“Sure, competitors will play with specs or price and perhaps even philosophy, but so far they haven’t changed what they are actually trying to do, and that is to make the best clone of an iOS device they can. Which does nothing for them, these aren’t $5,000 machines people are desperately clinging to, these are sub $1,000 iPads and a phone no one keeps for more than two years anyway,” Chris Seibold writes for AppleMatters. “While everyone is trying to make the best copy possible of the iPhone, Apple cranks out a new and better one every year. The new model makes the competition refocus, suddenly what they were trying build so diligently for a year before has been replaced and they’ve got something brandnew they have to copy.”
Siebold writes, “In the end, iOS devices aren’t going to be easily marginalized because they are all anyone is trying to make. It is a tacit admission by all the companies who use Android that they can’t beat Apple’s design acumen so they’ll just live with copying it. That sends one clear message to consumers: if you want the best, get it from Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Google Android offers the same messy, inconsistent Windows PC “experience,” but without any cost savings, real or perceived. Windows only thrived back in the mid-90s because PCs (and Macs) were so expensive; the upfront cost advantage roped in a lot of people, who were, frankly, ignorant followers who did what their similarly-ignorant co-workers and friends told them to do. Microsoft still coasts along on that momentum today.
The fact is: Apple’s iPhone [3GS] costs just [$49] and the [iPhone 4] goes for only $199 in the U.S. with a 2-year plan. I’d call any Android device the “Poor Man’s iPhone,” but you have to spend just as much, if not more, to partake in an increasingly fragmented and inferior platform. There’s no real reason to choose Android, people settle for Android. “I’d have bought an iPhone if Verizon offered them.” Just look what’s happening in any country where iPhone is offered on multiple carriers. It’s a bloodbath. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, December 23, 2009. Read more here: The iPhone is not the Mac, so stop trying to compare them – December 23, 2009
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Arline M.” for the heads up.]
iPhone, cloned to death
iPad, cloned to death
Facetime? Yep, cloned.
iOS, are you kidding me? Everything is “swipeapple” today!
Apps, well yes.
App Store, Mmm-hmm.
If Apple made a toilet seat, everyone else would do the same and say they are innovative. Are consumers THAT stupid?
Actually Microsoft has been making toilet seats for years….they’ve got that market locked down pretty solid.
Just because that’s what you see when you look THROUGH the toilet seat doesn’t mean that MS made the seat.
I believe that when you look through a toliet seat, you see a Zune (aka brown turd)
“Are consumers THAT stupid?”
In a word, Yes. Witness the success of Walmart, the run to low cost knock-offs first from Japan, now China et al, Windows amazing market share, IE’s market share, &c, &c, &c…
Don’t forget the real paradox of Walmart:
1) Walmart forces every business interested in selling cheap stuff in their store to move their manufacturing to RED CHINA for their cheap labor.
2) Therefore, the Walmart Effect destroys jobs in the USA and ships them to RED CHINA.
3) Therefore, buying at Walmart diminishes the economy and wealth of the USA.
4) Therefore, you MUST buy cheap stuff at Walmart because you don’t make enough money to buy anything else.
5) Rinse, repeat until the USA FAILS into total irrelevance.
6) Close the Walmart stores. So long.
It’s called SELF-DESTRUCTION in all directions except RED CHINA, now the #2 economy in the world.
Way to FAIL USA!
(I still live here btw)
Also, because of Apple’s Tim Cook -driven efficiency AND ability to make deals on huge volume purchases of components, Apple is not only leading on quality and value, it is also leading on retail price.
Look at the announced prices for recent iPad imitators. Even if they can “copy,” they can’t beat Apple on price and make a profit. They may do desperation “two-for-one” fire sales to get rid of aging inventory, but that’s a money-losing move to lose less money. Apple gets the asking price all the time, and can’t keep up with demand.
Eventually, if the competition can’t make a reasonable profit by copying Apple, they will lose the desire to even try. Hey, they may even be forced to try some “innovation” and be creative for a change.
You actually need to correct your prices. The iPhone GS now sells for $49 on AT&T.
The idea of a $200, unlocked, contract-free iPhoneGS level phone is not that fantastical, especially when an iPod touch with a better CPU and screen sells for $229.
Such a device would completely disrupt the mobile scene, in the way that Google dreamed it could do with the Nexus. But Apple won’t charge $600 and has retail distribution and customer support. And hardware chops. And a coherent ecosystem.
You need to update. iPhone sales overseas is no longer a bloodbath. And those are all mostly markets with multiple carrier models. So android phones vs iPhone is comparable. And android is now selling more than iPhone.
iPhone is a product. “Android” is not a product. It is a fragmented platform (that really should be counted as multiple incompatible platforms). For the actual Android-based products, none are close to being as popular or profitable as iPhone. And for the companies that make those products, none are as successful or profitable as Apple. Apple is making most of the available profit in smartphones, media players, and tablet computers. Isn’t that the bottom line?
Apple sells iPhones and iPads as fast as they are manufactured. Apple can optimize its internal sales, revenue, and profit goals by fine-tuning rate of production. As long as those internal goals are met or exceeded every quarter, does Apple care too much who makes the competing products or what type they are?
Joe – Links? Sources? I’d like to see where you’re getting that information from.
Why don’t you just try looking at past reports on this site as proof. The android based phones outsell iPhones. And since overseas customers are not locked to one carrier. The old argument does not stand. Yes I know apple make all the profit. And that that’s great. I’m just saying this reference needs to be updated.
And according to other reports, those numbers include a very high percentage of Chinese phones using modified systems that don’t even count as Android.
Besides, most of those phones sold use Android out of cost-savings, not because it was “chosen” (not by costumers nor hardware makers).
Android domination my ass.
In most other countries, the carriers use compatible (GSM) standards (instead of having the crazy CDMA/GSM lockout situation in the US), so this has been a non-issue all along. And Apple has found that it doesn’t matter. In my country you see iPhones everywhere.
Android may be selling more but it doesn’t matter. The iPhone has only 4% of the market but is sucking 50% of the profits from the entire phone market, not just smartphones.
If Apple intros a $200 – $300 GS level iPhone with a CDMA/GMS chip and no contract, the Android OEMs are dead meat.
LOL Android is selling more! Since when is “FREE” considered sold? LMAO
^^ +1
Too true =P
2!
Jubei,
Uh, signing up for a long term contract isn’t free. Signing up for two contracts with two phones for the price of one phone ends up with almost twice the price. So no free phone their either.
But you already knew that. Too much coolaid drinking here.
There may be fragmentation on Android and there may even be spyware/viruses on it aswell, but to most geeks its heaven compared to the iPhone… And as an added bonus I don’t have to worry about Apple dictating what I can and cannot have/run on my device like Sony eBook software… It’s both a blessing and a curse, but I would gladly take it any day over Apple’s “you’ll use what we allow you to use and you’ll like it” mentality…
My biggest concern about android gaining strength is the increasing power of the telecoms. I don’t like the phone company putting software on that I can’t remove. I don’t like the phone company in charge of my OS updates. Perhaps these are no longer concerns, but I doubt it
I’d rather USE my phone instead of dicking with it. If you are a tinkering type of geek, then fine, play around with Android all you want. It does not make Apple’s solution inferior because of your incessant need to tinker under the hood. For most users, myself included, Apple’s decision to restrict certain apps does not affect a damn thing in the larger picture because it ensures an optimum user experience. If you worried about “choice” or freedom to do whatever the hell you want, then Apple is not the right choice for you. This is nothing new. Apple has not been a tinkerer’s type of company for many, many years.
Craig
Apple sells products. If you wish to buy them, you buy them. Apple is not forcing you to buy them, therefore it is out of order to say that Apple’s mentality is “you’ll use what we allow you to use and you’ll like it”… Unless of course you really have a secret desire for their products and really want to buy them?
John
jecrawford,
He is obviously referring to the fact that Apple only allows apps to be installed from their official app store. (The average user does not want to jailbrake their phone for many reasons.)
And yes, he knows that he has the choice to buy an Android to avoid that restriction, that was his point.
But you already knew that. Too much coolaid drinking here.
Just jailbreak the iPhone. Takes about 3 minutes and then you get quality and choice, but really the only way android will become “of quality” is if they too “close” some options. The google market place is my first case in point where the QC/QA?!! It’s trash…
I bought a Google Experience device so I personally don’t have to worry about the OEM’s or carriers on my Android device…
@craig
You’re a whiney little B aren’t you. Any geek knows how to jailbreak an Iphone and thus subject it to the same openness, virus and malware software that’s on any android device. If you’ll step out of your little misinformed and tortorous wintel world, get a Mac an IPhone and an IPad then and only then will you understand the elegance, and beauty of everything Apple. We all know though, that you’re just a fandroid IHater and we could care less.
Guess what dipshit Steve? I have 4 Apple devices! 2008 20″ Aluminum iMac, iPhone 4 16GB, Apple TV and an iPad 32GB…
And I love my Nexus S, my Logitech Revue and I’m sure my upcoming Honeycomb tablet!!!
P.S. iOS 4.2 is jailbroken on my phone and still can barely stand it! Screen is too small @ 3.5″ inches and iOS is too restrictive…
Case in point, I want freedom! Not simplicity…
You have 4 Apple devices? Of course you do. Every troll has a house stuffed positively full of Apple products, don’t they. Have you been using them since 1984, too? I bet you have.
Your complaint about the iPhone is how Apple “dictates what you can and cannot have/run on my device”, which jailbreaking fixes completely. But oh, you’re here to troll. So you have to make up some reason why jailbreaking doesn’t cut it. And you’d gladly take Android over iOS anyday, and you love your Nexus S, yet you have an iPhone? What? Why would you have one? That doesn’t any make sense. Gee, it’s almost like you’re lying!
And you want freedom? lol. What are you doing with Android, then? Google spies on just about everything you do and sells the data to advertisers, meanwhile they’re giving control back to the telephone companies. I guess you want the “freedom” to have no privacy and for the telecos to become all-powerful dictatorships with the public cowering helplessly at their mercy, once again?
trolla,
Most user’s don’t want to jailbreak their iPhone because they are not technical enough to know how, resolve any technical issues it might cause including botching iBooks (read latest news), etc. So that is why for most people jailbreaking isn’t enough.
But you already knew that. Too much coolaid drinking here.
@craig
Quit talkin out your ass boy. You got a problem with the IPhone? Nobody here gives a shit so take it somewhere else.
Yes Craig, please don’t post anything that might be informative or express a different opinion than other people in this thread. This is a group think session and anything positive to say about Android, however respectful of Apple, will disturb the vibe the herd is creating for itself.
The bogus market share numbers on phones, and computers is based on the units manufactured by the various companies involved, and not the numbers of units sold to end users. Apple in the past decade has historically sold close to 100% of manufactured product, the same is not true of the copy cats, most manage less than 50% sold to endusers, in some cases a lot less. This is the strategy of 2nd rate companies like HP, Dell, Microsoft, HTC, Nokia, Motorola to name a few. The line between hardware and software has been intentionally blurred for years. What else explains the hugh difference in revenue and units when other factors are roughly equal. I eagerly await the moronic replies. This is the way Microsoft got its supposed 90%+ market share. Apple has laughed all the way to the bank and current net worth and position as the #1 tech company justify this.
I’ll quit talking out mine when you quit wanting my cock up yours!!! And I will take it else-where you elitest asshole prick!!!
Android is just as good as platform as your precious iOS… I have no problem with iOS! I have a problem with the politics of iOS, not iOS itself!
@Craig,
I think you have us and this site mistaken for someone who gives a F*ck about whatever you have to say…
Peace, brother. 😉
There is no cure for stupid.
Dude
Cool it. It is just a stupid web site. Happens to be one of my favorites. There is no need to be so vicious or angry.
Gosh.
Consider it cooled… I don’t mind Apple Fanboyism as long as it isn’t Apple Elitism… Owning Apple products doesn’t make one any better than anyone else, though that seems to be the general consensus here… I love Apple because they are not afraid to innovate and set market trends forcing competitors to stay on their toes and yes, copy them on occasion… I just can’t stand their walled-garden approach… That is my only real complaint with regards to Apple’s business practices… I’m glad you all love their products too… But implying Apple hung the sun, the moon and the stars is pushing it!
There was no attack in my first post at the top. It was a simple statement and someone came along and started attacking me and things went down hill beyond that…
Apologies…
Craig, your first post was fine – and worth posting. Don’t judge everyone here by the trolls or dolts that every site has.
@Steve
dont listen to these dorks, your opinions are warranted and your feedback is obviously valid or these haters wouldn’t get so upset…. you are the objective visitors that this site needs.
peace
There are two buzz words in the advertisements these days:
‘iPhone’ and ‘Android’. Everything else is ‘whatever’.
Q: So what is ‘Android’? What phone is that?
A: You figure it out.
Q: But which one is better?
A: The iPhone.
Q: No, I mean Android! I can’t afford an iPhone.
A: And you live on what planet?
The truly sad thing today:
There is ONLY Apple for quality e- devices.
WHERE is the serious competition? What the hell happened to the business world that there is only one quality company?
Better yet: WTF do they do to people in those MBA mills these days? What is the point of a ‘business degree’ if all the graduates are anti-innovative dunderheads? Why is biznizz consistently the destination of business these days? Who the hell made ‘capitalism’ into a dirty word synonymous with ‘parasitism’?
Way to FAIL USA!
(I live here btw)
Wow, too insecure to handle a different viewpoint stated clearly and politely? Must suck to be you.
I have an iPhone, but I know two people who switched to Android with good experiences, for them. They are both techies and one loves his 4G access, which rips where he lives. The other uses his Android as a backup WiFi internet connection for his entire office. There are good reasons people get non-Apple products on occasion. Grow up Steve.
All is well people. If you had a smartphone b4 2007 you know they were crap! Thanks to iOS they all perform really well. Chose the platform you want; just remember, thank apple, before the standard was set, the all sucked!
The Times today had a piece headlined:
Apple to slash iPhone price to halt the march of the Androids
Murad Ahmed
The TimesPublished: 15 February 2011Telecoms
…half the size and half the cost of the iPhone 4 which costs about £510, although network…high-end smartphone market and make the iPhone more accessible to those with tighter budgets…software which are mostly cheaper than the iPhone. Despite a subsidy, an iPhone 4 can…
Clearly The Times thinks the copiers are just as good as AAPL and lower cost!
John
Subscription needed to read full article. Not worth it though!
“Google Android offers the same messy, inconsistent Windows PC “experience,” but without any cost savings, real or perceived. Windows only thrived back in the mid-90s because PCs (and Macs) were so expensive; the upfront cost advantage roped in a lot of people, who were, frankly, ignorant followers who did what their similarly-ignorant co-workers and friends told them to do. Microsoft still coasts along on that momentum today.”
A bit of revisionist history here by MacDailyNews. It was not just the cost advantage of cheap Windows based boxes that lead to the Dark Days of the ’90s.
Apple did flounder from about 1990 (when the core parts of Pink were actually running in the lab at Apple) to about 2000 (with the advent of OS X). In the mean time Microsoft evovled both its desktop and server platforms. By1996 Microsoft’s Windows OS was technologically head and sholders above System 7 — Even Mac OS 8. True, the Windows user interface still sucked, but the underlying technology and the implementation of the guts of Windows was much further advanced than any Mac System OS. To say otherwise is just patently making a false statement.
If Apple had shipped a working variant of Pink in ’92 or ’93 (and it could have if it had maintained its focus rather than trying to create an OS that was all things to all people at all times) then Apple would have had both the user interface lead and the core OS lead. The Dark Days would never have happened.
With the advent of Mac OS X this reversed. The core of OS X is much better than any variant of Windows *and* the user interface is much better/intuitive than any variant of Windows *and* the implementation is much smoother than any variant of Windows. Again, to state otherwise is simply not fact.
Uh, no. Windows 95 was a flimsy graphical user interface sitting precariously on top of DOS. The underlying implementation of its guts was less advanced than the original Mac OS, let alone System 7. W95’s small handful of modern-ish features did little to offset this.
The real reason that Windows dominated is neither price nor technological advancement(it’s always been playing catch-up to the MacOS in almost every single area). It’s because Microsoft used the success of its early hits, like Word, as leverage to forbid retailers and PC manufacturers from supporting whatever MS’s competition of the day was. “If you offer Lotus 1-2-3, then we’ll revoke your license to offer Microsoft software” etc. The licenses themselves, of course, increasingly forbade anybody who held them from supporting the competition even further. MS played dirty to ensure that DOS/Windows was the only “choice”. As a result there was no other platform to turn to, unless you wanted to develop for a tiny niche or have only a small amount of software available to you. Had it been a fair fight, the landscape probably would have been split up more or less evenly between Windows, MacOS, and a few others(i.e., Amiga).
So yeah, you and MDN are both wrong.
(P.S., not calling you a troll, just using the last name I posted under)
iOS is made by a company that is passionate about giving the user the best experience….. Android is made by a company that is passionate about stealing as much private data from the user and pimping it to the highest bidder and to do that copies the Apple experience in a lousy way, make false propaganda about being open etc.
There really is no cure for stupid.
I prefer iPhone’s (I have got all four models), but this hatefest on Android just shows insecurity over Apple having competition.
But so what if Android phones copy great features Apple pioneered. Why are so many people’s panties in a bunch over that. That is what they are supposed to do. It is a lower margin way to play, but it is valid.
And Android has delivered significant features before Apple, for people who care about those features. Voice dictation, 4G, and WiFi hotspots are useful features that some people need and got with Android.
Android isn’t anybody’s enemy, its just a mobile version of Linux and a market approach for a group of companies who have every right to compete with Apple, even if they are not run by Steve Jobs or recently as ground breaking. Some of them were in their time (Sony I am looking at you!), some have been in other areas (Google!), and some will make a difference again.
What they’re SUPPOSED to do is come up with original ideas and innovate, not blindly and poorly copy Apple at every turn. Creative bankruptcy is why the entire mobile phone industry is getting kneecapped by a player with only 4% marketshare.
As for Android, it’s providing zero competition. “Ah hah!”, you say. “But Android is growing! That proves it’s competition!”. Actually, that proves it isn’t. Despite Android growing, it hasn’t even put a dent in iPhone and iPad sales. This says it’s no competition at all.
And I’d say Android is your enemy if you value silly little things like even some privacy, originality, a consistent platform, not violating patents, and not corrupting Linux and subverting its nature as FOSS in order for a corporation to carry out mass data mining operations.
To Android’s credit, though, it did help to make Microsoft completely irrelevent in the mobile space. Too bad Google isn’t much of an improvement.
Apple is being rewarded dramatically for their periodic major leaps of innovation, as you point out.
Android phone makers are being rewarded much less for more minor innovations, as they should be. As long as Android phones occasionally introduce useful features that matter to some people before Apple does (or does well) they are adding value, not subtracting.
Who cares if they copy good ideas. Apple does too without hesitation or remorse whenever it has the chance. They have violated patents, it is almost impossible for large companies to avoid. And their innovations would be lemons if they didn’t copy what was already working prior to their entry into a market.
If you have to redefine “competition” to say Android isn’t competing, then you can redefine anything to say anything. Android is clearly competing well in some ways. As you point out before mangling English to suit your argument, its marketshare is growing. It is significant competition and Apple is aware of that.
@Joe,
Android could NEVER outsell the iPhone cause Android is NOT a product. Android sales numbers are usually based on android based phone SHIPPED not sold. Moreover, android is now installed in every crappy plastic turdphone out there, I wouldn’t call that Outselling the iPhone…
Good god iharry.. Way to crank up the dick. I thought this conversation was getting civilized again. Lay off the apple juice
Copy cats suck. That includes Google/Android, HP, Microsuck, etc., AND CHINA.
And you? Do you spend all day doing completely original work? 90% original? 80%? 10%?
Apple copies what works. So should you. So should Android makers.
Most people and companies add very little innovation, but most innovation happens in small steps. Just because Apple is good at making the occasional giant step doesn’t suddenly devalue little steps made by other companies or people.