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RIM recalls 1,000 PlayBooks, Nvidia CEO explains slow Android tablet sales
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Name another manufacturer with such a sparse smartphone selection.
JordanNZ said:
Name another manufacturer with such a sparse smartphone selection.
But it's a good point. If Apple released a wider variety of iPhones, their total sales wouldn't increase as much as you think, as the different models would cannibalize sales of the current model.
iPhone 4 Mini, iPhone 4 Pro, iPhone 4, you wouldn't see triple the number of sales, you'd probably see only a slight increase in sales with each model having much lower sales than the current single model has.
Not to mention Apple never says anything about iPhone 3GS vs iPhone 4 sales. The 3GS is still a current selling model, how many of that one do they sell in a quarter ?
It's false to say Apple's single model has X numbers, no one has that number.
Android, the OS is outselling iOS smartphones.
The better comparison is smartphone OS than comparing individual phones. O/S sales matter more than one individual model of phone.
In the windows world, no one cares if Dell outsells Apple computers. Is the combined sales. The same holds for smartphones. Smartphones are computers too...
When developers write software, they tend to target the OS ( hoping to be compatible with as many devices as possible ). Developers *largely don't care* about individual phones - "Oh, I'm going to write an Application specifically for the Desire" and forego all other Android devices. There will be exceptions but those are few and far between.
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Why is the OS a better comparison, when the phone is what people are buying? People don't rush out and buy an iPhone because it has iOS, they buy it because it's an iPhone. It also happens to run iOS.
And you're talking about developers?.... Guess which platform makes developers more money?...
That used to be the case when phones came with their own firmware. Not the case anymore. Many people buy a computer not because of the specs, but the features and apps the OS provides. The same is happening... well, pretty much already happened with phones.
I've just said why o/s is a better comparison.
Android App revenue is rising fast. Developers will develop for popular operating systems ( in general ), they'll go where the opportunities are, which are both iOS and Android.
edit: Sales of Android phones are distributed between each manufacturer.. they dilute each others sales.
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If company A was selling apples and only apples and a second company B was selling strawberries, oranges and apples, would that make company A's apples any better than company B's?
As far as I know, only Apple sells such a limited selection of phones so obviously they're going to sell more individual units compared to the likes of HTC, who sell phones with varying OS's, form factors and capabilities.
What does this mean? Sweet FA.
JordanNZ said:
If company A was selling apples and only apples and a second company B was selling strawberries, oranges and apples, would that make company A's apples any better than company B's?
As far as I know, only Apple sells such a limited selection of phones so obviously they're going to sell more individual units compared to the likes of HTC, who sell phones with varying OS's, form factors and capabilities.
What does this mean? Sweet FA.
You guys talk like Android having the most marketshare OS wise, means everyone else selling phones has to lose.
Apple are doing just fine.
They have an extremely popular product, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Apple are doing just fine.
They have an extremely popular product, and it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
Android does have the most smartphone marketshare.
Apple are doing well, no one disputes this, and the fact that iOS be around for a while longer.
Google doesn't care if Android is used by multiple manufacturers.. that is a good thing for them. Manufacturers push out Android phones because consumers like them, and thus buy them. This creates competition between each other. Companies go where the $$$ is. In the future I'd expect the range Android manufacturers consolidate somewhat like the windows PC market has, when the initial growth period is over. I.e., fewer manufactures pushing out Android phones.
Apple's smartphone marketshare will drop, due to the number of Android phones being sold, but it won't matter - if iOS smartphones still has reasonable marketshare - and Apple maintains its profitability per device.
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They do.
Nonsense. Just because Windows has the lead marketshare on PC's, doesn't mean OS X has lost does it? OS X and Macs are selling and making Apple a tidy profit still.
No-one is saying otherwise.
No-one is saying otherwise.
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I think the crux of it is that Apple caused a huge upset in the smartphone industry with the release of the iPhone. They really did wonders for the smartphone industry.
Competitors have now caught up with solid products that are also successes and the giants of old (Nokia, Symbian, LG, Palm, Microsoft) are now fighting a marketshare battle on multiple fronts (HTC, Apple, Google e.t.c).
No one should downplay the success that Apple have had nor the way they moved the Market forward.
JordanNZ said:
I think the crux of it is that Apple caused a huge upset in the smartphone industry with the release of the iPhone. They really did wonders for the smartphone industry.
Competitors have now caught up with solid products that are also successes and the giants of old (Nokia, Symbian, LG, Palm, Microsoft) are now fighting a marketshare battle on multiple fronts (HTC, Apple, Google e.t.c).
No one should downplay the success that Apple have had nor the way they moved the Market forward.
I couldn't agree more. However there are a select few who will and will always down play Apple.
And oft repeated mantra here by people who have no clue about Android. Funny how all of you who keep repeating this lie forget that the iPhone is offered FREE, for 0$, by some carriers on contract.
So the same can be said of iPhone adoption then. A lot of the reason it took off was because carriers were offering iPhones for free.
There's about 3 dozens 199$ Android phones that are higher end than the iPhone 4 right now. Last year, the Samsung Galaxy S was one of the best selling Android handsets, almost catching up to iPhone numbers by itself. Yet it was a high-end, 199$ on contract phone.
I've never seen an iPhone for free. What carriers offered that?
As for Android, look at profits. Apple takes 60% of the smartphone profits. A dozen or so major Android players split their big market share and small profits. How long until several or many break away from Android and look elsewhere for profits?
iPhone 4 -
Vodaphone UK
http://www.vodafone.co.uk/brands/iphone/pay-monthly-iphone/index.htm
plus others give iPhone 4 free away on contract.
Bell in Canada give the 3Gs free on contract.
As a consumer, profits only tells me a company is making huge margins on my dollar. That is not something I find positive.
Profits matter to shareholders. Consumers should look for value for their dollar.
For some reason, you pay for the OS as well when buying a phone. If iPhone ran Android, it would be just another phone that would barely stand out from the masses. The OS is one of the biggest concerns when buying a smart phone. Otherwise Nokia would probably still be the biggest dog in town.
I hate it when people say that they get the phone for "free". How can you say it is free when the total cost ends up being 960£? Sure, some of the money goes to the actual plan but you still pay like 20£ a month for the phone. You are paying it in installments, which means it is not free. In most cases, you end up paying more than you would by paying the phone right when you buy it and then getting a separate plan.
As a shareholder, profits matter to me. As for Android manufacturers, profits matter to them too. If they don't make them, and it looks like they're not, they'll move on to something else.
I totally agree. "Free" means up front, but then consumer will end up paying for the full price at the end of the contract. In fact, quite often, you'll end up paying more for the phone over the contract life time than you would upfront.
Carriers have brainwashed consumers into thinknig they really are getting a free phone. Unfortunately, quite a lot of carriers don't give you a discount on contracts if you've bought your own phone - so you end up paying the same rate for a contract. Fido for example.
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I belong to the school of thought that iPad will be more like iPod than iPhone.
A tablet for the consumer market is such a peculiar paradigm... It's all about light computing, as effortless as it gets for the user. Less is more is the motto. Customization and multitasking sound nice in theory but those are not 'strategic' to get folks to buy.
iOS' simplistic interface is actually a great strength although it might feel boring for the more computer-savvy.
At this time, people don't care much about 'tablets', yet they lust for the iPad. The Xooms, Galaxy's, Playbooks and Streaks of the world just collect dust at vendors shelves.
An iPad true competitor will need to be absolutely awesome and even more lust-inducing than iPad and at comparable or lower price. I just can't see who's gonna manage that.
But I'm a consumer. Not everyone sitting on Macrumors owns Apple stock and so to go around and so "Apple is more profitable!" as a positive usually just ends up making you look bad. I hate the fact that Apple makes so much profit off my dollar. It means they could lower margins, lower prices and give me more value for my dollar.
Because then you can bash Android of course (and ignore any claims that iPhones are also offered free on contract). That's why a lot of the Apple crowd likes to claim Android phones are free and ignore the fact that the manufacturer still gets money for it.
We're waiting.
Let's hope it won't be a repeat of the iPod situation. Because at the moment it's like total deja vu.
