Samsung overtakes Apple as world's most profitable mobile phone maker

Re:Samsung overtakes Apple as world's most profitable mobile... by btipling on Saturday July 27, 2013 @09:40AM (#6112840)

You see this too across device types. Some commentators trivialize "marketshare" when talking about iPhone, but when talking about iPads in separate posts, it's all about marketshare. Mental gymnastics.

The remaining goal posts by the way are where apps get built first and general app quality. The time that developers move to Android after first making their app on iOS is probably shrinking. The disparity of where apps get made first is also probably shrinking.

Another point about why is Android doing so well: Apple seriously needs to get better at services. They are amazing at hardware, they are great at software that runs on devices, but they have bombed again and again on software that runs as a service in the cloud. This severely limits them. Maps, mobile me, icloud syncing, they have trouble keeping their developer portal up, etc. I believe this is a problem with Apple's culture and what they value. Server software isn't pretty, and it's iterative. That is you bring up something that works, then make it better. Apple's culture is to wow with the first try, but they've been disappointing when it comes to software as a service.

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Re:Samsung overtakes Apple as world's most profitable mobile... by wisty on Saturday July 27, 2013 @02:26PM (#6113860)

Apple doesn't have to get better at service. They just have to make sure that they don't lock other services out (especially when the other vendor is much better than Apple). Google doesn't care if iOS or Android wins - they just want lots of Google services on as many phones as possible. It's in Apple's interests to avoid sinking their platform simply to give their own in-house offerings a leg-up.

I think that's one of the reasons Scott Forstall was forced out. It seems he was backing a lot of Apple's Data / AI / Cloud products, and may have wanted to keep Google out of iOS, in order to give his products an advantage. But Apple doesn't make money on Maps, it makes money selling the phone (and OS, and App store), and it's silly to hamstring your platform simply to give a few second-rate Apps an unfair advantage. (And they were second-rate - anyone who competes with Google's killer apps is taking a crazy risk).

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Re:Samsung overtakes Apple as world's most profitable mobile... by bsaul on Saturday July 27, 2013 @03:07PM (#6114017)

I disagree. The whole philosophy Apple bring to the mobile computer world is vertical integration : you own every layer so that the experience can be perfect. And every people that ever designed any system knows that : if your system needs to integrate with only one other, life is great. Integrate with two,and you're in trouble.

Now, as i already said here, the problem isn't that they need to get better at service, the problem is that they need not to be absolute crap, and get some culture. If Apple Maps was only just as good as bing map, they could have made it. If iCloud was only just as good as dropbox, they could have made it. If "Ping" was only as good as... just any social network you could think of, then it could have leverage the other great apple system.

The problem is that their server side is so bad, it can't even leverage other Apple strengths.

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Re:Samsung overtakes Apple as world's most profitable mobile... by pilsetnieks on Saturday July 27, 2013 @03:54PM (#6114177)

> Google doesn't care if iOS or Android wins

They may care now that they own an Android phonemaker (Motorola.)

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