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More on topic; I did a quick search to see if anyone shared my view from an economic perspective and thought this was interesting: https://techpinions.com/moores-law-begins-and-ends-with-economics/46575

Not exactly what I was stating but I found it interesting that he also made the observation that "It was an estimation that became a self-fulfilling prophecy".

The mainstream press is enamored with Apple and has always cast the profit picture as Apple being normal, everyone else performing poorly. That's actually backwards. The average profit margin in the smartphone industry is not far off the average for consumer electronics (about 3%-7%). Everyone making smartphones is operating under the same economics as everyone making routers, or DVD players, or printers, or laptops. But you hardly see those industries chastised by the press for not making enough profit; in fact most people would consider them to be very healthy industries.

It's Apple which is the aberration, with a profit margin around 25% - about the same as high brand-name fashions. While they're very good at capturing the 5%-10% of the market which is clueless or doesn't care about their money as long as it's popular and looks good, you'll find most technophiles steer clear of their products due to either lacking functionality, or not providing enough cost-to-benefit ratio. Despite the praise lavished upon them by the press for their "innovation", they're not really innovators. They're actually near the bottom in R&D spending as a percentage of revenue. (Though to be fair, they've been increasing R&D spending considerably the last couple years.)

IBM ........ $82b revenue ... $5.2b R&D ... 6.3% of revenue
Saumsung .. $196b revenue .. $14.1b R&D ... 7.2% of revenue
Google ..... $66b revenue ... $9.8b R&D .. 14.8% of revenue
Intel ...... $56b revenue .. $11.5b R&D .. 20.6% of revenue
Qualcomm ... $25b revenue ... $3.7b R&D .. 14.6% of revenue
Microsoft .. $87b revenue .. $11.4b R&D .. 13.1% of revenue
Apple ..... $183b revenue ... $6.0b R&D ... 3.3% of revenue

Have you seen their attack ads?

A young woman walks into a pawn shop hoping to trade her “laptop” for enough money to buy a ticket to Hollywood. The man behind the counter laughs at her and tells her that because it is a Chromebook and not a real laptop, “it’s pretty much a brick.” “See this thingy,” the man says, pointing to the Chrome logo. “That means it’s not a real laptop. It doesn’t have Windows or Office.” After some of Microsoft’s by-now familiar attacks on Google tracking, pawn shop guy says, “I’m not going to buy this one. I don’t want to get Scroogled.” I’m going to leave aside the ad’s numerous misrepresentations and outright falsehoods (apparently news of standalone Chrome apps has not yet made it to Redmond) and focus on its tone. It is, in a word, nasty. Apple’s ad leaves you with the warm fuzzies, Microsoft’s leaves you wanting a shower.

http://techpinions.com/a-tale-of-two-ads-misunderstood-vs-scroogled/25864

Can we please stop pretending that "market share" means "winning?" http://techpinions.com/androids-market-share-is-literally-a-joke/16709

No. The article that you point to is flawed in many ways as the author doesn't understand business strategy.

Android manufacturers entered into the smart phone market against an established player, Apple. They had to compete on price to drive market share, market share is necessary to drive brand awareness, developer interest (Apps), and business partner buy-in. In addition, most Android manufacturers have strategic advantages that Apple is lacking such as diversification (the smart phone business is just another division), rapid development (they are each competing on the same platform and leapfrog each other as new models come out), and their market share can be used to capture customers (No one wants to buy Apps all over again for another platform) and convert customers to higher-end phones.

The business strategy of Android can be compared to the business strategy of Japanese cars when they first entered the North American market. The US auto makers were the leaders and were making the most profit. The Japanese flooded the market with low cost low quality vehicles to gain market share. Over time they improved their product to the point where they could compete directly and then surpass the US auto makers, almost putting them out of business.

It's only with the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One that Android phones have reached the point where they can start to compete directly with Apple. Apple may be the top dog today, but we are only in round 2 of a 12 round fight...

As for the gravy train being over, by what metric? Their sales certainly aren't growing at the rate that Android's are, but by any measure, they are still massively successful. Their rate of sale has continued to grow incredibly fast, and their profits in PCs and mobile devices represent either a plurality or majority in each of those markets.

They bought back shares to stop the bleed in share price, and the negativity around it, and it has stabilised at around $450 from its high of $705. Its a poor move that slowed the drop in price of the shares, but not the cause of the drop; The end of the gravy train being over.

I am not sure why the post was modded informative. Here are the IDC numbers http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24085413. There rate of sales growth was single digit for Apple at 6.6% behind the market...at 41.6%...and samsung at 60.7%...and LG at 110.2%..and Huawei at 94%...and ZTE at 49.2%...even Others gets 37%...so you must be using some other measure of incredibly fast.

Nothing is mentioned about their PC's which are basically treated like cancer by Apple, but have incredible drops of 22%..and (the more manageable) 2% over the last 2 quarters, despite Windows 8 being hated universally. I cant help but notice Microsoft and Intel do not appear on the Pie chart...who are destroying the PC industry with their massive 70% margins.Its why Manufacturing companies are running to Android.

...the bottom line though in reference to Apples ONE saving grace...its profits...they dropped http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22274324, posting an opinion piece that pretends the reverse does not change that.

Can we please stop pretending that "market share" means "winning?" http://techpinions.com/androids-market-share-is-literally-a-joke/16709

Start giving back some of that money, Apple.

I know it didn't get reported on Slashdot, but still, you're kidding, right? I mean, it was big news and only happened a few weeks ago.

Apple is currently engaging in the largest single share repurchase program in history , which will put $60B USD into their investors' pockets by the end of 2015. And that's on top of the $11B/year they're paying out in dividends already.

All told, they're giving back $100B by the end of 2015, which is over 2/3 of what they have in the bank right now. So, either you were unaware of that, or you think that their doing so is not a big enough step, in which case I have to ask: what would be sufficient?

As for the gravy train being over, by what metric? Their sales certainly aren't growing at the rate that Android's are, but by any measure, they are still massively successful. Their rate of sale has continued to grow incredibly fast, and their profits in PCs and mobile devices represent either a plurality or majority in each of those markets.

> Developers are busy and don't have time to learn a new
> programming language. We believe that the only
> remaining eco-system is the web and there are more
> developers for the web than for any other platform in the world...

Developers aren't lazy slobs who follow the path of least resistance. Developers who want to get paid will go where the money is. That requires many things; chief among them, a way to collect money. iOS delivers this in spades; Android delivers a little bit. Making money with a web app will be exceptionally hard. Yes, there are advantages to web technologies, but not enough to make a web-based OS on a phone take off.

SurfaceRT has things that your company won't like.

1. No AD.
2. No GPOs.
3. No backwards compatibility.
4. Limited email functionality.
http://techpinions.com/windows-8-tablets-and-email-a-disaster-in-the-making/10360
5. Slightly limited Office functionality. (Scroll down a ways, they buried it)
http://blogs.office.com/b/office-next/archive/2012/09/13/building-office-for-windows-rt.aspx

Why the hell do we have to go over the technology of the connector every time it comes up in an article?
http://techpinions.com/why-apple-couldnt-go-to-micro-usb-charging/10212
Now don't ask again. Jesus.

Blasphemy rarely helps with creating a compelling argument. The article you have linked to suggests a gain of 10% in charge time as the reason for choosing an incompatible standard. That is not a significant reason for not accepting the industry standard...and the ethical one.

Well, thanks for admitting that you are a member of the USB church. It sure explains your almost fanatical devotion to the plug.

Why the hell do we have to go over the technology of the connector every time it comes up in an article?
http://techpinions.com/why-apple-couldnt-go-to-micro-usb-charging/10212
Now don't ask again. Jesus.

Blasphemy rarely helps with creating a compelling argument. The article you have linked to suggests a gain of 10% in charge time as the reason for choosing an incompatible standard. That is not a significant reason for not accepting the industry standard...and the ethical one.

You must be joking....

Patent 915 is the pinch-to-zoom patent that Samsung was found to have violated.

It most certainly is not:

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2012/07/915patent.pdf

Patent 7,812,826 looks far more like pinch to zoom:

http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/engadget/files/apple-ptz-patent.pdf

See also:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/08/hold-maybe-apple-doesnt-own-pinch-zoom-after-all

and

http://techpinions.com/pinch-to-zoom-and-rounded-rectangles-what-the-jury-didnt-say/9465

It's frustrating to see so many commenters and articles getting this wrong.

It is widely rumored that siri's speech-to-text is performed by Nuance's Dragon Dictation, which has been available (for free) on iOS for a few years now. That, plus Dragon's presence on the market for over a decade, would have provided a substantial database of colloquial english (and other languages) to get started. Plus, Siri was available as its own standalone app for a while on iOS before Apple bought the company. The technology behind Siri has been in development for quite a few years and had ,DARPA backing. Siri didn't just spring out of nothing in Cupertino. I think they've got enough of a database of colloquial english to get going with.

No, I think limiting it to the iPhone 4S is mostly to drive sales to the new device. Limiting the rollout to avoid crushing their servers, as you suggest, is another very plausible reason. I don't buy the argument that Siri requires the extra processing power of the 4S.