Sorry, this is yet another example of why the tastes of slashdot readers are basically irrelevant for any manufacturer today. Users don't care about MicroSD slots, the lack of one does not hurt sales and most people who have MicroSD slots in their phones have no idea what to do with them. Yes you can get cheap 64GB SDXC cards for $60 or so, and it's criminally stupid to not have MicroSD slots (or just offer large storage at a reasonable cost). But users don't care. Google realized that, so did Nokia.
I could have included any link. I have chosen this link about the Nexus7 which also does not have a MicrosSD slot. This is site of non technical people simply looking for bargains. Read through the over 1000 comments, again and again the fact that it fails to have expandable storage comes up as a comment.
If your sorry for anything it should be your elitist comment.
I think 32gb is sufficient to not worry too much, my phone has 16gb built in and i have 16gb microsd in there, i'm beyond 16gb used, but still got plenty of space. The only problem with android is juggling between built in storage and sd card storage, if it was consolidated, it would be that much better and easier to manage, but i also suppose, have its own downfalls with difficulty in just unmounting it.
That is just weird thing to say [unless your windows phone fanatic]. I'll make it simple for you. Long term storage...on Phone. Short term storage on card. In reality it does not matter.
ICS and above you do not mount and unmount cards in any sense of the word. It uses a unified storage model.
Plenty of users will be fine with 32gb and no slot. I've had 16gb iPhones for the past 4 years, and very rarely run out of space. With the advent of cloud services, wifi sync, etc things won't be so bad. And - the space the slot would have taken up can be used for battery, etc.
50% of the content on my phone (7gb worth) is never really used. If you need >32gb of space, buy something else.
Then you don't play games:) which are often over 1GB each.
2 years to 80% capacity is not "very limited" when people replace their phones at that time anyway. If you are using a phone longer than that then apple provide a service where they replace the battery for around $100.
I have been using mobile phones for around a decade and have not once had to replace a battery before the phone broke or became outdated, i have had to replace broken battery COVERS many times however.
People often replace their phones...but today people also expect some residual value for their phone. If the battery goes on a device which is often less then two years...replacing a battery for the price of a whole new phone seems excessive, and very bad for the environment. I have never replaced a battery COVER ever; the claim that you have is simple an untruth. I have however bought phones that come with a spare battery...and a charger that has an additional slot from Nokia no less. I have also bought third party batteries with larger capacity that the stock one....in fact their is a thriving industry geared towards supplying batteries.
I mean, you are doing so well you should definitively make-against the-grain decisions for your customers. I mean, no one uses storage, right? Why would you want to put more memory in there. I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks.
I think it has NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks, and everything about locking customers into a windows phone ecosystem.
...it wasn't just the shape of the tablet/phone it was about the overall deliberate copying that Samsung did. The biggest point was that Samsung had internally distributed documents comparing the Galaxy S III to the iPhone 4s, and said documents stated that their device needed to perform more like the iPhone.
No they didn't thats not true. Its a great document you should read it. What it actually is is a stock application vs stock application comparison with its rival, OMG! Its things as exciting as Samsung show temperature as graphic, Apple show temperature as a number and a graphic and stating that both should be shown is the better choice.
I personally think that is a sensible. I'm pretty certain that that is nothing to do with patents, and nothing to do with owned technology, but the bottom line is Samsung were NEVER trying to make it look like Apple, quite the reverse they were trying to improve their own product, you can argue that is wrong if you want.
HTC was king of Android phones a few years ago. Once Samsung started stealing Apple tech, they took the crown from HTC.
Now that HTC and Samsung should be competing on an even playing field again, I predict HTC will overtake Samsung for good this time.
Ignoring the obvious "stealing comment" [shame on you] I will quote HTC CEO Peter Chou with this thinly veiled reference to Samsung “our competitors can leverage their scale, brand awareness and big marketing budget to do things which HTC could not do. The fast growth from the last two years has slowed us down.”
So your solution to complaints about how fast you crank out updates and destabilize software that you want people to depend upon is... Update it without asking
I have personally found Firefox to continually improve in speed; features; efficency, improved standards, and I want and desire those things. I have the proof for all these and can provide links if required.
Firefox is a memory pig - I am typically running 15 - 20, even 30 tabs at a time, and it's typically grabbing 3+Gig of memory (flash is a massive hog, too).
There's no need to use your imagination to extrapolate from the guy in your office. iPhone sales are a matter of record, and they continue to grow and grow. "Dying Apple" is is your wet dream, it's far from reality. Indeed Apple just became the most valuable company in the world, ever.
Apples sales are Growing...but only because smartphone sales are growing. Their Market share is shrinking.
I wonder why Samsung wouldn't just leave US market, after all, it is only some 20% of worldwide smartphone market and shrinking. Just like Google left China with search engine nad let Chinese eat their own Baidu dogfood, US market is broken, so it is better left to Apple alone.
I have no idea. How much Samsung make in profit from their smartophone sales, but $1 Billiion is for the top smarphone manufacturer is probably covered. More effective would be to Offshore its US manufacturing Jobs, which Apple claim do not exist.
Thank you for condensing down everything that is wrong with Gnome 3. Your personal problem with Window/Panel/Desktop Metaphor is its not a metaphor [never worked as one], in reality its Multitasking Management/Making use of that 2 square foot of space to something other than to an abstract Picture.
I'm not convinced that the hierarchical or categorising stuff is bad...and search is good. If you are...more power to you, personally I think looking through hundreds of large icons on a two square foot screen with stupid names no new user would recognise is a good idea, A quick look in "Sound and Video shows Cheese; Brasero; Banshee." understanding these amongst hundreds not so good. Personally All I wanted from the menu was games to be treated differently...because they are different [Screenshots/Movies/ Eye Candy]
"Panels are clumsy"!?...do they fall over. Do you move them regularly? They display...one click action to the menu; one click action to the most used applications; One click navigation to Indicators for current actions; and a clock, even without autohide mode it is only 28 pixels on my 1080P display, and even on my 3.5" smartphone screen [regardless of whether its Apple or Android] still has all this functionality only permanently displays the menu. Even Gnome 3 keeps most of this functionality!! But most importantly includes "Running Multiple Application Management" something Gmone 3 fails at.
Desktop is a not just a Directory although many treat it at one. Its a constant feedback monitor; Picture Frame; Shortcuts to commonly use Applications...Locations, ToDo lists....or even simply a move visual hoe directory. Who uses it EVERYBODY! I have never seen anyone not use their desktop. Turning a two foot square space into a picture frame, does not improve it. It is not "Visual Clutter" And what you refer to as constant management is USE! Want a blank desktop...don't use it!
I have no idea why you think Plugins and extensions are bad. Show me the negatives!! The reality commonly used ones should become standards, and incorporated into the main program...else left to wither away, and that is for everything. Regardless of what program.
Lets be honest the list does not go on. Its just GNOME SHELL. That is all!!. Personally I'm loving Gnome3 Applications with Cinnamon. With the exception of the Gnome team removing the Up Arrow in Nautilus. I have never been happier.
yeah but instead of spending &700 on your gaming rig you could have tossed in an extra $500 and gotten a macbook... so maybe you should hold off on claims about value.
His point is that A gaming PC for him has been good value because the additional costs costs involved in turning from a basic PC to a gaming PC is relatively little. Its not a particularly good point. The fact that he could have spent twice as much, and got a Apple branded computer for over twice the price...and couldn't do any gaming or upgrade is an even worse one. I think this isn't really the thread for promoting Apple.
Firefox(2003) is an an experimental branch created by the Mozilla Project(1998) In fact the Mozilla (1998) project is actually named after the mascot from Netscape Navigator (2002) which it is an open source version of. Although the browser itself is based on Mosaic(1993).
Really I should name OpenOffice.org(2002), LibreOffice(2011) or Apache OpenOffice (2011), It existed as StarOffice in 1984!?
After reading the very long and very boring Wikipedia page which contained lots of reasons why over a hundred years, Peoples *results* from IQ tests have been higher...everything from Genetics; Good Eating; Learning Stuff. You get to the end...And their is a rather large section titled "Possible end of progression" which basically states that the the Flynn Effect was over as much as 37 years ago, and shows many results showing no change, marginal increases, or a deterioration in IQ scores.
You should really have read the link before posting it.
...used only because all the alternatives are shit.
(Well, TBH, Microsoft had a greater range of successful products than Google.)
Who cares what they try to launch? When duckduckgo doesn't deliver, use Google search with ads blocked. Move on when something better comes along. They're nothing special or unique - just another business in the right place at the right time.
Beneath all that love of Apple [don't clutch that iPad too tightly], with the confusion of Why Microsoft succeeded in the 90's [No it wasn't because they weren't attractive alternatives around], Wrapped up in an off-topic post.
You get it...Why I have a Nexus 7 tablet!? Why I use Google!? and Why I use Gmail!? Because they are better than the alternatives, significantly so. The whole point of the article is Google have launched a new social media service, and its better than Facebook!
Ironically [and the reason for the original Oatmeal joke] Google are suffering the problem every company had going up against Microsoft in 90's [there are countless examples] with a better product, trying to enter a market against a monopoly product with customer lock-in is tricky.
4000 people are losing their jobs, and we're making feature wish lists?
No rants against capitalism, or downsizing, or the evil's of M&A's? No questioning Google on that whole Do No Evil thing?
No concerns about how google is using phones to track people?
Then make those claims....and back them up. Ignoring your off topic rant, describe this *evil*. This is not people losing jobs due to criminal mismanagement like that of Nokia from Elop, that is bad, or Apple employees laughing at the prospect of American manufacturing.
What we know is very little, Mototola is gracefully bowing out of unspecified unsuccessful marketplaces, satellite offices are being merged to make fewer larger offices, and the move will be towards Android which is what Google the new owners excel at away from dumb phones which aren't profitable and nobody wants....Anything there Evil? Does it all sound like a reasonable plan for a company just taken over by Google who have just captured 87% of the world market with their OS?
Google is supposedly expanding the Nexus line to at least 5 simultaneous devices in a few months. Maybe Moto will have something in there.
My understanding was that Google was going to operate Motorola almost as an independent company so as to not step on the toes of their other OEMs. I would expect Motorola to have to go through the same selection process of Asus, Samsung and everybody else.
As much as I agree with the sentiment. As we can see from the article. The move is from feature phones to lets be honest Android phones. I suspect going forward Motorola phones will look a lot [in software] more like the Nexus phones in future.
Google’s law firm of choice for intellectual property matters, Quinn Emmanuel, is also representing Samsung, Motorola, and HTC in litigation with Apple over patent infringement.
Apple are attacking Android publicly. I personally can only see Google supporting Samsung...and others. That was kind of the point of the Google acquiring Motorola in the first place.
According to TFA, they're shifting strategy to make fewer devices, which I hope will be better than the things they've been churning out.. I suppose this is Apple's strategy, which has certainly worked well for them.
Hopefully a smaller product range will also allow for better after-market support. My phone is an Atrix, and I liked the hardware, but the software support has been lacklustre to say the least.
No its not Apples Strategy. Apples Stratergy is to continue to sell its old phones, at a cheaper price than their latest offering, They are still going to offer a range of NEW phones just have fewer that differentiate themselves better. I continue to receive updates for all my Android Applications I think you are perhaps being a little dishonest.
Is there a race to the bottom in the sense that if all handset makers abandon the low-end market to focus on higher-margin smartphones, competition will increasingly erode those margins?
FWIW if I were making smartphones, the overriding lesson I would take from the iPhone is "make just one model". It's high risk, but selling phones seems to be about marketing first and technology second, so putting all your marketing muscle behind one model doesn't seem like a bad idea.
First of the "race to the bottom" is a phrase used by those promoting Apple to give the illusion that competing products are of inferior quality, due to Apple able to charge a massive mark-up to their inferior products. What really happens is good old competition, and price is just one of the things Apple competitors are able to compete on. Its why the same market has phones with Projectors; Game Pads; Waterproofing; Digital TV Receivers; With a massive array of different sized screens; CPU's and Memory, hitting several different price ranges. What in reality they compete on is "Value for Money".
HTC and Motorola are decreasing their product lines...and its not just to make the economies of producing less phone is cheaper. Its simply that the added value of having phones in their product lines that are too similar to other phones of theirs does not exist...in fact its damaging. The days of get more wall space in the shop from having more phones has gone.
As for learn from Apple, Ask yourself if the iPhone had Huawei, HTC, Sony, or in the context of the article Motorola on the cover of would any customers buy it.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, this is yet another example of why the tastes of slashdot readers are basically irrelevant for any manufacturer today. Users don't care about MicroSD slots, the lack of one does not hurt sales and most people who have MicroSD slots in their phones have no idea what to do with them. Yes you can get cheap 64GB SDXC cards for $60 or so, and it's criminally stupid to not have MicroSD slots (or just offer large storage at a reasonable cost). But users don't care. Google realized that, so did Nokia.
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/google-asus-nexus-7-tablet-pc-16-gb-189-99-delivered-with-code-currys-1254341
I could have included any link. I have chosen this link about the Nexus7 which also does not have a MicrosSD slot. This is site of non technical people simply looking for bargains. Read through the over 1000 comments, again and again the fact that it fails to have expandable storage comes up as a comment.
If your sorry for anything it should be your elitist comment.
I think 32gb is sufficient to not worry too much, my phone has 16gb built in and i have 16gb microsd in there, i'm beyond 16gb used, but still got plenty of space. The only problem with android is juggling between built in storage and sd card storage, if it was consolidated, it would be that much better and easier to manage, but i also suppose, have its own downfalls with difficulty in just unmounting it.
That is just weird thing to say [unless your windows phone fanatic]. I'll make it simple for you. Long term storage...on Phone. Short term storage on card. In reality it does not matter.
ICS and above you do not mount and unmount cards in any sense of the word. It uses a unified storage model.
Yup, that lack of SD slot sure killed the iPhone. And the iPod.
Apple get away with EVERYTHING; proprietary connectors; proprietary software; proprietary protocols. Other companies can get away with a lot less.
Plenty of users will be fine with 32gb and no slot. I've had 16gb iPhones for the past 4 years, and very rarely run out of space. With the advent of cloud services, wifi sync, etc things won't be so bad. And - the space the slot would have taken up can be used for battery, etc.
50% of the content on my phone (7gb worth) is never really used. If you need >32gb of space, buy something else.
Then you don't play games :) which are often over 1GB each.
2 years to 80% capacity is not "very limited" when people replace their phones at that time anyway.
If you are using a phone longer than that then apple provide a service where they replace the battery for around $100.
I have been using mobile phones for around a decade and have not once had to replace a battery before the phone broke or became outdated, i have had to replace broken battery COVERS many times however.
People often replace their phones...but today people also expect some residual value for their phone. If the battery goes on a device which is often less then two years...replacing a battery for the price of a whole new phone seems excessive, and very bad for the environment. I have never replaced a battery COVER ever; the claim that you have is simple an untruth. I have however bought phones that come with a spare battery...and a charger that has an additional slot from Nokia no less. I have also bought third party batteries with larger capacity that the stock one....in fact their is a thriving industry geared towards supplying batteries.
I mean, you are doing so well you should definitively make-against the-grain decisions for your customers. I mean, no one uses storage, right? Why would you want to put more memory in there. I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks.
I think it has NOTHING to do with saving a few bucks, and everything about locking customers into a windows phone ecosystem.
...it wasn't just the shape of the tablet/phone it was about the overall deliberate copying that Samsung did. The biggest point was that Samsung had internally distributed documents comparing the Galaxy S III to the iPhone 4s, and said documents stated that their device needed to perform more like the iPhone.
No they didn't thats not true. Its a great document you should read it. What it actually is is a stock application vs stock application comparison with its rival, OMG! Its things as exciting as Samsung show temperature as graphic, Apple show temperature as a number and a graphic and stating that both should be shown is the better choice.
I personally think that is a sensible. I'm pretty certain that that is nothing to do with patents, and nothing to do with owned technology, but the bottom line is Samsung were NEVER trying to make it look like Apple, quite the reverse they were trying to improve their own product, you can argue that is wrong if you want.
HTC was king of Android phones a few years ago. Once Samsung started stealing Apple tech, they took the crown from HTC.
Now that HTC and Samsung should be competing on an even playing field again, I predict HTC will overtake Samsung for good this time.
Ignoring the obvious "stealing comment" [shame on you] I will quote HTC CEO Peter Chou with this thinly veiled reference to Samsung “our competitors can leverage their scale, brand awareness and big marketing budget to do things which HTC could not do. The fast growth from the last two years has slowed us down.”
So your solution to complaints about how fast you crank out updates and destabilize software that you want people to depend upon is...
Update it without asking
I have personally found Firefox to continually improve in speed; features; efficency, improved standards, and I want and desire those things. I have the proof for all these and can provide links if required.
Firefox is a memory pig - I am typically running 15 - 20, even 30 tabs at a time, and it's typically grabbing 3+Gig of memory (flash is a massive hog, too).
From every test on the net http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-7-chrome-20-firefox-13-opera-12,3228-12.html memory is comparable to the other major browsers.
There's no need to use your imagination to extrapolate from the guy in your office. iPhone sales are a matter of record, and they continue to grow and grow. "Dying Apple" is is your wet dream, it's far from reality. Indeed Apple just became the most valuable company in the world, ever.
Apples sales are Growing...but only because smartphone sales are growing. Their Market share is shrinking.
I wonder why Samsung wouldn't just leave US market, after all, it is only some 20% of worldwide smartphone market and shrinking. Just like Google left China with search engine nad let Chinese eat their own Baidu dogfood, US market is broken, so it is better left to Apple alone.
I have no idea. How much Samsung make in profit from their smartophone sales, but $1 Billiion is for the top smarphone manufacturer is probably covered. More effective would be to Offshore its US manufacturing Jobs, which Apple claim do not exist.
Thank you for condensing down everything that is wrong with Gnome 3. Your personal problem with Window/Panel/Desktop Metaphor is its not a metaphor [never worked as one], in reality its Multitasking Management/Making use of that 2 square foot of space to something other than to an abstract Picture.
I'm not convinced that the hierarchical or categorising stuff is bad...and search is good. If you are...more power to you, personally I think looking through hundreds of large icons on a two square foot screen with stupid names no new user would recognise is a good idea, A quick look in "Sound and Video shows Cheese; Brasero; Banshee." understanding these amongst hundreds not so good. Personally All I wanted from the menu was games to be treated differently...because they are different [Screenshots/Movies/ Eye Candy]
"Panels are clumsy"!?...do they fall over. Do you move them regularly? They display...one click action to the menu; one click action to the most used applications; One click navigation to Indicators for current actions; and a clock, even without autohide mode it is only 28 pixels on my 1080P display, and even on my 3.5" smartphone screen [regardless of whether its Apple or Android] still has all this functionality only permanently displays the menu. Even Gnome 3 keeps most of this functionality!! But most importantly includes "Running Multiple Application Management" something Gmone 3 fails at.
Desktop is a not just a Directory although many treat it at one. Its a constant feedback monitor; Picture Frame; Shortcuts to commonly use Applications...Locations, ToDo lists....or even simply a move visual hoe directory. Who uses it EVERYBODY! I have never seen anyone not use their desktop. Turning a two foot square space into a picture frame, does not improve it. It is not "Visual Clutter" And what you refer to as constant management is USE! Want a blank desktop...don't use it!
I have no idea why you think Plugins and extensions are bad. Show me the negatives!! The reality commonly used ones should become standards, and incorporated into the main program...else left to wither away, and that is for everything. Regardless of what program.
Lets be honest the list does not go on. Its just GNOME SHELL. That is all!!. Personally I'm loving Gnome3 Applications with Cinnamon. With the exception of the Gnome team removing the Up Arrow in Nautilus. I have never been happier.
yeah but instead of spending &700 on your gaming rig you could have tossed in an extra $500 and gotten a macbook... so maybe you should hold off on claims about value.
His point is that A gaming PC for him has been good value because the additional costs costs involved in turning from a basic PC to a gaming PC is relatively little. Its not a particularly good point. The fact that he could have spent twice as much, and got a Apple branded computer for over twice the price...and couldn't do any gaming or upgrade is an even worse one. I think this isn't really the thread for promoting Apple.
Yeah, it's a real shame how Microsoft wiped those out and they disappeared.
They have survived to today through there open source dominance, if they had been proprietary products they would have disappeared.
Firefox and OpenOffice didn't exist in the '90s.
Firefox(2003) is an an experimental branch created by the Mozilla Project(1998) In fact the Mozilla (1998) project is actually named after the mascot from Netscape Navigator (2002) which it is an open source version of. Although the browser itself is based on Mosaic(1993).
Really I should name OpenOffice.org(2002), LibreOffice(2011) or Apache OpenOffice (2011), It existed as StarOffice in 1984!?
"Countless"? Can you give me three?
That's as high as I can count.
Firefox; Linux; OpenOffice. Ironically in this Context Google is doing awfully well with Chrome; Android and Docs.
Actually, the average IQ is constantly rising - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect
After reading the very long and very boring Wikipedia page which contained lots of reasons why over a hundred years, Peoples *results* from IQ tests have been higher...everything from Genetics; Good Eating; Learning Stuff. You get to the end...And their is a rather large section titled "Possible end of progression" which basically states that the the Flynn Effect was over as much as 37 years ago, and shows many results showing no change, marginal increases, or a deterioration in IQ scores.
You should really have read the link before posting it.
...used only because all the alternatives are shit.
(Well, TBH, Microsoft had a greater range of successful products than Google.)
Who cares what they try to launch? When duckduckgo doesn't deliver, use Google search with ads blocked. Move on when something better comes along. They're nothing special or unique - just another business in the right place at the right time.
Beneath all that love of Apple [don't clutch that iPad too tightly], with the confusion of Why Microsoft succeeded in the 90's [No it wasn't because they weren't attractive alternatives around], Wrapped up in an off-topic post.
You get it...Why I have a Nexus 7 tablet!? Why I use Google!? and Why I use Gmail!? Because they are better than the alternatives, significantly so. The whole point of the article is Google have launched a new social media service, and its better than Facebook!
Ironically [and the reason for the original Oatmeal joke] Google are suffering the problem every company had going up against Microsoft in 90's [there are countless examples] with a better product, trying to enter a market against a monopoly product with customer lock-in is tricky.
4000 people are losing their jobs, and we're making feature wish lists?
No rants against capitalism, or downsizing, or the evil's of M&A's? No questioning Google on that whole Do No Evil thing?
No concerns about how google is using phones to track people?
Then make those claims....and back them up. Ignoring your off topic rant, describe this *evil*. This is not people losing jobs due to criminal mismanagement like that of Nokia from Elop, that is bad, or Apple employees laughing at the prospect of American manufacturing.
What we know is very little, Mototola is gracefully bowing out of unspecified unsuccessful marketplaces, satellite offices are being merged to make fewer larger offices, and the move will be towards Android which is what Google the new owners excel at away from dumb phones which aren't profitable and nobody wants. ...Anything there Evil? Does it all sound like a reasonable plan for a company just taken over by Google who have just captured 87% of the world market with their OS?
Google is supposedly expanding the Nexus line to at least 5 simultaneous devices in a few months. Maybe Moto will have something in there.
My understanding was that Google was going to operate Motorola almost as an independent company so as to not step on the toes of their other OEMs. I would expect Motorola to have to go through the same selection process of Asus, Samsung and everybody else.
As much as I agree with the sentiment. As we can see from the article. The move is from feature phones to lets be honest Android phones. I suspect going forward Motorola phones will look a lot [in software] more like the Nexus phones in future.
Google’s law firm of choice for intellectual property matters, Quinn Emmanuel, is also representing Samsung, Motorola, and HTC in litigation with Apple over patent infringement.
Apple are attacking Android publicly. I personally can only see Google supporting Samsung...and others. That was kind of the point of the Google acquiring Motorola in the first place.
According to TFA, they're shifting strategy to make fewer devices, which I hope will be better than the things they've been churning out.. I suppose this is Apple's strategy, which has certainly worked well for them.
Hopefully a smaller product range will also allow for better after-market support. My phone is an Atrix, and I liked the hardware, but the software support has been lacklustre to say the least.
No its not Apples Strategy. Apples Stratergy is to continue to sell its old phones, at a cheaper price than their latest offering, They are still going to offer a range of NEW phones just have fewer that differentiate themselves better. I continue to receive updates for all my Android Applications I think you are perhaps being a little dishonest.
Is there a race to the bottom in the sense that if all handset makers abandon the low-end market to focus on higher-margin smartphones, competition will increasingly erode those margins?
FWIW if I were making smartphones, the overriding lesson I would take from the iPhone is "make just one model". It's high risk, but selling phones seems to be about marketing first and technology second, so putting all your marketing muscle behind one model doesn't seem like a bad idea.
First of the "race to the bottom" is a phrase used by those promoting Apple to give the illusion that competing products are of inferior quality, due to Apple able to charge a massive mark-up to their inferior products. What really happens is good old competition, and price is just one of the things Apple competitors are able to compete on. Its why the same market has phones with Projectors; Game Pads; Waterproofing; Digital TV Receivers; With a massive array of different sized screens; CPU's and Memory, hitting several different price ranges. What in reality they compete on is "Value for Money".
HTC and Motorola are decreasing their product lines...and its not just to make the economies of producing less phone is cheaper. Its simply that the added value of having phones in their product lines that are too similar to other phones of theirs does not exist...in fact its damaging. The days of get more wall space in the shop from having more phones has gone.
As for learn from Apple, Ask yourself if the iPhone had Huawei, HTC, Sony, or in the context of the article Motorola on the cover of would any customers buy it.
Basically 10 months behind does not make it ancient
Its an unreleased product, with a lead time of 18 months till the next one, it is massively behind on features available in released browsers now.