What is the purpose of writing a Google bashing article other than it makes some people feel good to knock one of Apple’s competitors? Is there some worry about the iPhone X that AI feels it necessary to trash the Pixel?
Since no other website ever publishes criticisms of Apple’s competitors and all we ever see are articles predicting Apple’s eventual demise I don’t see the problem here. Mr. Dilger writes well and I have seen his AI work pop up on news media sites from time to time. It’s about time the competition got bashed instead of being declared Apple killers all the time. If all these Apple killers’ products are so good then why does Apple continue to thrive and grow?
If you want to read about and discuss Apple’s failures all day long then head on over to 9TO5Mac or MacRumors.
How is having a discussion on Apple and it’s products/services equating to failures? Why would I come to a site called Appleinsider to hear about Google. I don’t give a shit about Google. I don’t own any Google hardware and don’t use any Google services outside of the search engine.
What you’re saying basically is you approve of this article because bashing Apple’s competitors makes you feel good. Having insightful discussions about Apple’s products and services don’t provide the high that bashing and trolling the competition does.
I agree that Google Pixel phones are not really a success, but calling Android a failure is plain BS. It is the most successful mobile OS on the planet with a market share of 75% and it is generating massively ad income for Google. Would love to have such a failure in my product portfolio.
Except that Android didn't change anything for Google. It was doing the same thing on Windows PCs, on phones running Linux, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhones. All Android does is cost Google more money to manage, without delivering any additional advantage. In fact, the largest market for Android phones gives Google nothing, because its services are blocked in the PRC. And by promoting Android, Google has been edged out of many key iOS services, including Maps. It's now installed only by user choice, which dropped Google's iOS presence from 100% to less than a third.
When you argue how Android must have helped Google, consider that a) it wasn't free to do and b) it wasn't without cost.
I agree that Google Pixel phones are not really a success, but calling Android a failure is plain BS. It is the most successful mobile OS on the planet with a market share of 75% and it is generating massively ad income for Google. Would love to have such a failure in my product portfolio.
Except that Android didn't change anything for Google. It was doing the same thing on Windows PCs, on phones running Linux, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhones. All Android does is cost Google more money to manage, without delivering any additional advantage. In fact, the largest market for Android phones gives Google nothing, because its services are blocked in the PRC. And by promoting Android, Google has been edged out of many key iOS services, including Maps. It's now installed only by user choice, which dropped Google's iOS presence from 100% to less than a third.
When you argue how Android must have helped Google, consider that a) it wasn't free to do and b) it wasn't without cost.
You're forgetting your OWN articles years back on RoughlyDrafted about why Google had to do Android, why it had nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with Microsoft.
As far as being edged out of maps by Apple no one outside of their executive team knows if Apple would have done so anyway. Personally I think they had planned it for some time based on their purchases of complementary companies and services, but like you I'm guessing. They've invited lots of "partners" for their services over the years only to go it alone with the feature/chips/hardware/raw materials themselves when it made sense to do so, and thru no fault on the part of the friendly partner/vendor. That's how Apple rolls, and it's not an uncommon thing. Money is money and business is business.
Also not entirely sure that being"blocked in the PRC" is necessarily a bad thing, and more than a couple of hardcore Apple fans in these forums have questioned whether what Apple has to swallow to sell there is worth it.
I personally love the new style I've seen as of late. It's factual and aggressive, and relatively brief. It's about time Google is called out on their shit.
Why? How are they threatening Apple in any way. If this phone is as bad as DED says why even waste any time on it?
You seem to think that I write to bring balance to the Universe according to my whims. If I were so powerful, I'd be writing about different subjects.
I write to be correct.
I know the industry, and I have a decade of work out there anyone can evaluate for accuracy. You've been trolling for a while now, making regular personal attacks at my expense. What have you ever said that's ever been even sort of accurate, if not just total hogwash-spin in the service of Google, making excuses for an incredibly inept, failure-upon-failure group that has plundered American businesses and wasted billions on frivolous horseshit? I have a pretty good memory for tech history, and I can't remember you ever saying anything that wasn't pure, desperate garbage. Why do you keep going? I'm paid here, you're not. I get to enjoy being right, you can't. What's your motivation?
So what's the excuse for the poor sales of their low-end Nexus Phones? You know before they decided there was no money in doing that, and figured they would be better off copying Apple and releasing the Pixel phones. Nothing has changed.
If something is crap -- high- or low-end, then sales of that crap will be poor ... regardless of advertising. The article weirdly tries to both assert that Google is bad at advertising while also claiming Android hardware is crap.
So, to answer your question, the "excuse for the poor sales of their low-end Nexus phones" is, also, that they are crap. This, also, doesn't mean Google sucks at advertising.
I personally love the new style I've seen as of late. It's factual and aggressive, and relatively brief. It's about time Google is called out on their shit.
Why? How are they threatening Apple in any way. If this phone is as bad as DED says why even waste any time on it?
You seem to think that I write to bring balance to the Universe according to my whims. If I were so powerful, I'd be writing about different subjects.
I write to be correct.
I know the industry, and I have a decade of work out there anyone can evaluate for accuracy. You've been trolling for a while now, making regular personal attacks at my expense. What have you ever said that's ever been even sort of accurate, if not just total hogwash-spin in the service of Google, making excuses for an incredibly inept, failure-upon-failure group that has plundered American businesses and wasted billions on frivolous horseshit? I have a pretty good memory for tech history, and I can't remember you ever saying anything that wasn't pure, desperate garbage. Why do you keep going? I'm paid here, you're not. I get to enjoy being right, you can't. What's your motivation?
Daniel, you put so much effort into disparaging other companies article after article. It’s tiresome sometimes.
Why don’t you use some of the critical thinking skills to work and focus on what Apple doesn’t do so well and where Apple is failing or could do better? Apple is great and they obviously are doing well, but Apple isn’t perfect by any means and it’d be great to see you apply the same thought process towards Apple in which they are either behind or not doing well.
Note that Apple's original goal for iPhone's first full calendar year was a very modest 10 million units (it sold 13). And that was a few years before iPhone took off like a rocket, and even more years before everybody and their sister absolutely had to have a smartphone in their pocket. The product category is a decade and running, but Google sells 3.9 million units its first calendar year.
Wrong. The Pixel is really Nexus 2.0, so this is not Google's first foray into hardware, no matter how it's spun. Furthermore you can not compare what Apple sold in 2007, with what Google sells in 2018. Different eras. Like comparing an up and coming swimmer's personal bests to Mark Spitz's records from 1972, when you should be comparing them to Michael Phelps's times from 2016.
In some ways you are correct, noting of course that Google has never been in control of any Nexus or Pixel engineering, design and manufacturing up to now. They've been reliant on selected Android OEM's to submit proposals to engineer and build what Google says they'd like to have. Now Google is running out of excuses since taking control of an experienced team a few months ago, one perfectly capable of engineering a smartphone to Google's exact specifications and design.
This year will be the first where a Google Pixel will be largely a Google product and not just one with some Google engineered Android features. As smartphone manufacturing is reportedly a two year process, 2019 will be the year Google runs out of any remaining excuses for an inferior product. Let's see how committed and capable they really are. Personally I'm not convinced they're "in it to win it" but would be pleased to be surprised.
When Mr. Dilger mentions “Google sycophants” in his article I think we all know who he’s talking about here. So how’s your Pixel doing anyway?
Note that Apple's original goal for iPhone's first full calendar year was a very modest 10 million units (it sold 13). And that was a few years before iPhone took off like a rocket, and even more years before everybody and their sister absolutely had to have a smartphone in their pocket. The product category is a decade and running, but Google sells 3.9 million units its first calendar year.
Wrong. The Pixel is really Nexus 2.0, so this is not Google's first foray into hardware, no matter how it's spun. Furthermore you can not compare what Apple sold in 2007, with what Google sells in 2018. Different eras. Like comparing an up and coming swimmer's personal bests to Mark Spitz's records from 1972, when you should be comparing them to Michael Phelps's times from 2016.
In some ways you are correct, noting of course that Google has never been in control of any Nexus or Pixel engineering, design and manufacturing up to now. They've been reliant on selected Android OEM's to submit proposals to engineer and build what Google says they'd like to have. Now Google is running out of excuses since taking control of an experienced team a few months ago, one perfectly capable of engineering a smartphone to Google's exact specifications and design.
This year will be the first where a Google Pixel will be largely a Google product and not just one with some Google engineered Android features. As smartphone manufacturing is reportedly a two year process, 2019 will be the year Google runs out of any remaining excuses for an inferior product. Let's see how committed and capable they really are. Personally I'm not convinced they're "in it to win it" but would be pleased to be surprised.
When Mr. Dilger mentions “Google sycophants” in his article I think we all know who he’s talking about here. So how’s your Pixel doing anyway?
I had no idea you thought I was so important that Mr Dilger would be thinking of me when he wrote the articles. Thanks I guess?
Anyway have my consistently less-than-complimentary comments about Google's Pixel smartphones somehow confused you, leading to your belief I bought one for myself?
"Across the full year of its collapsing sales of Windows phones in 2015, Microsoft sold just over 26 million Windows Phone devices, or 666% more than Google's total sales of Pixel phones last year."
You know AI just couldn't resist that 666% once they saw it.
Heck, I've been saying for years that Google sucks at marketing their products. Just look at the Home Max for example: Barely a whisper of marketing buzz from Google, unlike Apple no "amazings" and "magicals" and trotting out near daily mentions delivered by well-placed 3rd party media friends of Apple to spread their story for them. Until it began receiving pretty favorable reviews prompted by comparisons to Apple's HomePod (which Apple invited) almost zero media coverage of the HomeMax, and what there was tended to be negative, too much bass and too muddy in the mids being common mentions. Then Apple releases the HomePod, their marketing machine goes into overdrive to shine a bright and focused light on smart-speakers and now the media suddenly takes notice the HomeMax (among some others) is actually pretty good, maybe not so bass-y and muddy afterall.
Google marketing of Google products is the antithesis to Apple's. They should be thankful there's a marketplace marketing pro like Apple to raise awareness as Google evidently doesn't particularly care about putting the proper team and resources together to do so for themselves. But they want to be taken seriously about hardware. Well OK then, good luck with that. Better pay more attention to Apple showing the right way to promote yourself. Google may know the "what" but they're awful at the "why".
Somehow tho the article ends up seriously confused by the difference between online ad placements for companies and brands who can vette the effectiveness of Google-placed ads for themselves ( and evidently pretty darn satisfied they work considering the $B's they give em) and Google marketing of their own products. The two are hardly one and the same any more than they are for Apple. The article doesn't seem to recognize that.
In the U.K. at least, the advertising for the Pixel was pretty good, and certainly saw a lot more television exposure than the new iPhones.
The problem is that Google’s business is selling ads and consumer data; everything they do is geared around that. The problem is that Android’s low end consumers aren’t worth much to advertisers, but they make up the largest part of the Android market. The high end is small, and Google is smart enough to look at worst case scenarios and try to mitigate them. If Samsung gets its own phone operating system to work then Google could lose access to the more valuable consumers using Samsung phones. If Apple goes with another search engine then they’ll lose a whole lot more. This is why they’ve decided to compete with their partners. They need to build that high end; that’s where the ad money works.
Obviously if DED was completely confident with Apple’s products, services and leadership he wouldn’t feel it necessary to write editorials about how bad the competition supposedly is. I listen to a number of podcasts from Apple centric tech writers and for the most part I enjoy listening to them because they discuss the good, not so good and where they think Apple is going or why Apple makes certain decisions. Jason Snell and Myke Hurley have a great podcast called Upgrade. They spent one of the recent episodes discussing Apple’s rumored software changes and what they think it means for iOS and Mac development and OS releases. Let’s get some discussion on that, or Siri improvements for HomePod, etc. There’s a lot of good discussion to be had. And if these editorials are about providing some kind of “balance” well there’s plenty of doom and gloom in the Apple centric space (just listen to any ATP podcast). These editorials could provide a thoughtful counterpoint to that space. And I think they’d receive just as much traffic.
Heck, I've been saying for years that Google sucks at marketing their products. Just look at the Home Max for example: Barely a whisper of marketing buzz from Google, unlike Apple no "amazings" and "magicals" and trotting out near daily mentions delivered by well-placed 3rd party media friends of Apple to spread their story for them. Until it began receiving pretty favorable reviews prompted by comparisons to Apple's HomePod (which Apple invited) almost zero media coverage of the HomeMax, and what there was tended to be negative, too much bass and too muddy in the mids being common mentions. Then Apple releases the HomePod, their marketing machine goes into overdrive to shine a bright and focused light on smart-speakers and now the media suddenly takes notice the HomeMax (among some others) is actually pretty good, maybe not so bass-y and muddy afterall.
Google marketing of Google products is the antithesis to Apple's. They should be thankful there's a marketplace marketing pro like Apple to raise awareness as Google evidently doesn't particularly care about putting the proper team and resources together to do so for themselves. But they want to be taken seriously about hardware. Well OK then, good luck with that. Better pay more attention to Apple showing the right way to promote yourself. Google may know the "what" but they're awful at the "why".
Somehow tho the article ends up seriously confused by the difference between online ad placements for companies and brands who can vette the effectiveness of Google-placed ads for themselves ( and evidently pretty darn satisfied they work considering the $B's they give em) and Google marketing of their own products. The two are hardly one and the same any more than they are for Apple. The article doesn't seem to recognize that.
In the U.K. at least, the advertising for the Pixel was pretty good, and certainly saw a lot more television exposure than the new iPhones.
The problem is that Google’s business is selling ads and consumer data; everything they do is geared around that. The problem is that Android’s low end consumers aren’t worth much to advertisers, but they make up the largest part of the Android market. The high end is small, and Google is smart enough to look at worst case scenarios and try to mitigate them. If Samsung gets its own phone operating system to work then Google could lose access to the more valuable consumers using Samsung phones. If Apple goes with another search engine then they’ll lose a whole lot more. This is why they’ve decided to compete with their partners. They need to build that high end; that’s where the ad money works.
Agreed with pretty much everything you said, noting of course that Google's business is NOT selling consumer data. It's something they've never done and have given no indication of ever planning to do so, not unlike Apple in that regard . Surely you already knew that so I'll assume your fingers got ahead of your thought process on that particular sentence. Otherwise nice post and good points.
I agree that Google Pixel phones are not really a success, but calling Android a failure is plain BS. It is the most successful mobile OS on the planet with a market share of 75% and it is generating massively ad income for Google. Would love to have such a failure in my product portfolio.
Except that Android didn't change anything for Google. It was doing the same thing on Windows PCs, on phones running Linux, Symbian, Windows Mobile and iPhones. All Android does is cost Google more money to manage, without delivering any additional advantage. In fact, the largest market for Android phones gives Google nothing, because its services are blocked in the PRC. And by promoting Android, Google has been edged out of many key iOS services, including Maps. It's now installed only by user choice, which dropped Google's iOS presence from 100% to less than a third.
When you argue how Android must have helped Google, consider that a) it wasn't free to do and b) it wasn't without cost.
Great that you are the expert in the Android business case. Maybe you should apply for a job at Apple saying to Tim: " Why don't you kill the iPhone business? a) it wasn't free to develop it and b) it costs us money to produce the damn thing".
You should be clever enough to realize that there is no business without costs.
If Android really had no added value for Google, Google would have killed it after a few years, like Google did with many other failed products. The fact is that Android is a game changer for Google. Next to the direct revenue of the Play Store, it assures that Google controls an omnipresent device generating a lot of ad revenue. The fact that Google pays Apple a lot of money to be the preferred search engine in iOS, just illustrates how strategically important it is that Android is under Googles full control. This is the reason why the quote "Android is nothing but a expensive failure" is completely wrong, Android is one of the main pillars on which the Google strategy is built.
Heck, I've been saying for years that Google sucks at marketing their products. Just look at the Home Max for example: Barely a whisper of marketing buzz from Google, unlike Apple no "amazings" and "magicals" and trotting out near daily mentions delivered by well-placed 3rd party media friends of Apple to spread their story for them. Until it began receiving pretty favorable reviews prompted by comparisons to Apple's HomePod (which Apple invited) almost zero media coverage of the HomeMax, and what there was tended to be negative, too much bass and too muddy in the mids being common mentions. Then Apple releases the HomePod, their marketing machine goes into overdrive to shine a bright and focused light on smart-speakers and now the media suddenly takes notice the HomeMax (among some others) is actually pretty good, maybe not so bass-y and muddy afterall.
Google marketing of Google products is the antithesis to Apple's. They should be thankful there's a marketplace marketing pro like Apple to raise awareness as Google evidently doesn't particularly care about putting the proper team and resources together to do so for themselves. But they want to be taken seriously about hardware. Well OK then, good luck with that. Better pay more attention to Apple showing the right way to promote yourself. Google may know the "what" but they're awful at the "why".
Somehow tho the article ends up seriously confused by the difference between online ad placements for companies and brands who can vette the effectiveness of Google-placed ads for themselves ( and evidently pretty darn satisfied they work considering the $B's they give em) and Google marketing of their own products. The two are hardly one and the same any more than they are for Apple. The article doesn't seem to recognize that.
In the U.K. at least, the advertising for the Pixel was pretty good, and certainly saw a lot more television exposure than the new iPhones.
The problem is that Google’s business is selling ads and consumer data; everything they do is geared around that. The problem is that Android’s low end consumers aren’t worth much to advertisers, but they make up the largest part of the Android market. The high end is small, and Google is smart enough to look at worst case scenarios and try to mitigate them. If Samsung gets its own phone operating system to work then Google could lose access to the more valuable consumers using Samsung phones. If Apple goes with another search engine then they’ll lose a whole lot more. This is why they’ve decided to compete with their partners. They need to build that high end; that’s where the ad money works.
If Samsung gets its own phone operating system to work then Google could lose access to the more valuable consumers using Samsung phones. - I agree with most of what you said, except this part about Samsung. They are TERRIBLE at software. There are no two ways about it. They are disgracing the Android world by being a dominant player with pretty good hardware, crippled by absolutely terrible software. They have proven their incompetence at software (both insecure and un-optimized) for several years. They don't have any choice but to work with Google's Android for their mobile phones as long as their mobile division is alive. They have already abandoned the Tizen, apart from Bada as OS for smartphones. If Microsoft (a predominantly software company) cannot nail the mobile OS, there is very little reason to believe that Samsung (a predominantly hardware company) can nail it.
Google prices Pixel 2 exactly the same as iPhone 8 and touted it as better than iPhone. Yet Google has to discount it heavily and still able to sell only a few millions of Pixel 2. Isn't it obvious the Android fans don't buy it let alone iPhone fans.
What is the purpose of writing a Google bashing article other than it makes some people feel good to knock one of Apple’s competitors? Is there some worry about the iPhone X that AI feels it necessary to trash the Pixel?
Considering this is an Apple centric site I’d love to see an editorial about, say, Siri and what Apple can and should do to make it better or maybe a discussion on the rumored software changes and how Apple can improve their software processes and quality going forward. Or maybe a piece about what would be good to see software wise in the future for the HomePod. A Siri intent for music and podcasts? The ability to recognize different voices and offer multi user support? These are just a few examples. There are plenty of editorials and pieces about Apple that could generate good discussion. I wish more rumor sites would run pieces that could generate this kind of discussion. 9to5Mac does on occasion but they seem to be the only one.
When someone else starts criticizing the shortcomings of Apple’s competition, let me know. Until then, AI is just filling an empty niche. And Apple’s shortcomings are discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere. That niche is crowded.
Samsung is now back to square one; it's stuck partnering with Google the way HTC, LG, Lenovo, Xiaomi and others are, with a similarly hopeless outlook for ever being wildly profitable again. Essentially, Samsung's phone business is now in the same place as its tablet business, or the tablet business of every other Android licensee.
"Across the full year of its collapsing sales of Windows phones in 2015, Microsoft sold just over 26 million Windows Phone devices, or 666% more than Google's total sales of Pixel phones last year."
You know AI just couldn't resist that 666% once they saw it.
Comments
How is having a discussion on Apple and it’s products/services equating to failures? Why would I come to a site called Appleinsider to hear about Google. I don’t give a shit about Google. I don’t own any Google hardware and don’t use any Google services outside of the search engine.
What you’re saying basically is you approve of this article because bashing Apple’s competitors makes you feel good. Having insightful discussions about Apple’s products and services don’t provide the high that bashing and trolling the competition does.
As far as being edged out of maps by Apple no one outside of their executive team knows if Apple would have done so anyway. Personally I think they had planned it for some time based on their purchases of complementary companies and services, but like you I'm guessing. They've invited lots of "partners" for their services over the years only to go it alone with the feature/chips/hardware/raw materials themselves when it made sense to do so, and thru no fault on the part of the friendly partner/vendor. That's how Apple rolls, and it's not an uncommon thing. Money is money and business is business.
Also not entirely sure that being"blocked in the PRC" is necessarily a bad thing, and more than a couple of hardcore Apple fans in these forums have questioned whether what Apple has to swallow to sell there is worth it.
I write to be correct.
I know the industry, and I have a decade of work out there anyone can evaluate for accuracy. You've been trolling for a while now, making regular personal attacks at my expense. What have you ever said that's ever been even sort of accurate, if not just total hogwash-spin in the service of Google, making excuses for an incredibly inept, failure-upon-failure group that has plundered American businesses and wasted billions on frivolous horseshit? I have a pretty good memory for tech history, and I can't remember you ever saying anything that wasn't pure, desperate garbage. Why do you keep going? I'm paid here, you're not. I get to enjoy being right, you can't. What's your motivation?
So, to answer your question, the "excuse for the poor sales of their low-end Nexus phones" is, also, that they are crap. This, also, doesn't mean Google sucks at advertising.
Why don’t you use some of the critical thinking skills to work and focus on what Apple doesn’t do so well and where Apple is failing or could do better? Apple is great and they obviously are doing well, but Apple isn’t perfect by any means and it’d be great to see you apply the same thought process towards Apple in which they are either behind or not doing well.
Anyway have my consistently less-than-complimentary comments about Google's Pixel smartphones somehow confused you, leading to your belief I bought one for myself?
You know AI just couldn't resist that 666% once they saw it.
The problem is that Google’s business is selling ads and consumer data; everything they do is geared around that. The problem is that Android’s low end consumers aren’t worth much to advertisers, but they make up the largest part of the Android market. The high end is small, and Google is smart enough to look at worst case scenarios and try to mitigate them. If Samsung gets its own phone operating system to work then Google could lose access to the more valuable consumers using Samsung phones. If Apple goes with another search engine then they’ll lose a whole lot more. This is why they’ve decided to compete with their partners. They need to build that high end; that’s where the ad money works.
Nice Job Daniel!
You should be clever enough to realize that there is no business without costs.
If Android really had no added value for Google, Google would have killed it after a few years, like Google did with many other failed products. The fact is that Android is a game changer for Google. Next to the direct revenue of the Play Store, it assures that Google controls an omnipresent device generating a lot of ad revenue. The fact that Google pays Apple a lot of money to be the preferred search engine in iOS, just illustrates how strategically important it is that Android is under Googles full control. This is the reason why the quote "Android is nothing but a expensive failure" is completely wrong, Android is one of the main pillars on which the Google strategy is built.
Like this? http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/29/apple-incs-thermonuclear-assault-on-samsung-vaporizes-androids-remaining-profit-pillar-
Just couple of lines from that article:
Samsung is now back to square one; it's stuck partnering with Google the way HTC, LG, Lenovo, Xiaomi and others are, with a similarly hopeless outlook for ever being wildly profitable again. Essentially, Samsung's phone business is now in the same place as its tablet business, or the tablet business of every other Android licensee.