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Apple: undefeatable!?! (1 Viewer)

Ted Todorov

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Oh, and by the way, Hanson -- you will be gratified to hear that IDC just came out with a prediction that Android tablet shipments will outdo the iPad for 2013 through 2017. They are also predicting that Microsoft will not break the 10% tablet market share level through 2017. As PC sales fade in comparison to tablet sales, Microsoft is in for a world of pain if IDC is to be believed. (Personally I think that anyone making tablet market share predictions for 2017 is full of crap, so Steve Ballmer can step off the Window ledge and back in his office).
 

Sam Posten

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Ted Todorov said:
Likely a lot less than 90% are languishing in warehouses -- but many seem to be going from the store, to brief usage, to the back of someone's dusty drawer -- how else to explain the usage statistics?
I link to the following not because I agree with it (I don't, it's inflammatory and, well its the dopes at BI anyway), but because the question itself is interesting: Why aren't these devices being used as much? http://www.businessinsider.com/android-owners-arent-real-smartphone-owners-2013-3 Here's the bottom line: You have to WANT a smartphone and be willing to pay for a data package to sign up for an Android. Do people really do it and then not want to take advantage of it? Or do they get scared of going over their caps? Or do they simply not realize the economics of how much more the smart is over the dumb? Are they getting the $15 data package and a free Android and not caring about the $180 a year they are blowing on it? It's a fascinating question to me. I think the guys at BI are asses to phrase it the way they do but there has to be a reason for it...
 

Ted Todorov

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Originally Posted by Sam Posten
I link to the following not because I agree with it (I don't, it's inflammatory and, well its the dopes at BI anyway), but because the question itself is interesting: Why aren't these devices being used as much?
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-owners-arent-real-smartphone-owners-2013-3
Here's the bottom line: You have to WANT a smartphone and be willing to pay for a data package to sign up for an Android. Do people really do it and then not want to take advantage of it? Or do they get scared of going over their caps? Or do they simply not realize the economics of how much more the smart is over the dumb? Are they getting the $15 data package and a free Android and not caring about the $180 a year they are blowing on it?
It's a fascinating question to me. I think the guys at BI are asses to phrase it the way they do but there has to be a reason for it...
It possible (certainly abroad) to buy Android phones without a data plan. But the other thing you have to keep in mind, is that Android *phones* have a reasonable large usage share, if not quite commensurate with their alleged market share. Android tablets on the other hand have an absolutely microscopic usage share, we are talking single digits vs. well above 90% for the iPad not at all commensurate with IDCs numbers. Unless we are to take that there is a vast conspiracy of lies about Android tablet shipments (won't say sales, because that word, to my knowledge never gets uttered), there must be an alternate explanation. And people buying very cheap Android WiFi only tablets (thus no data plan to worry about) discovering that they are crap and not using them has to be a big part of that explanation.
The dirty little secret of Android tablets is that even the top quality ones are stuck with some very poor software -- blown up phone apps, inferior web browsers (too lazy to google, but there was an interesting article saying that Chrome et al. are great on Android phones but terrible on full sized tablets compared to mobile Safari on the iPad.
Take as an example one of my favorite iPad apps, and quintessential tablet app -- Flipboard: it launched on the iPad first, a year and a half later had its first iPhone version, then a while later an Android phone version (for only Samsung Galaxy SIII Android phones) and finally this January, over 2.5 years after the iPad an Android tablet version. And Flipboard isn't unique for taking so long -- it is unique for showing up at all with a real Android tablet version...
 

Ted Todorov

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Originally Posted by Ted Todorov
Andy Rubin seems to have been bound and gagged in the Googleplex dungeons.
Wow talk about prescience -- Google just announced that Andy Rubin has been replaced as head of Android. What that means is pure guess work right now -- we will know a lot more once what Rubin's new position is, although it is telling that it was not announced -- either it is a secret project or he is being eased out. It will also be interesting whether the new head of Android moves things in a new direction.
 

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"the iPhone never had a market share lead, or even close to one, whether you count only “smartphones” (where the iPhone sits around 20 percent worldwide) or all phone handsets (where the iPhone, as a premium product being compared to $20 candybar dumb phones, has never had more than single-digit market share)"
http://daringfireball.net/2013/03/ceding_the_crown
 

DaveF

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http://hypercritical.co/2013/03/19/self-reliance
"The mobile market, everyone agrees, is the technology industry’s future. What’s not so clear is which company is best positioned to thrive in that future.
For smartphones in particular, the traditional metrics are confusing. Android has 70% market share, but Apple is taking 70% of the profit. Google, meanwhile, is not benefiting from Android’s market share dominance as much as Samsung, which recorded $4 billion in profit from its cellphone and telecom business in Q4 2012. In the same quarter, Google made less—$2.89 billion—from all its businesses combined. And when it comes to selling actual smartphones, the only two companies making any money are Apple and Samsung.
So who’s winning? When pondering this, I find myself thinking about dependencies. What is each company doing for itself, and in what ways does each company rely on others? I think this balance, much more than profits or market share, is what will determine long-term success. Let’s see how the players stack up."
 

Sam Posten

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Resurrecting this thread, perhaps prematurely, but I want to note just how Apple-y Apple is.

Gruber linked to this and I re-read it today, after having digested it last night.
http://stratechery.com/2013/tim-cook-is-a-great-ceo/

Gruber focuses on the video. And it IS great, and it illustrates what I like about Apple so much. But it's the section on Forestall that I glossed over on first read that really resonates:
Forstall spoke to the interns as well. It was an incredibly impressive talk, and an incredibly disturbing one. Forstall was clearly the smartest person in the room; what was disturbing was that he obviously knew it, and wanted us all to know it as well. When the news broke about his firing, I was totally shocked, yet totally unsurprised.

Still, imagine what guts it took to fire him. Forstall is, more than anyone on the planet – including Jobs – responsible for the iPhone (for this reason alone I found the potshots taken at Forstall, particularly by Craig Federighi, to be in poor taste). He is an incredible engineer – legend has it he could write, or rewrite, nearly any part of the iOS source code on command, and would routinely do so to win disputes in managerial meetings – and a NEXT man, and the closest thing to a Steve Jobs 2.0.

Yet Cook fired him anyway.
Now obviously none of us can know the personalities and the fights behind the scenes that let up to this, but this decision must have been wrenching even with the politics. And Apple chose to do it. And from what we hear publicly it sounds like the right call and has acted as a rallying point.
 

Sam Posten

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Sam Posten

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Gruber's take on Darby's essay:
Apple spent nine months in complete silence — from the release of the iPad Mini through last week. The only thing they announced in that interim was the ouster of Scott Forstall and corresponding reshuffling of executive responsibility. No new products, no new designs. And the business and tech media lost their shit over this, declaring an end to Apple’s ability to innovate. Apple’s “This Is Our Signature” mantra is in defiance of this superficial demand for an endless stream of new new new. Apple is saying they’re above the churn of the news cycle, and if you don’t understand that yet, they don’t care. You’ll either get it through your head eventually, or you will never understand Apple.
Yup.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/06/17/lines-signature
 

DVDvision

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This misses the broader view -- that all of Steve's works is going to be destroyed, or is in the process to -- 16/9 iPhone 5, iOS7, Mavericks, ugly, overpriced looking new machines, updates that actually drops interesting features (my Mac Mini AMD Radeon HD 6630M 256 Mo is now a thing of the past), not enough flash storage on iPads (we're still at 16gb start, the minimum should be 32gb, and we're still awaiting 128gb iPads, three generations after the launch). They even sell 8gb iPhone now, it's literaly insulting to pay for this, when you can't do anything with it due to the size, other than phone.

It's all now about making you pay more for an infinite series of variations of the same old remade to look like everything Apple or rather Steve, stood against. I don't want a Windows Phone looking Apple iPhone
 

Sam Posten

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All i can tell you is I disagree with just about everything you have posted to date on HTF about Apple David. You've got some very specific things you want Apple to be and they consistently tell you directly that it is not how they are going to do things. At some point you either have to take them at face value or choose a different path.
 

Sam Posten

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Terrific insights from Techpinions about what drives the Apple 'haters' nuts: Apple is always late to markets and seems to do nothing more than put a pretty face on things and wins the hearts and minds of the average Joe. I've always found their approach more subtle that tho, they work at the problems that those early entrants glossed over, get to solveing the heart of what what the product is trying to do without adding 40000 other features that the lamebrain early adopters claim "your product will FAIL AND SUCK if it doesn't do X."

This techpinions piece cuts to the heart of that: Apple doesn't and never will care about being first, and being the second but better entrant into a market can be a competitive advantage if you are careful to be better.

Reflecting on catching technology waves in 2008, (Steve Jobs) said:

“Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. Those waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely, it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years.”

His insight was to ‘surf’ the co-innovation wave, knowing that its challenges would be resolved over time. His brilliance was to wait to expend his energy on the execution challenge.
What is this obsession with being first to market?

It is better to be a smart mover than a first mover

– Did being first help MP3 Man in MP3 Players, Palm, Nokia or Rim in smart phones, Microsoft in tablets, Microsoft or Google in TVs?– Did not being first hurt Apple in iPods, iPhones or iPads?

No, in an ecosystem that demands co-innovation, it is better to be a smart mover than a first mover. Arguing that Apple has missed the streaming music or the console or the TV or the wearables market is like arguing that Apple has missed the train when the tracks have yet to be laid.
Apple is doing what it has always done – and what it has always done successfully. They are surfing the innovation wave, just waiting for the complementary ecosystem parts to catch up.

Apple isn’t late, the co-innovation wave is late. And when that co-innovation wave finally arrives, history tells us that Apple will be ready.

http://techpinions.com/apple-cant-innovate-anymore-my-a/19583
 

Sam Posten

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