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iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

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Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#81

Post by flyinRyan »

lwhi wrote: post #78
flyinRyan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And color me and others equally amazed at the lengths some people will go to hate a company. Apple makes products. If you don't like them, don't buy them.

Ah, but they don't just make products. They also specialise in litigation ;) I'm sorry for the negativity - but the way Apple is behaving at the moment makes me angry. It was different when Apple was the underdog; I could understand why they were worth supporting. The company, as it currently stands, has completely lost my sympathy.

Why does Apple make you mad? Most companies do this. Remember when Oracle bought Sun and said "don't worry, Sun's IP is safe with us" and then started suing people for using it? Ellison was on camera saying "I don't know if Java is free". Well you knew when you bought it!

MS has some incredibly slimy stuff. And there are companies that don't even make anything, they just sue. I can't imagine a reason to single out Apple for their behavior unless you just came out of stasis within the last few years.

And honestly, if I were them I'd be pretty pissed at Samsung as well. Obviously when the iPhone came out it was going to "inspire" other companies to make something similar but they even did their ad photos in a way to make it look like the iPhone. It was blatant. This is what these laws are for and you can bet anyone and everyone would sue Apple if the roles were reversed.

Hell, Google doesn't have clean hands in any of this either, their behavior has been arguably worse.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#82

Post by bobthedino »

Simucal wrote: post #61
drharris wrote: post #38

I love my iPhone 5, and think it's the most solid piece of electronics I've ever owned. Almost hate to put the thing in a case. As good as it is, there's a point everyone is overlooking when talking about the 5... the earpods. I've tried over 20 sets of earbuds to fit my weird ears, and all of them cause pain after half an hour or more of wear. I've been able to listen 4 hours straight on these earpods with no ill ef…

I think my ear must just be a bit small but the earpods hurt my ears after awhile. I really like the microphone + ability to answer calls from the buttons on the cord though.

There are plenty of third-party earbuds with the remote control and microphone on the cord, e.g. Sony MDR-EX12IP.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#83

Post by polshaw »

jjguy wrote: post #30
OhArgh wrote: post #12

"the world’s most advanced mobile operating system" I feel this needs to be quantified. How is it more "advanced" than the latest version of Android?

Android O&M is a disaster is not changing anytime soon. Quibble on features out of the box if you like, but in end-to-end support the iPhone is still the hands down winner. See http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphan...

But the quote wasn't 'world's most end-to-end supported mobile OS'

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#84

Post by RegEx »

seiji wrote: post #51
drharris wrote: post #38

I love my iPhone 5, and think it's the most solid piece of electronics I've ever owned. Almost hate to put the thing in a case. As good as it is, there's a point everyone is overlooking when talking about the 5... the earpods. I've tried over 20 sets of earbuds to fit my weird ears, and all of them cause pain after half an hour or more of wear. I've been able to listen 4 hours straight on these earpods with no ill ef…

I think putting an iPhone in a case is like leaving a plastic cover on a $3,000 couch. They are made to feel nice when your skin meets their design. Life happens. Enjoy things that won't harm you without the rubberized prophylaxis.

Not all of us can afford for life to just "happen" and grab another iPhone.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#85

Post by polshaw »

seiji wrote: post #41
Tichy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they manage the "applications can't spy on you" part? (Not counting the WhatsApp debacle). Also: iTunes???

Millions of people have a significant investment in iTunes media. They don't understand DRM-vs-not. They don't understand sideloading or frontloading or rearloading. They just want to plug-n-go. Pick some well off high school nearby and ask kids how often they buy something on iTunes. You'll cry when a large portion of them say multiple times per week. You'll go catatonic when they mention regularly spending over $10…

>ask kids how often they buy something on iTunes. You'll cry when a large portion of them say multiple times per week

[citation needed]

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#86

Post by josephlord »

bornhuetter wrote: post #47
josephlord wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you remember that time period very well. The iTunes store wasn't launched until over a year AFTER the iPod! The original iPod, chunky by today's standards was by far the smallest and easiest to use mp3 player that could carry more than a few hundred MB of data. At the time there wasn't any Windows support but I think 3rd party software became available if you had Firewire on your PC. From Wikipedia: iPo…

They didn't sell many iPods before iTunes came out. I think it's true that what drove the large numbers of iPod sales was probably iTunes, and the ability to legally download mp3s. See iPod sales chart: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Ipod_sale...

As someone else mentions Windows support was a big factor.

Pricing also was an issue, they were very expensive.

Another factor is that the market was smaller, Apple dominated the market very quickly (at least if you count the market as large capacity devices until they had the shuffle).

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#87

Post by medicine23 »

seiji wrote: post #45
untog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the criticism of the iPhone 5 was overblown, but I don't think these figures are a tremendous validation of the iPhone 5, either. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people are on two year cellphone plans, and it's been two years since the iPhone 4 came out. They took the upgrade in front of them. The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the stron…

If five million devices sold in three days isn't impressive, what kinds of numbers are you used to looking at? A calculated decision to "stay on iOS" or "switch to android" is about the 6219th most important thing in most people's lives.

not exactly 3 days...the pre-orders were open for a longer duration

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#88

Post by glhaynes »

IMO, far more interesting than the 5 million figure (because of supply constraint, potential that that number excludes in-transit devices, etc) is the 100 million iOS 6 upgrades that have been done. That's a huge portion of the devices that are capable of running it; and it's in the midst of Mapsgate, the biggest reason people are mentioning for not upgrading in major-iOS-upgrade history.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#89

Post by bunderbunder »

stonemetal wrote: post #67
untog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the criticism of the iPhone 5 was overblown, but I don't think these figures are a tremendous validation of the iPhone 5, either. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people are on two year cellphone plans, and it's been two years since the iPhone 4 came out. They took the upgrade in front of them. The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the stron…

Isn't more a case of Apple is simply benefiting from no-one doing anything very interesting. There is nothing really interesting about the iPhone 5. It continues the grand tradition of being a little better than its predecessor, but not much else. It certainly isn't going to cause waves in the Android community, just as nothing going on in the Android community is going to hurt it.

There is nothing really interesting about the iPhone 5.

Compared to the feature churn over in the Android space, I'm not sure the iPhone has ever done any one thing that's particularly interesting. Never done a 3D screen, years behind the rest of the world to get 4G, hasn't done that stylus thing, behind the game on voice recognition, etc. Compared to Android, it would be fair to say that, considered all by themselves, iPhones are downright boring.

And I think that's maybe a big part of their success. (disclaimer: wild speculation ahead) For most people, the consumer electronics space is this big confusing morass of acronyms that nobody understands and subtle distinctions of feature set and whiz-bang gimmickery and just general confusion. It's a horrorshow combination of making people feel confused and inferior ('cuz they don't really understand all those acronyms) and the paradox of choice. And then someone in a blue shirt (polo, not tee) walks up, and it manages to go downhill from there.

Compared to that, Apple's a relief. You want a phone? OK. The new one, last year's model, or maybe the one from two years ago? Now you want a computer? OK. Laptop or desktop, and big or small? After that it's just a couple minor customization options, and you're done with choices. The whole experience is downright pedestiran - the products are pedestrian, the store is pedestrian. And that's perfect, because y'know what? For most people, a phone doesn't need to be interesting. It's an appliance. People may want their appliances to be pretty, but they also want them to be boring.

Re: iPhone 5 First Weekend Sales Top Five Million

#90

Post by larsberg »

seiji wrote: post #45
untog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that the criticism of the iPhone 5 was overblown, but I don't think these figures are a tremendous validation of the iPhone 5, either. The simple fact is that the vast majority of people are on two year cellphone plans, and it's been two years since the iPhone 4 came out. They took the upgrade in front of them. The iPhone 5 was good enough that people didn't want to switch to Android, but that isn't the stron…

If five million devices sold in three days isn't impressive, what kinds of numbers are you used to looking at? A calculated decision to "stay on iOS" or "switch to android" is about the 6219th most important thing in most people's lives.

> A calculated decision to "stay on iOS" or "switch to android" is about the 6219th most important thing in most people's lives

So true. I'm a tech person, and even I get overwhelmed. I look to see what the "correct" new Android phone to get is, start looking at my daily-use apps to see if they're there and usually give up after a couple of hours of research. I'm sure one of these times it'll be there, but frankly it's easier just to support the retirement plans of all my friends and former coworkers now at Apple (so far as I can tell, none of my friends or former coworkers at Google directly make money if I buy an Android phone).

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