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You realize if said "fanboy" bought any flagship it would be the same conversation.

I appreciate my "OLD" apple gear (MacPro, MBPs, iPhones, ipAd, iPod…) - but I NEVER was fanboy of any brand. I even never owned a Samsung Phone, but bought a S4 longtime ago for my daughter (she was happy with a S3mini before as well as with the S4 since years now).

I just want to discuss in an intelligent way - adults discuss things aside of ridiculous "exaggerated over-loyalty". I am not married with apple, I just use their products. And I am well-aware that the once customer-oriented policy of apple has turned against their customers. NOW it´s other brands and companies that take over the image of the 1984-add of apple. apple is getting less and less customer-friendly and less and less innovative. They are on the "best" way to get even worse than MFST ever was - if they do not stop that way they are going since some years, the very beginning was 2011/2012 … it is interesting that this was just one year after Steve jobs died...

Earning the most money of all enterprises in the world may make their shareholders happy - but it has nearly nothing to do with quality. Look at Microsofts crap they sold for decades!

Earning the most money means to ignore customers needs as much as possible and to spend more money on marketing/brainwashing than the others. Creating a sort of religion with millions of lemmings or brands-zombies. Tragically, apple arrived there already years ago.

I´d like to see apple going back to the roots in caring about IMPORTANT things, not thinness nor absolutely ridiculous gimmicks like "NightShift" and at the same time releasing OS with more and more bugs...
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reported for insults.

Let me laugh at Samsung's "high level smartphones" or iPhone 6copy of Samsung phablets.

Since when is "fanboy" an insult??

It is a common description for people with exaggerating "loyality" to a brand, always defending "their" brand even if this was evidently wrong and moreover insulting people who have courage enough to criticize things that have to be criticized. ( apple "Loyalists" joining in to the ignorant and ridiculous statements of apple like: "You´re holding it wrong!" or "There are no GPU problems with the 15" MBP at all" and so on and on and on ...)

I did contradict to the legend of "customers still willingly paying high prices for iPhones" - and all this with clear and convincing OBJECTIVE ARGUMENTS.

Sadly, you could not give any argument against that - but claimed an "insult" instead. This talks more about you than about me, I think…
 
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So 40% of all Smart Phonse are sold by Others. Let's assume Windows, Sony, BBRY make up 10% or so. Who else is in the other category? How much of Other is truly no name manufacturers that we in the West have never heard about? What kind of quality do those manufacturers turn out? Do their phones last two or three years? Or are we comparing cheap products that are nearly disposable and counting them as a unit comparable to an iPhone?
 
So 40% of all Smart Phonse are sold by Others. Let's assume Windows, Sony, BBRY make up 10% or so. Who else is in the other category? How much of Other is truly no name manufacturers that we in the West have never heard about? What kind of quality do those manufacturers turn out? Do their phones last two or three years? Or are we comparing cheap products that are nearly disposable and counting them as a unit comparable to an iPhone?


Is this an answer to my last posting?

well… if yes, it might show the extremely biased/blured perspective of iPhone-lovers.

let me explain:

You consider apple selling millions of Smartphones to serve for their customers needs.

But you refuse categorically the same thing for all other companies?

What is "leading high-tech" and what is "crappy low-end?"

It is all about the customers needs (and budget).

I give you two good examples. I purchased the REALLY FIRST SMARTPHONE in 1997. The Nokia communicator. As you see, apple was 10 years behind Nokia with the Smartphone, but that´s not the point. 14 days of stand-by and the best PHONE-function worldwide, high-tech antennas,… NO problem ever to join someone or to be joinable for others, even in the worst conditions (as long as there was even the weakest signal existing).
Smiled for many years about desperating iPhone users having cut their communication, not being joinable, having empty batteries, low communication time, and so on.

You really think that iPhone 3 and 4 were top-performing PHONES? Not at all.
So - what was crap and what was a perfect smartphone?

One of my best friends climbed even onto a tree in a valley - she was desperate owning a iP4 and NOT having a chance to make a simple phone call and never have a look agh her emails where she did have her holidays. How did she have the idea of climbing onto the tree? Well - believe it or not - someone else (evidently a iPhone-owner) had fixed a paper at the tree: "apple users climb here". Same bad experience for other situations with not-ideal connectivity - when she had bad conditions in town like being situated far from windows in a building - in these years.

BTW: tests of Smartphones concerning their core-business (Phone calls) are since a long time extremely rare. If apple was the best NOW, today, we all would be bombed to death with this information by the Marketing machine calling itself "apple". I found some very serious (European) magazines who still do these tests. And I was not surprised at all that Samsungs top-smartphones were still superior to apple´s iPhones (like Nokia was always before). Owning even two iP5 since years (the first with acceptable phone-performance) I experienced this problem is getting less urgent nowadays - but if apple is always "high-tech" - why are they still incapable to get in top-position concerning this important point?

When competing enterprises sell millions of "low-end" Phones they ALSO fulfill the needs of their customers. They may live in countries with less developed infrastructure, they might have only a little budget or they want in first place a robust phone who might work still under the worst conditions (humidity, heat, frosty environment, often falling phone, …)

There is NO REASON AT ALL to call their customers dump, their delivering producers "low-end" or these extremely reliable phones "crap" or "cheap". Doing this is at max arrogant and ignorant. You get my point?

As for "real high-tech" and "leaders in technology":
apple buys just components and they let solder and glue them together in China. They do not "develop" or "invent" at all much in the real and original sense of this word. Many of the components build-in in apple products have been produced and delivered by Samsung! And the worst: These are the TOP-components apple is FORCED to buy. Now again: Who is leading in technology?

And I claim: MOST of the apple customers are just told hat they "have to feel to need" a phone with higher screen-density or "faster CPUs" - BUT: they would not even be able to identify it in a double-blinded test. They are victims of a perfectly functioning PR/Marketing machine near to a sort of self-chosen consumer-totalitarism. The best product apple sells is called: "iMagination"
At the end it´s their "free" choice, I don´t have any problem with this.

But when I regard the celebrations of apple PR with free people lining up for days to just get the new i-whatever as one of the first customers, with the same behavior as poor people starving and desperately having need of just a mouthful of dry bread for resting one more day alive, I doubt about their customers "freedom" …. they look more like apple-zombies...

so - everyone thinking about "Good" and "bad", about "top-xxx" and "Crappy xxx" should stop there and rethink about the market…. and about apple. take off your rose-colored spectacles…. ;)
 
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One feature I am amazed Apple and Samsung flagships haven't caught up with yet are FRONT-FACING STEREO SPEAKERS. Heard an HTC One with boomsound speakers in-store and was blown away by the audio quality compared to my iphone. (and the 6s+ I compared it to). Seriously, when consuming media for a device not much under $1000 good, sufficiently loud audio quality w/out headphones should be kinda default by now.
 
Is this an answer to my last posting?

well… if yes, it might show the extremely biased/blured perspective of iPhone-lovers.

let me explain:

You consider apple selling millions of Smartphones to serve for their customers needs.

But you refuse categorically the same thing for all other companies?

What is "leading high-tech" and what is "crappy low-end?"

It is all about the customers needs (and budget).

I give you two good examples. I purchased the REALLY FIRST SMARTPHONE in 1997. The Nokia communicator. As you see, apple was 10 years behind Nokia with the Smartphone, but that´s not the point. 14 days of stand-by and the best PHONE-function worldwide, high-tech antennas,… NO problem ever to join someone or to be joinable for others, even in the worst conditions (as long as there was even the weakest signal existing).
Smiled for many years about desperating iPhone users having cut their communication, not being joinable, having empty batteries, low communication time, and so on.

.........

so - everyone thinking about "Good" and "bad", about "top-xxx" and "Crappy xxx" should stop there and rethink about the market…. and about apple. take off your rose-colored spectacles…. ;)

No, it wasn't a response. But I am curious what makes this huge percentage of smartphones.

But now in response to your comments, I will say overall the iPhone is the best smartphone. But yes they have never done the phone part or even the sound part all that well. I still carry a BBRY as well as an iPhone and the sound quality has often been better. Even on the same network, sometimes my BBRY phone got better service and it was rarely the other way around. For years it produced a better wifi hotspot when I wanted to connect my laptop remotely. And it still handles attachments on the phone much better because of the file system it has. Your stories of folks climbing a tree to get signal is funny, but quite believable. And heck I remember when on busy days where my email was going crazy my iPhone couldn't even keep up with it.

The phone part was only adequate in my view. But the rest of the smartphone experience has always been really good on iPhones. In particularly the speed with which it loaded apps.

As for components that Apple puts in its phones, it actually does invent them these days. Examples are 3D touch, touch ID, the CPU, including the secure center. And there are others. Apple is far from just buying components from other and gluing them together.

But I am curious what the bottom, least name brand part of that 40% Other section of smartphones looks like and how they function. I'm in the U.S. and really I don't know anyone who is using a cut-rate smartphone these days. They might be using an old flagship, like an iPhone 4, but I don't know who is buying a non-name brand smartphone for $75. Now some folks may think my Z10 counts as a cut rate phone. Certainly you can buy one now for $100. But it was designed and released as a flagship phone from a well known company (if a reviled and mocked one). I just don't know about these other brands. And this "Other" section is selling something like 600 million smartphones a year. So the market is snatching these up. Who makes this stuff?
 
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none of these things have direct costs / value associated with them.
Every single of these "extras" has direct cost attached to it. Just because they are "free" from user side, they are not from Apple side. They cost money, whether it's RnD or Maintenance. End user is increasingly having "deserving" attitude, the kind that argue these "extras" is "tangible" and therefore "entirely irrelevant when it comes to the value". Apple always maintain high standard, even when it comes to these "extras", and people is getting the expectation that nothing should be less from them. The opposite thing happens to Samsung for example.
 
As for apple being "Inventor" better See it by the light of the day:

biometric identification exists since more than 100 years…. (fingerprint)
Just to do this using the modern methods like miniaturized cameras under glass instead of graphite powder is not too"innovative" at all.

authorities use this method since a while… long before "ID touch"… as well as other biometric ID-methods.

same for Smartphone:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_Communicator

Nokia invented this in the 1990´s, the communicator was available in 1996, and Steve Jobs did just a combination of a old Communicator with a touch-sensitive surface UI. 11 years later!!!

so . this is more about form factor and (flat) design instead of a real invention/innovation.

If you have a deeper look at apple history, you see that Steve jobs had "only" the (though very impressive) talent to identify other persons/companies ideas/innovations and REFINE them for his own business. He was primarily a big businessman (if you will name it, name it "Bloodhound") and could rapidly identify and imagine what other person´s or companies technology could be a million-selling blockbuster for apple....

The mouse and so also graphical UI was invented by XEROX, NOT by apple.

http://www.cultofmac.com/95614/how-steve-jobs-invented-the-computer-mouse-by-stealing-it-from-xerox/

Long before the iPad was "invented" by apple, I used already a Panasonic "Toughbook with both a high-sensitive Touchscreen and a perfectly working keyboard ! The which was the grandfather of both surface (about 20 years later than Panasonic) as also iPad (more than 15 years later than Panasonic) …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughbook

BTW: The tough book was also the FIRST fanless Notebook/Laptop !!! In 1996!
As the first Notebook ever it conducted the heat to its enclosure - and it didn´t get ever never too hot for you like the MBP´s of apple do still nowadays. AND: it was absolutely silent, because the (then) HDD was housed hermetically and shock resistant - no noise coming out the laptop (a real pleasure for me at that time)...

and: It was water-resistant and shock-proof. in 1996 !!!

as for iPod:

mp3 /mp4 was the result of long going scientific research of the Fraunhofer Institute (a elite-division of the german Universities) LONG BEFORE apple "invented" the iPod.
apple pays still every year for licensing Fraunhofer Institute´s technology, NOT the other way round!

The iPod is nothing but a Walkman/Diskman (Developped by Sony 40/20 Years ago and long before apple started with iPods) with just a replacement of the tape/CD by the modern Solid memory chips (invented and produced by others) , reducing needed storage space by using others technology (mp3) and a combination with a simplified UI. That´s all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discman
 
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reported for insults.

BTW, a little reality check: Samsung is just a foundry. They don't design Apple's technology . Samsung actually IS behind Apple, and Apple was in the technology market well before Samsung dude. Apple isn't depending from Samsung, there are others foundry available (TSMC just one example).

Sorry - Apple was in the technology market well before Samsung? Samsung Electronics was founded in 1969. Samsung group in 1938. And Samsung entering the mobile market? Around 1985.

So tell me again how Apple was in the tech market before Samsung?

Not dependent on Samsung? Maybe. Maybe not. They have tried to sever ties before but have come back. So what does that tell you?

On the topic of insults. He didn't direct that comment to an individual. I don't like the term any more than when someone calls another a troll. But if someone were to say "to stop the trolls" - it's not a post worthy of being reported.
 
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as for virtual reality and projections on to spectacles apple also is wide behind the others and too late for "groundbreaking inventions" as well:


http://zeissvrone.tumblr.com

as well as for this:

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/zeiss-smart-glasses/


The problem for apple after the death of Steve Jobs is:

1) Tim Cook is just a cost-cutter, but NOT a future-proof-technology-finding bloodhound like steve Jobs. Cook is a good technocratic administrator who generated Billions after Billions for apple optimizing chain supply and so on and letting chinese slaves put together apple products in a reckless way und inhuman conditions (until now). But that´s it. TOO MUCH cost-cutting is dangerous - if you threaten your suppliers took much, they are forced to downgrade the quality of their products to survive. At the very beginning you earn more money, but at mid-term and long-term you decline in terms of reliability and reputation. Which began 2010/2011 and still is going on.
Look what happened in the "LOPEZ"-era ( 1990´s) with Opel and Volkswagen…. it took many years to put the things right for them...
2) Jony Ive is not a designer no more, he was, but nowadays he is just a stylist. And now there is NOBODY there like Jobs to stop Ive from losing contact with this REAL WORLD and its customers. He´s maniac and getting completely out of control.
 
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I don't know how you can publish this article in good consciousness without mentioning that Samsung makes almost no profits or loses money on each of those units sold. That kind of matters. Apple could sell each of their phones at half price and quadroople their shipments but that be idiotic.

Samsung makes no profits or losses money?

Bud they made almost 6 billion in pure profit last 1/4

Yes not as much as apple but Samsung does not have the same profit margins. 3-4gb ddr 4 ram cost more,2k screens cost more etc
 
As for components that Apple puts in its phones, it actually does invent them these days. Examples are 3D touch, touch ID, the CPU, including the secure center. And there are others. Apple is far from just buying components from other and gluing them together.

As usual, Apple didn't invent any of the basic ideas, but refined them. Or in the case of the secure enclave, just publicized something that no one else thought was worth making a big deal over. (Apple is a pro at taking something other devices have had for years, and making it sound new and magical.)
  • They bought the TouchID sensor supplier.
  • They did create their own version of 3D Touch, apparently partly due to Corning creating a flexible glass.
  • As for the secure enclave, that's an known CPU concept. Heck, Samsung first implemented a secure enclave in their Exynos chips, starting back in 2012 with the Galaxy S3. It's used to help secure their NSA derived Knox kernel. Apple's came later.
just don't know about these other brands. And this "Other" section is selling something like 600 million smartphones a year. So the market is snatching these up. Who makes this stuff?

That would actually make a nice research project for someone here, to figure out who "Other" is down to a small output level. I can help some in the short amount of free time I have these days:

The top ten smartphone makers, some of which people are newly aware of because of Apple entering the China market, include Samsung, Apple, Lenovo (Moto), Huawei, LG, Xiaomi, ZTE, Coolpad, Alcatel, Vivo.

Major smartphone makers in India include Micromax, Karbonn and Lava.

There are also dozens of small shops making phones, since it's so easy these days to buy a ready-to-go set of chips for a few dozen dollars, along with Android for free (but no Google services).

---

Too many people ignorantly talk about $200-250 phones as being cheap crap, when in fact that's the worldwide average price range these days for a really decently equipped smartphone. Usually the big things that're lacking compared to phones twice their price, is the cameras (still good for what they are) and perhaps storage (easily expandable for cheap).

Every new technology starts out high. I paid over $1,000 each for my first microwave, video cam, digital camera, CD player, DVD player, flatscreen TV, etc. Yet now we all expect to be able to buy such common items for ~$40 on up.

So why don't most Westerners realize that the same thing has long ago happened to smartphones? Heck, that's how Apple can make such huge profit margins. The fact is, phones that cost more than $300 are a market that would not exist in any large way without subsidies and loan programs.

In reality, you can buy a usable LTE smartphone for as low as $40. For $100+, you can get a Moto E. For $250 you're into really nicely equipped devices.
 
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Samsung makes no profits or losses money?

Bud they made almost 6 billion in pure profit last 1/4

Yes not as much as apple but Samsung does not have the same profit margins. 3-4gb ddr 4 ram cost more,2k screens cost more etc
When your handsets are 2014 Specs. But sold at 2016 prices sure you will make more profit.
 
Incorrect!

You actually paid $450 for that "free" iPhone. It was just hidden inside your bill.

Of course, we both know it's not free but the initial up front cost to consumer was 0. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change now that the contract phone seems to be on it's way to extinction.
 
When your handsets are 2014 Specs. But sold at 2016 prices sure you will make more profit.

Smartphones are usually behind the latest specs, not very long after we buy one :)

And of course, many people keep their devices for two years (or more), meaning they spend most of their useful life being one or two years behind.

And for many, many people, that's just fine. Most of the world doesn't need the latest and greatest. Especially if it costs them hundreds of dollars more upfront, than something else that's quite usable.

Of course, we both know it's not free but the initial up front cost to consumer was 0. It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change now that the contract phone seems to be on it's way to extinction.

Yep.

I've pointed out for years that research shows that the overwhelmingly majority of people in the world do not (or cannot) spend more than $250 upfront for a smartphone. Less is even better, of course. Just look at all the people who go for $100 or $0 upfront deals, iPhones included.

The majority (90+%) of iPhones were sold in subsidized areas of the world. Where they're not subsidized, their sales are almost always down in the low teens percentage wise. (No doubt the same is true for higher priced phones from any company.)

This is why Apple et al have been implementing trade-in and loan programs to replace subsidies. A low upfront cost to the customer is critical to obtaining mass sales of hugely profitable devices.
 
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Smartphones are usually behind the latest specs, not very long after we buy one :)

And of course, many people keep their devices for two years (or more), meaning they spend most of their useful life being one or two years behind.
What a way.of Sidestepping the comment, in 2015 putting out a device with 720p is.embarrassing, such a poor quality.screen.. why? Because they know the crowd.will lap.it up no matter what so they prey on the loyalty. . Corporate greed at.its.worst, whereas samsung continually. Pushes. The boundaries of new technologies. And.cutting else specs.. why, so they release. Things at the limit of technology, screwing the bottom line in the process. . You can get.720p.screens.in 100.dollar.handsets.. and folk still.defend apple profit margins.. jeez...
 
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What a way.of Sidestepping the comment, in 2015 putting out a device with 720p is.embarrassing, such a poor quality.screen.. why? Because they know the crowd.will lap.it up no matter what so they prey on the loyalty. . Corporate greed at.its.worst, whereas samsung continually. Pushes. The boundaries of new technologies. And.cutting else specs.. why, so they release. Things at the limit of technology, screwing the bottom line in the process. . You can get.720p.screens.in 100.dollar.handsets.. and folk still.defend apple profit margins.. jeez...
Thankfully there are alternatives in which you can show Apple you won't put up with their corporate greed. But this has been said and it seems the masses, 75m forked over their hard earned cash last quarter. Why do you think that is?
 
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Thankfully there are alternatives in which you can show Apple you won't put up with their corporate greed. But this has been said and it seems the masses, 75m forked over their hard earned cash last quarter. Why do you think that is?
You ever wonder why herds of lemmings jump en masse over the cliff edge? Simple herd mentality, some things can't be explained. ..
 
Of course, we both know it's not free but the initial up front cost to consumer was 0.

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics change now that the contract phone seems to be on it's way to extinction.

I would argue that it's a better situation now that contracts and "subsidies" are gone.

Old way: $0 down would get you a two-year-old iPhone... and the rest of the fee was tucked into your monthly phone bill.

New way: $0 down can get you the brand new current iPhone... and you pay your monthly phone fee along with your monthly service fee.

If the up-front fee was a big deal to people... now that's over.

You used to have to pay $199 to $499 up-front and the "subsidized" fee each month to get the newest iPhone. So you're right... the reason people went for the older "free" iPhone was because of the no up-front cost.

But with today's phone payment plans... you can get the newest iPhone for $0 down and $31 a month in addition to the phone bill you're already paying.

I dunno... if I can afford to even have a smartphone today on one of the major carriers... I'd go for the newest iPhone 6S for $31 a month rather than the much older iPhone 5S for $19 a month.

The cost isn't that much different each month... and there is no huge up-front cost.
 
Sorry - Apple was in the technology market well before Samsung? Samsung Electronics was founded in 1969. Samsung group in 1938. And Samsung entering the mobile market? Around 1985.

So tell me again how Apple was in the tech market before Samsung?
I stand corrected about the date (Samsung ELECTRONIC was founded in 1988, while Samsung Electric dated back to 1969).
But in the first years Samsung was irrelevant, while Apple invented the personal computing...

Not dependent on Samsung? Maybe. Maybe not. They have tried to sever ties before but have come back. So what does that tell you?
Not dependent in any way. Apple can choose its sub contractors. Now they are switching to TSMC for the next generation.
That tell me that Samsung need Apple much more than Apple need Samsung.

On the topic of insults. He didn't direct that comment to an individual. I don't like the term any more than when someone calls another a troll. But if someone were to say "to stop the trolls" - it's not a post worthy of being reported.

are you studying as moderator ?
Not a long time ago I was banned for the sole use of the name "Samesung" on a topic.
Do you think this could be directed to an individual ?
I wouldn't say "stop the trolls" here, because on an Apple centric forum where there is a well established community of haters it would be overused.
Someone told me some terms like "fanboys" are strictly prohibited here, so I will report every use of that word.

Got a link to prove it?

I doubt it...
I don't need a link since about 90% of Samsung's lineup is made by crappy phones and they sold most of their numbers in the sub $400 class (where they are even more crappy).
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What a way.of Sidestepping the comment, in 2015 putting out a device with 720p is.embarrassing, such a poor quality.screen.. why? Because they know the crowd.will lap.it up no matter what so they prey on the loyalty. . Corporate greed at.its.worst, whereas samsung continually. Pushes. The boundaries of new technologies. And.cutting else specs.. why, so they release. Things at the limit of technology, screwing the bottom line in the process. . You can get.720p.screens.in 100.dollar.handsets.. and folk still.defend apple profit margins.. jeez...
poor quality in an iPhone display ? You clearly don't know what you are speaking about... :rolleyes:
I found much more embarrassing to put a ridiculous quantity of pixels in a Pentile matrix just as a bait for specs drooling customers....
 
I stand corrected about the date (Samsung ELECTRONIC was founded in 1988, while Samsung Electric dated back to 1969).
But in the first years Samsung was irrelevant, while Apple invented the personal computing...

Irrelevant to you. Hardly irrelevant as they created products and spent millions on R&D. But you know...you have your opinion and I have mine :)
 
Irrelevant to you. Hardly irrelevant as they created products and spent millions on R&D. But you know...you have your opinion and I have mine :)
Are you REALLY comparing Apple in the '70-'80 with Samsung in the same period ? :rolleyes:
Are you Korean or just a shareholder ?
 
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