gmgravytrain

Why aren't these people smuggling Samsung Galaxy S models into China if they're supposedly so much better than iPhones? What's also crazy is if the Chinese domestic smartphones are so great, why bother smuggling smartphones into China at all? Why bother to take such a risk smuggling an iPhone if there isn't much demand for it. Is it likely they're using those iPhones for parts? Or is it lots of smuggling is going on and they only bother to mention it if they are iPhones or some other Apple products? The way analysts talk it's as though iPhones are no longer in demand in China.

Unless Apple officially comments on some product or service, then there's absolutely no reason to take what is likely some rumor as the truth. People really enjoy attacking Apple with false rumors. I'm guessing they're doing this to get more clicks. It really surprised me when I heard Apple was stopping music downloads because I figured not everyone only wanted to stream music and it didn't make much sense for Apple to undo all the music download infrastructure it had established for so many years. I've definitely enjoyed using Youtube to get free music over the years. I've found music on Youtube from decades ago that I thought I'd never be able to find and add to my music library. Pretty darn clean copies, too. I've always found it amazing how people upload entire song albums to Youtube and they can get away with it.

How embarrassing for Apple. It's looks like Chromebooks will own education for the next 20 years. Oh, well... If Apple doesn't want to take the necessary effort to dominate a market, there's nothing that can be done about it. Might as well not even bother to try. Using those charts, Apple should easily be able to find out exactly what it takes to win over schools. Apparently Apple isn't willing to do what needs to be done despite sitting on a mountain of cash and likely being more capable than any other company on the planet to do so. Apple isn't a very aggressive company, so I wouldn't expect them to win over any schools.

There's no way Apple can beat Chromebooks in schools. Apple will never be hungry enough to take financial losses in order to further education. Apple might as well give up on ever getting Apple products into schools. Or should I say schools in the U.S. Maybe some rich country might consider using Apple products in their schools, but definitely not the U.S. Someone is always asking for Apple to bring jobs to American workers but if they're not going to buy or use Apple products, then forget it. Apple only sees the short term of selling inexpensive Apple devices to schools. If Apple were willing to take financial losses now in order to get children hooked on Apple products in the future when they grew up, that might be good for Apple in the long run. I suppose Google will always beat Apple when it comes to the low end products or services. Most people just love cheap or free stuff even if it's junk.

thrang said:

Truth or click-bait, none of this matters, as the need/desire to speak commands to your electronics is so miniscule compared to the totality of all other methods of inputs and interactions. Saying Amazon is winning is like saying a team than went on a 6 game winning streak in May is destined to win the World Series. It's soooo early in the "season" - and I suspect voice recognition, while increasing in importance over time, will remain niche compared type, touch, and perhaps much more advanced forms of AI interpretation (location, proximity, body, facial, eye analysis, sensors, habit analysis..) Part of the limitation for wider home adoption currently is feedback is very limited (assuming one does not want to keep picking up their iPhone or iPad). But an Apple TV, which can become the visual side of an enriched Siri response, is very intriguing.

Everyone seems to believe Amazon and Alexa have already won The World Series of Smartphone Assistants and Siri has come in last place, far, far behind. That's the mindset that everyone believes, so it might as well be true. You won't find many Youtube videos asking "Does Alexa suck?" No. There are plenty of videos asking "Does Siri suck?" As far as Wall Street is concerned, Alexa is the big winner and Siri is nothing but a bad joke. I just feel Apple could have done a lot better with Siri than let it become the laughingstock of smart assistants. As Apple fans were always laughing at how low Amazon profits were, Apple should probably have been using all of its profits to build Siri into a super-AI assistant. No company should sit on hundreds of billions of dollars and allow any product of theirs to become the worst in class. Amazon seems to be beating Apple in everything when there should never have been a good reason for something like that to happen.