Does anyone believe that Apple would have ever enjoyed 90%, 80%, 70% or even 60% market share? Especially overseas where carriers do not subsidize devices?
Yep.
Apple was never going to dominate the smartphone and tablet market the way that they dominated the music player market.
Because you say so, of course. Never mind that 90% of tablets in use are iPads and the iPhone makes up 75% of mobile traffic.
And in the music player market, no one was capable of coming up with a true competitor to either the hardware or to iTunes
Huh. Just like the iPhone, where no one is capable of coming up with a true competitor to the hardware or iOS.
plus Apple addressed the low end market with the iPod Shuffle for music players.
You’ll notice they sell three years worth of iPhones down to and including free ($499).
So there was always going to be a viable second OS
Only because Microsoft paid to license Apple’s patents to make it viable. Android is not a “second OS”.
Only Google, it seems, had the combination of…
…guile, dishonor, reproach, soullessness, and lack of creativity…
…and that was why they succeeded…
…at copying iOS…
…while others didn’t. …it had more to do with Google…
…copying Apple…
…than with Samsung’s copying Apple.
Hey, we agree… now.
…Samsung covering bases before Apple could get there such as being able to sell to all carriers while Apple was an AT&T exclusive and then offering larger phones and smaller tablets…
Except NONE OF THAT HAS HELPED THEM because their garbage STILL DOESN’T SELL.
But the truth is that Samsung is becoming less relevant anyway.
So your “argument” is “They don’t matter anymore–because I say so–so Apple should just not care at all about laws being broken, intellectual property being stolen, and revenue being illegally funneled–because I say so–and should move on–because I say so–and not have Samsung pay anything at all.”
It's in no way a pyrrhic victory. Had Apple not sued, Samsung would have continued to infringe Apple's IP. By suing, Apple stopped the infringement and look at Samsung now. They're lost and losing profit like crazy. And Apple is killing all Android vendors. The suits against Samsung amounted to warnings to other Android vendors looking to copy as well. Koh F-ed up by not tripling the award against Samsung, and the second suit amount is ridiculously low, but in the end, Apple's actions amount to a significant victory, IMO.
I am curious. Let us say that Samsung hadn't infringed on Apple's IP. How much would it have changed, really? Does anyone believe that Apple would have ever enjoyed 90%, 80%, 70% or even 60% market share? Especially overseas where carriers do not subsidize devices? And even in America and Europe where a certain percentage of the population either just doesn't like Apple or simply likes to be contrarian? Apple was never going to dominate the smartphone and tablet market the way that they dominated the music player market. And in the music player market, no one was capable of coming up with a true competitor to either the hardware or to iTunes, plus Apple addressed the low end market with the iPod Shuffle for music players.
So there was always going to be a viable second OS, especially addressing the overseas and low end markets. And Blackberry, Symbian, WebOS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu, Tizen (which was acquired by Samsung, not developed by them), Microsoft etc. all had their shots and failed. The reasons: lack of technical expertise in mobile Internet technology, lack of apps and ecosystem, lack of name branding/marketing, not enough financial backing. Only Google, it seems, had the combination of technical acumen, app store with a lot of third party developers, a globally known name brand and deep pockets and that was why they succeeded while others didn't.
And don't overplay Samsung's role. After all, Samsung made and marketed Windows phones too (as well as Bada and then acquiring Tizen). Not just Samsung: LG and HTC made Windows Phones also, and the HTC One Windows 8 device was aesthetically beautiful. Oh yes, and then there was Nokia, the company that ruled the mobile phone space pre-iPhone who failed with first their own Symbian smart device OS and then after investing heavily in marketing and R&D for Windows Mobile.
So, Samsung's success was more about Android than Samsung (the many good features that originated in Samsung's despised TouchWiz and were later put in Google Android notwithstanding), meaning that it had more to do with Google than with Samsung's copying Apple. To put it another way: it was mostly due to Samsung covering bases before Apple could get there such as being able to sell to all carriers while Apple was an AT&T exclusive and then offering larger phones and smaller tablets while Apple delayed in delivering both. And it was also due to their rising to the top of the Android heap by spending way more on advertising and on carrier and store agreements than HTC and Motorola who could simply not afford it and also LG and Sony who CAN afford it but for some strange reason chooses to just sit back and allow first Samsung and now Huawei and Xiaomi to eat their lunches.
I suppose that getting $180 million because Samsung has continued to sell the ancient Galaxy 2 (with its 4.3 inch screen and 2.3 - though upgradeable to 4.1! - operating system) is nice. But the truth is that Samsung is becoming less relevant anyway. They are now #3 in China behind Xiaomi and Huawei. Huawei has now joined Apple and Samsung in selling 100 smartphones annually - and they reached that mark long before Christmas so they may end the year at 115 million - and in the process has leapfrogged Xiaomi, and will start selling smartphones in the US by March of 2016 along with another Chinese company LeTV. While Huawei, LeTV and Huawei will likely not take many smartphone sales away from Samsung in the US due to lack of carrier agreements, they will in India and Africa, where the 3 Chinese companies will not only sell devices but are also building out the Internet and mobile infrastructure, so that in those regions they will not only sell phones and tablets, but also the Internet and mobile data plans that the tablets use as they do in China. And when you consider that Huawei is already selling a decent number of phones in Europe, it can be said that Apple is continuing to dither about with Samsung while the market - the global market anyway ... the U.S. market is set with about half being Apple fans and the other half Samsung loyalists - is changing.
Apple may have eaten even more of the profit, not the market share. Apple doesn't give a crap about market share. By copying Apple in this way, Samsung gained profit by being seen as something similar to Apple even though in functionality in wasn't really. They used Apple's window dressing to put lipstick on a pig and make a killing by gaining profit without doing any of the work ; as always.
Samsung probably gained 5-10B in profit by its infringement from profit from the initial model and from the beachhead it then gave to continue selling at the high end.
Even when it stopped selling the initial model, it still was benifiting from what it did.
I am curious. Let us say that Samsung hadn't infringed on Apple's IP. How much would it have changed, really? Does anyone believe that Apple would have ever enjoyed 90%, 80%, 70% or even 60% market share? Especially overseas where carriers do not subsidize devices? And even in America and Europe where a certain percentage of the population either just doesn't like Apple or simply likes to be contrarian? Apple was never going to dominate the smartphone and tablet market the way that they dominated the music player market. And in the music player market, no one was capable of coming up with a true competitor to either the hardware or to iTunes, plus Apple addressed the low end market with the iPod Shuffle for music players.
So there was always going to be a viable second OS, especially addressing the overseas and low end markets. And Blackberry, Symbian, WebOS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu, Tizen (which was acquired by Samsung, not developed by them), Microsoft etc. all had their shots and failed. The reasons: lack of technical expertise in mobile Internet technology, lack of apps and ecosystem, lack of name branding/marketing, not enough financial backing. Only Google, it seems, had the combination of technical acumen, app store with a lot of third party developers, a globally known name brand and deep pockets and that was why they succeeded while others didn't.
And don't overplay Samsung's role. After all, Samsung made and marketed Windows phones too (as well as Bada and then acquiring Tizen). Not just Samsung: LG and HTC made Windows Phones also, and the HTC One Windows 8 device was aesthetically beautiful. Oh yes, and then there was Nokia, the company that ruled the mobile phone space pre-iPhone who failed with first their own Symbian smart device OS and then after investing heavily in marketing and R&D for Windows Mobile.
So, Samsung's success was more about Android than Samsung (the many good features that originated in Samsung's despised TouchWiz and were later put in Google Android notwithstanding), meaning that it had more to do with Google than with Samsung's copying Apple. To put it another way: it was mostly due to Samsung covering bases before Apple could get there such as being able to sell to all carriers while Apple was an AT&T exclusive and then offering larger phones and smaller tablets while Apple delayed in delivering both. And it was also due to their rising to the top of the Android heap by spending way more on advertising and on carrier and store agreements than HTC and Motorola who could simply not afford it and also LG and Sony who CAN afford it but for some strange reason chooses to just sit back and allow first Samsung and now Huawei and Xiaomi to eat their lunches.
I suppose that getting $180 million because Samsung has continued to sell the ancient Galaxy 2 (with its 4.3 inch screen and 2.3 - though upgradeable to 4.1! - operating system) is nice. But the truth is that Samsung is becoming less relevant anyway. They are now #3 in China behind Xiaomi and Huawei. Huawei has now joined Apple and Samsung in selling 100 smartphones annually - and they reached that mark long before Christmas so they may end the year at 115 million - and in the process has leapfrogged Xiaomi, and will start selling smartphones in the US by March of 2016 along with another Chinese company LeTV. While Huawei, LeTV and Huawei will likely not take many smartphone sales away from Samsung in the US due to lack of carrier agreements, they will in India and Africa, where the 3 Chinese companies will not only sell devices but are also building out the Internet and mobile infrastructure, so that in those regions they will not only sell phones and tablets, but also the Internet and mobile data plans that the tablets use as they do in China. And when you consider that Huawei is already selling a decent number of phones in Europe, it can be said that Apple is continuing to dither about with Samsung while the market - the global market anyway ... the U.S. market is set with about half being Apple fans and the other half Samsung loyalists - is changing.
Apple may have eaten even more of the profit, not the market share. Apple doesn't give a crap about market share. By copying Apple in this way, Samsung gained profit by being seen as something similar to Apple even though in functionality in wasn't really. They used Apple's window dressing to put lipstick on a pig and make a killing by gaining profit without doing any of the work ; as always.
Samsung probably gained 5-10B in profit by its infringement from profit from the initial model and from the beachhead it then gave to continue selling at the high end.
Even when it stopped selling the initial model, it still was benifiting from what it did.
The phones that Samsung infringed for the most part were not big sellers, so I do not know if Samsung made $5-$10 billion in profits on them. Even if they did, $5-$10 billion isn't that much to a global conglomerate like Samsung; they probably make twice that on their line of washing machines alone. And saying that copying Apple is what gave Samsung a beach head at the high end would be sustainable if the infringing models actually sold. They did not. Instead, Samsung started to sell when they began to make much larger devices (4.7 inches and bigger) and when they began to offer hardware and software features that the other Android OEMs could not match. And oh yes, when they began their very successful marketing campaign. (Note that Samsung's troubles began when they fired their very successful American marketing team in a fit of nationalistic pride. http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-dallas-office-audit-2015-2)
Another point: Sony, LG, HTC and now the Chinese contenders were never accused of copying Apple (well, except for Xiaomi that is) and they sold tons of high end phones too. Hundreds of millions of of premium Sony Xperias, LG G, HTC One etc. devices sold. The idea that if you take away Samsung, Android collapses isn't tenable because before the rise of Samsung, HTC was the biggest Android vendor and was making a ton of money. So if Samsung doesn't come to dominate the Android market, then it is far more likely that their profits and sales are split more evenly amongst the other players. So the idea that had Samsung not infringed Apple, Apple would have enjoyed a monopoly in mobile, or at least a monopoly amongst premium devices, really can't be substantiated, especially since the infringing models didn't sell anywhere near as much as the phablets that Samsung created after they stopped copying Apple, and that there were other Android OEMs enjoying sales and profits (though granted not as much as Samsung) before Samsung blew up in the first place.
In any event, I am not so certain why anyone would have wanted Apple to have a monopoly in the first place. First off, it would have made Apple a huge target for the types of anti-trust lawsuits that AT&T, Microsoft and now Google is experiencing. Second, monopolies inevitably stifle innovation, which is exactly what happened to AT&T and Microsoft. Having to compete with Samsung and Google has resulted in better iPhones, iPads and even Apple TVs and Apple Watches in a very short time. We have seen much more innovation from Apple in 5 years than we saw from Microsoft in 15. And before you be too quick to say "Apple is better than Microsoft" well remember the Apple TV. Apple invented the thing in 2007 and then for the most part ignored it. Competition from Chromecast, Android TV and Amazon's Fire TV caused them to totally revamp the device in less than a year, AND to keep it at a competitive price point while doing so. Making 90% of the profits in mobile, 60% of the profits in PCs while still being forced by competition to come out with a superior product (which includes, yes, "borrowing" ideas from the competition as Apple has done) is a good spot to be in. Being where AT&T was 30 years ago or Microsoft 15 years ago where you are just sitting and waiting for either the government or innovation to come topple you is definitely not a good spot, and I have no idea why any Apple fan would want to sit there.
Samsung would be tens of billions poorer. Yep. Because you say so, of course. Never mind that 90% of tablets in use are iPads and the iPhone makes up 75% of mobile traffic. Huh. Just like the iPhone, where no one is capable of coming up with a true competitor to the hardware or iOS. You’ll notice they sell three years worth of iPhones down to and including free ($499). Only because Microsoft paid to license Apple’s patents to make it viable. Android is not a “second OS”. …guile, dishonor, reproach, soullessness, and lack of creativity… …at copying iOS…
…copying Apple…
Hey, we agree… now.
Except NONE OF THAT HAS HELPED THEM because their garbage STILL DOESN’T SELL.
So your “argument” is “They don’t matter anymore–because I say so–so Apple should just not care at all about laws being broken, intellectual property being stolen, and revenue being illegally funneled–because I say so–and should move on–because I say so–and not have Samsung pay anything at all.”
But I suppose that you will dispute the source, even though multiple outlets began reporting that Android web usage surpassed that of iOS in second quarter 2014. Now iOS devices are more heavily, intently used than their Android counterpart and generate far more revenue per device, but in terms of raw usage, Android achieved parity with iOS years ago and surpassed it over 18 months ago, just as Google Play store downloads surpassed App Store downloads in 2014 (App Store revenues remain higher, though nearly all of the difference is due to Google Play being absent in the massive China market ... exclude China and the gap between App Store and Google Play revenues is very small, and some analysts claim that the aggregate total revenue from Google Play, Amazon, and the main Chinese stores actually exceeds the App Store revenue).
Google copied iOS? Of course they did. It was a good product. It would have been ridiculous for Google to continue with their outdated Blackberry-influenced design after Apple introduced the iPhone. If your position is that Google should not have introduced a touchscreen UI and other elements ... funny Apple doesn't feel the same way as Apple has never formally charged Google with infringement, let alone sued them. Samsung stated that much of their design came from Google and Android during the infringement trial, remember? Apple's response was not to then sue Google, but instead to show where Samsung DEVIATED from the Google Android design language to copy Apple. In short, it can be said that Google only copied Apple inasmuch as Apple has proven to be very willing and capable of appropriating innovations from everyone else into their own products. Case in point: did Apple invent the web browser? Or is there any feature in Safari that did not exist in Netscape, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome first?
If you are going to compare forcing someone in India, China, Indonesia or Kenya making $8000 a year to pay $499 upfront (because carriers don't subsidize devices in those markets) for a 5 year old iPhone 4 when that person could pay less than $200 for a very good Android alternative, then yeah, you are choosing to miss my point. And if your position is that people making $8000 a year in developing countries do not matter because no one can make a profit selling devices that cost so little, then you are further choosing to miss my point, especially when an iPod Shuffle costs $40.
Also, if Android phones are such bad devices, why do so many people keep buying them? Despite many rumors of its impending demise, premium Android device sales continue. They experienced a slowdown in their rate of growth in 2014 but appeared to pick back up again in 2015. With so many people in so many areas of the world buying Android phones that cost $500 or more - and some that cost nearly $1000 - I suppose people haven't caught on to how bad they are? Or maybe the notion that they are bad devices is an opinion of yours that they do not share?
bulldogs said: But I suppose that you will dispute the source, even though multiple outlets began reporting that Android web usage surpassed that of iOS in second quarter 2014.
I only question it because it goes against everything we’ve heard for the last seven years.
Google copied iOS? Of course they did. It was a good product. It would have been ridiculous for Google to continue with their outdated Blackberry-influenced design after Apple introduced the iPhone.
*blinks* So you’re excusing theft of intellectual property?
In short, it can be said that Google only copied Apple inasmuch as Apple has proven to be very willing and capable of appropriating innovations from everyone else into their own products.
Except no, it cannot be said at all.
Case in point: did Apple invent the web browser? Or is there any feature in Safari that did not exist in Netscape, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome first?
You realize that Chrome couldn’t exist without Apple inventing WebKit, right? Chrome is the Safari knockoff.
Also, if Android phones are such bad devices, why do so many people keep buying them?
This isn’t an argument. Why do you think it’s an argument?
So you’re excusing theft of intellectual property?
You might not know this since this key detail was conveniently omitted from the article, but several of the core patents at issue have either been invalidated or face the risk of falling upon review by the USPTO (http://www.fosspatents.com/2015/08/before-apple-collects-dime-from-samsung.html), pending appeal to the federal circuit.
You realize that Chrome couldn’t exist without Apple inventing WebKit, right? Chrome is the Safari knockoff.This isn’t an argument. Why do you think it’s an argument?
Apple did not invent Webkit. Webkit is a fork from KHTML, that was used in the Konqueror browser.
crops said: Apple did not invent Webkit. Webkit is a fork from KHTML, that was used in the Konqueror browser.
Still waiting.
You are absolutely correct TS. Chrome was developed from Webkit, and that's a fact. Credit where credit is due.
As an aside and not ever mentioned here AFAIK, Google was the biggest contributor to Webkit, surpassing Apple by a bit which is somewhat surprising. Another interesting tidbit: Samsung is also a Webkit contributor! Strange bedfellows in the tech world. All of them depend on each other in some way.
Google as many know moved beyond Webkit a couple years ago and created yet another open-source fork called Blink, They thought Webkit projects were moving too slow, tho they still contribute security fixes and bug reports from what I've read.
You are absolutely correct TS. Chrome was developed from Webkit, and that's a fact. Credit where credit is due.
As an aside and not ever mentioned here AFAIK, Google was the biggest contributor to Webkit, surpassing Apple by a bit which is somewhat surprising. Another interesting tidbit: Samsung is also a Webkit contributor! Strange bedfellows in the tech world. All of them depend on each other in some way.
Google as many know moved beyond Webkit a couple years ago and created yet another open-source fork called Blink, They thought Webkit projects were moving too slow, tho they still contribute security fixes and bug reports from what I've read.
Hats off too all that collaborated in Webkit to end the nightmare knowns as Internet Explorer (which they got by ripping off Netscape)! How many years many of us labored with web design, constantly fighting the issues of incompatibility Microsoft forced on us, not to mention their theft of Quicktime only to make their version unable to run the real thing. All based on a large user base enabling their bullying and monopolistic tactics. Let us never forget the evil of Microsoft, just because the giant is dying, sticking in a few more knives in is always worth the effort.
I am curious. Let us say that Samsung hadn't infringed on Apple's IP. How much would it have changed, really? Does anyone believe that Apple would have ever enjoyed 90%, 80%, 70% or even 60% market share? Especially overseas where carriers do not subsidize devices? And even in America and Europe where a certain percentage of the population either just doesn't like Apple or simply likes to be contrarian? Apple was never going to dominate the smartphone and tablet market the way that they dominated the music player market. And in the music player market, no one was capable of coming up with a true competitor to either the hardware or to iTunes, plus Apple addressed the low end market with the iPod Shuffle for music players.
So there was always going to be a viable second OS, especially addressing the overseas and low end markets. And Blackberry, Symbian, WebOS, Firefox OS, Ubuntu, Tizen (which was acquired by Samsung, not developed by them), Microsoft etc. all had their shots and failed. The reasons: lack of technical expertise in mobile Internet technology, lack of apps and ecosystem, lack of name branding/marketing, not enough financial backing. Only Google, it seems, had the combination of technical acumen, app store with a lot of third party developers, a globally known name brand and deep pockets and that was why they succeeded while others didn't.
And don't overplay Samsung's role. After all, Samsung made and marketed Windows phones too (as well as Bada and then acquiring Tizen). Not just Samsung: LG and HTC made Windows Phones also, and the HTC One Windows 8 device was aesthetically beautiful. Oh yes, and then there was Nokia, the company that ruled the mobile phone space pre-iPhone who failed with first their own Symbian smart device OS and then after investing heavily in marketing and R&D for Windows Mobile.
So, Samsung's success was more about Android than Samsung (the many good features that originated in Samsung's despised TouchWiz and were later put in Google Android notwithstanding), meaning that it had more to do with Google than with Samsung's copying Apple. To put it another way: it was mostly due to Samsung covering bases before Apple could get there such as being able to sell to all carriers while Apple was an AT&T exclusive and then offering larger phones and smaller tablets while Apple delayed in delivering both. And it was also due to their rising to the top of the Android heap by spending way more on advertising and on carrier and store agreements than HTC and Motorola who could simply not afford it and also LG and Sony who CAN afford it but for some strange reason chooses to just sit back and allow first Samsung and now Huawei and Xiaomi to eat their lunches.
I suppose that getting $180 million because Samsung has continued to sell the ancient Galaxy 2 (with its 4.3 inch screen and 2.3 - though upgradeable to 4.1! - operating system) is nice. But the truth is that Samsung is becoming less relevant anyway. They are now #3 in China behind Xiaomi and Huawei. Huawei has now joined Apple and Samsung in selling 100 smartphones annually - and they reached that mark long before Christmas so they may end the year at 115 million - and in the process has leapfrogged Xiaomi, and will start selling smartphones in the US by March of 2016 along with another Chinese company LeTV. While Huawei, LeTV and Huawei will likely not take many smartphone sales away from Samsung in the US due to lack of carrier agreements, they will in India and Africa, where the 3 Chinese companies will not only sell devices but are also building out the Internet and mobile infrastructure, so that in those regions they will not only sell phones and tablets, but also the Internet and mobile data plans that the tablets use as they do in China. And when you consider that Huawei is already selling a decent number of phones in Europe, it can be said that Apple is continuing to dither about with Samsung while the market - the global market anyway ... the U.S. market is set with about half being Apple fans and the other half Samsung loyalists - is changing.
Apple may have eaten even more of the profit, not the market share. Apple doesn't give a crap about market share. By copying Apple in this way, Samsung gained profit by being seen as something similar to Apple even though in functionality in wasn't really. They used Apple's window dressing to put lipstick on a pig and make a killing by gaining profit without doing any of the work ; as always.
Samsung probably gained 5-10B in profit by its infringement from profit from the initial model and from the beachhead it then gave to continue selling at the high end.
Even when it stopped selling the initial model, it still was benifiting from what it did.
Did you not see the sales of the infringing devices? They were laughable. No way they made that much money off them. Samsung really didn't start making money off high end smartphones until the SGS 3 which was seen as something different from the iPhone.
Comments
Yep.
Because you say so, of course. Never mind that 90% of tablets in use are iPads and the iPhone makes up 75% of mobile traffic.
Huh. Just like the iPhone, where no one is capable of coming up with a true competitor to the hardware or iOS.
You’ll notice they sell three years worth of iPhones down to and including free ($499).
Only because Microsoft paid to license Apple’s patents to make it viable. Android is not a “second OS”.
…guile, dishonor, reproach, soullessness, and lack of creativity…
…at copying iOS…
…copying Apple…
Hey, we agree… now.
Except NONE OF THAT HAS HELPED THEM because their garbage STILL DOESN’T SELL.
So your “argument” is “They don’t matter anymore–because I say so–so Apple should just not care at all about laws being broken, intellectual property being stolen, and revenue being illegally funneled–because I say so–and should move on–because I say so–and not have Samsung pay anything at all.”Samsung probably gained 5-10B in profit by its infringement from profit from the initial model and from the beachhead it then gave to continue selling at the high end.
Even when it stopped selling the initial model, it still was benifiting from what it did.
Another point: Sony, LG, HTC and now the Chinese contenders were never accused of copying Apple (well, except for Xiaomi that is) and they sold tons of high end phones too. Hundreds of millions of of premium Sony Xperias, LG G, HTC One etc. devices sold. The idea that if you take away Samsung, Android collapses isn't tenable because before the rise of Samsung, HTC was the biggest Android vendor and was making a ton of money. So if Samsung doesn't come to dominate the Android market, then it is far more likely that their profits and sales are split more evenly amongst the other players. So the idea that had Samsung not infringed Apple, Apple would have enjoyed a monopoly in mobile, or at least a monopoly amongst premium devices, really can't be substantiated, especially since the infringing models didn't sell anywhere near as much as the phablets that Samsung created after they stopped copying Apple, and that there were other Android OEMs enjoying sales and profits (though granted not as much as Samsung) before Samsung blew up in the first place.
In any event, I am not so certain why anyone would have wanted Apple to have a monopoly in the first place. First off, it would have made Apple a huge target for the types of anti-trust lawsuits that AT&T, Microsoft and now Google is experiencing. Second, monopolies inevitably stifle innovation, which is exactly what happened to AT&T and Microsoft. Having to compete with Samsung and Google has resulted in better iPhones, iPads and even Apple TVs and Apple Watches in a very short time. We have seen much more innovation from Apple in 5 years than we saw from Microsoft in 15. And before you be too quick to say "Apple is better than Microsoft" well remember the Apple TV. Apple invented the thing in 2007 and then for the most part ignored it. Competition from Chromecast, Android TV and Amazon's Fire TV caused them to totally revamp the device in less than a year, AND to keep it at a competitive price point while doing so. Making 90% of the profits in mobile, 60% of the profits in PCs while still being forced by competition to come out with a superior product (which includes, yes, "borrowing" ideas from the competition as Apple has done) is a good spot to be in. Being where AT&T was 30 years ago or Microsoft 15 years ago where you are just sitting and waiting for either the government or innovation to come topple you is definitely not a good spot, and I have no idea why any Apple fan would want to sit there.
But I suppose that you will dispute the source, even though multiple outlets began reporting that Android web usage surpassed that of iOS in second quarter 2014. Now iOS devices are more heavily, intently used than their Android counterpart and generate far more revenue per device, but in terms of raw usage, Android achieved parity with iOS years ago and surpassed it over 18 months ago, just as Google Play store downloads surpassed App Store downloads in 2014 (App Store revenues remain higher, though nearly all of the difference is due to Google Play being absent in the massive China market ... exclude China and the gap between App Store and Google Play revenues is very small, and some analysts claim that the aggregate total revenue from Google Play, Amazon, and the main Chinese stores actually exceeds the App Store revenue).
Google copied iOS? Of course they did. It was a good product. It would have been ridiculous for Google to continue with their outdated Blackberry-influenced design after Apple introduced the iPhone. If your position is that Google should not have introduced a touchscreen UI and other elements ... funny Apple doesn't feel the same way as Apple has never formally charged Google with infringement, let alone sued them. Samsung stated that much of their design came from Google and Android during the infringement trial, remember? Apple's response was not to then sue Google, but instead to show where Samsung DEVIATED from the Google Android design language to copy Apple. In short, it can be said that Google only copied Apple inasmuch as Apple has proven to be very willing and capable of appropriating innovations from everyone else into their own products. Case in point: did Apple invent the web browser? Or is there any feature in Safari that did not exist in Netscape, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Chrome first?
If you are going to compare forcing someone in India, China, Indonesia or Kenya making $8000 a year to pay $499 upfront (because carriers don't subsidize devices in those markets) for a 5 year old iPhone 4 when that person could pay less than $200 for a very good Android alternative, then yeah, you are choosing to miss my point. And if your position is that people making $8000 a year in developing countries do not matter because no one can make a profit selling devices that cost so little, then you are further choosing to miss my point, especially when an iPod Shuffle costs $40.
Also, if Android phones are such bad devices, why do so many people keep buying them? Despite many rumors of its impending demise, premium Android device sales continue. They experienced a slowdown in their rate of growth in 2014 but appeared to pick back up again in 2015. With so many people in so many areas of the world buying Android phones that cost $500 or more - and some that cost nearly $1000 - I suppose people haven't caught on to how bad they are? Or maybe the notion that they are bad devices is an opinion of yours that they do not share?
*blinks* So you’re excusing theft of intellectual property?
Except no, it cannot be said at all.
You realize that Chrome couldn’t exist without Apple inventing WebKit, right? Chrome is the Safari knockoff.This isn’t an argument. Why do you think it’s an argument?
It’s also irrelevant to the point being made, which is that Samsung stole the ideas, regardless of their nature.
Nice that you didn’t even reply to the point, too.
Yep, the one you’re moving the goalposts on; that’s right. You were completely wrong. Admit it.
As an aside and not ever mentioned here AFAIK, Google was the biggest contributor to Webkit, surpassing Apple by a bit which is somewhat surprising. Another interesting tidbit: Samsung is also a Webkit contributor! Strange bedfellows in the tech world. All of them depend on each other in some way.
Google as many know moved beyond Webkit a couple years ago and created yet another open-source fork called Blink, They thought Webkit projects were moving too slow, tho they still contribute security fixes and bug reports from what I've read.
THe pursse strings were getting a bit tight aroud Cupetin.