Everyone seems to forget all the shipment and market share reports by ANALyst are all Scientific Wild Ass Guesses. Remember in the Apple and Samsung court case when Samsung had to report their real sales? The numbers Samsung actually reported were substantially below what had been reported in the media up to that point. That is why I always considered all such media reports as pure SWAG, nothing more.
This is really the old trick in the book whereby if someone sells more it meant they have won.
You're making 'who is making the most money' rather than adoption rate the 'winning criteria.
I couldn't care less about Apple making money. I'm a Apple user, not a shareholder. But I do care about the installed user-base. Large share = best support in terms of apps, peripherals, website support, adoption of iOS standards.
You're making 'who is making the most money' rather than adoption rate the 'winning criteria.
I couldn't care less about Apple making money. I'm a Apple user, not a shareholder. But I do care about the installed user-base. Large share = best support in terms of apps, peripherals, website support, adoption of iOS standards.
Wrong, More doesn't mean better support or Quality.
Edit : To summarise Post #60, Since Apple's eco system grants more money to its developers community, the Eco-system benefits with a lot higher quality content in form of Apps, and more.
Comparing the sales of a free OS, installed on thousands of different devices, made by dozens of companies, to a sales of an actual PHONE, that one company sells, and updates once a year. Brilliant comparison!
According to Pogue in NYT yesterday, there are 3,997 -- yep, we can round it up to 4,000 -- android models of phones!
You're making 'who is making the most money' rather than adoption rate the 'winning criteria.
I couldn't care less about Apple making money. I'm a Apple user, not a shareholder. But I do care about the installed user-base. Large share = best support in terms of apps, peripherals, website support, adoption of iOS standards.
Android has had a dominating market share for a while now. Still most Devs develop for iOS first. As I said before, iOS is on iPads and iPod touches as well.
What kind of peripherals can you get with Android that you can't get with iPhone or iOS?
The massively important keyword here is Shipped. SHIPPED. Not sold.
First, the reason Apple is so far ahead in profits is because their 31 million phones in the chart represent mostly SOLD numbers, while the 187 million Android "smartphones" (some low-end Android handsets barely break out of the 'feature phone' category but remain named as 'smartphones') are still sitting on shelves in very large numbers, or ship at price points bringing little to no profit.
Cheap 'throw away', budget "smartphones" frankly don't really boost the Android 'brand' in any way, nor do they really compete with the iPhone. It isn't about people saying, "should I buy an iPhone, or this $49 generic Android handset%u2026 hmmm%u2026 let me think".
Most people buying the cheap handsets were not potential customers of current iPhones to begin with. Those cheaper handsets earn little to no profit for anyone, except the carriers who get revenue from services%u2026
Still, it's clear that even if we could scry only the sold numbers of "smartphones" (in particular those that actually compete with iPhone, meaning, someone chose a handset INSTEAD of iPhone), we would still likely have more Android handsets sold than iPhone handsets.
In part due to overall accessibility (Android handsets are sold and functioning on pretty much ALL carriers now around the world, while iPhone is still limited to Apple's 'carrier partners', and still not in every country yet. This is partly to the unique support requirements of iPhone technologies like 'Visual Voicemail', but also Apple's terms - e.g. no junk apps, etc.).
And of course price. In some places there is greater sensitivity to price. Not everyone can afford an iPhone (not just the purchase price, but the cost of ongoing mobile service), even in the markets where iPhone is pretty strong.
So while I don't disagree that Android is the dominant mobile OS of the moment, I strongly disagree that this is in any way 'bad news' for Apple. The key number to see is that they increased their overall sales by 20% year on year. ANd accomplished that as a single OS/Single Phone vendor vs the rest of the world.
Looked at that way it's clear they are doing just fine...
Well, I'm not an expert but I do know that there were once two great Operating Systems and one of them ended up with over 90% marketshare and the other... By the way, wasn't Mac OS invented before MSDos or Windows? Everybody says Steve Jobs practically invented the personal computer! How come doesn't everybody have a Mac then? Why aren't games on Macs? Everybody loves games! Just look what people use most on the AppStore! Games! How come Mac lost the games battle to Windows? Who's falt is that?
Macs had 0% market share at the start of 1984, while PCs were already close to 30% of the market (which at the time included players like Atari and Commodore and even the Apple //). The Mac eventually peak at 10-13% of the market in 1991-1993 with the ascent of desktop publishing, but the PC was already hitting 90%. Yes, after the release of Windows 95, the Mac began to lose market share because under Sculley, Apple had grown bureaucratic and stale, and the product line got unfocused and complicated with dozens of models. But the Mac wasn't declining from some sort of commanding lead: they were declining from a minority 2nd place.
Nor was iOS ever on 100% (or even some majority) of the smartphones in the market, and its been downhill ever since. Um, no. iOS started with zero percent market share and clawed its way UP to the current minority position it has on smartphones. Worldwide, Apple is not today, nor ever has been, on the majority of mobile handsets.
I disagree about such analyst numbers impacting any kind of content provider or developer decisions whatsoever. These people are not that stupid and actually know their own ecosystems, as well as competing ones extremely well and arguably much better than your random shareholder.
Therefore, what these kinds of people actually look at is revenue and usage share. And that's where Android has traditionally fallen flat and still does. It could have 99% market share, heck it has been at around 80% worldwide for over a year now and guess what: developers still make multiple times the amount of money on iOS and some content providers such as the BBC report triple the interaction through iOS devices than through Android devices.
I've been working as a content provider or developer since 1995. In every company I've worked at, these numbers, specifically from IDC or similar reporting companies, have always come up and been used in debates based on what platforms we should support, be it computers, phones, cable systems, networks, etc...
Currently, I'm in a content provider position making decisions on what platforms to support for a Fortune 100 company, although we also develop some apps, the majority of my job is focused on content right now.
As such, I do look at our own internal numbers. Yes, Android is down far below iOS in consumption of our content, but growing. Likewise Windows Phone is even further down below iOS and too small to show significant growth or decline yet. However, when those I work with see reports like this from IDC (and others), the inevitable question becomes, "How do we know we wouldn't see higher numbers internally for Android if we shifted focus to what these companies are telling us is a much larger market?"
If you read my comment again, you'll see I emphasized that reports like these are one criteria that is used.
Take a closer look at the BBC... why do you think they've recently built up their team of Android developers to triple the number of iOS developers? Fragmentation is one obvious answer as to why they need to have so many developers to match feature parity of iOS, but in terms of incentive for the investment of resources, the answer is because they believe they can change the ratio of Android to iOS BBC users based on reports like those from the IDC.
Quote:
People believe in what's real and not some arbitrary numbers pulled out of nowhere based on some questionable metric.
Well, why don't you just say the IDC has poopy pants? I can't argue against something so irrational. I can only point out the history of IDC's reports and the accuracy based on comparisons to reports by others as well as when verified by companies in the reports themselves.
If you have some facts to point out the invalidity of IDC reports, by all means present them and what you believe the true numbers to be.
Yeah, except Steve now sells only 13 eggs. Last year he did sell 30, and two years ago he sold 45. But not anymore. So, something must be wrong with Steve's eggs. Maybe, just maybe, Steve is too greedy and he's eggs are not worth the price he asks for them?
That was a poor supposition supported by a false narrative.
And it isn't 13 vs 30, it's 13 vs 16, for a quarter. Come back at the end of January, when we're comparing the next (typically robust) quarter for Apple. I'm betting the numbers will be flipped somewhat… rather like last year and the year before that, and so on.
Apple is ONE company. No single company's product line can be expected to sustain dominant share in a market growing this fast. Especially, not Apple. They maintain product focus AND quality. That's why I buy their products. If they started spewing out dozens of models across the spectrum in price and quality, and nothing done truly well, I'd look elsewhere, since then they'd be putting out disposable crap just like everyone else's products.
Mediocrity instead of high quality? No thanks?
And by the way? Apple is still getting started here. They've only been in the mobile device (phones, tablets) business for a few years. They were going to be happy to capture a couple of % of the global share of phones. Instead, they rocketed to double digits. WHen new models release, they can barely keep up with demand even at this so-called "losing pace". I guess there's nothing wrong with their 'greedy pricing', really...
Agree. Some people like showing us how smart they think they are, some think they can influence things with comments or suggestions, some people need to get a life, there are numerous reasons. Nobody is wrong but not everybody can be right either.
Agree. Some people like showing us how smart they think they are, some think they can influence things with comments or suggestions, some people need to get a life, there are numerous reasons. Nobody is wrong but not everybody can be right either.
Or you can adopt Sqiudward's philosophy 'Everyone's an idiot except for me'
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just_Me
You lose when you link to any DED articles. It is pointless.
Both companies made lots of money last quarter.
Read post #60
Everyone seems to forget all the shipment and market share reports by ANALyst are all Scientific Wild Ass Guesses. Remember in the Apple and Samsung court case when Samsung had to report their real sales? The numbers Samsung actually reported were substantially below what had been reported in the media up to that point. That is why I always considered all such media reports as pure SWAG, nothing more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikilok
Read post #60
read post #61
You're making 'who is making the most money' rather than adoption rate the 'winning criteria.
I couldn't care less about Apple making money. I'm a Apple user, not a shareholder. But I do care about the installed user-base. Large share = best support in terms of apps, peripherals, website support, adoption of iOS standards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevt
You're making 'who is making the most money' rather than adoption rate the 'winning criteria.
I couldn't care less about Apple making money. I'm a Apple user, not a shareholder. But I do care about the installed user-base. Large share = best support in terms of apps, peripherals, website support, adoption of iOS standards.
Wrong, More doesn't mean better support or Quality.
Read post #60
Edit : To summarise Post #60, Since Apple's eco system grants more money to its developers community, the Eco-system benefits with a lot higher quality content in form of Apps, and more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soloman
Then what's the supposedly iPhone 5C? Race to the middle?
Since there is no iPhone 5c yet, it is kind of hard to respond. Waste of time responding to would be, should be, wanna be.and gonna be products.
According to Pogue in NYT yesterday, there are 3,997 -- yep, we can round it up to 4,000 -- android models of phones!
Laughable.
Yet they're talked about all the time on here.
What is the point you're trying to make? If it's that Samsung makes a larger profit from smartphones, it's a flatly discredited piece of data.
Truth can set you free, if you're willing to seek it out.
You really really can't be that dense, and not know that this is a rumor site, right?
Android has had a dominating market share for a while now. Still most Devs develop for iOS first. As I said before, iOS is on iPads and iPod touches as well.
What kind of peripherals can you get with Android that you can't get with iPhone or iOS?
First, the reason Apple is so far ahead in profits is because their 31 million phones in the chart represent mostly SOLD numbers, while the 187 million Android "smartphones" (some low-end Android handsets barely break out of the 'feature phone' category but remain named as 'smartphones') are still sitting on shelves in very large numbers, or ship at price points bringing little to no profit.
Cheap 'throw away', budget "smartphones" frankly don't really boost the Android 'brand' in any way, nor do they really compete with the iPhone. It isn't about people saying, "should I buy an iPhone, or this $49 generic Android handset%u2026 hmmm%u2026 let me think".
Most people buying the cheap handsets were not potential customers of current iPhones to begin with. Those cheaper handsets earn little to no profit for anyone, except the carriers who get revenue from services%u2026
Still, it's clear that even if we could scry only the sold numbers of "smartphones" (in particular those that actually compete with iPhone, meaning, someone chose a handset INSTEAD of iPhone), we would still likely have more Android handsets sold than iPhone handsets.
In part due to overall accessibility (Android handsets are sold and functioning on pretty much ALL carriers now around the world, while iPhone is still limited to Apple's 'carrier partners', and still not in every country yet. This is partly to the unique support requirements of iPhone technologies like 'Visual Voicemail', but also Apple's terms - e.g. no junk apps, etc.).
And of course price. In some places there is greater sensitivity to price. Not everyone can afford an iPhone (not just the purchase price, but the cost of ongoing mobile service), even in the markets where iPhone is pretty strong.
So while I don't disagree that Android is the dominant mobile OS of the moment, I strongly disagree that this is in any way 'bad news' for Apple. The key number to see is that they increased their overall sales by 20% year on year. ANd accomplished that as a single OS/Single Phone vendor vs the rest of the world.
Looked at that way it's clear they are doing just fine...
Macs had 0% market share at the start of 1984, while PCs were already close to 30% of the market (which at the time included players like Atari and Commodore and even the Apple //). The Mac eventually peak at 10-13% of the market in 1991-1993 with the ascent of desktop publishing, but the PC was already hitting 90%. Yes, after the release of Windows 95, the Mac began to lose market share because under Sculley, Apple had grown bureaucratic and stale, and the product line got unfocused and complicated with dozens of models. But the Mac wasn't declining from some sort of commanding lead: they were declining from a minority 2nd place.
Nor was iOS ever on 100% (or even some majority) of the smartphones in the market, and its been downhill ever since. Um, no. iOS started with zero percent market share and clawed its way UP to the current minority position it has on smartphones. Worldwide, Apple is not today, nor ever has been, on the majority of mobile handsets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cynic
I disagree about such analyst numbers impacting any kind of content provider or developer decisions whatsoever. These people are not that stupid and actually know their own ecosystems, as well as competing ones extremely well and arguably much better than your random shareholder.
Therefore, what these kinds of people actually look at is revenue and usage share. And that's where Android has traditionally fallen flat and still does. It could have 99% market share, heck it has been at around 80% worldwide for over a year now and guess what: developers still make multiple times the amount of money on iOS and some content providers such as the BBC report triple the interaction through iOS devices than through Android devices.
I've been working as a content provider or developer since 1995. In every company I've worked at, these numbers, specifically from IDC or similar reporting companies, have always come up and been used in debates based on what platforms we should support, be it computers, phones, cable systems, networks, etc...
Currently, I'm in a content provider position making decisions on what platforms to support for a Fortune 100 company, although we also develop some apps, the majority of my job is focused on content right now.
As such, I do look at our own internal numbers. Yes, Android is down far below iOS in consumption of our content, but growing. Likewise Windows Phone is even further down below iOS and too small to show significant growth or decline yet. However, when those I work with see reports like this from IDC (and others), the inevitable question becomes, "How do we know we wouldn't see higher numbers internally for Android if we shifted focus to what these companies are telling us is a much larger market?"
If you read my comment again, you'll see I emphasized that reports like these are one criteria that is used.
Take a closer look at the BBC... why do you think they've recently built up their team of Android developers to triple the number of iOS developers? Fragmentation is one obvious answer as to why they need to have so many developers to match feature parity of iOS, but in terms of incentive for the investment of resources, the answer is because they believe they can change the ratio of Android to iOS BBC users based on reports like those from the IDC.
Quote:
People believe in what's real and not some arbitrary numbers pulled out of nowhere based on some questionable metric.
Well, why don't you just say the IDC has poopy pants? I can't argue against something so irrational. I can only point out the history of IDC's reports and the accuracy based on comparisons to reports by others as well as when verified by companies in the reports themselves.
If you have some facts to point out the invalidity of IDC reports, by all means present them and what you believe the true numbers to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NelsonX
Yeah, except Steve now sells only 13 eggs. Last year he did sell 30, and two years ago he sold 45. But not anymore. So, something must be wrong with Steve's eggs. Maybe, just maybe, Steve is too greedy and he's eggs are not worth the price he asks for them?That was a poor supposition supported by a false narrative.
And it isn't 13 vs 30, it's 13 vs 16, for a quarter. Come back at the end of January, when we're comparing the next (typically robust) quarter for Apple. I'm betting the numbers will be flipped somewhat… rather like last year and the year before that, and so on.
Apple is ONE company. No single company's product line can be expected to sustain dominant share in a market growing this fast. Especially, not Apple. They maintain product focus AND quality. That's why I buy their products. If they started spewing out dozens of models across the spectrum in price and quality, and nothing done truly well, I'd look elsewhere, since then they'd be putting out disposable crap just like everyone else's products.
Mediocrity instead of high quality? No thanks?
And by the way? Apple is still getting started here. They've only been in the mobile device (phones, tablets) business for a few years. They were going to be happy to capture a couple of % of the global share of phones. Instead, they rocketed to double digits. WHen new models release, they can barely keep up with demand even at this so-called "losing pace". I guess there's nothing wrong with their 'greedy pricing', really...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soloman
Yet they're talked about all the time on here.
Agree. Some people like showing us how smart they think they are, some think they can influence things with comments or suggestions, some people need to get a life, there are numerous reasons. Nobody is wrong but not everybody can be right either.
Money is money. The more ways you can find to make it the better.
Or you can adopt Sqiudward's philosophy 'Everyone's an idiot except for me'
I'm not, it's Realistic that's not being realistic.
Whilst the Iphones only sell big in the US, that does means Apple has a whole world of opportunity.