iPhone

[Renton 21450]

Pretty sure you can patent design; for a shorter period than function iirc.

[ChezGiven 0]

Aye intellectual property doesn't really exist in China.

[Park Life 71]

Unless you're a Chinese firm. They're knocking out almost exact replicas, with no apparent comeback whatsoever.

 

Apple's court case was a dick-move, nothing more, nothing less. It wasn't about design, it was about controlling the market. Who wants to live in a world where such basic features and functions are restricted to the iShit brand?

 

I refuse to pay the iShit price premium for a product that I know someone else can and would sell at a much reduced price, and would work just the same. Whereas you can bet you're life I would not do the same for a BMW versus its Chinese knock-off.

 

Ironically most of the apple stuff IS made in China by suicide workers who's eyes gleam white at deathfall. "Come Armageddon come"...Now if Ferrari made a phone.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Park Life

[CleeToonFan 1]

To be fair apples workers suicide rate is less than the Chinese average and they get paid much more than the GDP per capita

[Park Life 71]

To be fair apples workers suicide rate is less than the Chinese average and they get paid much more than the GDP per capita

 

Can't really avoid it even with laptops. My fingers have killed by semiphore.

[ewerk 30409]

I remember the Mazda 121 looking exactly the same as the then Ford Fiesta model and being baffled as to how that got past the legal beagles, just assumed it had something to do with a joint venture or similar.

 

It's called badge engineering and isn't that uncommon.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebadged

[Kid Dynamite 7012]

Glad you noticed......I'm one of the few people that won't have it. I buy a replacement battery for £15, rip the back off my ipod and perform the open ipod surgery required to bring it back to life for another 2 years.

 

Not quite what apple intend.

 

Edit:

 

Still ganning strong, old skool.

 

Haha, I've still got that iPod too. Was a present for xmas 2002. I was split between that and a mini discman

[Renton 21450]

Did that used to be white or did you choose PC beige?

[DEADMAN 0]

i was myself tempted buy the iphone 3g and 3gs way back in those days but after apple started thrown its weight about thrown patents at other company's sorry but i lost interest in them

[Christmas Tree 4713]

Just been to the 02 shop and they have no clue about prices etc, even though the likes of earphone warehouse do

[ChezGiven 0]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android

 

 

Speaking at the LeWeb conference on 7 December 2011, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt was in ebullient form as he considered the success of Google's Android mobile operating system. "Android is ahead of the iPhone now," he told the audience of techies and entrepreneurs. Ahead in terms of the number of phones, the quality of the software, the lower price, and having more companies making devices that used it, he said.

He also had some predictions: "Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favoured by the open approach Google is taking," he said. "There are so many manufacturers working so hard to distribute Android phones globally that whether you like ICS [ice Cream Sandwich, the name for version 4.0 of Android, released in October] or not… you will want to develop for that platform, and perhaps even first."

When one Android user told Schmidt it was frustrating to see iPhone and iPad - known as "iOS" - versions of apps coming to market before the Android one, Schmidt said that in part because of the new software, "my prediction is that six months from now you'll say the opposite". That is, that Android versions of particular products would be written before the iOS ones.

 

 

 

Calendar time

 

 

Six months later, there are few signs of that happening. Instead, even while the number of Android phones in use has continued to grow steadily, to more than 300m, and with Android phones making more than 50% of the 150m-odd smartphones sold worldwide every quarter, developers still look to Apple's platform first.

 

In March 2012, Flurry crunched data from developers using its tracking tools in their apps, and claimed that given the same number of users per platform, a developer who got $1 on the iTunes App Store would get $0.23 from Google Play.

 

Addey points to the problems encountered by Imangi Studios, developer of the hugely popular Temple Run game - in which you are pursued along stone-lined routes by fast-moving unseen monsters - when it ported the app to Android, releasing it at the end of March.

 

 

It was a huge success in terms of downloads, hitting 5m in about 10 days. But Imangi Studios - a husband-and-wife team, plus a designer - soon discovered that Schmidt's promise of Android being ahead in the number of phones and manufacturers was only too true. Despite writing it to run on 707 Android devices, they said that 99% of the emails requesting support were actually complaints that it wouldn't run on the user's particular phone model or version of Android. They were pilloried on Facebook, despite having what would be regarded by anyone as a successful release.

 

Those subtle differences between devices are known in the industry as "fragmentation"

 

"It's a problem, especially for testing your app," says Agant's Addey. "You need to get a representative set of [Android] handsets so you can try it out. But that makes it hard to create a best-of-breed app because of the fragmentation, and because people are less likely to have the latest version of the [Android] software. You have to build to the lowest common denominator, rather than using the latest features." Google's statistics to the beginning of June say that just 7.1% of phones actively using its Google Play app market run version 4.0, or "Ice Cream Sandwich". The most-used version is 2.3, or "Gingerbread", released in December 2010, running on 65%; in total, 84.1% of devices using Google Play run Android version 2.3 or 2.2, dating back to June 2010.

 

Schmidt's bold statement that "application vendors are driven by volume" was, it turns out, inaccurate. True, the economics for certain kinds of apps – particularly free and social ones – are driven by scale. Yet the majority of app developers are driven by two simple motives: where they see the most revenues, and by the constraints of their resources and team size. And both those presently favour Apple - substantially.

 

[Renton 21450]

'Presently'. Like I said, I think any closed system is ultimately doomed unless its ahead of the game, which Apple was, but isn't now.

[Andrew 4723]

Just been to the 02 shop and they have no clue about prices etc, even though the likes of earphone warehouse do

 

well O2 arent taking preorders yet so they won't know.

 

best contract so far seems to be on 3 that I've seen, which is handy since Im on 3 and upgrading next month

[Andrew 4723]

So who is planning to get one then?

 

Renton?

[Renton 21450]

Reception with 3 is canny shit on loads of places though. Also, when 4g comes out will 3 become 4?

[Renton 21450]

So who is planning to get one then?

 

Renton?

 

Nope, I'm taking the hit on all my apps etc and bailing. Apple haven't produced a handset remotely appealing to me. Still waiting for Chez's thoughts on it btw.

[ChezGiven 0]

'Presently'. Like I said, I think any closed system is ultimately doomed unless its ahead of the game, which Apple was, but isn't now.

 

 

Does Google’s lead with Android over Apple iOS matter?

Apple makes money on hardware, Google does not. For investors, this matters. Google gives away its Android operating system in order to have real estate on mobile devices and, therefore, ubiquity is critical for Google to deliver ads. On the other hand, Apple makes money on every iPhone and iPad it sells, even before an ad is delivered to the device. The amount of profits on the hardware is astonishing: It is estimated that Apple earns 70%-75% of the profit for the entire cell phone industry (that is, of all the profit earned by all handset manufacturers) on its own products, which only have roughly 7% of the global market share. Apple is taking its smaller market share all the way to the bank. Just look below at the financial results over the past five years of the different business models:

 

 

I've not even looked at the iPhone 5 yet, dont even know what it looks like tbh, read about the features etc and it seems that is caught up with Android, Jelly Bean may be better and the Siri voice thing probably favour iOS 6 for now in only that regard.

 

However, i prefer Apple as a business. They make things and are clear about what they do. Google wants to be ubiquitous so it can sell you stuff you dont want or need through targeted adverts. You've got to pay for everything either way, either by being forced to watch adverts or by paying for stuff in a store. Apple supports the app developers and has 20 times the revenue for the developer community, it supports musicians and artists, Match is now apparently a massive income stream for artists who have had their music pirated over the years. Its basically a great company and a great stock. Google is dwarfed by Apple financially but are trying to catch up and their holy grail is taking their advertising model and translating it to the mobile platform. I am fascinated to see what comes out of Project Glass but then i dont think it will matter to Apple being a market follower in this area, in fact it will be an advantage.

[ChezGiven 0]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/darcytravlos/2012/08/22/five-reasons-why-google-android-versus-apple-ios-market-share-numbers-dont-matter/

[Renton 21450]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've not even looked at the iPhone 5 yet, dont even know what it looks like tbh, read about the features etc and it seems that is caught up with Android, Jelly Bean may be better and the Siri voice thing probably favour iOS 6 for now in only that regard.

 

However, i prefer Apple as a business. They make things and are clear about what they do. Google wants to be ubiquitous so it can sell you stuff you dont want or need through targeted adverts. You've got to pay for everything either way, either by being forced to watch adverts or by paying for stuff in a store. Apple supports the app developers and has 20 times the revenue for the developer community, it supports musicians and artists, Match is now apparently a massive income stream for artists who have had their music pirated over the years. Its basically a great company and a great stock. Google is dwarfed by Apple financially but are trying to catch up and their holy grail is taking their advertising model and translating it to the mobile platform. I am fascinated to see what comes out of Project Glass but then i dont think it will matter to Apple being a market follower in this area, in fact it will be an advantage.

 

But if Apple make their money on the hardware what happens when their hardware is rightfully percieved as inferior to the opposition, despite charging a large premium? I can't see that model working in the longer term, and without Jobs, who says they will get their mojo back. You know fine well business is cyclical and in this case we've seen how Apple fared without Jobs before.

[ChezGiven 0]

Click on the link and look at the figures, this is the world's most valuable company for a reason.

 

Who is the competition? Who is going to knock them off their financial perch and innovate them out of the market? Google?

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/benzingainsights/2012/08/01/is-samsung-leaving-android-for-windows-phone-8/

 

Are you sure about that?

[Renton 21450]

But the hardware war (where Apple gets its profits) isn't Apple vs Google, its Apple versus Everyone else. Anyway, IoS is really looking tired now.

[ChezGiven 0]

http://www.androidauthority.com/apple-iphone-5-vs-samsung-galaxy-s3-114213/

 

The Conclusion

 

 

So what do all the chapters above add up to? Which one is better: the Galaxy S3 or the iPhone 5? Well, I know most of you were hoping for a definitive answer, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s really all about personal preference!

 

The Samsung Galaxy S3 has the advantage of a bigger display and an array of customizations that can be made thanks to its Android operating system.

 

The Apple iPhone 5 has the advantage of a better optimized ecosystem, no LTE compromises, as well as slightly better internal specs.

[Renton 21450]

As well as no meaningful upgrade for 2 years and the pleasure of paying 50% more.

[ChezGiven 0]

But the hardware war (where Apple gets its profits) isn't Apple vs Google, its Apple versus Everyone else. Anyway, IoS is really looking tired now.

Its not, iOS 6 will roll out to all iPhone users, all iPad users, all iPod touch users, except for the few with very old models. iOS 6 is as good as Jelly Bean, apart from the odd feature better on each side. Jelly Bean will reach 7% of users because the manufacturers 1) control the upgrades and 2) dont want you to upgrade instead of buying a new handset.

 

Apple makes money on the handsets, then on everything you buy on the handset. Its why despite a market share ahead of Apple, Samsung is not making as much money. Thats the point.

[ChezGiven 0]

As well as no meaningful upgrade for 2 years and the pleasure of paying 50% more.

Each OS is an upgrade, with the specs inside the phone far beyond what is needed for the average user. Not one app written for Android can fully utilise the specs inside the S3, the specs inside the iphone 5, according to that Android site are better than the S3.