Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Says Android is 'Pretty Clearly' Winning the Mobile War with Apple

BaldiMac said:

Not sure if you are going with the misinformation on purpose, but most of that is not true. The iPhone has a better CPU, GPU, and camera. It also has a digital compass, proximity sensor, and ambient light sensor. Better battery life. Earpods come with case, remote, and microphone. Power adapter. GPS.

EDIT: The iPhone 5 also doubles the RAM of the iPod touch.

I'm sure I missed some other stuff.

But, again, none of that has to do with how much it should be priced. Price is about what people are willing to pay in order to sell it at the volume you want. Yes, carrier subsidies do make the iPhone worth more! It's part of the value.

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Please compare iPhone 4S to current-generation iPod Touch. Maybe I went over it too fast, but I am not comparing the iPhone 5 to the iPod touch. My apologies.

4S is $600+tx, not $700+tx, and still not enough hardware differences to justify the price premium.

vampyren said:

LOL, i work with mobile platforms so i seriously wonder if you know anything about making a phone? Adding a modem into the mix is a HUGE HUGE task in itself! I wont even go into detail but most people dont seem to understand the sheer amount of work that goes into making a phone, not to mention something as beautiful as a iphone5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQSyqoziHvU

Then you have all the software cost .......

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It certainly is. That's why Apple engineers are paid for. I'm not complaining loudly as some here do when Apple misses the "perfect" mark on a complex project such as Maps or iCloud.

By "software", I imagine you mean "drivers" ? Because the software is the same between iPod Touch and iPhone, despite its previous "iPhone OS" moniker.

Ok let me explain again in simple words If iPhone was really overpriced people would not buy it and since apple is extremely successful then it can not be overpriced. Most people must find something valuable in the iphone since they are willing to pay for it. I'm sure the millions of people who buy iPhone are not stupid.
If you think its expensive maybe a cheaper android model can be enough. For me i want my news, books, all the sync, photo, video etc handled simply through itunes and my macbook pro. Only iphone manages to do it in the way i want so the extra cost is worth it for me.

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People buying iPhones are most often tied into 3-year, heavily subsidized contracts which, in exchange for locking them down, avoid the large upfront fee which is in itself discouraging. When a phone is offered for a moderate $200 + 36 months locked to the same provider with a $70 monthly fee and still have to pay another fee to unlock the (outdated) phone at the end of the contract, they don't see themselves being screwed.

I also want my phone to be replete with sound apps, haul my souvenirs, take decent pics and sufficient video through my MacBook Pro, in the same ecosystem, exactly as my iPod Touch did before being stolen in broken state (!).

I can live with my songs in my iPod Shuffle, and I'm ready to

I asked very precise questions Android fans have not been able to answer clearly, which were

1. - makes a good wireless modem without drying the battery in 2 hours
2. - supports the most common applications, including (gasp!) commercial ones I use, say, to find a good place to chill out with friends in an unknown "barrio"
3. - top quality predictive texting (Apple's iPod Touch being the best I tried so far)
4. - supports third-party IMAPS servers, with supports for aliases.
5. - supports standards-based, not Google-based, calendar sync, as well as Mac Address book, ideally locally, or through the cloud. Considering difficulties in easily accessing a wifi network in this city, local sync would be preferable, though not mandatory.
6. - native eduroam authentication

Here people are trying to justify the deterring price tag of the iPhone 4S or 5, and there, they're going all wild about devices without paying much attention to functionality. As much as I suspect it reflects the typical behavior from Android buyers, this doesn't answer the question.

Cubytus said:

Please compare iPhone 4S to current-generation iPod Touch. Maybe I went over it too fast, but I am not comparing the iPhone 5 to the iPod touch. My apologies.

4S is $600+tx, not $700+tx, and still not enough hardware differences to justify the price premium.

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Great. You said same screen and LTE. That's an iPhone 5. About half of what I said still applies with an iPhone 4S. But you continue to ignore the point that price isn't based simply on the hardware cost.

You can make the same silly argument for practically any complex product if you choose the right (or misleading) comparison.

Forget about LTE. 4S is 3G, and indeed has the same screen as the latest-gen iPod Touch. Forget about the BOM, I don't give a **** about it. I'm not an Apple-buyer to have the lowest MSRP/BOM ratio, if this wasn't clear enough yet.

Price difference between those two is unexplainable by hardware alone, additional engineering alone, convenience alone. Even service could, when iPhone 4S was the latest be a reason for decreased value, actually, since iPhones were serviceable only in the country they were bought in, which is a severe restriction (now lifted). Even adding these differences hardly justify doubling the price.

Just have a look, comparison is made between the second item to the first one, and unless specified, I'm comparing base models:

iPad with Retina, WiFi: 499$+tx
iPad with Retina, WiFi + 4G: $629+tx
Added:
GSM/EDGE
UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA
LTE4
GPS and GLONASS
Price delta: +26,05%

MacBook Pro 13", 2.5GHz: $1199+tx
MacBook Pro 13", 2.9GHz: $1499+tx
Added:
- faster CPU
- doubled RAM
- more HDD space
Price delta: +25,02%

MacBook Pro 13", 2,5GHz: $1199+tx
MacBook Pro Retina 13", 2,5GHz: $1699+tx
Added:
- higher resolution screen
- doubling RAM
- HDMI port
- faster USB
- faster internal storage
Removed:
- DVD burner
- less internal storage
- FireWire, Ethernet
Price delta: +41,7%. That's quite large for a less-capable machine. Let's put that on the additional reengineering required.

MacBook Pro 15", 2,3GHz: $1699+tx
MacBook Pro 15" with Retina, 2,3GHz: $2199+tx
(Same added & removed as the 13")
Price delta: +22,2%.

iPod Touch 4th gen, 32GB: $249+tx
iPod Touch (5th gen): $299+tx
Added:
- colors
- redesigned
- larger screen (ok, you got me there. It has the iPhone 5 screen with iPhone 4S guts)
- faster CPU
- better camera
- Siri, Airplay mirroring
- longer battery life
- lighter
Price delta: +20,08%.

iPod Touch (5th gen): $299+tx
iPhone 4S: $599+tx
Added:
- 3G cellular chip
- GPS/GLONASS
- proximity, light sensor
Removed:
- smaller screen
- half internal storage (there's no 32GB iPhone 4S on sale from Apple)
- no 5GHz WiFi band
- lesser camera (8MP in iPod Touch, 5MP in iPhone 4S)
Price delta: +100,3%, and it's not even for roughly equivalent products.

I am used to price differences, I mean, they are a part of making business. In these six examples the delta hovers around +39,24% on average, with a standard deviation of 28,1. The iPhone 4S / iPod Touch 5th gen price delta is 2,17 times SD, which is considered significant, and that's only using a 6-products sample. From that, I put forward that the iPhone is overpriced to Apple standards.

Cubytus said:

From that, I put forward that the iPhone is overpriced to Apple standards.

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A lot of words to say the same thing. But, again, the iPhone isn't priced to "Apple standards." It's priced to the market.

Yes, it has higher margins than other Apple hardware. To argue that it is overpriced for the market is silly as it is the number one selling smartphone in the world and captures most of the industry profits.

A lot of words to defeat the "additional engineering required", "desirability" or "convenience" arguments. Cell phone market isn't free, it's skewed by carrier's practices of tying customers for 3 years at a time, in exchange for heavily subsidizing the phone's price. Other manufacturers have done it for years, artificially inflating their prices in a monopoly market. Just as an example, the beautiful but mediocre-performing Motorola KRZR had a MSRP of $400 in its time. It wasn't worth half of that. Apple promised to change the cell phone market forever, but apparently they stopped after providing one, updated, unified OS across all carriers.

In the end, consumer loses. Because in consumer, there's an implication of passivity, and there's con, which is French for dumbass. A consumer who starts thinking becomes a patron, which also means leader.

Schmidt is Toht

lazyrighteye said:

Interesting. Nowhere does it mention Schmidt's role as Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Looks like wiki needs an update.

What a creep.

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Yes, you're right. I could always tell by the beady little eyes poking through those glasses were really evil. I took a screenshot from his latest video on how mobile has conquered and google's plans for this year and found a clip from ROTLA and that's all the evidence you need.

ryansinger said:

Yes, you're right. I could always tell by the beady little eyes poking through those glasses were really evil. I took a screenshot from his latest video on how mobile has conquered and google's plans for this year and found a clip from ROTLA and that's all the evidence you need.

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OMGHA!
Put Schmidt in that black hat we have a doppelgänger!

Cheers.

I like my razr M.

So android which is a commercial software OS that is available to the entire market is winning in market share vs an OS that is strictly used by one company to push just a handfull of devices. Why is this surprising? Apple does not sell IOS to others..their business model is to use the software to sell the hardware and make money...As long as the eco-system, app/developer linup is healthy and sales are growing market share should not matter..It would matter to apple (more) if they decide to market ios to other OEM's which they have no intention of doing anytime soon...Look at it this way..Apple chooses to compete in certain markets within the mobile-industry..in cellphones, they choose to compete in the premium smartphone market..The iPhone is the highest selling smartphone in the world..Apple also in a way created the tablet market (in its current size and scope)..The Ipad family is also the best selling tablet in the world. So far IOS devices top every market in which they compete..JOB DONE for the apple software team!...I would be worried if the nexus family overtakes the iphone in sales or if the galaxy family does the same..Until then apple needen't worry unless they do a drastic U turn in strategy and enter each and every smartphone market (Budget phones, mid level phones included) and start to sell their software as a microsoft or google does...In a nutshell both GOOGLE and APPLE are extremely succesfull at their respective business models/strategies..google has made android the mass market OS (which they wanted when they created an open source - "available to all" Mobile OS) of choice, and apple has managed to be the industry leader in each and every mobile category it competes in (premium smartphones and tablets)...