Apple Takes 104 Percent of All Smartphone Profits Following Galaxy Note 7 Recall (macrumors.com)

Apple accounted for over 100 percent of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter of this year, according to estimates published by BMO Capital Markets on Thursday. From a report on MacRumors: Analyst Tim Long, quoted in the Investor's Business Daily, said Apple's staggering 103.6 percent profit share in Q3 2016 came largely as a result of significant losses posted by rival vendors including LG and HTC, and despite Apple continuing to shift fewer handsets year on year. Based on units alone, Samsung accounted for 21.7 percent of all smartphones sold, with Apple coming in second with a 13.2 percent share. In terms of profits however, Samsung came a distant second to Apple, capturing only a 0.9 percent share.

Comments

Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of complete bollocks of a story is this?

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read the story on Fortune and still can't understand how a share in profits can exceed 100%. Any financial wizards care to explain for us mortals? Hopefully in terms that indicate you are cognizant of how misleading and utterly stupid it is from the perspective of a logical user of the English language.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Stock pumping, I imagine. There's no fucking way Apple makes that much money on iPhones, even with a double-digit margin.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple -

Total profit made by all smartphone companies combined: $100
Profit made by Apple: $103.60
Profit made by Samsung: $0.90
Profit made by LG: -$1.00*
Profit made by HTC: -$3.50*

* Actual numbers made up on the spot.

Re:Utter bollocks

[rjmx]

I think they mean that it's 103% of the _last_ fake number they came up with.

Re:Utter bollocks

[hcs_$reboot]

What they mean, I think, is: compared to before the Note 7 incident, Apple made 104% of that previous estimation.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, what they mean is that Apple made 1.036 times the profit of the entire smartphone industry as a whole.

Re:Utter bollocks

[known_coward_69]

most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%

until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits

all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Profits and losses are the same type of thing with financials. Its all reported on the P and L.

Re:Utter bollocks

[myowntrueself]

most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%

until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits

all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.

Re:Utter bollocks

[slashdice]

Let's say you, Ron Jeremy, and Lena Dunham are in a room comparing dick sizes. Your dick is 4 inches. Ron's dick is 8 inches. Lena's dick is -6 inches (because it's actually a vagina). Total dick size is 6 inches. Ron Jeremy has 133% of the dick in the room.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

"Price-gouging", hmmm.

It must be so frustrating to you that everyone else except for you votes with their pocketbooks.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Dixie_Flatline]

No, it goes to show that a lot of companies are operating on razor thin margins or lose money pursuing this business in an attempt to gain customers.

Here's a business tip: if you lose money on every phone sold, you can't make it up in volume.

It's not sustainable. Everyone wants a cheap phone, but you know why so many Android phones never get updates? Because it costs too much. The company has already lost money selling you the phone--you think they're going to support it, too?

Apple, and to a lesser extent Samsung, have the money from the profits to drive the parts of the business that don't seem like they're part of the sale price. You get support at Apple stores, for instance. R&D--whether you think Apple's priorities are good or not is irrelevant, they spend that money on R&D for materials, software, etc. All that is factored into the cost of the iPhone (in addition to the profit margin).

World-wide, Apple accounts for something like 13% of sales, Android accounts for nearly 100% of the rest. But that 87% is split among a lot of manufacturers fighting for the same slice of pie, and Samsung is the top of the heap there, being basically the only one that consistently makes a profit on its phone division.

With the kind of losing strategy that is being pursued by most manufacturers, Apple could make a lot less profit per phone and STILL walk away with nearly 100% of the profits this year.

Re:Utter bollocks

[hcs_$reboot]

That's clever.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Archangel Michael]

LMAO

Re:Utter bollocks

[suutar]

apple's profits were bigger than the market's profits because everyone else, put together, had net losses.

Re:Utter bollocks

[XxtraLarGe]

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.

Apple does what any business would like to do: Sell a product to maximize profits. If they thought they could get more profit by selling iPhones for $1,000 apiece, they would. They're selling a premium item, not a necessity. There's plenty of cheap phones out there if you don't want to pay a premium.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anne Thwacks]

Here's a business tip: if you lose money on every phone sold, you can't make it up in volume.

If you believe that, you will never get an MBA!

Re:Utter bollocks

[Curate]

Wish I hadn't already replied to this thread so I could mod you up!

Re:Utter bollocks

[David_Hart]

most smartphone manufacturers barely break even or operate at a loss. add the losses to apple's share of the profits and you get over 100%

until a little while ago only apple and samsung took home something like 95% or 99% of all profits. samsung's loss pushes apple over 100% in profits

all those cheap android phones sold all over the world that make up for 85% of all phones sold don't really make any money

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.

In other words, when they added up all of the P&L from all of the phone manufacturers Apple's share was 104% of the industry total.

For example, Samsung makes $1 in profits, Company Y has a loss of $5, and Apple makes $104. The industry total would be $100.
- Apple would have made 104% of the overall industry P&L.
- Samsung would have made 1% of the overall industry P&L.
- Company Y would have made -5% of the overall industry P&L.

It's a way to trend which company in a sector is making most of the profits and can be a way to develop an investment strategy.

Cell Phones is a $425 Billion dollar industry. Even making tiny profits can make it worth it.

https://www.statista.com/topic...

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anubis IV]

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.

You may want to rethink those percentages.

Also, selling a high-priced item at a profit does not mean you're price gouging. Most of their competition has adopted a business plan that involves operating at a loss in an effort to gain market share that will provide a foundation for future profits, but which has so far resulted in several of them putting themselves out of business. Apple has opted to sell their products at a profit. Samsung does the same, which was why earlier reports stated that Samsung + Apple got "over 100%" of the profits, but because of Samsung's recent recalls putting them into the red, it left Apple to claim "over 100%" of the profits for themselves.

Now, if Apple had a monopoly on smartphones and took advantage of their control over the supply to jack the prices way up, that would be price gouging. But since you seem to think that 99% of smartphones are Androids, it's pretty clear you don't think Apple has a monopoly, so what leverage do you think they have? This isn't like the price of fuel going up right before a hurricane hits, with people having no choice but to pay the price. If people don't like Apple's prices, they'll simply buy a competitor's product.

Instead, what you're calling "price gouging" is actually an example of how pricing works with luxury items. Veblen goods tends to behave differently than the stuff you're used to seeing, so the pricing effects can be a bit odd. Which is a long way of saying that high-priced doesn't necessarily mean price gouging. It just means that someone apparently thinks the market can bear that price.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm...

Yes, vote with their wallets by choosing properly priced Android phones.

Sure, a small number of idiots happily overpay, and a smaller number of bigger idiots happily make people overpaying into some sort of virtue, but that doesn't change the fact that apple is a bit player in the overall smart phone market.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, that's rather deceptive.

A loss is a loss, not a profit. Someone else around here mentioned 105% p&L which is more sensible, but less hyperbolic.

Re:Utter bollocks

[LynnwoodRooster]

Here's a business tip: if you lose money on every phone sold, you can't make it up in volume.

Well yeah, with cell phones. But when it's taxi rides (Uber) or IRC channels (Slack) or mass-blasted texts (Twitter) you can eventually make profit even when you lose money on each transaction. At least that's what the gurus in Silly Con Valley insist!

Re:Utter bollocks

[R3d M3rcury]

A negative profit is still a profit.

Re: Utter bollocks

[TheFakeTimCook]

Erm...

Yes, vote with their wallets by choosing properly priced Android phones.

Sure, a small number of idiots happily overpay, and a smaller number of bigger idiots happily make people overpaying into some sort of virtue, but that doesn't change the fact that apple is a bit player in the overall smart phone market.

I wouldn't call the second-largest Smartphone marketshare holder, having around 13% of the worldwide smartphone market (and nearly 40% of the U.S. Smartphone market) a "bit player".

Now if we're talking about Windows Phone...

Re:Utter bollocks

[TheFakeTimCook]

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%. Which just goes to show what a price-gouger Apple is.

Apple does what any business would like to do: Sell a product to maximize profits. If they thought they could get more profit by selling iPhones for $1,000 apiece, they would. They're selling a premium item, not a necessity. There's plenty of cheap phones out there if you don't want to pay a premium.

And considering the fact that the Galaxy Note 7 costs MORE than a similar-memory-size iPhone 7 PLUS, it tells you a few things:

1. Apple and Samsung are competitively-priced

2. Since Samsung actually MANUFACTURES some of the most costly components in the product THEMSELVES (Display, SoC, Memory, Final Assembly(?)), and yet STILL charges MORE than Apple, either Apple isn't so "greedy" afterall; or Samsung is MORE GREEDY THAN APPLE (and yet, for some reason, no "Samsung Haters").

3. Maybe the gross profits on these high-priced phones aren't so big afterall...

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

13%? Wow! That's totally an impressive and not tiny at all number!

My argument is shattered before apples dominant 13% market share!

Re:Utter bollocks

[TheFakeTimCook]

Also, selling a high-priced item at a profit does not mean you're price gouging.

It does on Communist Slashdot!

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a solid argument here that the Android devices are not "properly priced". If everyone other than Apple is making a loss, then everyone else is running loss leaders, rather than pricing properly.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Because revenue != profit.

Re:Utter bollocks

[sexconker]

They trot this shit out every once in a while.
They count losses as negative profits, then claim Apple made > 100% of all profits.

It's bad math for dumb people.

Profits are positive, by definition. Anyone saying anything else is trying to cheat somebody. Probably you.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Darinbob]

You just do the necessary math. They have teams of accountants trained from birth to fool the investors about what's going on in a company. Having them make it look like profits are over 100% is something they do at lunch between the soup and the appetizer. Besides, everyone is required to give 110% at work.

I actually had a friend who's GPA was over 4.0. It wasn't because A+ was counted higher either. It was because he transferred school districts with a different grading systems and number of units, and the new school applied a formula to do the conversion. Grade scores earned divided by class units taken or something like that.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Darinbob]

And most of them voted for Android.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

This article, since you missed it, is about "over 100 percent of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter of this year" belonging to that 13% bit player.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple can provide updates for a 2 year old phone because they are still selling that phone in stores.
So if you buy a iPhone 6 today, you're only getting updates for one year, not multiple years.

Almost all Android phone makers only sell their phone for one year and a new one is made next year.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Whose dick would be that big with Lena Dunham in the room?

(That's a classic line, incidentally. Woman says "you have a rather small penis." Man replies "only when you are around.")

Re: Utter bollocks

[kellymcdonald78]

That's because it is possible to loose money on each item and make it up in volume. However this is only possible the variable costs of your product or service are less than your price (if variable costs are higher than price, then you are truely screwed). On the other hand if your variable costs are lower, then it's about amortizing your fixed costs across more units until your total cost drops below your price. E.g I have a factory that costs me $100 a month to operate (and can make 1000 widgets). It costs $.75 in supplies to make each widget. I sell my widget for $1. If I sell 100 widgets a month I loose $.75 on each widget (total sales is $100, total cost is $175). However if i sell 1000 widgets a month, then I make $.15 a widget ($1000 in sales, $850 in costs). This isn't unusual for companies in high growth mode to over invest in capacity so that they can scale quickly to their break even point.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

How about 104%? Does the number impress you? It's Apple's share of profits in the smartphone industry. Maybe you missed it. It's the headline of this very article we're discussing.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations, my point in its entirety.

I guess folks on slashdot *can* read, after all!

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Your logic is fallacious.

If apple can make 104% of the profit, then it's only reasonable to say that 100% does not represent all the profit. Therefore, that "104%" does not preclude other vendors from making money.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't preclude it, but it's basically true. The only vendors that made a profit are Apple, and Samsung, and Samsung's profit was negligible. Everyone else made a loss.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Except apple aren't only providing updates for 2 year old phones, they're providing them for 5 year old ones. The iPhone 4S got the iOS 10 update. An iPhone 6 bought today will likely get updates for another 3 years. An iPhone 7 bought today for another 5 years.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it goes to show what complete pieces of shit some people will sell as a "phone". The ones that are comparable (a few Samsung, LG, HTC, etc handsets out of the many other trash models they also offer) are also comparable in price to the iDevices. And they don't sell anywhere near as many by volume *or* revenue, because high end users don't care about shovelware like Android.

Re: Utter bollocks

[ceoyoyo]

This is Slashdot. Unlike accountants, many people here can handle integers, sometimes even real numbers, as opposed to just the naturals.

Re:Utter bollocks

[penguinoid]

Profits are positive, by definition.

Not so; profits are revenue minus cost. Sometimes this is negative, in which case it is usually called a loss. However, people would get very angry at you if you told them the profit one year was zero when actually it was a negative number. Suppose a company's profits were 100 in 2014, and -5 in 2015. For all that people will insist the -5 profit was really a 5 loss, when asked what was the 2-year profit of the company none of them are going to say it was 100 rather than 95, and when asked the profit in 2015 none would say zero.

Furthermore, no one bothered making a special word for when each of various definitions of profit turn negative, such as gross profit, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), earnings before taxes (EBT), net income.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that percentage dos not make sense when negative numbers are involved. What if Lena's dick were -12 inches? Ron Jeremy would have infinity percent? What if it were -13?

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing that all the Apple fanboys missed that point.

"But....but....but....profits!"

Yeah, it's overpriced. We've already established that. That's why most people buy other phones.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it's not an honest comparison.

If your phone gets Android nougat, it will get multitasking and all the other stuff that comes with the new OS. If your iPhone gets iOS 10, you'll get what Apple provides you. Android 7 is always Android 7, but since IOS 10 is not always IOS 10, it isn't a fair comparison. If Google allowed companies to just change the number and a couple icons, even old gingerbread phones would have Android 7.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

That actually makes perfect sense. Thanks!

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys keep on acting like idiots getting hosed on overpriced smart phones is a virtue.

Being able to convince idiots to spend too much on junk doesn't make it not junk.

Re: Utter bollocks

[mbeckman]

No, a negative profit is a "not profit". Just like a negative bank balance is "not money". And this story is "not sense."

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

If we're just going to cherry pick whatever numbers we like, why not?

Oh wait, that's the whole point of this story, isn't it?

Re:Utter bollocks

[Shane_Optima]

No, it goes to show that a lot of companies are operating on razor thin margins or lose money pursuing this business in an attempt to gain customers.

That doesn't contradict what the OP said. Apple can get away with high margins because people (even many supposed geeks) will continuously bleat about their supposedly high quality software (not even mentioning the software UX), even when it is clearly inferior to the other offerings in the same price range. The iPhone 1 is a classic example of this... a very shitty phone that did a couple of interesting (by no means unique, innovative or superlative) things, wasn't even 3G but still required an expensive data plan, couldn't even send picture texts (which was the ONLY way to send pics to a lot of smartphone users in those days), and had locked down app marketplace until competition from the G1 forced them to open it, but they could still tack on a couple hundred dollar premium and become a worldwide sensation because... why?

Because we're Apple and fuck you, that's why.

Other companies have to operate on razor thin or (after particularly unwise decisions) negative margins to compete, not because they're morons (well, not usually), but because they don't have the ridiculously over-the-top, undeserved reputation that Apple has. They can't demand an Apple tax; Apple can. And the Apple tax is pure profit, pure margin padding.

Stop pretending this is some kind of savvy or smart thing they've done. The vast majority of wise technical decisions that form the foundation of the Apple empire are remnants from ~30 years ago when they had an actual premium product that IBM couldn't compete with. This gave them a few million loyal fanboys who remembered the good old days even after Apple became a joke in the 1990s, and they ultimately gave Steve Jobs his second chance at greatness. Almost all of the rest is marketing, and the marketing gives them leverage to demand a margin like no other company on earth.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Shane_Optima]

Apple can get away with high margins because people (even many supposed geeks) will continuously bleat about their supposedly high quality software

beat about their supposedly high-quality hardware*

Re:Utter bollocks

[Shane_Optima]

bleat*, goddamnit

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically (though unrelated to this article) in finance a negative profit is making money and a positive profit is losing money. It's an effect of the double journaling.

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the new google pixel thing basically the most expensive phone? I heard (and can't be bothered checking) that in Aus it's $1400, that's about $200 more than the iPhone

Re:Utter bollocks

[Xest]

It doesn't, even if no other company made any profit, or if any made a loss then that loss doesn't in any way transfer to Apple's profits.

At best Apple can achieve 100% of smartphone profits for a period if everyone else makes a loss or breaks even, but even that isn't true. Regardless of whether Samsung et. al. have had a bad quarter, there are still a whole lot of players that make small profits - i.e. many of the Chinese firms, so the idea that Apple hit even 100% is complete drivel.

But in fact, it gets worse, because the summary even says Samsung gained 0.9% of the profits for the quarter, therefore that alone brings Apple's share down to at least 99.1%. Samsung can have failings and still make a profit in part because losses are usually tax deductible so are pulled off before the final figure for profit.

Profit is a well defined term, it's the amount of money you have left over after you've paid taxes, bills, costs, and so on and so forth. What your competitors gain in terms of profit has absolutely no reference to what you gain in terms of profit, they're separate figures for separate companies.

I suspect there's some kind of messed up clickbait logic behind the number that gives some kind of figure where Apple gets 104% of something, but whatever that something is it's not profit, nor any figure anyone having any kind of useful discussion ever uses.

Re:Utter bollocks

[BasilBrush]

I think Android counts for more than 85% of smartphone sales now, more like 99%.

You think wrong. Latest is 87.5%.

Personally, most to the people I see in my city have iPhones. But there are more poor countries and poor people in the world than rich.

http://qz.com/826672/android-g...

Re:Utter bollocks

[BasilBrush]

Someone was certainly bleating. You.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Shane_Optima]

I'm not the one who insists on talking about Apple constantly. Why is this shit on the front page? This is one of those cultural things you can't help but be informed about, because everyone else will not shut up about it. If it was just a somewhat interesting, somewhat overrated, overpriced "premium" product that certain people bought and enjoyed that would be fine and I wouldn't have anything to say about it, but no, the propaganda machine must be maintained and everyone else must at minimum acknowledge that "at least they have good hardware!" so that you can feel good about your purchase.

This is completely on-topic of me. Q: Why does Apple now have 104% of all smartphone profits? A: Because through a combination of factors, they've convinced people that they produce a premium product and so can charge a premium price, despite often having underwhelming specs for that price. Plus some other stuff generally related to their undeserved status as market-maker.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

>That doesn't contradict what the OP said. Apple can get away with high margins because people (even many supposed geeks) will continuously bleat about their supposedly high quality software (not even mentioning the software UX), even when it is clearly inferior to the other offerings in the same price range.

And many idiots, such as yourself, will pretend the iPhone doesn;t shit all over Android when it comes to usability, features, and stability.

Look, we get it. Your nerd dick is big. Go to your bedroom and jack off to RMS like a good little sheep.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Shane_Optima]

And many idiots, such as yourself, will pretend the iPhone doesn;t shit all over Android when it comes to usability, features, and stability.

The G1, N800 and many, many other contemporary higher end smartphones completely destroyed the iPhone 1. There's no contest whatsoever there. That was my main thesis there.

Look, we get it. Your nerd dick is big. Go to your bedroom and jack off to RMS like a good little sheep.

Or maybe I just understand that "Android" isn't a singular phone? Nor "iPhone" for that matter. Jesus fucking Christ. Claiming that one destroys the other across the board in those three areas instantly disqualifies you from intelligent conversation, 'geeky' or otherwise.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Lehk228]

bullshit, Lena is packing +6.5"

Re:Utter bollocks

[jaa101]

It's bad math for dumb people. Profits are positive, by definition.

Sorry if you find the maths and financial concepts too hard, but it actually makes way more sense to calculate the percentages this way. Otherwise you're excluding the market impact of all the companies who make a loss. How can you sensibly compare figures from quarter to quarter and from year to year if you're excluding a different set of companies each time depending on who makes a loss? There's a boundary between simplifying concepts so that more people can understand them and oversimplifying to the point of being wrong; you've crossed it. If anyone is trotting out "bad math for dumb people," it's you.

Re:Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

What is utter bollocks is stupidity of trying to sell commodity item like smart phones at exorbitant prices as Apple is doing. Short term they will rake in profits, but with market for "premium" smart phone being saturated, Apple will become a beached whale in a pond that's drying up! Long live the Beached Whale!!

Re: Utter bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like in college how I got "negative" blow jobs.

150% Sure

[vortex2.71]

I am 150% sure that they can't have more than 100% of the profit share. Thank you to math teachers everywhere for at least trying, but some can not be reached!

Re:150% Sure

[fermion]

In previous years Apple and Samsung accounted for the majority of profits in the smartphone category. Now that Samsung has sunk itself, not only with exploding mobile devices but also exploding washing machines, the only profitable firm is Apple.

The larger than 100% number is because most firms operate at a loss. For example, one can easily be 200% more productive than a very lazy coworker.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they can. If they make $2bn but all their competitors collectively lose $1bn, then the profits for the entire industry are $1bn and Apple have taken 200% of the industry's profits.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

That argument doesn't make sense, a multiplier is not the same as a ratio. It is not rational to think that you can eat 104% of a snickers bar.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the analysts are so stupid that they're taking the smartphone market profit and comparing Apple's total revenue to that, rather than comparing Apple's phone revenue. Either way, Tim Long, BMO Capital Markets, Investor's Business Daily, and Macrumors have now outed themselves as mathematically illiterate.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

You can, if someone else puts 4% of a snickers bar in front of you in addition to the 100% that was already there.

Re:150% Sure

[Milharis]

So if their competitors lost $3bn, they have taken -200% of the industry's profits?

Re:150% Sure

[rsmith-mac]

Sure they can. If they make $2bn but all their competitors collectively lose $1bn, then the profits for the entire industry are $1bn and Apple have taken 200% of the industry's profits.

Except that Apple's money doesn't then go to anyone else to offset their losses. Economically speaking, these are independent events.

Apple made all the money. But Samsung didn't lose Apple's money. So counting their losses against Apple's profits is harebrained.

Re:150% Sure

[The-Ixian]

the only profitable firm is Apple.

Is OnePlus making a profit?

They are 4 phones in now... you'd think that they would be turning a profit by now.... right?

Maybe not..

How about Huawei and Xiaomi?

Apple cannot be the only handset making who makes a profit... who would want to jump into that kind of environment? Yet there are so many handset manufacturers.... why would that be if only Apple makes a profit.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

That has to be one of the dumbest metrics in all of history.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

The instance is "all" so it is one "all." You can not have "all" + more

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure they can. If they make $2bn but all their competitors collectively lose $1bn, then the profits for the entire industry are $1bn and Apple have taken 200% of the industry's profits.

There are two ways to argue it.

1) The industry profited $2bn and lost $1bn. So Apple would have gotten 100% of the industry profits, and everybody else lost money.
2) As you said, the overall profits of the industry are $1bn. So Apple would have gotten %200 of the industry profits.

I would suggest that the 1st is the more intuitive and correct way of looking at the numbers. Imagine a multi-billionaire were to create a new start-up airline company which lost $1bn in money the first year; people don't start thinking that United, Delta, etc are more profitable as a result.

Likewise, imagine a new start-up industry which is overall losing money (like Amazon during the internet startup phase). If the overall profits of the entire industry were -$1bn? Would you say that Terrible.com with 75% of the industry profits were doing worse than Average.com with only 25% of the industry profits? And Success.com who earned $1bn would account for -%100 of the industry profits?

Your reasoning makes mathematical sense, but is very counter-intuitive and against how regular people talk. Unless they want an attention-grabbing headline, which causes people to stop, think, realize that it doesn't make sense, and be forced to puzzle out the secondary meaning.

Re:150% Sure

[Isendur]

So, when can I buy my Apple washing machine? I REALLY need it. Gotta love these stupid stories.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

you're an idiot, if someone put 4 percent of ANOTHER bar then it's not %104 of A bar, its %52 of both bars

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

the only profitable firm is Apple.

Is OnePlus making a profit?

They are 4 phones in now... you'd think that they would be turning a profit by now.... right?

Maybe not..

How about Huawei and Xiaomi?

Apple cannot be the only handset making who makes a profit... who would want to jump into that kind of environment? Yet there are so many handset manufacturers.... why would that be if only Apple makes a profit.

First, many of these companies operate beyond the smartphone market, so they may not be losing money overall. Second, no profit does not mean no revenue. So these companies may be healthy overall or even quite profitable despite their unprofitable smartphone divisions.

Why bother? Presumably, they are hoping to improve their profitability in a market that is assumed to continue to grow. Or perhaps they are simply trying to expand brand recognition to aid their other, profitable endeavors.

Or maybe they are hoping to be bought-out by Marissa Meyer.

Re:150% Sure

[Curate]

If Apple makes $2bn and all their competitors collectively lose $2bn, then what % of the industry's profits does Apple take?

Re: 150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

100%. With the others getting 100% if the losses...

Re:150% Sure

[The-Ixian]

First, many of these companies operate beyond the smartphone market, so they may not be losing money overall.

Ok, I am with you. Many handset makers also make other stuff.

Second, no profit does not mean no revenue. So these companies may be healthy overall or even quite profitable despite their unprofitable smartphone divisions.

That may work for a while. I mean, you can operate in the red for a long time if other parts of the business compensate... but not forever. And by forever, it seems like 2 - 3 years of running losses seem to be enough for investors to start calling for blood

Why bother? Presumably, they are hoping to improve their profitability in a market that is assumed to continue to grow. Or perhaps they are simply trying to expand brand recognition to aid their other, profitable endeavors.

I get it. If you can get your device in someone's hands, they are sort of a captive audience. Once established with enough of a footprint, you can then start monetizing those eyeballs. Still.. that is a LONG game for a startup or even an established business. Especially when competition is so fierce and margins are so low...

I mean, you may be right... It just doesn't make much sense to me.

Re:150% Sure

[bloodhawk]

That Argument doesn't hold. You CANNOT have more than 100% of a share in a market. You can claim Apple have 100% of the profit (which also isn't true), you can't add other companies negative profits to the share.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

they did not say more than 100% of the industry, they said more than 100% of the market, So no it is not possible.

Re:150% Sure

[tsqr]

This argument makes as much sense as "You can't hold sqrt(-1) pieces of chalk; therefore imaginary numbers can't exist."

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

That's easy, they make --
SEGFAULT
Divide by zero error!

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually incorrect. If you go to the original IBD article, rather than reading the shitty blog post that links to it, you'll see this is what the original source ACTUALLY says:

BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long estimates that Apple accounted for 103.6% of smartphone industry operating profits in the third quarter. Its share is over 100% because other vendors lost money in the business, resulting in Apple having more smartphone profit than the industry netted overall. In the year-earlier period, Apple grabbed 90% of smartphone profits, Long said in a research report Thursday.

They do not say "profit share," they say "operating profits." They can't have more than 100% of the share of profits; They CAN have more than 100% of the overall industry's operating profits (because this is a summation of all profits across the industry), but they CAN'T have more than a 100% share of profits, since profit share = sum of all NON-LOSSES across the industry.

Re: 150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're looking to create a click-baiting one liner, yes you could also claim that.

Re:150% Sure

[LynnwoodRooster]

Wait, don't you know you HAVE to add the losses into the market? How else can you turn a couple of a million dollar market (cab hailing) into a multi-billion dollar market? You have to add the billions of dollars of losses spent in trying to acquire and dominate that few million dollar market so you can claim the ENTIRE market is billions of dollars - and thus justify a tens of billions of dollars valuation for your domination of what, ultimately, is a few million dollar market.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been saying this for a long time.

Apple's competitors sell the most phones. Apple makes the most money selling phones.

It's a pretty similar situation when it comes to PCs/Laptops - Apple doesn't ship the most units by far, but they make more money at it than anyone else.

Apple's done a pretty good job at carving out the most profitable pieces of the markets it competes in.

Re:150% Sure

[sexconker]

By definition, no square root of a negative number exists. (And fuck your negative 0 bullshit. If you want to talk about negative 0 bullshit squaring it gives you positive zero bullshit, which is not equal to your negative 0 bullshit without a whole other layer of bullshit on top.)

Imaginary numbers are a computational aid. They do not represent any actual value or any actual physical thing, though they are useful intermediaries for determining actual values or physical things.

Re:150% Sure

[TheFakeTimCook]

So, when can I buy my Apple washing machine? I REALLY need it. Gotta love these stupid stories.

Mmmmm.

The AppleWash(tm) is quite simply the most elegant and powerful washer we have ever designed.

When we set out to create the AppleWash(tm), we asked ourselves "How can we make something as simple as the Washing Machine better?" And I think you will agree that we have done it.

Milled from a solid block of aircraft al-u-MIN-ium, and polished nine times in a proprietary process to a mirror finish, the AppleWash(tm) blends in perfectly with any decor.

Rather than the noisy electromechanical valves that others use to control the water supply, we have designed a custom, proportional, dual-pump system with specially-designed low-speed impeller blades to fill the washer almost silently. And that advanced pump design also extends to the drain pump as well. The AppleWash(tm) is also the only Washer with a custom-designed, computer-controlled active suspension system for the Washtub, that corrects in real-time for vibration and uneven loading of the tub. As a result of these advances, the AppleWash(tm) is incredibly quiet, measuring just 12 decibels, even in the Spin Cycle. Literally more quiet than a whisper.

The advanced power of the A10 chip cleans your clothes accurately and up to 150% faster than other SmartWashers, and the washtub's first-in-industry P3 color gamut and 5k resolution assures your whites stay whiter and your colors more strikingly vivid and beautiful than ever before.

And with our revolutionary Touch Bar, you have unprecedented fingertip control over things like load size, wash and rinse temperature, and spin rate. There's never been anything like it on any SmartWasher before.

We are incredibly excited to see what our users will be able to clean with the incredible New AppleWash(tm).

Re:150% Sure

[jittles]

In previous years Apple and Samsung accounted for the majority of profits in the smartphone category. Now that Samsung has sunk itself, not only with exploding mobile devices but also exploding washing machines, the only profitable firm is Apple.

The larger than 100% number is because most firms operate at a loss. For example, one can easily be 200% more productive than a very lazy coworker.

But how can you ever account for having over 100% of the total productivity? They said total profits. Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available. That's what the sentence literally means. That is impossible. It's like giving 110% effort. You cannot give more effort than all of the effort you possess.

Re: 150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

'Pieces of chalk' is of type integer.

Re:150% Sure

[rtb61]

Technically those stories are extremely stupid if Apple is putting them out because basically they are mocking their customers. Those profits do not come from the air, they do not come from other companies and they do not come from non-Apple customers, those profits all come from the pockets of Apple customers, they more they pay for the less they get, the more profit Apple makes. If a customer does not make a effort to cut back the profits of their suppliers, than that customer is a fool. Paying more for something than what reasonable profit margins should allow is just bloody stupid.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

By your logic 0 does not exists since it is a computational aid. 0 does not represent any actual value of any physical thing. And yet 0 was one of the greatest inventions in the mathematics.

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

>but some cannot be reached!

Sadly, the same is true for English teachers everywhere.

Re:150% Sure

[ceoyoyo]

Yeah. That's how math works. -200% of negative profit is a good thing.

Re:150% Sure

[Pulzar]

That Argument doesn't hold. You CANNOT have more than 100% of a share in a market. You can claim Apple have 100% of the profit (which also isn't true), you can't add other companies negative profits to the share.

Well, profits are revenue - expenses. So, if you add up all the revenues and subtract all the expenses for all the companies, the profit of the industry is less than what Apple made from it.

Calling it "more than 100%" illustrates that point quite well.

Re:150% Sure

[BasilBrush]

1) People don't buy on the basis of profit margin for the manufacturer. They buy on whether the product is worth the price to them.

2) You definately don't want to buy from a company that is making a loss. Because they'll either drop the product soon or go bankrupt. So there's no likelihood of long term support.

Re:150% Sure

[BasilBrush]

Your maths is wrong, even if you use upper case to emphasise your belief.

They aren't adding other companies negative profits to the share. They are adding all companies profits (positive and negative) to the size of the market.

If Apple are making more profits than the whole of the industry added together, then they do indeed have >100% of the profits. The maths doesn't change just because you don't like percentages larger than 100.

Re:150% Sure

[BasilBrush]

Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available.

That's your misunderstanding. There isn't an available profit, from which each company can take. It's not a pie.

Re:150% Sure

[BasilBrush]

It's 50% warmer today in Australia than it is in Britain. These are independent facts. But the comparison is still interesting.

(Made up fact.)

Re:150% Sure

[jbolden]

Actually they most certainly do represent physical things. For example the equations for potential energy of a particle.

That being said finance is only semi physical and negative numbers do exist.

Re:150% Sure

[jbolden]

Sort of you have a math error it should be -50% and that number actually makes sense.

In your scenario: industry profits = $1b - $3b = $-2b.
Apple profit $1b = -50% of $-2b.

or flipping the negative
industry losses = $2b.
Apple's loss = $-1b = -50% of $2b.

A negative profit is a loss and visa versa.

Re:150% Sure

[jittles]

Which means that Apple made more profit than there was profit available.

That's your misunderstanding. There isn't an available profit, from which each company can take. It's not a pie.

Total profits is a pie. It's a fixed number. it's in the past, it's already said and done. Just like productivity. It already happened. You can't have more of something that is already measured than was measured. It's impossible. When you compare it to previous measurements then you can say "We had 200% growth" and it makes sense. You could also spend 105% of your budget - those are all things that are possible to exceed 100% on. This is a finite measurement.

Re:150% Sure

[wwalker]

Math is hard, let's go shopping!

Re:150% Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

It is simply inaccurate and a completely pointless measure as it provides no insight into how profitable other companies are, especially when a couple of big companies lost billions while quite a few made most profits.If they want to use percentages then they should do it only based on profit where a negative profit is counted as zero profit.

Re:150% Sure

[BasilBrush]

Nope. You've certainly got the wrong end of the stick. The total industry profits are calculated by adding up each individual company profits. Individual company profits are not taken FROM the industry total. There is no limit on what each company can make in profit. The sky is the limit.

Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[JoeyRox]

The notion that a company captures more than 100% of an industry's profits due to an interim loss at its competitors only makes sense in the wasteland of internet clickbaits.

Re:Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[jimbob6]

Or if you own an IPhone.

Re:Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't slashdot fun these days!

Re: Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you ever really own an iPhone? I can pick and choose any software I want to run on my PC, my MacBook, and my Android phone...

Re: Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[Anonymous Coward]

fucking douche.

Re:Math is first victim of clickbaiting

[BasilBrush]

Would it make sense if there were losers and winners such that Apple had 99% of the profits of the industry?

Gosh, another Apple story! Go Apple!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how these stories just keep popping up on the front page, and without even going through the submission cue!

Slashdot is powered by you!

Consolidation

[CODiNE]

This scenario isn't really a new thing, for several years now Apple and Samsung have taken all the profits and yes been over 100% combined. Very few companies have been profitable with Android phones.

What I can't understand is why there hasn't yet been a massive consolidation of Android phone makers or a large number of them giving up on it.

How can the same companies pump millions in year after year and stay at it?

I know Microsoft used to pay companies to make their phones, is Google doing something similar with their search engine profits? Holding up dozens of commercial failures to flood the market with their OS?

How are they doing this so long without profit?

Re:Consolidation

[BigBuckHunter]

How are they doing this so long without profit?

In the case of Samsung, they are in a position where they make a number of components for the iPhone. So when Apple wins, Samsung gets paid. When Apple looses, Samsung gets paid.

Re:Consolidation

[The-Ixian]

This is my exact question as well.

I feel like there is something fundamental that I am missing here.

I mean, love them or hate them, Apple has raised the bar on phones. There is a fairly high expectation for phones to be well designed, fast, light and feature rich.

It is not an easy thing to do. Yet here we are with dozens of manufacturers in the game, each with their own offering.

Are none of them making a profit on their phone divisions? This seems to be what I keep hearing but it just seems unreasonable to me.

Re:Consolidation

[thegarbz]

How can the same companies pump millions in year after year and stay at it?

Diversification mostly. Are there any Smartphone vendors that have done this which haven't been in some other business, or even some entirely different industry?

The Xbox also made a loss for many years, made possible by a waterfall of cash from other divisions.

Re:Consolidation

[Anonymous Coward]

Revenue is slightly different to profit. Samsung make nearly Apple margins on finished product, but single digit percentages on pieces of glowing glass and ICs.

Re:Consolidation

[ceoyoyo]

That's a very good question, isn't it? They must be making money in some way other than selling phones. Some way that makes it worth their while to sell phones at a loss.

Re:Consolidation

[BasilBrush]

Phone explodes. Samsung loses.

Corporate Strategy

[BigBuckHunter]

I believe the business strategy is called "DFU" (Don't Fuck Up).. All you have to do is release slightly OK products that don't kill your customers and wait for your competitors' greed, ineptitude, and arrogance to do them in....

Thank goodness Samsung isn't a US corporation, otherwise my tax money would be bailing them out.

Re:Corporate Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're discounting other things. iPhone buyers don't tend to want to change. They can sell their old phones at higher values than equivalent Android phones. They have invested in apps and don't want to repurchase them. Their friends or coworkers have iPhones. They want to be blue bubble people. Etc.

What this finally does though is put to rest the argument about market share. Apple has destroyed that one, for all time.

And anyway, Google makes money even if the handset makers don't. So what do they care.

Re:Corporate Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

They want to be blue bubble people.

So iPhone users are assholes for being happy enough with their purchase to want to re-purchase, instead of having to learn a whole new system and software stack.

Or, maybe they are happy with what they have, and don't care about the additional stuff Android offers.

Different people are different - I know it's a hard syllogism to grasp, but it has the virtue of being true.

Re: Corporate Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

What it clearly shows is which userbase is happy paying immense markups for their hardware devices. It's really rather peculiar. People who buy iPhones consistently pay more, are held captive in an ecosystem, and yet seem joyful about it. Behavioral Scientists liken it to a variation on Stockholm Syndrome, but say more study is warranted.

Re:Corporate Strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, you don't think your tax money isn't already helping them. LOL that is a good one.

Re:Corporate Strategy

[TheFakeTimCook]

Or, maybe they are happy with what they have, and don't care about the additional stuff Android offers.

Oh, you mean like Viruses, Malware and Exploits, oh my!?!?

Re: Corporate Strategy

[TheFakeTimCook]

are held captive in an ecosystem

I don't think that "held captive in" is the correct term here.

extrapolation...

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2022, Apple sells a single phone, which has a 30 day battery life, but no screen, no ports of any type,and no way to interact with it. This device sells for $500 billion US, and captures 100X of the industry's profit, because of expensive recalls from exploding phones sold by 390553 different makers of Android devices... all of which were still running Froyo, before they exploded.

What needs to be done.

[durrr]

Lets drag whoever produced those numbers out into the parking lot and have them shot.

Re: What needs to be done.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't force millions of Apple customers out into the parking lot and shoot them. Entire sports arenas located in each major metropolitan district, and large numbers of explosives would be needed.

Re:What needs to be done.

[Anonymous Coward]

I concur 105.5% ...

Re:What needs to be done.

[TheFakeTimCook]

Lets drag whoever produced those numbers out into the parking lot and have them shot.

Actually, it was Samsung that "produced" those numbers, with their corporate greed and engineering arrogance.

Think about it.

Yes, I'm held captive by my non-exploding phone.

[Brannon]

There's no additional study necessary. Apple customers are willing to spend what Apple is charging, and there's not enough serious competition to force Apple to lower the prices. That's how free markets work.

Just because Apple customers place a higher value on some features than you do doesn't mean they are suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

Slashdot feature to remove article links?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, that wouldn't work, because some articles are legit. But how do we manage it, so that articles that are obvious cllick-bait -- like this one -- can not display their links on a top level?

Re:Yes, I'm held captive by my non-exploding phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is luxury brand. Luxury brands don't compete on price.

Apple is all about the nice fat profit margin. That's why most of their products are overpriced. Their iPad mini 4 is $400 (base price). There's a variety of Windows/Android tablets and laptops that cost less that.

Their prices aren't are problem because no one is forced to buy them. Windows + Linux can do almost everything a Mac can, save for some exclusive software (Hackintosh for that).

The problem is our ISPs want fat profit margins as well and we don't have a choice with them.

104% profit, 0% taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yey Apple!

Yes, Virginia, 100+ percent is possible, BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy. You have deferred profits from the quarter before applied to the current quarter. So, have two billion in profit this quarter. Have an additional 60 million in profit from last quarter added to this one. Apple takes 2,060,000,000 in a quarter while Samsung gets nothing. Bingo. 103%.

The real bullshit is: Where is Windows Phone, HTC, and BlackBerry? For all the laughing about how laughable they are (and they are...) they nevertheless also take up share. Sorry, not going to RTFA. So is it greater than 103% for the whole industry, or are they really pulling numbers out of their asses saying there are no other smartphone players?

Re:Yes, Virginia, 100+ percent is possible, BUT...

[ledow]

Do you have any idea about the current market?

Those phones you list do NOTHING. Literally lost in the noise. That's why at least two of them are considering pulling out of the market altogether and selling rival / generic products instead.

Samsung outsell Apple 5-1. It's just because Apple devices are so CHEAP SHITE sold at premium prices that they make enormous profit. In unit terms, Apple are in second place after Samsung, and the rest barely figure at all.

I manage IT and deal with every kind of BYOD for schools - including parents, kids and staff. Nobody I know has a HTC of Blackberry. NOBODY. Not had one brought to me in literally years.

Which pretty much matches smartphone sales percentages where they are concerned.

But the 100+% thing is still bollocks. You've just made up how it's reported. If sales over a particular period at looked at, you can't cheat like that, and even if you do those sales count towards "total sales". So any hyped up bollocks about making more than 100% of the profits over that period is shitty accounting or bollocks hyping.

Given that it's Apple, I'll take the latter.

P.S. losses don't count as anti-profits in that regard either, if you're going to say "what percentage of the profits".

Re:Yes, Virginia, 100+ percent is possible, BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung outsell Apple 5-1. It's just because Apple devices are so CHEAP SHITE

No. Samsung shifts an immense number of crippled entry-level smartphones, but doesn't sell anywhere near as many high end devices as Apple. This is because Android is used by a couple of tech-heads who put up with it for a few niche features and a huge crowd of cheap people who don't want to spend money on a phone.

People who want a phone worth the coin will buy an iDevice.

Re:Yes, Virginia, 100+ percent is possible, BUT...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone is bad at math.

(Psst. It's you)

A lot of morons here don't understand that percentage is just a ratio and that, in finance, loss is just negative profit. So yeah, you add all the positive profits and all the negative one's together. Everyone takes their profit (or negative profit) and divides by that total. It's fucking simple grade school math, but apparently /. forgot how to do that long ago.

I bought my first smartphone.

[AndyKron]

I just bought my first smartphone, an "old" Samsung S6, and I love it. I bought it to fly my Mavic Pro if DJI ever ships it to me, and best of all, it's NOT AN APPLE PRODUCT!

Just got

[Ol Olsoc]

My iPhone 7, and am loving it. I miss the headphone jack and the lack of firestarting ability - not at all.

oh dear

[ooloorie]

When the reality distortion field starts affecting basic mathematics, you know you're in real trouble.

Invention

[RogueWarrior65]

Invention, my dear friends, is 93 percent perspiration, 6 percent electricity, 4 percent evaporation and 2 percent butterscotch ripple.

Sorry Fake Tim Cook, you are not fake enough. Ha!

[Futurepower(R)]

To be a Fake Tim Cook, you need to lose your sense of humor.

Also, you can't be such a good writer.

Instead of being a Fake Tim Cook, you could accept the lower position of being a Madison Avenue advertising copywriter. Only $1200 per hour.

Slashdot accounts for 300% of nonsensical media st

[mbeckman]

Well, it does. Slashdot will repeat most any rediculousky indefensible numbers.

macrumors

[Anonymous Coward]

macrumors = facepalm

iPhone 1

[jbolden]

In 2007 Apple released the first phone with:
a) capacitive touchscreen as the primary or sole means of input
b) animation based interaction
c) high speed web rendering

There was no other product with that triple. That triple is now the standard. Obviously since they were the only one that was unique and since it has become more or less the standard it was quite innovative.

I think you should watch the introductory video to get an idea of how much Job's ideas contrasted with the competition at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

Capacitive touchscreen was the only interesting thing they really brought to the table, but they screwed it up by getting the world to standardize on glass digitizers (I've seen two devices with plastic ones and, other than some friction issues, they are AWESOME. Lighter and incredibly durable.)

high speed web rendering

Rather worthless without 3G, which plenty of phones in that price range had (the iPhone was EDGE-only, although it did require a data plan.)

animation based interaction

Which was laggy as hell (for the G1 and most other earlier devices as well.) Not really a plus.

Nokia had much better better UIs --smoother and more powerful even though they were using resistive touchscreens. Granted, these devices were marketed as micro-computers and for some reason it took them longer to stick an actual phone in it (in the form of the tragically underrated N800), but the writing was on the wall. The development of Android far predated the release of the iPhone as well.

Apple pounced with an under-speced, over-priced product that did a few flashy things that weren't yet common (but other phones in that price range had), and then they screamed and screamed at the top of their lungs that they were doing it first and doing it best.

They also emphasized that you could use your phone as an MP3 player, which was something the vast majority of new phones could do (even phones running OSes like Symbian), but the public was, for whatever reason, under-utilizing this.

I think you should watch the introductory video to get an idea of how much Job's ideas contrasted with the competition at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's ok; I'll visit the RDF re-education center some other time. I examined the first iPhone when it was first introduced and noticed these issues immediately. I thought the MMS issue would kill it for sure but alas, I underestimated the momentum their iPod and OS X devisions had given them.

Re:iPhone 1

[jbolden]

Your claim was that they didn't do anything innovative. The question is not how well they implemented the triple (though I dispute with you that at the time they didn't have a very good implementation of all 3) but rather that they presented this triple. They saw the potential of using these things together to build a new UI. Nokia has slipped with Maemo and was focusing on the MeeGo project which would still take years. MeeGo potentially could have been like that but too many factions wanted Symbian compatibility and thus at the time no evidence they were moving towards what would become the standard for smartphones.

As for Android at the time it was working on a blackberry clone with small screens and a keyboard. So no at the time it also was not ahead and wouldn't be even similar for almost 2 years.

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

If you want to argue Apple did the marketing better, and correctly judged that being seen as the innovator by rushing a crappier product to market to beat the competition by a few months was worth the tradeoffs from a business point of view, you'll get little argument from me. My thesis is basically that Apple's modern success has been 80% marketing (and also related supply side market-influencing behavior), 10% cost-cutting design, 5% technical & ergonomic design, 5% other. Obviously, they have to be doing *something* right; I just strongly dispute the importance of their technical or ergonomic innovation.

Nokia has slipped with Maemo and was focusing on the MeeGo project which would still take years.

Maemo was, IIRC (feelin' too lazy to check Wikipedia), already shipping on N800-like devices around the time the iPhone 1 came out. It took them another year or two to put an actual phone in it and that was an abysmal business decision, but the fact remains that Maemo was contemporary and it kicked the shit out of the iPhone 1 and G1, and it was obvious they were going to put it on an actual phone soonish. Like I said, the writing was on the wall. It's not visionary to do something that your competitor is obviously/apparently gearing up to do any month now.

Meego was supposedly going to be even better, but I used an N800 briefly and trust me, Maemo blew the Android and iOS of the day out of the water. (Palm's WebOS supposedly had some strong potential as well, but I never tinkered with it myself.)

Actually, in retrospect I think that the holdup for Maemo on phones (and maybe Android was well) may have been the battery life. People don't remember those days when your phone would last days without needing a recharge. Apple's hailstorm of enthusiasm got people to accept the reality of charging their phone on a daily basis and Nokia quickly said "Oh shit, I guess we don't need to work on power consumption after all!" and quickly stuffed Maemo into the N800, but by then it was too late and they were considered copycats.

As for Android at the time it was working on a blackberry clone with small screens and a keyboard.

And a quality hard keyboard is still the only sane input method for people who are serious about things. A lack of a keyboard was a money saving measure, that's all. A durability-enhancing measure? Well obviously not; not with the glass digitizers and non-removable batteries and emphasis on maximum thinness... Apple has never particularly cared about durability. But cheap procurement and QC is much, much easier to achieve when there are no moving parts.

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

Errr, N900, not N800. Got that mixed up in my head. N900 was the one I used.

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

Also:

So no at the time it also was not ahead and wouldn't be even similar for almost 2 years.

Uh no, that was only one year later. And by "similar", you mean "much, much better as it actually had 3G, an open app store, functioning MMS, and a decent keyboard."

You really think that year is so important? Fine; I could go back in time to 2006 and talk about what was available then if you want. Well before the iPhone came out, I had an Sharp Zaurus that was pretty amazing and could be easily modded to run Angstrom / OpenZaurus linux. Cost me just $300ish with no contract required. It wasn't a phone (although it had wifi via a CF card slot) and it wasn't quite as slim as it could've been and yes capacitive screens were a net win (not as important as you seem to think they are, though), but again: The writing was on the wall.

Everyone knew that phones were going to turn into more general-purpose devices with larger displays. Everyone knew the hardware was finally getting cheap enough to make it feasible (particularly when carrier subsidization was factored in.) Everybody knew the massive appeal of having more capable phones (the cameraphone revolution proved that.) Apple got in early with an inferior product (but *different*, and it turns out that's what matters... at least, that's all that matters whenever they manage to trap the public in the RDF) and forced everyone else to play catchup, but they were only "leading" in a business and marketing sense of the term, not in an innovative or sound-design sense.

Re:iPhone 1

[jbolden]

If you want to argue Apple did the marketing better, and correctly judged that being seen as the innovator by rushing a crappier product to market to beat the competition by a few months was worth the tradeoffs from a business point of view, you'll get little argument from me.

OK now we have established they were first with that crucial triple. I think you are still wrong on both months and "crappier". But I wanted to argue the dates first.

1) Everyone uses glass. Presumably if plastic were better and easy to manufacture (in 2007) we'd be seeing phones with it now.

2) As far as high speed web rendering. Remember the iphone supported wifi. It also was sold exclusively with AT&T's unlimited data 3G plan. The whole point of the device was to drive up the demand for data usage.

3) Finally on high speed animations I think you would be hard pressed to find a phone remotely less laggy. This has remained true more or less to this day using a comparable interface. Vertical integration has particularly paid off here as Apple has often been able to use objectively slower hardware combined with customized OS and applications to achieve much less lag. Nokia who you have pointed to many times had horrific lag problems.

As for Nokia being the competition. In the United States Nokia wasn't the competition. Nokia USA was dismal. Nokia did not focus on the USA market. Even when the USA became interesting Nokia wasn't able to integrate Nokia USA (the sales division) into their corporate decision making many years later. As for Maemo, Maemo used a resistive touch screen and required a stylus. It did not involve the critical triple and couldn't. Nokia internally had engineers who saw the advantage of the triple but couldn't get the changes into Gnome fast enough. A failure that both the Gnome community and Nokia reacted strongly too by restructuring. Could an alternative universe Nokia have won, absolutely. But in this one they dithered didn't make critical choices when there still were two sides lost their lead, then fell behind then died. I was working with Nokia USA during those last years when they couldn't either execute or not on exploiting the gap that Apple created in enterprise phones. In the end the hardware guys ignored Elop advice on ecosystems and they focused instead on a few hardware features.

Nokia is a perfect example of how good Apple is in developing a total package that is often unappreciated by technical people. Hardwarewise even when Nokia was hemorrhaging share to Apple they were quite often from a hardware perspective better phones. They were however vastly inferior phones from a software (OS in particular) and then from ecosystem perspective. The company was directionless.

Nokia also disproves your marketing theory. Nokia lost enterprise to Apple at a time when Apple was doing anti-marketing in enterprise phones. Apple wanted RIM or Nokia/Microsoft to take the enterprise market, they refused to make the concessions that enterprise customers wanted, and still the iphone's total experience was so much superior that even when anti-marketing Apple ended up winning with the move to BYOD.

As an aside on dates, the N900 came out 2 1/2 years after the iPhone 1 and still had a keyboard and resistive touchscreen. As an aside one of the things on ecosystems that caught Nokia off guard was the power of a closed ecosystem. They had never seriously considered what a closed ecosystem done well would look like when they focused so heavily on an open ecosystem

Finally on the claim that Apple's choices were obvious let me just point you to another of your comments, "And a quality hard keyboard is still the only sane input method for people who are serious about things. A lack of a keyboard was a money saving measure, that's all." You yourself a decade after Apple's approach still don't appreciate how important lack of a keyboard is. RIM was the primary vendor who was devastated by failing to appre

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

1) Everyone uses glass. Presumably if plastic were better and easy to manufacture (in 2007) we'd be seeing phones with it now.

For many years I had (and then my girlfriend had, who has managed to shatter literally every other phone she's owned, before or since) a capacitive phone that used plastic. It was almost perfect, *except* for the friction from swiping (and the fact that you needed a screen protector if you wanted protection from scratches, which has a similarly undesirable effect on finger friction.) I'm positive they could address this friction if they really put their minds to it, but I'm also sure industry leaders realize that falling prices, gradually plateauing performance improvements, and carrier subsidization make it a bad idea to build mobile devices too sturdy.

All that aside, Apple was the large driver for the mass switch to capacitive (and I've already conceded this was the one truly interesting thing, IMO, that the iPhone 1 brought to the table), and glass capacitive at that. My comments in my previous thread was regarding glass screens was in the context of Apple's philosophy on durability, and that point stands absolutely even if you wanted to quibble about the tradeoffs of plastic screens.

OK now we have established they were first with that crucial triple.

I think it's a very overrated and contrivied triple. It's not what you should be caring about; it's just the only thing you can come up with if you examine the iPhone 1 with the preconceived notion that it must have been technologically revolutionary. * Capacitive screen: The N900's UI was much more responsive and usable on a resistive screen. I actually thought it had a capacitive screen until I tried to zoom. Actually, that was about the only difference in practice... to zoom, you had to do a little spiral movement. This was very slightly less convenient (two-finger zooming allows you to get the exact size you want perhaps a half-second faster), but it was still very easy to do, and the resistive touchscreen did give you much better precision, for people who cared about that sort of thing. The only other advantage to capacitive is in durability, but this is largely wasted so long as industry leaders refuse to develop plastic screens for their higher-end devices.

2) As far as high speed web rendering. Remember the iphone supported wifi. It also was sold exclusively with AT&T's unlimited data 3G plan. The whole point of the device was to drive up the demand for data usage.

I cannot emphasize enough how ridiculous it is that you are placing "high speed rendering" over a decent data connection in your prioritization here. 3G was something like 5 years old when the EDGE-only iPhone 1 came out. I had an EDGE-only Symbian phone in early 2006 that one of my friends (admittedly an early adopter) repeatedly ribbed me about. Mobile websites (such as actually existed in that era) rendered just fine on that phone, which cost me $50 after 1-year carrier subsidization contract. This argument of yours is a total non-starter no matter how I look at it.

in the United States Nokia wasn't the competition. Nokia USA was dismal.

You've no idea what you're talking about. Pre-iPhone, they were massive over here. Yes, they had more of a reputation for cheaper "candybar" phones, but they also had multiple higher-end devices for anyone who cared to look and it was obvious that Maemo/Meego was going to end up on their new flagship.

But that's not even the point.... it was technologically superior to the iPhone and there were Maemo devices predating the iPhone 1. That's my main thesis here. I could grant you that they had a "dismal" USA presence (a ridiculous claim), and that still wouldn't affect my thesis that Apple's success was based on marketing and superior business decisions, not superior and innovative design.

As for Maemo, Maemo used a

Re:iPhone 1

[Shane_Optima]

One brief clarification: obviously, not all resistive touchscreens were created equal in those days (I've used some pretty horrible ones), but the higher quality ones, such as were found in Maemo devices or my old Zaurus, did possess the advantages I mentioned. Compare that to very high accuracy capacitive screens, which either didn't yet exist or weren't yet cheap enough to be available in (even high end) consumer-level devices.

Re:Sorry Fake Tim Cook, you are not fake enough. H

[TheFakeTimCook]

To be a Fake Tim Cook, you need to lose your sense of humor.

Also, you can't be such a good writer.

Instead of being a Fake Tim Cook, you could accept the lower position of being a Madison Avenue advertising copywriter. Only $1200 per hour.

I think there was actually a compliment under all that, right? If so, thanks!

I tried my best to channel Jony Ive. Did I get the superlatives-choices right?

Tim Cook is not a good communicator.

[Futurepower(R)]

Yes, it's a compliment.