8 ms·

Google vs. Apple – The Smartphone Race Is Over, and a New One Begins…

39 points by robbiea 10y ago

charlesbow 10y ago
The article mentions why Apple is the best: unbeatable hardware. It's that simple really...
- pabloski 10y ago
  Unbeatably obsolete hardware. YES!
- b2600 10y ago
  If it's just a hardware competition then Apple doesn't "crush" anyone in this regard. Apple's (formidable) strength is the intergration of their software with the hardware. Android can't compete with that aspect (yet).
- tomp 10y ago
  It's not just hardware, though... Personally, even if another company were producing better laptops than Apple (doubtful, but possible), I'd still definitely not want to be running Windows on them. AFAIK, Linux support on laptops is still patchy... With smartphones, sure, there are other companies that are pushing technology forward (Sumsung's Galaxy phones are often beyond what an iPhone can offer), but with Apple, I don't have to worry about hardware failing (walk into the neares Apple store, get it fixed/replaced), and I don't need to worry about the software not being updated anytime soon (I can't trust Samsung any more with their updates, and even Nexus 4, Google's flagship phone released in 2012, stopped receiving updates more than a year ago - compared with iPhone 5, also released in 2012, that's still updated today).
ambirex 10y ago
A couple nitpicks: - Virtual Reality - still hasn't demonstrated mainstream appeal. I'm pretty bearish on it being the next 3d TV's - Resolution - Does anything north of 300dpi really matter at this point? Maybe for VR, but see above - Privacy - as data breaches become the norm, where/how do you want your data stored?
- delecti 10y ago
  > I'm pretty bearish on it being the next 3d TV's I'm actually pretty bullish on that, considering 3D TVs fizzled out pretty quickly. Edit because I think I wasn't clear: I think setting the bar for VR as what 3D TVs accomplished is very pessimistic. VR seems vastly more promising, both moreso than 3D TVs did at their peak, and also on their own right as a very interesting and wide open medium.
  - toxican 10y ago
    I'm inclined to agree, simply because everyone I've seen review this recent iteration of VR has great things to say about it. I don't recall hearing many positive things about 3D.
    - forthefuture 10y ago
      Well 3DTVs looked really good, they just also hurt your eyes and you had to wear glasses, so people weren't willing to make that tradeoff. Those concerns are pretty consistent with VR's current iteration.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- vlunkr 10y ago
  I agree, personally I think VR has interesting applications in gaming and other areas that we haven't seen yet. But you're never going to get my mom to spend money on VR.
  - 7Z7 10y ago
    >you're never going to get my mom to spend money on VR We'll see how personal they can make Play With Your Grand-Kids on the Other Side of the Country™, before I make that call.
rkeene2 10y ago
> Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago. This claim is made, but it's not very specific. In what way did Apple win the smartphone wars ?
- johneth 10y ago
  I think they may be meaning in terms of profit.
  - charlesbow 10y ago
    to be fair, Apple crushes pretty much every company out there in terms of profit. :)
- dtech 10y ago
  I was highly surprised by that assertion too. If you take market share as a determiner, Google has basically crushed Apple: https://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp https://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
  - muninn_ 10y ago
    Hm. I'm not really sure that's a good way of looking at it. I think comparing manufacturers is a more apt comparison. How does Apple compare to Samsung to HTC to (now) Google? but even if you want to look at the market share by operating system, I think you should then look at revenue. Seems like Apple makes a lot more money from it's market share compared to Google.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    > If you take market share as a determiner, Google has basically crushed Apple I believe you mean that Android has dominated iOS in terms of market share. But when one company gives their OS away for free to everyone and the other restricts their OS only to their own devices, that's the only result you could ever reasonably expect. Google as a company has had little to no involvement in the creation of specific phones. And when they have had involvement, they've outsourced much of the work. That's actually partially why this article exists -- the Pixel phone represents their first foray into making their own phone, software and hardware together, like Apple does. So to me the statement that Google has crushed Apple makes little to no sense because until now Google hasn't even attempted to compete with Apple directly, and Apple has intentionally limited the scope of iOS's distribution. If we're going to compare Google-created phones to Apple-created phones, how many Pixel phones do you see daily vs. iPhones?
mariobertschler 10y ago
> Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago. This is a bold statement. On what measure? Last that I've seen is that almost 87% of the smartphone market is dominated by Android. It might be true for app monetization, but definitely not as a whole. Good read though.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  > Last that I've seen is that almost 87% of the smartphone market is dominated by Android. How much money does the iPhone versus the Android phones make?
  - do_it_simpler 10y ago
    How much more money can Google make with the data they get from that 87% of market share than Apple can make from the iPhones themselves?
    - denzil_correa 10y ago
      You have a legitimate point but that is tangential to the parent comment which says that Anroid (an operating system) wins over iPhone (a hardware) because Android has more market share. I was merely asking if market share translated to money. If so, what was the difference and how did Android win?
      - mariobertschler 10y ago
        for the record, I did not claim that Android wins over iPhone, the point is that the article claimed the opposite
      - do_it_simpler 10y ago
        Ah, I see now. I took your question as saying that Apple "won" the smartphone wars because their sales are (iirc) more profitable. My mistake.
    - nileshtrivedi 10y ago
pmyjavec 10y ago
"Apple has always missed the cue on one critical piece: access to customer data. And that is what Google has always been successful at." This is where it ends with Google and I, enough is enough. I have to be honest the direction Google is heading in lately feels like dangerous territory, either people are going to like the invasive approach or be scared off by it, time will tell. I get the feeling people care less about search these days, Facebook etc is the Internet for a lot of people and Adblockers have to be doing some damage.
- skeptic2718 10y ago
  The majority of the users don't care about that, so I don't think it will make any difference.
- skeptic2718 10y ago
  The majority of the users don't care about that, so I don't think it will make any difference.
skierscott 10y ago
> But Apple has always missed the cue on one critical piece: access to customer data. And that is what Google has always been successful at. > When you buy an Android phone you sign in to your Google account. Behind the scenes, Google starts recording a huge amount of data about you as a user, your preferences, your routine. Some would say not accessing customer data is a feature. I am very careful who I share my data with and appreciate Apple's approach.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
dtnewman 10y ago
If you look at the numbers right now, Google isn't close. In Q4 of 2015, Apple generated about 63% of it's revenues from iPhone sales [1]. That's almost 2/3rds of revenues for a $605B company. Google is nearly as large in terms of market cap (~$550B) but revenues from Android don't even come close (never-mind hardware sales, which are negligible). It's estimated that Android has brought in around $31B _total_ revenue [2] since it was launched in 2008. The numbers by year aren't publicly available, but even if we're being very generous, it's unlikely that Android accounts for more than 10% of Google's revenues in any given year. So yeah, in terms of smartphones, one company (Apple) is basically a smartphone manufacturer with a few things it does on the side (laptops, etc.) and the other is a search engine with smartphones as a side business. Personally, I prefer Android. I've been an Android user for years and I can't bring myself to switch. I broke my Nexus 5x phone recently and I've been using my wife's old iPhone for a few weeks now and I can't wait to go back. But I roll my eyes every time I read an article about how Google is on the verge of taking over the market from Apple. Sure, if you look worldwide, the number of Android phones out there exceeds the number of iPhones, but if you look at the high end of the market--which seems to be where all the money is made--iPhone are still quite dominant. When I start to see Google's numbers get into the same _ballpark_ as Apple's for Pixel sales vs. iPhone sales, then I'll be intrigued. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/253649/iphone-revenue-as-share-of-apples-total-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/253649/iphone-revenue-as... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/google-s-android-generates-31-billion-revenue-oracle-says-ijor8hvt https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/google-s-...
- rtkwe 10y ago
  I don't think Google has to personally get to the level of Apple to have "won". When comparing the two it's better to look at the whole market instead of just Google vs Apple because there's so many manufacturers for Android and only one for iPhones.
  - dtnewman 10y ago
    I totally agree. You can be much smaller than Apple and still win. My point is that Apple's iPhone is a behemoth, and until now, Google's Nexus phones have been a niche product. Now, they're starting to compete more directly with the Pixel, which is a truly high-end phone. But until they get meaningful sales numbers, it's still very much a niche product. I agree with the article that Google has made a phone with the _specs_ to compete. But I've heard this before and yet the iPhone still dominates the high end phone market.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
> Google is, has always been, and likely always will be, a search company Nope. Google is and always has been an advertising company. It affects how they implement search, Android, and everything they do. All knowing AI, however clever, from an advertising company may start to move some more onto Apple. That Apple isn't putting personalised data into everything is becoming a marketing feature that they should be shouting about. Edit: Not sure what's controversial to cause lots of up and down votes, I guess some don't believe Google are an advertising company. I wonder where they get their revenue from.
vlunkr 10y ago
I think this article underestimates the power of brand loyalty. Tons of customers have almost a decade of iOS under their belt, and convincing them to learn something new is often impossible because they don't care. Their iPhone is working for them. Tech people think they can list off android-only features and convince people, but it usually doesn't work that way. Only when/if their iPhone really lets them down will they look elsewhere. I say this as someone in that situation. I'm not super interested in my phone, and the iPhone works for me, so here I am.
- wastedhours 10y ago
  Exactly - I've been trying to think of what could pivot the market, and unless someone makes substantial breakthroughs in battery life (and has the budget and PR clout to convey it) and can make it substantially cheaper and subjectively better, it's not going to move the needle much.
  - phmagic 10y ago
    I can think of a few others: - Phones blowing up. - Stealing data (might matter more in the coming era of distrust in big gov and big corp) - Major improvements in camera quality
- forthefuture 10y ago
  That works the same for both sides. Many people I know would never use an iPhone. Most people in the world don't use iPhones.
  - 0xFFC 10y ago
    This is my personal experience. So it is not going to match anyone else's experience. From my personal experience this is not true at all. I am student and I do see a lot of people. Everybody , I mean Everybody (other than 1 people I know personally) would prefer iPhone over Android without question, the only problem for them was high price of iPhone, there is no competition, they chose android just because of price of it. That was the only reason they were using android phones or service. If they have money to buy it (most of them were student , and short on money) they would change to iPhone in heartbeat.
jayd16 10y ago
By the logic of this article, Apple won the PC space because Microsoft decided to make a laptop. And just look at those ridiculous comparison "info graphics"...
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Agreed. I do not understand how anyone reads this article and comes away with the impression it is even remotely correct. I could barely finish it, it was so poorly written, full of questionable ideas deliberately glossed over, and ideas that just do not add up to the conclusion.
VeejayRampay 10y ago
The only race in place here is the one to the $2000 mark. My money's on Apple.
phmagic 10y ago
For me, the problems with Google's latest move to capture more of my data are 1. The value prop to me is minimal compared to the amount of data they are gathering, 2. There is no way to opt out. 1. All of the hardware offerings Google made are subpar copies of other products. They did the minimum viable thing to get your data. Google's Assistant, with all the data and cloud processing power in the world, is equivalent to Siri. Assistant is not a leap forward, just a rebranded OK Google. I'd had the same feeling in the past about Google's Social efforts. It's more blatant that Google's mining my data when their product offering is just a copy. Contrast that with Search, Maps and GMail. When those came out, it mattered less that Google was scanning my data because the products were leaps and bounds above the competition. 2. Google has taken over enough of your daily lives with Android, GMail, Search and Maps that it's really hard to opt out. We've vilified Apple for its closed ecosystem but we ended up with an alternative much worse in Android, one where all of the data you've generated is available for everyone to harvest.
devilsavocado 10y ago
Does only one company need to win? I don't think so. 91% of smartphone profits go to Apple! I had no idea it was that high. http://fortune.com/2016/02/14/apple-mobile-profit-2015/ http://fortune.com/2016/02/14/apple-mobile-profit-2015/ Of course that doesn't account for profits from web activity, which is dominated by Google. Apple will continue to make incredible profits on hardware, while google will do the same with advertising on the mobile platform.
rdtsc 10y ago
I was looking for a new phone recently as mine is 5 years old. It still works but I was just comparing around mostly for fun. Besides a bit faster hardware, some more DPI and "assistants" it is mostly the same. My gen 1 Moto G which I got for $170 a while back is still mostly ok. The hardware still looks the same. Anyone remember the jump from flip phones to smart phones? That was a huge difference. Something completely new. The upgrade felt like I was buying something completely different. I guess I was expecting something more by now. Modular hardware, can plug more memory or more hardware into it. A different shape. A ridiculous battery life. The only exciting thing I saw is made by a Chinese company I never heard of: Xiaomi (don't even know how to pronounce it). It is this phone: https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/25/xiaomi-mi-mix/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/25/xiaomi-mi-mix/ it doesn't have a bazel, looks square and slick, 256GB memory. I can see buying that. I don't see shelling $700 for a Pixel or for an iPhone. Then I noticed Project Fi by Google. That would save me money every month. However given Google Fiber winding down, I am worried as soon as I jump on Project Fi, it will be shut down as Google does with many of its products. So the initial excitement there has kind of waned.
agentgt 10y ago
A long time ago (20-30 years ago) there was a somewhat analogous situation with Microsoft (Apple) and IBM (Google). IBM was the "diversified" company particularly after it acquired Lotus which was suppose to make IBM compete with Microsoft directly on the office front. I'm not saying the same thing will happen but I bet Apple will have another revolution in the next 20 years much like Microsoft did.
relics443 10y ago
"Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago" So no data to back that up? Did this become a topic of opinion rather than fact? YoY sales and market dominance would suggest the opposite is true (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/1/11836816/iphone-vs-android-history-charts http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/1/11836816/iphone-vs-android-...) Also (and I know this is anecdotal evidence), in the past 3-4 years anyone I know who jumped ship went from iPhone to Android and never went back. Not a single person switched away from Android. In my opinion (which is mostly backed by fact, but I'll keep it as an opinion) iPhone is quickly becoming a niche product, and there's nothing Apple can do to change that.
PhantomGremlin 10y ago
There was one word missing from that article Motorola Didn't Google, years ago, already fully control its own phone, both hardware and software? In addition, doesn't Google's track record of dalliances make the Pixel something to be discarded and forgotten at the inscrutable whims of higher-ups?
norea-armozel 10y ago
It's getting to a point that I hate any device prefixed with the word smart. I don't want my device to suggest, hint, or predict anything with regard to my behavior. I don't need an advertisement disguised as a smart phone. I just want a smart phone that lets me search the web, make calls, stream music from shoutcast servers, and take pictures. I really just wished Google and Apple would just stop trying to wall off content they can't monetize.
scarface74 10y ago
One thing stands out. Google doesn't have multiple streams of income. They have search and a lot of money losing ventures.

39 points by robbiea 10y ago

charlesbow 10y ago

The article mentions why Apple is the best: unbeatable hardware. It's that simple really...

pabloski 10y ago
Unbeatably obsolete hardware. YES!
b2600 10y ago
If it's just a hardware competition then Apple doesn't "crush" anyone in this regard. Apple's (formidable) strength is the intergration of their software with the hardware. Android can't compete with that aspect (yet).
tomp 10y ago
It's not just hardware, though... Personally, even if another company were producing better laptops than Apple (doubtful, but possible), I'd still definitely not want to be running Windows on them. AFAIK, Linux support on laptops is still patchy... With smartphones, sure, there are other companies that are pushing technology forward (Sumsung's Galaxy phones are often beyond what an iPhone can offer), but with Apple, I don't have to worry about hardware failing (walk into the neares Apple store, get it fixed/replaced), and I don't need to worry about the software not being updated anytime soon (I can't trust Samsung any more with their updates, and even Nexus 4, Google's flagship phone released in 2012, stopped receiving updates more than a year ago - compared with iPhone 5, also released in 2012, that's still updated today).

ambirex 10y ago

A couple nitpicks: - Virtual Reality - still hasn't demonstrated mainstream appeal. I'm pretty bearish on it being the next 3d TV's - Resolution - Does anything north of 300dpi really matter at this point? Maybe for VR, but see above - Privacy - as data breaches become the norm, where/how do you want your data stored?

delecti 10y ago
> I'm pretty bearish on it being the next 3d TV's I'm actually pretty bullish on that, considering 3D TVs fizzled out pretty quickly. Edit because I think I wasn't clear: I think setting the bar for VR as what 3D TVs accomplished is very pessimistic. VR seems vastly more promising, both moreso than 3D TVs did at their peak, and also on their own right as a very interesting and wide open medium.
- toxican 10y ago
  I'm inclined to agree, simply because everyone I've seen review this recent iteration of VR has great things to say about it. I don't recall hearing many positive things about 3D.
  - forthefuture 10y ago
    Well 3DTVs looked really good, they just also hurt your eyes and you had to wear glasses, so people weren't willing to make that tradeoff. Those concerns are pretty consistent with VR's current iteration.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
vlunkr 10y ago
I agree, personally I think VR has interesting applications in gaming and other areas that we haven't seen yet. But you're never going to get my mom to spend money on VR.
- 7Z7 10y ago
  >you're never going to get my mom to spend money on VR We'll see how personal they can make Play With Your Grand-Kids on the Other Side of the Country™, before I make that call.

rkeene2 10y ago

> Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago. This claim is made, but it's not very specific. In what way did Apple win the smartphone wars ?

johneth 10y ago
I think they may be meaning in terms of profit.
- charlesbow 10y ago
  to be fair, Apple crushes pretty much every company out there in terms of profit. :)
dtech 10y ago
I was highly surprised by that assertion too. If you take market share as a determiner, Google has basically crushed Apple: https://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp https://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp
- muninn_ 10y ago
  Hm. I'm not really sure that's a good way of looking at it. I think comparing manufacturers is a more apt comparison. How does Apple compare to Samsung to HTC to (now) Google? but even if you want to look at the market share by operating system, I think you should then look at revenue. Seems like Apple makes a lot more money from it's market share compared to Google.
- nilkn 10y ago
  > If you take market share as a determiner, Google has basically crushed Apple I believe you mean that Android has dominated iOS in terms of market share. But when one company gives their OS away for free to everyone and the other restricts their OS only to their own devices, that's the only result you could ever reasonably expect. Google as a company has had little to no involvement in the creation of specific phones. And when they have had involvement, they've outsourced much of the work. That's actually partially why this article exists -- the Pixel phone represents their first foray into making their own phone, software and hardware together, like Apple does. So to me the statement that Google has crushed Apple makes little to no sense because until now Google hasn't even attempted to compete with Apple directly, and Apple has intentionally limited the scope of iOS's distribution. If we're going to compare Google-created phones to Apple-created phones, how many Pixel phones do you see daily vs. iPhones?

mariobertschler 10y ago

> Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago. This is a bold statement. On what measure? Last that I've seen is that almost 87% of the smartphone market is dominated by Android. It might be true for app monetization, but definitely not as a whole. Good read though.

denzil_correa 10y ago
> Last that I've seen is that almost 87% of the smartphone market is dominated by Android. How much money does the iPhone versus the Android phones make?
- do_it_simpler 10y ago
  How much more money can Google make with the data they get from that 87% of market share than Apple can make from the iPhones themselves?
  - denzil_correa 10y ago
    You have a legitimate point but that is tangential to the parent comment which says that Anroid (an operating system) wins over iPhone (a hardware) because Android has more market share. I was merely asking if market share translated to money. If so, what was the difference and how did Android win?
    - mariobertschler 10y ago
      for the record, I did not claim that Android wins over iPhone, the point is that the article claimed the opposite
    - do_it_simpler 10y ago
      Ah, I see now. I took your question as saying that Apple "won" the smartphone wars because their sales are (iirc) more profitable. My mistake.
  - nileshtrivedi 10y ago

pmyjavec 10y ago

"Apple has always missed the cue on one critical piece: access to customer data. And that is what Google has always been successful at." This is where it ends with Google and I, enough is enough. I have to be honest the direction Google is heading in lately feels like dangerous territory, either people are going to like the invasive approach or be scared off by it, time will tell. I get the feeling people care less about search these days, Facebook etc is the Internet for a lot of people and Adblockers have to be doing some damage.

skeptic2718 10y ago
The majority of the users don't care about that, so I don't think it will make any difference.
skeptic2718 10y ago
The majority of the users don't care about that, so I don't think it will make any difference.

skierscott 10y ago

> But Apple has always missed the cue on one critical piece: access to customer data. And that is what Google has always been successful at. > When you buy an Android phone you sign in to your Google account. Behind the scenes, Google starts recording a huge amount of data about you as a user, your preferences, your routine. Some would say not accessing customer data is a feature. I am very careful who I share my data with and appreciate Apple's approach.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

dtnewman 10y ago

If you look at the numbers right now, Google isn't close. In Q4 of 2015, Apple generated about 63% of it's revenues from iPhone sales [1]. That's almost 2/3rds of revenues for a $605B company. Google is nearly as large in terms of market cap (~$550B) but revenues from Android don't even come close (never-mind hardware sales, which are negligible). It's estimated that Android has brought in around $31B _total_ revenue [2] since it was launched in 2008. The numbers by year aren't publicly available, but even if we're being very generous, it's unlikely that Android accounts for more than 10% of Google's revenues in any given year. So yeah, in terms of smartphones, one company (Apple) is basically a smartphone manufacturer with a few things it does on the side (laptops, etc.) and the other is a search engine with smartphones as a side business. Personally, I prefer Android. I've been an Android user for years and I can't bring myself to switch. I broke my Nexus 5x phone recently and I've been using my wife's old iPhone for a few weeks now and I can't wait to go back. But I roll my eyes every time I read an article about how Google is on the verge of taking over the market from Apple. Sure, if you look worldwide, the number of Android phones out there exceeds the number of iPhones, but if you look at the high end of the market--which seems to be where all the money is made--iPhone are still quite dominant. When I start to see Google's numbers get into the same _ballpark_ as Apple's for Pixel sales vs. iPhone sales, then I'll be intrigued. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/253649/iphone-revenue-as-share-of-apples-total-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/253649/iphone-revenue-as... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/google-s-android-generates-31-billion-revenue-oracle-says-ijor8hvt https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-21/google-s-...

rtkwe 10y ago
I don't think Google has to personally get to the level of Apple to have "won". When comparing the two it's better to look at the whole market instead of just Google vs Apple because there's so many manufacturers for Android and only one for iPhones.
- dtnewman 10y ago
  I totally agree. You can be much smaller than Apple and still win. My point is that Apple's iPhone is a behemoth, and until now, Google's Nexus phones have been a niche product. Now, they're starting to compete more directly with the Pixel, which is a truly high-end phone. But until they get meaningful sales numbers, it's still very much a niche product. I agree with the article that Google has made a phone with the _specs_ to compete. But I've heard this before and yet the iPhone still dominates the high end phone market.

anexprogrammer 10y ago

> Google is, has always been, and likely always will be, a search company Nope. Google is and always has been an advertising company. It affects how they implement search, Android, and everything they do. All knowing AI, however clever, from an advertising company may start to move some more onto Apple. That Apple isn't putting personalised data into everything is becoming a marketing feature that they should be shouting about. Edit: Not sure what's controversial to cause lots of up and down votes, I guess some don't believe Google are an advertising company. I wonder where they get their revenue from.

vlunkr 10y ago

I think this article underestimates the power of brand loyalty. Tons of customers have almost a decade of iOS under their belt, and convincing them to learn something new is often impossible because they don't care. Their iPhone is working for them. Tech people think they can list off android-only features and convince people, but it usually doesn't work that way. Only when/if their iPhone really lets them down will they look elsewhere. I say this as someone in that situation. I'm not super interested in my phone, and the iPhone works for me, so here I am.

wastedhours 10y ago
Exactly - I've been trying to think of what could pivot the market, and unless someone makes substantial breakthroughs in battery life (and has the budget and PR clout to convey it) and can make it substantially cheaper and subjectively better, it's not going to move the needle much.
- phmagic 10y ago
  I can think of a few others: - Phones blowing up. - Stealing data (might matter more in the coming era of distrust in big gov and big corp) - Major improvements in camera quality
forthefuture 10y ago
That works the same for both sides. Many people I know would never use an iPhone. Most people in the world don't use iPhones.
- 0xFFC 10y ago
  This is my personal experience. So it is not going to match anyone else's experience. From my personal experience this is not true at all. I am student and I do see a lot of people. Everybody , I mean Everybody (other than 1 people I know personally) would prefer iPhone over Android without question, the only problem for them was high price of iPhone, there is no competition, they chose android just because of price of it. That was the only reason they were using android phones or service. If they have money to buy it (most of them were student , and short on money) they would change to iPhone in heartbeat.

jayd16 10y ago

By the logic of this article, Apple won the PC space because Microsoft decided to make a laptop. And just look at those ridiculous comparison "info graphics"...

KirinDave 10y ago
Agreed. I do not understand how anyone reads this article and comes away with the impression it is even remotely correct. I could barely finish it, it was so poorly written, full of questionable ideas deliberately glossed over, and ideas that just do not add up to the conclusion.

VeejayRampay 10y ago

The only race in place here is the one to the $2000 mark. My money's on Apple.

phmagic 10y ago

For me, the problems with Google's latest move to capture more of my data are 1. The value prop to me is minimal compared to the amount of data they are gathering, 2. There is no way to opt out. 1. All of the hardware offerings Google made are subpar copies of other products. They did the minimum viable thing to get your data. Google's Assistant, with all the data and cloud processing power in the world, is equivalent to Siri. Assistant is not a leap forward, just a rebranded OK Google. I'd had the same feeling in the past about Google's Social efforts. It's more blatant that Google's mining my data when their product offering is just a copy. Contrast that with Search, Maps and GMail. When those came out, it mattered less that Google was scanning my data because the products were leaps and bounds above the competition. 2. Google has taken over enough of your daily lives with Android, GMail, Search and Maps that it's really hard to opt out. We've vilified Apple for its closed ecosystem but we ended up with an alternative much worse in Android, one where all of the data you've generated is available for everyone to harvest.

devilsavocado 10y ago

Does only one company need to win? I don't think so. 91% of smartphone profits go to Apple! I had no idea it was that high. http://fortune.com/2016/02/14/apple-mobile-profit-2015/ http://fortune.com/2016/02/14/apple-mobile-profit-2015/ Of course that doesn't account for profits from web activity, which is dominated by Google. Apple will continue to make incredible profits on hardware, while google will do the same with advertising on the mobile platform.

rdtsc 10y ago

I was looking for a new phone recently as mine is 5 years old. It still works but I was just comparing around mostly for fun. Besides a bit faster hardware, some more DPI and "assistants" it is mostly the same. My gen 1 Moto G which I got for $170 a while back is still mostly ok. The hardware still looks the same. Anyone remember the jump from flip phones to smart phones? That was a huge difference. Something completely new. The upgrade felt like I was buying something completely different. I guess I was expecting something more by now. Modular hardware, can plug more memory or more hardware into it. A different shape. A ridiculous battery life. The only exciting thing I saw is made by a Chinese company I never heard of: Xiaomi (don't even know how to pronounce it). It is this phone: https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/25/xiaomi-mi-mix/ https://www.engadget.com/2016/10/25/xiaomi-mi-mix/ it doesn't have a bazel, looks square and slick, 256GB memory. I can see buying that. I don't see shelling $700 for a Pixel or for an iPhone. Then I noticed Project Fi by Google. That would save me money every month. However given Google Fiber winding down, I am worried as soon as I jump on Project Fi, it will be shut down as Google does with many of its products. So the initial excitement there has kind of waned.

agentgt 10y ago

A long time ago (20-30 years ago) there was a somewhat analogous situation with Microsoft (Apple) and IBM (Google). IBM was the "diversified" company particularly after it acquired Lotus which was suppose to make IBM compete with Microsoft directly on the office front. I'm not saying the same thing will happen but I bet Apple will have another revolution in the next 20 years much like Microsoft did.

relics443 10y ago

"Apple won the smartphone wars a long time ago" So no data to back that up? Did this become a topic of opinion rather than fact? YoY sales and market dominance would suggest the opposite is true (http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/1/11836816/iphone-vs-android-history-charts http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/1/11836816/iphone-vs-android-...) Also (and I know this is anecdotal evidence), in the past 3-4 years anyone I know who jumped ship went from iPhone to Android and never went back. Not a single person switched away from Android. In my opinion (which is mostly backed by fact, but I'll keep it as an opinion) iPhone is quickly becoming a niche product, and there's nothing Apple can do to change that.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago

There was one word missing from that article Motorola Didn't Google, years ago, already fully control its own phone, both hardware and software? In addition, doesn't Google's track record of dalliances make the Pixel something to be discarded and forgotten at the inscrutable whims of higher-ups?

norea-armozel 10y ago

It's getting to a point that I hate any device prefixed with the word smart. I don't want my device to suggest, hint, or predict anything with regard to my behavior. I don't need an advertisement disguised as a smart phone. I just want a smart phone that lets me search the web, make calls, stream music from shoutcast servers, and take pictures. I really just wished Google and Apple would just stop trying to wall off content they can't monetize.

scarface74 10y ago

One thing stands out. Google doesn't have multiple streams of income. They have search and a lot of money losing ventures.