They don't have 1%. They have about one third of it. They have 0.37% of smartphones, or 0.27% of phones sold in 1H2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... If they could still keep this market share they could be fine. But they are loosing both market share and absolute sales every quarter. Mostly because they still have contracts with some slow-moving corporations, all of which are looking to switch. Their other problem is that it can be worth it to develop phones for only 0.3% of the market, but it's not worth it to develop and support an OS for them. Switching to Android could make sense. Only, it's too late.
Android hasn't exactly been a path to success for anyone but Samsung.
It's one thing not to succeed in the smartphone market. But companies who didn't succeed, such as Sony, HTC, LG, at least didn't have to develop and support a full operating system. So they lost a lot less focus than Blackberry.
Their own OS, QNX, is superior in just about every way imaginable, including development tools.
When did they get multitouch? WiFi hotspot? Back and front camera support? GPS? [insert any feature here]? That's right, the answer is always at least 6-12 months after the competition. People don't care about the OS kernel used. They care about features they see and application support. No matter how great QNX is for a nuclear power plant, it failed in the smartphone market, partly because it failed to attract developers.
They better be a me-too player, than not be a player at all. Have they been a player in the past 3 years? I don't think so. When is it the last time you have seen someone using a Blackberry?
US-Americans drive a lot, much more than the developed world average. Also, a big part of the USA is not covered by snow and salt and cars last longer because of that. I also believe your math is wrong. You won't find old cars as much on the road as people don't drive as much with them (if you have two cars, you'll use the new one first). Therefore, just because cars are 11.5 years old on average, it doesn't mean that the average is 175 000 miles.
It's from 2008 but I don't think i changed that much:
With improvements in the quality of automobiles over the years, a well-maintained car should remain reliable for at least 10 years and 100,000 miles. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports the average life span of a vehicle is 12 years or 128,500 miles. Surveys have shown that, on the average, a person trades in or sells a car when it is only 4 1/2 years old with just 41,000 miles on it.
400 000 km is a lot. Most cars don't get that far. Because most cars are too old way before that. I drive 10 000 km/year. No way my car is going to survive 40 years. Especially not with snow and salt on the road half of the year.
I work for a company that has paid out some 30 Billion Dollars worth of fines to the US government. Where does that money go? I think it goes directly into the pockets of well-placed individuals, because we never hear about where that money goes.
Easy. It goes 24% to social security, 24% to health care, 17% to defense... The rest is on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
When you pay a parking ticket, where do you think that money goes?
Where I live it goes to a fund which supports the victims of criminals acts. Even tough this is only after all the "administrative" fees, which of course pays for the police department itself.
Canadian companies must choose either Cuba or the USA, they can't have both. You also fined a French bank with a multi-billion dollar fine for having done business with Iran.
It's not a straw man, it's the crux of the argument
You are argumenting against something I never said, as if I said that Apple shouldn't release that app. Therefore it's a straw man you are fighting. Congratulations, you win.
Apple is so untrustworthy that it can't trust its own data
Apple can trust what they want. We can't trust Apple on their numbers. That's what I said. You said that it is a fact that people are switching back to iOS since they released larger phones. You still haven't backed-up that claim.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to argue here?
If you actually read my very first post in this discussion you would know the answer: that there is no fact about people switching back to iOS because of larger screens. You might have that opinion, but that's it. You can't back it.
Last time I checked even the cheapest Android phone could send SMS and even video chat (they now all have a front camera). The most popular Android phones in Canada are the high end ones, and that's the one we see the most. You will have to find better excuses. Enjoy your life under that rock.
The question purely becomes "do you trust that Apple's choice to release a migration app is a genuine use of funds and effort, or is it part of some grand conspiracy designed to make it look like people are buying iPhones" ?
No, the question never was that. That's a straw man you are making here. Again, I never questioned the value for Apple to make that application.
People switching back to iPhone will not necessarily increase Apple's share relative to Android if even more people buy an Android phone who didn't have a smartphone before - the figures for total phones sold year on year bear this out.
Then your whole point becomes moot. There are more smartphone buyers than last years. Of course. The number of switchers to and from both platforms probably increased in absolute numbers. But of course that wasn't your point that I first questioned. Your point was that people moved from iOS to get large phones, and that the trend reversed when they released larger phones. You still haven't backed that claim with numbers, other than saying that Apple says so. Of course Apple will always say that people are switching to them. If they found out that most people didn't like their product and switched to Android, do you think they would brag about it?
I never talked about people who switch from Android to iPhone, or questioned the value of that application. You did.
I questioned your claim, which is that "people wanted bigger phones and went to Android to get them only to come back when Apple also offered them". If your claim were true, Apple would have gained market share at the expense of Android since the release of the iPhone 6 and 6+. It didn't happen. More people chose Android over Apple than ever, despite the larger iPhones.
I didn't say anything about the majority. You said "everyone", and that's false. Especially on Mac OS X. I would even say that most OS X users probably don't use iMessage at all.
You don't need them to install it. You just need to not use proprietary, single-platform communication apps on your side. Even if they are pre-installed bloatware you can't remove from your phone.
Anyways, as I were saying to another slashdotter, if you friends, family and coworker want to use services such video chat and don't want to install a third party application such as Skype or Hangout, they must be living under a rock or they won't have that many people to video chat with.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't have 1%. They have about one third of it. They have 0.37% of smartphones, or 0.27% of phones sold in 1H2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If they could still keep this market share they could be fine. But they are loosing both market share and absolute sales every quarter. Mostly because they still have contracts with some slow-moving corporations, all of which are looking to switch.
Their other problem is that it can be worth it to develop phones for only 0.3% of the market, but it's not worth it to develop and support an OS for them. Switching to Android could make sense. Only, it's too late.
Android hasn't exactly been a path to success for anyone but Samsung.
It's one thing not to succeed in the smartphone market. But companies who didn't succeed, such as Sony, HTC, LG, at least didn't have to develop and support a full operating system. So they lost a lot less focus than Blackberry.
Their own OS, QNX, is superior in just about every way imaginable, including development tools.
When did they get multitouch? WiFi hotspot? Back and front camera support? GPS? [insert any feature here]? That's right, the answer is always at least 6-12 months after the competition.
People don't care about the OS kernel used. They care about features they see and application support. No matter how great QNX is for a nuclear power plant, it failed in the smartphone market, partly because it failed to attract developers.
They better be a me-too player, than not be a player at all. Have they been a player in the past 3 years? I don't think so. When is it the last time you have seen someone using a Blackberry?
US-Americans drive a lot, much more than the developed world average. Also, a big part of the USA is not covered by snow and salt and cars last longer because of that. I also believe your math is wrong. You won't find old cars as much on the road as people don't drive as much with them (if you have two cars, you'll use the new one first). Therefore, just because cars are 11.5 years old on average, it doesn't mean that the average is 175 000 miles.
It's from 2008 but I don't think i changed that much:
With improvements in the quality of automobiles over the years, a well-maintained car should remain reliable for at least 10 years and 100,000 miles. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports the average life span of a vehicle is 12 years or 128,500 miles. Surveys have shown that, on the average, a person trades in or sells a car when it is only 4 1/2 years old with just 41,000 miles on it.
http://www.flhsmv.gov/dmv/used...
I know that In Canada, a 11.5 years old car is an old car, and I doubt that the average car goes past 250 000 km.
They are 6 years too late.
400 000 km is a lot. Most cars don't get that far. Because most cars are too old way before that. I drive 10 000 km/year. No way my car is going to survive 40 years. Especially not with snow and salt on the road half of the year.
was it intentional, like VW cheating?
Isn't 10 Mbps an average? That also means that sometimes you get much less.
Also, for tethering more than 10 Mbps can be useful.
The US is #10 for coverage:
Subscribers in the U.S. are on LTE 78 percent of the time, on average, making the country No. 10 for what OpenSignal calls "time coverage."
pretty sure LTE penetration is high in South Korea and they still have high speed.
this is still done on many smartphones
I work for a company that has paid out some 30 Billion Dollars worth of fines to the US government. Where does that money go? I think it goes directly into the pockets of well-placed individuals, because we never hear about where that money goes.
Easy. It goes 24% to social security, 24% to health care, 17% to defense... The rest is on wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
When you pay a parking ticket, where do you think that money goes?
Where I live it goes to a fund which supports the victims of criminals acts. Even tough this is only after all the "administrative" fees, which of course pays for the police department itself.
Aren't Pontiac and Saturn dead?
iTires, iOil and iGas/iElectricity. Walled garden again.
No thanks, I will stick to the actual car brands.
Canadian companies must choose either Cuba or the USA, they can't have both.
You also fined a French bank with a multi-billion dollar fine for having done business with Iran.
It's not a straw man, it's the crux of the argument
You are argumenting against something I never said, as if I said that Apple shouldn't release that app.
Therefore it's a straw man you are fighting. Congratulations, you win.
Apple is so untrustworthy that it can't trust its own data
Apple can trust what they want. We can't trust Apple on their numbers. That's what I said. You said that it is a fact that people are switching back to iOS since they released larger phones. You still haven't backed-up that claim.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to argue here?
If you actually read my very first post in this discussion you would know the answer: that there is no fact about people switching back to iOS because of larger screens. You might have that opinion, but that's it. You can't back it.
Last time I checked even the cheapest Android phone could send SMS and even video chat (they now all have a front camera).
The most popular Android phones in Canada are the high end ones, and that's the one we see the most. You will have to find better excuses. Enjoy your life under that rock.
The question purely becomes "do you trust that Apple's choice to release a migration app is a genuine use of funds and effort, or is it part of some grand conspiracy designed to make it look like people are buying iPhones" ?
No, the question never was that. That's a straw man you are making here.
Again, I never questioned the value for Apple to make that application.
People switching back to iPhone will not necessarily increase Apple's share relative to Android if even more people buy an Android phone who didn't have a smartphone before - the figures for total phones sold year on year bear this out.
Then your whole point becomes moot. There are more smartphone buyers than last years. Of course. The number of switchers to and from both platforms probably increased in absolute numbers.
But of course that wasn't your point that I first questioned. Your point was that people moved from iOS to get large phones, and that the trend reversed when they released larger phones. You still haven't backed that claim with numbers, other than saying that Apple says so. Of course Apple will always say that people are switching to them. If they found out that most people didn't like their product and switched to Android, do you think they would brag about it?
Except that there is no law (environmental or otherwise) on the speed of smartphones.
I never talked about people who switch from Android to iPhone, or questioned the value of that application. You did.
I questioned your claim, which is that "people wanted bigger phones and went to Android to get them only to come back when Apple also offered them". If your claim were true, Apple would have gained market share at the expense of Android since the release of the iPhone 6 and 6+. It didn't happen. More people chose Android over Apple than ever, despite the larger iPhones.
I didn't say anything about the majority. You said "everyone", and that's false. Especially on Mac OS X. I would even say that most OS X users probably don't use iMessage at all.
There is probably more people switching from iPhone to Android. Why? Because more smartphones are being sold than ever.
everyone that has iOS and/or a Mac uses iMessage
That's not true. And even if it was, that's still a minority of the population.
You don't need them to install it. You just need to not use proprietary, single-platform communication apps on your side. Even if they are pre-installed bloatware you can't remove from your phone.
Anyways, as I were saying to another slashdotter, if you friends, family and coworker want to use services such video chat and don't want to install a third party application such as Skype or Hangout, they must be living under a rock or they won't have that many people to video chat with.
Again, that is 0.01% of their target market. So no, they do not care.
Apple's numbers from polling people who buy iPhones
Yeah, of course we should blindly trust these numbers.