Has Apple lost its cool to Samsung?

[steathymonkey]

Just the other day I had repaired a Galaxy S3 and was resetting it for resale and I realized afterwards that there were about 60 pre-installed apps... I think the iPhone has about a third of that. Personally I wouldn't enjoy having so much storage given to things I didn't choose to put on there. Doesn't the GS5 have 8gb dedicated to the OS or something already?

Not sure about the GS5 having 8gb dedicated to the OS. But it comes with a lot of crapware, not just from Samsung, but from carriers to and some carriers even allow other third party applications to be pre-installed.

Apple really only has Apple stuff installed with the exception of a few things that are minor and do not pose security or performance issues. Apple tends to keep there pot clean of many dirty hands

It's not just the wast of space that bothers me, it's the performance and security issues that the crapware applications can cause/pose and do cause/pose. Some of them have access to way too much information. And some of them use up to much ram which usually causes performance issues.

Just to many hand in the pot.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Cost has a lot to do with it as does profit margins for sellers. Do some research and you will find that the profit margins for retailers such as Best Buy is much higher on Samsung phones. The same goes for major carriers. Carriers actually save money. They prefer to have you buy a Samsung phone or any android phone on contract over an iPhone. And all the major carriers sales margins/savings are higher on non-Apple iPhone sales.

I mention the Nexus 5 because I believe it is the only true out of the box Android experience worth getting for any mainstream person looking into an Android phone. Some of the other manufactures may have great hardware specs, but they trash the Android experience with crapware.

Just about every other manufacture alters the Android OS experience and adds a boatload of uninstall-able crapware. And they let the carriers do the same.

The Samsung Android experience reminds me of the low-end prebuilt non-business series HP, Acer, Sony, Dell, Asus laptop/desktop experience. Enough crapware to make the product experience a worthless piece of crap lag fest. In Samsung case there is far more uninstall-able crapware loaded into there phones. Too many hands in one pot

You're the one who said people the people you know went with Android due to cheaper cost. I merely stated that the price to the consumer is basically the same for a top of the line Android as it is for Apple. I said nothing about profit margins for retailers, carriers or the Android experience.

 

[Max(IT)]

You're the one who said people the people you know went with Android due to cheaper cost. I merely stated that the price to the consumer is basically the same for a top of the line Android as it is for Apple. I said nothing about profit margins for retailers, carriers or the Android experience.

Scruff, did you realize that a great portion of android users (out of tech forums like this, where people are usually educated) are just owners of cheap smartphones ?

I'm not defending what he said, but i can't understand your post about the "same price".
Yes, S5 and iPhone 5S costs about the same, but a great portion of Samsung 's customers bought a Galaxy Ace (or something like that) ! And it is cheaper than ANY iPhone, even the old 4S 8 Gb.
You probably are American, but here in Europe where subsidized phones are not so common, the big electronic stores are showing and selling tons of cheap droids, where the "top models" are mediocre phones like the S3 Mini or the S4 Mini, and ~150€ models like the galaxy Ace are very common.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Scruff, did you realize that a great portion of android users (out of tech forums like this, where people are usually educated) are just owners of cheap smartphones ?

I'm not defending what he said, but i can't understand your post about the "same price".
Yes, S5 and iPhone 5S costs about the same, but a great portion of Samsung 's customers bought a Galaxy Ace (or something like that) ! And it is cheaper than ANY iPhone, even the old 4S 8 Gb.

I know that there are lots of cheaper Android phones. Perhaps I misunderstood his statement. But here in the US, flagship phones all are similar in cost. And you can still get a free iPhone 4S or quite cheap 5C subsidized here, so I didn't get his point of buying Android phones because they are cheaper than iPhones. At Christmas time you could get the 5S for about $125 or so with a contract.

 

[Max(IT)]

I know that there are lots of cheaper Android phones. Perhaps I misunderstood his statement. But here in the US, flagship phones all are similar in cost. And you can still get a free iPhone 4S or quite cheap 5C subsidized here, so I didn't get his point of buying Android phones because they are cheaper than iPhones. At Christmas time you could get the 5S for about $125 or so with a contract.

It's not the same here, unfortunately ... In the rest of the world with 125€ you buy a cheap smartphone, and it has android inside. The only exception is the Lumia 520, the main reason why WP is so popular here (it costs about 110€ and it really is good for that price)

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Last week I was in the Us and I saw an advertisement : a carrier offered a free S5 on contract and it gives a Note 7 for free !
There is nothing like that here.
An iPhone 5s costs 729€ in Italy , and you can find dozens of 150-250€ droids in electronics megastores: guess which are selling more ?

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With my carrier, vodafone, to have a "subsidized" s5 you have to pay 100€ and then 5€ every month, for 30 months. And this ONLY if you pay a plan of 45€ per month !
It is a lot of money indeed, so people prefer to buy cheaper smartphones with prepaid plans (usually about 10€ per months) ....

 

[Shanghaichica]

It's not the same here, unfortunately ... In the rest of the world with 125€ you buy a cheap smartphone, and it has android inside. The only exception is the Lumia 520, the main reason why WP is so popular here (it costs about 110€ and it really is good for that price)

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Last week I was in the Us and I saw an advertisement : a carrier offered a free S5 on contract and it gives a Note 7 for free !
There is nothing like that here.
An iPhone 5s costs 729€ in Italy , and you can find dozens of 150-250€ droids in electronics megastores: guess which are selling more ?

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With my carrier, vodafone, to have a "subsidized" s5 you have to pay 100€ and then 5€ every month, for 30 months. And this ONLY if you pay a plan of 45€ per month !
It is a lot of money indeed, so people prefer to buy cheaper smartphones with prepaid plans (usually about 10€ per months) ....

Well in the UK we do have deals where you get a free galaxy tab with a lower end galaxy phone. However we can also get the iPhone on a subsidy. You can get the 16GB 5S for free on contact and the 64GB for around £100. At our carriers the top selling phones are the iPhone and the Samsung galaxy line.

 

[AppleScruff1]

It's not the same here, unfortunately ... In the rest of the world with 125€ you buy a cheap smartphone, and it has android inside. The only exception is the Lumia 520, the main reason why WP is so popular here (it costs about 110€ and it really is good for that price)

----------

Last week I was in the Us and I saw an advertisement : a carrier offered a free S5 on contract and it gives a Note 7 for free !
There is nothing like that here.
An iPhone 5s costs 729€ in Italy , and you can find dozens of 150-250€ droids in electronics megastores: guess which are selling more ?

----------

With my carrier, vodafone, to have a "subsidized" s5 you have to pay 100€ and then 5€ every month, for 30 months. And this ONLY if you pay a plan of 45€ per month !
It is a lot of money indeed, so people prefer to buy cheaper smartphones with prepaid plans (usually about 10€ per months) ....

I've read about that in other countries and that has a lot to do with Android's huge market share outside of the US. The user I was replying to has been banned, so I guess that ends that part of the discussion. He was talking about Boston, so I figured he was talking about Android in the US. It's market share here is less than it is in other countries due to the popularity of subsidized phones here. If people here had to pay full price for a phone without carrier financing, I have no doubt we'd see the same thing here. Apple wouldn't have 40%+ of the US market at $650 per phone and the same would hold true for the flagship devices of the other manufacturers.

 

[yinz]

The next big thing for you? S5 or iPhone 6?

If iPhone 6 is the size of Nexus 5, then neither. I think Samsung has gained steam because of all of the niches it fills in the market. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 has been received positively, but have also been referenced as "only evolutionary" - following Apples iPhone S-model's type of reaction. Supposedly, the Samsung Galaxy S is the flagship, but I feel like this line is losing steam. Where Samsung really shines is in the niche sector like the phablets, low-end smartphones and specialty smartphones (like weatherproofed and camera focused).

However, Google/Motorola (and others) have begun to eat into the low-end market with their smoother running low-end phones. The Phablet market is being bombarded by Chinese phone makers as well. I really don't think Samsung is cooler than Apple. If anything, they are both at the head of a downward trend, as the market catches up.

 

[Max(IT)]

Well in the UK we do have deals where you get a free galaxy tab with a lower end galaxy phone. However we can also get the iPhone on a subsidy. You can get the 16GB 5S for free on contact and the 64GB for around £100. At our carriers the top selling phones are the iPhone and the Samsung galaxy line.

UK has a market model more similar to US in that aspect, but I'm quite sure there are a lot of unsubsidized sales there too, because I saw a lot of shops selling unsubsidized phones in UK .

 

[Max(IT)]

I've read about that in other countries and that has a lot to do with Android's huge market share outside of the US. The user I was replying to has been banned, so I guess that ends that part of the discussion. He was talking about Boston, so I figured he was talking about Android in the US. It's market share here is less than it is in other countries due to the popularity of subsidized phones here. If people here had to pay full price for a phone without carrier financing, I have no doubt we'd see the same thing here. Apple wouldn't have 40%+ of the US market at $650 per phone and the same would hold true for the flagship devices of the other manufacturers.

You are right.
And there is another issue: an iPhone 5S costs around 650$ in US and more than 700€ in Europe ! It is 1000$ !!!
And it keeps its price for one year.
You can already buy an S5 for less than 690€ and in a couple of months you'll be able to find it around 550-590 €.
The Apple pricing policy out of US is just crazy, and it is a demonstration they don't care about market share at all.
I promise, if they are going to raise the iPhone 6 price another time I'll jump ship: I don't want to pay 800€ for it!!!

 

[jeffe]

If iPhone 6 is the size of Nexus 5, then neither. I think Samsung has gained steam because of all of the niches it fills in the market. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 has been received positively, but have also been referenced as "only evolutionary" - following Apples iPhone S-model's type of reaction. Supposedly, the Samsung Galaxy S is the flagship, but I feel like this line is losing steam. Where Samsung really shines is in the niche sector like the phablets, low-end smartphones and specialty smartphones (like weatherproofed and camera focused).

However, Google/Motorola (and others) have begun to eat into the low-end market with their smoother running low-end phones. The Phablet market is being bombarded by Chinese phone makers as well. I really don't think Samsung is cooler than Apple. If anything, they are both at the head of a downward trend, as the market catches up.

I agree, Samsung was dominating the Android market for awhile that I think it will be hard for them to keep it up especially as competitors are starting to make arguably better and/or comparable android phones.

I've been impressed with Apple continuing to increase sales although I'm not sure who is buying these days..every person I know who has purchased an iPhone recently has done so strictly out of necessity. I rarely see people upgrading there phones these days as often as they used to but that is just in my world.

 

[Max(IT)]

If iPhone 6 is the size of Nexus 5, then neither. I think Samsung has gained steam because of all of the niches it fills in the market. The Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5 has been received positively, but have also been referenced as "only evolutionary" - following Apples iPhone S-model's type of reaction. Supposedly, the Samsung Galaxy S is the flagship, but I feel like this line is losing steam. Where Samsung really shines is in the niche sector like the phablets, low-end smartphones and specialty smartphones (like weatherproofed and camera focused).

However, Google/Motorola (and others) have begun to eat into the low-end market with their smoother running low-end phones. The Phablet market is being bombarded by Chinese phone makers as well. I really don't think Samsung is cooler than Apple. If anything, they are both at the head of a downward trend, as the market catches up.

Galaxy S4 was all but a huge commercial success ....
You are right, Samsung has the leadership on phablets, and probably the best product in that niche (Note 3). I really like the Lumia 1520, but it is definitely bigger than Note 3.

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I agree, Samsung was dominating the Android market for awhile that I think it will be hard for them to keep it up especially as competitors are starting to make arguably better and/or comparable android phones.

Seriously, name one.
Samsung's marketing machine is impressive, and only in forums like this people speaks about other phones. For the rest of the world Android means Samsung (sadly)

 

[AppleScruff1]

You are right.
And there is another issue: an iPhone 5S costs around 650$ in US and more than 700€ in Europe ! It is 1000$ !!!
And it keeps its price for one year.
You can already buy an S5 for less than 690€ and in a couple of months you'll be able to find it around 550-590 €.
The Apple pricing policy out of US is just crazy, and it is a demonstration they don't care about market share at all.
I promise, if they are going to raise the iPhone 6 price another time I'll jump ship: I don't want to pay 800€ for it!!!

My wife is from Brazil and at today's exchange rate, the iPhone 5S is $1132 US if you buy it outright. If you want to finance it thru Apple for 12 months, the total cost is $1258 US. Needless to say, Android has the lions share of the market there. And you wouldn't want to see the prices of the Macbook Pro there, the 15" Retina starts at over $4000 US!. Even the cheapest MBA is almost $2000.

 

[yinz]

I've been impressed with Apple continuing to increase sales although I'm not sure who is buying these days..every person I know who has purchased an iPhone recently has done so strictly out of necessity. I rarely see people upgrading there phones these days as often as they used to but that is just in my world.

I think about two years ago, MacRumor already reported that the US market had reached saturation. Where Apple is increasing their sales is from developing markets.

It has seen a big boost in the Indian market and Chinese market due to the reintroduction of the iPhone 4 in India and the opening of several Apple stores in China. Also, I shouldn't forget Brazil, who is also getting similar treatment as India. These three markets are huge for Apple right now and they are fighting with everything they've got just to be relevant there. Nokia dominates India and I think Brazil as well, while Samsung is doing very well in China. Although I hear local manufactures are really beginning to pick up steam. It's very hard to get into the Chinese market because the government is very protective of domestic goods.

Tim Cook and Co. are really making an effort in developing markets by introducing (although failing with) the iPhone 5C. Chinese people just aren't suckers for an overpriced last gen model phone. They are running Chinese subbed streams of Apple presentations and even flying over there to personally talk to the media. It's pretty crazy how important these markets are.