Competition is Fierce as ever, will Apple keep it's pace?

Interestingly, I just posted this in another thread:

onthecouchagain said:

Evidence that the tides are shifting? Zenoxia 5 is out for Google Play before iOS: http://www.phonearena.com/news/ZENONIA-5-Wheel-of-Destiny-now-in-Google-Play_id37447

"ZENONIA 5 is available right now in the Google Play Store for free, no word yet on when it will be released for iOS. "

Not that I really care about an exclusive game. I'm more about the exclusive launchers, keyboards, widgets, etc., but some folks 'round here seem to care.

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Regarding your question, it's hard to feel confident on the side that intentionally updates slower and smaller. I've always said, their intentional "incremental upgrades" will catch up to them. In the past year, not only has it caught up, some of their competitors have skyrocketed past them. Samsung's recent JB update for the S3 just introduced a small batch of new features (multiwindow, for one). And hardware wise, forget about it (cue the iOS devotees saying they don't need the hardware upgrades).

I'm not even a Samsung fan, but you have to give credit where credit is due. They (and Google) are playing a much faster game, and it's paying off.

What shortcomings Android has, I trust Google to update and improve faster than I trust Apple to act on their shortcomings. When will we see a larger than 4" screen, for example? Likely not until 2014. And that's a maybe. Let that sink in.

Apple can't keep its pace; if it really did, they will be at the losing end.

They already need to buckle up and accelerate. Look at iOS 6! If there isn't any substantial features in iOS 7, it will be nearly gameover for them.

Apple is already outdated. They can't even come up with a new design for their iDevices, much less create new innovative features within the OS. All they have done since iOS 4 is copy Android features. From 2007-2009, Apple led the way in software and design. Too bad innovation completely stopped when Jobs got ill shortly there after.

siiip5 said:

They can't even come up with a new design for their iDevices

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They don't really even have to necessarily create a drastic new design. Just give people some larger options, for the love of god. :[ And maybe graduate from the physical home button.

EDIT: Forgot, a notification light would be super, too. Super.

siiip5 said:

Apple is already outdated. They can't even come up with a new design for their iDevices, much less create new innovative features within the OS. All they have done since iOS 4 is copy Android features. From 2007-2009, Apple led the way in software and design. Too bad innovation completely stopped when Jobs got ill shortly there after.

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And sales are clearly suffering from this strategy..... [rolleyes]

Apple is dong just fine.

thewitt said:

And sales are clearly suffering from this strategy..... [rolleyes]

Apple is dong just fine.

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And Windows 7 sales were clearly suffering when it was released. Now we have Windows 8. [rolleyes]

Microsoft is doing just fine.

thewitt said:

And sales are clearly suffering from this strategy..... [rolleyes]

Apple is dong just fine.

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Smart companies do not sit back and think all is well because sales today are just fine. Smart companies stay hungry and stay focused on continually delivering products or services that keeps them ahead of the competition. This is where Apple over the past two years has slowed down IMHO. ICloud killed what MobileMe was and could have been. Osx and iOS are stale, neutered and too dumbed down and often with half backed or buggy features and Apples products once the industry standard of quality are no longer and just rely on a great return policy to keep customers satisfied. Apple has forgotten the prosumer market and as important it has forgotten how to turn newbs into prosumers. So much now is consumption focused with a drive to new hardware upgrades.

Its not enough. Once the competition catches up its too late to correct your errors.

onthecouchagain said:

I'm not even a Samsung fan, but you have to give credit where credit is due. They (and Google) are playing a much faster game, and it's paying off.

What shortcomings Android has, I trust Google to update and improve faster than I trust Apple to act on their shortcomings. When will we see a larger than 4" screen, for example? Likely not until 2014. And that's a maybe. Let that sink in.

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Won't Samsung's product reach premature maturity.

Think about it.

Apple gets 3 years mileage out of a 3.5" screen while Samsung will opt for a 4.99" screen on the S4 scheduled for April 2013.

Bigger screens, more cores, more ram, more megapixels, longer battery life is expected with every new release.

At some stage soon there's going to be nowhere to go.

Do you really think there is a market for a 6" smartphone? I don't but I'm expecting one on the Note 3 so I guess we will soon find out.

onthecouchagain said:

. And hardware wise, forget about it (cue the iOS devotees saying they don't need the hardware upgrades).

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If you are using an iPhone, hardware matters less because we don't need it as much. Hardware in terms of RAM and "cores" is a null argument when comparing Android and iOS because iOS simply doesn't need 2 GB RAM or quadcores and still manages to run smoothly. Of course when Apple starts to add more taxing features, we may get to that, but not now.

I'm hopeful that the competition will push Apple much further. Hardware is at stalemate since I'd argue both iOS and Android are running impressively at what they have already. The battle is now in software. Right now Android is leading but I'd say only slightly. Apple is really good at optimizing their software but lacks in features. Android is really good at features but lacks in optimization (it took them this long to get "buttery smooth" and battery life still falls behind iOS and stability is still an issue). Apple still wins in apps (quality, maybe not quantity), Android has "equivalents" but often lower quality ones, just ask around. Android is good for "power-users" but you must ask how useful is the power if the features kill battery before your day over?

I'd also say iOS leads one of the most common arguments and it's MAJOR. iOS has like 90% on the latest OS. Android has like less than 5% (I think). Now a lot of you will say "your fault for not getting a Nexus" but really, that's not realistic. First of all, Google's Nexus line is publicized enough so few people know about it (it's mostly tech junkies). Many people are on CMDA networks for many reasons and it isn't as simple as you think to change (required for work? etc.). I also think that manufacturers should have an obligation to keep phones updated for at least the two year contract that many people sign up for. This is Android's biggest flaw. Power is so spread out that the ecosystem is disjointed. No one has authority to tell the manufacturers (or carriers) to keep things up to date. This should be Google's job but they seem to go around the problem (Nexus) instead of dealing with it. Apple has done a fantastic job at this and I applaud them. They demand compliance or the carrier simply doesn't get rights to sell the phone.

Android will lead features forever pretty much. Not much to say there. Android has the benefit of being open source and will gain features from Google and manufacturers as well.

thewitt said:

And sales are clearly suffering from this strategy..... [rolleyes]

Apple is dong just fine.

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And this is precisely the thinking that'll get them in trouble.

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cnguyen0320 said:

If you are using an iPhone, hardware matters less because we don't need it as much. Hardware in terms of RAM and "cores" is a null argument when comparing Android and iOS because iOS simply doesn't need 2 GB RAM or quadcores and still manages to run smoothly. Of course when Apple starts to add more taxing features, we may get to that, but not now.

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To some extent, I agree, but it'd be nice if I could have more than 8 tabs opened on my iPhone, wouldn't it? Or more than 9 on my iPad.

It'd be nice if the hardware could allow them to push the software more.

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cnguyen0320 said:

I'd also say iOS leads one of the most common arguments and it's MAJOR. iOS has like 90% on the latest OS. Android has like less than 5% (I think). Now a lot of you will say "your fault for not getting a Nexus" but really, that's not realistic. First of all, Google's Nexus line is publicized enough so few people know about it (it's mostly tech junkies). Many people are on CMDA networks for many reasons and it isn't as simple as you think to change (required for work? etc.). I also think that manufacturers should have an obligation to keep phones updated for at least the two year contract that many people sign up for. This is Android's biggest flaw. Power is so spread out that the ecosystem is disjointed. No one has authority to tell the manufacturers (or carriers) to keep things up to date. This should be Google's job but they seem to go around the problem (Nexus) instead of dealing with it. Apple has done a fantastic job at this and I applaud them. They demand compliance or the carrier simply doesn't get rights to sell the phone.

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I think Samsung and TouchWiz is a good example of where OEMs can take the open Android. Have you noticed, people now love TouchWiz where a year ago (maybe less) they hated it. TouchWiz is now touted as innovative. Samsung's latest JB Package update is now bringing even more features on top of what Google's done with 4.2. This is inside a year of the Galaxy SIII release. Think about that. They are doing fine without the help fo Google. For them, stock Android is just a base to build upon. I'm not a fan of TW, but they've really ran with it and taken it to new heights. There are now features on TW that I wish stock Android had!

And again, TouchWiz is updating faster than iOS is. And with more. Much more.

Android (almost any form of it) that's on ICS and on has gotten so stable, so good, and so usable that immediate updates, I think, just aren't that important anymore. As OEMs get better and more serious about updates, too, I think this is becoming less a problem. Waiting a few months, or even more, is more acceptable. It's the age old, "a new update doesn't render your old OS useless or unusable." You'll just have to wait a little for the extra goodies. And if updates are that serious, many different ways to get it, as you know.

Also, while iDevices get updates on day one, which is nice for sure, sometimes they don't get the main feature of said OS.

OEMs and carriers should certainly provide more prompt updates. But it's not a dealbreaker, anymore, in my opinion.

If y'all check the posts in this thread "What Would Make You Return to the iPhone?" you'll see people really aren't asking for much. At all!

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1501886/

onthecouchagain said:

To some extent, I agree, but it'd be nice if I could have more than 8 tabs opened on my iPhone, wouldn't it? Or more than 9 on my iPad.

It'd be nice if the hardware could allow them to push the software more.

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I think Samsung and TouchWiz is a good example of where OEMs can take the open Android. Have you noticed, people now love TouchWiz where a year ago (maybe less) they hated it. TouchWiz is now touted as innovative. Samsung's latest JB Package update is now bringing even more features on top of what Google's done with 4.2. This is inside a year of the Galaxy SIII release. Think about that. They are doing fine without the help fo Google. For them, stock Android is just a base to build upon. I'm not a fan of TW, but they've really ran with it and taken it to new heights. There are now features on TW that I wish stock Android had!

And again, TouchWiz is updating faster than iOS is. And with more. Much more.

Android (almost any form of it) that's on ICS and on has gotten so stable, so good, and so usable that immediate updates, I think, just aren't that important anymore. As OEMs get better and more serious about updates, too, I think this is becoming less a problem. Waiting a few months, or even more, is more acceptable. It's the age old, "a new update doesn't render your old OS useless or unusable." You'll just have to wait a little for the extra goodies. And if updates are that serious, many different ways to get it, as you know.

Also, while iDevices get updates on day one, which is nice for sure, sometimes they don't get the main feature of said OS.

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The hardware isn't the problem for the limited tabs on Safari, it is the software. Apple just decided to limit you to a certain amount of tabs. Good or bad is point of view. I for one don't need more than 3 or 4 tabs.

As for updates, I'd agree, day one updates aren't a big deal. I normally wait a couple weeks to update anyway. When day one matters, though is when something as major as JB is released. It simply is too big to miss. The thing I hate is not getting the update at all. Samsung HAS to get JB to the S3 because it would simply be public relations hell if they didn't, simply because of the popularity of the S3. But they will probably drop support as the S4 comes out. Samsung has exploded in popularity and they now have to support their customers if they wish to continue and so I agree, Samsung is doing good.

For the rest of Android, I don't know... Gingerbread is still the most popular OS? That isn't good news. I don't think people understand how much of a downer that is and I simply can't understand why Google doesn't do something about it. I understand they don't have huge power but not even trying anything is shameful. A big "umm what?" is when manufacturers release "new" phones running ICS.

As for Apple products not getting the main feature (iPhone 4 no siri, etc.) I'd rather get part of an update than not the update at all. I could live without Siri but I needed the notification center, which it gave me. I would actually say Siri wasn't part of the update but a feature of the 4S so it didn't deserve it. In other words, Siri was the upgrade not the update. Which if you really look, it was. The 4S was nothing without Siri. There is nothing hardware wise that prevented the 4 from getting Siri which made people mad but I think that Apple used it as an upgrade feature which then makes it make more sense why the 4 didn't get it.

end of line

IMHO, Apple needs to come up with some oblique strategy. They can't go head on with Android. The Android phone will always be cheaper, faster, more GB, more pixels, more everything. And now, the OS is catching up. Apple is about the experience. I think they got iOS to be as good as it can be in it's current form that hasn't dramatically changed since iOS 2 and the hardware catched up with the OS, I don't think a whole lot of people with the iPhone 4S (heck even the average user with an iPhone 4) feel like the 5 is an upgrade that's worth it or that will change the way they'll feel about their smartphone.

Android 4+ is now on 33% of all Android devices. This is based on individual devices that have logged into the Play Store within the last 30 days. 4.1.1, 4.1.2 and 4.2 make up 6%. Jelly Bean is being distributed faster than 2.x thru 3.x.

In reality though, this doesn't appear to matter. You either go the Nexus route for vanilla Android with immediate updates or go Samsung and get better and more innovative software and updates within a couple of months of Google's release. And they can release it via their Kies Network, like they did for this latest S3 AT&T 4.1.1 update.

HTC ??

Really folks?

The only ones that can compete with Apple are the companies designing their own ARM cores because they have Architectural licenses.

If you mentioned any company that doesn't (cough HTC) go sit in a corner.

If you think that iOS 7 has to be outstanding for Apple to survive. Go sit in a corner.

The A6 is a custom designed SoC. It's not an off the shelf part which means Apple has an immediate advantage over anyone that is buying basic ARM cores. Apple is also hiring up all the talent they can.

They've triple downed on design talent. Android, being a free operating system, is always going to enjoy success in numbers but Apple's real competition is really Samsung and eventually Microsoft/Nokia.

siiip5 said:

Android 4+ is now on 33% of all Android devices. This is based on individual devices that have logged into the Play Store within the last 30 days. 4.1.1, 4.1.2 and 4.2 make up 6%. Jelly Bean is being distributed faster than 2.x thru 3.x.

In reality though, this doesn't appear to matter. You either go the Nexus route for vanilla Android with immediate updates or go Samsung and get better and more innovative software and updates within a couple of months of Google's release. And they can release it via their Kies Network, like they did for this latest S3 AT&T 4.1.1 update.

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Yep, they are trying to get updates out faster. Was announced today that other Motorola devices will join the RAZR in getting Jelly Bean in Q1.

Vegastouch said:

Yep, they are trying to get updates out faster. Was announced today that other Motorola devices will join the RAZR in getting Jelly Bean in Q1.

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Any word on which version of JB? This is pretty annoying that it takes half a year to get it. My other concern for Android is that only some phones are getting it. Apple still supports the 3GS which is like 3 years old. A lot of Android partners will drop their device support after like 6 months... Google supports Nexus for 2 years. Again, Apple is a leader in the update department.

cnguyen0320 said:

My other concern for Android is that only some phones are getting it. Apple still supports the 3GS which is like 3 years old. A lot of Android partners will drop their device support after like 6 months... Google supports Nexus for 2 years. Again, Apple is a leader in the update department.

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Why does that concern you so greatly? Do you have a really old Android device? I'm just curious. Moving forward, it shouldn't be that big of a deal, I would think.

From what I've heard, the 3GS (heck, even the 4) lags on the latest OS. Not to mention, it has almost none of the big features, so again, that's great, but it's not that big of a deal to gloat about.

And, in my opinion, in trying to keep legacy devices in the loop, it really holds Apple back from truly upgrading the OS. Again, the intentionally slow incremental updates thing... It's here where additional hardware would be nice, wouldn't it? Of course, there's profit margins to think about. Not knocking that they care about profits, just pointing it out.

It seems to me Apple can give move. A lot more, but choose not to, for better or worse.

cnguyen0320 said:

Any word on which version of JB? This is pretty annoying that it takes half a year to get it. My other concern for Android is that only some phones are getting it. Apple still supports the 3GS which is like 3 years old. A lot of Android partners will drop their device support after like 6 months... Google supports Nexus for 2 years. Again, Apple is a leader in the update department.

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It doesnt support it fully. The 3GS didnt get the full iOS update and even the 4 didnt get full updates with Maps and Siri. All android phones get the full updates with its Apps.

As for which JB version for Motorola, it didnt say.

Vegastouch said:

It doesnt support it fully. The 3GS didnt get the full iOS update and even the 4 didnt get full updates with Maps and Siri. All android phones get the full updates with its Apps.

As for which JB version for Motorola, it didnt say.

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Well thats good for Motorola. Being owned by Google has put them on the ball when it comes to updates which is good. I wish Motorola would become more widespread because right now they seem really confined to Verizon.

onthecouchagain said:

And hardware wise, forget about it (cue the iOS devotees saying they don't need the hardware upgrades).

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Funny you should say that, because I have a small phone, with a small battery and a dual core (I think) processor, yet it's faster and smoother than my old huge GS3, the battery lasts longer and it has a better quality camera.

Seems like the iPhone has the better hardware to me, or at least that the software is more well written to take advantage of it.

I still look forward to Apple introducing new technology, however, I have been disappointed these last couple of years. I couldn't wait to get an iPhone 4, I even queued up for it early one morning in York, it "changed everything". Don't ask me what new innovation I want because I don't know, that's Apple's job, my job is to stand in line drooling with anticipation and to part with 500 quid from my hot little fist.

I thought that they might have pulled something out of the bag for the iPhone 5, but it was the same old, same old. I still have a MBP, Apple TV and am getting an iPad mini for Christmas. Phone wise, I still hope that they will come up with something that will "blow everything away" although I feel that they may have backed themselves in to a corner with their "perfect" size and rounded corners on a rectangle, it may be that we have to wait another couple of years for a phone from Apple that truly "changes everything"

Where Apple excels is customer service, this wont be lost on the competition, I expect them to try to catch up in this department. Updates, I hear you say, well IMHO, they only need to last as long as a carriers contract which is nearly always 2 years, then, time for the latest and greatest "new" phone, who needs their phone that is relegated to the cupboard under the stairs be up to date.

The other thing to consider is... at least Samsung isn't making you wait for the JB update for naught.

They're not just giving you the features Google added, but adding their own popular features from their Note II, like Multiwindow.

Whether the wait is worth it or not, that's up to you to decide. I personally think while updates should come sooner, the wait isn't a deal breaker anymore. Because they're still updating it inside the one year S3 release cycle (Apple doesn't do that), it's not missing features (like some iOS updates that are missing the main feature of their respective OSes), and above all else, they're actually adding really great things to it.



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matttye said:

Funny you should say that, because I have a small phone, with a small battery and a dual core (I think) processor, yet it's faster and smoother than my old huge GS3, the battery lasts longer and it has a better quality camera.

Seems like the iPhone has the better hardware to me, or at least that the software is more well written to take advantage of it.

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There's no denying Apple marries their hardware and software better than anyone else. It's certainly something they should be proud of. Other than that, you're arguing semantics.

Hardware does matter to an extent. Why can't the iPhone 4 have SIRI or Navigation? Why do legacy devices lag when they're updated to the latest OS? Hardware helps future-proof devices and may go a long way when updates come around.

sand_man said:

Won't Samsung's product reach premature maturity.

Think about it.

Apple gets 3 years mileage out of a 3.5" screen while Samsung will opt for a 4.99" screen on the S4 scheduled for April 2013.

Bigger screens, more cores, more ram, more megapixels, longer battery life is expected with every new release.

At some stage soon there's going to be nowhere to go.

Do you really think there is a market for a 6" smartphone? I don't but I'm expecting one on the Note 3 so I guess we will soon find out.

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This is a good point.

Will Samsung hold a wide enough gap(spec and feature wise) to be able to hold back a little when needed?