6 ms·

As Smartphone Industry Sputters, the iPhone Expands Its Dominance

27 points by gumby 3y ago

skyyler 3y ago
https://archive.ph/bScIj https://archive.ph/bScIj
- timothyduong 3y ago
  I’m stuck in a captcha loop on this link :( anyone else? Doing captchas for days but no forward to site. Edit: must’ve been my wifi. Switched to cellular and it’s all gravy. Note: running pihole. Probably triggered some type of forward.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    Also worth considering is what connections in this case were on a VPN. Cloudflare is set up on a lot of websites to be difficult for VPN users, intentionally or no. Not sure about this domain in particular or if it even uses cloudflare.
  - DangitBobby 3y ago
    I had the exact same problem as you describe for a couple of weeks, minus the pihole. It's magically fixed now.
skyyler 3y ago
>Nearly 90 percent of teenagers own an iPhone, according to Piper Sandler, an investment bank. >the teenager told his father that he wanted an iPhone or no phone at all. I knew the kids thought iPhones were more desirable, I didn't realise it was quite this bad.
- devonnull 3y ago
  I guess that kid isn't getting an iPhone :-)
- throw9away6 3y ago
  The way the kids see it, if you don’t have the blue box you are a nobody. Also having a non blue in a group chat messes everyone up
  - aacid 3y ago
    I have no iphone yet I have blue box. Thanks to beeper. Am I a cool kid now?
  - bcraven 3y ago
    This rule applies to the US only. Everyone else uses WhatsApp.
    - tasogare 3y ago
      Not really, WhatsApp is used in Europe, Middle East and India. Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea are on Line. China Weibo I think. Even in the West the market is fragmented with Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Discord, etc.
      - lxgr 3y ago
        The important commonality here being “not on iMessage”.
      - WanderPanda 3y ago
        „just“ Europe, Middle East, India and South America (btw)
    - CharlesW 3y ago
      This is mostly apocryphal in the US as well, according to my school-age kids. They’ve been in many peer text chains over the years in several SoCal schools, and they’re invariably multi-platform (i.e. good ol’ green SMS/MMS).
  - Tade0 3y ago
    That sounds like something kids say to exclude someone they don't like.
- vuln 3y ago
  There are multiple versions of the iPhone. What’s wrong with an iPhone SE? The latest version is 430$ retail, I’m sure you can find used for probably half the price.
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    iPhone 12s can be had for like 250 11s are like 100$ with the right promo
  - Obscurity4340 3y ago
    Honestly, its like the best iPhone. Can't understand this obsession with phablets and phones you can use as a ski hill because their cameras are so freakishly large.
    - haswell 3y ago
      To each their own. I certainly understand why the SE is a great phone for many people. For many people, the phone is their primary or only computer, and the size tradeoff makes more sense. > because their cameras are so freakishly large But those freakishly large cameras are what makes the tradeoff of a larger device worthwhile for me personally. This phone’s size is nothing compared to my photography gear. The quality of photo/video I can get means I spend less time lugging the heavy stuff. It’s not a small phone by any means. But then again, I very rarely use it as a phone. I like to think of it more like a Tricorder/universal computing device than a phone. But that’s just me.
      - Obscurity4340 3y ago
        Yeah, if its for photography obviously its a non-issue. I just take issue with the notion that the average user is a photographer for whom such a permanent physical reality is acceptable. Most people don't need their pictures to be "that good" that it justifies the several hundred extra g of weight and awkward physical format required to meet those demands.
        3y ago
- switch007 3y ago
  Here in the UK, I can’t recall a kid with a phone the same size or smaller as my iPhone 12. They all have their parents’ 12/13 Pro Max hand-me-downs! They get whatever their parents had 1/2 years ago (and loads of people get the most expensive models)
  - Angostura 3y ago
    Really - my kids have refurbed SEs - it was the form-factor they wanted.
rcarr 3y ago
If Google have added, as is rumoured, a desktop mode like Samsung DEX to the upcoming Pixel 8, I will be purchasing one immediately, if not it will be a Samsung Galaxy S22. I'll probably still get an iPhone but if I end up taking to Android then the iPhone may well end up getting ditched in a few years. I'm also going to be selling my Macbook Pro soon and relying solely on the Android phone in combination with some AR glasses and a QuadLock swappable battery pack for extra juice. I'm moving over to Codespaces for all dev work, GeForce Now for gaming, and if I ever want to do anything like video editing or AI work in the future I'll just spin up a suitable cloud instance for it. I realise I'm currently in the minority with this hardware setup, but I think more and more people are going to start doing the same, particularly as 5G internet, satellite and high speed fibre continues to roll out in more places and companies perfect their cloud apps. It seems like Apple is sleeping on this and I genuinely think it might end up contributing heavily to their downfall. They've bet it all on hardware and services and if hardware sales decline, which is looking likely through China's recent moves, I don't think the current services offering is going to cover the shortfall. Microsoft is looking very strong atm and has made some very savvy investments. They've already got the gaming market, which is now a bigger industry than music and film combined. Between VSCode and Github they're starting to corner the dev market. I've been exploring Azure the past week and I'm quite impressed with it, seems much easier to learn than AWS. They've had the business market cornered for years. And to top it all off they've got a huge stake in the biggest AI company. I really think we might see Microsoft becoming dominant again within the next ten years.
- ksec 3y ago
  >If Google have added, as is rumoured, a desktop mode like Samsung DEX to the upcoming Pixel 8, I will be purchasing one immediately, Wow. Thanks. I dont read Android news but if that is true I will definitely be getting one.
  - ako 3y ago
    That’s what I have my iPad for: attach it to an external monitor, add keyboard and mouse and you have something that works really well for 90% of the use cases. It’s not well suited for programming, unless you’re the type of developer that does everything remotely through ssh and vim.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
It's hard to imagine the market shifting entirely to one side when it's between a quality (if pricey and controlling) product and a spyware platform that exists solely to push ads. Manufacturers allowing themselves to get fully tied to becoming Google subcontractors has absolutely destroyed them.
- toast0 3y ago
  What choice do manufacturers have? Apple won't let them license iOS. Microsoft won't let them license Windows Phone/Windows Mobile and anyway Microsoft sabotaged that. Blackberry X wasn't licensable either. KaiOS is Android underneath and less capable on top. Samsung has gobs of money and couldn't make Tizen work. Amazon Fire Phone was a joke in the market (although the hardware was nice). If you want to make and sell phones and you're not Apple, Android is it, take it or leave it, for better or worse.
  - tw04 3y ago
    > Microsoft won't let them license Windows Phone/Windows Mobile and anyway Microsoft sabotaged that. Google sabotaged that by refusing to support YouTube on windows mobile and actively blocking Microsoft’s native app. Honestly surprised they didn’t get destroyed by anti-trust laws. As for licensing, they absolutely offered to license it to vendors, they were all in bed with google already though. That’s why they bought Nokia, realizing the only way it would work was to build their own phones. I wish they had stuck it out longer or RIM hadn’t imploded, we really need a third player IMO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Windows_10_Mobile_devices https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Windows_10_Mobile_de...
    - toast0 3y ago
      > Google sabotaged that by refusing to support YouTube on windows mobile and actively blocking Microsoft’s native app. Microsoft sabotaged it first by not letting Google (and others) leverage the native apps they built for WM 6.5 on WP7. Having a terrible browser and not letting established browsers into the store (Mozilla was interested in porting to WP, but Microsoft rebuffed them) was sabotage too. But that's in the past anyway. Manufacturers could have licensed WP/WM, and several did, but it's not available anymore.
NoPicklez 3y ago
The iPhone has been such a good constant, high quality and reliable mobile phone throughout its years. I used to work in mobile sales during my graduate years and I attempted to jump from Apple to Microsoft (Lumia), Google Nexus 5X, Samsung S5 and the edge. I found more often than not customers who had problems with their devices were Android devices. Android problems were related to software errors and slowness, whereas Apple problems were related to more user error (backing up photos etc). Appreciating these are older phones compared to those newer models of today but I quickly went straight back to the iPhone (3, 5, 6 plus, 7, X, 11). I now don't buy them every year, usually now only once the wheels have fallen off. Looking back I don't even obsess over new mobile phones as they're hardly that much better year on year across any brand.
- trimethylpurine 3y ago
  I think it's important to keep the subjectivity of your industry in mind. If you worked iPhone support at Apple wouldn't you say more often than not people had iPhone issues? You may have seen a lot of issues specific to Android because it commands more of the market globally. Or more of the market in your neighborhood. Etc. Android being open source implies that issues are available to the public. Conversely Apple has an NDA protected internal kbase. Which operating procedure LOOKS like fewer problems? Clearly the latter. Which one actually has fewer problems is a more complex question.
  - telchior 3y ago
    He said he worked mobile sales, so I read that as he sold all models of phones to a wide variety of customers. I think a lot of people would nod along with the idea that Android phones eventually have more issues. Certainly, between myself (iPhone user) and my wife (Android) it's her that has to change her phone every 2-3 years with escalating issues toward the end, and me that keeps using the same one for 5-6 with no issue. Actually I'd say the same thing used to apply to Mac vs PC, especially laptops -- the Mac would be the one that keeps ticking basically forever while Windows laptops would encounter some kind of issue. But right now I'm on a 5 year old Windows laptop that works just fine (minus a few minor maintenance issues over the years), and I think that's not terribly uncommon. So it's not like Apple has some unattainable super-power, it's just the current situation in phone land.

27 points by gumby 3y ago

skyyler 3y ago

https://archive.ph/bScIj https://archive.ph/bScIj

timothyduong 3y ago
I’m stuck in a captcha loop on this link :( anyone else? Doing captchas for days but no forward to site. Edit: must’ve been my wifi. Switched to cellular and it’s all gravy. Note: running pihole. Probably triggered some type of forward.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  Also worth considering is what connections in this case were on a VPN. Cloudflare is set up on a lot of websites to be difficult for VPN users, intentionally or no. Not sure about this domain in particular or if it even uses cloudflare.
- DangitBobby 3y ago
  I had the exact same problem as you describe for a couple of weeks, minus the pihole. It's magically fixed now.

skyyler 3y ago

>Nearly 90 percent of teenagers own an iPhone, according to Piper Sandler, an investment bank. >the teenager told his father that he wanted an iPhone or no phone at all. I knew the kids thought iPhones were more desirable, I didn't realise it was quite this bad.

devonnull 3y ago
I guess that kid isn't getting an iPhone :-)
throw9away6 3y ago
The way the kids see it, if you don’t have the blue box you are a nobody. Also having a non blue in a group chat messes everyone up
- aacid 3y ago
  I have no iphone yet I have blue box. Thanks to beeper. Am I a cool kid now?
- bcraven 3y ago
  This rule applies to the US only. Everyone else uses WhatsApp.
  - tasogare 3y ago
    Not really, WhatsApp is used in Europe, Middle East and India. Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea are on Line. China Weibo I think. Even in the West the market is fragmented with Signal, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Discord, etc.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      The important commonality here being “not on iMessage”.
    - WanderPanda 3y ago
      „just“ Europe, Middle East, India and South America (btw)
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    This is mostly apocryphal in the US as well, according to my school-age kids. They’ve been in many peer text chains over the years in several SoCal schools, and they’re invariably multi-platform (i.e. good ol’ green SMS/MMS).
- Tade0 3y ago
  That sounds like something kids say to exclude someone they don't like.
vuln 3y ago
There are multiple versions of the iPhone. What’s wrong with an iPhone SE? The latest version is 430$ retail, I’m sure you can find used for probably half the price.
- throw9away6 3y ago
  iPhone 12s can be had for like 250 11s are like 100$ with the right promo
- Obscurity4340 3y ago
  Honestly, its like the best iPhone. Can't understand this obsession with phablets and phones you can use as a ski hill because their cameras are so freakishly large.
  - haswell 3y ago
    To each their own. I certainly understand why the SE is a great phone for many people. For many people, the phone is their primary or only computer, and the size tradeoff makes more sense. > because their cameras are so freakishly large But those freakishly large cameras are what makes the tradeoff of a larger device worthwhile for me personally. This phone’s size is nothing compared to my photography gear. The quality of photo/video I can get means I spend less time lugging the heavy stuff. It’s not a small phone by any means. But then again, I very rarely use it as a phone. I like to think of it more like a Tricorder/universal computing device than a phone. But that’s just me.
    - Obscurity4340 3y ago
      Yeah, if its for photography obviously its a non-issue. I just take issue with the notion that the average user is a photographer for whom such a permanent physical reality is acceptable. Most people don't need their pictures to be "that good" that it justifies the several hundred extra g of weight and awkward physical format required to meet those demands.
      - 3y ago
switch007 3y ago
Here in the UK, I can’t recall a kid with a phone the same size or smaller as my iPhone 12. They all have their parents’ 12/13 Pro Max hand-me-downs! They get whatever their parents had 1/2 years ago (and loads of people get the most expensive models)
- Angostura 3y ago
  Really - my kids have refurbed SEs - it was the form-factor they wanted.

rcarr 3y ago

If Google have added, as is rumoured, a desktop mode like Samsung DEX to the upcoming Pixel 8, I will be purchasing one immediately, if not it will be a Samsung Galaxy S22. I'll probably still get an iPhone but if I end up taking to Android then the iPhone may well end up getting ditched in a few years. I'm also going to be selling my Macbook Pro soon and relying solely on the Android phone in combination with some AR glasses and a QuadLock swappable battery pack for extra juice. I'm moving over to Codespaces for all dev work, GeForce Now for gaming, and if I ever want to do anything like video editing or AI work in the future I'll just spin up a suitable cloud instance for it. I realise I'm currently in the minority with this hardware setup, but I think more and more people are going to start doing the same, particularly as 5G internet, satellite and high speed fibre continues to roll out in more places and companies perfect their cloud apps. It seems like Apple is sleeping on this and I genuinely think it might end up contributing heavily to their downfall. They've bet it all on hardware and services and if hardware sales decline, which is looking likely through China's recent moves, I don't think the current services offering is going to cover the shortfall. Microsoft is looking very strong atm and has made some very savvy investments. They've already got the gaming market, which is now a bigger industry than music and film combined. Between VSCode and Github they're starting to corner the dev market. I've been exploring Azure the past week and I'm quite impressed with it, seems much easier to learn than AWS. They've had the business market cornered for years. And to top it all off they've got a huge stake in the biggest AI company. I really think we might see Microsoft becoming dominant again within the next ten years.

ksec 3y ago
>If Google have added, as is rumoured, a desktop mode like Samsung DEX to the upcoming Pixel 8, I will be purchasing one immediately, Wow. Thanks. I dont read Android news but if that is true I will definitely be getting one.
- ako 3y ago
  That’s what I have my iPad for: attach it to an external monitor, add keyboard and mouse and you have something that works really well for 90% of the use cases. It’s not well suited for programming, unless you’re the type of developer that does everything remotely through ssh and vim.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

It's hard to imagine the market shifting entirely to one side when it's between a quality (if pricey and controlling) product and a spyware platform that exists solely to push ads. Manufacturers allowing themselves to get fully tied to becoming Google subcontractors has absolutely destroyed them.

toast0 3y ago
What choice do manufacturers have? Apple won't let them license iOS. Microsoft won't let them license Windows Phone/Windows Mobile and anyway Microsoft sabotaged that. Blackberry X wasn't licensable either. KaiOS is Android underneath and less capable on top. Samsung has gobs of money and couldn't make Tizen work. Amazon Fire Phone was a joke in the market (although the hardware was nice). If you want to make and sell phones and you're not Apple, Android is it, take it or leave it, for better or worse.
- tw04 3y ago
  > Microsoft won't let them license Windows Phone/Windows Mobile and anyway Microsoft sabotaged that. Google sabotaged that by refusing to support YouTube on windows mobile and actively blocking Microsoft’s native app. Honestly surprised they didn’t get destroyed by anti-trust laws. As for licensing, they absolutely offered to license it to vendors, they were all in bed with google already though. That’s why they bought Nokia, realizing the only way it would work was to build their own phones. I wish they had stuck it out longer or RIM hadn’t imploded, we really need a third player IMO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Windows_10_Mobile_devices https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Windows_10_Mobile_de...
  - toast0 3y ago
    > Google sabotaged that by refusing to support YouTube on windows mobile and actively blocking Microsoft’s native app. Microsoft sabotaged it first by not letting Google (and others) leverage the native apps they built for WM 6.5 on WP7. Having a terrible browser and not letting established browsers into the store (Mozilla was interested in porting to WP, but Microsoft rebuffed them) was sabotage too. But that's in the past anyway. Manufacturers could have licensed WP/WM, and several did, but it's not available anymore.

NoPicklez 3y ago

The iPhone has been such a good constant, high quality and reliable mobile phone throughout its years. I used to work in mobile sales during my graduate years and I attempted to jump from Apple to Microsoft (Lumia), Google Nexus 5X, Samsung S5 and the edge. I found more often than not customers who had problems with their devices were Android devices. Android problems were related to software errors and slowness, whereas Apple problems were related to more user error (backing up photos etc). Appreciating these are older phones compared to those newer models of today but I quickly went straight back to the iPhone (3, 5, 6 plus, 7, X, 11). I now don't buy them every year, usually now only once the wheels have fallen off. Looking back I don't even obsess over new mobile phones as they're hardly that much better year on year across any brand.

trimethylpurine 3y ago
I think it's important to keep the subjectivity of your industry in mind. If you worked iPhone support at Apple wouldn't you say more often than not people had iPhone issues? You may have seen a lot of issues specific to Android because it commands more of the market globally. Or more of the market in your neighborhood. Etc. Android being open source implies that issues are available to the public. Conversely Apple has an NDA protected internal kbase. Which operating procedure LOOKS like fewer problems? Clearly the latter. Which one actually has fewer problems is a more complex question.
- telchior 3y ago
  He said he worked mobile sales, so I read that as he sold all models of phones to a wide variety of customers. I think a lot of people would nod along with the idea that Android phones eventually have more issues. Certainly, between myself (iPhone user) and my wife (Android) it's her that has to change her phone every 2-3 years with escalating issues toward the end, and me that keeps using the same one for 5-6 with no issue. Actually I'd say the same thing used to apply to Mac vs PC, especially laptops -- the Mac would be the one that keeps ticking basically forever while Windows laptops would encounter some kind of issue. But right now I'm on a 5 year old Windows laptop that works just fine (minus a few minor maintenance issues over the years), and I think that's not terribly uncommon. So it's not like Apple has some unattainable super-power, it's just the current situation in phone land.