Xiaomi Pledges 'War of Life and Death' Against Apple to Become World's Biggest Smartphone Brand

[chucker23n1]

A smartphone is a device that combines computer and network/internet capabilities with telephony. The definition is not about feature differences (e.g., physical versus onscreen keyboard), popularity, etc. There were several devices that met the definition of a "smartphone" before the Apple iPhone came along. The argument that Apple "invented" the smartphone is therefore, yes, silly.

An airplane is a vehicle that carries passengers or cargo across the air. Who invented that? Most people (including NASA) would argue: the Wright brothers, of course. But by your logic, you could equally make the case that it was Leonardo da Vinci.

A hundred years from now, nobody will care about the Nokia Communicator or Palm Treo and other proto-smartphones. They'll call Apple the inventor of the smartphone, because Apple made the leapfrog product that changed the category from niche novelty to mainstream.

(I've also heard the smartphone defined as "unlike a feature phone, it allows you to install third-party apps", which means the original iPhone may not even apply. But, again, none of these nuances will matter in the grand scheme of things.)

Look at how much Apple cut the price of the iPhone in the months and years after original launch. The original 8GB iPhone launched at $599 but a year later, the price of the 8GB iPhone 3G was just $199. Had Apple (and AT&T) not drastically cut prices, it may have been a different ballgame in the smartphone world.

This is somewhat misleading, as those are subsidized prices. Once you factor in subsidies, the difference is less stark. By today's price model, the 3G would absolutely not be $199.

Having said that, it's also really not relevant. "The iPhone is a high-end product" is not a relevant argument as to whether it is the product that changed smartphones for good. Mercedes-Benz by and large doesn't make mass-market cars (and arguably never did), but nobody is arguing against Karl Benz having a significant contribution to defining today's automobile.

 

[webkit]

A hundred years from now, nobody will care about the Nokia Communicator or Palm Treo and other proto-smartphones. They'll call Apple the inventor of the smartphone, because Apple made the leapfrog product that changed the category from niche novelty to mainstream.

I think the competition that Apple (and in the years that followed, Android OS) created which helped drive down prices is what turned the category from niche to mainstream as much as anything else. Smartphones increased in popularity due to price competition, iPhone, Android OS, improving technologies, apps, etc.

This is somewhat misleading, as those are subsidized prices. Once you factor in subsidies, the difference is less stark. By today's price model, the 3G would absolutely not be $199.

Having said that, it's also really not relevant. "The iPhone is a high-end product" is not a relevant argument as to whether it is the product that changed smartphones for good. Mercedes-Benz by and large doesn't make mass-market cars (and arguably never did), but nobody is arguing against Karl Benz having a significant contribution to defining today's automobile.

How is it misleading since both the $599 and $199 iPhones were subsidized prices? I wasn't comparing to prices today but showing how much prices dropped in the early years, and how that helped accelerate the overall popularity of smartphones as much or more than the "invented" iPhone device itself. If Apple/AT&T hadn't drastically dropped iPhone prices in those early years and help create a "price war", the smartphone market may have turned out very differently.

Again, I think credit for the popularization of smartphones goes to a number of things. However, who invented it goes back to the person or company that created the first mobile device that combined computer and network/internet capabilities with telephony. That wasn't Apple or its iPhone.

 

[wigby]

Apple did not basically invent the smartphone.

You're right. They invented the iPhone and all other smartphone makers abandoned their current phone models and decided to copy Apple's design.

 

[wigby]

So they iterated on the smartphone then.

They made a really good phone, but that’s not inventing the smartphone category.

Apple absolutely re-invented the smartphone category in terms of design, pricing, marketing and carrier support. 50 years from now people like us who lived through the details and iterations of smartphones in the 2000s will be dead so only Apple will be remembered for inventing the smartphone.

 

[BF1M]

Everyone is making this way more complicated then it really is. All in the name of fandom.

Did smartphones exist before iPhone? Yes, they did. Then Apple didn’t invent the smartphone. End of discussion.

 

[boss.king]

Apple absolutely re-invented the smartphone category in terms of design, pricing, marketing and carrier support. 50 years from now people like us who lived through the details and iterations of smartphones in the 2000s will be dead so only Apple will be remembered for inventing the smartphone.

Misremembering how something happened doesn't actually change how it happened. Those of use who were around before the iPhone remember that smartphones already existed regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

 

[Michael Scrip]

You're right. They invented the iPhone and all other smartphone makers abandoned their current phone models and decided to copy Apple's design.

I felt bad for Palm. They announced the Treo 750, pictured below, just two days before Apple announced the iPhone. It was yet another Treo that looked like all the other Treos that came before.

But nobody was paying attention to Palm once the iPhone hit the news.

It then took Palm two years to scrap the Treo-style phone and move in an entirely new direction. And we got the Palm Pre. But we all know how the Palm story ended.

Would Palm have ended up with the Palm Pre if it wasn't for the iPhone? I highly doubt it. These companies were set in their ways and they weren't ready to rock the boat.

See also Blackberry and the ill-fated Storm. That was clearly a rush-job to battle the iPhone.

Remember... Blackberry was known for its keyboard. So I highly doubt that they were planning to move to all-touchscreen phones organically.

So yeah... Apple didn't "invent" the smartphone. But in January 2007... the entire smartphone industry was shoved in a new direction. And some of these companies clearly weren't ready or even able to adapt.

Look at who were the major players before the iPhone... and who is left today?

Palm, Blackberry, HTC, LG, Nokia/Symbian... all gone. Well... Nokia is now just another Android vendor.

I'm not saying Apple killed all those companies. Obviously Google and Android had a lot to do with it, too.

But it is shocking to see how many companies weren't able to adapt or survive in the next phase of the smartphone market.

 

[mudflap]

Apple did not basically invent the smartphone.

I owned all the best smart phones from Sony Ericsson (P800, P900) before the iPhone. They were difficult to obtain in the US. And they sucked. The iPhone is the first real smartphone with multitouch and a usable browser. It changed everything. There is before the iPhone and after it. Everyone else copied the hell out of it. Period.

 

[chucker23n1]

Would Palm have ended up with the Palm Pre if it wasn't for the iPhone? I highly doubt it. These companies were set in their ways and they weren't ready to rock the boat.

The impression I get is that Ed Colligan would’ve loved to do something like the Pre earlier, but the budget just wasn’t there. Apple at that point had a war chest due to the iPod.

Over them, components became cheaper, so by 2009, launching the Pre was possible, but even then, it was compromised.

I would like to live in a world where something like Palm can have their own little platform, but instead, we always seem to be converging on just two platforms.

 

[Michael Scrip]

The impression I get is that Ed Colligan would’ve loved to do something like the Pre earlier, but the budget just wasn’t there. Apple at that point had a war chest due to the iPod.

Over them, components became cheaper, so by 2009, launching the Pre was possible, but even then, it was compromised.

I would like to live in a world where something like Palm can have their own little platform, but instead, we always seem to be converting on just two platforms.

Yep. The market, especially when apps/programs are involved, can't usually support more than two platforms.

I remember the PC market when I was a kid. IBM PC, Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, Apple IIe, Macintosh... etc.

Ultimately there will be consolidation. Developers can't afford support so many platforms... and the platforms themselves can't afford to even exist if they only have a small part of the market.

We went from 6 computer platforms to basically just Windows and Mac. And we went from 4 or 5 mobile platforms to basically just Android and iOS.

That seems to be the way of the computing world.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[chucker23n1]

I remember the PC market when I was a kid. IBM PC, Atari, Commodore 64, Amiga, Apple IIe, Macintosh... etc.

Yup. BeOS. NeXT. RISC (the remains of which eventually became ARM). OS/2.

There was an exciting variety in approaches, and I think it led to a kind of innovation that we aren’t currently seeing.

 

[boss.king]

I owned all the best smart phones from Sony Ericsson (P800, P900) before the iPhone. They were difficult to obtain in the US. And they sucked. The iPhone is the first real smartphone with multitouch and a usable browser. It changed everything. There is before the iPhone and after it. Everyone else copied the hell out of it. Period.

So you agree that Apple didn’t invent the smartphone then?

 

[webkit]

I felt bad for Palm. They announced the Treo 750, pictured below, just two days before Apple announced the iPhone. It was yet another Treo that looked like all the other Treos that came before.

Palm probably also wasn't ready for the very aggressive pricing that would quickly come from Apple/AT&T within the first few years. A $499 or $599 device (launch prices of iPhone in 2007) was one thing but a $199 iPhone 3G (67% reduction from comparable original iPhone) which arrived just a year later created a whole new ballgame. All of the new competition (iPhone devices, Android OS devices) was good for consumers and helped dramatically grow the smartphone market.

It was probably inevitable that the consumer smartphone market would turn out similar to the computer market with two dominant OS platforms. A difference is that instead of those two OS platforms being from Microsoft and Apple, they turned out to be from Google and Apple.

 

[Analog Kid]

Right, but at the point, it's really a meaningless debate over semantics. Did Apple invent the smartphone with the iPhone? Debatable. Did Nokia invent it a decade earlier with the Communicator? Debatable. Did Apple (Newton), Psion and Palm (Pilot), another half-decade before that? Debatable.

I agree it's a largely meaningless debate about semantics, but one that seems to have consumed an otherwise unremarkable thread.

I don't think the answers to any of those questions are debatable, the answer to all of them is "no". You don't even list Blackberry or the Japanese makers, who contributed.

Nobody invented the smartphone-- industry evolved the smartphone.

I mean, if the argument here is that most smartphones after the iPhone are more like the iPhone than the smartphones before it, then why not overreach even further and say that most telephones after the smartphone are more like smartphones than the phones before them so Apple invented the telephone?

Sure, but that's a different thing. Relativity is just part of how physics work. No human was involved in creating the concept; it existed for billions of years before us, and will continue to after us.

Technology, OTOH, doesn't get "discovered". Optics, and the way they work, existed, and were discovered over time. But the microscope wasn't. Radio transmission existed without us, but a mobile phone required our innovation.

Yes and no... Airplanes are also just part of how physics works. When we say Einstein discovered Relativity, we mean he spent many hours experimenting with math and theory until he found a solution with the properties he wanted. When we say Edison invented the lightbulb, we mean he spent many hours experimenting with different filaments until he found a solution with the properties he wanted. He/they engineered the design of a lightbulb, but also through a process of discovery. Is a user interface created, or do we find a better way of communicating information?

I see them as somewhat distict too, but I wonder if it's because of how language has led me to see them... On closer reflection, I don't think they're as different as our language makes them out to be-- they're changes in how we think, they're bringing new information into the social consciousness, they're solving problems either practical or theoretical.

 

[Analog Kid]

Smartphones increased in popularity due to price competition, iPhone, Android OS, improving technologies, apps, etc.

Smartphones increased in popularity because of app stores.

 

[Analog Kid]

Apple absolutely re-invented the smartphone category in terms of design, pricing, marketing and carrier support. 50 years from now people like us who lived through the details and iterations of smartphones in the 2000s will be dead so only Apple will be remembered for inventing the smartphone.

But this thread will remain so history will always know of the phones that came before...

 

[wigby]

Misremembering how something happened doesn't actually change how it happened. Those of use who were around before the iPhone remember that smartphones already existed regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.

The only thing I remember before iPhone is how horrible the experience of navigating, taking pics, using a browser, typing and how terrible all other smartphones felt in my hand. That's also how everyone else remembers it which explains iPhone sales. We can focus on the early brands that tried to get there first (all succeeded in one way but failed to deliver the total package) or the later brands that got the experience right.

 

[boss.king]

The only thing I remember before iPhone is how horrible the experience of navigating, taking pics, using a browser, typing and how terrible all other smartphones felt in my hand. That's also how everyone else remembers it which explains iPhone sales. We can focus on the early brands that tried to get there first (all succeeded in one way but failed to deliver the total package) or the later brands that got the experience right.

Yes, so Apple greatly improved on the smartphone, which is what I’ve been saying the entire time.

 

[TrancyGoose]

I see a lot of hate towards Mi here. I'm guessing Red state residents are up early!


Half my family are in Apple ecosystem. Me my wife, and my niece. My son is still 1.5 so, he'll decide. But the other half, my sister and my father, mother in law, father in law and brother in law, and everyone else, swim in Xiaomi world.

We have two 13 inch Mi Laptops running 7th Gan intel processor, bought new and still running great until this day. And they look awesome & are still capable of running games with discrete Nvidia graphics.

Smarphones, Headsets, etc etc etc. I used to own Mi products all the time, before switching to Apple.
I find that quality vs price ration is great, and obviously there are issues with software but Apple has it too.

I am not completely closing the door to Mi. There are things on iPhone and Mac that really piss me of, like really do. And if Apple won't start making improvements on their stock apps in the future, my heart is still open to Mi. Price to quality ratio, in time of inflation and **** economy, wins.

So, I wish them luck on this challenge, competition is good for consumers, and Apple feeling too comfy and cosy is not good.
Ultimately, a phone is a phone and a laptop is a laptop, they are devices, nothing more, if I had to drop Apple, and if upgrading will start becoming ridiculously expensive, I will switch back to Xiaomi and Windows powered machines.

A friend of mine, recently bought a Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite device. Saw it, a beautiful device and spec wise it I matches or even exceeds a base model iPhone, while is 50% of the price.

Check their modern laptops for gaming and work, and even Redmi series, on price, Apple can't really compete, and from my experience, they work great and are far more upgradable, you can still slot in a bigger SSD and more RAM. They are not apple, but you can get your work done, right?

P.S Will never touch a Samsung device, like ever!
And FYI, without china supply and manufacturing, Apple won't survive long, just you know, going to leave it here.

Maybe I just have a different mentality, than folks here, so don't judge me.

 

[Glavin]

This guy has been watching too much CCP propaganda...

Yes, he's aping emperor Poo Bear's "heads bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel" thug-speak.

 

[webkit]

Smartphones increased in popularity because of app stores.

Yes, that was one of the reasons ("apps") I listed which would include the Google Play Store, Apple App Store, rapid growth in number of apps, etc.

 

[frostiex]

Stop trying to beat someone...but focus on making your products good instead. BUT not matter what you do.....I will never trust a CCP backed org.

 

[Danfango]

For us ignorant folks. You keep claiming apple didn't invent the smartphone but you don't tell us who or what. Facts matter so educate us or go into the ignore list.

Isaac Asimov, Stanley Kubrick and Rich Sternbach invented the Smartphone and iPad. Chester Gould invented the Apple Watch.

It took thousands of people a hell of a long time to produce one that wasn't a prop.

 

[ian87w]

And if Apple won't start making improvements on their stock apps in the future, my heart is still open to Mi. Price to quality ratio, in time of inflation and **** economy, wins.

A friend of mine, recently bought a Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite device. Saw it, a beautiful device and spec wise it I matches or even exceeds a base model iPhone, while is 50% of the price.

That's the thing. People buy Xiaomi because it's cheap, not because it's Xiaomi.

People buy Apple because it's Apple. Big difference.

 

[JCCL]

Chinese companies won't see a penny from me

Many of them get their pennies from Apple who in turn get their pennies from you - so your hard earned pennies are reaching Chinese pockets on way or another.