4 ms·

I've been thinking a bit about this recently as I've seen a number of people getting android devices because they were offered them as an upgrade when they rene

I've been thinking a bit about this recently as I've seen a number of people getting android devices because they were offered them as an upgrade when they renewed their contract. They weren't interested in spending money to get an iPhone but liked the idea of a decent browsing experience etc. All of them are happy with the device they have been given. Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market. I'm think maybe some Apple fans expect iPhone to be the thing which makes the rest of the world wake up and switch to Apple products. It's not. It was innovative and it meant a number of people who would never have bought a smart phone before did so. But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market.

davidw 16y ago
I think that, ultimately, this sort of equilibrium is probably better for the market anyway. Any one platform becoming too dominant may be nice in that you only have one thing to write to, but it's bad for competition and innovation. Also, having multiple platforms will encourage people to do web applications that work on mobile devices, and, hopefully, also encourage the platform guys to make stuff available to web applications.
narag 16y ago
Apple will become the Apple of the phone market... Nice phrase. There's something that will help to it and to Android gaining market share: in a few years, smartphones will cost one fifth of its current price. This will have all sorts of implications. Telcos will lose the power subsidizing phones gives them now. Margins for OS will shrink, etc.
- bruceboughton 16y ago
  I'm not so sure we'll see the price of phones come down as component costs come down. The niche part of the market for mobile phones has always existed... the phones just get better. You can see this exact trend in microcosm in the iPhone. The price has been pretty much constant but the tech available has rocketed.
  - metageek 16y ago
    >I'm not so sure we'll see the price of phones come down as component costs come down. You can already get a low-end Android for free on contract: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?WT.ac=0941HOM21#LG-Optimus-T-Black http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?WT.ac=0941HOM21#LG-Opti...
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - brudgers 16y ago
    The issue for Apple is that the iPhone has gone from competing with features (Touchscreen and App Store) to competing on specifications (Highest resolution and Most Apps). On features these days, they are playing catchup to some extent (video chat, file structure, and multi-tasking). What is happening overall is that yesterday's smartphone is becoming today's feature phone. As the iPhone's feature set ages, it increasingly competes as a commodity rather than as a separate class of product.
  - com 16y ago
    I just picked up a pre-pay (no contract) Orange San Francisco for GBP89 + GBP10 calling credit. This is starting to be in almost disposable territory for the rich-world's middle class and absolutely affordable on a monthly hire-purchase for subsistence farmers with a cash crop on the side in the poor world. Broadly-available Internet in your hand to check market spot-prices, research farming or fishing innovations, with a GPS and compass for farmers taking cattle to new markets or bringing fishing boats safely to port could be profound game-changers. I'm really excited about grass-roots use amongst entrepreneurs in the poor world at this price point. I don't doubt that prices won't dip lower still.
johnmmix 16y ago
> But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market. Absolutely - they're clearly more interested in profitability and not having to kow-tow to partners than market share. And who can blame them - would you rather be Porsche or General Motors? Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group once told me that when companies start talking about market share, they're usually trying to hide the real story, such as lack of or decline in customers/revenues/profits. Obviously smartphones are a completely different industry, but there are multiple ways to measure business performance, and the ones which are most loudly trumpeted aren't necessarily the most important ones.
- arethuza 16y ago
  If we say Porsche is Apple then Android is probably VW - both producing excellent products that looks pretty similar from a distance but with relatively little overlap in the markets for their core products. [NB I mean VW branded cars - not the entire range of VW brands, which is huge]
  - joubert 16y ago
    It is funny you should use Porsche and VW as analogs, because Porsche is the majority shareholder in VW.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      I'd actually forgotten about that - but I still think the point about markets, and indeed brands, applies. From the perspective of a consumer the fact the the Porsche holding company owns a sizable chunk of VW probably doesn't register.
    - zoomzoom 16y ago
      That was true until this summer, when their leveraged position collapsed and Porsche was bought by VW, actually.
      - 16y ago
lukestevens 16y ago
Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market. I understand the sentiment here, but I don't think it's true. There was a recent quote from El Jobso (can't find off hand, sorry) saying that Apple actually sat on the top end of the market with the Mac (in his absence), got greedy, failed to innovate, and suffered. Instead, look at what they did with the iPod. They didn't just remain as a high-end mp3 player, they developed products which covered nearly the spectrum of the marketplace, while still remaining the high-end brand. I think past will be prologue, but it should be the iPod, not the Mac, that will be the best example. That said, when you're taking 50% of the profit in the market with just a 4% share, there's not a lot of reason to be particularly unhappy with your current position!
- robinwarren 16y ago
  Fair point about their dominance of the mp3 player market, but I think the mobile phone market is a lot closer to PCs. More people have computers or expect to own one than have mp3 players. Pretty much everyone is going to get a mobile phone. Possibly we'll even see android phones start to compete with Apple as mp3 players. I should perhaps have made it clearer I don't think Apple particularly care about the mass market or consider their position as losing. Why not be happy with what is viewed as a premium product by part of the market, charge extra and make additional revenue as a result?
- mortenjorck 16y ago
  What, honestly, is the value of market share in a case like this?
mrobvious 16y ago
"Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market." No offense, but this is probably the most banal argument imaginable. "There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path." In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes. This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness. Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits." There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple." Later: "The following inconvenient facts must be an affront to the horizontal, commoditized, open, market share zealots. Apple has launched three major new product lines since 2001: the iPod (October, 2001); the iPhone (July, 2007); and the iPad (April, 2010). The company’s stock is up 3,000 percent since the launch of iPod, 125 percent since the launch of iPhone, and 20 percent since the launch of iPad. In that same time period, the major devotees of the loosely coupled model — Microsoft, Google, Intel and Dell — have been, at best, outpaced by Apple 6X (in the case of Google dating back to the launch of iPod) and at worst, either been wiped out (in the case of Dell) or treaded water (in the cases of Microsoft and Intel) in every comparison period." From: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy-an.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy...
- siglesias 16y ago
  Agreed. Additionally, this takes on a second, perhaps more significant meaning: if the Apple of the smartphone market is the same Apple of the MP3 player market, then you're looking at a very different outcome. Think about this harder guys: is designing and building a phone closer to building an iPod or a desktop? The Mac vs. PC analogy is inadequately nuanced to be taken seriously. The mobile market doesn't resemble the PC market nearly as closely as people would like to think. I'd encourage people to think about it more deeply. The app lead and cost advantages enjoyed by clone makers does not exist in this market. Also this is a consumer driven market and not a business driven market, so factors like design and ease of use weigh in more heavily to buying decisions than they did in the PC market.

davidw 16y ago

I think that, ultimately, this sort of equilibrium is probably better for the market anyway. Any one platform becoming too dominant may be nice in that you only have one thing to write to, but it's bad for competition and innovation. Also, having multiple platforms will encourage people to do web applications that work on mobile devices, and, hopefully, also encourage the platform guys to make stuff available to web applications.

narag 16y ago

Apple will become the Apple of the phone market... Nice phrase. There's something that will help to it and to Android gaining market share: in a few years, smartphones will cost one fifth of its current price. This will have all sorts of implications. Telcos will lose the power subsidizing phones gives them now. Margins for OS will shrink, etc.

bruceboughton 16y ago
I'm not so sure we'll see the price of phones come down as component costs come down. The niche part of the market for mobile phones has always existed... the phones just get better. You can see this exact trend in microcosm in the iPhone. The price has been pretty much constant but the tech available has rocketed.
- metageek 16y ago
  >I'm not so sure we'll see the price of phones come down as component costs come down. You can already get a low-end Android for free on contract: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?WT.ac=0941HOM21#LG-Optimus-T-Black http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/?WT.ac=0941HOM21#LG-Opti...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- brudgers 16y ago
  The issue for Apple is that the iPhone has gone from competing with features (Touchscreen and App Store) to competing on specifications (Highest resolution and Most Apps). On features these days, they are playing catchup to some extent (video chat, file structure, and multi-tasking). What is happening overall is that yesterday's smartphone is becoming today's feature phone. As the iPhone's feature set ages, it increasingly competes as a commodity rather than as a separate class of product.
- com 16y ago
  I just picked up a pre-pay (no contract) Orange San Francisco for GBP89 + GBP10 calling credit. This is starting to be in almost disposable territory for the rich-world's middle class and absolutely affordable on a monthly hire-purchase for subsistence farmers with a cash crop on the side in the poor world. Broadly-available Internet in your hand to check market spot-prices, research farming or fishing innovations, with a GPS and compass for farmers taking cattle to new markets or bringing fishing boats safely to port could be profound game-changers. I'm really excited about grass-roots use amongst entrepreneurs in the poor world at this price point. I don't doubt that prices won't dip lower still.

johnmmix 16y ago

> But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market. Absolutely - they're clearly more interested in profitability and not having to kow-tow to partners than market share. And who can blame them - would you rather be Porsche or General Motors? Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group once told me that when companies start talking about market share, they're usually trying to hide the real story, such as lack of or decline in customers/revenues/profits. Obviously smartphones are a completely different industry, but there are multiple ways to measure business performance, and the ones which are most loudly trumpeted aren't necessarily the most important ones.

arethuza 16y ago
If we say Porsche is Apple then Android is probably VW - both producing excellent products that looks pretty similar from a distance but with relatively little overlap in the markets for their core products. [NB I mean VW branded cars - not the entire range of VW brands, which is huge]
- joubert 16y ago
  It is funny you should use Porsche and VW as analogs, because Porsche is the majority shareholder in VW.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    I'd actually forgotten about that - but I still think the point about markets, and indeed brands, applies. From the perspective of a consumer the fact the the Porsche holding company owns a sizable chunk of VW probably doesn't register.
  - zoomzoom 16y ago
    That was true until this summer, when their leveraged position collapsed and Porsche was bought by VW, actually.
    - 16y ago

lukestevens 16y ago

Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market. I understand the sentiment here, but I don't think it's true. There was a recent quote from El Jobso (can't find off hand, sorry) saying that Apple actually sat on the top end of the market with the Mac (in his absence), got greedy, failed to innovate, and suffered. Instead, look at what they did with the iPod. They didn't just remain as a high-end mp3 player, they developed products which covered nearly the spectrum of the marketplace, while still remaining the high-end brand. I think past will be prologue, but it should be the iPod, not the Mac, that will be the best example. That said, when you're taking 50% of the profit in the market with just a 4% share, there's not a lot of reason to be particularly unhappy with your current position!

robinwarren 16y ago
Fair point about their dominance of the mp3 player market, but I think the mobile phone market is a lot closer to PCs. More people have computers or expect to own one than have mp3 players. Pretty much everyone is going to get a mobile phone. Possibly we'll even see android phones start to compete with Apple as mp3 players. I should perhaps have made it clearer I don't think Apple particularly care about the mass market or consider their position as losing. Why not be happy with what is viewed as a premium product by part of the market, charge extra and make additional revenue as a result?
mortenjorck 16y ago
What, honestly, is the value of market share in a case like this?

mrobvious 16y ago

"Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market." No offense, but this is probably the most banal argument imaginable. "There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path." In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes. This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness. Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits." There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple." Later: "The following inconvenient facts must be an affront to the horizontal, commoditized, open, market share zealots. Apple has launched three major new product lines since 2001: the iPod (October, 2001); the iPhone (July, 2007); and the iPad (April, 2010). The company’s stock is up 3,000 percent since the launch of iPod, 125 percent since the launch of iPhone, and 20 percent since the launch of iPad. In that same time period, the major devotees of the loosely coupled model — Microsoft, Google, Intel and Dell — have been, at best, outpaced by Apple 6X (in the case of Google dating back to the launch of iPod) and at worst, either been wiped out (in the case of Dell) or treaded water (in the cases of Microsoft and Intel) in every comparison period." From: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy-an.html http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy...

siglesias 16y ago
Agreed. Additionally, this takes on a second, perhaps more significant meaning: if the Apple of the smartphone market is the same Apple of the MP3 player market, then you're looking at a very different outcome. Think about this harder guys: is designing and building a phone closer to building an iPod or a desktop? The Mac vs. PC analogy is inadequately nuanced to be taken seriously. The mobile market doesn't resemble the PC market nearly as closely as people would like to think. I'd encourage people to think about it more deeply. The app lead and cost advantages enjoyed by clone makers does not exist in this market. Also this is a consumer driven market and not a business driven market, so factors like design and ease of use weigh in more heavily to buying decisions than they did in the PC market.