It's not fanboi-ism: you are right that, today, I don't think an iPhone is going to be a decision-maker for most of the market. But it was two years ago, and that means that AT&T was able to capture a lot of the big-ticket high-end market then. Even if the alternatives are as good now, the customers in those markets will need a compelling reason to go elsewhere, one as compelling now as the iPhone was back then.
This is old news, long time coming. I may not like it (I don't like AT&T and am meh about iPhones) but that doesn't mean the analysis is wrong.
I prefer Android phones, and I am a T-Mobile customer, yet I think the original post is correct. People left T-Mobile so that they could get an iPhone, and - despite glowing reviews of T-Mobile's service - decided against becoming T-Mobile customers due to the lack of an iPhone.
I think that the pull of the iPhone is weaker than it used to be: many people who I know would have been "iPhone or nothing" 2+ years ago are either buying Android phones now or, at least, see them as real alternatives. But the damage done to T-Mobile's numbers has already happened.
As I understand it, there are no good scenarios for T-Mobile. Deutsche Telekom AG has already said that they don't plan on building out their 4G network any more. I'm a T-Mobile customer, as well, and have always appreciated their customer service, but even with the $3 billion consolation for the failed merger, it doesn't look good for them. I suspect they'll be absorbed into Sprint instead.
To be honest, I was going for the cheap laugh. I was thinking about Googling about for US states or cities with highest obesity rates, but, oh look, shiny things.
Or rather, from empathy distributed locally: concern about one's family and friends, rather than generic "humanity." Love of leader, love of country, love of team.
And, of course, there is the need to survive, or to resolve stress (paying for one's housing for a month, etc.)
Wikileaks released documents from China and North Korea as well, They've never had an unbalanced animus against the US; it's just the US media and government are loudest about complaints (and understand the Streisand effect the least.)
One thing I've noticed, how people who aren't working yet apply the work ethic to their leisure activities. A lot of teen-nerd-rage against casual players fits that category.
I payed about $50 for Heavy Rain, and the same for Portal 2. I remember both games well, loved playing them, and glowingly recommend them to others. I played each for no more than 15 hours or so.
I also payed $50 on Final Fantasy XII and XIII. I barely remember what they were about, stopped caring about 40 hours into them, and would have felt ripped off even if it took 400 hours to complete.
I'll give you the Fallout games as ones which are long but worth it, but really: I don't buy my food by the pound, I don't need to buy my games by the hour.
Most of the development costs are not in making a 15-20 hour game into a 40-60 hour game; they're in making nothing into a game at all.
The article lists a number of applications that would be very beneficial to the people who receive them, from medical apps to those which improve agricultural productivity (precision agriculture.)
Maybe you should try to ask them or people who work with them what they do with their smartphones. If they have even 2G internet connectivity, it's not like they'd be able to, oh, I don't know, find markets for their goods, or send messages to family members and colleagues that, say, they have a customer for something that's back at home or such. What do you do with your basic electronic communications?
BTW, if 40% of Kenyans earn less than $2 a day, 60% are making more. And while I'm suspicious of trickle-down, I think that the ability of that 60% to be more effective and productive will probably help the other 40%, too.
Also, how much do you think cell service costs to deliver?
For all intensive purposes, in this literally doggy-dog world, it just begs the question: does this go hand-and-hand with the way that language is undermind?
The problem is that I don't believe in universal morals. Some people think that some of what happens in people's bedrooms is immoral. You and I may have an opinion about that, but neither of us should be allowed to do anything about it until it physically involves us.
That sounds like a universal morality. Perhaps my morality allows me to intervene on what people do in their bedrooms. On what moral basis do you challenge my morality?
Are you trying to weasel out of any moral commitments by excluding from "morality" those rights and obligations you care about? A morality by any other name...
Who pays the subsequent increased insurance costs? People foolish enough to try to open a business to serve the neighborhoods of Tottenham, Clapham, Hackney etc.
They definitely were not genocidal in anything resembling the way that the Nazis were: perhaps you don't understand the word "genocide." As far as state-sponsored violence, they were pretty much par-for-the-course with much of the rest of the planet during the Cold War. (Try adding up the statistics of deaths caused by US-backed right-wing governments in Iran, Iraq, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, for starters.)
The current sober estimate is that the East German government was responsible for the death of 1,393 people before the reunification with West Germany. In fact, I would describe them as authoritarian and secretive, but anything except maniacal.
katana already tagged it, but I think it was the East German state that came to mind: they weren't genocidal maniacs, but they were the surveillance society against which all others are judged.
"The Lives of Others" is about a Stasi agent.
My quibble is that there is no indication that the German government has the same restrictions that businesses in Germany do. I doubt you could get your public records removed if you requested it.
That's not too surprising: many immigrants from unstable countries will be very skeptical about institutional investment vehicles that aren't land, considering how something like hyperinflation can wipe them out. Non-immigrants (skewing the statistics that way to non-minorities) are accustomed to stable financial institutions.
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It's not fanboi-ism: you are right that, today, I don't think an iPhone is going to be a decision-maker for most of the market. But it was two years ago, and that means that AT&T was able to capture a lot of the big-ticket high-end market then. Even if the alternatives are as good now, the customers in those markets will need a compelling reason to go elsewhere, one as compelling now as the iPhone was back then.
This is old news, long time coming. I may not like it (I don't like AT&T and am meh about iPhones) but that doesn't mean the analysis is wrong.
I prefer Android phones, and I am a T-Mobile customer, yet I think the original post is correct. People left T-Mobile so that they could get an iPhone, and - despite glowing reviews of T-Mobile's service - decided against becoming T-Mobile customers due to the lack of an iPhone.
I think that the pull of the iPhone is weaker than it used to be: many people who I know would have been "iPhone or nothing" 2+ years ago are either buying Android phones now or, at least, see them as real alternatives. But the damage done to T-Mobile's numbers has already happened.
As I understand it, there are no good scenarios for T-Mobile. Deutsche Telekom AG has already said that they don't plan on building out their 4G network any more. I'm a T-Mobile customer, as well, and have always appreciated their customer service, but even with the $3 billion consolation for the failed merger, it doesn't look good for them. I suspect they'll be absorbed into Sprint instead.
Anyone who tries to turn Adam Smith into a libertarian, Austrian economist or objectivist have never read Adam Smith.
To be honest, I was going for the cheap laugh. I was thinking about Googling about for US states or cities with highest obesity rates, but, oh look, shiny things.
The cargo consisted of two Texans and a bottle of vodka.
Or rather, from empathy distributed locally: concern about one's family and friends, rather than generic "humanity." Love of leader, love of country, love of team.
And, of course, there is the need to survive, or to resolve stress (paying for one's housing for a month, etc.)
Wikileaks released documents from China and North Korea as well, They've never had an unbalanced animus against the US; it's just the US media and government are loudest about complaints (and understand the Streisand effect the least.)
One thing I've noticed, how people who aren't working yet apply the work ethic to their leisure activities. A lot of teen-nerd-rage against casual players fits that category.
I payed about $50 for Heavy Rain, and the same for Portal 2. I remember both games well, loved playing them, and glowingly recommend them to others. I played each for no more than 15 hours or so.
I also payed $50 on Final Fantasy XII and XIII. I barely remember what they were about, stopped caring about 40 hours into them, and would have felt ripped off even if it took 400 hours to complete.
I'll give you the Fallout games as ones which are long but worth it, but really: I don't buy my food by the pound, I don't need to buy my games by the hour.
Most of the development costs are not in making a 15-20 hour game into a 40-60 hour game; they're in making nothing into a game at all.
The marginal cost of US infrastructure is actually higher, since both labor and land cost more in the US.
The article lists a number of applications that would be very beneficial to the people who receive them, from medical apps to those which improve agricultural productivity (precision agriculture.)
The stupid, it burns.
Maybe you should try to ask them or people who work with them what they do with their smartphones. If they have even 2G internet connectivity, it's not like they'd be able to, oh, I don't know, find markets for their goods, or send messages to family members and colleagues that, say, they have a customer for something that's back at home or such. What do you do with your basic electronic communications?
BTW, if 40% of Kenyans earn less than $2 a day, 60% are making more. And while I'm suspicious of trickle-down, I think that the ability of that 60% to be more effective and productive will probably help the other 40%, too.
Also, how much do you think cell service costs to deliver?
That's the bonafied truth.
You missed my "literally" and "begs the question." I was circling the language-misuse buffet.
For all intensive purposes, in this literally doggy-dog world, it just begs the question: does this go hand-and-hand with the way that language is undermind?
That sounds like a universal morality. Perhaps my morality allows me to intervene on what people do in their bedrooms. On what moral basis do you challenge my morality?
Are you trying to weasel out of any moral commitments by excluding from "morality" those rights and obligations you care about? A morality by any other name...
Who pays the subsequent increased insurance costs? People foolish enough to try to open a business to serve the neighborhoods of Tottenham, Clapham, Hackney etc.
And there's a little thing called mating.
You must be new here.
No. You're repeating a right-wing talking-point lie, spread by a deceptive Wall Street Journal article.
The point you're making is that you don't really understand history, the meanings of words, or both.
They definitely were not genocidal in anything resembling the way that the Nazis were: perhaps you don't understand the word "genocide." As far as state-sponsored violence, they were pretty much par-for-the-course with much of the rest of the planet during the Cold War. (Try adding up the statistics of deaths caused by US-backed right-wing governments in Iran, Iraq, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, for starters.)
The current sober estimate is that the East German government was responsible for the death of 1,393 people before the reunification with West Germany. In fact, I would describe them as authoritarian and secretive, but anything except maniacal.
katana already tagged it, but I think it was the East German state that came to mind: they weren't genocidal maniacs, but they were the surveillance society against which all others are judged.
"The Lives of Others" is about a Stasi agent.
My quibble is that there is no indication that the German government has the same restrictions that businesses in Germany do. I doubt you could get your public records removed if you requested it.
That's not too surprising: many immigrants from unstable countries will be very skeptical about institutional investment vehicles that aren't land, considering how something like hyperinflation can wipe them out. Non-immigrants (skewing the statistics that way to non-minorities) are accustomed to stable financial institutions.