Samsung Galaxy S III Reportedly Tops iPhone 4S as Best-Selling U.S. Smartphone

[MacRazySwe]

This is just ridiculous. As someone stated earlier, the amount of defensiveness in here is just over the top. You're acting like fanatics, real fanboys.

When the first iPhone was released, it was such a revolutionary breakthrough - it was just so far ahead of the competition. Nothing did even come close to the iPhone, at the time. That we can all agree on. However, while I do love Apple and their products (as can be seen in my sig, and my activity here), it would be irrational to not admit that the development of the iPhone (both software and hardware-wise) has been seeing a very evident decline during the last year or two, so much in fact that the competition has caught up, and in the case of Samsung, actually overtaken Apple, not only in terms of technology, but apparently also sales.

Claiming that the iPhone 4S is a better phone than the Galaxy S3 is just non-sense. Really. This is coming from an iPhone 4S owner, and previous 3GS owner. Of course, the Galaxy is a much newer phone, and this may all be likely to change on the 12th, however as of now - the new iPhone 5 does not look very promising at all to me, although I hope I'm wrong. I wish the iPhone 5 would take my breath away.

Sure, you may argue that it's impossible for Apple to re-invent the wheel, however there is always room for improvement, hence so many of you people choose to jailbreak your iDevices. That said, I think Android has never looked better than it does now, and the presentation of Jelly Bean at this years IO was the only keynote I've seen in recent years that has come close to giving me that "Wow-feel" I experienced when seeing the original iPhone keynote back in 2007.

Well, I guess september 12th couldn't come any sooner.

 

[BaldiMac]

This is just ridiculous. As someone stated earlier, the amount of defensiveness in here is just over the top. You're acting like fanatics, real fanboys.

When the first iPhone was released, it was such a revolutionary breakthrough - it was just so far ahead of the competition. Nothing did even come close to the iPhone, at the time. That we can all agree on. However, while I do love Apple and their products (as can be seen in my sig, and my activity here), it would be irrational to not admit that the development of the iPhone (both software and hardware-wise) has been seeing a very evident decline during the last year or two, so much in fact that the competition has caught up, and in the case of Samsung, actually overtaken Apple, not only in terms of technology, but apparently also sales.

Claiming that the iPhone 4S is a better phone than the Galaxy S3 is just non-sense. Really. This is coming from an iPhone 4S owner, and previous 3GS owner. Of course, the Galaxy is a much newer phone, and this may all be likely to change on the 12th, however as of now - the new iPhone 5 does not look very promising at all to me, although I hope I'm wrong. I wish the iPhone 5 would take my breath away.

Sure, you may argue that it's impossible for Apple to re-invent the wheel, however there is always room for improvement, hence so many of you people choose to jailbreak your iDevices. That said, I think Android has never looked better than it does now, and the presentation of Jelly Bean at this years IO was the only keynote I've seen in recent years that has come close to giving me that "Wow-feel" I experienced when seeing the original iPhone keynote back in 2007.

Well, I guess september 12th couldn't come any sooner.

I would say that only "fanatics, real fanboys" would accuse anyone that disagrees them of being irrational, defensive, and ridiculous.

Obviously, reasonable people can disagree. There are posters on this forum that will tell you that the original iPhone was nothing but a feature phone and was similar to a bunch of other phones that were released before it.

Hardware-wise, of course the GS3 is more advanced as it was released 7-8 months after the iPhone 4S. But I disagree that Android has caught up in software. Yes, it has more features on a checklist. But Apple's integrated approach across their ecosystem and choice to favor fit and finish over a feature checklist are more important to me.

Why people claim things that are patently not true?

What was "patently not true" about what he said? Not all Android apps can run on all Android devices. Seems pretty straightforward.

 

[sazivad]

The iPhone didn't have an app store during its first year. All other smartphones could download and run third party apps.

True, true.

It also didn't have a 3G data plan, like most other smartphones of the time.

But I didn't say 3G data plan. I said data plan. Though, 3G was a big enough selling point that they could make a whole new iPhone with basically just that new feature.

The iPhone also isn't "purely touchscreen", as it depends on a physical button to work. Without the Home button, iOS is unusable. Other touchscreen phones of the time could be operated either with buttons or the screen.

Well, what phone doesn't have at least a few hardware buttons? I guess I though things like the volume rocker and power button were a given. That should have been made clearer, I guess.

Doesn't matter when is [sic] doesn't suit you I see. SAMSUNG xxx

Cool. Enjoy whatever you like.

lol iphone 4s is clearly the best-selling phone nobody i know uses samsdung phones

Yes… because anecdotal evidence tops cold, hard statistics any day.

 

[BaldiMac]

Apple's U.S. share of smartphones grows to 33.4 percent

So, one analyst claims that Apple's US market share is growing faster than Android's through July, but we are supposed to believe another analyst that a single Android phone passed the iPhone in August. Huh. Kind of a big leap there.

I'm not sure why we still believe these analyst, especially when it comes to Android. When they have hard numbers for the iPhone from Apple to form a clear history to base an analysis on, they are often spectacularly wrong in predicting quarterly iPhone sales.

With Android they have nebulous numbers based on surveys and guesses for a multitude of devices and manufacturers, and yet we are supposed to believe that they are reasonably accurate.

For all we know, the GS3 could have been doubling iPhone sales since its release.

 

[eastercat]

Opinions are opinions, not facts. They aren't right or wrong, so it really doesn't matter if more people think one thing or another.

Problem is, as Republicans and Democrats have proven, if you repeat a lie often enough, people start to accept it as the truth.

Back on topic though, I am surprised that the iPhone was the top selling phone up until recently. I had thought Android phones were topping carriers everywhere for a while. At least that is what the media had been telling me.

You're probably thinking of the android os overtaking ios, but that's more like a pack of hyenas taking out a single lion. The iphone has been the top seller for quite some time now. I don't remember, if in previous years, if it's ever been overtaken during its last few months or not.
I'm sure apple haters will be more than happy to tell you this is one of the signs of the end of the iphone's dominance. It's no different from the way they'll tell you the iphone didn't innovate anything, because it doesn't matter how you put those features together.

 

[Ungibbed]

Not all Android apps can run on all Android devices. Seems pretty straightforward.

The same factor also applies to the iOS platform as well. I doubt NOVA 3 is going to work on my old iPhone or even the 3GS (with far reduced visuals) in comparison to the 4s or iPad 2 and the new iPad.

Some newer apps now require the iPad 2 as a minimum or iPhone 4. That being said, Android phones, BlackBerry phones etc. all have apps in their ecosystem that will not run on one device but work great on the other.

 

[BaldiMac]

The same factor also applies to the iOS platform as well. I doubt NOVA 3 is going to work on my old iPhone or even the 3GS (with far reduced visuals) in comparison to the 4s or iPad 2 and the new iPad.

Some newer apps now require the iPad 2 as a minimum or iPhone 4. That being said, Android phones, BlackBerry phones etc. all have apps in their ecosystem that will not run on one device but work great on the other.

The same factor may also apply, but not to the same extent. Also, that doesn't make the original claim "patently not true".

 

[Oletros]

What was "patently not true" about what he said? Not all Android apps can run on all Android devices. Seems pretty straightforward.

Yap, because he was only saying that as he could say that "moreover the iOS apps which you download from App Store are not all universal on other iOS devices"

You know perfectly what he was trying to say.

 

[dgree03]

I would say that only "fanatics, real fanboys" would accuse anyone that disagrees them of being irrational, defensive, and ridiculous.

Obviously, reasonable people can disagree. There are posters on this forum that will tell you that the original iPhone was nothing but a feature phone and was similar to a bunch of other phones that were released before it.

Hardware-wise, of course the GS3 is more advanced as it was released 7-8 months after the iPhone 4S. But I disagree that Android has caught up in software. Yes, it has more features on a checklist. But Apple's integrated approach across their ecosystem and choice to favor fit and finish over a feature checklist are more important to me.



What was "patently not true" about what he said? Not all Android apps can run on all Android devices. Seems pretty straightforward.

I am that guy who will argue that the Original iPhone was a Feature Phone

 

[lilo777]

So when Apple rapes Samsung's Galaxy sales over and over and over, month over month, year over year...it's all part of the Korean's master plan?

However if Samsung manages to shift a few units more than Apple for even an instant, right before the new model is near and sales are expected to shrink, it speaks volumes?

Is that the logic here?

And no, we weren't in the same situation last year, because the iPhone 4 got a massive user base injection from Verizon, the nations largest carrier, which was the first time the iPhone was made available on a non-AT&T carrier, and would certainly give Apple more momentum when going into Q3 and the iPhone 4S release...

Are you even capable of intelligent thinking? Samsung's plan is to sell a lot of different devices and clearly they are succeeding as they collectively have been "raping" iPhone sale for at least a year now. Samsung sells twice the number of smart phones Apple does and if the trend continues they will outsell iPhone by higher multiples next year.

 

[Oletros]

The same factor may also apply, but not to the same extent. Also, that doesn't make the original claim "patently not true".

Not the same extent? Do you have some statistics to back that?

 

[Ungibbed]

I am that guy who will argue that the Original iPhone was a Feature Phone

Indeed it actually was. The features were just more advanced than than others. When I bought the first iPhone, I had two other phones. One was a BlackBerry and the other was the amazingly sleek looking slider on T-Mobile from Samsung.

That one feature phone was the top end model for it's time. The Samsung SGH T-809... I wish I never sold it as it was a great phone and had features never before seen.

Stereo loudspeakers on the handset, a sharp screen (240x320) for its time, stereo headset and direct video capture to mp4. Not even a feature phone today matched it for it's features all in a small size.

Moving to the original iPhone had some stumbles. I was never big into texting as I just plain sucked at it. The touch screen keyboard vs my BlackBerry was a close race but having my old 'Berry longer, I could type and shoot MMS messages or a quick picture with it. I had to email it on the iPhone which was rather annoying.

Overall, I did like the features the original iPhone brought to the table, it was despite the hype, "incomplete" in my opinion.

 

[BaldiMac]

Yap, because he was only saying that as he could say that "moreover the iOS apps which you download from App Store are not all universal on other iOS devices"

You know perfectly what he was trying to say.

That's just ridiculous. You said that a true statement was "patently not true" because he could have said the same true statement about something else.

I do know what he was trying to say. I agree with what he was trying to say. Android has fragmentation problems as a development platform. This isn't new or controversial news.

Not the same extent? Do you have some statistics to back that?

I'm not sure what you want here. Chrome only runs on 3-4% Android devices (ICS+ required.) Hulu Plus only supports select phones.

 

[nexusrule]

Are you even capable of intelligent thinking? Samsung's plan is to sell a lot of different devices and clearly they are succeeding as they collectively have been "raping" iPhone sale for at least a year now. Samsung sells twice the number of smart phones Apple does and if the trend continues they will outsell iPhone by higher multiples next year.

Do you think Apple cares? Apple is not looking for the highest market share with iPhones. They only sell one product at an high price, and update it once a year; it's the same strategy they use with computers, few models, relatively high starting price (no 4-900$ models), but very high profits with decent market share.

When Apple look for market share they diversify their lines a lot (like with ipods) and/or goes with low price (iPad at 399$ probably iPad mini). Phone market is huge and people needs a big variety of phones at every price tag you can think of; this is not the kind of market where a company like Apple can go for market share without compromising on product quality and so brand.

With iPod they clearly saw they had no competition and with iPad they hope it become the standard post-pc device. But with computer and phones they can't use the same strategy given their product philosophy.

 

[BaldiMac]

I am that guy who will argue that the Original iPhone was a Feature Phone

I'd argue that it was neither a feature phone nor a smartphone, but the first in a new class of devices that we as a society decided to call a smartphone because it was convenient and the other names thrown out there were stupid ("superphone").

 

[OneMike]

Galaxy S3 beats the iPhone 4S IMO, but I never buy into these claims.

So many things to consider. Mainly that a new iPhone will be released soon.

My wife doesn't follow tech at all and she knew this for a while despite me telling her. Social networking changed a lot. Mainly twitter. When something trends it spreads. I remember people asking me about a $1000 iPhone a month or so ago.

Nobody can guess these types of things, but I see the iPhone falling off gradually.

For me personally. When I got my first iPhone it was all about the hardware. iPod/Phone/Web/Camera in a box. Genius! You connected your iPhone to the computer to put music on it and transfer other media.

Fast forward from 2007 to today. Hardware all around has come a long way and in many cases the same cameras and parts are used by several manufacturers.

Today I'm more concerned with software and the OS/interaction. Apple lost that hardware edge. Other than iSSH and iTeleport I don't miss anything from my iPhone.

 

[doelcm82]

Who is goings to buy an iPhone 4s now?

People who want to pay less for their iPhone or people who prefer the cleaner design of the iPhone 4S over the iPhone 5 or people who prefer the smaller size of the iPhone 4S over the iPhone 5. In short plenty of people.

Those people should wait until after the iPhone 5 is released. There will be plenty of iPhone 4S phones for sale, and most likely a discounted model from Apple.

I think the question was meant to be who's going to buy an iPhone 4S now, when the price is about to go down significantly in a couple of weeks?

 

[praktical]

Samsung Galaxy S III Reportedly Tops iPhone 4S as Best-Selling U.S. Smartphone

All said and done...my two cents tell me that the iPhone will always be a better gadget due to it's apps and the Samsung SIII is overall a better phone.

 

[alexN350z]

That's not true. As I said the iPhone continues to gain market share year over year.

Worldwide smartphone market share (IDC)
4Q 2008 11.2%
4Q 2009 16.0%
4Q 2010 16.1%
4Q 2011 23.5%

1Q 2009 10.9%
1Q 2010 16.1%
1Q 2011 18.3%
1Q 2012 24.2%



No, it doesn't. There is a multitude of reasons people could be picking the GS3.



I have no idea what that has to do with the question I asked.

Back to july, the figure from Samsung is 6million shipment of GS3 and the leaks of iPhone5 is disappointing for many consumers, otherwise more people may wait for iPhone 5 instead of getting GS3. Did this answer your question?

 

[KdParker]

this will change ....starting Sept 21.....

----------

This is just ridiculous. As someone stated earlier, the amount of defensiveness in here is just over the top. You're acting like fanatics, real fanboys.

When the first iPhone was released, it was such a revolutionary breakthrough - it was just so far ahead of the competition. Nothing did even come close to the iPhone, at the time. That we can all agree on. However, while I do love Apple and their products (as can be seen in my sig, and my activity here), it would be irrational to not admit that the development of the iPhone (both software and hardware-wise) has been seeing a very evident decline during the last year or two, so much in fact that the competition has caught up, and in the case of Samsung, actually overtaken Apple, not only in terms of technology, but apparently also sales.

Claiming that the iPhone 4S is a better phone than the Galaxy S3 is just non-sense. Really. This is coming from an iPhone 4S owner, and previous 3GS owner. Of course, the Galaxy is a much newer phone, and this may all be likely to change on the 12th, however as of now - the new iPhone 5 does not look very promising at all to me, although I hope I'm wrong. I wish the iPhone 5 would take my breath away.

Sure, you may argue that it's impossible for Apple to re-invent the wheel, however there is always room for improvement, hence so many of you people choose to jailbreak your iDevices. That said, I think Android has never looked better than it does now, and the presentation of Jelly Bean at this years IO was the only keynote I've seen in recent years that has come close to giving me that "Wow-feel" I experienced when seeing the original iPhone keynote back in 2007.

Well, I guess september 12th couldn't come any sooner.

This might be the best OS android has put out, but if it was really going head to head with the iPhone 4S (Released at the same time). I don't think this would be any contest at all and iPhone 4S would have more sales.

This perceived lead in sales is solely caused with the timing of the release of iPhone 5.

 

[alexN350z]

The same factor also applies to the iOS platform as well. I doubt NOVA 3 is going to work on my old iPhone or even the 3GS (with far reduced visuals) in comparison to the 4s or iPad 2 and the new iPad.

Some newer apps now require the iPad 2 as a minimum or iPhone 4. That being said, Android phones, BlackBerry phones etc. all have apps in their ecosystem that will not run on one device but work great on the other.

I have to disagree with this argument based on our iPhone and Android dev experience. Most apps can runs on all devices after 3GS without much testing and changes.

Quite Often iPhone 3GS runs faster than iPhone 4, because iPhone 4 have 4 times more pixels to render. iPad first generation is slowest device after 2009. There is certain hardware features only available after iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

In comparison, Android is much worse, different Phone manufacturer even have different definition of touch movement, so same touch detection methods may not work on devices from another manufacture.

Fragmentation is not just screen size, the differences are also in memory size, GPU power and types. Some game dev teams need to write different shaders for different devices. which is a nightmare for developers. If you read reviews of NOVA 3 in Google play, you may notice this.

There is fragmentation in devices even released in same time of year, in contrast iOS fragmentation is only with old devices.

 

[BaldiMac]

Back to july, the figure from Samsung is 6million shipment of GS3 and the leaks of iPhone5 is disappointing for many consumers, otherwise more people may wait for iPhone 5 instead of getting GS3. Did this answer your question?

Nope. 6 million was global sales. In July, another analyst has claimed the iPhone was still gaining U.S. market share faster than all Android devices combined.

As far as the iPhone 5 being disappointing for many customers, I think you are jumping to conclusions based on a few forum posters and bloggers.

 

[tech4all]

and the problem is...? did your eyes get smaller during this time? mine havent. and the resolution on the device has doubled yielding a screen thats even easier to read now than when it came out.

iPhone users today:

3.5" is perfectly fine for phones. Anything else is too big and not needed.


September 12: Apple today unveils the iPhone 5 with a 4.5" (or w/e size) screen. It's like a theater in your hand.

iPhone users reactions:

OMG 4.5"!!!!!!! This is so awesome. 3.5" is way to small now! This is the greatest thing ever.

Android users:
Oh...

This isn't an anti-iPhone comment, just stating the what's likely to be the reactions if there is a new screen. The iPhone is a great phone, but after comparing it to some Android devices it's way too small IMP. With that said there's also some Android phones out there that are way to big. I would say 4.75" would be the max for a phone.

 

[Ungibbed]

I have to disagree with this argument based on our iPhone and Android dev experience. Most apps can runs on all devices after 3GS without much testing and changes.

Quite Often iPhone 3GS runs faster than iPhone 4, because iPhone 4 have 4 times more pixels to render. iPad first generation is slowest device after 2009. There is certain hardware features only available after iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

In comparison, Android is much worse, different Phone manufacturer even have different definition of touch movement, so same touch detection methods may not work on devices from another manufacture.

Fragmentation is not just screen size, the differences are also in memory size, GPU power and types. Some game dev teams need to write different shaders for different devices. which is a nightmare for developers. If you read reviews of NOVA 3 in Google play, you may notice this.

There is fragmentation in devices even released in same time of year, in contrast iOS fragmentation is only with old devices.

Now before you get your knickers in a wad, what I sad was an example. When you think about it, the original iPad is not that old at all but is now completely unsupported in recent apps.

I'm not going to split hairs over the details but when you think about it from an average consumer point of view, after spending quite a bit of money on the first model (including myself with the 64GB model), I then once again spent even more on the same capacity iPad 2.

Before spouting off about Android fragmentation, realize that the majority are based off the Qualcom Snapdragon series processor with an Adreno GPU. Sure I know of Tehran devicesetc but what exactly is your point with beating this dead horse? You don't think I know?

The largest difference is not having to code different shaders and make it as complex as possible to develop on the Android OS. Major differences occur in the actual assets that are saved on your memory card. Making the app far easier to update instead of having to download the entire package such as iOS devices.

Having a game development background, I can tell you nightmares of simple console ports even back to the 16 bit players. DOS/Windows? Been there too.

Fragmentation existsnot just with smartphone platforms. It exists on any electronic device in use today. Got a Intel Mac? Great! Does it have a Intel GMA chipset or Nvidia 9400 series? Sucks to be you... Windows machines have this to a somewhat larger variety but that's expected.

So with nearly any given system, you have pros and cons. Some people just refuse to believe they exist at all.

 

[Rennir]

So Samsung's new phone beat Apple's year old phone in the month before the new iPhone is released?

No wai!!

So tell me, what criteria can be used to judge when comparing the sales of two phone models are no longer relevant because one becomes dilapidated relative to the other?