9 ms·

Cheap smartphones are about to change everything

124 points by x43b 12y ago

cognivore 12y ago
We need to stop calling them "smartphones" and call them what they really are - "personal computers." The previous personal computer is now a "work computer." A smartphone's phone capability is now a small facet of its growing capabilities.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Most smartphones are much more restricted than personal computers are.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- DiabloD3 12y ago
  Its Wired, it automatically gets voted up because people still think Wired has journalistic integrity. Edit: You can downvote me if you want, but I'm not changing my opinion. I haven't found Wired to be relevant in years.
  - radley 12y ago
    It's relevant because of the WhatsApp market. This kind of device could be the difference between 1M and 100M installs.
  - sheetjs 12y ago
    I like to call it the "forbes law": relevance is inversely proportional to the number of ads / trackers on an average article page. Forbes regularly clocks in north of 40 on both Ghostery and Disconnect. (Ghostery reports 19, disconnect reports 19 for wired.com)
    - johnchristopher 12y ago
      FWITW, I stopped reading almost anything from wired because the website is excruciatingly slow on low-spec hardware and most of the times articles are just two paragraphs of text surrounded by a gazillion of links* and pictures that are too distracting for my taste. * And I am under the impression that the character count of those unrelated links is higher than the character count of the article itself.
    - orbifold 12y ago
      Why do they need so many different trackers? Do each of the ads use their own tracking mechanism?
      - Theodores 12y ago
        Yes! Think of some of the things the ad networks have to do: prevent click fraud, find out if their adverts actually made it above the fold, read their cookies on your computer, report back to base that the advert has been shown, personalise the advert to you, get some affiliate marketing code and actually go to some place if you actually click on the link. To get that advert on your page you would obviously need another tracking service to manage the sale of that ad inventory to whomever the highest bidder is, so you can double up on the tracking codes right away. Then you would need some independent metrics on how many people read the site and what socio-economic background they have, so a third tracker from yet another company is needed. I jest, however, it is a bit like this, and, one really good HN article that needs to be written is an actual analysis of what is really going on with these pages and what all of the tracking does.
        tripzilch 12y ago
        And to think these sites command their visitor's machines to do a large chunk of this computing for them, by means of javascript code. One day, some kid is going to ask why the machines directing this madness are called "servers", as they are obviously not in a role of servitude ;) Great idea about that article, btw.
      - crdb 12y ago
DiabloD3 12y ago
Problem is, too many cheap phones are still shipping with Android 2.3 because the manufacturers just don't care. Android 4.4 is a boon to cheap phone manufacturers because of low memory mode while retaining all the modern features. A $99 phone that isn't shit that runs Android 4.4 and has BLE would enable so much stuff that the rest of us take for granted.
- danieldk 12y ago
  Android 4.4 is a boon to cheap phone manufacturers because of low memory mode while retaining all the modern features. A $99 phone that isn't shit that runs Android 4.4 and has BLE would enable so much stuff that the rest of us take for granted. But the prices have gone down so much that you can get a low-cost smartphone with Kit Kat. The Moto E is $129, has decent specs (even Gorilla Glass) and runs Kit Kat. It's only a matter of time before such phones dive below $99.
- radley 12y ago
  2.3 stopped months ago. 4.0 is the current min (more like 4.2).
  - ctz 12y ago
    Entry-level Android phones running 2.3 are sadly still common: http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-y/handset http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-ace/handset http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-ace-2 http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.tesco.com/direct/virgin-media-alcatel-one-touch-tpop-black/619-7823.prd http://www.tesco.com/direct/virgin-media-alcatel-one-touch-t... http://www.tesco.com/direct/t-mobile-samsung-galaxy-pocket-neo-grey/290-7235.prd http://www.tesco.com/direct/t-mobile-samsung-galaxy-pocket-n... The Galaxy Ace range is pretty popular here, too. There are also a slew of super-cheap chinese phones which come with 2.3 -- check out aliexpress.
    - radley 12y ago
sbierwagen 12y ago
And then there’s dual SIM (or even quad SIM). It’s a feature that’s really popular in Asia and Latin America where people might use one network for a local call and another for an international one. That’s largely something MediaTek drove, but now it’s in the Moto E, which also has a feature called SmartCalling to help people set up and swap between SIM preferences and automatically configure access point names. https://bbot.org/blog/archives/2013/10/28/programmatically_advertising_mobile_bandwidth_cost_a_proposal/ https://bbot.org/blog/archives/2013/10/28/programmatically_a... You know what would be cool? If your phone knew how much bandwidth from each carrier cost, and could switch between them on the fly, depending on which one was cheapest, like a multi-SIM phone that didn't suck.
- xur17 12y ago
  Out of curiosity - How does dual SIM work? Does the phone register with both networks, or does it switch allow you to quickly switch over before making an outgoing call?
  - noselasd 12y ago
    You're registered to one of them at a time. Baseband chips typically only handle 1 network at a time. Here's an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw76tsRKa_Q#t=44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw76tsRKa_Q#t=44
    - userbinator 12y ago
      It depends on the type of dual SIM exactly; it could mean anything from not more than being able to switch between two SIMs, to being able to use both of them simultaneously. The Mediatek dual SIM phones do register to both networks at a time, they have two IMEIs as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7k4itFT-U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7k4itFT-U
  - Ecio78 12y ago
    afaik there are two different ways of operating: DSDS (Dual Sim Dual Standby) e DSFA (Dual Sim Full Active). The most common is the first one, where the phones are both registered but when you're communicating with one sim the second one is unreachable (as there's only one radio circuit, one antenna, one processor etc..). The second one, as the name says, allow you to use them both but it's more expensive of course because of the presence of two circuits of everything (at least radio-wise, it's like having two different phones in one) so it's far less common. As far as I know almost all the "chinese" dualsim phones fall in the first category.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
I really like the Moto-G, and the Moto E looks like a solid phone as well. I'm interested to watch what it does to the App market, that much more volume and even a small fraction of a huge market, is a worthwhile thing. The other thing I'm wondering about is Apple's response, if any.
- qnaal 12y ago
  now that they have dr dre as their new visionary...
- ido 12y ago
  As an app developer I can tell you that the problem is that these people don't spend money (on software). So even though there are now many more android users than iOS ones (world wide) it's still not a very lucrative market.
  - cageface 12y ago
    The iOS market isn't very lucrative anymore either for most devs. It's hard to get noticed these days if you're not one of the lucky few at the top. Increasingly apps are just one aspect of some larger business and not a source of revenue themselves. In this world reach is what counts.
    - ido 12y ago
      That's because a huge % of devs produce really bad apps (like all those clones of flappy bird and 2048). Like web apps in '99 we've had this media propagated "app millionaire" myth bringing in loads of bandwagon jumpers trying (and mostly failing) to make a quick buck. Of course it really depends on what you're making as you say, but I can tell you from personal experience as well as from a lot of other people I know in the industry that there is a certain class of apps (e.g. High priced, high quality niche games) that are fairly lucrative for independent developers like myself and for which all these huge amounts of people using lowest end android devices are of little to no consequence. If you're making "whatsapp" it's a different story.
leorocky 12y ago
Cheap smartphones are going to change "everything?" HN still has a wired.com problem. I flag pretty much every single wired.com article that pops up past the new page. I really think wired.com is gaming the system they pop up so often.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  That sounds like you are abusing flag. Most Wired articles are written well enough, even if written for a more general audience.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  I would be interested to know why wired.com articles have a HN problem? The said article is not a deep dive analysis of the smartphone market, but it is interesting. Interesting enough to the HN crowd to get enough upvotes for it to appear on the front page.
qwerta 12y ago
Phone for $130 is not cheap. Perhaps the title should be "The dusk of expensive smartphones".
- enscr 12y ago
  I agree with what you are implying, maybe it just came across as negative to whoever downvoted this. For devices that you upgrade every year or two, $130 (free with subsidy) is a good price. It feels cheap because Apple etc. have set the bar too high (on pricing).
- justincormack 12y ago
  $20 is coming soon http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/
caligarn 12y ago
"About to change everything" - this title is a few years too late.
enscr 12y ago
Often, the word 'cheap' carries a negative connotation. Talking specifically about Moto G & Moto E, I'd say they are phones that are priced correctly. Before we start talking about lack of features or compromises, just look at how much they charge for incremental memory. Just $20 for 8GB extra. Smartphones makers are slowly accepting commodity pricing and I hope they realize that skinning Android isn't always a value add. Cool new features like fingerprint reader sure catch the fancy of those waiting to upgrade their phone. But expecting to price the phone at more than twice what they are worth when you add an evolutionary feature may not work for too long. The difference in build quality between Android & iOS phones is way smaller than Windows & Mac laptops.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  "But expecting to price the phone at more than twice what they are worth " Apple has a gross margin of 39%, which is pretty good, but presuming the minimum gross margin an electronics manufacturer requires for a sustainable business is 20% - It's the difference between charging $560 for a $400 BOM vs $480. Even if you don't value Apple's Operating System, Ecosystem of Developers, content, support, quality, design - let's say that all has absolutely zero value - Apple is still charging about 16% more than what their phones are "worth." Where Apple really cleans up is in the 32/64 GB iPhones - They really take their customers to the cleaners for the extra 16/48 GB of flash ($100 and $200 respectively)
  - enscr 12y ago
    They are making money from the ecosystem of developers & content separately. Why should it be counted in the price of the phone? Secondly, I didn't discount the quality/design from the phone price. Apple doesn't just overcharge for additional flash, they overcharge at every possible item in your phone. Example : $30 cables/connectors/chargers. On top of that, they sell you last years model at a premium too. Up until a few months, they were selling iPad 2 at some ridiculous price. The BOM cost goes down significantly with new rev of components coming out, be it the camera module, the previous generation app processor, the foundry charges, the low res LCD,...
awjr 12y ago
I have a Nexus 4 and my next phone is also probably going to be an Android phone but my shopping list now comes down to how well it takes a photo (N4 is horrible) and if it gets reasonable OS updates. I can now get this for around £100.
buzzybee 12y ago
My last phone was my first smartphone. It cost $80 and ran Android 4.0 very poorly with pauses and crashes. My current one runs Android 4.1 and cost $60. It runs smoothly enough that I have no pressing reason to upgrade in the near future; but when I do I expect to get even more for less. These are both Virgin Mobile pre-paid phones.
userbinator 12y ago
Both are based on a platform from MediaTek, a Taiwanese giant you've never heard of. It makes white label handsets that operators can customize for local markets. Technically this isn't the case; MTK don't make handsets themselves, they're fabless and only provide reference designs based on their chipsets. It's the innumerable Chinese OEMs that use these reference designs to make handsets. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaTek#.282013-present.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaTek#.282013-present.29 for a non-exhaustive list of smartphones that contain them.) Because it's a reference design, most of them have very similar features, since OEMs don't have to expend much effort to add features themselves. In fact I'd say it's unusual to not have e.g. dual-SIM, expandable storage, FM radio, or removable battery in a MTK smartphone; they're pretty much standard. The variation between models is mostly in ROM/RAM, camera and screen sizes, and case styling (there are models with small screens but the fastest SoC, for example.) Also, the MT6589 platform does not have 4G, it's 3G. MTK is certainly relatively unknown in North America but in Asia the situation is very different - you'll find far more mention and phones using them, hardware-level repair/modding information is common, and they also cost significantly less than the flagships from Samsung, LG, and the other big companies. Edit: looks like Wired covered this a year ago: http://www.wired.com/2013/02/mediatek/ http://www.wired.com/2013/02/mediatek/ (I bought a generic 5" MT6589 smartphone in China and have been quite satisfied with it.)
- kalleboo 12y ago
  > Also, the MT6589 platform does not have 4G, it's 3G. The confusion probably comes from the fact that US carriers were branding HSDPA as "4G" to fool the US public that they were keeping up with the rest of the world.
  - briandh 12y ago
    If by that you mean T-Mobile, sure. The US has actually been on the leading edge of LTE deployment. Compare the map [1] to [2]. Then take a look back at 2012 to see how far along the US was even in 2012 (relatively far) [3] [4]. Then check out a more recent look (less than a year ago) [5]. And that's not counting WiMax, for whatever it's worth. [1] http://lazure2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gsa-map-worldwide-lte-network-commitments-launches-and-trials-6-july-2011.jpg http://lazure2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gsa-map-worldwide... [2] http://www.4g.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GSA_LTE_MAP.jpg http://www.4g.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GSA_LTE_MAP.jpg [3] http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/special-reports/lte-coverage-targets-and-subscriber-numbers http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/special-reports/lte-cover... [4] http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/111512-lte-4g-264316.html http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/111512-lte-4g-264316.h... ("The U.S. is one of the fastest-growing 4G markets in the world, thanks to aggressive LTE deployments by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless") [5] http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-lte-coverage-its-in-fewer-places-than-you-think/ http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-lte-cove...
Synaesthesia 12y ago
Cheap phones really are capable these days. I just got a 2nd hand Lumia 520 for ZAR1000 (about $100) and it can do everything my much more expensive iPhone 5 can. It's good enough to be my primary phone which is pretty amazing. Even has wifi internet tethering. Windows Phone 8.1 is a solid OS. The Lumia 630 with dual sim looks very appealing to me as soon as it's available.
- theintern 12y ago
  Off topic, but I see you're in SA, I'll be living there for a year or two soon, I'd be really interested to get your perspective on the state of the technological landscape over there, things like ISPs, getting new electronics, tech jobs etc.
  - hgh 12y ago
    ZAR caught my attention as well. I'm an expat in SA, based in Cape Town. Feel free to get in touch - hans@zoona.co.za
chaired 12y ago
I had to write code for Androids, and so I 'used' them quite a bit while testing. To this day, every time I have to use an Android phone, I want to claw my eyes out, mainly over the lousy touch response, and somewhat-stupider UI. I fully understand they're still good iPhone knock-offs and more than adequate for many. But as someone who now uses my phone as my primary computer (and for me iOS is now only just barely adequate for this), I honestly don't know how y'all do it.
- briandh 12y ago
  To give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not merely trolling: what handset(s) did you use?
webwanderings 12y ago
Cheap or expensive, it is one-time cost. The recurring cost of cellphones are ridiculously expensive.
zem 12y ago
the wired article gets one thing absolutely right - the excitement has gone out of the high-end smartphone market, but is palpably there in this one. ubiquitous cheap devices spreading everywhere and getting smarter and smarter is a lot closer to the world envisioned by gibson, sterling et al - the high end of the market has become more like a shopping mall than a cyberpunk bazaar.

124 points by x43b 12y ago

We need to stop calling them "smartphones" and call them what they really are - "personal computers." The previous personal computer is now a "work computer." A smartphone's phone capability is now a small facet of its growing capabilities.

DanBC 12y ago
Most smartphones are much more restricted than personal computers are.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

DiabloD3 12y ago
Its Wired, it automatically gets voted up because people still think Wired has journalistic integrity. Edit: You can downvote me if you want, but I'm not changing my opinion. I haven't found Wired to be relevant in years.
- radley 12y ago
  It's relevant because of the WhatsApp market. This kind of device could be the difference between 1M and 100M installs.
- sheetjs 12y ago
  I like to call it the "forbes law": relevance is inversely proportional to the number of ads / trackers on an average article page. Forbes regularly clocks in north of 40 on both Ghostery and Disconnect. (Ghostery reports 19, disconnect reports 19 for wired.com)
  - johnchristopher 12y ago
    FWITW, I stopped reading almost anything from wired because the website is excruciatingly slow on low-spec hardware and most of the times articles are just two paragraphs of text surrounded by a gazillion of links* and pictures that are too distracting for my taste. * And I am under the impression that the character count of those unrelated links is higher than the character count of the article itself.
  - orbifold 12y ago
    Why do they need so many different trackers? Do each of the ads use their own tracking mechanism?
    - Theodores 12y ago
      Yes! Think of some of the things the ad networks have to do: prevent click fraud, find out if their adverts actually made it above the fold, read their cookies on your computer, report back to base that the advert has been shown, personalise the advert to you, get some affiliate marketing code and actually go to some place if you actually click on the link. To get that advert on your page you would obviously need another tracking service to manage the sale of that ad inventory to whomever the highest bidder is, so you can double up on the tracking codes right away. Then you would need some independent metrics on how many people read the site and what socio-economic background they have, so a third tracker from yet another company is needed. I jest, however, it is a bit like this, and, one really good HN article that needs to be written is an actual analysis of what is really going on with these pages and what all of the tracking does.
      - tripzilch 12y ago
        And to think these sites command their visitor's machines to do a large chunk of this computing for them, by means of javascript code. One day, some kid is going to ask why the machines directing this madness are called "servers", as they are obviously not in a role of servitude ;) Great idea about that article, btw.
    - crdb 12y ago

DiabloD3 12y ago

Problem is, too many cheap phones are still shipping with Android 2.3 because the manufacturers just don't care. Android 4.4 is a boon to cheap phone manufacturers because of low memory mode while retaining all the modern features. A $99 phone that isn't shit that runs Android 4.4 and has BLE would enable so much stuff that the rest of us take for granted.

danieldk 12y ago
Android 4.4 is a boon to cheap phone manufacturers because of low memory mode while retaining all the modern features. A $99 phone that isn't shit that runs Android 4.4 and has BLE would enable so much stuff that the rest of us take for granted. But the prices have gone down so much that you can get a low-cost smartphone with Kit Kat. The Moto E is $129, has decent specs (even Gorilla Glass) and runs Kit Kat. It's only a matter of time before such phones dive below $99.
radley 12y ago
2.3 stopped months ago. 4.0 is the current min (more like 4.2).
- ctz 12y ago
  Entry-level Android phones running 2.3 are sadly still common: http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-y/handset http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-ace/handset http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galaxy-ace-2 http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/phone/samsung/samsung-galax... http://www.tesco.com/direct/virgin-media-alcatel-one-touch-tpop-black/619-7823.prd http://www.tesco.com/direct/virgin-media-alcatel-one-touch-t... http://www.tesco.com/direct/t-mobile-samsung-galaxy-pocket-neo-grey/290-7235.prd http://www.tesco.com/direct/t-mobile-samsung-galaxy-pocket-n... The Galaxy Ace range is pretty popular here, too. There are also a slew of super-cheap chinese phones which come with 2.3 -- check out aliexpress.
  - radley 12y ago

sbierwagen 12y ago

And then there’s dual SIM (or even quad SIM). It’s a feature that’s really popular in Asia and Latin America where people might use one network for a local call and another for an international one. That’s largely something MediaTek drove, but now it’s in the Moto E, which also has a feature called SmartCalling to help people set up and swap between SIM preferences and automatically configure access point names. https://bbot.org/blog/archives/2013/10/28/programmatically_advertising_mobile_bandwidth_cost_a_proposal/ https://bbot.org/blog/archives/2013/10/28/programmatically_a... You know what would be cool? If your phone knew how much bandwidth from each carrier cost, and could switch between them on the fly, depending on which one was cheapest, like a multi-SIM phone that didn't suck.

xur17 12y ago
Out of curiosity - How does dual SIM work? Does the phone register with both networks, or does it switch allow you to quickly switch over before making an outgoing call?
- noselasd 12y ago
  You're registered to one of them at a time. Baseband chips typically only handle 1 network at a time. Here's an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw76tsRKa_Q#t=44 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw76tsRKa_Q#t=44
  - userbinator 12y ago
    It depends on the type of dual SIM exactly; it could mean anything from not more than being able to switch between two SIMs, to being able to use both of them simultaneously. The Mediatek dual SIM phones do register to both networks at a time, they have two IMEIs as well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7k4itFT-U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro7k4itFT-U
- Ecio78 12y ago
  afaik there are two different ways of operating: DSDS (Dual Sim Dual Standby) e DSFA (Dual Sim Full Active). The most common is the first one, where the phones are both registered but when you're communicating with one sim the second one is unreachable (as there's only one radio circuit, one antenna, one processor etc..). The second one, as the name says, allow you to use them both but it's more expensive of course because of the presence of two circuits of everything (at least radio-wise, it's like having two different phones in one) so it's far less common. As far as I know almost all the "chinese" dualsim phones fall in the first category.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

I really like the Moto-G, and the Moto E looks like a solid phone as well. I'm interested to watch what it does to the App market, that much more volume and even a small fraction of a huge market, is a worthwhile thing. The other thing I'm wondering about is Apple's response, if any.

qnaal 12y ago
now that they have dr dre as their new visionary...
ido 12y ago
As an app developer I can tell you that the problem is that these people don't spend money (on software). So even though there are now many more android users than iOS ones (world wide) it's still not a very lucrative market.
- cageface 12y ago
  The iOS market isn't very lucrative anymore either for most devs. It's hard to get noticed these days if you're not one of the lucky few at the top. Increasingly apps are just one aspect of some larger business and not a source of revenue themselves. In this world reach is what counts.
  - ido 12y ago
    That's because a huge % of devs produce really bad apps (like all those clones of flappy bird and 2048). Like web apps in '99 we've had this media propagated "app millionaire" myth bringing in loads of bandwagon jumpers trying (and mostly failing) to make a quick buck. Of course it really depends on what you're making as you say, but I can tell you from personal experience as well as from a lot of other people I know in the industry that there is a certain class of apps (e.g. High priced, high quality niche games) that are fairly lucrative for independent developers like myself and for which all these huge amounts of people using lowest end android devices are of little to no consequence. If you're making "whatsapp" it's a different story.

leorocky 12y ago

Cheap smartphones are going to change "everything?" HN still has a wired.com problem. I flag pretty much every single wired.com article that pops up past the new page. I really think wired.com is gaming the system they pop up so often.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
That sounds like you are abusing flag. Most Wired articles are written well enough, even if written for a more general audience.
yitchelle 12y ago
I would be interested to know why wired.com articles have a HN problem? The said article is not a deep dive analysis of the smartphone market, but it is interesting. Interesting enough to the HN crowd to get enough upvotes for it to appear on the front page.

qwerta 12y ago

Phone for $130 is not cheap. Perhaps the title should be "The dusk of expensive smartphones".

enscr 12y ago
I agree with what you are implying, maybe it just came across as negative to whoever downvoted this. For devices that you upgrade every year or two, $130 (free with subsidy) is a good price. It feels cheap because Apple etc. have set the bar too high (on pricing).
justincormack 12y ago
$20 is coming soon http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/

caligarn 12y ago

"About to change everything" - this title is a few years too late.

enscr 12y ago

Often, the word 'cheap' carries a negative connotation. Talking specifically about Moto G & Moto E, I'd say they are phones that are priced correctly. Before we start talking about lack of features or compromises, just look at how much they charge for incremental memory. Just $20 for 8GB extra. Smartphones makers are slowly accepting commodity pricing and I hope they realize that skinning Android isn't always a value add. Cool new features like fingerprint reader sure catch the fancy of those waiting to upgrade their phone. But expecting to price the phone at more than twice what they are worth when you add an evolutionary feature may not work for too long. The difference in build quality between Android & iOS phones is way smaller than Windows & Mac laptops.

ghshephard 12y ago
"But expecting to price the phone at more than twice what they are worth " Apple has a gross margin of 39%, which is pretty good, but presuming the minimum gross margin an electronics manufacturer requires for a sustainable business is 20% - It's the difference between charging $560 for a $400 BOM vs $480. Even if you don't value Apple's Operating System, Ecosystem of Developers, content, support, quality, design - let's say that all has absolutely zero value - Apple is still charging about 16% more than what their phones are "worth." Where Apple really cleans up is in the 32/64 GB iPhones - They really take their customers to the cleaners for the extra 16/48 GB of flash ($100 and $200 respectively)
- enscr 12y ago
  They are making money from the ecosystem of developers & content separately. Why should it be counted in the price of the phone? Secondly, I didn't discount the quality/design from the phone price. Apple doesn't just overcharge for additional flash, they overcharge at every possible item in your phone. Example : $30 cables/connectors/chargers. On top of that, they sell you last years model at a premium too. Up until a few months, they were selling iPad 2 at some ridiculous price. The BOM cost goes down significantly with new rev of components coming out, be it the camera module, the previous generation app processor, the foundry charges, the low res LCD,...

awjr 12y ago

I have a Nexus 4 and my next phone is also probably going to be an Android phone but my shopping list now comes down to how well it takes a photo (N4 is horrible) and if it gets reasonable OS updates. I can now get this for around £100.

buzzybee 12y ago

My last phone was my first smartphone. It cost $80 and ran Android 4.0 very poorly with pauses and crashes. My current one runs Android 4.1 and cost $60. It runs smoothly enough that I have no pressing reason to upgrade in the near future; but when I do I expect to get even more for less. These are both Virgin Mobile pre-paid phones.

userbinator 12y ago

Both are based on a platform from MediaTek, a Taiwanese giant you've never heard of. It makes white label handsets that operators can customize for local markets. Technically this isn't the case; MTK don't make handsets themselves, they're fabless and only provide reference designs based on their chipsets. It's the innumerable Chinese OEMs that use these reference designs to make handsets. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaTek#.282013-present.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaTek#.282013-present.29 for a non-exhaustive list of smartphones that contain them.) Because it's a reference design, most of them have very similar features, since OEMs don't have to expend much effort to add features themselves. In fact I'd say it's unusual to not have e.g. dual-SIM, expandable storage, FM radio, or removable battery in a MTK smartphone; they're pretty much standard. The variation between models is mostly in ROM/RAM, camera and screen sizes, and case styling (there are models with small screens but the fastest SoC, for example.) Also, the MT6589 platform does not have 4G, it's 3G. MTK is certainly relatively unknown in North America but in Asia the situation is very different - you'll find far more mention and phones using them, hardware-level repair/modding information is common, and they also cost significantly less than the flagships from Samsung, LG, and the other big companies. Edit: looks like Wired covered this a year ago: http://www.wired.com/2013/02/mediatek/ http://www.wired.com/2013/02/mediatek/ (I bought a generic 5" MT6589 smartphone in China and have been quite satisfied with it.)

kalleboo 12y ago
> Also, the MT6589 platform does not have 4G, it's 3G. The confusion probably comes from the fact that US carriers were branding HSDPA as "4G" to fool the US public that they were keeping up with the rest of the world.
- briandh 12y ago
  If by that you mean T-Mobile, sure. The US has actually been on the leading edge of LTE deployment. Compare the map [1] to [2]. Then take a look back at 2012 to see how far along the US was even in 2012 (relatively far) [3] [4]. Then check out a more recent look (less than a year ago) [5]. And that's not counting WiMax, for whatever it's worth. [1] http://lazure2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gsa-map-worldwide-lte-network-commitments-launches-and-trials-6-july-2011.jpg http://lazure2.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gsa-map-worldwide... [2] http://www.4g.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GSA_LTE_MAP.jpg http://www.4g.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/GSA_LTE_MAP.jpg [3] http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/special-reports/lte-coverage-targets-and-subscriber-numbers http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/special-reports/lte-cover... [4] http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/111512-lte-4g-264316.html http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/111512-lte-4g-264316.h... ("The U.S. is one of the fastest-growing 4G markets in the world, thanks to aggressive LTE deployments by Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless") [5] http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-lte-coverage-its-in-fewer-places-than-you-think/ http://gigaom.com/2013/09/20/mapping-out-the-worlds-lte-cove...

Synaesthesia 12y ago

Cheap phones really are capable these days. I just got a 2nd hand Lumia 520 for ZAR1000 (about $100) and it can do everything my much more expensive iPhone 5 can. It's good enough to be my primary phone which is pretty amazing. Even has wifi internet tethering. Windows Phone 8.1 is a solid OS. The Lumia 630 with dual sim looks very appealing to me as soon as it's available.

theintern 12y ago
Off topic, but I see you're in SA, I'll be living there for a year or two soon, I'd be really interested to get your perspective on the state of the technological landscape over there, things like ISPs, getting new electronics, tech jobs etc.
- hgh 12y ago
  ZAR caught my attention as well. I'm an expat in SA, based in Cape Town. Feel free to get in touch - hans@zoona.co.za

chaired 12y ago

I had to write code for Androids, and so I 'used' them quite a bit while testing. To this day, every time I have to use an Android phone, I want to claw my eyes out, mainly over the lousy touch response, and somewhat-stupider UI. I fully understand they're still good iPhone knock-offs and more than adequate for many. But as someone who now uses my phone as my primary computer (and for me iOS is now only just barely adequate for this), I honestly don't know how y'all do it.

briandh 12y ago
To give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not merely trolling: what handset(s) did you use?

webwanderings 12y ago

Cheap or expensive, it is one-time cost. The recurring cost of cellphones are ridiculously expensive.

zem 12y ago

the wired article gets one thing absolutely right - the excitement has gone out of the high-end smartphone market, but is palpably there in this one. ubiquitous cheap devices spreading everywhere and getting smarter and smarter is a lot closer to the world envisioned by gibson, sterling et al - the high end of the market has become more like a shopping mall than a cyberpunk bazaar.