115% growth propels Apple to 5% share of global phone shipments

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  • Reply 21 of 63
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by matrix07 View Post


    The one who want the cheapest option would never buy Apple product. I know that well because I used to be one of them. Never buy any Apple product until last year.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by asdasd View Post


    Those who want a touch screen smartphone may go for the cheapest option. Period.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Apple's market are those willing and able to buy Apple's products. As you've clearly stated Apple doesnt make a sub-$100 smartphone, which is Apple's choice not some business mishap.



    Not like you to make a factual error, S! iPhone 3GS still in the Apple Store @ 49 bucks. Not quite as bargain basement as "free" or "Two for free," and not latest tech, but a very nice (quality, Apple) instrument and hardly priced @ a $$ barrier to entry....



    ...so the ones who do know about Apple's rep and don't have much front money are still getting scooped up. I think this is brilliant and hope the iP4 replaces the 3GS as the entry level when the iP5 comes out. And that they lower the price and keep the iPad 2 around when the iPad 3's released.



    keep growing that ecosystem and you'll get more harvests down the road.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Apple makes over 50% of the world's handset profit while only having 5% of the world's handset sales by unit. This is impressive on several levels, including the fact 1 in 20 phones sold last quarter throughout the world bought an iPhone that debuted more than 6 earlier.



    It really is kinda breath-taking for those who understand what goes into business achievements on a world-scale.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    There have been plenty of really bad no name brands well under the iPad's prices but this past month we started seeing quality tablet HW components thy undercut the iPad for the same capacity. Most notably is Asus who have a good rep for good build quality, displays and battery life, which are using IPS panels across the board.



    The issue for them and others is now Honeycomb but I've heard that it will be an iOS killer sooooon.



    Except as you noted in your own earlier post, it's mostly going to be killing Google's and their IHP's margins as they scramble to commoditize tabs, not the iPad itself. And iOS 5 should blunt some of the newness of Honeycomb - which is no longer being iterated at nearly the frantic pace of early Android days if anyone's noticed. Gee, building stable, extensible, elegant, functional OS's is kinda hard after all when you're playin' against the big kids. Who knew????



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by christopher126 View Post


    The iPhone has a halo effect on the iPad and the iPad has a halo effect on the iPhone. Both have a halo effect on iMacs, MB's, MBA's and MBP's. All the above have a halo effect on ATV's. Oh, and there is the original Apple halo product, the iPod that basically got the ball rolling!



    Damn. Thought I saw angels floating about that last Apple store I passed, but then I saw they were all hardware products with glowing rings above 'em......
  • Reply 22 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    Not like you to make a factual error, S! iPhone 3GS still in the Apple Store @ 49 bucks. Not quite as bargain basement as "free" or "Two for free," and not latest tech, but a very nice (quality, Apple) instrument and hardly priced @ a $$ barrier to entry…



    That’s the subsidized price for the 3GS from AT&T. Other carriers sell the iPhone 4 100% subsidized.





    asdasd specifically referred to the cost of the device not attached to a contract. The prices of capacitance touchscreen smart phones will drop as technology evolves and most of those will likely run Android, but that isn’t reason enough for Apple to stop making a profit simply to increase market share.



    Quote:

    I think this is brilliant and hope the iP4 replaces the 3GS as the entry level when the iP5 comes out.



    I think an iPhone 4 for $49 (on AT&T’s contract) will be a huge win with US customers. I do wonder if that is feasible. Compared to the 3GS with the plastic casing and now 3 year old form factor, and non-Retina Dusplay the iPhone 4 seems so far ahead I can’t help but wonder if the price is doable. I guess they could use the cheaper Retina Display a la the iPod Touch once the iPhone 5 is out but I hope that doesn’t happen.





    edit: Gruber wrote about a new baseband that will enable sub-$100 smartpones this year.
  • Reply 23 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AjitMD View Post


    The cheap Android phones make a lot of compromises to keep the price down:

    1. Resistive touch screen - Costs significantly less, but they are hard to use due to poor sensitivity

    2. Lower quality LCD with narrow viewing angles, lower contrast, etc

    3. Minimum Flash Memory - 0.5 GB to 4 GB. Have slot of USB Flash.

    4. NiMH battery good for 1-2 hours. Replaceable, but the plastic lid needs to be duck taped after a while.

    5. Hard to update the custom Android software.



    Sure, there are markets for this stuff, but no profits. I do not see any lines in front of any place selling ZTE phones.



    Really? You've seen these? I've yet to see any smartphone with 2 hr battery, and not any for a long time with a resistive screen. The last one I can think of was a Garminfone with a resistive released a couple years back. Everything recently is capacitive.



    Hardware is not any issue with hi-end or even mid-range HTC or Samsung phones running Android. It's quite often better than anything Apple is currently offering. The OS may get complaints (mostly from Apple users), or some user may not be able to find just the app they want from the 100,000+ available in the Android Market. But newer Android phones don't suffer from inferior hardware.
  • Reply 24 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    But newer Android phones don't suffer from inferior hardware.



    All HW is inferior is you don?t have proper drivers, OS and apps to take advantage of it.



    This is why we keep hearing ?such and such will kill the iPhone? but in actual tests the IPhone is still more responsive than other devices.



    The newest Android is Honeyvcomb and I?m sure you don?t want me to bring up how that fares against the iPad 2. Even against the iPad 1 tablets that came out in CES 2011 barely bested it in many raw HW tests.



    Here is one such test for a new Android phone running 2.3. As you can see there are some in the 2.x hour range and half the list less than 4, or well below a full days use.
    The concern isn?t that some can be made better it?s that it?s not consistent among vendors or their products. With Apple you may not get the best in every category but you can be assured it?ll be damn good across the board without some single focus in one area just to make a spec sheet look more pretty.
  • Reply 25 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    I don't consider my engine build to be poor if the oil and gas I put in it causes a failure.



    BTW, the battery life on the 4G devices at the bottom of your chart are only applicable when using them as 4G streaming video or similar. When using as 3G the battery life is back to lasting for the day. I'm not sure under what circumstances those batteries were tested under on your chart, nor who produced it. Were they watching a video or something, as I would be shocked those were talk times. I don't know anyone that needs to charge their phone twice to three times a day other than on old devices with end-of-life batteries.
  • Reply 26 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Here's an Apples to HTC, Samsung etc. battery life chart updated the first of this month. Apple times are in the "other phone" category, since there are few to choose from I suppose. A little difference.



    http://reviews.cnet.com/2719-11288_7...?tag=page;page
  • Reply 27 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    I don't consider my engine build to be poor if the oil and gas I put in it causes a failure.



    BTW, the battery life on the 4G devices at the bottom of your chart are only applicable when using them as 4G streaming video or similar. When using as 3G the battery life is back to lasting for the day. I'm not sure under what circumstances those batteries were tested under on your chart, nor who produced it. Were they watching a video or something, as I would be shocked those were talk times. I don't know anyone that needs to charge their phone twice to three times a day other than on old devices with end-of-life batteries.



    1) You?re choice of gasoline is not the comparable to the vendor?s poor coding of drivers and poorly optimized OS from the factory.



    2) The 4G enable devices are listed as LTE and WiMAX, they are not simply "devices at the bottom.?



    3) The chart clear states Web Browsing, not 4G streaming video for devices with 4G. That makes no sense from a testing standpoint. All tests were conducted in the same way for each device.



    4) I thought AnandTech?s chart layouts and testing methods were well known among tech forums at this point. Here is their link: www.anandtech.com



    4) The biggest complaint I get from Android users is the battery life. They want to make it better yet even after disabling all the pointless crap it still suffers greatly.
  • Reply 28 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    1) You?re choice of gasoline is not the comparable to the vendor?s poor coding of drivers and poorly optimized OS from the factory.



    I suppose it wouldn't because than you'd lose any validity for your argument.



    I'm not claiming the battery life in all or even most Android phones is better than or equal to an iPhone 4G. At the same time they're not the 1.5-2 hours mentioned by the OP. But that's nit-picking since the OP mentioned many more categories than just batteries.



    As originally stated, hardware is not the issue for higher-end HTC nor Samsung Android phones. There are some that complain about the OS, and power management is being improved with each Android release. And I've seen more complaints about Android from Apple users than actual Android users. Just a personal observation.



    So the OS may garner complaints. The hardware rarely does whether from user reviews or bloggers. Unless the battery is hardware, in which case I'll give you half a point for those that are not as long-lived as some others.
  • Reply 29 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bigpics View Post


    iPhone 3GS still in the Apple Store @ 49 bucks. Not quite as bargain basement as "free" or "Two for free," and not latest tech, but a very nice (quality, Apple) instrument and hardly priced @ a $$ barrier to entry....



    Agreed... the 3GS is a hell of a phone for $49.



    And one more thing to note: Just one year ago today... the 3GS was still Apple's top-of-the-line phone. Now it's a bargain...



    However, almost all of the $49 Android phones available today were never premium phones... they were created to be cheap and to be forgotten.
  • Reply 30 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    I suppose it wouldn't because than you'd lose any validity for your argument.



    Not in the least. The fuel you choose to put in your vehicle is your choice. We?re talking about a poorly designed machine from the factory.



    If you really have to use a car analogy image a car the bestest most powerfulest engine you can imagine? now connect that to the automatic transmission of a Geo Metro and the add the wooden axles and wheel from horse drawn buggy. If that came from the factory your powerful engine would be considerably less imporant to the overall functionality of the design.



    But hey, if you only want to look at one part of a whole product go right ahead.



    Quote:

    There are some that complain about the OS, and power management is being improved with each Android release.



    The argument that it?s being improved is so tired. Soon it will be better. Soon it will be good. Soon Soon! if I?m going to spend a couple grand on a smartphone over 2 years I want something that is proven to work and proven to be supported.



    I don?t want to take a shot in the dark with some company verging on bankruptcy that has no decent experience in coding that is now making their own UI to differentiate them from selves from other Android devices as the race to the bottom.



    With the iPhone I know I will get a product that is well tested and that any issues I have will be resolved without hassle with a quick Apple Store visit. That doesn?t have to fit everyone?s needs but it surely fits my needs.



    Quote:

    And I've seen more complaints about Android from Apple users than actual Android users. Just a personal observation.



    I?m seen more media coverage about consolidated.db than I have about the PSN outage. Just a personal observation.



    Quote:

    So the OS may garner complaints. The hardware rarely does whether from user reviews or bloggers. Unless the battery is hardware, in which case I'll give you half a point for those that are not as long-lived as some others.



    You?re getting it. If the OS/SDK is shit, if the drivers are shit, then the HW is shit. It doesn?t matter what you read on a spec sheet or what you heard whispered across the internet for an impending update, if you can?t utilize the HW in the device to its fullest potential then it?s a waste of the HW unless your goal is to impress people with a list of HW specs.



    Quote:

    "Those who are serious about software should make their own hardware? ~ Alan Kay



    It works the other way, too.
  • Reply 31 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Apple may have the better phone for some segment of the market. There are other segments it won't match up with for various and assorted reason's. For those people iOS is a problem, and thus the hardware is poor according to your reasoning?



    What percentage of buyers think that Apple has poor hardware? Probably a lower percentage than thinks the OS isn't a good match for their needs. But you can't consider hardware separately from software?



    Before you insist that Hardware and software must be considered as a whole you might re-read your own post, #19.
  • Reply 32 of 63
    bigpicsbigpics Posts: 1,397member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Michael Scrip View Post


    Agreed... the 3GS is a hell of a phone for $49.



    And one more thing to note: Just one year ago today... the 3GS was still Apple's top-of-the-line phone. Now it's a bargain...



    However, almost all of the $49 Android phones available today were never premium phones... they were created to be cheap and to be forgotten.



    It's worked with the whiteBook for years now (tho' I'm surprised they didn't make it $899 since it has zero R&D) and certainly with the 3GS.



    So why not capitalize on last year's models more across the board, i.e., one phone model, one iPad and one computer, to get incremental base numbers of people into the "ecosystem" (that word's getting played, but best I got) without ever having to build "economy" models.



    As long as they can keep their margins up at the pricepoints, one $49 (or even $79) subsidized phones (the payoff's in the carrier contract, so keep the phone cheap), plus one wi-fi and one 3G iPad model @ say $399 and $499; plus one $899 MacBook or Air - with all being last year's state of the art - will get more of those with modest resources who otherwise wouldn't buy Apple to Apple - certainly more than it will cannibalize from sales of the newest models from those who can afford the latest and greatest.



    And they can do it without ever having to sell crap. I remember when Sony (and Panasonic and others) cheapened their brands and started selling really dreckyWalkmans and everything else - they ate up all the reputation and good will of the brand. And Sony's never re-acquired that quality top-to-bottom image. It's also a more feasible strategy today - as fungible digital components go down in price much faster than Walkman and receiver parts did 30 - 40 years ago when this happened.



    Other advantages: 1. It sets a resale floor on the older model for another year that also stimulates uptake in the used market via emerging channels like Gazelle, which in turn helps those folk speed up their purchases of new models when they're ready. 2. It allows existing production lines to be milked for nearly another year without the expense of a re-tooling. 3. Closer to the intro of a new model, these lines could be the first shut down and re-tooled for the upcoming model while more of the lines for the current model can continue to go full tilt weeks longer - helping avoid periods of disruptive changeover and increasing initial day of release supply. And finally, a portion of those lines would become in turn the line that would keep cranking that model for another year after the changeover.



    Yeah, yeah, sexy talk about production line management, experience costs, inventory drawdown, etc. But hey, an area where Apple's excelled all through its rebirth. Lots of the bottom line comes in handling such prosaic matters well.



    One drawback could be when form factors don't change from year to year. If the iPhone 5 looks too much like the 4, e.g., then it might draw some sales from the newer (with the better internals). But fairly minor in the long-term of things I would think.
  • Reply 33 of 63
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    ...notably is Asus who have a good rep for good build quality...



    Bwahaahhaahhaaa!



    Sorry but you must have forgotten the /s tag.



    Asus, quality???



    Maybe on paper but wait until the screen starts failing, the keys fall off the keyboard and a litany of failures that come from cutting costs by using cheaper components.



    Case in point, in 2009 when I bought my MacBook 13" (last of the aluminum), my son bought a "you beaut" Asus 17" laptop with all the bells and whistles including Vista, apart from a $10 upgrade to Snow Leopard my MacBook hasn't missed a beat (although the battery doesn't last as long anymore), the Asus has basically fallen apart, my son has to use a USB keyboard and mouse as half the keys have fallen off, the trackpad is shite which hardly works, the battery life has been atrocious right from the start and it has had to be reformatted several times and updated to Windows 7 for $130.
  • Reply 34 of 63
    addaboxaddabox Posts: 12,665member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Appleismagic View Post


    Forbes said those figures were padded.



    Gaaah..... spam link asshole.
  • Reply 35 of 63
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by addabox View Post


    Gaaah..... spam link asshole.



    Don?t quote the link!
  • Reply 36 of 63
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    Those whose criteria for a smartphone stops at ?has a touchscreen? are not iPhone customers. Period.



    Those that wan't an iPhone but only have £100-200 will have to go for these rather than a £600 iPhone.



    And as these drag down the other Android/WP7 phones, those that wan't a smartphone and can't understand why the iPhone costs twice as much as all the other phones that look similar, feel similar and have an OS that's just as good if not better, may end up buying another phone.



    That is why these companies are a big threat to Apple. If Apple had to cut the price of the iPhone it would literally take over 10% of Apples total revenue and an even bigger percentage of profit.
  • Reply 37 of 63
    macrulezmacrulez Posts: 2,455member
    deleted
  • Reply 38 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hill60 View Post


    Bwahaahhaahhaaa!



    Sorry but you must have forgotten the /s tag.



    Asus, quality???.



    According to this article at TUAW. . . Yup.



    http://www.tuaw.com/2010/11/29/apple...action-survey/
  • Reply 39 of 63
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post


    ...and not any for a long time with a resistive screen. The last one I can think of was.../snip



    I can sell you one of these, brand new, in the box, in a retail store tomorrow.



    http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_gt540_optimus-3081.php



    here are some more:-



    http://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_u7520-3861.php



    http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_v9-3903.php



    Froyo + resistive FTW!
  • Reply 40 of 63
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    Hmm. Two over a year old and one made for the Chinese market by a Chinese company. There might be a current one around somewhere, but as you found in your research trying to discover some, they're pretty rare.
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