"Not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011." With open arms, T-Mobile has always welcomed adventurous users who are willing to unlock their devices, but even then the iPhone is relegated to 2G data speeds because of frequency-band incompatibilities."
The typical iPhone subsidy is $400 for a two year contract. The lowest two year contract is $70/month -- $1680.
"Whether you want to admit it or not, a lot of Apple's success is based on them having a cult that purchases their products because it's perceived to be the "in" thing to do. "
So Apple's "cult" consists of 70% of the tablet and mp3 market and around 40-50% of the US smart phone market?
"Hey, you may be right: who needs the decades of know-how in building great phone hardware, the global logistical network"
Both Apple and Samsung have better logistics networks and are able to get components cheaper. Nokia's logistic network has been decimated over the past year or two.
So you're saying neither Microsoft, Motorola, HTC, LG, Nokia, or RIM had the capital to advertise? You do remember that Apple was a relatively small player compared to these other companies when the iPhone was introduced? If Apple only markets, then why didnt any other company come out with a phone like the iPhone before 2007? Why were the first Android prototypes BlackBerty imitators? What happened to the Kin? What happened to Nokia? All of these other dead or dying phone companies were out years before Apple introduced the iPhone.
"With Apple, its an annoying gamble if you are going to buy from them because if you are unlucky you'll end up with a product that 1 month later is obsolete and a better product is out with the exact same price. While other companies have some of the same risks, they usually decrease the price over the course of the product's life, Apple does not until the "big new thing" is out."
Unlike other companies, at least Apple doesn't sell new hardware with obsolete operating systems (i.e. Android phones still being sold with 2.3) and OS updates are available worldwide for their phones without waiting and praying that the manufacturer will eventually release an update.
Do you even know what "subsidizing" means? It doesn't mean that the phone carrier is offering the phone for less than "list price". The "list price" is just some arbitrary number. Subsidizing implies that the carrier is selling you the phone for less than it's wholesale price. Do you really think that the wholesale price of Sprint's dumb phones are $250+?
"So, while the Evo 4G can be found for $220, and the Evo 3D can be found for $350, list price on the Evo 4G LTE is $729.99"
And then choose "buy phone without contract (replacement phone). Of course the "list price" is some overinflated number but even Amazon sells the phone at $549.
" and they destroy your theory that prepaid carriers don't subsidize. Of course, having worked in the industry, I could simply cite myself as a reference for that las bit, but hey, what do I know?"
Your "theory" is based on a list prices not wholesale prices. I also use to sell phones with contracts in college years ago. So I now the difference between the price that the store pays and the "list price".
"Take, for example, the LG Optimus Elite (the first phone listed there that I found on another carrier); Sprint gives it away for free with a 2 year contract, $249.99 unsibsidized, $149.99 through Virgin Mobile."
Have you ever thought that Sprint may inflate the price to get you to sign a contract? Check the non-contract prices of some of their "basic" phones.
"which I'd compare to the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint, except that the Evo V has a 3d camera. For the sake of fairness, we'll say that adds nothing to the price of the phone, Sprint's subsidized price is $199.99, while Virgin is selling it for 299.99; unsubsidized, it's a $549.99 phone."
More like $350....Do you really think that Sprint is going to offer you the best price on a non-contract phone?
It was claimed that people aren't buying Android devices because they are cheap based on subsidize prices since the iPhone is the same price. Android phones are much cheaper pre-paid. But when people have a choice to buy an iPhone or any Android phone at about the same price -- at least half are buying iPhones -- at least in the US. The US isn't all that matters, but the "free" iPhone 3GS was mentioned.
"The US comprises a mere 5% of the world population, with China having more than 4x the population of the US; I should say the US market doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things."
What is the "addressable market"? How many Chinese can afford a decent smart phone? How many people in India?
1. Prepaid carriers don't subsidize phones and prepaid GSM carriers allow you to bring your own compatible phone.
2. Virgin Mobile And Cricket both sale iPhones on their prepay plans.
3. Statistically speaking at least in the US, according to the published reports of the three carriers that carry the iPhone, half of smart phone users who don't have to switch carriers, choose iPhones.
1. The whole unsubscribe prepay market where you have to buy your phone straight up. There, you can get a prepay Android phone for less than $100 bucks.
2. Only ATT sales the 3Gs for "free".
3. The rest of the world where most people buy third phone in subsidized.
All three major carriers that carry the iphone publish the amount of smart phones sold and the amount of iPhones sold. They each announced about half of their smart phone sales were iPhones except for AT&T where it is way more than 50%.
"Sales numbers, the numbers that actually indicate consumer demand"
Consumer's speak with their dollars -- who are consumers voting for (who is gaining the most dollars)? But isn't selling more and losing money for Android manufacturers a Pyrrhic victory?
"They have other divisions that are losing money, and smaller margins on their profitable phones"
Apple is a profit seeking company - as are all of the other companies. How is Apple being trounced making 70% of all industry profits in cell phones? I posted the link to asymco with graphs previously.
What else does Motorola Mobility, HTC, Lg phone division, Sony/Ericson (now just Sony's) phone division, etc. sell besides phones? No one is making any money selling phones period besides Samsung and Apple. HTC is barely profitable.
Further, Android doesn't know what anyone wants, but Google's apparently got a decent idea, as do Morotola, HP, Acer, Archos, Sony, HTC, LG, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Samsung. By and far, these companies outsell Apple and it's not because Apple knows better than they do what their customers want."
If these companies all know what companies want then why are all of the Android manufacturers except Samsung losing money?
"If Apple is making 50% margin on the iPad, then why has no one else been able to come close to the specs for even 25% less money? "
1. Supply chain management -- Apple buys billions of dollars worth of supplies a year and can get much better prices. Companies (including Palm) have said that when they try to introduce a product that they either can't get the premium parts at all because they have all been bought up by Apple or that they have to spend billions just to ramp up.
2. The Apple store (online/offline). When you buy an Apple product from one of their stores, they get the wholesale margin and the retail margin.
3. Focus -- When you split your marketing, R&D, and supply procurement budget on 50 different devices (see RIM) instead of one product a year, you spend more for a lesser return. Also, their iPods, iPads and iPhones use similar hardware -- again goes back to #1.
You're perfectly capable of buying a book from Amazon for the Kindle and using the Kindle app. Even if Apple did remove the Kindle app,you can read a kindle book within a browser.
"Fair point, but then again they came from nowhere and became the number one console manufacturer, and even more incredibly are now cooler than Sony and Nintendo in that area. "
"This gives you instant portability to other platforms without having to wonder about ended-ness, hardware, file structure and myriad other things. Imagine writing a game on Linux and automaticaly, it would run on Windows, Mac and any other Java supported platform."
And your application looks like crap and non-native for every platform.
And you still have to test on every platform because of different screen sizes, performance, etc.
How many high performant apps have you seen written in Java or even using Dalvik? For the most part if you want performance especially on mobile, you have to go native
"but that's beside the point. Java portability is a keen aspect of the language which sometimes gets overlooked"
"'I don't know anyone in the ad-supported Web business who isn't engaged in a relentless, demoralizing, no-exit operation to realign costs with falling per-user revenues,' â" including its recent acquisition of Motorola,"
Because being a commodity Android phone manufacturer definitely protects you from a relentless, demoralizing no-exit operations to realign costs with falling per-user revenues.....
Slashdot Mirror
"The trick with Android is buying Nexus devices. Then you don't worry about updates - they'll be there for as long as hardware can handle them."
So as long as you buy your phone from the operating system vendor you won't have any problems....sounds familiar.
But I thought the great thing about Android was "choice"? So if you want a phone that actually gets supported you have a "choice" of a Nexus?
"If your carrier doesn't have iPhones now, they aren't going to have them. It's just not cost effective."
So three of the four major carriers in the US are idiots? And as far as the fourth.....
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/05/13/t-mobile-wants-the-iphone-bad.aspx
CEO of T-Mobile.....
"Not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011." With open arms, T-Mobile has always welcomed adventurous users who are willing to unlock their devices, but even then the iPhone is relegated to 2G data speeds because of frequency-band incompatibilities."
The typical iPhone subsidy is $400 for a two year contract. The lowest two year contract is $70/month -- $1680.
And all my friends who work at the Apple store own iPhones...
Yes, both anecdotes are completely meaningless. Luckily, there are real world studies....
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227210/Apple_head_and_shoulders_above_phone_rivals_in_satisfaction_survey
"Whether you want to admit it or not, a lot of Apple's success is based on them having a cult that purchases their products because it's perceived to be the "in" thing to do. "
So Apple's "cult" consists of 70% of the tablet and mp3 market and around 40-50% of the US smart phone market?
"Hey, you may be right: who needs the decades of know-how in building great phone hardware, the global logistical network"
Both Apple and Samsung have better logistics networks and are able to get components cheaper. Nokia's logistic network has been decimated over the past year or two.
"the long-held relationships with operators"
They are reducing the number of operators....
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/if-apple-is-running-away-from-this-strategy-and-samsung-growing-by-opposite-strategy-why-is-elop-try.html
"and sales channels."
http://www.zdnet.com/nokia-confirms-layoffs-pulls-back-sales-channels-in-china-7000000781/
http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/6/15/how-to-stop-nokia-channel-boycott-and-save-the-company.aspx
So is there some reason you can't choose to go to the app store and download it if Google decides to release a dedicated app?
So you're saying neither Microsoft, Motorola, HTC, LG, Nokia, or RIM had the capital to advertise? You do remember that Apple was a relatively small player compared to these other companies when the iPhone was introduced? If Apple only markets, then why didnt any other company come out with a phone like the iPhone before 2007? Why were the first Android prototypes BlackBerty imitators? What happened to the Kin? What happened to Nokia? All of these other dead or dying phone companies were out years before Apple introduced the iPhone.
"With Apple, its an annoying gamble if you are going to buy from them because if you are unlucky you'll end up with a product that 1 month later is obsolete and a better product is out with the exact same price. While other companies have some of the same risks, they usually decrease the price over the course of the product's life, Apple does not until the "big new thing" is out."
Unlike other companies, at least Apple doesn't sell new hardware with obsolete operating systems (i.e. Android phones still being sold with 2.3) and OS updates are available worldwide for their phones without waiting and praying that the manufacturer will eventually release an update.
" I guess it also goes to show that the secret to Apple's success isn't it's technological innovation, but it's marketing budget."
Right and marketing has worked so well for Microsoft.
If all it takes is marketing to make a product a success without a product that people want, then why can't every company do it?
You do realize that Google testified before Congress that 2/3rds of its own mobile revenue comes from iOS devices?
Do you even know what "subsidizing" means? It doesn't mean that the phone carrier is offering the phone for less than "list price". The "list price" is just some arbitrary number. Subsidizing implies that the carrier is selling you the phone for less than it's wholesale price. Do you really think that the wholesale price of Sprint's dumb phones are $250+?
"So, while the Evo 4G can be found for $220, and the Evo 3D can be found for $350, list price on the Evo 4G LTE is $729.99"
Uhhh go here
http://www.amazon.com/HTC-EVO-Android-Phone-Sprint/dp/B007ZUN6GS
And then choose "buy phone without contract (replacement phone). Of course the "list price" is some overinflated number but even Amazon sells the phone at $549.
" and they destroy your theory that prepaid carriers don't subsidize. Of course, having worked in the industry, I could simply cite myself as a reference for that las bit, but hey, what do I know?"
Your "theory" is based on a list prices not wholesale prices. I also use to sell phones with contracts in college years ago. So I now the difference between the price that the store pays and the "list price".
"Take, for example, the LG Optimus Elite (the first phone listed there that I found on another carrier); Sprint gives it away for free with a 2 year contract, $249.99 unsibsidized, $149.99 through Virgin Mobile."
Have you ever thought that Sprint may inflate the price to get you to sign a contract? Check the non-contract prices of some of their "basic" phones.
"which I'd compare to the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint, except that the Evo V has a 3d camera. For the sake of fairness, we'll say that adds nothing to the price of the phone, Sprint's subsidized price is $199.99, while Virgin is selling it for 299.99; unsubsidized, it's a $549.99 phone."
More like $350....Do you really think that Sprint is going to offer you the best price on a non-contract phone?
http://www.amazon.com/HTC-Contract-Sprint-Cell-Phone/dp/B006GGADHW/ref=sr_1_6?s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1344046707&sr=1-6&keywords=htc+evo+4G+without+contract
"Because that's all that matters, right?"
It was claimed that people aren't buying Android devices because they are cheap based on subsidize prices since the iPhone is the same price. Android phones are much cheaper pre-paid. But when people have a choice to buy an iPhone or any Android phone at about the same price -- at least half are buying iPhones -- at least in the US. The US isn't all that matters, but the "free" iPhone 3GS was mentioned.
"The US comprises a mere 5% of the world population, with China having more than 4x the population of the US; I should say the US market doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things."
What is the "addressable market"? How many Chinese can afford a decent smart phone? How many people in India?
1. Prepaid carriers don't subsidize phones and prepaid GSM carriers allow you to bring your own compatible phone.
2. Virgin Mobile And Cricket both sale iPhones on their prepay plans.
3. Statistically speaking at least in the US, according to the published reports of the three carriers that carry the iPhone, half of smart phone users who don't have to switch carriers, choose iPhones.
You're forgetting a few things.....
1. The whole unsubscribe prepay market where you have to buy your phone straight up. There, you can get a prepay Android phone for less than $100 bucks.
2. Only ATT sales the 3Gs for "free".
3. The rest of the world where most people buy third phone in subsidized.
All three major carriers that carry the iphone publish the amount of smart phones sold and the amount of iPhones sold. They each announced about half of their smart phone sales were iPhones except for AT&T where it is way more than 50%.
"Sales numbers, the numbers that actually indicate consumer demand"
Consumer's speak with their dollars -- who are consumers voting for (who is gaining the most dollars)? But isn't selling more and losing money for Android manufacturers a Pyrrhic victory?
"They have other divisions that are losing money, and smaller margins on their profitable phones"
Apple is a profit seeking company - as are all of the other companies. How is Apple being trounced making 70% of all industry profits in cell phones? I posted the link to asymco with graphs previously.
What else does Motorola Mobility, HTC, Lg phone division, Sony/Ericson (now just Sony's) phone division, etc. sell besides phones? No one is making any money selling phones period besides Samsung and Apple. HTC is barely profitable.
Further, Android doesn't know what anyone wants, but Google's apparently got a decent idea, as do Morotola, HP, Acer, Archos, Sony, HTC, LG, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Samsung. By and far, these companies outsell Apple and it's not because Apple knows better than they do what their customers want."
If these companies all know what companies want then why are all of the Android manufacturers except Samsung losing money?
I
http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market-in-2012-a-tale-of-two-disruptions/
And as far as Amazon and B&N, they don't even market that tablets as Android based devices.
"If Apple is making 50% margin on the iPad, then why has no one else been able to come close to the specs for even 25% less money?
"
1. Supply chain management -- Apple buys billions of dollars worth of supplies a year and can get much better prices. Companies (including Palm) have said that when they try to introduce a product that they either can't get the premium parts at all because they have all been bought up by Apple or that they have to spend billions just to ramp up.
2. The Apple store (online/offline). When you buy an Apple product from one of their stores, they get the wholesale margin and the retail margin.
3. Focus -- When you split your marketing, R&D, and supply procurement budget on 50 different devices (see RIM) instead of one product a year, you spend more for a lesser return. Also, their iPods, iPads and iPhones use similar hardware -- again goes back to #1.
You're perfectly capable of buying a book from Amazon for the Kindle and using the Kindle app. Even if Apple did remove the Kindle app,you can read a kindle book within a browser.
So does that mean that the Disney Store should be forced to sell Debbie Does Dallas if they sell books by other authors?
"Fair point, but then again they came from nowhere and became the number one console manufacturer, and even more incredibly are now cooler than Sony and Nintendo in that area. "
And they lost billions in the process.....
I've used Eclipse and use Vuze. They both have the non-native Java stench.
"This gives you instant portability to other platforms without having to wonder about ended-ness, hardware, file structure and myriad other things. Imagine writing a game on Linux and automaticaly, it would run on Windows, Mac and any other Java supported platform."
And your application looks like crap and non-native for every platform.
And you still have to test on every platform because of different screen sizes, performance, etc.
How many high performant apps have you seen written in Java or even using Dalvik? For the most part if you want performance especially on mobile, you have to go native
"but that's beside the point. Java portability is a keen aspect of the language which sometimes gets overlooked"
You mean write once test everywhere?
"'I don't know anyone in the ad-supported Web business who isn't engaged in a relentless, demoralizing, no-exit operation to realign costs with falling per-user revenues,' â" including its recent acquisition of Motorola,"
Because being a commodity Android phone manufacturer definitely protects you from a relentless, demoralizing no-exit operations to realign costs with falling per-user revenues.....
http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/16/iphone-share-of-phone-market-in-q1/