The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.
That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.
IMHO buying a phone has now just come down to personal preference, there isn't much difference between any of them these days, they all do the job asked of them pretty admirably. Like cars, I pick the one I like in my price range, they all get me from a to b and back again at the end of the day. The market has matured so fast I can't justify spending 1000s on a top tiered phone anymore. If more people start thinking like me, it will hurt Apple as they will no longer be able to justify their high prices, but it will be good for consumers. Apple aren't a tag heuer brand, where you have to pay through the nose for exclusivity.
Sorry Saltyzip, but you are an Android apologist on an Apple based site. Samsung S8 phones are relatively the same price as the iPhone so do not use price point as an excuse for your bias.
You do realize that MANY people run Mac PC's AND run Android phones right?? Why can't you be tolerant of someone that wants to use something different than you??
You do realise people run Mac AND run Android phones are not THAT MANY, right? And even then, it's not by choice but some silly company policy, right? Given them a choice, they would rather go for Apple ecosystem then having a headache of multiple platforms and cloud services.
I can do EVERYTHING on this laptop that I can do on my iPad mini, or my LG G5.
As long as the faithful stay with an iPhone then Apple has many more profitable years ahead.
The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.
Google, LG, Motorola, Huawei all make great phones and most eclipse iPhone on the camera too. Look at the verge website for their latest camera shootout and you'll see iPhone doesn't even make the podium.
Apple phone inovation has plateaued, technical advancement takes a long time, and because they are running out of features to entice people to upgrade they are now falling behind what was the chasing pack.
As long as the Apple faithful continue buying iPhones, then nothing will change, but don't expect to get best bang for your buck.
Think about what most people, especially younger people, do with their phones, which is why they find Samsung and/or Android phones acceptable, especially when they're priced lower. They text, use Facebook, Instagram, listen to music, watch YouTube, take photos/video, watch other movies/video, send/receive email, play games and sometimes use the browser to look something up. For those types of apps, an Android phone works perfectly well. And if it has a better camera or a larger screen, even better. Most people live in the moment and don't care about security, at least not enough to spend more to do something about it.
I live in NYC and use the subways a lot. These days, almost everyone in a subway car is using their phones. Some people are listening to music, but I would say that when I sit next to someone who is looking at their phone (so not necessarily just listening to music), if I look over to see what they're doing, I'd say that 20% of the time they're texting and 70% of the time they're playing a free game, regardless of age.
It's similar to why most people can get away with a $400 PC. For web browsing, Facebook and email, which is what most people do on their PC's, it works fine for up to a tenth of the cost. Maybe the color isn't accurate and the UI isn't as good - maybe it's less secure. Maybe frame rates are actually pretty poor. But for 1/8th the price of a MBP, it's perfectly fine for the masses, at least that's their perception. On the other hand, if you go to a place where people have money, almost all you see are Macs. I always laugh when I pass a coffee shop in a hipster neighborhood and look inside and every machine is a Mac. I also consult for a company that's in a WeWork shared space facility and as you walk around the floor, almost every single computer used by the startups are Macs. Older, larger tech companies are exceptions where you see a lot of Wintel laptops and towers.
So sure, a lot of people will stick with Apple because it's what they know or because they've invested in apps and don't want to switch. But for many other people, when they need a new phone, if they can get an Android phone for far less, they will. And I think that Samsung's advertising also does a great job in attempting to compete with Apple as does a lot of Microsoft's advertising. Apple's advertising used to be great, but whenever I see their TV spot about those stupid stickers, I want to vomit. One should spend $700 for a phone or $3000 for a laptop so they can put stupid stickers on someone's face that look appropriate for an 8-year-old? This is the same company that ran the "Think Different" campaign?
But they aren't good enough. If you come from iOS to Android they are clunky, lag and it takes ages to do anything. The same goes for cheap pcs, they waste the users time with thier underpowered or inefficient os's. Cheap pcs and cheap Android phones, which by far sell the most in numbers oversell and underdeliver every time.
The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.
That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.
Who said they were supposed to take Apple out? Most Android phones compete against other Android phones first.
Of all Android purchasers, how many do you think say to themselves, 'will I get an iPhone or an Android?'. Most (the vast majority) say to themselves ' Which Android will I get?'
Apple is doing great today. In terms of market share Android is doing greater.
Tons of people said the Android group would take Apple out. It's implied in your earlier post when you wrote Apple's "problem" was Android instead of Samsung.
Half of the Android fans that I know -- some of them obnoxious Apple haters -- are now iPhone diehards. I've only owned three Android phones (well four since we recently bought a travel phones to escape snooping by TSA et al), but my next purchase is an iPhone. I'm sick and tired of lagging updates and I want a seamless experience wit my iPad and MacBook.
Apple suffocates the also-rans in terms of profit. It'll gladly let Android have market share. It's horrible business to say "Hey we have tiny margins and/or lost millions, but look at our friggin' marketshare!"
But who?
One thing is to leave Apple as a minority player another to take them out.
Profits matter. Market share also matters.
Apple owns the majority profit share for mobile phones, something in the neighborhood of 80% of the profits today. Apple also ships some 225 million iPhones a year, plus a magnitude smaller volume in iPads, and accessories like the Apple Watch and Air Pods. If you think that Apple is in a position where it is too small to maintain a vibrant iOS market, driven by a substantial R&D effort, then you need to state so. Otherwise, I'm free to state that marketshare only matters for those profiting, or those increasing marketshare with the goal of ultimately shifting to a profitable model; think Amazon for the latter.
So far though, there have been only two companies that have generated sustainable profits in mobile, and in spite of your love for the expansion of the Chinese OEM's, there isn't yet any sign that those two, and especially the current profit leader, are under any threat of losing their profitability to competitors.
You are citing `the Verge as a credible balanced site...
You are posting in thread hanging off a DED article. Balance is not something that springs to mind.
I agree with the sentiment that DED articles cannot be considered balanced, but somehow I found this article to be a balanced one. May be, my own biases!!!
Bias isn't a bad thing per se. We all have an element of It. When necessary we can all filter much of that bias out. I've worked in government and know how important it is to gIve everyone the same treatment Iindependently of my own personal opinion or feelings.
In this article it's his opinion but as usual soaked in bias. Sometimes I get through them, others I don't. This time I didn't.
I'm not forced to read them.
I think in this article I hit on two unbalanced points and then threw in the towel.
One was the stab at facial recognition. The company tells you you shouldn't use it as a security feature and it won't even allow you to make payments with it. On the other hand they offer you an iris scanner which no iPhone has, and AFAIK at this point, is very secure. Nevertheless it seems ok to take a gratuitous poke at facial recognition because it is 'weak' and just skip the iris scanner, as mentioning that would make the stab less effective.
Of course, to work, you would need some kind of ssocial engineering. You need a photo of the person. The last time I checked, Apple would allow you to not even set a passcode and would definitely accept ultra weak passcode. In that regard, it is just as weak as facial recognition.
The other point was services. The article's sets out the stand very clearly. S8. iPhone. The lead in then just opens the door to everything under the sun because it wants to include historical context (biased of course :-))
But why did it slam Samsung's entire mobile division with that direct non historical comparison to Apple Services? The relevance of Services is very recent and is derived from the entire Apple spectrum, not just iPhone. I didn't see any balance there.
It's true that I just stopped reading anyway so maybe there was some kind of justification elsewhere in the article. Anyway, that's how I saw when I started reading.
So AI must be worried about Samsung and the S8 becoming popular otherwise no reason to write this piece.
The reason for writing this piece is to harvest page clicks from both sides of the divide. Seems to have worked very well.
And I have to admire DED's use of the facts to stir up the Android fans, who again have demonstrated that they're clearly not happy with their choice, hence the need to jump onto a website in their search for affirmation.
When you say the facts, should I interpret that as some specific facts or should it have been with the definite article, to mean facts in general? Because the difference between the two is huge.
So AI must be worried about Samsung and the S8 becoming popular otherwise no reason to write this piece.
The reason for writing this piece is to harvest page clicks from both sides of the divide. Seems to have worked very well.
And I have to admire DED's use of the facts to stir up the Android fans, who again have demonstrated that they're clearly not happy with their choice, hence the need to jump onto a website in their search for affirmation.
Isn't thai the other way around? The so called Android fans are replying to points they consider incorrect. If those points had never been presented the comments wouldn't exist.
I haven't seen anyone barge in here and open a thread to praise Android or dump on Apple. They are replies (largely well mannered and fair btw) to threads that the site itself produces.
It's some (by no means all) of the 'locals' that are on some kind of troll patrol that can't resist labelling people as this or that.
No one mentioning Android in a fair way here is on a quest for affirmation.
Most of the Anti- Apple people don't understand that the reason for the love for Apple products are because of the software and not the hardware. Anyone that thinks differently is stupid.
You are citing `the Verge as a credible balanced site...
You are posting in thread hanging off a DED article. Balance is not something that springs to mind.
I agree with the sentiment that DED articles cannot be considered balanced, but somehow I found this article to be a balanced one. May be, my own biases!!!
Bias isn't a bad thing per se. We all have an element of It. When necessary we can all filter much of that bias out. I've worked in government and know how important it is to gIve everyone the same treatment Iindependently of my own personal opinion or feelings.
In this article it's his opinion but as usual soaked in bias. Sometimes I get through them, others I don't. This time I didn't.
I'm not forced to read them.
I think in this article I hit on two unbalanced points and then threw in the towel.
One was the stab at facial recognition. The company tells you you shouldn't use it as a security feature and it won't even allow you to make payments with it. On the other hand they offer you an iris scanner which no iPhone has, and AFAIK at this point, is very secure. Nevertheless it seems ok to take a gratuitous poke at facial recognition because it is 'weak' and just skip the iris scanner, as mentioning that would make the stab less effective.
Of course, to work, you would need some kind of ssocial engineering. You need a photo of the person. The last time I checked, Apple would allow you to not even set a passcode and would definitely accept ultra weak passcode. In that regard, it is just as weak as facial recognition.
The other point was services. The article's sets out the stand very clearly. S8. iPhone. The lead in then just opens the door to everything under the sun because it wants to include historical context (biased of course :-))
But why did it slam Samsung's entire mobile division with that direct non historical comparison to Apple Services? The relevance of Services is very recent and is derived from the entire Apple spectrum, not just iPhone. I didn't see any balance there.
It's true that I just stopped reading anyway so maybe there was some kind of justification elsewhere in the article. Anyway, that's how I saw when I started reading.
Got your points. I was able to get past them because of my own biases and habit - usually I read all the way to the end once I start reading, no matter what.
Entering passwords is another key feature where Android is better. Typically passwords contains characters and digits. When typing a password, the Android keyboard is clever enough to switch off the word predictions (they are useless in this context) and to replace it with all the digits, so you have don't have to use the shift key when entering digits. As a consequence, typing a password on Android is faster and less error prone.
Entering passwords a key feature? Saves you several seconds a month. Wow. Android is amazing.
The problem for the iPhone is not Samsung, like appleinsider seems to think, it is Android in general.
That's been said so many times over the years and it still
isn't true. Nokia. Motorola. Huawei. LG. Samsung. Google's Nexus line, and now
its Pixel line. They were all supposed to take out Apple either alone or as a
group. Apple is not only still around, but thriving, and looks extremely
healthy for the foreseeable future.
IMHO buying a phone has now just come down to personal preference, there isn't much difference between any of them these days, they all do the job asked of them pretty admirably. Like cars, I pick the one I like in my price range, they all get me from a to b and back again at the end of the day. The market has matured so fast I can't justify spending 1000s on a top tiered phone anymore. If more people start thinking like me, it will hurt Apple as they will no longer be able to justify their high prices, but it will be good for consumers. Apple aren't a tag heuer brand, where you have to pay through the nose for exclusivity.
Sorry Saltyzip, but you are an Android apologist on an Apple based site. Samsung S8 phones are relatively the same price as the iPhone so do not use price point as an excuse for your bias.
You do realize that MANY people run Mac PC's AND run Android phones right?? Why can't you be tolerant of someone that wants to use something different than you??
You do realise people run Mac AND run Android phones are not THAT MANY, right? And even then, it's not by choice but some silly company policy, right? Given them a choice, they would rather go for Apple ecosystem then having a headache of multiple platforms and cloud services.
I can do EVERYTHING on this laptop that I can do on my iPad mini, or my LG G5.
One word: iMessage.
Don't all the cool kids use whatsapp these days?
Yep. Or Telegram. iMessage is an option but being platform specific, very limited in use.
The irony of the tech media claiming that Apple is "boring" or can't innovate anymore is that the primary focus with Samsung's phones is ALWAYS the screen. That's the lead item every time. Samsung itself doesn't even really bother trying to market anything other than the screen now.
"...the only real explanation of how Samsung managed to completely squander its five year head start in smartphones" may be a bit harsh. Samsung likes to characterize itself as a "fast-follower" but in this case it was out ahead. It's true that it didn't know where it was going, at that time no-one did. Even Apple was still wrestling in the labs with a still super-secret idea.
So Apple wasn't exactly the second-to-market, but had the second idea which was the touchscreen and no physical keyboard. I bet that Steve Ballmer and the folks at Nokia wish they could retract their trashy comments when Steve first showed iPhone.
I bet Steve Ballmet wish he could take a lot of things he said back. He always made himself look like a dipshit every time Apple came out with something and he immediately dissed it. He did it all the time and never learned his lesson. It didn't matter what Apple priced it at, or when they could get it, or how late they were if Apple came into a market, it was going to be a major player even if it took a few extra months. Ballmer never understood this and never took his competition seriously. He hurt Microsoft badly. They're on a much better track today, but still not great.
So Apple is raking in huge profits. Is this supposed to be a good thing??
Yes. If companies do not make a profit, they do not have that finances to carry out research and development to make better product sin the future. Unless of course they just rip off Apple's research like some android manufacturers.
So AI must be worried about Samsung and the S8 becoming popular otherwise no reason to write this piece.
Your employers must be worried because you're always worried that AI is worried.
Clearly if DED was confident about Apple he wouldn't need to write these overly defensive and biased editorials. Same with everyone who throws out the Apple makes the most profit argument as if the only measure of success is generating massive profits. I don't remember Apple fans in the past being so obsessed with how much profit it makes.
What some of the anti-DED posters here don't get is the basic motivation behind articles like this one. It's about reassuring investors in Apple that things are on track, despite a sizable segment of the media that is dedicated to propping up the competition, using various sorts of false equivalences in order to predict doom and gloom for Apple.
Tons of people said the Android group would take Apple out. It's implied in your earlier post when you wrote Apple's "problem" was Android instead of Samsung.
Half of the Android fans that I know -- some of them obnoxious Apple haters -- are now iPhone diehards. I've only owned three Android phones (well four since we recently bought a travel phones to escape snooping by TSA et al), but my next purchase is an iPhone. I'm sick and tired of lagging updates and I want a seamless experience wit my iPad and MacBook.
Apple suffocates the also-rans in terms of profit. It'll gladly let Android have market share. It's horrible business to say "Hey we have tiny margins and/or lost millions, but look at our friggin' marketshare!"
But who?
One thing is to leave Apple as a minority player another to take them out.
Profits matter. Market share also matters.
Market share doesn't matter. Sufficent critical mass to get to profitable economies of scale matters.
And Apple's market share in the market segments it competes in is high. Apple has so much share in ultra books, AIO, flagship phones, flagship tablets, smart watches that they show up in the much larger market of phones, pcs, tablets and watches as a significant player.
This is like Tesla (30% EV market share which is 0.34% of total market share) shipping enough volume to make it into the top 5 auto manufacture list. It has 0.01% of the total car market.
Google, LG, Motorola, Huawei all make great phones and most eclipse iPhone on the camera too. Look at the verge website for their latest camera shootout and you'll see iPhone doesn't even make the podium.
I think the iPhone camera fell behind in quality when they when from the iPhone6 to iPhone 6S. The rear sensor stayed the same size but the number of Pixels increased to 12 MegaPixels from 8. Because of the the pixel size decreased 1.22 μm from 1.5 μm. I think a lot of the android phones like S8 and Pixel have bigger photo sites and thus are often rated better. But even the Verge article noted that the dual came on the iPhone 7Plus can shoot a lot of photos that the Pixel and S8 can't. When you consider the price of the iPhone 7 Plus ($770) to the iPixelXL ($750) and S8 ($750)seems like the iPhone 7Plus is the one to buy. But Apple could still greatly improve their camera by bumping the sensor size.
The real crap on this issue isn't even the competition between Apple and the various Android manufacturers. That's actually pretty good for us consumers.
Instead, it's the mediocre tech reporting. When I read certain reviewers at fx The Verge (like Dan Seifert reviewing Samsung Note 7 and S8), I'm almost lost for words because he seems genuinely infatuated by Samsung phone screens. I mean, they make great phone screens - I get that. My iPhones have probably all had Samsung screens and they have all been great. But grading phones that high on screens? That seems heavily biased, especially when Samsung's phones are so heavily flawed in other areas.
It's the same with all the hype concerning various PC models recently. The general consensus is that Apple failed with the Mac Pro (Apple execs recently said that the Mac Pro design went in the wrong direction) and the MacBook Pro (2016 model).
So when reviewing other products, like the Microsoft Surface Studio, this new product - which is basically a laptop-specced machine with a big touchscreen - is hailed as the new Messiah on the market. Nilay Patel even exclaiming that "Apple should just make a Mac with a touchscreen already!" I mean, even Nilay admits that he (and a lot of other reporters) were missing the mark when yelling at Apple some years ago, demanding more innovation, when in truth they just wanted bigger screens on their iPhones.
So are the tech reporters biased because they either love Apple products, hate Apple, want Apple to do better or just want some drama to spice up their pieces? I don't know, although I do believe that having a monetary interest in clicks is incentivising them towards being more dramatic.
There are some great reporters out there - and some great pieces of reporting. But the ones who do better are the ones who keep level-headed and basically try to report - instead of the ones who cry for more innovation or other reporter-turned-consultant stuff. The best one is Walt Mossberg; he's become an institution by being level-headed and critical.
Right now, Apple might disappoint a lot of tech savvy people, because "We want the next iPhone!" Is the rallying cry of these people. And since the iPhone is basically THE most tectonic shifting product in any market in the history of mankind, the possibility of failure is huge. I mean, if Apple measured every product idea up against the iPhone, they would probably not release a lot of new products.
Fortunately, they don't. The iPad, Watch, Pencil and AirPods are new and fantastic products, with the Watch having a lot of potential as a health measuring tool.
In the meantime, the rest of the tech world has basically been busy trying to produce and sell VR and AI assistants. Other improvements have been made, but AI and VR are the areas where other tech companies have released products to the market.
The AI market is growing - but mostly in USA. Rest of the world? Not so much. Siri is still the AI assistant with most reach around the world. And even though Amazon and Google assistants are innovative and has a lot of promise, they are also a security risk and mostly made to make buying stuff easier. Not surprising that an advertising company (Google) and the world largest mall (Amazon) are the ones pushing these new products.
And VR. Well that could easily go down as the tech flop of 2016 and 2017.
So these days, the tech reporters write about things that excite them - or things they expect will excite their readers. But applying the filters of "Is this relevant?", "Is this a good product in day-to-day use?" etc. are questions asked far too rarely. Probably because if they were asked, a lot of tech pieces would never be written and the tech reporters would have to find other ways to earn their money.
What some of the anti-DED posters here don't get is the basic motivation behind articles like this one. It's about reassuring investors in Apple that things are on track, despite a sizable segment of the media that is dedicated to propping up the competition, using various sorts of false equivalences in order to predict doom and gloom for Apple.
Why 'Anti'?
Do you live in a black and white world? I've seen people critical of his pieces but they don't have to be 'anti' as a result. The same applies to comments critical of Apple.
It's worth pointing out that no investor would feel 'reassured' by his pieces. Not even a minority shareholder. What reassurance does knowing someone is biased give you?
Comments
So far though, there have been only two companies that have generated sustainable profits in mobile, and in spite of your love for the expansion of the Chinese OEM's, there isn't yet any sign that those two, and especially the current profit leader, are under any threat of losing their profitability to competitors.
In this article it's his opinion but as usual soaked in bias. Sometimes I get through them, others I don't. This time I didn't.
I'm not forced to read them.
I think in this article I hit on two unbalanced points and then threw in the towel.
One was the stab at facial recognition. The company tells you you shouldn't use it as a security feature and it won't even allow you to make payments with it. On the other hand they offer you an iris scanner which no iPhone has, and AFAIK at this point, is very secure. Nevertheless it seems ok to take a gratuitous poke at facial recognition because it is 'weak' and just skip the iris scanner, as mentioning that would make the stab less effective.
Of course, to work, you would need some kind of ssocial engineering. You need a photo of the person. The last time I checked, Apple would allow you to not even set a passcode and would definitely accept ultra weak passcode. In that regard, it is just as weak as facial recognition.
The other point was services. The article's sets out the stand very clearly. S8. iPhone. The lead in then just opens the door to everything under the sun because it wants to include historical context (biased of course :-))
But why did it slam Samsung's entire mobile division with that direct non historical comparison to Apple Services? The relevance of Services is very recent and is derived from the entire Apple spectrum, not just iPhone. I didn't see any balance there.
It's true that I just stopped reading anyway so maybe there was some kind of justification elsewhere in the article. Anyway, that's how I saw when I started reading.
I haven't seen anyone barge in here and open a thread to praise Android or dump on Apple. They are replies (largely well mannered and fair btw) to threads that the site itself produces.
It's some (by no means all) of the 'locals' that are on some kind of troll patrol that can't resist labelling people as this or that.
No one mentioning Android in a fair way here is on a quest for affirmation.
'Anyone that thinks differently is stupid'
Got your points. I was able to get past them because of my own biases and habit - usually I read all the way to the end once I start reading, no matter what.
Entering passwords a key feature? Saves you several seconds a month. Wow. Android is amazing.
Yes. If companies do not make a profit, they do not have that finances to carry out research and development to make better product sin the future. Unless of course they just rip off Apple's research like some android manufacturers.
And Apple's market share in the market segments it competes in is high. Apple has so much share in ultra books, AIO, flagship phones, flagship tablets, smart watches that they show up in the much larger market of phones, pcs, tablets and watches as a significant player.
This is like Tesla (30% EV market share which is 0.34% of total market share) shipping enough volume to make it into the top 5 auto manufacture list. It has 0.01% of the total car market.
Do you live in a black and white world? I've seen people critical of his pieces but they don't have to be 'anti' as a result. The same applies to comments critical of Apple.
It's worth pointing out that no investor would feel 'reassured' by his pieces. Not even a minority shareholder. What reassurance does knowing someone is biased give you?