10 ms·

I really wish there was more competition in this space. Here's hoping someone like Canonical tries again now that the open-hardware world is starting to expand.

by gbrown 5y ago

skc 5y ago
A lot of people in tech like to say this but I'm never sure it's genuine. When Microsoft made a go of it there seemed to be a concerted effort to laugh them out of the room, and they had a genuinely decent product that should have been a third option in my opinion. I think we've now reached a point where a third player is pretty much impossible
- lostgame 5y ago
  Also, Palm's WebOS was fantastic - the issues were too little, too late; stupid carrier exclusivity, and underpowered hardware. WebOS had some real potential, too.
  - skc 5y ago
    Oh yes, loved the premise of WebOS
    - lostgame 5y ago
      It’s a damn shame we never got any hardware worthwhile.
itg 5y ago
I would like to try something different but the fact that almost all my family members and friends communicate through imessage & facetime keeps me locked to iphones. The network effects here in the US are really strong.
InTheArena 5y ago
there will be - but it will be in the form of a Chinese mandate to provide phones that do not use Western Operating systems or without western data privacy protections. Ideas like what Canonical and Firefox tried to do were great, but didn't have enough in it for the powers that be to be successful.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Yea but kind of a dangerous game to continue playing - does China want to have factories and suppliers close down and relocate out of China? Where will those people work? It may happen anyway but these scenarios are never easy or clean-cut.
  - InTheArena 5y ago
    China has no problem using the power of the state to ensure that factories and suppliers don't relocate out of china.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      Doesn't really work when the factories and suppliers supply companies located outside of China and who can make that happen without the consent of the CCP. Either way, it's not clear-cut. Sure China can do that. Great now they can pay those workers since companies like Apple won't be paying them...
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  There was also, to be frank, incompetence. Mozilla is paying their director, what, $2.4 million just this year while their browser becomes more irrelevant each year in the usage metrics? And Canonical thought releasing generally-crappy hardware and refusing to support Wayland and requiring a centralized App Store of their own (later the Snap Store) was a winning strategy for getting Linux enthusiasts.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  Chinese actually just passed a bunch of data privacy protections. I'd say they're to protect chinese users from western and private companies, whereas the government is free to influence and access. It's conceptually similar to the protections in the west. Protect users, but share data with the 5 eyes. It's just that they won't block you from searching for Uyghur or Winnie the Pooh or something similar in the process. It's kinda interesting because this concept seems to work fine in China for the simple reason that they have so many domestic services. Other countries that just try to copy the China model without the domestic information services(i.e. Iran) have a huge mess on their hands.
archildress 5y ago
There's plenty of competition - note that despite capturing 75% of profits, Apple accounted for only 13% of units shipped.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I don't think there is for premium devices. If I wanted to buy an upmarket car there are a lot of choices but for phones it's just Apple or possibly a high end Samsung.
conductr 5y ago
Looks to me there’s plenty of competition. Apple just consistently wins. Consumers are willing to pay more per device and it flows through to profit. The others are competing on price and their margins reflect it.
- gbrown 5y ago
  Let me be clear, I mean technological and software competition. A duopoly between Android and Apple isn't it. For comparison, see the dekstop/laptop market, where there are many totally usable open source software alternatives to Windows/OSX.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  I was talking with a MediaMarkt employee last week, we were talking smartphones and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insance. Yet people buy them in bulk. The brand is that strong. Apparently people also rush to replace their old models every year or two. Anyway, it just popped into my mind that I dreamt about buying a phone last night and the shop's owner just found a box with 60 iphones 13 that a customer finally didn't buy. But he had opened each box and the cardboard was ripped for each box so it was a massive loss for him. Funny coincidence.
  - xoa 5y ago
    >and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insane. I'm honestly dumbstruck that people like you are dumbstruck. It's not very hard, and whether you your self use powerful handheld computers/cameras much it's objectively obvious others do a lot. Just do the normal ROI calc. Apple makes a feature for this called "ScreenTime". How many hours a day is the average iPhone user on their phone? A quick google search indicates over two hours. So that's over 700 hours per year, with a life time of at least two years on average. Do the math. What is so shocking about spending <$1/hour on something so heavily used and important? What price privacy/security focus and long term upgrades? Subtract too the resale value. What is surprising here?
CarelessExpert 5y ago
Define "competition". Apple has a minority of the actual handset market, but they have a majority of the profits. You can speculate as to why they can wring so many extra dollars out of their customer base, but it's not clear to me that the overall handset market, itself, is structured in a way that gives Apple an unusual advantage.
- gbrown 5y ago
  Software alternatives.
tootie 5y ago
There's tons of competition in terms of products, but Apple wins on marketing every time. They are able to charge a massive markup by leveraging their market placement as a luxury brand.
- thefounder 5y ago
  Apple wins because of its software not because of its marketing. It seems the competition still doesn't get that Android is not good enough to compete with Apple on the luxury/premium market. Most of the "extra" software developed by the competition is bloatware and spyware. The core design is developed only by Google who is weaker on design than Apple. That's why Apple gets the bulk of the premium market and leaves the competition to battle on the cheap segment.
  - jvolkman 5y ago
    This is pretty subjective. I find iOS pretty aggravating and lacking after using Google's (Pixel) variant of Android for years. Agree that many manufacturers stuff bloatware onto their devices, but the Pixels don't have that problem.
- gbrown 5y ago
  Maybe competition was the wrong word for what I meant - I meant software alternatives. I've recently owned laptops from Acer, Asus, Dell, and Apple, and I put various flavors of Linux on all of them (pre M1).
numbsafari 5y ago
Competition for profit share or market share? Globally Apple has a marketshare of about 26%. Even in the US, Apple has just over 50% marketshare. The fact that they are capturing the majority of the profit is reflective of business strategy and priorities. Apple makes a lot of money from the smartphone itself. Other providers are making their money by selling out their users. You would either need to go head-to-head with Apple on price and quality of the device and OS and distribution, or compete with Google in terms of selling out your users. Or you would need to find a back-end monetization strategy based on paid services that, so far, seems elusive. Mostly, I think, because it requires a huge portfolio of services (e.g. a "Netflix phone" won't cut it). As an aside, I've long felt that that latter strategy could be applied in the browser market. Make a browser with a subscription-based services package. ChromeOS+Workspace is mostly there, except for the focus on crap devices and poor distribution and the never ending customer exploitation (Google's product playbook: crap sold at flea markets with AI support). The challenge folks like Canonical face is that they try to compete with Google on price and distribution, and compete with Apple on privacy alone. So they skip out on both proven ways of making money. That's just not going to scale. Such players will always be niche players, and there are plenty of them out there toiling away without a scalable business model. Which is fine, if you accept them for what they are.

I really wish there was more competition in this space. Here's hoping someone like Canonical tries again now that the open-hardware world is starting to expand.

by gbrown 5y ago

I really wish there was more competition in this space. Here's hoping someone like Canonical tries again now that the open-hardware world is starting to expand.

skc 5y ago

A lot of people in tech like to say this but I'm never sure it's genuine. When Microsoft made a go of it there seemed to be a concerted effort to laugh them out of the room, and they had a genuinely decent product that should have been a third option in my opinion. I think we've now reached a point where a third player is pretty much impossible

lostgame 5y ago
Also, Palm's WebOS was fantastic - the issues were too little, too late; stupid carrier exclusivity, and underpowered hardware. WebOS had some real potential, too.
- skc 5y ago
  Oh yes, loved the premise of WebOS
  - lostgame 5y ago
    It’s a damn shame we never got any hardware worthwhile.

itg 5y ago

I would like to try something different but the fact that almost all my family members and friends communicate through imessage & facetime keeps me locked to iphones. The network effects here in the US are really strong.

InTheArena 5y ago

there will be - but it will be in the form of a Chinese mandate to provide phones that do not use Western Operating systems or without western data privacy protections. Ideas like what Canonical and Firefox tried to do were great, but didn't have enough in it for the powers that be to be successful.

ericmay 5y ago
Yea but kind of a dangerous game to continue playing - does China want to have factories and suppliers close down and relocate out of China? Where will those people work? It may happen anyway but these scenarios are never easy or clean-cut.
- InTheArena 5y ago
  China has no problem using the power of the state to ensure that factories and suppliers don't relocate out of china.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Doesn't really work when the factories and suppliers supply companies located outside of China and who can make that happen without the consent of the CCP. Either way, it's not clear-cut. Sure China can do that. Great now they can pay those workers since companies like Apple won't be paying them...
gjsman-1000 5y ago
There was also, to be frank, incompetence. Mozilla is paying their director, what, $2.4 million just this year while their browser becomes more irrelevant each year in the usage metrics? And Canonical thought releasing generally-crappy hardware and refusing to support Wayland and requiring a centralized App Store of their own (later the Snap Store) was a winning strategy for getting Linux enthusiasts.
rjzzleep 5y ago
Chinese actually just passed a bunch of data privacy protections. I'd say they're to protect chinese users from western and private companies, whereas the government is free to influence and access. It's conceptually similar to the protections in the west. Protect users, but share data with the 5 eyes. It's just that they won't block you from searching for Uyghur or Winnie the Pooh or something similar in the process. It's kinda interesting because this concept seems to work fine in China for the simple reason that they have so many domestic services. Other countries that just try to copy the China model without the domestic information services(i.e. Iran) have a huge mess on their hands.

archildress 5y ago

There's plenty of competition - note that despite capturing 75% of profits, Apple accounted for only 13% of units shipped.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I don't think there is for premium devices. If I wanted to buy an upmarket car there are a lot of choices but for phones it's just Apple or possibly a high end Samsung.

conductr 5y ago

Looks to me there’s plenty of competition. Apple just consistently wins. Consumers are willing to pay more per device and it flows through to profit. The others are competing on price and their margins reflect it.

gbrown 5y ago
Let me be clear, I mean technological and software competition. A duopoly between Android and Apple isn't it. For comparison, see the dekstop/laptop market, where there are many totally usable open source software alternatives to Windows/OSX.
johnchristopher 5y ago
I was talking with a MediaMarkt employee last week, we were talking smartphones and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insance. Yet people buy them in bulk. The brand is that strong. Apparently people also rush to replace their old models every year or two. Anyway, it just popped into my mind that I dreamt about buying a phone last night and the shop's owner just found a box with 60 iphones 13 that a customer finally didn't buy. But he had opened each box and the cardboard was ripped for each box so it was a massive loss for him. Funny coincidence.
- xoa 5y ago
  >and we both were dumbstruck about iphone prices. We agree it's good hardware/products but the price is insane. I'm honestly dumbstruck that people like you are dumbstruck. It's not very hard, and whether you your self use powerful handheld computers/cameras much it's objectively obvious others do a lot. Just do the normal ROI calc. Apple makes a feature for this called "ScreenTime". How many hours a day is the average iPhone user on their phone? A quick google search indicates over two hours. So that's over 700 hours per year, with a life time of at least two years on average. Do the math. What is so shocking about spending <$1/hour on something so heavily used and important? What price privacy/security focus and long term upgrades? Subtract too the resale value. What is surprising here?

CarelessExpert 5y ago

Define "competition". Apple has a minority of the actual handset market, but they have a majority of the profits. You can speculate as to why they can wring so many extra dollars out of their customer base, but it's not clear to me that the overall handset market, itself, is structured in a way that gives Apple an unusual advantage.

gbrown 5y ago
Software alternatives.

tootie 5y ago

There's tons of competition in terms of products, but Apple wins on marketing every time. They are able to charge a massive markup by leveraging their market placement as a luxury brand.

thefounder 5y ago
Apple wins because of its software not because of its marketing. It seems the competition still doesn't get that Android is not good enough to compete with Apple on the luxury/premium market. Most of the "extra" software developed by the competition is bloatware and spyware. The core design is developed only by Google who is weaker on design than Apple. That's why Apple gets the bulk of the premium market and leaves the competition to battle on the cheap segment.
- jvolkman 5y ago
  This is pretty subjective. I find iOS pretty aggravating and lacking after using Google's (Pixel) variant of Android for years. Agree that many manufacturers stuff bloatware onto their devices, but the Pixels don't have that problem.
gbrown 5y ago
Maybe competition was the wrong word for what I meant - I meant software alternatives. I've recently owned laptops from Acer, Asus, Dell, and Apple, and I put various flavors of Linux on all of them (pre M1).

numbsafari 5y ago

Competition for profit share or market share? Globally Apple has a marketshare of about 26%. Even in the US, Apple has just over 50% marketshare. The fact that they are capturing the majority of the profit is reflective of business strategy and priorities. Apple makes a lot of money from the smartphone itself. Other providers are making their money by selling out their users. You would either need to go head-to-head with Apple on price and quality of the device and OS and distribution, or compete with Google in terms of selling out your users. Or you would need to find a back-end monetization strategy based on paid services that, so far, seems elusive. Mostly, I think, because it requires a huge portfolio of services (e.g. a "Netflix phone" won't cut it). As an aside, I've long felt that that latter strategy could be applied in the browser market. Make a browser with a subscription-based services package. ChromeOS+Workspace is mostly there, except for the focus on crap devices and poor distribution and the never ending customer exploitation (Google's product playbook: crap sold at flea markets with AI support). The challenge folks like Canonical face is that they try to compete with Google on price and distribution, and compete with Apple on privacy alone. So they skip out on both proven ways of making money. That's just not going to scale. Such players will always be niche players, and there are plenty of them out there toiling away without a scalable business model. Which is fine, if you accept them for what they are.