“Apple’s Android problem is solving itself, and while Google’s mobile OS isn’t going away, it’s increasingly seen as a second class option among the only people who matter: customers,” Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld.
“I’m not saying Android is dying, not at all. It’s just not winning the loyalty challenge,” Evans writes. “This is quite fortuitous, given Apple will offer the iPhone via China Mobile from tomorrow, with CEO, Tim Cook telling the WSJ: ‘When you really back up and look at what’s happening in China the usage numbers are staggering. Fifty-seven percent of the mobile browsing in China is done on iOS devices. Now there are many different views of unit market share and you can choose to look at whichever one you think is most reputable, but for us that is not our North Star, we don’t get up in the morning saying we want to sell the most, we get up saying we want to make and create the best, and so that’s our strategy and it doesn’t change.'”
Read more in the full article here.
“…we don’t get up in the morning saying we want to sell the most, we get up saying we want to make and create the best,…”
Nuf said. Tell it like it is Tim. The rest of us who’ve been with Apple forever understand this. Anal-ists and Wall Street does not. Not a difficult concept but obviously beyond their pea sized brains.
When you read the Jony Ive biography, it all makes sense. Tim does the bean counting, Jony handles the design. But upon reading his biography I now appreciate the breadth of a the design and just as importantly the manufacturing process he thinks about. He flew to Taiwan and camped out for weeks in a hotel when Apple completely outsourced manufacturing of one of their early PDAs, going to the factory every day and working with engineers on the process that produced the device… This early work is reflected today in the incredible build quality of the current crop of Apple devices. He KNOWS design. He made the Newton stylus out of brass, because it gave it that “weight” of an expensive pen and was part of the “fiddle factor” of the device… how many of us play with our iPhones in our hand while we’re waiting in a queue or killing time in work?
As long as they keep this current chain of command Apple will be absolutely fine.
Rock on Jony 🙂
AMEN, Brother Tim! Speak the truth. Tell us like it is!
For wall street and the 1% the only God is money. Profit is the Muhammad not the other way around.
That’s not necessarily true… Apple is one of the most profitable tech companies in the world – if not one of the most profitable in all industries. Wall Street’s concern is longevity and future viability – their #1 method for measuring this is market share numbers. To them, the more devices a company puts out on more markets and market segments, the better their chances are of remaining relevant.
This of course flies in the face of Apple’s business model of having a smaller product portfolio to enable them to focus on making more refined and cohesive products that their user base – more than any other – can appreciate.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. I’d rather have money (a real thing) than an invisible man that floats in the sky.
Hope that the invisible man that floats in the sky doesn’t take a dislike to you, though. Just saying.
People are finally realizing that fragmentation is nothing but a bloody mess.
Google (and Samsung) will always be the first to point out absolute market share, and to a certain extent, they will be right. Developers will always develop for the platform whith plenty of available users (=customers). However, unqualified market share numbers don’t really mean that much; once you qualify the market share number with the actual usage, you get much more meaningful picture.
It has become quite clear that the large portion of that Android market belongs to the sub- $100 Android devices that are hardware-wise so anemic and inadequate to the point of being useless for any apps beside the most basic (phone, address book, calendar, clock, and the kind that exists on the ordinary feature phones). The web usage, as well as the app purchase numbers tend to confirm this.
Developers develop for the market where there exist users who will buy and subsequently use their apps. Android may have 800 million users, but they would be of no interest to developers if 80% of those make less than $40 per month and only use phones as, well, phones.
In Wall Street’s eyes, Apple hasn’t done anything since last year and Apple’s market cap still sits below $500 billion when last year the company was said to have the potential to be a trillion dollar company.
To Wall Street, Google/Android is now considered the 800 lb. gorilla and Apple is seen as just a street vendor’s pet monkey begging for scraps. Apple has effectively broken Windows OS consumer domination but it’s Android that gets all the attention of having the most market share. Google gets the applause and Apple gets the finger.
Apple has never fallen out of favor with consumers but consumers just have more to choose from with Android available. My solution for Apple would be to pound Google’s search engine business to death but apparently Apple isn’t going to handle it that way. Google search engine growth will remain unimpeded while Apple has to fight tooth and nail for growth because of Google’s little side-business known as Android.
The day Apple starts letting Wall Street dictate its business road map is the day Apple begins to decline. Wall Street wanted Apple to ditch the Mac OS and make cheap PCs, remember?
——RM
Google’s business model will be their undoing. Look at the Nest purchase and how deeply uncomfortable it has made people. We’re approaching a tipping point I suspect: People are going to realize that Google knows too much about them. Android phones and Maps track your every move, call, and text message. Not even wifi can save you, as Google tracks this too. Wall Street may appreciate that Google has multiple revenue streams for each customer–after all, they’re customers and products to be sold–but sooner or later the customer will tire of being packaged and sold. And when they are, everything Google has built will be at risk.
It’s about trust. Apple has it, and Google is rapidly squandering it.
Apple’s iPod is too expensive.
Apple’s iPhone is too expensive
Apple’s iPad is too expensive
And ON & ON & ON……
Apple is not in the JUNK business
Android Dolts.
In the real world, Apple does not even have an “Android problem.” Android is (and has been) Apple’s “enabler.”
In the early days of iPhone, Android came along and helped marginalize Apple’s biggest (then existing) iPhone competitors, which were RIM (BlackBerry), Palm, Nokia (Symbian), and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile. Apple initially kept iPhone to one wireless carrier per market (and took over that carrier); Android “did the dirty work” everywhere else. Once it was mostly Android and iPhone in the world of smartphones, Apple expanded to other carriers. All those other competitors are now gone or “DCW,” thanks in large part to Android. Apple prefers iPhone versus the “Android collective,” because that’s a world where Apple makes most of the available profit.
These days, Apple does not really mind having Android around. Apple cannot possibly (and does not even want to) produce 100% of the world’s smartphones. What Android does is create a much larger base of smartphone users than Apple can create by itself. Many of those customers eventually upgrade to an iPhone. Therefore, Apple has MORE customers today (and will have more in the future) BECAUSE OF Android.
Please put this in the WSJ as an op-ed.
What Android does is create a much larger base of smartphone users than Apple can create by itself. Many of those customers eventually upgrade to an iPhone. Therefore, Apple has MORE customers today (and will have more in the future) BECAUSE OF Android.
Quoted for brilliance.
The sad truth is that some people simply won’t buy a smartphone until they think they need a smartphone. And these people won’t believe they need one until they try one. And they aren’t willing to spend much until they’re sure.
So their first smartphone is a cheap Android piece of crap, but it gives them a taste of what a smartphone can do. Then once upgrade time rolls around, it’s bye-bye Android, hello iPhone.
Android. The gateway drug to iOS.
——RM
my son told me months ago android using friends were initially delighted with the phones but as time wore on poor layout and usability gradually wore them down and serious cases of apple envy broke out .
Tell your son to continue observing the world as he is, and that he will continue to make intelligent choices based on other peoples experience instead of having to suffer many consequences himself
Your job of raising him to do so is well noted
Ditto for my teenager. A happy iPhone owner since November.
Hmm, I remember hearing something similar: “I like our strategy. I like it a lot”. I can’t quite put my finger on who said that. Anyone remember?
It was every cocky, self-absorbed recipient of a lucky seven that ever walked the planet