Why do you think that?
Most people only want a mobile phone to make phone calls and send text messages. A smartphone is too expensive and total overkill for their needs.
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Apple Slips to Fifth in Global Mobile Phone Share as ZTE Surges
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Why do you think that?
Most people only want a mobile phone to make phone calls and send text messages. A smartphone is too expensive and total overkill for their needs.
The Orange San Francisco (ZTE blade) is supposed to be a superb handset for the price. The screen on it is superior to phones twice its price. (HTC Wildfire)
For the same reason people don't use DOS any more. You can still run it on even the newest PCs, and you can send email, word process, etc. For the same reason nobody listens to cassette tapes any more. Who the hell wants to?
And ultimately technology will evolve to leave them behind, for a variety of reasons. For example, dumb-phones will be incapable of accessing 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or some other generation of cell network. The dumb-OS vendors will be absorbed, sold or just plain lose interest in peddling 15-year old OSes. Because some killer new tech/service/paradigm will come along that will require a smart-OS. And because the cost of producing a smart-phone, and the price to the consumer, will steadily drop to where it doesn't make sense to make dumb-phones. How much did a 1TB drive cost a few years ago? How much does one cost now? Why would you buy a 250GB (desktop) hard drive today? Why would you buy a printer capable of only black and white output? Color used to cost $. Now a color printer costs, like, the price of a pizza. Okay, maybe a couple of pizzas and a garlic bread. It's cheaper to replace an entire printer than the toner. Tech commoditizes. Smart-phones just haven't gotten there yet. But they will, particularly with a free/open OS available to them, reducing the cost of the software component, and we all know hardware costs plummet.
It's inevitable.
The market also tends towards luxury commoditization. How many people do you know that still have a CRT TV? Of those with flat-screens, how many of them have the smallest, cheapest flat-screen TV, and how many have stupidly large ones? There are studies on this type of thing, but if there's any doubt, just look at the popularity of the iPhone itself, in spite of its relative expense compared to dumb-phones. How many people "need" an iPhone, and how many people just feel like they want one and deserve the luxury of having one because they work hard, or some other rationalization?
Oh yeah, and quite frankly, the customer base will age out of dumb-phones. Kids know how to use smart-phones and they want them. What kid actually wants a dumb-phone? Dumb-phones are most popular with people, as you said, who want to only send text messages and make phone calls. That is not the profile of a kid or young adult, Gen Y or Z, who are tech- and touch-savvy and Facebook-obsessed. Ultimately, the dumb-phone-satisfied population will die off.
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If they can get the price down as low as £9.99 for a non-contract PAYG smartphone then you're probably right. Until that happens there's still a big market for the so called dumb phone.
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I love my ZTE Blade. Great little £99 Android handset.
ZTE are no way in the same league as Apple. Considering the premium product they sell, apple do fantastically well.
I love my ZTE Blade. Great little £99 Android handset.
ZTE are no way in the same league as Apple. Considering the premium product they sell, apple do fantastically well.
People now recognize (Google) Android as Much as (Apple) iOS. The amount of devices that runs this software doesnt matter. Its Android v iOS.
Not only that but apple has a VARIETY of phones and choices.
Models: 3g, 3gs, Iphone 4
Color: White Black
Size: 16gb, 32gb
Carrier: Many many across the globe
They may all look different on the outside, have different storage, speeds, cameras, different reception and 3g speeds. But they are ALLLLLL appple ALLL iOS.
The same can be said about Android.
So no, I do not find it impressive at all. What I do find impressive tho, is how apple is able to sell last year tech at todays prices!
Apple deserves the slip to fifth place!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! This slip to fifth place is what Apple deserves, as it is the result of giving AT&T exclusivity. If Apple had made the iPhone available on several U.S. carriers from the start, this would not have happened. I just love watching Apple pay for their arrogance, closed-mindedness, and stubbornness from insisting on giving AT&T exclusivity.
To anyone thinking that I'm a an Android fan, I'm not. I use an unlocked first generation iPhone on T-Mobile. I think the iPhone is the greatest cellphone ever created, and I am willing to spend several hundred dollars to get the latest one every single year, but I haven't done that because there is no way I will ever sign with the abysmal AT&T.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! This slip to fifth place is what Apple deserves, as it is the result of giving AT&T exclusivity. If Apple had made the iPhone available on several U.S. carriers from the start, this would not have happened. I just love watching Apple pay for their arrogance, closed-mindedness, and stubbornness from insisting on giving AT&T exclusivity.
To anyone thinking that I'm a an Android fan, I'm not. I use an unlocked first generation iPhone on T-Mobile. I think the iPhone is the greatest cellphone ever created, and I am willing to spend several hundred dollars to get the latest one every single year, but I haven't done that because there is no way I will ever sign with the abysmal AT&T.
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I don't really understand why people call them dumbphones as most of them have quite a few features similar to smartphones.
People should simply go back to calling them "phones".
OllyW said:
I don't really understand why people call them dumbphones as most of them have quite a few features similar to smartphones.
People should simply go back to calling them "phones".
The User Experience on iDevices is actually *that* good. Even a lowly 3GS can impress in the current market. No one has really achieved the synergy between hardware and software that Apple has. Apple devices thus have longer shelf lives and higher resale value.
I don't really understand why people call them dumbphones as most of them have quite a few features similar to smartphones.
People should simply go back to calling them "phones".
For the exact same reason the word "smartphone" was created in the first place. The word "phones" encompasses both smartphones and non-smartphones. If you want people to stop referring to "dumb-phones", then convince the world to get rid of the word "smartphone".
Good luck with that.
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I would have thought the term "smartphone" was coined to differentiate the (then) new class of phone between normal mobile phones/cellphones or whatever your native tongue calls them.
I wasn't on a crusade to change the world either so there was no need for your "good luck with that" aggressive attitude. Why so hostile?
batchtaster said:I don't really understand why people call them dumbphones as most of them have quite a few features similar to smartphones.
People should simply go back to calling them "phones".
For the exact same reason the word "smartphone" was created in the first place. The word "phones" encompasses both smartphones and non-smartphones. If you want people to stop referring to "dumb-phones", then convince the world to get rid of the word "smartphone".
Good luck with that.
I would have thought the term "smartphone" was coined to differentiate the (then) new class of phone between normal mobile phones/cellphones or whatever your native tongue calls them.
I wasn't on a crusade to change the world either so there was no need for your "good luck with that" aggressive attitude. Why so hostile?
the ignorance towards ZTE is staggering... that ZTE Blade is pretty much the first decent 99 pounds <150 euro android phone (especially if you could snatch up one with the OLED)
it is more or less sold out in europe
i suspect that within a year those sub 149 euro/dollars android phones really are going to explode into the market ...
it is more or less sold out in europe
i suspect that within a year those sub 149 euro/dollars android phones really are going to explode into the market ...
"admit" usually has a connotation that's different from how you're using it, as in, you're relenting on something you don't want to. Here, you're using it in the opposite sense, as in, you're gleefully pointing out a fault that you don't want to hold back. Except that it's not really such a big fault as you are suggesting.
Idle/sleep is pretty efficient, I've never found a need to turn the phone off at night. I think the alarm didn't work twice, otherwise it usually wakes me up on time just fine.
The technical term for what you call a "dumb phone" is "feature phone". There aren't many true "dumb" phones anymore, to persist in calling them dumb phones just looks lame, and frankly, ignorant.
Ignorant Americans don't know who ZTE are.
The only ignorant Americans are the ones that live behind Apples walled garden. Told what to do, eat & think, they live a drone like life. Ignorance is bliss for them. No thinking required.
"Feature phones" aka "Dumb phones" have narrowed the gap.
Originally a smartphone was something that you could run applications on and sync data with your computer.
Feature phones ( FP ) can now do this - they can run applications ( abeit Java ), and also sync data. FP are starting to have touch screens too...
Both Smartphones and FP phones will advance. 5 years from now a FP will do things that today's smartphones can only do.
1) This is a testament to being clueless.
2) We live in the world of cometition which brings us choices. There's no desire to kill.
3) Yes, the real world exists very nicely without Apple's meddling.
Not it doesn't.
Uhuh... I guess that's why they are gaining in popularity then...
Um... actually, four companies are doing a pretty good job at 'killing' the iPhone. Dunno if you heard, but it's just dropped to 5th.
So good that they are the only phone manufacturer to make a phone with a faulty antenna and an alarm clock and calendar that doesn't work, say, if 2011 begins or the clocks go back.
Where's RIM?
It's interesting to see that RIM with their Blackberrys are no longer in the top 5 vendors.
It's interesting to see that RIM with their Blackberrys are no longer in the top 5 vendors.
A wise man once said "Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
We wish. Compared to other companies, Apple doesn't invest very much of its profits into R&D. I think they spend something like 1/5 the amount of most tech companies.
Apple puts much of its massive amounts of cash in the bank, not into research.
True fanboys never claim that Apple uses its money to get more employees or to do R&D, because they don't. Instead, they're supposed to mimic Jobs and say that Apple is run like a lean startup, with employees wearing multiple hats and innovation coming from a shoestring budget.