“Samsung’s announcement of the Galaxy S5 could hardly have been more low key,” Mark Rogowsky writes for Forbes. “After the disaster that was the S4 show, Samsung played this launch straight, letting the phone speak for itself. And certainly the S5 is a nice, evolutionary upgrade over its predecessor. But that’s all it is.”
“Another dull plastic enclosure and a similar overall design will now have Samsung fans echoing a familiar Apple complaint: It looks like last year’s model,” Rogowsky writes. “The Galaxy S5 remains critical to Samsung in that its a huge profit generator but to say that they are perhaps less obsessed with it than with previous phones in the series seems accurate. Part of this may have to do with the fact that Samsung will be spending less on marketing in the year ahead and without that prodigious budget, the company actually has lower expectations for the new model.”
“Apple almost certainly won’t have the iPhone 6 on the market before its typical September refresh, but it already knows that absolute unit growth has been hard to come by with its current pricing,” Rogowsky writes. “While there is no chance it will follow Samsung’s scattershot approach of making dozens of models to hit nearly every price point, CEO Tim Cook seems to have opened the door to more flexibility on how the company will tackle things going forward. The real mystery with Apple is whether it chooses to make a break with Wall Street’s obsession over margins.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple will do what Apple has always done (when they’re successful), sell premium products at premium prices to premium customers.
Apple already owns the high end. If Apple wants to go after mid-range users (and they already are with the 5c and should continue their pursuit), then they will be targeting the “premium” mid-range users. The people who buy content, apps, accessories, and use data participate in Apple’s unparalleled ecosystems. All others can go pound sand; they’re more trouble than they’re worth (which, after the sale, is very little, if anything). Samsung et al. can have them.
Related articles:
Samsung lies again: 16GB plastic 32-bit Galaxy S5 only has 7.86GB usable on-board storage – February 25, 2014
Samsung unveils plastic, 32-bit Galaxy S5 phone, world yawns – February 24, 2014
Demand remains strong for Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 5s three months after launch – December 19, 2013
Canaccord: Apple’s iPhone 5s ‘by far the top selling smartphone’ in the U.S. for 3rd straight month – December 12, 2013
Forbes reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘The best all-round smartphone on the market’ – November 18, 2013
Apple iPhone 5s reviews are universally positive, many crown iPhone 5s the best smartphone – September 19, 2013
Engadget reviews Apple iPhone 5c: A breath of fresh air that will be wildly popular this holiday season – September 18, 2013
Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 5s is by far the fastest smartphone in the world – September 18, 2013
Ben Bajarin: Apple’s new iOS 7 will cause consumers to discover their iPhones all over again – September 18, 2013
John Gruber reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘This is what innovation, real innovation, looks like’ – September 18, 2013
AnandTech reviews iPhone 5s: Apple’s 64-bit A7 is seriously impressive – September 18, 2013
TechCrunch reviews Apple iPhone 5s: The best smartphone available – September 18, 2013
Apple’s new iPhone 5S likely to be in exceptionally short supply – September 18, 2013
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘Makes the best smartphone even better’ – September 18, 2013
Mossberg reviews Apple iPhone 5s: ‘The best smartphone on the market’ – September 18, 2013
At about $672.00 for the new S5, yes that is high end. The question for Apple is not about the upcoming iPhone 6, rather what are going to do with the 4/4S, 5C and 5S.
“…absolute unit growth has been hard to come by…”
That is a crock.
The rate of growth may be leveling out, but not the total amount.
Ask any analyst about sale unit increment year over year and they get confused because of the huge number of iPhones Apple is selling. That’s why they only focus on the Rate and percentages. In short Wall Street expectations are unreasonable.
I don’t see Apple changing the price of the iPhone 6 very much. However, they could come out with some sort of a lower end, lower cost phone. Apple had the iPod then they brought out things like the nano and shuffle that were much cheaper.
I don’t have an opinion as to whether they will do this with the iPhone, just pointing out that there is a precedent for them to do this.
Apple could make different iPods because features could be stripped away down to the point of creating a shuffle. I wouldn’t want a shuffle iPhone with no screen. Hmmm…. Let’s see who I call this time. Presses call button.
Typical, the new samsung flagship phone can’t even hold a candle to not only the current iPhone 5s launched at the end of summer but compares poorly with the previous iPhone 5 launched summer before last.
Samsung makes cheap crap. The apple haters are simply denying themselves the best available.
So be it, enjoy your self imposed second rate status ‘roid fans.
What does second rate status Alex Rodriquez have to do with this discussion?
Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Can’t stand ARoid. Shouldn’t have brought it up here. Nearly as bad as politics… :0
Best thing about A-Rod: he made everyone forget about Barry Bonds.
Apple really doesn’t need to do anything. The iPhone 5s still holds its own quite well against the GS5. The GS5 low-power mode is innovative and useful. Until I learned about the app for the iPhone I thought the heartbeat monitor was innovative and useful. It will be interesting to see what the GS5’s battery life is like in real world tests. But that’s about it for the GS5’s interesting features (well, unless someone absolutely needs a bigger screen than the iPhone 5s offers).
It will be interesting to see how badly the fingerprint scanner on the GS5 fails. Already, reviews are starting to pan it. The TouchWiz overhaul seems to have been a letdown (according to reviews — never having used it I can’t personally comment on it).
On the bright side, removing a lot of bloat (Samsung attempting to copy Apple’s “the hard part is figuring out what to leave OUT”) is getting kudos from reviewers.
Bottom line is this: I can’t see how any self-respecting Fandroid who blasted the iPhone 5s for being a “marginal upgrade at best” can have anything good to say about the GS5.
“the bright side, removing a lot of bloat … is getting kudos from reviewers.”
Really? I just read a review that mentioned the system and all pre-installed apps take up over 8GB of space? Leaving the 16GB model with just under 8GB of free space.
(Hearbeat) app for the iPhone?
Actually, there are dozens of heartbeat monitoring apps for the iPhone, which use either the camera & LED, or microphone to monitor one’s heartbeat. 🙂 They’re very accurate, too.
So many articles flying around today posted by ad hit whores that when translated to reality read: “Samsung released a mid tier phone with a premium price, once again copying iPhone features. Apple are going to have to do something special to combat this awesome innovation”
WTF??
” … Wall Street’s obsession over margins”
There was me thinking that Wall Street was obsessed with market share, or growth potential, or whatever they dreamt up to be important that day.
Silly you (and me) for thinking Wall Street had any common sense.
i.e., AAPL’s market cap is only 2.8x that of AMZN’s market cap, even though AAPL’s income is 135x that of AMZN. (Last 12 months: $37 billion vs $274 million).
In other words, it takes 12 months for AMZN to generate the same income that AAPL generates in 2.7 days.
All this “plastic” talk is irrelevant to most people. People don’t decide to buy their first smart phone based on what its made of. They choose based on how nice the screen is and brand recognition etc. If they aren’t Apple users already then they likely pick the one with best looking screen and what the salesman tells them is “best”. And I hate to say it but to alot of people, Samsung is a “good” name. Because they don’t know…
Galaxy s5:
processor (the Brawn) by Qualcomm
OS (the Brains) by Google
Design (the Fit) stolen from Apple
That’s samsung ‘innovation’ for you…
MDN must run the Kool-Aid plant in China!