“Hang onto your seats. The smartphone wars are about to intensify, and this time Apple [AAPL] won’t attack Samsung in the courts, but in the marketplace as it raises the stakes on innovation all over again,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“The stage seems set for action. Samsung gave it a good shot with the Galaxy S4, but sales of the phone are already slumping it discovers that as these devices become ever more commoditized, strong sales happen only across the first quarter after launch — if you’re lucky,” Evans writes. “You see, despite the bread and circuses New York launch of the device, J.P. Morgan reckons third quarter sales will “fall short of expectations”. Why? Because monthly orders of Samsung’s device were slashed by as much as 30 percent, according to JP Morgan and MarketWatch.”
Evans writes, “Apple has been plotting the demise of its former “special friend” for some time. Hell hath no fury greater than a Cupertino spurned. And while Samsung may have a problem honoring its FRAND’s (or is that friends?), Apple has been industrious in its attempts to create new relationships to shore up its future product salvo. Why else has it been over 200 days since a significant Apple product release?”
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Samsung loses $12 billion market value on smartphone worries – June 7, 2013
Why U.S. ITC’s ruling for Samsung over Apple is meaningless – June 6, 2013
Tim Cook: “Today, I settle all family accounts.” [With apologies to Mario Puzo.]
Just search for the quote on the web if you can’t place it, and remember what comes next.
Zeke, anyone that doesn’t know the source of this quote is truly living in the bubble. “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” Apple style.
Ha ha! Nice!
Perhaps the new iPhone will take the place of a horse’s head placed strategically in the Samsung CEO’s bed.
I would prefer a 40 pound elephant turd on his face as a suitable reward.
40 pound elephant turd on his face. Official name will be Samsung Galaxy 5…
How about Balmer’s head in Bill’s bed too!
hopefully, he will be lying naked, face down with his legs akimbo and his hips ever so slightly elevated. as bob cummings used to say, “i think you’re gonna love this picture.
How about a sharp knife placed right next to Samsung CEO’s dick? 🙂
Not sure what people are so impressed about re the S4. Tiny speaker in back, over sensitive “sleep” button upper rt side (right where you want to hold it), and cheap overall feel. Other than the nice screen..it’s not exactly special and the same old tired android phone design.
But you forgot how you can press the phones together and transfer naked movies of your wife INSTANTLY!
I mean, how did we ever live without that?!?
We have enough movies of your wife already. No more please!
A smartphone with a big display and packed full of “glitzy features” impress the analysts. Tech pundits love that sort of thing. There’s nothing that gets a tech-head more excited than an arm’s length of impressive hardware specs even if most of them will never get used by the average smartphone user. This tactic has been used by companies for years. If one company’s product has more features than the rival company’s product, the one with the most features is always declared the winner.
I’ll admit I’m surprised to hear that S4 sales might have come up short if that rumor is true. I thought Samsung had a lock on unloading as many S4s as they could make on consumers. From what I’ve surmised from the news media and analysts’ comments is that Samsung can do no wrong. I just figured Samsung would have a hard time getting impressive back to back quarters because it’s rather expensive for consumers to just keep buying high-end smartphones from only one company when there is so much competition between Android manufacturers.
Never forget Apple’s unrivaled ability to write magic software and functionality.
For Apple to “Kill” Samsung is a stretch. If, however, you take a money approach then I can see some pain for them. Apple has and will arrange competitors to be given more share of the pie. This will, over time, create more robust and stable companies that will erode Samsung’s dominance. That will be enormous blow to the face of Samsung and will make them think twice before copying a valued customer. Which is the point anyway.
Send them back to the Stone Age (cranking out washing machines & air conditioners).
You can almost hear Jonny Evans rubbing his hands together over this piece.
My takeaway from it is something I’d suspected all along—for Apple, it was more important to pull away from two damaged and exploitative relationships (Samsung and Google) than it was to appease market forces.
This points to a series of calculated strategic decisions, giving up some market value and mind share in exchange for a more fortified long-term position. They needed time to form new partnerships, acquire and deploy new resources. Essentially skipping a product cycle bought them time, and when the spanner does finally drop, be sure to step away from the business end of the firehouse.
firehose
The best way for Apple to “kill” Samsung is to simply innovate way past them. Build features that Samsung can’t copy, and that Google can’t add to Android, and Apple will simply win on pure product strength alone.
They don’t even need to do that. I’m telling you the one thing that’s keeping Apple from killing Samsung is a big screen. I get it. Apple doesn’t want to rush the big screen because it doesn’t want to sacrifice quality for market share. But Apple has to realize the longer they wait the more mindshare and profits Samsung is going to continue to eat up.
It’s coming.
A bigger iPhone screen could mark a switch to OLED. Since Apple owns the professional publishing, photo and graphics markets, it cannot release a display with inferior color matching and calibration. OLED hasn’t gotten there yet. Inlike Samsung, Apple will solve this with engineering and release OLED iPhone displays when it is ready, not before.
I’m not too sure people produce and process photos or graphics for print on iPhones. Can they even be calibrated for different printer output? But I agree, Apple has a reputation for decent displays compared to typical competition.
I don’t believe it will be OLED.
How about a choice of screens. Vs. new and older.
Apple has consistently innovated way past Samsung.
The problem is that Samsung KNOWS they don’t have a chance in hell innovating much of anything, therefore they decided years back to be parasites off the blood of Apple.
What do you do with a mosquito that’s sucking your blood? You swat it and kill it.
Hey Samsung: You’re busy destroying yourselves. That’s obvious. Apple simply wants to hurry the process.
What do you want written on your tombstone, parasites? 👿
“Why else has it been over 200 days since a significant Apple product release?”
Things that make ya go, “Hmmmmm?!?”
Apple wasn’t inclined to make a smaller iPad back then but they made an iPad mini to rival the kindle and nexus. It was a hit! They’ve completely owned the small tablet market. I don’t know what could of happened to the iPad if they didn’t do the move.
Apple didn’t want to change the 3.5 screen for a long time but finally ate their pride and released a 4 inch device. It went against their “3.5 is the perfect size” but not so many people knew about that. The 4 inch made people happy.
The thing now is, apple made an ad about the 4 inch being the right spot. They already swallowed their pride once on the iPhone’s change of size… If they increase the size again, they have to figure out what to say. For me, 3.5 was the perfect size for single handling. I like the 4 but most of time, I have to move my hand to touch the top or bottom.
4.8 might be good to look at because people like to think that bigger is better but the experience would be awkward.
They might swallow their pride once again and make 3 sizes. The 3.5(they need to continue to give life to 4/4s users), 4, and 4 . When the iPhone 4S meets its end, the 4 and 4 will be the new iPhone 4 and 5.
I meant 4 and 5 lol