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Apple really needs to broaden the iOS features availability
- Thread starter fox1401
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You think that cost is the driving factor rather than some other reason you might not know about?
"A few". I don't know, seems to be doing quite well in that department (it's not just doing speech to text after all):
English (language variants for United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand and India)
French (language variants for France, Canada, Switzerland and Belgium)
German (language variants for Germany, Switzerland and Austria)
Japanese
Italian (language variants for Italy and Switzerland)
Spanish (language variants for Spain, Mexico and United States)
Korean
Mandarin (language variants for China and Taiwan)
Cantonese
Danish
Dutch (language variants for Netherlands and Belgium)
Portuguese
Russian
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Norwegian
If the Siri was the only Apple problem, I might agree with you. But the list goes on with crap mapping service, ridiculous bad spellchecking, subpar online photo storage, faulty iTunes Match, buggier software and more. Some way smaller companies have no problem to offer way better products, and yet, Apple only brags quarterly with their profits and cash reserve and does nothing to solve those problems.
And now, lets compare this with Google Now language support, will ya?
A product no older than Siri.
A very easy thing to do is take all of the negatives without any of the positives. Sure there is work to be done; something EVERY single tech company faces. You left out these: great customer service, high retention rate, high satisfaction rate, great long term support, stability, cross-platform support.
Apple doesn't "brag"; it reports. There is a big difference. People like you make it possible by buying apple products.
I'm not taking just the negative, that's why I'm using Apple products and I don't think I will choose anything else in the near future. However, sometimes is hard to ignore those problems, especially when they are ongoing for a long time. Example: Nuance bought Swype, one of the greatest and most famous smart keyboard, for 100 mils dollars. Where the hell was Apple, since their keyboard language support is weak and their autocorrect is a laughing stock for years? Not there, it seems. Why? I already have my own conclusion.
In terms of language support, Google Now has a superior database from Google Voice's transcription and Google Translate. Apple had to pretty much start from scratch, from whatever the Siri people had before Apple bought them.
But yeah, I feel the iPhone is gimped outside the US. I can understand certain features that require regulatory approvals and whatnot, but I think Apple need to start putting more resources into improving coverage. The Maps' transit feature is not even available in countries like Singapore and Japan, countries where Apple has a significant market share, AND where the populations rely on public transport a lot.
But yeah, I feel the iPhone is gimped outside the US. I can understand certain features that require regulatory approvals and whatnot, but I think Apple need to start putting more resources into improving coverage. The Maps' transit feature is not even available in countries like Singapore and Japan, countries where Apple has a significant market share, AND where the populations rely on public transport a lot.
I don't understand why all that hate everything Apple does from technology to making money run Apple equipment. At least Apple makes its money from equipment, software and services vs. Google that does by selling you.
The purpose of companies is to make money for their stockholders which Apple does.
The purpose of companies is to make money for their stockholders which Apple does.
Bah, it's so sad that so many people on this board think this. Is this a US thing or most people from other countries tend to agree to such statements? I wonder...
The purpose of a company is to provide a service (Peter Drucker 101). But providing a service in such as way as to be economically unfeasible will ensure a short life span.
This sounds more reasonable.
However I'd like to point out that there's a difference between a fair profit and profit at all costs. Think about what happened in the US with that HIV drug that went in one day from a price of 13.5$ to a price of 750$. Profit at all costs generate monsters. The question is: is the Apple of today about creating great products and change the world (like Cook likes to say) or is it about profit at all costs? Their actions say the latter and I'm not talking only about the subject of this topic. One small example: the iPad Pro will be sold in Europe with a keyboard with only the US layout. Is this a decision which is good for European costumers?
Apple only cares about markets where they can maximise revenue and profit. nothing else.
I agree that it is sad, but in reality, some companies in countries like China are even worse. At least US companies are still hold with certain standard and regulations, but in China, almost anything goes when doing business. Anyway, it's a story for another day.
Back to Apple, I believe that the consumer devices market is moving relatively freely, thus market forces will have its say one way or another. Example: larger iPhone size, color options (market forces/demand forcing Apple to adopt).
A comment on iPad sales, I believe that it is true for all tablet sales, not just iPads specifically. The tablet market is saturating. Again, market forces does its thing (iPad Pro, Microsoft re-positioning Surface as Macbook competitor instead of iPad).
Sadly for me Apple and iOS has gone from "cool!! The next big thing" to " again? another feature that won't go really anywhere"
This is true, well let's see if Microsoft, with the new surface tablets can change the cards on the table. If they are succesful I think it will be well deserved. The iPad pro, to me, feels like a very lazy device. I've been waiting for stylus support on the iPad for years (many people here kept telling me the usual "go to android, if you see a stylus, they blew it, nobody needs a stylus, just use your fingers blablabla"). And when they finally do it, for profit reasons, they don't update the Air model and make the feature exclusive to a new form factor that starts from 800€ (900 with the pen). And this is because such new form factor has almost nothing else different from the iPad Air. We'll see how well it sells (they'll probably won't break down iPad sales numbers "for competitive reasons")
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