Why should there be some kind of surprise that the market for iPhones eventually becomes saturated? The iPhone 6s was the same as iPhone 6 with better specs, and the 7 was a 6s with better specs but without the headphone jack. The 8 is basically an improved 8, and they all look the same. They all run an identical OS. I don't want to blame Apple for the lack of innovation. The technology has now matured and Apple has found a formula that works for them, and they're sticking with it.
However, this incredible bubble has to eventually pop. When more and more people realize that their three year old iPhone looks and works the same as the new one, less and less of them will be willing to spend 700-1000USD for a new one each cycle. I can imagine upgrading from the 6, because it has only 1GB of RAM, but 6S is where I would stop upgrading iPhone because the 6s still can use wired headphones.
So I'm guessing Google/Alphabet figures if they're careful and keep their phones a (relatively) niche product, it won't upset other manufacturers into quitting the Android space, while still giving them some control in guiding the direction of Android hardware should Samsung abandon it.
Which doesn't explain why exactly Google needs to own a device manufacturer. The same formula would have worked for Google when it was contracting others to build Nexus or Pixel devices. Nice, but not so nice, in order not to offend the likes of Samsung.
Moreover, these days there are plenty of Chinese manufacturers that produce cheap phones with great specs. Huawei for example. These companies would love to produce either low end, mid-end, or high-end hardware for Google's brand. Why Google needs to own a second-grade device manufacturer is still beyond our knowledge.
Everyone is scrambling to explain how this is such a great a business idea for Google, just like some people were trying to explain how great it was that Oracle took over Sun Microsystems. I think we're observing a very similar situation. We all have observed what Oracle has turned Sun Microsystems into, pretty much a ghost. I think the same will happen with HTC.
Google has no coherent plan for what to do with HTC. Probably some kind of a young MBA made a great a case for the management that they need to own a hardware business. The rest we'll see soon. It won't be pretty or interesting.
And who exactly can innovate these days? Look at Apple. First, it was beaten by the Android phones to the idea that the smartphone has to be big, like 5 inches in diagonal.
Next, let's admit that Apple has been building and selling the same smartphone, from iPhone 6 through 7, for 3 years. The iPhone 6s was the 6 with 1GB more of RAM, and the 7 bumped up the CPU and then deleted the headphone plug (huge mistake, IMHO). And, frankly the iPhone 8 looks exactly the same and works exactly the same. They basically sold the same device for 3 years, and promise to sell it for fourth year, except they bump up the internal specs more and more. Where is the innovation?
Finally, Apple's iOS and Android have been ripping features off each other, and they look exactly the same. My Android and Apple phones from four years ago have pretty much similar GUIs as the Apple and Android phones right now. I could go back to my LG G2 from four years ago and not miss anything (except some apps that now refuse to support Android 5).
With the HTC purchase, Google (or Alphabet or XXVI or whatever Google is calling itself these days) is likely interested less in their patent portfolio but more interested in the existing infrastructure that HTC has so that Google can manufacture Android devices without having to rely on partners.
I would like to believe this theory, but at the same time it's not like the third-party manufacturers have been preventing Google from becoming a major or at least a significant hardware brand. While the devices introduced under the Nexus brand certainly had lots of fans, it seems like Google did its finest to keep this brand underground, underpowered, or overpriced and undesirable.
The Core i5 2500 you compare to is six years old. It was released in 2011.
Are you saying that the 2017 Core i5 is any faster, or the ones that are still somewhat affordable at least? Please. You test a Core i5 from 2011, and a Core i5 from 2017 and then realize that Intel made barely any progress except for that which can be attributed to shrinking the manufacturing process. Most people who built their PCs using Sandy Bridge Core i5 have not upgraded CPUs to this day, except for cases where they needed a motherboard with better support for modern peripherals.
Seems like you are one of those people who has not bought into the hype. Indeed, the Galaxy S5 is still a fine device for 99 percent of uses, even though three years old.
And PS: you're dead wrong to say that single-core performance is not that important. It's probably still the MOST IMPORTANT metric. That's because there are whole lot of algorithms that inherently are impossible to run in parallel. Moreover, even if your algorithm can be parallelized, there is a limit to how much multiple cores can be useful. To find out, look up the concept of Amdahl's law on wikipedia. This is why for the past decade or so, four core Intel chips smoked AMD's eight core chips, and Intel's two core chips smoked AMD's four core chips. Simply, AMD had poor single core performance, and throwing there more cores wouldn't help.
If the benchmark scores are not fake, then it totally makes sense to move ALL of Apple's PCs, desktops and laptops, to the Apple ARM line, not just some of them. I can guess it would make sense to keep a line of high end workstations using Intel chips for a short time just to give users and developers some transition period.
I think Apple can do it. Intel has been a joke since they released the Sandy Bridge line of processors what, in 2011? Since then their cores improved maybe 0, 5, or 10 percent between releases. Basically a stagnation. It's quiet shocking that Apple was able to match Intel desktop performance in a mobile ARM device.
I gotta say, this was a truly uninformed comment. For one, Apple devices use memory far more efficiently than Android. Let's not start again the discussion about all the pros and cons of Java applications, but the truth is that Java runs slower and devours more memory than native built apps. An apple device with 2GB of RAM can perform just as fine as an Android phone with 4GB. On the other hand, an Android phone with only 2GB of RAM can barely multitask. True story.
Churning out a faster and ever faster mobile CPU year after year does not constitute real innovation. From an average user's standpoint, the iPhone 8 is not much different from iPhone 6. Apple has been now conning people for three-plus years selling effectively the same phone with slightly better tweaked specs: the iPhone 6, 6s, 7, and 8. They all are the same, except the last two erased the headphone jack.
I am afraid that with the passing out of Steve Jobs, the real innovation at Apple died with him because we haven't seen any real innovation from Apple for maybe five years.
Now that there isn't an ARM CPU that can keep up with Apple
Sounds like you yourself have no even minor idea what you're talking about. Apple's CPU's belong to the ARM architectures just like most of the chips used in Android devices.
Indeed, we all know this argument. In fact, Apple shamelessly sold the same iPhone for three years. The 6, the 6S, the 7 were basically the same brick with minor internal tweaks. And the iPhone 8 doesn't look much different. I am seeing a whole lot of people still using phones like iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S5, which makes sense since they still work fine for most uses.
I don't know what keeps this bubble going. 6 in 10 Americans don't have $500 in savings. I guess it's all those carrier installment plans or contracts that allow consumers to have the most recent smartphone for a modest monthly fee. People will buy anything with anyone credit offers.
1. Sadly, the improvement of Intel chips since the Sandy Bridge was ridiculously slow. Barely anyone owning a Sandy Bridge i5 wanted to upgrade to a Haswel or Ivy Bridge. They all have the same single core scores, barely improving 5-10 percent year after year.
2. We're talking about single core scores. The performance of a single Apple _mobile_ core is basically comparable to that of a single desktop Intel i5 core that consumes 5 times more power. Intel should be ashamed. I think this is the result of lack of the competition in the desktop CPU market for many years until AMD Zen arrived.
I stopped caring about scores past when iPhone 5s or Snapdragon 800+ android phones hit the market. There is plenty of performance there to do any task that +95 percent of users need on their phone. 99% of the time, your smartphone is still just a fancy messenger and a web browser (because most mobile apps are just a wrapper around a web site).
It's of course nice that Apple gives you so much performance, but these days Chinaphones that cost under 250USD and carry the specs that are sufficient for most uses out there are just too seductive for a lot of people
Lenovo and Huawei have a poor reputation like that. Surely, their hardware has good price performance ratio, but the post-sales support is pretty poor. Often one major firmware update is all you will get.
WTF you get the 200/mo figure? Please? What planet you live on? I get a pretty much full U-verse cable package for like 110 a month, and that includes renting their DVR, rest of equipment, access to on-demand content, and individual channel apps, either on PC or mobile devices, free of data charge if I happen to use their cell phone service too.
You seem to contradict yourself. First you say that Netflix lets you watch whatever you want, then you admit that HBO lets you watch on demand. Please. Why don't you save everyone time, and not write that?
Next, why do you assume that Cable TV is all about movies and TV shows? How about live news, sports, cartoons and comedy shows that political commentary of the day? How about documentaries? How about watching AMC and FX TV shows as they are released instead of a year later, when they're already last years news? Imagine the face of your coworkers when you try to discuss an episode a year after it came out "oh, that guy.. who doesn't use camble mmokay"
We never had cable or satellite, the concept of paying for television being bonkers, so what's there to miss?
So, we get it that you have no interest in live news, sports, or watching TV shows immediately as they come out. There is tons of content that has not and will not come out on either DVD or streaming services. That's fine, but please don't try to convince the rest of public that living under the rock, like you apparently do is great and saves money, and is just as good blah blah blah.
people are complaining that they are paying $99.99/month for the 3 or 4 channels
People complaining about this are basically those who want to have the premium movie channels like HBO, Starz, Cinemax, etc, and don't care about any other programming. This small group of people is indeed served well by something like Netflix.
On the other hand, I and a lot of people like me belong to the opposite group. We want live news, more than one channel, sports, AMC+FX, Comedy, Cartoons, and a few mostly "documentary" show channels like Discovery, History, and Travel. My group is served really really poorly by something like Netflix or Amazon Prime.
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Why should there be some kind of surprise that the market for iPhones eventually becomes saturated? The iPhone 6s was the same as iPhone 6 with better specs, and the 7 was a 6s with better specs but without the headphone jack. The 8 is basically an improved 8, and they all look the same. They all run an identical OS. I don't want to blame Apple for the lack of innovation. The technology has now matured and Apple has found a formula that works for them, and they're sticking with it.
However, this incredible bubble has to eventually pop. When more and more people realize that their three year old iPhone looks and works the same as the new one, less and less of them will be willing to spend 700-1000USD for a new one each cycle. I can imagine upgrading from the 6, because it has only 1GB of RAM, but 6S is where I would stop upgrading iPhone because the 6s still can use wired headphones.
Google wants to own 10+ old graphics technology (some noting S3 name, would say 20 years old)? Mmmokay.
So I'm guessing Google/Alphabet figures if they're careful and keep their phones a (relatively) niche product, it won't upset other manufacturers into quitting the Android space, while still giving them some control in guiding the direction of Android hardware should Samsung abandon it.
Which doesn't explain why exactly Google needs to own a device manufacturer. The same formula would have worked for Google when it was contracting others to build Nexus or Pixel devices. Nice, but not so nice, in order not to offend the likes of Samsung.
Moreover, these days there are plenty of Chinese manufacturers that produce cheap phones with great specs. Huawei for example. These companies would love to produce either low end, mid-end, or high-end hardware for Google's brand. Why Google needs to own a second-grade device manufacturer is still beyond our knowledge.
Everyone is scrambling to explain how this is such a great a business idea for Google, just like some people were trying to explain how great it was that Oracle took over Sun Microsystems. I think we're observing a very similar situation. We all have observed what Oracle has turned Sun Microsystems into, pretty much a ghost. I think the same will happen with HTC.
Google has no coherent plan for what to do with HTC. Probably some kind of a young MBA made a great a case for the management that they need to own a hardware business. The rest we'll see soon. It won't be pretty or interesting.
Google doesn't know how to innovate anymore
And who exactly can innovate these days? Look at Apple. First, it was beaten by the Android phones to the idea that the smartphone has to be big, like 5 inches in diagonal.
Next, let's admit that Apple has been building and selling the same smartphone, from iPhone 6 through 7, for 3 years. The iPhone 6s was the 6 with 1GB more of RAM, and the 7 bumped up the CPU and then deleted the headphone plug (huge mistake, IMHO). And, frankly the iPhone 8 looks exactly the same and works exactly the same. They basically sold the same device for 3 years, and promise to sell it for fourth year, except they bump up the internal specs more and more. Where is the innovation?
Finally, Apple's iOS and Android have been ripping features off each other, and they look exactly the same. My Android and Apple phones from four years ago have pretty much similar GUIs as the Apple and Android phones right now. I could go back to my LG G2 from four years ago and not miss anything (except some apps that now refuse to support Android 5).
With the HTC purchase, Google (or Alphabet or XXVI or whatever Google is calling itself these days) is likely interested less in their patent portfolio but more interested in the existing infrastructure that HTC has so that Google can manufacture Android devices without having to rely on partners.
I would like to believe this theory, but at the same time it's not like the third-party manufacturers have been preventing Google from becoming a major or at least a significant hardware brand. While the devices introduced under the Nexus brand certainly had lots of fans, it seems like Google did its finest to keep this brand underground, underpowered, or overpriced and undesirable.
The Core i5 2500 you compare to is six years old. It was released in 2011.
Are you saying that the 2017 Core i5 is any faster, or the ones that are still somewhat affordable at least? Please. You test a Core i5 from 2011, and a Core i5 from 2017 and then realize that Intel made barely any progress except for that which can be attributed to shrinking the manufacturing process. Most people who built their PCs using Sandy Bridge Core i5 have not upgraded CPUs to this day, except for cases where they needed a motherboard with better support for modern peripherals.
Seems like you are one of those people who has not bought into the hype. Indeed, the Galaxy S5 is still a fine device for 99 percent of uses, even though three years old.
And PS: you're dead wrong to say that single-core performance is not that important. It's probably still the MOST IMPORTANT metric. That's because there are whole lot of algorithms that inherently are impossible to run in parallel. Moreover, even if your algorithm can be parallelized, there is a limit to how much multiple cores can be useful. To find out, look up the concept of Amdahl's law on wikipedia. This is why for the past decade or so, four core Intel chips smoked AMD's eight core chips, and Intel's two core chips smoked AMD's four core chips. Simply, AMD had poor single core performance, and throwing there more cores wouldn't help.
If the benchmark scores are not fake, then it totally makes sense to move ALL of Apple's PCs, desktops and laptops, to the Apple ARM line, not just some of them. I can guess it would make sense to keep a line of high end workstations using Intel chips for a short time just to give users and developers some transition period.
I think Apple can do it. Intel has been a joke since they released the Sandy Bridge line of processors what, in 2011? Since then their cores improved maybe 0, 5, or 10 percent between releases. Basically a stagnation. It's quiet shocking that Apple was able to match Intel desktop performance in a mobile ARM device.
I gotta say, this was a truly uninformed comment. For one, Apple devices use memory far more efficiently than Android. Let's not start again the discussion about all the pros and cons of Java applications, but the truth is that Java runs slower and devours more memory than native built apps. An apple device with 2GB of RAM can perform just as fine as an Android phone with 4GB. On the other hand, an Android phone with only 2GB of RAM can barely multitask. True story.
Churning out a faster and ever faster mobile CPU year after year does not constitute real innovation. From an average user's standpoint, the iPhone 8 is not much different from iPhone 6. Apple has been now conning people for three-plus years selling effectively the same phone with slightly better tweaked specs: the iPhone 6, 6s, 7, and 8. They all are the same, except the last two erased the headphone jack.
I am afraid that with the passing out of Steve Jobs, the real innovation at Apple died with him because we haven't seen any real innovation from Apple for maybe five years.
Now that there isn't an ARM CPU that can keep up with Apple
Sounds like you yourself have no even minor idea what you're talking about. Apple's CPU's belong to the ARM architectures just like most of the chips used in Android devices.
I think if something brings down the iPhone 6 eventually is the fact that it has only 1GB of RAM (6s went with 2GB, the only relevant change)
Indeed, we all know this argument. In fact, Apple shamelessly sold the same iPhone for three years. The 6, the 6S, the 7 were basically the same brick with minor internal tweaks. And the iPhone 8 doesn't look much different. I am seeing a whole lot of people still using phones like iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S5, which makes sense since they still work fine for most uses.
I don't know what keeps this bubble going. 6 in 10 Americans don't have $500 in savings. I guess it's all those carrier installment plans or contracts that allow consumers to have the most recent smartphone for a modest monthly fee. People will buy anything with anyone credit offers.
1. Sadly, the improvement of Intel chips since the Sandy Bridge was ridiculously slow. Barely anyone owning a Sandy Bridge i5 wanted to upgrade to a Haswel or Ivy Bridge. They all have the same single core scores, barely improving 5-10 percent year after year.
2. We're talking about single core scores. The performance of a single Apple _mobile_ core is basically comparable to that of a single desktop Intel i5 core that consumes 5 times more power. Intel should be ashamed. I think this is the result of lack of the competition in the desktop CPU market for many years until AMD Zen arrived.
Your ironic analogy no longer holds because I believe ever since iPhone 5S, the iphones have been smoking the Android hardware in raw CPU performance.
I stopped caring about scores past when iPhone 5s or Snapdragon 800+ android phones hit the market. There is plenty of performance there to do any task that +95 percent of users need on their phone. 99% of the time, your smartphone is still just a fancy messenger and a web browser (because most mobile apps are just a wrapper around a web site).
It's of course nice that Apple gives you so much performance, but these days Chinaphones that cost under 250USD and carry the specs that are sufficient for most uses out there are just too seductive for a lot of people
Anything linked to Russians must be evil.
Lenovo and Huawei have a poor reputation like that. Surely, their hardware has good price performance ratio, but the post-sales support is pretty poor. Often one major firmware update is all you will get.
Enough already...
WTF you get the 200/mo figure? Please? What planet you live on? I get a pretty much full U-verse cable package for like 110 a month, and that includes renting their DVR, rest of equipment, access to on-demand content, and individual channel apps, either on PC or mobile devices, free of data charge if I happen to use their cell phone service too.
Please, stop that BS talk.
You seem to contradict yourself. First you say that Netflix lets you watch whatever you want, then you admit that HBO lets you watch on demand. Please. Why don't you save everyone time, and not write that?
Next, why do you assume that Cable TV is all about movies and TV shows? How about live news, sports, cartoons and comedy shows that political commentary of the day? How about documentaries? How about watching AMC and FX TV shows as they are released instead of a year later, when they're already last years news? Imagine the face of your coworkers when you try to discuss an episode a year after it came out "oh, that guy.. who doesn't use camble mmokay"
We never had cable or satellite, the concept of paying for television being bonkers, so what's there to miss?
So, we get it that you have no interest in live news, sports, or watching TV shows immediately as they come out. There is tons of content that has not and will not come out on either DVD or streaming services. That's fine, but please don't try to convince the rest of public that living under the rock, like you apparently do is great and saves money, and is just as good blah blah blah.
people are complaining that they are paying $99.99/month for the 3 or 4 channels
People complaining about this are basically those who want to have the premium movie channels like HBO, Starz, Cinemax, etc, and don't care about any other programming. This small group of people is indeed served well by something like Netflix.
On the other hand, I and a lot of people like me belong to the opposite group. We want live news, more than one channel, sports, AMC+FX, Comedy, Cartoons, and a few mostly "documentary" show channels like Discovery, History, and Travel. My group is served really really poorly by something like Netflix or Amazon Prime.