Smartphone Sales: Apple Squeezed, Blackberry Squashed, Android 81.3%

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Smartphone Sales: Apple Squeezed, Blackberry Squashed, Android 81.3%

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 31, 2013 @07:32PM from the leader-of-the-pack dept.

mrspoonsi writes "Engadget reports: Smartphone market share for the third quarter...as you'd imagine, the world is still Android's oyster. Strategy Analytics estimates that the OS has crossed the symbolic 80 percent mark, reaching 81.3 percent of smartphone shipments by the end of September. Not that Google was the only company doing well — Nokia's strong US sales helped Windows Phone grow to 4.1 percent of the market, or nearly double what it had a year ago."

66 of 390 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

2.3 million Android phones per day by symbolset · 2013-10-31 19:34 · Score: 4, Informative

Samsung alone accounts for 1 million of those, leaving 1.3 million per day for others. Here are the per-company numbers.
It will be interesting to see if LG can deliver enough of the Nexus 5 to bump their numbers over the holidays.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.
1. Re:2.3 million Android phones per day by wvmarle · 2013-10-31 22:52 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Actually I'm more surprised wiht Nokia taking 4.1% of the market.
  While a small market share, 4.1% of a big market still means lots of phones. And for a single manufacturer to have >4% market share is pretty impressive, considering how they messed up their existing position.
2. Re:2.3 million Android phones per day by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 23:16 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually I'm more surprised with Nokia taking 4.1% of the market.
  I'm not.
  Telcos over here are flogging 520s like they were being given kickbacks for every unit sold. They're being pushed as the default phone on corp deals and other promotions. I'm not sure who's making money off them, but somebody's surely spending a lot.
3. Re:2.3 million Android phones per day by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-01 00:12 · Score: 2
  
  The Nokia brand is still strong with people who want a quality dumb phone. It's mostly older people who want something cheap that they only have to charge once a week and which is simple to operate, and Nokia is the only brand they know is supposed to be good.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
4. Re:2.3 million Android phones per day by IANAAC · 2013-11-01 05:48 · Score: 2
  
  Well, Nokia is basically just making just a handful of phones these days, the Lumias. In a market full of Androids and iPhones for years, they stand out a bit as being 'different'. And as far as the hardware is concerned, they're pretty high quality, with good battery life, and stand up to a beating. So they do have a niche.
  They're also producing a few new Asha phones that are marketed and sold in developing countries. From what I understand, the OS is based on a souped up version of S40 (or maybe S60?). I think they're meant to compete with the Firefox OS phones coming out.
  For low end phones, they look pretty decent.
Apple made the same mistake by etash · 2013-10-31 19:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

with smartphones as in the 80s with the computers. It followed a practice of a closed ecosystem, keeping everything proprietary and trying to control everything. Android today is what IBM and compatible was back in the day. The same way apple computers became just a niche market back then, iphones are becoming right now.
1. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 19:53 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I don't think the closed ecosystem has anything to do with it : i have an iPhone, and while my teenage kids love it and wouldn't stop dreaming about one, they just CAN NOT AFFORD it. So they jumped ship and bought a cheap 150€ android. While their phone is inferior, it is "good enough" for all they need to do. Now that they bought it, they're stuck in the android world partly because of the apps they bought, partly due to pride in defending their choice, but mostly because they see that their cheap phone can do EVERYTHING my iPhone can do at a quarter of the price.
  apple is losing the youth, and doesn't give a shit.
2. Re:Apple made the same mistake by antifoidulus · 2013-10-31 20:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Um, if you want define "mistake" as "making lots of money", then yeah, they made a "mistake". If you look at usage stats though what you see is a very different picture. For instance, iPhones still dominate in mobile web usage, as well as app usage etc.
  
  Apple is actually selling more iPhones than ever, even if their market share is falling. A big portion of the Android increase is coming in the form of people replacing "dumb" phones with smart phones, but as the usage stats show, many of them are still treating them like dumb phones. Apple has carved out a niche, and seems to be doing quite well in that niche without the need to sell an iPhone to every single user on the planet(which given their business model won't necessarily make them more money).
  
  Apple's situation now is not really comparable to the situation in the 80s. Maybe when large #s of devs start jumping ship, but you will still be hard pressed to find a large # of apps(note the pedants, I didn't say 0) that are available for Android but not iPhone.
  
  --
  Monstar L
3. Re:Apple made the same mistake by LordLucless · 2013-10-31 20:03 · Score: 2
  
  It's all related; Apple's iron grip on their ecosystem is what allows them to position their device as "premium" and charge so much for it. If they'd done what IBM/Google did, and opened their OS so that everyone could make compatible clones, competition would drive the price down.
  
  --
  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
4. Re:Apple made the same mistake by 91degrees · 2013-10-31 20:16 · Score: 2
  
  Aple do have the second largest market share in the smartphone market. I doubt they'd have anything likethat share if they made Android phones.
5. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 20:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you are talking GUIs then you are talking about Macintosh same main processor as Amiga but two fewer custom processors... guess who was cheaper. Atari had a graphical GUI too hardware cheaper... apples always been able to get a gullible subset of computer users to buy there over inflated hardware/software. Now with the marketing wizard dead, it feels like the 90s all over again.
6. Re:Apple made the same mistake by servies · 2013-10-31 20:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  ....
  While their phone is inferior, it is "good enough" for all they need to do
  ....
  but mostly because they see that their cheap phone can do EVERYTHING my iPhone can do at a quarter of the price.
  So with that last sentence you're saying it's superior to your iPhone....
7. Re:Apple made the same mistake by narcc · 2013-10-31 21:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Apple is actually selling more iPhones than ever, even if their market share is falling.
  Just like BlackBerry was not very long ago...
  
  --
  Required reading for internet skeptics
8. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Solandri · 2013-10-31 21:06 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Um, if you want define "mistake" as "making lots of money", then yeah, they made a "mistake". If you look at usage stats though what you see is a very different picture. For instance, iPhones still dominate in mobile web usage, as well as app usage etc.
  
  No it doesn't. Those stats are for iOS (iPhone + iPad) vs Android phones and tablets. And it's only for wifi traffic. On web traffic over cellular networks, Android devices generate slightly more traffic than iOS devices. Basically your link cherry-picked the one chart favorable to iOS.
  
  If you limit the comparison to just iPhone vs Android phones, Android generates more web traffic. And before you pull out the NetMarketShare data showing iPhone still leading: (1) NetMarketShare gets data from only a few tens of thousands of sites, while StatCounter gets its data from millions of sites. And (2) NetMarketShare's figures are normalized to unique visitors per month. i.e. Someone who visits a site once in a month counts as much as someone who uses the site every day. StatCounter counts web hits, so is measuring actual web usage rather than counting number of users. In other words, more iPhone users browse the web on their phone than Android users, but they don't do much browsing. The hardcore phone browser users are on Android and they generate more web traffic than the larger number of iPhone users who use the browser..
  
  Basically the only lead Apple still has is the iPad in the tablet market, and it's rapidly losing that too. Their share of quarterly tablet sales dropped from a commanding 60% in 2012 to 33% in 2Q2013, and now 29% in 3Q2013. Those are quarterly sales, so iPads probably still comprise the majority of tablets in use, which match with your initial stats showing iOS dominating in wifi-based web traffic.
9. Re:Apple made the same mistake by crimson+tsunami · 2013-10-31 21:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Cut him some slack.
  He's just bitter that he's stuck in the apple world partly because of the apps he bought, partly due to pride in defending his choice.
10. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:20 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You're conflating marketshare and sales volume. If your sales volume goes down, so does your marketshare* but the inverse is not true. Your sales volume can be increasing - and with it your profits - while your marketshare declines, simply because other companies are now selling products in your sphere. As long as volume is good and your margins are good, you keep making money.
  This is why Apple continued to be profitable in the days when all it was selling was iMacs and Powerbooks to a tiny portion of the market: they made money on every unit sold and the number of units they sold was enough for them to operate. This is why Apple's balance sheet was at its healthiest in the period when its smartphone marketshare was declining most rapidly: there was a boom on, and their volumes were increasing spectacularly even as their share shrank.
  I'd be more concerned about all the phone companies who are making losses every quarter on their devices, despite growing market share. If you're selling 10% of the world's smartphones and you're losing $100 per device sold you need to turn that around or you are up the creek.
  *Unless the whole market is shrinking, but that wasn't the case for Nokia or Blackberry
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
11. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 21:21 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  What on earth are you talking about? IBM didn't "open up" the PC design. Compaq reversed engineered it using a clean room process to avoid legal issues. (http://computemagazine.com/the-history-of-the-ibm-personal-computer/)
12. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:47 · Score: 2
  
  If your phone needs are the same as a teenager's, sure.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
13. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The early '90s, when Amiga and Atari went out of business? I bet Apple regrets not copying their business models. I loved my Amiga but Commodore were utterly delusional if they thought they were competitive at that time.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
14. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Bert64 · 2013-10-31 22:01 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Same thing happened with computers, Apple only really competed at the higher end with SCSI drives and color screens, while crude ibm-compatible clones could be had for a fraction of the price. People are quite ok with inferior so long as its cheaper and "good enough", especially during tougher economic times. And once you've bought into one system, the cost of escaping it for another incompatible system is high because you'd need to reacquire all your applications.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
15. Re: Apple made the same mistake by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 22:02 · Score: 2
  
  I've heard of deifying Steve Jobs but this is ridiculous. You do appreciate that their profitability came out of Tim Cook's ops management, iOS came out of Forstall's engineering team, and their design was by Jonathan Ive, right? And the zillions of people that work(ed) under them?
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
16. Re:Apple made the same mistake by msauve · 2013-10-31 22:04 · Score: 2
  
  "Apple made the same mistake with smartphones as in the 80s with the computers. It followed a practice of a closed ecosystem,"
  
  What are you babbling about? Sure, iPhone is closed, what with the company store and all. But Macintosh never was. Development info was freely available (Inside Mac, etc.), software sold on the open market without needing Apple's approval, hardware was mostly based on standards like SCSI and NuBus (AppleTalk and ADB were exceptions, but there were no comparable standards based alternatives at the time), which anyone could develop for.
  
  They didn't license the OS (well, for a short time), but that's not what makes a system "closed."
  
  --
  "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
17. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Bert64 · 2013-10-31 22:08 · Score: 2
  
  Aside from the lack of custom chips, Apple machines were generally higher end than the common Amiga and Atari models... While Commodore made low cost models like the A500, A600 and A1200, Apple were only making higher end models with faster processors, more memory. scsi hard drives, flicker free monitor vs tv etc, and they weren't unreasonably priced compared to the similar specced Amiga models like the A3000 and A4000.
  From my (somewhat hazy) recollection, when the A1200 came with 2mb ram, a 14mhz 68020, dd floppy drive and could be used with a flickery tv set, the lowest end mac had a 25mhz 68030, 4mb ram, scsi hdd and came with a proper monitor.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
18. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Bert64 · 2013-10-31 22:10 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  And that reverse engineering process was significantly aided by the fact that all of the hardware was built using off the shelf components, and the only thing they actually had to reverse engineer was the BIOS.
  
  --
  http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
19. Re:Apple made the same mistake by AmiMoJo · 2013-10-31 22:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  These days it's the opposite. The Nexus 5 beats the iPhone 5S in pretty much every area. Better screen, NFC, wireless charging, full 1080p video output, better camera, and arguably better software. Yet it costs half the price.
  At one point you could reasonably argue that it was worth paying extra for an iPhone, but these days unless you are already locked in I think it's going to be hard to justify paying double for an inferior or at best equal product.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
20. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2013-10-31 23:00 · Score: 2
  
  The "control everything" (or in a positive light "integration"), is what Apple is selling and what they are good at. Apple cannot compete head to head with Android, history taught them that - they failed until Jobs came back and started to focus on their niche. After a decade of restructuring, Apple is simply not ready to compete on many fronts, like Samsung is for example.
  Apple doesn't have to, nor do they want to, compete on every front. They have focused on what they believe is a profitable market segment and develop products for that segment. By focusing, they can build a product set that is very profitable and not waste time and money on less profitable commodity products.
  
  That is what is amazing with Apple this time. They had the whole smartphone market by the balls, but they let it go to stay focused on a smaller number of products.
  The early smartphone market was for high end devices; an area that Apple competes in quite well. As the market expanded and cheaper phones came out, Apple chose not to go into the more price sensitive areas instead focusing on the expanding demand at the high end of the market. As Apple developed a series of iPhones it became viable for them to keep older models at lower price points to bring more people into its eco-system; even then the lower priced iPhone isn't cheap if you buy it off contract. Apple is moving into a broader market by targeting what they see as the most valuable segments and happy to leave the low end to Android.
  
  The real big big difference is that this time there are other players competing in Apple's traditional niche instead of being left alone. If Apple eventually fails, it is this time not because of a strategic problem, just because the competition was good. ( and that's a good thing no ? )
  Yes, competition is god and Apple will need to continue to innovate to stay on top. However, Apple really isn't in the phone business as much as they are in the content delivery business. They'll still put out great iPhones; but they'll be aimed at tying people tighter into the whole eco-system. That is an area that gives them an advantage over their competitors because they don't offer the same end to end experience (yet). The iPhone, iPad, AppleTV and Mac will all be ways to deliver content i this customers that allow happen to text, make phone calls and run programs.
  
  --
  I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
21. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Therad · 2013-10-31 23:11 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I wouldn't be surprised if the teenager has more "phone needs" than the parent.
22. Re:Apple made the same mistake by dfghjk · 2013-10-31 23:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Complete and utter bullshit.
  Apple was famous for their cheapness and that "hardware that could support GUIs" was a 9" monochrome monitor with terrible resolution. PC's had better than that from the start.
  IBM PCs were more expensive than Macs in the beginning and were vastly more premium in build. Apparently you weren't born yet.
23. Re:Apple made the same mistake by dfghjk · 2013-10-31 23:34 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  And the BIOS was published in source form and you could buy technical reference manuals for it. Some secret it was!!!
24. Re:Apple made the same mistake by StripedCow · 2013-10-31 23:53 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If these companies could put their greed aside, we'd already be running apps from one OS on another OS, and the interoperability would be seemless.
  The technology is there.
  Everything would be simpler.
  And less development effort would go to waste.
  Capitalism is just working against us here.
  
  --
  If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
25. Re:Apple made the same mistake by StripedCow · 2013-11-01 00:03 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Here's the true problem:
  Apple put all their effort in building "the perfect" user interface.
  However, people are getting more educated and tech-savvy in general.
  They don't need Apple to hold their hand anymore.
  There's this saying:
  Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
  (George Bernard Shaw)
  Now, older people may still depend on easy one-button interfaces. However, this group of people clashes with the "image" that Apple tries to associate itself with.
  The youth understands this and is not falling for their marketing tactics anymore.
  There's another saying:
  Once your parents use a particular technology, it has lost its coolness.
  
  --
  If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
26. Re:Apple made the same mistake by msauve · 2013-11-01 00:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Complete and utter bullshit.
  Thanks for the warning about what was to follow!
  
  Apple was famous for their cheapness and that "hardware that could support GUIs" was a 9" monochrome monitor with terrible resolution. PC's had better than that from the start.
  The ur-Mac had a bit mapped 512x342 display with excellent sharpness and contrast, and used a 32/16 bit 68000 processor. The PC offered 640x200 with CGA (VGA wasn't until 3 years later) on a fuzzy-pixeled display (color, though), and used a 16/8 bit 8088 processor.
  
  --
  "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
27. Re:Apple made the same mistake by ph0rk · 2013-11-01 00:23 · Score: 2
  
  It has always seemed to me that an iPhone only really made sense if you were already an almost completely Apple shop. If you already use OSX everywhere, have a few apple TVs or airport speakers lying around, an iPhone is tops for integration.
  
  I've never understood why anyone would buy one that didn't already have at least one OSX machine.
  
  --
  semantics are everything!
28. Re:Apple made the same mistake by ph0rk · 2013-11-01 00:26 · Score: 2
  
  However, people are getting more educated and tech-savvy in general.
  That is false: familiarity with facebook does not mean tech-savvy.
  
  A surprising portion of even the very best and brightest 18-22 year olds would still hold a floppy disk completely level if you told them the bits might fall off.
  
  --
  semantics are everything!
29. Re:Apple made the same mistake by danbob999 · 2013-11-01 00:35 · Score: 2
  
  I don't think the closed ecosystem has anything to do with it : i have an iPhone, and while my teenage kids love it and wouldn't stop dreaming about one, they just CAN NOT AFFORD it. So they jumped ship and bought a cheap 150€ android. While their phone is inferior, it is "good enough" for all they need to do. Now that they bought it, they're stuck in the android world partly because of the apps they bought, partly due to pride in defending their choice, but mostly because they see that their cheap phone can do EVERYTHING my iPhone can do at a quarter of the price.
  apple is losing the youth, and doesn't give a shit.
  Except that when we look at the most popular Android smartphones, it's always the high end Galaxy S series and such arriving on top. 150 euros phones alone do not explain how Android gets over 80% of world-wide sales during a quarter. High end Android phones certainly get over 13% anyways.
  But I agree that when you have the choice between an iPhone 5C or a much cheaper Nexus 5, the decision isn't hard for a teenager. Only, the later is superior in every point despite being cheaper!
  The closed ecosystem has everything to do with it. Without licensing their OS to 3rd parties, Apple does not allow competition between handsets manufacturer to push prices down.
30. Re:Apple made the same mistake by somersault · 2013-11-01 00:58 · Score: 2
  
  they're stuck in the android world partly because of the apps they bought, partly due to pride in defending their choice, but mostly because they see that their cheap phone can do EVERYTHING my iPhone can do at a quarter of the price.
  Sounds more like you're sticking with your iPhone to defend the choice of spending four times as much as you needed to :p Did you ever consider that the "Android world" might just be a nice place to be? Android is nicer for the always-there-back-button alone.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
31. Re:Apple made the same mistake by David_Hart · 2013-11-01 01:00 · Score: 2
  
  ....
  While their phone is inferior, it is "good enough" for all they need to do
  ....
  but mostly because they see that their cheap phone can do EVERYTHING my iPhone can do at a quarter of the price.
  So with that last sentence you're saying it's superior to your iPhone....
  I was thinking along the same lines until I noticed that his kids paid 150 Euro. It's my understanding that phones are sold without being subsidized in Europe, unlike the US. In the US a $150 phone after subsidies is really a $250 to $300 phone. So, it does sound like they bought a lower end Android phone. While it may have much of the same functions as an iPhone, it wouldn't be as smooth or as high resolution, etc.
  Personally, I think that anyone who thinks that iDevices are superior to today's higher end Android devices are misinformed. However, with Android devices you do get what you pay for.
32. Re:Apple made the same mistake by BitZtream · 2013-11-01 01:03 · Score: 2
  
  What matters is that they are marking money hand over fist. No matter how you try to make it sound bad, they are bringing in profits faster than anyone.
  THAT is what ACTUALLY matters.
  I can have a business with more revenue than any business before it in the entire history of the universe just by making a machine that you put a dollar in and it gives you a $1.50 back. I'll still be losing my ass, but my revenue numbers will be incredible ... right up until I run out of money.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
33. Re:Apple made the same mistake by multimediavt · 2013-11-01 01:28 · Score: 2
  
  Ok, my iPhone 4S does 1080p out through HDMI and so has every iPhone since. Better screens in some models, usually the more expensive ones. Personally, I see NFC as just another attack vector and would never use it. Better camera is subjective. Does it take better pictures or just bigger pictures? Again, I think the person behind the camera makes a big difference as well. Better software is also subjective as Android has proven to be less secure as an OS. Yep! costs less but so did VHS but that didn't make it better than Betamax.
34. Re:Apple made the same mistake by anjrober · 2013-11-01 01:43 · Score: 2
  
  the DB25 SCSI connection was a disaster. I knew so many people who mixed up non SCSI db25 devices (e.g. iomega zip drives) and killed their chain.
  the standard SCSI1 and SCSI2 interfaces used on many unix boxes were much better and were clear that it was SCSI
  ahh the bad old days. SCSI was fast but not being able to plug it in/out hot was such a mess.
35. Re:Apple made the same mistake by AmiMoJo · 2013-11-01 01:52 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually no, your iPhone 4 doesn't do 1080p. It scales its SD screen up to 1080p, except for video which can be higher resolution. Even then it isn't really 1080p because the image is heavily compressed. The HDMI adapter cable is basically an AirPlay receiver, and the image quality is awful.
  
  Personally, I see NFC as just another attack vector and would never use it.
  But wifi, the mobile network, Bluetooth, BTLE, SMS and the Lightning connector are all fine.
  
  Better camera is subjective. Does it take better pictures or just bigger pictures?
  Better. Aside from anything else it has optical image stabilization.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
36. Re:Apple made the same mistake by smash · 2013-11-01 02:02 · Score: 2
  
  The Amiga was great in 1987. Due to the custom chip design being so tightly bound to the 68000 running at 7mhz, they got stuck on the same spec for way too long. Upgrading the system and maintaining compatibility was too hard and expensive. Doing most stuff in software with loosely coupled add-on chips/boards when required through a layer of software abstraction, the apple/PC way proved to be far more flexible - just throw more CPU at the problem, and cheaper to upgrade as CPU power improved.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
37. Re:Apple made the same mistake by Skuld-Chan · 2013-11-01 02:25 · Score: 2
  
  In the early 90's I was making money on my Amiga - it was very much a niche computer like the Mac. I think a lot of people think Amiga - they think Amiga 500 or 1200 - games machines. I think personal workstation.
  My last machine was an A4000 with 68060 and 148 megs of ram (a lot for an Amiga) and it did serious special effects and graphics - and it had ethernet etc - it could even do NLE (online disk based video editing with the VT Flyer).
  Commodore could have developed that into a more mainstream market, but because of a lot of wasted opportunities - when they ran out of money that was it. Remember too - before Steve Jobs second coming Apple was on the rocks too - it very nearly went under like all the other niche computers of the time (SGI, Sun, Commodore, Atari etc etc etc).
38. Re:Apple made the same mistake by smash · 2013-11-01 02:35 · Score: 2
  
  No hard drive was far and away the bulk of the amiga market. Hard drives were exceedingly rare until near the end.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
39. Re:Apple made the same mistake by smash · 2013-11-01 03:13 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, and the A500 and A600 accounted for the VAST majority of Amiga sales. You may have upgraded your A4000, but few did - and the A4000 was only a tiny fraction of the Amiga market. By the time the 68060 came out, it was destroyed by the Pentium in terms of performance, AGA was destroyed by Super VGA cards, the 8 bit 4 channel audio was destroyed by PC sound cards like the GUS and Awe32, etc. When 3d cards like the Voodoo came out it was pretty much game over.
  I used to own an Amiga between 1989 and 1993 and I have a massive soft spot for the platform (same way I feel about my Macs today), but Commodore really painted themselves into a corner with such a heavy dependence on custom chips and lack of an API to drive them. They couldn't change much as far as architecture goes without breaking their entire software library.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
40. Re:Apple made the same mistake by MachineShedFred · 2013-11-01 07:05 · Score: 2
  
  So you're saying that as people become more familiar with something, they want it to be harder to use, and more obtuse?
  Are you cracked?
  
  --
  Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
“SOURCE: Strategy Analytics” by Udo+Schmitz · 2013-10-31 19:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

Strategy Analytics is the company Samsung uses to push the numbers they like to the press, while at the same time avoiding any regulatory oversight. Strategy Analytics‘ Korean headquarter even is in the same building as Samsungs.
1. Re:“SOURCE: Strategy Analytics” by thegarbz · 2013-10-31 21:50 · Score: 2
  
  They may be in bed with Samsung but that doesn't in any way mean they are wrong or misleading (well they are publishing stats, and stats are always misleading). There's been a massively rising trend from any source you wish to cite over the past few years. The articles date well back and each says something about Android increasing market share.
  For instance from the first 6 hits on Google for "Android Market Share"
  4 hits were from the story here (no surprise there, latest news get priority)
  1 was from the Sydney Morning Harold dated Dec 2012 showing Android beating iOS for the first time in Australia (source Telsyte)
  1 was from Technobuffalo dated Aug 14 2013 showing Android as 79% up from 64% globally in 2012 (source Gartner)
  Or you want to look at IDC's numbers which also show Android as over 70% for the quarter and a decline in Apple sales
  You can cherry pick from any data set you want, all show Android is increasing and iOS is decreasing. You don't suppose they are all in the same building do you?
2. Re:“SOURCE: Strategy Analytics” by fatphil · 2013-10-31 21:57 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  They are in the same district of Seoul, but 1321-1 and 1320-10 are not just different buildings, they're not even the same block. Post codes aren't even the same 137-857 vs. 137-070.
  
  Let's stick to facts - they are both in one of the most prestigious part of the capital city. Alas that's not really such a great conspiracy, is it?
  
  --
  Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Expensive Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 19:54 · Score: 4, Informative

Here in Australia, Apple have completely priced themselves out of the market.
iPhone 5S 16 GB: $869
Compared with a brand-spanking-new:
Google Nexus 5 16 GB: $420 (inc. shipping)
It's hard to justify _double_ the price for effectively the same thing.
Needless to say ... I just bought the Nexus 5.
It's time to sue everybody! by Time_Ngler · 2013-10-31 19:59 · Score: 3, Informative

Bring out the clowns (... err lawyers): http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/rockstar-consortium-nortel-patent-google-lawsuit/
Niche market by Udo+Schmitz · 2013-10-31 19:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

[] apple computers became just a niche market back then, iphones are becoming right now. []
Both are/will be very profitable niche markets though:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/10/30/apple-earned-more-than-samsung-lg-nokia-huawei-lenovo-motorolas-mobile-shipments-combined
And regarding Androids ubiquity, fragmentation or open-source-ness, this article suggests Google wants more control:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
1. Re:Niche market by aiadot · 2013-10-31 21:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, from my perspective I can't help but to notice the huge boner most people on internet have towards market share and mainstream market acceptance, regardless if it's for smartphones, computers, game consoles and accessories or services. People just seem to forget that business are about making money. Having a huge share may have some help with it, but that is not always true.
2. Re:Niche market by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:35 · Score: 2
  
  Half of all the profit in the smartphone market goes to Apple, the other half to Samsung.. Everyone else is losing money. It's an alarming situation for smartphones. Google can afford to stay in the game to keep Android going - they're basically selling the Nexus line at cost- but I'm not sure that the rest can. The idea of a Samsung-Apple duopoly controlling smartphones does not appeal.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
3. Re:Niche market by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:42 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  He's annoyed that they aren't free-as-in-speech, in that Google is making the most fundamental Android apps proprietary. The open-source versions have been abandoned by them. It'd be like if Ubuntu was still ostensibly open-source but everything outside of the window manager had to be written by the customer or bought via a non-compete licence agreement with Canonical.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
4. Re:Niche market by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 21:51 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  The user with "a million lemmings can't be wrong" as their sig thinks that popularity is more important than profitability. Classic.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
5. Re:Niche market by Anne+Thwacks · 2013-10-31 21:54 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Only because dickheads like HTC keep making phones which dont have removable SD cards and batteries because they believe the moron that told them that is why iPhones sell.
  Hell, as a real world user, and not a paid reviewer, I prefer Samsung's plastic case, because it is harder to damage, and my phone rarely leaves its leather case anyway.
  All my family has Samsung phones, and every single one will change brand next contract if another brand has a better offering.
  Some had iPhones b4, but poor reception and broken screens led to a change of heart.
  
  --
  Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
6. Re:Niche market by Gunboat_Diplomat · 2013-10-31 22:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yeah, from my perspective I can't help but to notice the huge boner most people on internet have towards market share and mainstream market acceptance, regardless if it's for smartphones, computers, game consoles and accessories or services. People just seem to forget that business are about making money. Having a huge share may have some help with it, but that is not always true.
  Depends on whether you are thinking as an investor or consumer I guess. I find it puzzling when consumers have a huge boner for the extreme profit margin a manufacturer is extracting from them ;)
Ahh, another no-name two-bit "analytics" firm! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-31 22:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

Ahh, another no-name two-bit "analytics" firm! It's really hard to pry numbers out of anybody but Apple regarding the number of phones that are in the hands of actual consumers. Google likes to pussyfoot around with "activations" and Samsung will tell you how many they loaded into shipping crates, but nobody actually thinks they are purposefully this obscure regarding their phone numbers for no reason. And let's not even talk about Microsoft's dishonesty regarding their sales numbers.
These analytics firms all have serious issues, as well. They may pay a developer peanuts to throw their shitware / bloatware into a free game (or even a paid app, yikes!) and they might be able to get some of the more idiotic "home page" type setups like Gawker to put their scripts up, but they only ever manage to sample a small, small number of the actual smartphone users out there.
The most reliable numbers come from the Wikipedia, a resource used by most everybody. The Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report obviates the need for shitty poo-butt bloatware "analytics" firms whose job it is to obscure an already obscure statistic, and the numbers for smartphones in September 2013 break down thusly:
Total Mobile: 29.5%, all Apple mobile OS versions: 18.1%, all Android versions: 8.47%, all Blackberry: 0.47%, all Windows Mobile: 0.33%.
Since we're only dealing with 29.5% of the total traffic to Wikimedia-related sites in the mobile category, a burst of quick math will tell us what percentage of all mobile devices are running which OS's. 61.78% of the mobile devices are Apple devices, 28.62% are Androids of ANY MAKE, 1.59% are Blackberries, and a whopping 1.11% are Windows Mobiles. This only totals to 93.1%, the rest being a bunch of other amalgamated nonsense brands like Sony or Symbian and "Linux Other" aka Nokia.
Quite a different story than the fuckin' crapware two-bit "analytics" firm's tale.
"But WAIT, RocketRabbit," you say, "We're talking third quarter here!" And to that I laugh, a big hearty har har har, as you are such a fuckin' twit that you don't realize that most of the companies out there are either flat-out lying about their numbers, aren't telling, or are going by some bullshit made-up statistic like Google's shady "activations." Oh, I know the numbers guys at lame ass investment firms need these percentages to justify quarterbacking loser companies for the next quarter, but they live in their own little fantasy world and real life facts are not important to their economic calculations.
So what's all this tell you? You're an idiot of the highest order if you think anybody but Apple is actually telling you how many phones they actually sold into the hands of consumers. And there's a reason they're not telling you, dummy!
Are *ALL* Nokia phones *smartphones* ?? by Taco+Cowboy · 2013-10-31 22:33 · Score: 2, Informative

I believe that the stat is skewed.
I have friends in India, Bangladesh, Africa, Thailand, Indonesia who sell phones, and they tell me that, for every one Nokia smartphone that they sell, they sell 8 Nokia non-Smartphones.
Nokia's offerings in many 3rd world countries are largely comprise of very cheap cellphones, selling as cheap as 15 euro (or about 20 USD) a pop.
None of those phones has Windows installed on them.

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
1. Re:Are *ALL* Nokia phones *smartphones* ?? by Therad · 2013-10-31 23:06 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The stats are only for smartphones, so they are correct.
Apple Window Dressing Figures. by tuppe666 · 2013-10-31 22:53 · Score: 2

Ahh, another no-name two-bit "analytics" firm! It's really hard to pry numbers out of anybody but Apple regarding the number of phones that are in the hands of actual consumers. Google likes to pussyfoot around with "activations" and Samsung will tell you how many they loaded into shipping crates
Ironically for you Apple also publish "shipped" figures and they do so because they are confident they can sell their products, and I agree with them. Here is them defending their massive sales drop in iPads "Regarding iPad, Oppenheimer said the year-over-year drop in iPad numbers from 17 million to 14.6 million units was in part the tough comparison with last year’s debut f the third-generation model, with no such revamp this past spring, and also the reduction in channel inventory last quarter of 700,000 units versus a year-earlier build of 1.2 million units." http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2013/07/23/apple-fyq2-call-the-iphone-beat-defending-ipad-margins-and-the-rest/
The bottom line is Apple is not competing effectively for market share, because of its weak...but incredibly profitable product line.
1. Re:Apple Window Dressing Figures. by Sockatume · 2013-10-31 23:00 · Score: 2
  
  Err, the very article you link to seems to indicate that Apple publishes "sold" figures and not "shipped" figures.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Steve Jobs could cure cancer by tuppe666 · 2013-10-31 23:25 · Score: 2

Agreed, but ... also realize it needed Steve Jobs to pull the iPhone off, as all others did not have the vision. We would still have clumsy phones without Job
Ironically their is strong evidence, that Apple copied from Sony. Even if it is not true it shows clearly that others were moving in the the same direction. We also saw in the trial the massive range from Samsung in the pipeline, we also see full screen prototype from Google. Hell they were beaten to market by similar phones
The reality is Apple came out the gate with an great first product, and have become the richest company by market cap on the planet because of it, but that was then and the myth of Steve Jobs is now hurting not helping Apple
EGA by tepples · 2013-11-01 00:28 · Score: 2

Apple had the lead for the first eight months of 1984, I'll grant. But Hercules already had a 720x352 monochrome card out, and in September 1984, IBM introduced the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) with 640x350 pixel 16 color graphics.
1. Re:EGA by smash · 2013-11-01 02:38 · Score: 2
  
  The PC was also crippled with segmented real-mode memory access and limited to 640kb unless you used EMS which was a terribly slow hack to get around the problem. The 68000 and up had 32 bit architecture and flat memory model - a dream to program for by comparison.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.