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Why Apple Is Suing Every Android Manufacturer In Sight
First time accepted submitter amiller2571 writes "The eyes of the technology world are focused on the epic patent struggle between Apple and Samsung — the latest iteration of Apple's frantic legal battle against everything Android. The iPhone maker has also brought suits against Android device manufacturers HTC and Motorola. Apple has faced criticism for its endless lawsuits designed to stunt competition from Google's Android, but a quick look at Android device shipments in the second quarter of 2012 reveals a key number that suggest Apple is right to worry." Spoiler alert: the number the article focuses on is 68 — as in, the 68 percent of the smart phone market in this year's second quarter that consisted of Android phones.
The numbers are from IDC, so they might not be very accurate. According to IDC, Samsung sold 2,391,000 tablets worldwide in Q2 2012, but according to Samsung's court documents in the Apple case, it sold 37,000 tablets relevant to the court case. It could be that almost all of their sales were international and/or not-relevant (such as Windows tablets), but it is hard to reconcile those numbers nonetheless. The most likely explanation is that IDC really sucks at estimating tablet sales. Maybe they are dramatically better at phones?
Source: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/08/10/apple-sold-5-7-million-tablets-in-the-u-s-last-quarter-court-documents-show-samsung-sold-37000/
How many units are sold by all X makers in aggregate isn't really all that important here.
So the fact that Apple was on the ropes and facing the threat of bankruptcy and nonexistence back in the 90s and early 2000s thanks to that aggregate statistic that "isn't really all that important" means nothing in your little world?
People wanted "a PC". They didn't want "a Mac". "A Mac" didn't run the programs "a PC" did, and was more expensive. People didn't care that what they bought was a Dell, or an HP, or a Vaio, or whatever. And it turned out the market didn't care, either. The aggregate sales of PCs beat the pants off of Macs in sales. Period. Apple knows this. They are terrified of what this means, because Steve won't come back to save their asses this time around.
What does the entire "Apple sells the most of a single specific model of phone, and depends on that one single model of phone to promote their phone infrastructure, without which they're left with nothing" statistic MEAN, anyway? Um... good for Apple? Meanwhile, 68% of the smartphone market are using Android phones?
Unfortunately, the market in question is not as well versed in the details as it was in that case. That said, it's getting better. I've seen a large percentage of former iPhone users with Galaxy II and II Android phones. All are amazed at how much better it is, mainly in how you can customize the interface. One switch to one of the new BlackBerry phones because she wanted a physical keyboard (I'm in Canada, so we still have a bit of a soft spot for them). This isn't a valid statistical sample or anything, but it is a decent number. The only people I know that are keeping their iPhones are the ones that really don't use them for much.
As far as the profits argument, that's very true, just like it was back in the early days of the PC vs. the Mac. Apple has always had better margins than the commodity makers, but that doesn't matter since there will always be another member of the horde to take the place of anyone squeezed out. I own some Apple stock and I'm beginning to worry about it- the parallels to what happened to the Mac are beginning to look awfully obvious.
Then again, I bought the stock back in 1998 at something like $2.50/share adjusted for splits, so I probably shouldn't complain too loudly...
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Saw this the other day and found it rather amusing.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s-q59Ddhask/T-7gqITVmTI/AAAAAAAACRQ/v1EjsKgB-bY/s973/the_apple_cycle.jpg
Where's SEA now versus the ubiquity of the zip file format. Katz had to change the extension, but won overall. He won because the community knew he had a better product, and SEA was using the courts to block him ... it's actually a really good comparison, and if people spread the word, Apple might be in the same position eventually, or have to at least change their ways.
I bought an iPad 2 last fall and have serious buyers remorse now. It served its purpose while we were travelling in Australia and China for 4 months, but when we got back, I found pretty quickly that it can't really be used for business purposes. I wanted to use it for business presentations to save lugging my laptop around. So I bought both an iPad -> HDMI adapter and a VGA adaptor. However I soon found out that no matter how I tried to transfer my powerpoint presentation to the iPad, I could only "present" it within the Safari browser with a browser frame around it. I tried converting it to a PDF, but it was too large for the iPad and would open within any PDF viewer. I uploaded it to Google Docs, but Google Docs for iPad, displays it as a PDF within the brower window. It won't go full screen. The root of the problem is that the iPad doesn't have a user accessible local file system. You can't upload a file and open it with an application. You have to have an application "associated" with the file. Presumably file systems rank up there with having 2 buttons on a mouse as being too techy and complicated for Apple users. I gave up in frustration. iPad is a toy. I eventually found Scatterslides for Android that allows me to do presentations from my Android phone.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Unfortunately good quality handset hardware and seamless OS software upgrades aren't one of them.
I seem to remember a pretty significant number of problems people had upgrading from iOS 4 to 5, and a bunch more going to 3 (performance, etc). Android .... not so much. It's generally pretty flawless from what I've seen. The big problem with Android is getting the upgrades. Luckily, pretty much any OS feature can be installed via an application; there's no restrictions about 'duplicating OS functionality'. As for quality. Personally, I think the Android handsets vary from 'cheap piece of crap' to 'significantly better than iPhone'. It depends of what criteria you use, I suppose.
You mean by photoshopping the look of the samsung phone to make it look more like an iPhone in court documents.
http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Caught+Using+Photoshop+to+Fake+More+Pics+in+Lawsuits/article22500.htm
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Maybe Android users don't like video ads.
I was an iphone user.
I didn't leave for Android, i left because of itunes.
i have a Galaxy S. it's not perfect, but it's close enough i won't go back.
You might be sorely disappointed then. At least with the iphone 3GS and iphone4 we have in our family, we too have to reboot on occasion in oredr to get out of the "no signal" in areas where there is definitely a good signal. Doesn't happen often, but happen it does. It does certainly not happen any mpre often than on my son's Galaxy S2.
In terms of stability and reliability I would rate them "on par", but in terms of user friendliness and features in our family's collective opinion the Galaxy2 wins by a small but significant enough margin for the remaining 4 iphone users in the family wanting to make the switch. Everybody in my family is sick of Apple telling us what to do and preventing us from doing what we want to do through their appstore monopoly abuse.
As a tech support manager with AT&T Iphones require more reboots than androids to maintain, regain, or have signal strength, the Iphone is the worst smart phone for seeing the network... You have obviously never used an iphone.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Samsung S3, Samsung Note, Samsung S2,Motorola Atrix 2, Motorola Atrix HD, and a few others.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Since Galaxy S2 and S3 were both more highly rated than iPhone, isn't Samsung the one making the phone people want? And aren't the Bad Guys the ones trying to make you do what they want instead of what you want? Isn't that Apple? Or some patent troll who didn't invent anything but just dressed it up real pretty going around suing the actual inventors? Again, Apple. Not really understanding your logic there...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
As a tech support manager for AT&T you recommend a full reboot to regain signal strength rather than just cycling the cell radio, which takes about four seconds? That explains a lot about the quality of support I seem to get from AT&T. Must be freakishly lucky,for the past two years I've only ever rebooted my iPhone for OS updates.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.