Samsung rumored to follow Apple's lead, split Galaxy S5 lineup into metal, plastic models

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  • Reply 41 of 147
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by gwmac View Post



    Samsung is starting to get squeezed very tight at the bottom with all these cheap Chinese brands. They had been doing well in the high end because Apple was not even sold in many markets like China Mobile or Docomo but that has changed. Apple will continue to expand into more countries and carriers every month reducing areas where Samsung was the only high end option. There last bastion of safety was their display size but that may also fall soon if Apple decides this is the year to introduce their iPhone Air or whatever name they choose for it. Once this last piece of the puzzle falls into place Apple will have a product matrix that should serve them well for at least 5 more years. Samsung is already sold in every country and probably on every carrier in the world so they have far less chance to grow sales or marketshare. Apple is just getting started.

     

    I agree 100%. Samsung (with HTC) had China Mobile all to themselves for years, and now Apple will significantly eat into their share (at the high end) this year. I doubt Samsung made money at the low end in China or even in Japan (due to the cultural hate between them, I know many Japanese who will never consider a Korean product).

  • Reply 42 of 147
    mhikl wrote: »
    AZREO, I've an old SS laser copier that just keeps chugging along, never fails.
    Wish I knew who to thank for the great design.

    Probably Hewlett Packard
  • Reply 43 of 147

    Why change the winning formula?

  • Reply 44 of 147

    Ok, plenty of people have said it already, so I won't waste any breath on the first issue here. The section of this article I really take issue to is this statement:

    Quote:

     "Many people are fanatical about iris recognition technology".


     

    Really? I have never met one of these many people, and I struggle to believe that anybody could be fanatical about iris recognition technology in the context of mobile devices. If this is a genuine feature that Samsung are planning on introducing, I can't imagine it being used in the same way as TouchID.

     

    TouchID has revolutionised the way I interact with my phone every time I pick the thing up. I can have a secure password, but never have to enter it - awesome. This approach of using fantastically sophisticated technology to address something so mundane, so everyday, in a way that is utterly seamless and satisfying, to me, epitomises the reasons why Apple have such a loyal following; the attention to detail and the user experience is superb.

     

    Could iris scanning ever come close? I'm sure it could be a powerful security tool for accessing payment information; I can see people, sitting at home on a laptop, using a webcam-style iris scanner to access and auto-fill their payment details. Maybe you could use it to sign in different accounts on a computer, but I don't think it will be as smooth or effortless if used on a mobile device.

     


    • Might it require a devoted light source to make sure the image quality is high enough?

    • Will you have to be looking directly at the camera, or will an oblique angle be good enough?

    • How closely to the phone will the eye need to be?

     

    If you want to see what high-speed (1 second), long-distance (up to 1 metre) iris imaging tech looks like, search for 'morpho IAD'. I'm struggling to imagine Samsung squeezing that into their next flagship, even with their reputation for phablets.

  • Reply 45 of 147
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    weejock wrote: »
    Ok, plenty of people have said it already, so I won't waste any breath on the first issue here. The section of this article I really take issue to is this statement:

    Really? I have never met one of these many people, and I struggle to believe that anybody could be fanatical about iris recognition technology in the context of mobile devices. If this is a genuine feature that Samsung are planning on introducing, I can't imagine it being used in the same way as TouchID.

    TouchID has revolutionised the way I interact with my phone every time I pick the thing up. I can have a secure password, but never have to enter it - awesome. This approach of using fantastically sophisticated technology to address something so mundane, so everyday, in a way that is utterly seamless and satisfying, to me, epitomises the reasons why Apple have such a loyal following; the attention to detail and the user experience is superb.

    Could iris scanning ever come close? I'm sure it could be a powerful security tool for accessing payment information; I can see people, sitting at home on a laptop, using a webcam-style iris scanner to access and auto-fill their payment details. Maybe you could use it to sign in different accounts on a computer, but I don't think it will be as smooth or effortless if used on a mobile device.
    • Might it require a devoted light source to make sure the image quality is high enough?
    • Will you have to be looking directly at the camera, or will an oblique angle be good enough?
    • How closely to the phone will the eye need to be?

    If you want to see what high-speed (1 second), long-distance (up to 1 metre) iris imaging tech looks like, search for 'morpho IAD'. I'm struggling to imagine Samsung squeezing that into their next flagship, even with their reputation for phablets.

    I don't see how Iris scanning from a phone held at a normal distance from the face could work as quickly, effectively and well as TouchID, but I also didn't see how TouchID was going to work as quickly, effectively and well as it did since there was nothing on the market that showed that was close to reality.


    [VIDEO]


    Was there a shipping product that used AuthenTec's non-swopping system?
  • Reply 46 of 147
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Evilution View Post



    Ah ok, we are calling it "following Apple's lead" now are we?



    5S - S5

    5C - C5?

    To be fair Apple has become pretty stale in the innovation game too.  Aside from the Mac Pro which is amazing (unfortunately no consumers really buy desktops anymore) they are pretty light on ideas.  Aside from the fingerprint scanner (which they bought) the last few iphones have basically been an upgrade in processor and making it slightly thinner (both of which just follow the technological advance in the field as a whole) not cutting edge.  

     

    The Ipad air is nice but the same as the larger version (just thinner) same for the ipad mini (just smaller) ipod touch (iphone without antenna) macbook air (thinner pro).  Apple has mastered the make things thinner game.  I am waiting for something that is actually innovative.  They have some of the best engineers and boat loads of money.  I am hoping something comes out soon that blows my socks off the way that the first Ipod, Iphone, and to a lesser degree Ipad did.  

     

    Making things thinner and faster is nice but it is just the advancement of the industry, everyone does that.  Where is the big innovation?

     

    At this point Apple basically makes two things, laptops with different sizes and specs (macbook air/pro line) and rectangular slabs or various sizes and features (iphone/ipod touch/ipad/ipad mini)  I really hope we get a new product category soon.  The basic technology of the iphone, ipad, ipad mini, and ipod touch are exactly the same.  They are all basically iphones with different size screens or a lack of an antenna to place calls.  

  • Reply 47 of 147
    adonissmuadonissmu Posts: 1,776member

    One hand washes the other. 

  • Reply 48 of 147
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    sog35 wrote: »
    WTF man.  Motorola loses HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS every quarter.  They don't need to make profit as long as they sell Google ads.  Same with amazon tablets.  They sell at cost or even below cost.  And you expect Apple to sell phones at a loss?  When they can barely keep up with demand now? WTF.

    Ummm what part of "I'm not suggesting that they do..." didn't you understand? Why are you jumping down my throat for pointing out someone else's thinking?
  • Reply 49 of 147
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    2385amh wrote: »
    To be far Apple has become pretty stale in the innovation game too.  Aside from the Mac Pro which is amazing (unfortunately no consumers really buy desktops anymore) they are pretty light on ideas.  Aside from the fingerprint scanner that they bought the last few iphones have basically been an upgrade in processor and making it slightly thinner (both of which just follow the technological advance in the field as a whole) not cutting edge.  

    The Ipad air is nice but the same as the larger version (just thinner) same for the ipad mini (just smaller) ipod touch (iphone without antenna) macbook air (thinner pro).  Apple has mastered the make things thinner game.  I am waiting for something that is actually innovative.  They have some of the best engineers and boat loads of money.  I am hoping something comes out soon that blows my socks off the way that the first Ipod, Iphone, and to a lesser degree Ipad did.  

    Making things thinner and faster is nice but it is just the advancement of the industry, everyone does that.  Where is the big innovation?

    Really? Light on innovation? You do know that TouchID isn't just a single innovation, right? It's the culmination of many ideas having to work together. From the sapphire crystal cover down to the secure enclave on 64-bit ARM SoC TouchID is a lot more than Apple buying AuthenTec.

    Let's count the ways Apple has moved the market. Here's my partial list:

    • HiDPI IPS displays on their MBPs
    • PCIe SSDs that eschew SATA on every shipping Mac save for the Mac mini
    • Friction stir welding on iMac
    • A7 SoC (what is that 4MB RAM on the processor for exactly?)
    • iBeacons
    • AppleTV "Touch to Set Up"

    That's a lot of stuff that just off the top of my head and doesn't include any of the innovations we can't possibly see, like finding ways to make the code more power efficient, making frameworks and APIs that make built-in and 3rd-party apps better for users, all the components of the A7, or their logic board designs, battery improvements, casing designs and builds, etc.

    And don't think that technology always allows for making items small and thinner without qualifying that to include "at a given performance" because we're seeing these devices not only get thinner, lighter and smaller, and also get faster, do more and have a longer battery life at the same time. Finally, if you argue that all these innovations were bound to happen and were all part of the natural progress of technology then why are they Apple's innovations and not a competitor?
  • Reply 50 of 147
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Really? Light on innovation? You do know that TouchID isn't just a single innovation, right? It's the culmination of many ideas having to work together. From the sapphire crystal cover down to the secure enclave on 64-bit ARM SoC TouchID is a lot more than Apple buying AuthenTec.



    Let's count the ways Apple has moved the market. Here's my partial list:

     

    • HiDPI IPS displays on their MBPs

    • PCIe SSDs that eschew SATA on every shipping Mac save for the Mac mini

    • Friction stir welding on iMac

    • A7 SoC (what is that 4MB RAM on the processor for exactly?)

    • iBeacons

    • AppleTV "Touch to Set Up"


    That's a lot of stuff that just off the top of my head and doesn't include any of the innovations we can't possibly see, like finding ways to make the code more power efficient, making frameworks and APIs that make built-in and 3rd-party apps better for users, all the components of the A7, or their logic board designs, battery improvements, casing designs and builds, etc.



    And don't think that technology always allows for making items small and thinner without qualifying that to include "at a given performance" because we're seeing these devices not only get thinner, lighter and smaller, and also get faster, do more and have a longer battery life at the same time. Finally, if you argue that all these innovations were bound to happen and were all part of the natural progress of technology then why are they Apple's innovations and not a competitor?

    These are incremental upgrades I was talking about innovation.  Every single hardware manufacture in the world gets thinner more power devices every year.  This is true for samsung, apple, motorolla, lg and everyone else.  This is not a big deal overall.  The design upgrades to the internals are great but again everyone is doing similar things.  Intel, apple, samsung, NVIDIA etc. 

  • Reply 51 of 147
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    2385amh wrote: »
    These are incremental upgrades I was talking about innovation.

    That sentence is nonsense. If you only see non-innovative, incremental changes since the Macintosh Portable in 1989 then you don't understand what innovation means. You don't even comprehend that even the smallest increment is the result of innovation and yet I only mentioned major changes that outstrip their competitor's efforts.
  • Reply 52 of 147
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    2385amh wrote: »
    To be fair Apple has become pretty stale in the innovation game too.  Blah

    Thanks for making this statement first. Kept me from wasting time reading the rest of the post.
  • Reply 53 of 147
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Crosslad View Post





    Probably Hewlett Packard

    Or Canon, they made the printer engines for many (HP, Apple) back in day.

  • Reply 54 of 147
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    sog35 wrote: »
    so do you think wall streets expectation of making a $250 iPhone 5C is ridiculous?

    For Apple? Yes
  • Reply 55 of 147
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    sog35 wrote: »
    Now I expect the plastic S5 to be $250 unlocked.
    Oh wait, I'm sorry.  Wall Street only expects Apple to slaughter their margins and sell a premium 5C phone for $250

    If Apple did sell a $250 iPhone I don't think Wall Street would react well to it despite their longtime clamoring. I think they and the media would say Apple can now longer compete in the premium market and they'd note that Apple's per unit profit would drop significantly which would result in the stock value dropping. I really don't think Apple can win while they have this much mindshare with their consumers. The only news they want to report is bad news.

    sog35 wrote: »
    so do you think wall streets expectation of making a $250 iPhone 5C is ridiculous?

    From what I can tell you two are on the same page here.
  • Reply 56 of 147
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    solipsismx wrote: »
    From what I can tell you two are on the same page here.

    I thought I was clear in my first post. It seems like the mere mention of a competitor negates the message being conveyed.
  • Reply 57 of 147

    I wonder if the same "shameless copying" comments will apply when Apple makes an iPhone with a bigger screen.  Pretty much falls under the same category.

  • Reply 58 of 147
    gwmacgwmac Posts: 1,807member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by 2385amh View Post

     

    To be fair Apple has become pretty stale in the innovation game too.  Aside from the Mac Pro which is amazing (unfortunately no consumers really buy desktops anymore) they are pretty light on ideas.  Aside from the fingerprint scanner (which they bought) the last few iphones have basically been an upgrade in processor and making it slightly thinner (both of which just follow the technological advance in the field as a whole) not cutting edge.  

     

    The Ipad air is nice but the same as the larger version (just thinner) same for the ipad mini (just smaller) ipod touch (iphone without antenna) macbook air (thinner pro).  Apple has mastered the make things thinner game.  I am waiting for something that is actually innovative.  They have some of the best engineers and boat loads of money.  I am hoping something comes out soon that blows my socks off the way that the first Ipod, Iphone, and to a lesser degree Ipad did.  

     

    Making things thinner and faster is nice but it is just the advancement of the industry, everyone does that.  Where is the big innovation?

     

    At this point Apple basically makes two things, laptops with different sizes and specs (macbook air/pro line) and rectangular slabs or various sizes and features (iphone/ipod touch/ipad/ipad mini)  I really hope we get a new product category soon.  The basic technology of the iphone, ipad, ipad mini, and ipod touch are exactly the same.  They are all basically iphones with different size screens or a lack of an antenna to place calls.  


    I understand what you are saying but I disagree that Apple has not been innovative. They have introduced far more than simply lighter and faster. But I also understand what you are talking about. You seem to suggest that they need some entirely new product categories or something along the lines of adding apps to the Apple TV. You are looking for a new knockout punch type of product or feature. The thing about those type of products is they can take many years to develop but I am betting that Apple has a number of these projects in the works as we speak. Apple is unlike other companies because they are expected to release product that "just work". They are held to a far higher standard than Google or Samsung who are constantly releasing products just to see if they stick or not on the wall. Apple is not that type of company. It used to be that sort of company to a degree and one can come up with things like the Pippin, 20th anniversary Mac, Lisa, hockey puck mouse and few more but at least in recent years they have a pretty good track record of getting it right.

     

    Apple doesn't need to come out with something as big as the iPhone every year or two to survive. They can continue to tweak and refine the current products for several more years and do very well. But eventually I think you will see a new product category along the lines of iOS in the car type of product, perhaps a Apple TV on steroids that could compete with Xbox and PS4 but mainly would revolutionize the way we watch TV, perhaps wearable computers like a smart watch, or it could be something totally unexpected and unimagined. If you look back 10 years at our cellphones and computers and technology in general compared to today there has been a massive leap. There is no reason to think that by 2024 the leap won't be just as wide and we will look at the  iPhone 5s and iPad Air the same way we look at boom boxes with cassette tape players today. In ten years we might wear our phones on our wrists since they could be made of flexible displays and are easily removed from the wrist when we want to use them as phones or computers. Who knows what the future holds  but Apple's insistence on thin and better battery life will likely turn out to be a very good thing in the future. 

  • Reply 59 of 147
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Really? Light on innovation? You do know that TouchID isn't just a single innovation, right? It's the culmination of many ideas having to work together. From the sapphire crystal cover down to the secure enclave on 64-bit ARM SoC TouchID is a lot more than Apple buying AuthenTec.



    Let's count the ways Apple has moved the market. Here's my partial list:

     

    • HiDPI IPS displays on their MBPs

    • PCIe SSDs that eschew SATA on every shipping Mac save for the Mac mini

    • Friction stir welding on iMac

    • A7 SoC (what is that 4MB RAM on the processor for exactly?)

    • iBeacons 


    Apple doesnt make any of these products.  

    High resolution screens are purchased by apple not made or developed by them

    PCIe SSDs while great were not invented or used exclusively by apple.  And note I specifically said that my comment didn't apply to the MacPro

    Again did not mean to address the MACPro

    A7 SoC is probably the most legitimate claim you made and I do admit it is pretty advanced for a mobile processor.

    Ibeacons are NFC like bluetooth devices apple did not invent these they are based on exsisting bluetooth technology

     

    Not a single thing you mentioned besides the A7 was invented by apple.  To be honest Samsung has done much more for the display, processor, and hard drive market then apple ever has.  Samsung actually invents many of the breakthroughs in these technologies.  They don't just purchase them and allow a pretty package to suffice. 

  • Reply 60 of 147
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by gwmac View Post

     

    I understand what you are saying but I disagree that Apple has not been innovative. They have introduced far more than simply lighter and faster. But I also understand what you are talking about. You seem to suggest that they need some entirely new product categories or something along the lines of adding apps to the Apple TV. You are looking for a new knockout punch type of product or feature. The thing about those type of products is they can take many years to develop but I am betting that Apple has a number of these projects in the works as we speak. Apple is unlike other companies because they are expected to release product that "just work". They are held to a far higher standard than Google or Samsung who are constantly releasing products just to see if they stick or not on the wall. Apple is not that type of company. It used to be that sort of company to a degree and one can come up with things like the Pippin, 20th anniversary Mac, Lisa, hockey puck mouse and few more but at least in recent years they have a pretty good track record of getting it right.

     

    Apple doesn't need to come out with something as big as the iPhone every year or two to survive. They can continue to tweak and refine the current products for several more years and do very well. But eventually I think you will see a new product category along the lines of iOS in the car type of product, perhaps a Apple TV on steroids that could compete with Xbox and PS4 but mainly would revolutionize the way we watch TV, perhaps wearable computers like a smart watch, or it could be something totally unexpected and unimagined. If you look back 10 years at our cellphones and computers and technology in general compared to today there has been a massive leap. There is no reason to think that by 2024 the leap won't be just as wide and we will look at the  iPhone 5s and iPad Air the same way we look at boom boxes with cassette tape players today. In ten years we might wear our phones on our wrists since they could be made of flexible displays and are easily removed from the wrist when we want to use them as phones or computers. Who knows what the future holds  but Apple's insistence on thin and better battery life will likely turn out to be a very good thing in the future. 


    Yes you definitely seem to understand what I mean, I hope your predictions are right.  Steven Jobs died at the end of 2011 and I hope that the innovation and brilliance he personified didn't die with him.  Since his death apple has started to do things that Steve said they never would (larger Iphone, smaller Ipad) and I can't help but think I can see the writing on the wall.  Steve Jobs was apple and now without him they will die a slow slow death over the next 5 or 10 years.  Apple makes the best looking products on the market, but I feel like the bigger iphone and smaller ipad mini were me too products that steve wouldn't have made.  The same goes for the 5C, I think it degrades the brand personally but I understand that some disagree.

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