

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#32
post #8

A couple nitpicks: - Virtual Reality - still hasn't demonstrated mainstream appeal. I'm pretty bearish on it being the next 3d TV's - Resolution - Does anything north of 300dpi really matter at this point? Maybe for VR, but see above - Privacy - as data breaches become the norm, where/how do you want your data stored?

Could I get a little context with the VR metaphor? Perhaps my interpretation is a little off, but would you not be bearish on VR, and bullish on the concept of it being the next 3D TV?

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#33
I think this article underestimates the power of brand loyalty. Tons of customers have almost a decade of iOS under their belt, and convincing them to learn something new is often impossible because they don't care. Their iPhone is working for them. Tech people think they can list off android-only features and convince people, but it usually doesn't work that way. Only when/if their iPhone really lets them down will they look elsewhere. I say this as someone in that situation. I'm not super interested in my phone, and the iPhone works for me, so here I am.

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Last that I've seen is that almost 87% of the smartphone market is dominated by Android. How much money does the iPhone versus the Android phones make?

How much more money can Google make with the data they get from that 87% of market share than Apple can make from the iPhones themselves?

Isn't that like asking "How much money Apache web server made?" Did IIS "win" the HTTP-server wars?

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much more money can Google make with the data they get from that 87% of market share than Apple can make from the iPhones themselves?

You have a legitimate point but that is tangential to the parent comment which says that Anroid (an operating system) wins over iPhone (a hardware) because Android has more market share. I was merely asking if market share translated to money. If so, what was the difference and how did Android win?

for the record, I did not claim that Android wins over iPhone, the point is that the article claimed the opposite

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#37

If you look at the numbers right now, Google isn't close. In Q4 of 2015, Apple generated about 63% of it's revenues from iPhone sales [1]. That's almost 2/3rds of revenues for a $605B company. Google is nearly as large in terms of market cap (~$550B) but revenues from Android don't even come close (never-mind hardware sales, which are negligible). It's estimated that Android has brought in around $31B _total_ revenue…

I don't think Google has to personally get to the level of Apple to have "won". When comparing the two it's better to look at the whole market instead of just Google vs Apple because there's so many manufacturers for Android and only one for iPhones.

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#38
post #33

I think this article underestimates the power of brand loyalty. Tons of customers have almost a decade of iOS under their belt, and convincing them to learn something new is often impossible because they don't care . Their iPhone is working for them. Tech people think they can list off android-only features and convince people, but it usually doesn't work that way. Only when/if their iPhone really lets them down will…

Exactly - I've been trying to think of what could pivot the market, and unless someone makes substantial breakthroughs in battery life (and has the budget and PR clout to convey it) and can make it substantially cheaper and subjectively better, it's not going to move the needle much.

Re: Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

#39

"Apple has always missed the cue on one critical piece: access to customer data. And that is what Google has always been successful at." This is where it ends with Google and I, enough is enough. I have to be honest the direction Google is heading in lately feels like dangerous territory, either people are going to like the invasive approach or be scared off by it, time will tell. I get the feeling people care less a…

The majority of the users don't care about that, so I don't think it will make any difference.
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