Slashdot Mirror
How Android Phone Makers Are Missing the Marketing Boat
An anonymous reader writes "Why are Android device commercials showing giant robots and lightning bolts and not advertising features? Here is an interesting blog post of things Android device manufacturers could be doing to get ahead of Apple, but aren't." On a similar front, as a mostly happy Android user, I must admit envy for the jillions of accessories marketed for the iPhone, especially ones that take advantage of that Apple-only accessory port; maybe the Android Open Accessory project will help.
It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience. You can see it with Linux. Even if the Android advertisements would include features, I have a strong feeling it would be something like "Freedom! 1 GHz processor! 128MB RAM!", ie. just listing specs. That isn't interesting. Users don't know what and why. They don't need to know the specs. In this day and age everyone has lots of things to do, and contrary to popular Slashdot belief, normal people have no need to learn such things. Hell, there's many things I could learn and which would improve my daily life, but I rather learn more about things that really matter and interest to me - that being computers and everything related. At the same time I can see everyone is the same way, but about other things. I don't expect them to know computers or what I know, and they don't expect me to know everything either. Then you can just laught it off. That's being social, something nerds are really bad with.
What most nerds don't get about advertising and user experience is WHY. What can this do to me and why? "What do I get out of the freedom of Android (or Linux)?" It needs to be something that the user, the normal user, actually cares about. As a side note, I honestly can't think of any reason the freedom of Linux would provide to casual users, compared to Windows and OSX. That is probably the reason why Linux still isn't on desktop. It's also what Stallman constantly forgets to mention and just comes out as an asshole trying to force everyone to FOSS.
The iPhone ad shown in the article is actually perfect. It answers why, it shows what you can do and it doesn't go on and on about things users don't directly care about, like processor speed. Hell, I'm a geek and that ad made me want to buy iPhone (and on top of that iPad too!). The Android advertisement just left me thinking if it's an advertisement for some movie or wtf.
If they averted features of the OS and they all use the same OS they have no way to differentiate them selves.
So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger, and not have to buy the $35 sold at the phone store.
They don't really need a standard connector so much as a standard protocol for communicating over it beyond just filesystem access/etc.
And yes, phone commercials that barely even show you the phone are really annoying. I really don't care that their CGI robot can smash a CGI alien or whatever - I'm buying a phone, not a combat robot...
Why?
Because:
And don't forget:
If you are following the links looking for information on the origin of the port on the ipod, the link from the old slashdot story doesn't work any more. Of course, that is a link to a site that isn't managed by slashdot or their overlords, so they don't have control over it (not) being there.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Damn... And I was stupidly thinking that Android was one of the hugest success we've seen in the last few years.
Can't help wonder what the Android market share would be if they "got" marketing right!?
What was it yet? More than half a million Android phones activated each day. Several hundreds of millions of phones already in use.
Nearly 50% of all smartphones market shares and 75% of all new phones being sold nowadays being considered smartphones?
I mean: something like that. And btw, no, I'm no Android nor iPhone user: good old Nokia to just "give phone calls and send sms" here.
First of all paying for data is ridiculous, there is no data that Google needs to pay you for when they are already getting all the data from your cookies they need to generate ad revenue. Also I would like to point out there isn't a barometer in your phone, but I would love to see that in you iPhone vs. Android commercial. Freedom to check air pressure? iPhone: What is wrong with you? Android: Ditto. I think a phone needs a barometer just about as badly as it needs to support SCSI devices. (Rinse, lather, repeat for infrared) Android supports USB devices, it doesn't need a dock connector. Apple had the advantage of building like 600,000 devices with dock connectors at a time when there was demand for something like that. Now just about every car has a USB support and many support to AD2P audio, making this request, like your barometer, and infrared port archaic. And I don't think that for marketing sake advertising a mobile device as something that is useful when you are immobilized is the right message you want to send. Sure it's a phone... but look what happens when you stop using it for it's primary function of mobility!
Errr, is there really a problem with Android marketing? Last I heard Android devices were outselling the iPhone.
True, the marketing message doesn't appeal to every demographic, but that is why there is so much variety of messages...
just redirect slashdot.org to localhost in your hosts file.
Then you can pretend Slashdot doesn't exist.
> Android devices just show up as dumb disk drives when you plug them into my computer.
And this is a bad thing why exactly? I mean, I keep hearing my iPhone-using friends say "iTunes borked my data and I have to sync it all again". Never seen this kind of shit with filesystem-based solutions.
While I agree with the original article about exposing sensor features of the phone when connected to the PC, I don't think this should require iTunes-like software bullshit; it should rather work as if I connected all those devices separately, i.e., plugging the phone exposes several separate devices: a storage, a camera, a GPS, an accelerometer, etc.
android has a long way to go to exit geekdome
http://pleasedonttouchthescreen.blogspot.com/2011/10/zip-lockscreen.html
I don't think Android is missing anything. Android has a bigger marketshare than Apple, and they entered the game late.
Apple tried the 'vs' ads with their Mac vs Windows, and as popular as those ads were, they didn't help Apple much in sales. But the iPod, which did not have to compare themselves to Windows, which did not have to insult current Window users, but instead showed silhouettes of people enjoying their iPod, conquered the market.
The infrared emitter - i got one for my iPhone, and it sucks. When i upgraded to the Galaxy S2 last summer, i had planned to use my iPhone as a remote. But a touch remote sucks. You have to turn it on, unlock the screen and if the app is not running, run the app, all to flip channels? You can't use it with one hand (at least not reliably) or without looking at the screen. Without tactile feedback, it just doesn't work.
I don't really see the appeal of docks. I'd rather everything just connect through bluetooth or something and we get integration that way.
That ad for what you can do with the iPhone was actually an ad for what you can do with iOS. That works fine for Apple because if they convince you to use iOS the only product you're going to buy is an iPhone.
On the other hand if Motorola puts out an ad highlighting all the things you can do with Android then even if they convince you to get an Android phone there's no guarantee you'll by _their_ Android phone.
This isn't an insurmountable problem, they could split the time between what's good about Android and what's good about their phone, or talk about features of Android without mentioning they're features that _all_ Android phones have. But it probably seems safer to the executives to only focus on what's cool about _their_ phone.
And of course the other thing is that i believe historically commercials that have gone with the whiz-bang appeal have done better than commercials that tried to be informative. As a nerd this always bothered me because i'm more interested in facts than presentation. (Not that i don't enjoy a well done presentation, but i try not to let my purchasing habits be influenced by it.) But i guess the majority of the male 18-35 demographic that commercials always try to aim at doesn't think the same way.
So another question to ask is, what demographic is the Apple commercial appealing to? And is it actually more successful overall than the Android commercials? The iPhone is certainly selling well above any individual Android model, but it's selling well below the total Android ecosystem. If one company switched to similar informative commercials would they actually see an increase in sales? Or is the iPhone's dominance as a single model due to some other factor? Again, as i nerd i actually like the tack the Apple commercial is taking (even if i get offended at all the times they imply, or even state outright, that you can't do the same thing on Android when you most certainly can) but historically appealing to people like me hasn't usually led to widespread market success.
So given all the differences between the Apple/iOS/Apple/iPhone model and the Google/Android/Dozens of companies/hundreds of phones model it's hard to say when comparing marketing strategies and measures of success is valid and when it's comparing, well, apples to oranges.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
"On a similar front, as a mostly happy Android user, I must admit envy for the jillions of accessories marketed for the iPhone, especially ones that take advantage of that Apple-only accessory port; maybe the Android Open Accessory project will help."
And 70% of iPhone users would replace your "mostly" with "very", whereas only 50% of Android users would. But it seems you're not even in that group so why not get something more likely to keep you very happy?
(Incoming Mods!)
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
One interesting thing about the "good" Apple ad vs. the "bad" Droid ad in the article is that the Apple ad is bright and sparkly and clean, while the Droid ad is much darker and sexier, with a pretty woman writhing all around.
Some should be showing off new features that Apple doesn't have like the new face unlock feature in Android 4.0.
Yeah, when there are phones shipping with Android 4.0 and front facing cameras that can use the features. Marketing features that aren't yet available to the end users is a REALLY bad idea.
Others should highlight their restrictive model: picture the old Mac vs. PC ads, but with the iPhone checking with Apple before denying the user's request to install an app of their choice.
This would probably backfire, how many trojans and programs that send your info back to the developer's server have been found in the Android marketplace? Lots. Apple would almost certainly use that in a counter-attack ad.
Market your strengths, but be careful of those that also have an underlying weakness/vulnerability, it will come back to bite you.
Android needs more standardization. A standard UI, a minimum resolution, and a minimum hardware set. One of the things Apple has done very effectively is manage the user experience. MS Windows and Android have allowed manufacturers to put out devices with too little RAM, CPU, and/or poor quality screens, keyboards, touch-screens and it hurts the reputation of the platform. When a user buys a bad Windows or Android device, they're as likely to blame the OS as they are the hardware manufacturer. Failing to understand and address that is a marketing failure on the part of the OS vendor.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
If you are careful about "standard" location and placement, ie. hdmi to the left of usb to the left of X, by 2 mm, you can have standard connectors with little restriction on case size.
Fight Spammers!
When I plug my wife's ipod touch into my computer it doesn't show up as anything.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
iTunes was the main reason I went from my iPhone 3GS to my Galaxy S. While I never experienced the data corruption as some have, I found it really irritating to have to use Mac/iTunes or Win/iTunes to do something with my phone - I am using linux 99% of the time.
The main one was iTunes trying to organize my library, even when I specifically turned that feature off. That was the tipping point. Leave my organization alone.
my Driod X can be connected with sync ability with microsoft media player. I guess you didn't do your research. Which is another problem that happens when you have choices. People don't want to take the time and shop around. I think that is one of the big reasons as to why the iPhone has so much success, people don't care that they are using equipment that isn't top of the line or does the best. They just hear the name Apple and go for it.
I bet a fair share of those marketing execs creating the Android ads are using their iPhones and other iGadgets when making the ads.
Small thing I'd really like: My phone can be used as a USB tethered internet connection. But my android tablet doesn't support using the same device to get it's connection - if I hook phone to tablet, all I can do is transfer files. It'd be nice to have internet too.
Watch those, and tell me with a straight face that this is advertising for nerds, by nerds, and by people who have no concept what the words "user experience" means.
I'll grant you that's not by nerds, for nerds.
But how is that anything about user experience? The ad is TOTALLY devoid of any user experience using the phone, looking out from the phone you know nothing at all about how the phone is to use or what it can do.
I am pretty convinced those kinds of ads (and I've seen them for other products) do nothing whatsoever to drive sales. How could they? Why would I remember HTC in connection to 30 seconds of nothing?
Can YOU honestly say with a straight face any of those ads would compel someone to even think about asking to look at HTC phones in a store, much less go out and get one?
I don't have an iPhone 4s. I have an iPhone 4. I didn't really feel like I needed a new phone right now, so I chose to skip this round... but every time I see a 4s commercial I start to question my choice to skip. Those are powerful ads.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, Apple and iPhone will really be losing out because of all those Linux users.
Apparently whatever the Android manufacturers are doing is working.
And this is a bad thing why exactly?
Because most people on earth do not understand file systems.
I keep hearing my iPhone-using friends say "iTunes borked my data and I have to sync it all again".
Possibly. But then you have it all back.
When you broke the filesystem on Android you are screwed unless you carefully backed up everything. Now with iCloud a user just shrugs and gets back all the data, should there be an issue.
People cannot really handle backup or file management tasks. Which is why even the bad solutions to those problems are preferred by most people as long as in the end they mostly work..
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger,
I can do the same thing with my iPhone because I can simply use the supplied cable into any USB port.
But I can also do more. I can be reasonably sure I can go into most hotels and dock my iPhone with the radio for playback (or charging), no cables required. If I forget a cable when I travel I think it is MORE LIKLEY I will be able to find an iPhone USB charging cable or some device to charge the phone, than to find the exact variant of micro-USB used by some other kind of phone.
When someone is more prevalent, is that not truly more of a standard - by any definition?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android is popular among pre-pubescent teenagers and cheapskates.
You mean the port that means you always need a special cable? The port that proves that Apple's profit is way more important than user friendliness? Practically all other phones nowadays come with a MicroUSB connector. So MicroUSB charger are plugged in at strategic places at home, and anyone (visitors too) can just plug their phones in, for charging. Only Apple lusers need to remember to carry an adapter plug, how is that for user friendliness?
Makes me wonder if it's a regional difference. Apparently over there in the US of A Apple's marketing for brain dead appeals to a lot of people. Over here in north-west Europe Apple doesn't do much marketing instead it relies mainly on buzz, word of mouth and free publicity (a surprising number of 40 something journalists are die-hard apple fans). HTC (which made the brilliant marketing move of sponsoring a team in the tour de France) and Samsung are good at showing that their products fit a rather hip and very mobile 20-something lifestyle. Result: you've got blackberry on the corporate market and with the teen girls. You've got apple slowly losing market gear in the rest of the market (fragility and the piss poor hardware support do NOT go down well in this market) to Android. In the Netherlands Android is already outselling IOS. I think in Germany it's pretty close as well.
That's just de-facto acceptance due to the commonality of the device.
To the user on the street though that does not matter. The FACT is that as a user, you can find more ways to make use of the iPhone dock connector and more devices that support it in everyday life.
To the end user that is all they know, is what they can do. And to them the iPhone connector appears simply to be more standard, more widely available, even if they have no idea why other companies cannot use it.
So complaining about Android having a "more standard" connector totally misses the fact that from the standpoint of people buying the phone, the Android connector is simply not as standard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android users choose to succumb to their devices, to behave like their captors.
"DROID!"
1 i overlook as that do not impact Android as a system directly.
2 Could be done via the mentioned Accessory system (it is barely 7 months old, so give it time).
3 has the issue of design restraint. i suspect some kind of NFC/induction system is more likely to work then a physical connector. There are however an attempt at a dock connector, called PDMI. But so far the only big name that seems to use it is Samsung, and they even managed to "proprietize" the implementation.
4 may come about via the Accessory system, tho i suspect he somewhat overlooks the complexity of what he is asking for. For instance, webcams do not have a USB profile like one find for storage and input devices (keyboard, mouse, joypad). Also, the phone would basically have to present itself as a USB hub with multiple attached USB devices for what he asked for to work. More likely, now that 4.0 unveiled is that we see something like the Motorola webtop. By this i mean that one attach a display and input devices to the phone, and the phone presents the Android tablet interface to the user via the connected display. This would in essence turn the phone into his desktop computer for the duration.
5 not going to touch it....
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
It should show up as a camera if your wife's iPod Touch has one. Other than that, the iPod Touch is only associated to one computer, (assuming it'll be your wife's), and it'll only other USB connections as a power source for charging.
There's also this program called PhoneDisk, which give iOS devices external hard drive capabilities.
I also like the fact that I can connect an android phone to a printer and print photos
I can connect wirelessly to a number of printers and do the same thing on an iPhone.
Or connect an android phone to a TV and watch video clips.
I can use either a cable or AirPlay to play video out to multiple devices, plus I can mirror the screen for games.
Or connect an android phone to a car stereo and play mp3s
My car came with an iPhone dock connector that runs audio out while also charging the phone, but I could also simply run an audio cable out.
Or connect an android phone to a PC and access the internet.
Yeah, the iPhone can offer tethering ether via WiFi, bluetooth, or over USB.
A "dock" would only be a hindrance, and limit the possible form factors of Android devices.
Knowing that almost any hotel will have a dock for an iPhone so that I can connect without a cable is far from a hindrance.
In the end the iPhone acts like any other USB connected device as far as charging, but you get additional options because of the extra data that can be run out of the dock.
Also I am really wondering how your device charges while you are running video out to a TV...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think you understand the purpose of the barometer - it's to allow a faster GPS lock. On more than one occasion, I've entered a new destination into my phone while in a new town, exited a parking garage and then have to guess which way to go while I wait for the phone to get a GPS lock.
I have to call you out on this; it makes little sense to me. The phone already has a rough idea of where it is from cell tower triangulation.
Your approach would sam to be to do a power hungry full-on GPS scan every time the barometer shifted by much from the last setting. So what happens when you go into a tightly sealed building with a powerful HVAC? Or up an elevator 10 floors? All it would seem to do in everyday life is act as a battery drain for far less benefit than cell-tower triangulation gives you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're talking out your ass. My Droid X2 has a dock in my car, another at my bedside, and doesn't show up as a "dumb disk drive" when connected to my computer.
Now that you have the big players like AT&T marketing phones, i have to disagree with that analysis..
That said, i do agree that few marketing teams are as good as Apple's.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The only major problem with the Android Open Accessory port is that some handsets might not be supported (despite having the docking port) because they cannot run the latest version of Android to work with the accessory + app. Handsets are notorious for shipping with older versions of Android or the current major version of Android, but not the current point release.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
I'm pretty sure not many of my friends know the difference between IOS and Android.
If I asked everyone I know outside of work what kind of phone they have, the answers would be something like this:
iPhone
HTC
Nokia
iPhone 4
Samsung
Motorola
etc
I'm not even sure the responses would be particularly different at work (I work in a technical environment). Perhaps tomorrow I'll try it and see if anyone actually mentions the terms "IOS" or "Android". I hadn't realised until very recently that lots of different phones ran the same operating system, and I'm reasonably technical - I just don't have much interest in phone technology beyond making sure the one I buy does the things I want it to do (make phone calls, sync with iTunes) without me having to learn how to work something new.
My first mobile phone was a Nokia. Over the next 15 years, every phone I had was a Nokia. There were probably "better" phones on the market, but I liked Nokia, I knew how to work them, and I couldn't see any reason to change. When the iPhone came out, I thought "I wouldn't need to carry my iPod around everywhere as well as my phone if I bought one of those", so I got an iPhone. I like my iPhone, it does everything I want it to, and I know how to work it. Which probably means my next phone will also be an iPhone.
In many respects, despite having a technical profession, and being a "geek" in many areas which interest me, I'm actually just a typical consumer. I buy stuff from brands which have made stuff I like in the past.
Most consumers recognise brands, not technical specifications
Philosopher (n) - a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
I don't plug my Android device into my computer at all - it's a Samba host and server, so it just sits on my network. If I want to get files on or off it, I just browse it when it's still in my pocket (or use it to browse my network, and copy files across). Same goes for development - you can use wifi for debugging app development on it.
Linux vendors could learn from this, saying stuff like "More secure" and "easy to use" doesn't help, every OS is more secure and easy to use, even the ones that aren't. You have to say things like: no garbage spyware-laden apps, no ads in your apps, no spontaneous GUI change with updates, no every-app-has-its-own-skin crap, stuff that users actually care about. I've never used an android product for myself (only have a land line, I'm waiting for an ipod-like device) but even I can see this marketing failure clearly.
Twinstiq, game news
2) Music.
Portable listening typically happens in a noisier environment, so a transcode down to 128 kbps Vorbis or AAC (56 MB per hour) is OK. Assume a "16 GB" device can hold 14000 MB of media after subtracting the operating system and a few apps and photos, and you can keep 250 hours of music at your fingertips. You might have a larger collection than 250 CDs, but how much of that do you need to carry with you?
Doesn't that put a strain on the baseband? As it is, the phone has to support the cellular signals, and on top of that, it has to also support GPS and Bluetooth. One would either expect several chipsets in such a phone, or a very powerful baseband - maybe 3 core - that would manage all these functions independently.
TFA does exactly what it criticizes: It just shows a total lack of understanding.
This is not the way the users sees it. It's not that he finds a great app, wants to install it and the iPhone says "You're not allowed to install that app!". Never happens. He just sees that there are loads of apps for the iPhone and they're are all available from the same place he already trusts enough to give it his credit card details to buy music and there is hardly any scamware, ripoffs, spyware etc. in that market. What makers of Android phones should offer is not ads saying "you can install crap from everywhere". They should offer a clean market.
Same with the "integrated battery" bullshit. Users don't want to change batteries. Users hate to buy new batteries. What users want is a battery they don't have to change. They want phone makers to put effort into the charging logic to make sure the battery isn't ruined after half a year of normal usage. My 1st gen iPod touch from 2007 with its integrated battery still works fine. I was very wary about that battery at first, but this thing just convinced me. My MacBook from late 2008 still has 98% battery capacity today. I take a battery I can't easily replace over one I can and have to change every year if the integrated battery works fine for years and years. Nowadays I'm wary if I see a device that has suspiciously easy battery replacement designed in. What, I think, does even the maker of that thing believe that I will have to change the battery often enough that removing two screws will be too troublesome? They can keep it then.
Apple just does lots of things right. "Everything Apple does is wrong and so the opposite must be right" is a fallacy. Of course that does not mean that you have to do the same as Apple does to be successful (far from it). What you have to do is just try very hard to deliver convincing and good products.
I used to think IR is a good idea and maybe it still is. But in one way it has been almost as obsoleted as the accessory-connector (and almost USB itself!). The only physical connector you really need is for power. For everything else, there's Wifi & IP.
Last night the TV remote was acting funny, dying battery or something. So m'lady picked up her phone, started the remote app, and changed the TV's input from one source to another (that combined with on/off is about all the TV remote gets used for anyway, so I'm not sure why the battery would be dead). Everything's doable over networks these days. Who really needs "docking" hacks, IR, etc?
I know there's an answer to that last question, and it's "someone." Someone has a TV without an ethernet port, someone has a computer whose OS really just wants to mount block devices instead of NFS or CIFS shares, etc. So there's room for diversity. I wonder if this is just a transition need, though, fading as the rest of their equipment catches up.
The "standard connector" should be IP, and then app-specific protocols (hopefully very open ones) on top of that. Is this really not obvious?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
FTA: Smartphones and tablets are nothing more than computers, ...
Nope. They're appliances . People just want to turn them one and use them.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
The phones all cost about the same. The difference is the iphone doesn't get subsidised as much and actually that can work out cheaper for the consumer. My friend and i looked at the iphone 4S and was better off paying more upfront and getting the cheaper plan. There is a good chance you're paying more for your phone than if you bought it outright. This is true of phones other than the iphone too from what I see. Of course if you can't afford to pay for it outright then you don't have a choice.
An I would say Apple makes ads for everyone. Android phones are like video cards and other PC hardware where it's not marketed to everyone. It's marketed at young men and typically more towards the nerdy stereotype that the parent was talking about. When video cards have names that sound like monster trucks and feature ads with sexy women or blood and violence then that's only going to appeal to a certain audience. The same goes if you name you phone droid and and your ad features a pretty lady fighting CGI robots and the ad don't convey to most people what the ad is for until the end let alone what features the phone has.
A lot of us have made fun of jocks for being a bunch of bros who worry about fit women and hating on anything that might imply they're a fairy but the 'nerd' demographic isn't really any different. The only real difference is rather than conveying their masculinity through beer, bikinis and sports, it's through robots, blood and bikinis. If you want to appeal to the masses quite making the marketing look like something that is trying to convince the purchaser it will help convince people they're a man and not a sissy.
Which is why as a Android manufacturer you would want to play up the benefits of Android and why your particular Android device is the best. Making some pointless CGI ad doesn't really help.
That's the message in that campaign: that the phone just works with what you want to do with it.
It does not say that - at all. It does not say ANYTHING about what you can or cannot do with the phone.
I am biased against iPhones, because I don't like the way Apple does business and because they don't bring any features to the game that I haven't seen and can't get elsewhere.
That's just silly given the far wider range of quality applications on the iPhone. It's about about a check list, it's about potential. If you really want features you can't get elsewhere, you get an iPhone - real features are apps, because they define what you can do with a device.
The ultimate "feature" phone is a jailbroken iPhone, hands down. I respect that you dislike some approaches Apple has taken, but I don't think it's right to pretend you can do more with an Android device when it's simply not the case.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They call it "building the brand". The idea is that the name HTC is now in your head.
"Building a brand" works only when you have a base of consumer awareness and respect to build from. Levis commercials are a good example of where that can actually work, to make people love Levis all over again.
Most people have no idea who HTC is. This will not help them - as I said they are showing 30 seconds of nothing, so what am I supposed to lock into to help me remember them? In the end it was a pretty looking yet pointless waste of marketing money.
Far better would be to help me understand some way in which HTC was awesome. But in these commercials they seemingly are too ashamed of their own devices to even show them except at the very end.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
However, the user on the street can't use the iPhone (or Touch or iPad) to read anything on an external hard drive, an USB card or access any other USB peripheral.
99% of the people on the plant have no reason other than to read SD cards from cameras.
They already have an SD adaptor that will read images...
That's not a limitation for any phone that is using an USB connector.
The iPhone/iPad have a USB adaptor ; they chose not to support that (except as I said for images) because there was little value for the user and a lot of potential for security issues.
Similarly, the only printers iDevices will link to are Apple's proprietary Wireless printers.
I have an HP printer I print to every day. If you are a technical user you can easily set up a gateway that an iOS device can print through to any printer on your network.
So technical users are not limited in any way, non-technical users get a solution that works very well wirelessly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The entire marketing department of a dozen different phone manufacturers is supposed to be nerds? It is nerds that are supposed to be responsible for putting out the vapid, shallow Motorola commercials? However, the source of this "it is nerds" refrain is quite clear: it's Apple's marketing department. They are trying to portray Apple as the "easy-to-use solution for the rest of us" while painting everybody else as being run by nerds for nerds. Really, man, stop being such a stupid Apple tool and stop doing their marketing for them.
And that's why Apple keeps touting their specs on the rare occasion where they are actually ahead? Retina display?
And the "answers" Apple gives are largely lies: lies about capabilities that their products are supposed to have and others don't, lies about who invented those capabilities, and lies about freedoms and future developments.
Try running a real modern operating system like Windows or Mac.
Linux is still riding the short bus when it comes to hardware compatibility. Since Linux doesn't support most sound cards or wifi yet, why would you expect it to support an iPod touch?
Features do not sell products. Benefits do.
I was wondering why the iPhone was outselling Android phones 2 to 1 and why I have such a large selection of Android phones with different features and prices. This article is clearly very insightful. I bet the phone manufacturers are so desperate for sales that they keep introducing new models with different features. All that bad advertising from all those different manufacturers and phone companies is just confusing people... Oh wait... you mean Android phones actually outsell iPhones? Must be all that bad advertising!
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Apple makes great stuff, and maybe they have better ads, but Android still has enormous momentum. For smartphones, they have a wide lead over Apple in current sales, and now have a larger installed base as well. For tablets, the iPad is still well in front, but the most recent sales data I saw had the iPad at about 65%, Android at 30%, and "other" making up the rest. I see no reason why the smartphone takeover won't be repeated for tablets.
Android is winning because it runs on a diverse set of devices from different manufacturers, all competing with each other to make the best product at the lowest price. The diversity comes at a cost (fragmentation, uneven quality, etc.) but the economic advantages are compelling.
iOs is headed for the same luxury niche in the touchscreen market that the Mac has had for desktop/laptop computing.
They tried to copy Apple by naming their stuff after food except a Macintosh is a healthy organic snack while a fucking icecream sandwich just makes me think of a fat greasy teen with pimples. Ugh.
Because most people on earth do not understand file systems.
You don't need to understand file systems, all you need to know is your pictures are in 'Pictures' your music is in 'Music', etc... pretty obvious.
When you broke the filesystem on Android you are screwed unless you carefully backed up everything.
Broke the filesystem? What did you do?
Now with iCloud a user just shrugs and gets back all the data, should there be an issue.
If i follow the standard process when setting up icloud and hit 'backup' that won't backup my phone, for example unless i understand how photostream is different to camera roll and that images expire after 30 days i would expect that after i 'backup' to icloud i could wipe the phone, restore and get everything back.
You make it sound as if Android phones are well-designed but simply don't make the "Why" case. In fact, they're marketed just as they are designed: to a specs list. That's Apple's secret: not just marketing the WHY, but designing the WHY. That's why the iPhone can have fewer megapixels in its camera, or less RAM, or a slower processor, or fewer ports, or a non-removable battery, and still win: Apple has designed an experience, considering the "WHY", and has appropriately traded off the variables. Android designers want the latest version and highest specs for all the hardware, and throw them together without any overarching user experience or design goals.
1st of all, the premise that manufacturers sell to users is incorrect. Manufacturers sell to carriers. Carriers market to users. And the carriers don't care what approved phone you buy. Their selection is based on business concerns well outside the user experience.
Penultimately, the only thing the carriers actually care about is the monthly recurring services fees generated by the use of voice, text, data and the revenue share generated by music, video, and app sales. They do impose standards or operation that manufacturers have to meet in order to be considered for branding and sales through the company store, but they don't give a rats ass about usability. And the term reliability is reserved for the description of phones' performance as a network device.
As to the crux of marketing to the consumer, I've been around enough marketing and sales people to understand that most of them hold a low opinion of the consumer. Computer sales and marketing campaigns have rarely if ever provided meaningful or reliable metrics to the end user. Users are inundated with basic specs, processor speed and memory and storage capacity. Winmark and Winstone got some play in the rags that pass for consumer oriented periodicals, but I don't know anyone who considers these publications to provide much more than paid advertising, pretty pictures and hype. I mean, when's the last time any Slashdotterer read Walter Mossberg's column when seriously investigating a purchase decision?
I'm typing this on an iPad. My employer bought us each one so we would learn about the new 'what's in' and maybe come up w/marketable ideas. My wife is a photographer, not a computer geek. I let her try to use it to upload some pictures to her website. I made her a site w/ a nice php/mysql backend. More importantly, so she can log in to a simple webpage and upload images with a plain old web form, no HTML, CSS, FTP, etc needed. It turns out you can't upload files on a web form with an iOS device! Simple plain old web functionality! Omfg what a piece of $&@&! It' everything 'normal' people want/need indeed! Is THIS the future? I hope not!
Most people have no idea who HTC is. Then they see the commercial. Now they have at least heard of HTC, which is better than nothing. That's building brand recognition. The first commercial is just "HTC has the phone for you!", which lodges the name "HTC" into your head. The second commercial goes into what a smart phone is. The third goes into what separates an HTC from other phones. We don't see any of this because we already know all of that. This campaign is aimed at people who are just going to buy a phone. They bring HTC into consideration instead of a "never heard of them."
404: sig not found.
All of those Linux users. Really?
There are lots of different demographics out there. Apple is talking to their audience, who cares more about simplicity and reliability, plus a few gimmicky features like Siri so they can feel like they're living in the future.
Androids core demographic already expects to root their phone, install custom firmware, hack around the shortcomings, and revel in the freedom they have to spend hours fighting with their phone. We're talking about 15 - 30 year old men, and these guys are much more interested in giant robots, lightning bolts, and half naked women than they are the details of any particular phone.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
They need to market it? Why? Its already the default OS for everything.
This guy knows jack about marketing. You really think a hard-sell, where they compare specs between the iPhone and Droid-of-the week will really convince anyone? Anybody remember the iPod ads, which had nothing but dancing silhouettes? If anything, competitors have learned how to fight apple, and are doing a better job of it every day.
1. Android ads most certainly DO list some of the things you wont get on an iPhone. Even the hot leather-clad girl fighting the robot, where nobody says anything, shows the Bionic with a big 4G LTE logo on it... that's a 1st tier feature the iPhone isn't going to be able to boast. And they get it out to people with a commercial people will WANT to watch, rather than a boring and heavy-handed spec-fest.
And how about the Droid 1/2/3? It's easy for anyone to see that they can get an android device with a slider (keyboard) built-in, but cant get that from Apple. They feature that fact heavily in commercials as well, like the stupid snow man / alien promo they had plastered everywhere for weeks, showing super-fast texting. For me, the lack of a keyboard is show-stopper #1. I'm absolutely swimming in phones, here... I could get a free iPhone from my employer, no questions asked, but without a keyboard, I would play with it for a week and toss it in a drawer somewhere, even if it had every app and every other feature I could possibly want.
Of course they aren't going to call out the iPhone directly, ever, because no publicity is bad publicity, and they might inadvertently help Apple's message reach more people. Hence the "Leading Brand" or "Brand X" we so often see used in ads, so that suggestion is right out. Again, this guy has no idea what he's talking about.
2. The old PDAs from a decade ago and more, all had IRDA. I used it to great effect writing-up huge reports with charts and graphs embedded, and printing it out directly to the nearest IRDA laser printer from my Psion 5MX. These days, wifi printers are very common, and some printers even let you just email the file. While I think direct printing support in smart phones would still be a good feature these days, it hass become much easier to do without it.
And using your smartphone as a remote control? It would be a mildly amusing gimmick for about 5 seconds, then nobody would ever use it again... It's a PITA to turn on and unlock your cell phone, and the battery life is horrendous. And do you gain any benefits from the integration of remote into your phone? Nope, not a thing. I'm sure you could find some tiny remote to hang off your keychain if you wanted it. Seriously, give 30 seconds of thought to how you would actually have to use it, and it becomes obvious what a horrible idea it is. I'll stick with the tiny remote on my coffee table that lasts for years on a single AAA battery, thanks.
3. iPhone accessories work because iPhones come in very few shapes and sizes. An accessory port on all Android phones would still require device-specific accessories, so you've gained precisely nothing. And convincing manufacturers to standardize on given dimensions? Forget about it.
4. Microphone and Webcam? Relly? Again, you're asking for your smart phone to provide the features of a $20 device. Adding this capability doesn't provide any particular additional benefit beyond (partially) replacing that same $20 device. It's a worthless idea that isn't worth the effort.
5. Many companies tried ad-revenue sharing with their users during the dot-com bubble. They all went horribly wrong, were subject to rampant fraud, an paid out so little... pennies, that nobody, who wasn't looking to defraud the system, was interested.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY85UiPBAo0. He's talking about Microsoft there, but the same applies to Android (though not to Google as a whole). Ironically, Android too has the shittiest fonts and design of the three major smartphone platforms, and Microsoft is showing good taste with Windows Phone 7.
Try unplugging it and plugging it in again. That's what I do. Every single time.
Apple has a consistent marketing name for their products: The iPhone, iPhone 2, iPhone 3, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, etc. But other manufacturers completely rename their phones between versions: Samsungs made the Galaxy, Droid, Captivate, Vibrant, ... Motorola has the Droid, Droid X, Droid Razr. Which is better? X or Razr? Blech.
People ask me what phone I have and I said "An Android" which is about all they care to know. Telling them it is a Samsung Droid Charge doesn't add anything new since that could be 5 years old or 5 minutes old. If it was named the Samsung Droid 4G then they would know that it was probably 1yr old since "4G" = "new"
Meh, most of the big name android devices cost the same as the newest iphone, with service plans that cost the same.
I see us heading to a bazaar situation in mobile some day. A real one. And then apple is going to get kicked out on their ass again, just like they did in the PC market when commoditized home computers yanked the market out from under them.
Could you and most other slash doters be missing a new factor?
Cyber criminals have advanced from bad to worse since the old PC era.
Apple clearly recognizes this as a threat to the mobile platform and has set polices in place to deal with the threat. Apple now has appeal as a safe place for their customers.
Apple is even taking steps to make software unable to spread malware in their Mac OS X with the push to sandbox most apps.
Android by its very design can easily be a choice target of cyber criminals. This eventually will kill adoption of Android as more stories circulate of those suffering from using Android. There was warning that ran in the Atlanta Journal Constitution this very weekend.
AJC which can't get most stories straight described a problem that we all know is unique to Android and yet the AJC implied it was a Smartphone problem that included iPhones too.
When the mass media reports more of these and gets the story straight few will be comfortable owning an Android anything unless Google makes massive changes locking down Android that will be very unpopular with slashdoters.
Hearing this would happen from many different people in and around the industry when it seemed like a new Android phone was coming out every week. That the marketing wouldn't be targeting the usability of these devices and that diluting the market with so many phones would actually hurt in the long run.
I really think about 10% of people that by Android phones actually know how to get the most out of them. The rest use it for simple tasks and game playing, and most important to them, as a status device. With a iPhone, in my opinion, useability for the most part, is made so that the user explorers more of the features of the phone.
Let's have a look at this blog post:
1. Android devices should advertise freedom and functionality.
Freedom makes sense - it's one of the reasons that people like Android phones, however Apple has functionality down cold, that's some tough competition...
2. Android devices should include a darn infrared emitter/sensor.
Nothing like a bit of "gadget creep" - let's throw a toaster in there too, or maybe a corkscrew and a can opener. That'll sell phones for sure! Why not stick with bluetooth and wifi - something all smartphones share. Want to control your TV or PVR? How long do you think it's going to be until they're bluetooth or wifi enabled rather than IR?
3. Get a standardized dock/interface connector.
Makes sense, but it's not going to sell phones. It should've been part of the spec and mandated for all manufacturers from day one.
4. Still be a smart device when docked to my computer.
Waitasec, I thought we were going to talk marketing here, not missing features...
5. Let users earn revenue from data collection.
Now we've completely jumped the shark. Now it's make money from sharing your data, rather than making a phone that appeals to people who just want things to be simpler and more efficient...
There are another 6 requests on his list that are even worse... Waterproof? Wireless charging? Fingerprint unlock? Does he even understand why so many people find Apple's products so appealing, and why the marketing works so well?
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
... are not even important now. Since Apple has been banned from the market there is no sense in marketing for it.
IT Admins Group: Where you decide the content
Android by its very design can easily be a choice target of cyber criminals. This eventually will kill adoption of Android as more stories circulate of those suffering from using Android
Like MS windows security vulnerabilities killed windows adoption in the 1990s? And Windows became a tiny minority of installed and running operating systems on internet connected devices by the turn of the century?
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Android by its very design can easily be a choice target of cyber criminals. This eventually will kill adoption of Android as more stories circulate of those suffering from using Android
Like MS windows security vulnerabilities killed windows adoption in the 1990s? And Windows became a tiny minority of installed and running operating systems on internet connected devices by the turn of the century?
You missed the point. Security back then was not as complex an issue as it is now. Cyber Crime is real and there is a big business in raping connected users.
When fear mushrooms as reports leak in the media, isn't it only a matter of time before any mobile platform will die from the negative publicity?
You went from using Joe to extrapolate to EVERYONE.
You know, once upon a time I too committed personal sacrifices in the name of freedom, and that lasted until one day I was actually kinda forced to use a Macbook Pro at work and it had all the traits that I had been looking for on a computer / operating system combination. That was when I realized why compliance is not necessarily a bad thing. While I do enjoy and respect freedom, as a software engineer I also try to comply to standards and established norms as much as humanly possible, even if I don't agree with them, because they may have a purpose that I do not understand while I'm writing my code, and I don't want to jeopardize that purpose by breaking conventions, which many free software developers, even some that should know better, unfortunately do.
Apple has, in many respects, successfully put itself in a position where they can actually enforce compliance in a way that makes everything work well, and I find myself at ease with that. Sometimes I have my face-palm moments such as when I realized that I could not develop an iOS app that could run in the background indefinitely unless it plays music or when I realized that my iPhone was completely incapable of exchanging contacts via Bluetooth because most Bluetooth profiles are either missing or intentionally disabled on the iPhone, but then I understood the purpose. In the first case it is a power concern whereas in the second it has been possible to write third-party apps for that since iOS 3 (my N900, for example, can't send MMSes or tune into FM radio without third party software either, and that was never a problem for me).
Regarding Flash I can count by my fingers the number of times when I have actually felt the need to have it on my phone, or even on my tablet, and I really do have to wonder what kind of Flash-powered website people would be interested in visiting through their mobile phones. Furthermore, iOS is so popular as a platform that people interested in developing web applications for mobile can simply not ignore it, so in my opinion they are doing the world a service by not allowing flash. I actually wish other companies actually had the balls to do the same. As far as my experience with Flash on a non-Apple phone is concerned, I only have bad things to say about it, since pretty much everything was slow, even Youtube was slow!
I must confess though that I have never touched an Android device, not because I am any less of a nerd than I was before (as I keep buying the Linux phones from Nokia, which unlike most Android vendors sells Linux phones that are as free and open as they can possibly be) but rather because in my mind Android will always be that platform powering non-Apple devices for either Apple haters who secretly wish they had the Real Thing or people who have this notion that Apple targets rich homosexuals. The name, Android, doesn't do them any favors either; having been a geek my entire life that's the last trait that I want people to perceive about me. I also don't understand the choice of Java as the main development language for embedded devices, it really makes no sense to me, and I must admit that as a self-respecting software engineer I keep myself as far away from Java as I can, because I can not accept a virtual machine on my embedded devices and because Java in particular doesn't bring anything interesting to the table as a development language. Another thing that keeps me away from Android devices is the fact that there are so many implementations of them that the experience of purchasing one is a chore, just like the experience or purchasing a PC, and totally unlike the experience of purchasing anything from Apple, where the only available choices are things that matter and you know they aren't hiding anything that will come back to bite you later.
So basically I think the article is right about Android having issues with public perception but I think it overestimates the value of freedom, because even as a power user I seldom feel restrained by my non-jailbroken iPhone.
My die hard Android fan friends say that they chose an Android device because they didn't fall for Apple's popularity or cute interfaces like moron Apple fanboys (like me, they say). Maybe Android phone makers could advertise that. "You can be different by not buying an iPhone. You are smart. You make great choices. Blah Blah" The Android phones they happen to use have user interfaces that resembles IOS much more than other Android phones. How cool is that?
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4153
You missed the point
You did.
Security back then was not as complex an issue as it is now.
How complex the security is doesn't matter.
Cyber Crime is real and there is a big business in raping connected users.
"Cyber Crime" the phrase might have come into more prevalence now but viruses of 1990s were cyber crime as well, were as real as now. Big business doesn't matter. Users had a lot to fear from viruses of 1990s. Data deletion / corruption was very common. Viruses made the already slow computers of the time much slower, unusably slow at times and were extremely difficult to remove. Spyware were common by late 1990s / early 2000s.
On the other hand, since there is big business now for malware, a single user doesn't lose much. Big malware business knows that to grow as a business, a single user must not be exploited so much so that he knows that there is any problem. Computers are so fast that even as part of a botnet a computer can perform its duties as the regular browsing / email box very well. And the big malware business knows that it must because otherwise the box will be buried in a landfill and another be purchased, which will have to be pwned afresh. Better keep it in good working condition while it is in use.
When fear mushrooms as reports leak in the media, isn't it only a matter of time before any mobile platform will die from the negative publicity?
A user had much more to lose from malware in the 1990s, and still no fear could stop them from using Windows, or even from clicking on the dancing bunny. If any lesson can be drawn from the success of Windows through the 1990s, it is that users don't care about security. Corporates care, and will get it by paying extra. But individual users don't care.
Media reports in 1990s were also full of vulnerabilities of Windows. Success of Windows is living proof of my point.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.