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You do understand that market share is a percentage right ? It going down has no bearing on the health and growth of a company. It just means that the market is expending. That's the whole point. It's sad that people think you're not a healthy company because the market you play in suddenly has a wider audience while your niche remains.

RIM wasn't dying. The media however didn't make it sound like it. This drove investors away and with that, customers started being wary and left. Now they are having real problems, shipping less units, posting losses. But don't be fooled. It's the media game that did them in, not their actual health back when this all started.

That reminds me of another company some years ago—a company with a successful but ageing product. A diverging product category emerged and they had the first commercially successful product of its kind, but it took time for consumers to embrace this new technology. By the time others brought forth competing products, they were losing significant market share and soon became a niche player in the market. Year after year, numerous articles were written, countless predictions made of the company's impending demise. But through all this, they had a solid product, and many consumers stuck with them. You might have heard of this company and their product: Apple Computer Inc, and the Macintosh.

Surviving with a niche product is difficult in the PC market, not because consumers pay much attention to investor confidence, but for other reasons. For one, the viability of any hardware platform relies heavily on software, and developers are naturally going to be drawn to the most popular platform. Economies of scale disadvantage smaller players, affecting price. There's generally less word-of-mouth advertising, and other factors. The Mac's history shows that it is possible—but a genuinely compelling product is key.

Now, you're arguing that investor reaction to RIM's annual performance was in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you're downplaying the fact that Apple released a damn fine product to market, closely followed by other companies. Many people were predicting the failure of the iPhone when it was first announced too. Remember that? And the iPod before it? Doomsday media predictions are nothing new, and they don't always prove to be a great predictor of what the market will do!
 
I ALMOST pre-ordered, but I just gotta see how the new Nokia 920 is first.

The specs certainly look awesome, but when looking at the top-of-the-line-smartphone comparison sheet that was thrown around during the iPhone 5 launch, one thing caught my attention: Weight.

If I'm not mistaken, iPhone 5 is now the lightest top-of-the-line smartphone, even lighter than the SIII. The new Nokia Lumia 920 is almost double the weight! This is actually a deal-breaker for me.

----------

Lumia 920 is more innovative smartphone. iPhone 5 is disappointment in terms of innovation.

I think many would agree with this, even here. BUT what the iPhone 5 lacks in innovation it makes up for in evolution.

Seriously: Bigger screen with more pixels, thinner, lighter, aluminium construction, faster processor, double the RAM -- EVERYTHING is just a bit better. These things adds up and makes for an excellent phone.

The weight of the Lumia 920 alone is enough to be a deal breaker for me. It's almost double the weight of the new iPhone!
 
I think many would agree with this, even here. BUT what the iPhone 5 lacks in innovation it makes up for in evolution.

Nokia is an OEM, and the Lumia is built by components made by other companies running an OS made by Microsoft. How is that innovative exactly? Apple has their own cpu, compiler, programming language, operating system, user land software, app and media stores. How is that not more innovative exactly?
 
RIM wasn't dying. The media however didn't make it sound like it. This drove investors away and with that, customers started being wary and left. Now they are having real problems, shipping less units, posting losses. But don't be fooled. It's the media game that did them in, not their actual health back when this all started.

It's mostly their products that did it. Their bread-n-butter, the physical messaging-centric phones were quickly getting outdated on the market and their attempts to create a touch phone with Storm was simply atrocious. At least with Android the salesmen could offer the customers "this is just like iPhone but has a larger screen" but with Blackberrys they couldn't even do that. Then there's the fact it took them forever to implement a workable browsing experience, combined with their reluctance to move to faster hardware. (Remember how long their phones seem to be stuck with the slow Marvell chips?)

I love what RIM used to represent and hope the best for my old friends from the UW who work there but let's face it RIM was just left behind the post-iPhone world. The customers do not just get wary and leave an established ecosystem, especially one with some proverbial moat in it in the form of BBM, just because "the media" tell them. RIM has nobody but to blame themselves as well as the short-sighted stubbornness of the founder duo.

p.s. did you pick up the $100 PlayBook fire sale? for those who do not know, in Canada were selling PlayBook 16G for $100 and 32G for $120 last week!
 
It's mostly their products that did it. Their bread-n-butter, the physical messaging-centric phones were quickly getting outdated on the market and their attempts to create a touch phone with Storm was simply atrocious. At least with Android the salesmen could offer the customers "this is just like iPhone but has a larger screen" but with Blackberrys they couldn't even do that. Then there's the fact it took them forever to implement a workable browsing experience, combined with their reluctance to move to faster hardware. (Remember how long their phones seem to be stuck with the slow Marvell chips?)

I love what RIM used to represent and hope the best for my old friends from the UW who work there but let's face it RIM was just left behind the post-iPhone world. The customers do not just get wary and leave an established ecosystem, especially one with some proverbial moat in it in the form of BBM, just because "the media" tell them. RIM has nobody but to blame themselves as well as the short-sighted stubbornness of the founder duo.

p.s. did you pick up the $100 PlayBook fire sale? for those who do not know, in Canada were selling PlayBook 16G for $100 and 32G for $120 last week!

I don't think the playbook interface is bad at all, intact is quite good and runs on lean hardware like the iPad, runs flash unlike the iPad. It's quite clever. Don't know alot about their phones since I never owned one (they need special blackberry service) but the playbook itself isn't a bad device, it's just lacking an Eco system of apps and the APK->BAR (android player) solution is rather limited.
 
You are showing figures for pixel density, not resolution.

The resolution of the devices:

SG3 = 1280x720
Nok 920 = 1280x768
iP5 = 1136x640

So the iPhone 5 has the lowest screen resolution of the three phones.

But, it is still quite a few pixels for a phone.

That's incorrect. The numbers you posted just tell how many pixels in the vertical x horizontal. These have also been misleadingly posted by different sites as well as Samsung's latest comparison ad to the iP5 to be resolution, but that is not correct.

To get to resolution you have to divide those numbers by the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the screen in either inches or centimeters. Since phone manufacturers tell you the screen size in the diagonal, you can use the Pythagorean theorem to determine how many pixels in the diagonal to derive a pixel density which is the true way of measuring resolution.

using Pythagorean theorem..
SG3 = 1280x720 -> (1280^2 + 720^2)^.5 =1478.6 -> 1478.6 / 4.8 (diag. screen size) = 306 PPI

iP5 = 1136 x 640 -> (1136^2 + 640^2)^.5 = 1303.9 ->1303.9 / 4.0 = 326 PPI

Or, if you don't want to do the math you can use this calculator: http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html

So yes, the iPhone 5 has a smaller screen (every one knows that) but it displays more pixels per inch than the SG3, so it can be said it has a better resolution than the SG3 (a lot of people are being mislead on this one). And if you're all into resolution and you want to get the best of the best, then get the Nok 920, which I calculate to be 332 PPI. Again it has a smaller screen than the SG3 at 4.5 inches, but it displays 332 PPI, so has the highest resolution.
 
using Pythagorean theorem..
SG3 = 1280x720 -> (1280^2 + 720^2)^.5 =1478.6 -> 1478.6 / 4.8 (diag. screen size) = 306 PPI

iP5 = 1136 x 640 -> (1136^2 + 640^2)^.5 = 1303.9 ->1303.9 / 4.0 = 326 PPI

Wow first time i've ever seen this used in real life.
 
The fact that it was sold out in an hour just means supply was less than demand. If they had 2 and got orders for 3, it would be sold out. It has nothing to do with record-breaking sales figures, yet at least. The initial supply just might have mean a lot less this year. This is no information until they quote actual pre-order unit sales. :rolleyes:

For all we know, Apple might have just held back supply to purposely say they were sold out in hour for publicity. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's possible. :)

Same process each iPhone release:

1. Apple haters come: "Apple is faking the sales figures, they create the sold out to make some news".

2. Then the figures are released: Apple crushed everybody and beat it's old record. Samsung cry, haters just become more angry because they don't like Apple.

3. Apple release a new phone. Go back to #1.
 
All this talk about apple and selling products....My wife works for one of the largest marketing firms in the world. They track stuff daily and how the market reacts. She tells me all the time how Apple will not allow full disclosure of there sale data on any product...This my friends is a known fact in her industry. Apple is never forthcoming with this information to the private sector let alone to the public. Its well guarded.

Having said that Apple does a great job of marketing every product they release. Everyone knows (lying if they state otherwise) If Apple made Ipoop people would buy it. Apple counts on this loyal fan base so to sell out on the release date of the Iphone5 was a no brainer for Apple. Plain and simple they knew it would.

Just consider the new Lighting charger....Apple knows millions upon millions already have/use billions of chargers. Charges at work, home, car, boat and the list goes on. Sure Apple states a new lighting adaptor was inevitable given size and faster data transfer, but in reality its $$$$. Apple knows many will grumble and mumble about purchasing adaptors, but at the end of the day they got you. Its all about the $$$$$$$ as you already know. They know people will buy it if they release it.



I am scared for your wife's job as able regularly releases accurate sales numbers
 
The fact that it was sold out in an hour just means supply was less than demand. If they had 2 and got orders for 3, it would be sold out. It has nothing to do with record-breaking sales figures, yet at least. The initial supply just might have mean a lot less this year. This is no information until they quote actual pre-order unit sales. :rolleyes:

For all we know, Apple might have just held back supply to purposely say they were sold out in hour for publicity. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's possible. :)
People said that last year.. Until Apple released the numbers lol
 
Let's wait until we have the sales figures and customer satisfaction surveys for actual iPhone 5 users before we have this discussion. I heard the same sorts of predictions for the last three models, and those predictions turned out to be wrong.

Like I said, I'm sure the next couple iPhones will sell well due to the reputation of the previous releases. But we're already hearing the same things over and over - boring os, no new features, same old, same old.

When these things are said for a couple more releases, that's when we'll know for sure that innovation is gone at Apple.

Hopefully they do right for the iPhone 6 and release something superb.
 
Like I said, I'm sure the next couple iPhones will sell well due to the reputation of the previous releases. But we're already hearing the same things over and over - boring os, no new features, same old, same old.

When these things are said for a couple more releases, that's when we'll know for sure that innovation is gone at Apple.

Hopefully they do right for the iPhone 6 and release something superb.

Wrong, the new processor is very innovative.
 
Like I said, I'm sure the next couple iPhones will sell well due to the reputation of the previous releases. But we're already hearing the same things over and over - boring os, no new features, same old, same old.

When these things are said for a couple more releases, that's when we'll know for sure that innovation is gone at Apple.

Hopefully they do right for the iPhone 6 and release something superb.

And like I said, "Let's wait until we have the sales figures and customer satisfaction surveys".

The negative chatter about the iPhone 5 is not any worse than last year, or the year before that, or the year before that (remember the 3GS, which added speed, increased the camera resolution from 2 to 3 megapixels, and added a compass). If this chatter were predictive, then Apple would have been at the bottom of the heap by now. The history doesn't support your prediction.

Come back when we can have a conversation based on survey data from actual users that is collected without a previous bias.
 
Like I said, I'm sure the next couple iPhones will sell well due to the reputation of the previous releases. But we're already hearing the same things over and over - boring os, no new features, same old, same old.

When these things are said for a couple more releases, that's when we'll know for sure that innovation is gone at Apple.

Hopefully they do right for the iPhone 6 and release something superb.

The consequence of just adding features because they are new and state of the art makes no sense if they can't be used widely or aren't universally standardised (such as NFC), or are detriment to the usage of the phone (e.g. the Lumia PureView camera, which would make the iPhone twice as thick).

In addition the price of the iPhone would go up, which would cause a widespread outrage, since the pricing of the iPhone is already considered to be high by many, and has been stable over the past years for the top-of-the-line model.

It makes sense that Apple looks for a sweet spot between feature parity with other devices, cost and design. They tune the OS, so it functions well with that feature set (see the new benchmarks, where the A6 beats the GS3 phone in speed, regardless of 2 Gb). It shows to me that the iPhone doesn't need the extra Gig, which would probably mean a few dollars more in price (bad for me as a purchaser) or bad for Apple's margin (bad for me too as a shareholder).
 
Retailers have used such tactics to help stimulate demand. There's nothing wrong with it.
 
What is ? There was like 3 arguments/topics in my post. If you're going to respond without adding any information, might want to at least point to which you find ridiculous ?
The price of those phones is ridiculous. ;)
 
The price of those phones is ridiculous. ;)

You are right, they could ask for more. Considering that I can sell my old 4 for easely 300Euros, (it came free with my current contract) the new one (free with the extension of my contract) is quite resonable.
I also have 2 year old Samsung phones here, but they are worth nothing, running on old software (well, I say running, they boot up) without hope of any updates even so they cost the same then the iPhone at the time.

In the long run, iPhone is really quite a bargain. And they work. Priceless.
 
Damn, should have gotten white... There's no way to change orders without canceling the first. I checked return policy and called. Stuck with black. Oh well, still looks sexy
 
That's exactly what is sad. Market share doesn't mean anything as far as the health of a company. Apple is losing market share or unable to grow it either these past few quarters because of the realities of the market.

RIM was a corporate based entity that sold phones tailored for businesses. Smartphones they were called because they could do more than your typical feature phone sold by carriers and were perfect tools for managers to keep tabs while on the go using cellular data to read/respond to e-mail, have their calendering with them without opening their laptops and maybe grab some quick news from the web.

They were selling more and more units. Yet as suddenly as that, they are dying not because they are selling less units and not being profitable but because consumers with different needs outside the RIM niche started buying up "Smartphones" too. Phones very different, more tailored to entertainement then business. This made RIM's "market share" diminish as their offering was not tailored to that market, they were still catering to their niche.

You do understand that market share is a percentage right ? It going down has no bearing on the health and growth of a company. It just means that the market is expending. That's the whole point. It's sad that people think you're not a healthy company because the market you play in suddenly has a wider audience while your niche remains.

RIM wasn't dying. The media however didn't make it sound like it. This drove investors away and with that, customers started being wary and left. Now they are having real problems, shipping less units, posting losses. But don't be fooled. It's the media game that did them in, not their actual health back when this all started.

RIM's descent was due to RIM's niche in business abandoning the Blackberry for iPhones and then Androids. RIM's response was both weak and late, so of course RIM received bad press.

Hubris was ultimately the reason for RIM's fall, and fall they have (except maybe in India and South East Asia).
 
Are all of you folks braindead? Why would a ******** different
docking connector make that iPhone 5 superior over the 4 or 4s?

I can't seem any major innovation anywhere here.
It 's like when Samsung updated the S2 to S3.
No real improvements, just a small design change
and a making it a tad bit bigger.

Sorry but this smells like rotten fish from all over.
"Oh there might be bad publicity lets make a marketing lie to counter that".
I hate that kinda fooling of masses, and I know what I'm talking about
because I work in that business called advertising and marketing.

Apple is becoming like Motorola, Samsung, Google and the like.

I'm tired of this gripe about the dock connector. People fail to realize (or listen to Apple about) the synergy of their changes... a smaller dock connector plus a smaller SIM card works together with the larger speaker, better wiring design, better screen, ability to make the iPhone more durable, smaller, more responsive, etc. etc. The dock connector change alone may not make a huge difference, but it contributes to making iP5 what it is.

I said it before, I admire Apple for their engineering and design with purpose mentality. Altho I don't really follow Samsung or other phone launches, I rarely hear anything about other phones being engineered for a, b, and c purposes.
 
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