back to article How Apple won the West (and lost the world)

The spread of high-end smart phones throughout the rich, developed world is largely made possible by expensive data plans. Such plans enable carriers to subsidise expensive iPhones and Android devices, to the point that even a big swath of teenagers in the Western world can realistically plan to buy iPhones and iPads. Small …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    ... is still busy wondering where the next meal is coming from to really care about which

    Smartphone OS is the better. A smartphone is simply another consumer toy for kidults with spare cash to burn. In the scheme of things they're irrelevant.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If you think that smartphones are irrelevant then I've got a bridge to sell you, or possibly some shares in a pocket calculator or GPS company.

      Combining basically everything an early 2000's era PC can do into a platform you can put in your pocket is hardly irrelevant. Access to the internet from wherever you are is something that I can't really put a value on, I really don't think I could do without it having now had it for 4+ years.

      However, troll. Consider yourself fed.

      1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: that early 2000's era PC

        That's "everything except display a picture more than three inches wide and/or let you type anything in". I know the CPU power and RAM are there, but *unless* you are a mindless consumer of low quality versions of someone else's content, you'll need a PC as well as a smartphone.

        Furthermore, if you can only afford one, you'll go for the PC if you have anything at all between your ears.

        1. Giles Jones Gold badge

          Looking at recent Android phones I get the impression that they will grow until they're the size of small tablets. My old Nokia 9210i brick will soon look small.

        2. Ted T.

          If you had ever used an iPhone, you'd know that it can be hooked up to a 1080P display as huge as you want, wired or wirelessly and you can use a Bluetooth keyboard for your input. But hey, hurling insults is more fun than those pesky facts, huh?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "iPhone ... hooked up to a 1080P display"

            And if you'd ever looked outside the Church of Jobs, you'd perhaps know that some Android phones can do that too.

            Better be careful when making comments about the difference between facts and insults, yeah? :)

          2. Simon Neill
            FAIL

            Pockets.

            You must have pockets as big as guybrush threepwood if you can lug that lot around on the move.

            For computing on the move I have a laptop. I have a smartphone and never use it. Its too small and fiddly. Lets not forget the fact that 95% of my e-mails require me to be in work to deal with anyway.

            Then I would reiterate what someone said above - when I'm not working or sat at my PC I don't WANT to be working or sat at a PC, hence the only time I have EVER used my phone is when I was trapped on transport and bored. Not worth the price of a jesus phone for that.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        PoV

        "If you think that smartphones are irrelevant then I've got a bridge to sell you, or possibly some shares in a pocket calculator or GPS company."

        They're irrelevant to me.

        "Access to the internet from wherever you are is something that I can't really put a value on"

        I can, and it's negative. I'm very happy indeed to be free of the endless pipe of distracting third-rate shit that is the Internet when I knock off or go on holiday. You could not give me a smartphone for exactly this reason; they're a ball and chain around the leg of your life.

        "I really don't think I could do without it having now had it for 4+ years." I'm sure you couldn't. I'm also sure that the quality of your life has gone down in the last 4+ years as a result.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @Robert Long 1

          Really couldn't agree more.

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          I have to say that the PuTTY client on my Symbian smartphone has come in handy several times.

          On the other hand, that's the only app I run on my smartphone that didn't have a usable equivalent on my previous "feature" phone. And I could live without it.

          I've browsed through Symbian app collections, and seen nothing that interested me. Out of curiosity I've read articles here and elsewhere on top apps for other phone OSes, and none of those looked desirable either.

          So I'm with Robert Long on this too. Maybe some can't imagine life without their smartphones. Some days I forget to turn mine on, and I don't miss it.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @anon coward

        "Access to the internet from wherever you are is something that I can't really put a value on,"

        Really? Perhaps you need to get a life in that case.

        "However, troll. Consider yourself fed."

        So a net addict thinks I'm a troll. Now thats funny :)

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        You don't need a smartphone for that

        feature phones have been able to surf the web quite nicely for years before the smartphone came about. The main advantage of a smartphone is the screen size, not the CPU, not the apps, not the OS, not the fruity logo on the back. Once larger touch screen prices drop low enough to supply the sub $10 phone market then features phones will have browsing on par with most smartphones.

      5. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

        Irrelevant to me

        I haven't got a smart phone, don't need one and don't feel the need for one, so why would I spend money on having one? I'm sure the third and developing world market has less money and more pressing needs than I have and the reason people in the west cannot live without smart phones is that we haven't more important things to concern ourselves with.

        Give a man a fishing rod and he can feed his family. Give that man a smart phone and he can update his Facebook status while his family dies around him.

        1. Charles 9

          How about...

          ...give a man a smartphone and he'll be able to look up not just how to find a good rod cheap but also where is a good place to fish? Knowledge is power, and fishing smart can be more productive than fishing hard.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            A feature phone will do the same

            They have browsers too, and some quite good ones. The difference is that with a feature phone you aren't forced to subscribe to a data plan as you are with smartphones on many carriers so many people don't even realize their phone can be used for web browsing.

            1. Peter 48
              Stop

              still need data

              Data usage isn't limited to smartphones. A feature phone will use just as much data when used in the same manner as a smart phone so a data plan will be just as important. Unless you like paying through the nose per KB you use to view a website.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And yet...

      ..you still found time to read an article on the subject and post a comment. Go figure...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @boltar

      "A smartphone is simply another consumer toy for kidults with spare cash to burn. In the scheme of things they're irrelevant."

      Do you really think that items bought for pleasure are only for kids?

      If that's true then I can only assume you stopped smiling and became an tedious and joyless bore on your 18th birthday.

    4. No, I will not fix your computer
      Stop

      Any phone?

      In many developing countries phones are being used to deliver micropayments where bank accounts and physical cash are uncommon, you can pay for water from a group well etc. using your phone, these phones are typically very cheap, supporting just SMS text.

      However, as manufacturing gets cheaper, you have smart[er] phones getting cheap[er], you can buy an unlocked, dual sim Android 2.2 smartphone, with TV, camera and 3.2" HVGA screen for about £50 (no 3G!), OK that's quite a bit more than $25 - but the point is there's a huge gap between what's available and what people actually buy.

  2. Bronek Kozicki
    Thumb Up

    more of this please

    just to remind us that our navel-gazing habit is not that relevant for the majority of global population, while voting with wallet customers actually are.

  3. Notorious Biggles
    FAIL

    Fact Check

    "which continue to buy Symbian feature phones en masse"

    Er, I think you'll find that Symbian is a smartphone operating system with a lot of features that iOS lacks even today.

    1. Ilgaz

      suspected a virus

      When I saw android "system" (kernel etc) use 20% of battery coming from symbian, I immediately thought I got infected by a Trojan and did insane checks even including a clam check of sd.

      Guess my shock when I saw a screenshot of a monitor utility showing exactly same usage. Thanks Elop(!) for sending us to google.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      I've noticed a lot of people say that Symbian isn't a smartphone platform. They usually base in on the 'fact' that it has fewer apps that the iPhone.

      Most people who refer to Symbian as merely a feature phone platform are American, or so I've noticed.

      I still smart when I think of what Microsoft did to Sendo, and all for a dead platform. At least Symbian has outlived Windows Mobile!

  4. Jim Coleman
    Thumb Up

    Nokia

    I reckon this is where Nokia will win big - once the Tango version of WP7 has made it onto Nokia's low-end phones, they will be in a position to flood the emerging markets with REALLY cheap smartphones with the Nokia branding that these markets are still in love with.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Summary

    People with less money buy cheaper phones. I dare say this insight is as true in 'the West' as it is in 'the developing world'. And I'm willing to bet that if someone figures out how to build a worthwhile device for $25, then that will sell well in 'the West' too.

    The point about subsidising purchases with data plans is true only if you ignore all the tablets (and iPod Touches) sold without 3G. That aside, I'm interested in just how a cheap phone manages to pull down a given web page while consuming less data than a pricey phone looking at the same page. Those smartphones and their bloated data appetites!

    1. Paul Shirley

      "how a cheap phone manages to pull down a given web page while consuming less data than a pricey phone looking at the same page"

      ...by NOT pulling down the same page, just some of the same content or the same page after serious server side filtering and reformatting. Or for those of us suffering O2, after every image has been recompressed out of recognition ;(

      It's easy to forget the value of a page is usually the 1% text content not the formatting bloat. If that 1% is the local market prices somewhere in Africa it doesn't matter if the phone skips the other 99%, which is why feature phones are 'good enough' to make a big difference in the developing world. A 16 day standby feature phone is sometimes 16x better than a 1 day life smartphone at any price.

      ...and also why Android penetration will be slower than suggested, low price is nice, efficient use of bandwidth and good battery life is better. Low phone prices can't make up for lack of infrastructure and piss poor power efficiency.

    2. DN4

      @FatsBrannigan

      "And I'm willing to bet that if someone figures out how to build a worthwhile device for $25, then that will sell well in 'the West' too."

      Price is not the problem, it's the form factor.

      A phone is something you can easily carry in your pocket and can make phone calls (sic!) with. It should also endure rough handling.

      A computer is something that can be used for typing and displaying pictures larger than a credit card.

      So if smartphones are cheap and the only type of phone I can buy I might start using them -- for phone calls. Similarly to how I use maybe 5% of my dumbphone functions now.

  7. Gil Grissum
    Pint

    If Android's "revolution" is the ability to put cheap, buggy smartphones into the hands of emerging markets, I think that's great for those emerging markets. Apple has made no secret of the fact that their products are not cheap and therefore not aimed at the masses. That doesn't make them any more perfect than Android. You get what you pay for.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I've only got a small one.

    "I'm rich and I don't need to use it very often so my small iPhone suits me."

    That seems to be the marketing linguo now.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Every week another exercise in philosophy from this guy.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    And The Rich People In Dirt Poor Countries

    ..will buy iPhones as feverishly as the buy BMWs and Mercedess. And certainly does Mercedes influence the cheaper brands, as they lead they way in new technologies such as ABS (now a standard feature with many brands), automatic distance control, brake assisstants and so on.

    The same is with the iPhone. When can geeks learn something about markets ? Social affairs are not a one-size-fits-all thing. Market segmentation is a widely observed phenomenon and it does not mean the smaller players are irrelevant. Even if you have a 1% player like Linux it is relevant, as it demonstrates to the 90% players how efficient things could actually be done. (e.g. with software repositories, rebootless updating, efficient+ unified autoupdating).

  11. twilkins
    WTF?

    So the world's poor are rushing out to buy a Blackberry - a device that needs not just a data plan, but a special data plan in order to function correctly?

    Is there a SIM free Blackberry available for less than the £89 that the Orange San Francisco costs?

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      No, but the Blackberry Curve 8520 is £120, and that is what the chavs use to organise their riots, not the Orange San Francisco.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "the Blackberry Curve 8520 is £120, and that is what the chavs use to organise their riots, not the Orange San Francisco."

        And the reason behind the preference for Blackberry, or so one reads in the papers, is that Blackberries are regarded as "more secure" (against iPlod eavesdropping, etc) than classical GSM/3G stuff (e.g. the £100 ZTE Blade/Orange San Francisco/etc).

        But is there any truth in this?

        There are countries where Blackberries have blocked from sale, awaiting interception agreements and capabilities for the local law enforcement.

        I can't really see that they'd be on sale in the UK if such a capability didn't already exist somewhere, though whether it would be admitted to in public is a different question.

        If such a capability existed in the UK, but it was desirable to keep its existence quiet, would it have been used to help quell the riots?

        Anyone know any good pubs in Cheltenham, or do I need to be down the Smoke, guvnor?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          if such a capability didn't already exist

          It does of course. The UK government has always had access to the RIM servers in this country. AFAIK the reason the countries block sale of these handsets is because RIM has no servers on their territory and the secret police et al can't access the IM/email servers hosted in another country.

          As soon as RIM agree to place the hardware in the country in question they allow the service.

          I'm not a Blackberry user but as I recall the reason the rioters favour Blackberry is because the RIM IM system is closed to anything other than RIM devices and not open to all as is Twitter, Facebook, Plod etc.

  12. jai

    but how?

    I get that Android is going to be the most used OS in the future, but what I don't get is why it's such a big deal?

    Sure, 90% of the world is going to be using it, but it's going to be on products made by dozens of different brands, all trying to undercut each other, cutting costs by cutting quality and features. The profit margins for Android device manufacturers are only going to get worse. And all the while, Apple will be raking in money hand over fist and continuing to produce devices of a high quality and standard.

    I'm not seeing where the upside is here for the likes of Samsung and HTC and so on. From this article, they are promised a world of pain in the future, while Apple has it easy and doesn't need to worry about catering to the developing markets who can't afford fully featured devices.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's Foxconn not Apple that has anything to do with the quality of the iFoxconn phone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        That doesn't explain the Dell stuff that goes though fox con. Just another Apple hater (it is the reg here, right, or are we on ZD net, CNET, oh whatever they are all full of lame Apple haters.)

  13. ScissorHands
    Unhappy

    And yet when Nokia kept talking for years and years about exactly the same strategy, then with J2ME S30/S40, now with WP7 Tango and Maemo7 Meltemi, the anglo-saxon blogger elite rolled their eyes in bewilderment ("They're Finns, who cares about Nigeria/Guatemala/Bangladesh?")

  14. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Or for those who can afford iOS-roids...

    I prefer my J2ME phone since it's pretty established with a good amount of applications out there. Though I see a number of J2ME developers disappearing, which is sad, but a few new ones here and there. Bermin, maker of the great MobyToday and MobyExplorer software, for instance, has just up and disappeared, leaving their signed application installers to expire and leave us languishing. On the other hand, there are plenty of J2ME games out there, like Angry Birds, UNO, Pac-Man, even newer titles like Tron, Tin Tin, Immortals, Assassin's Creed, and others.

    Er, well, I've traded some applications for games. *sigh* But there's still the excellent MGmaps software, Opera Mini, RDP clients, MiniCommander, and MidPSSH, all well-worth buying or supporting.

    The short of all that: I don't *need* a smart phone when my Sony Ericsson can easily do most of the things a smart phone can, and all of the things I need my phone to do. And I don't have to buy a smart phone data plan, to boot.

    Paris, all the things I need.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "pricey data plans to subsidise the hardware."

    Are you serious?

    Outside the corporate market, how many people are still using contract phones, never mind contracts for data?

    You can buy a ZTE Blade for £100 (or so) on PAYG. That pays for the phone, no operator subsidy needed.

    And a lot of people are buying Blade-like phones, WITHOUT a contract, and it's highly likely more will do so with the next generation.

    For some of these users, It may be that when they realise data costs them a lot, and that 3G coverage is mostly useless, they revert to using their smartphone as a dumbphone, but they'll have bought into the concept.

    1. Paul Shirley

      Pretty much all American phone owners. Their networks have screwed them badly, incompatible networks - both with the rest of the world and each other to limit choice and prevent switching network, plans that often charge more if you bring your own phone and pricing European carriers can only dream of.

      And a depressing number of my acquaintances. Notably the couple of iPhone owners.

      Even here sharp eyed users are hopping from deal to deal as the loss leading subsidies rotate between devices. If I used more than 10min,200SMS/year I would have been better off getting my Xperia Play on contract! The margins can be that close.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        But but but but

        How can what you describe possibly be happening in the free market ?

        It's almost as if the ultimate goal of unregulated corporate capitalism is not fair trade, but monopoly, and if monopoly is too hard, a cartel will do.

        But that surely couldn't happen in the Land of the Free? Could it?

        1. Figgus
          FAIL

          Well, since regulations alloted the bandwidth and regulations ensure that only a few major players can exist in the wireless market, I would put for that it is regulation that actually CAUSED this oligopoly. The big players have been given huge chunks of spectrum, and the small players cannot break into the market.

          1. Charles 9

            What would you rather have?

            America (especially conservative Americans) doesn't like government control of things. They sold the spectrum on the market, and things simply gravitated. Trouble is, fairness and competition tend to have large areas of exclusivity. Unless competition is cutthroat, there's no incentive to be better, yet this cutthroat competition inevitably causes things to gravitate towards having winners and losers, which is inherently unfair. People have been trying to mull that problem long before America came about.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              "having winners and losers, which is inherently unfair. "

              Why is "having winners and losers" inherently unfair, as long as the players understand and accept the rules, and the rules themselves aren't inherently unfair?

              AMD (and customers) lost out to Intel at Dell, because both Intel and Dell broke the rules.

              If all three had played by the rules, and fair rules had been fairly enforced, somone might still have come 2nd, but why would it have been inherently unfair?

              [random example, other examples may apply]

            2. Spanners Silver badge
              Happy

              @charles 9

              I may not live in the"Land of the Free" but it doesn't sound so free unless you are a big corporation.

              I would rather have what must be some commie plot where all the companies have to compete with each other and an unlocked phone will connect to whichever company supplies the SIM card in it.

              I would also prefer to carry on using the same system as the vast majority of the rest of the planet. I suppose that is why I like using metric. This way the only people I have to convert things for are the elderly, the stupid and Americans.

            3. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              >America (especially conservative Americans) doesn't like government control of things.

              Sorry for the tangent, but conservative America has brought us wonderful small government like a huge military that doesn't shrink much in time of peace, massive police powers to fight the war on drugs, the largest buracracy in history called the dept. of homeland security. Conservative America likes big government, just not big government that helps the little people.

              Anyway to further the discussion, I like my iPhone. I write apps for it. Many people like iPhones and they buy apps which helps me buy toys. What's the big deal?

          2. TheOtherHobbbes

            You're confusing regulation

            with physics.

            Spectrum is a physically limited resource, so it has to be managed. It's not physically practical to make it a free for all, and given the cost of entry involved in building physical networks, there's absolutely no way a tiny start-up could squeeze into the market space.

            *Good* regulation would have enforced interoperability and set a ceiling on consumer prices (just like the EU did for roaming charges.) The cellcos would whine about this, but there's no reason they couldn't stay profitable - just as they have in the EU.

            US-style "regulation" is really just an eBay sale of critical infrastructure, and is barely recognisable as regulation at all.

            1. Figgus

              @TheOtherHobbbes

              I understand the difference between the two, but when the spectrum was allocated in great swathes instead of smaller segments (to encourage microcells) and when a lot of the allocated spectrum goes unused, then I can safely say it was regulation, not physics, that is to blame.

              Put another way: within the limitations of physics, the regulation wasn't very efficient. See also: Lightsquared.

  16. fearnothing

    "Er, I think you'll find that Symbian is a smartphone operating system with a lot of features that iOS lacks even today."

    I think you'll find that Symbian is a family of operating systems that includes S60 (smartphone OS), S^3 (less common smartphone OS) and the incredibly popular S40 (feature phone OS). Cheap and cheerful Nokia? It'll be running Symbian series 40 OS unless it's really old. And there are millions upon millions of those in circulation.

    1. Markl2011
      Boffin

      i think you'll find

      ...that S60 is a software stack running on top Symbian, of which S^3 is the latest iteration and S40 is Nokia's mid teir os and has nothing to do with Symbian.

  17. Dana W
    Meh

    Losing all the way to the bank.

    Who cares?

    So what if Apple is not shooting to be the most used OS? They don't need to be or want to be, the margin is terrible.

    They are inanely profitable off their market sector. Why would they want to join the race to the bottom for phones with microscopic margins? To keep their percentage they have to keep improving what they do for the top market, all Android has to do is see how cheap they can get so they can give them out free with phone subscriptions.

    Lets hope it stays that way, we all know what its like when only one company has the market.. Stagnation and mediocrity. We don't need a replay of the 90's in cell phones.

    1. deadlockvictim

      Short term gain, long term loss

      Being the most used of anything is good news. You lead and others follow. Look at Microsoft.

      Apple were also insanely profitable with their Macs some 20 years ago, but they chose high profit margins to market share (which was theirs fir the taking at the time, if they had had cheaper macs).

      It all went pear-shaped in the 1990s and suddenly they found that being a bit-player in the market wasn't very nice. If the Saviour™ [1] hadn't come along, Apple would be taking its place along side Acorn, Spectrum, Sun and other dead computer manufacturers.

      [1] Dying is no big deal, just get reborn.

      1. John Molloy
        Pint

        Short sightedness...

        "Apple were also insanely profitable with their Macs some 20 years ago, but they chose high profit margins to market share"

        Actually it was a different Apple, one full of bean counters and sugar water salesmen, basically bit players who didn't understand the market.

        For all your sarcasm about Jobs, you have forgotten his best creation: the new Apple, the largest tech company in the world, ain't going to roll over this time. It's not that Jobs came back, it is what his management team have done over the last 15 years, but ignore that and just rely on usual British sarcasm, that'll fix it.

  18. the-it-slayer
    Facepalm

    Obvious article of the month award?

    Wow. Didn't really know you needed stats to prove this theory. It really makes sense on basic logic sense without numbers.

    Expensive smartphone to developed countries = relatively cheap compared to income

    Expensive smartphone to developing countries = relatively expensive but not unreachable

    Expensive smartphone to under-developed countries = out of this world expensive and unobtainable

    Technology from 5 - 10 years ago is moderately cheap and developing countries will work on a time-lapse on comparison to developed countries. You only have to look at the western world vs Japan. Again, that's another 5 year gap technology wise.

    Essentially, people feel they need to buy smartphones in the western world because they're in the in thing (aka fashion). Some people follow it, some don't. They ones that scream (you don't need a smartphone) obviously don't. But I don't blame you because you just need a functioning phone/text messaging machine which doesn't need recharging every 6 hours.

    I still wish we lived in the world of 3210/3310s though.

  19. Ilgaz

    What else?

    I am stuck to an edge connection now and I am browsing with arguably one of best mobile (real) browsers named opera mobile, turbo (data compression) enabled. I get almost apple phone like browsing experience using a $200 huawei handset. If that idiot didn't declare platform dead and caused massive leave from platform, I would have upgraded to Nokia E7.

    It isn't like I am poor, I am just against spending way too much for a smart phone or a computer.

    I keep seeing old Symbian guys everywhere in Android land and just like old days, they have no problem spending money for quality software.

    Speaking of J2Me, only tens of software houses, most visible Opera is aware of the potential and they make something which deserves a UN award for enabling web for masses.

    The product which supposedly enable open web for all doesn't work with 256mb RAM android handsets and rejects less featured handsets. Glad I didn't donate to you Mozilla.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just goes to prove

    ...there aren't a lot of baristas in the 3rd world

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @llgaz "It isn't like I am poor"

    Just tight then?

    1. LaeMing
      Go

      Denegrating people for not wanting to over-spend!

      It is what made the western economies what they are today!

    2. Ilgaz

      You will send me food after reading this

      Every second I use the Android handset, I see what J2ME could be if it wasn't under hands of Sun and lately. I don't talk about the ASM/C coded .so stuff, it is just UI code/framework and arguably better development environment which enables all these developers. Obviously a stable company like Google helps too.

      Anyway, what I am trying to say is... If all companies involved in J2ME (except developers) weren't stupid, I wouldn't buy Android, I would buy a decent J2ME having handset. I remember how great was my Sony Ericsson K700i experience.

      All I do on phone is push mail, web browsing (mobile sites) and sports tracking/gps navigation. Believe or not, all are possible with J2ME. Non technological issues preventing it. Ask MS what would they do if they had billion devices wondering around with some sort of mini .NET.

      Anyway I am kind of a strange guy who sees seriously missed opportunity with Desktop Java too...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There you have it!

      Much as I appreciate you made a joke, the serious side is that that kind of attitude is what is getting us a bloody nose from the tiger economies.

      We see spending as a way of life here in the West and if you don't keep up with the Jones', even when you can't afford to, you're seen as some kind of loser or tight-arse. Sorry but if we want to get out of the rut we all helped create, not just the greedy bankers, we all need to be a bit more like a ducks-arse I'm afraid!

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Geeks and people just upgrading (as cheaply as possible) their candy bar Nokia to 'something that looks like an iPhone' buy Android - everyone else wants / buys an iPhone.

    Most non-geek people do not refer to 'tablets' they call them iPads - it's pretty much become a verb.

    1. Ben Tasker
      Stop

      Not in my experience - most non-geeks who've asked my advice have asked about "tablets". Some have even explicitly said "not an iPad".

      I also know of a lot of people who got shot of their iPhones because they considered them "shit".

      If iOS works for you, great, but dont assume that everyone will trade down for shinies, even amongst the tech illiterate.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Ben Tasker

        I moved over from an iPhone to Android, not because Apple was particularly bad but as a geek I wanted better value for money. I want to do more things like out of the box WiFi hotspot for my laptop and Android tablet. I want to be able to play with a little bit of Android development, not necessarily release anything publicly. With Apple you do what you're told. With Android you can do what you're told if you don't want to but no one will call you a trouble maker if you want to play with the gadget you spent your hard earned wonga on.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Did you use the iPhone?

          "out of the box WiFi hotspot": Just got my first iphone, turned on "Settings::Personal Hot Spot" and, goodness, it just worked. Oddly, everything did as expected, without any need for the manual. Even odder, I have not charged the thing for two days and have still got 40% battery, despite reasonable, mixed use.

          By the way, talking to someone managing development in a firm specialising in Android and Symbian app development (but not for IOS), I learnt that Android APIs are awkward as they are unstable and inconsistent from release to release, requiring a lot of trial and error by programmers.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        odd

        I could be claissified as a "geek" (love command line UNIX (not some ghastly Linus GUI and broken Bash), used to programme X.25, X.400, even some VMS and Primos stuff, think Perl is easy. I have a few acquaintances and friends of similar bent and grown-up children who seem to be keen on tablets and smartphones. I am surrounded by colleagues of all ages who work in IT, not just posture about it. I travel between UK and the continental country in which I live and work.

        Now, why that preamble? Because I think your "sample" must be odd, small and highly selective, if not fictional. My youngest daughter bought some "cheap" tablet (price grounds) whose make I forget - it's all right, but very limited. Every single other owner of a tablet whom I know (I have not got one, no use for one) and all those I see on the commute to work every day (commuter transport is a very good sample point as it is full of people trying to use their time productively or for entertainment) have got an iPad. iPhones are not as universal; but apart from a few who just want to be anti, the rest are about 50-50 iPhone:"other", with those "other" of my personal acquaintance buying "other" on price "but it looks like an iPhone", never on functionality grounds. and very many sticking with their Nokia or similar.

        So what anyway? Are you as rabid over your make of shirts, fridge, cup? Do you buy "ugly" and marry "ugly" to avoid "shinies"? I known no one, no, not one, who says "anything but an i*". I know a couple who got shot of their Androids, none who got shot of iPhones (except for a newer one), not that that has anything to do with anything.

        Buy what suits your wallet, your taste and your needs. Nothing is perfect, except idiocy. Or even, heresy, do not buy at all.

        1. Ben Tasker

          Oddly enough, most saying "not an i*" are doing so because they used (however briefly, I don't know) one and didn't like it. I don't doubt at least a few probably also said it on the basis of seeing them everywhere and wanting something different.

          Who said anything about avoiding "shinies", I simply said that not everyone buys _just_ because it is shiny.

          Sample definitely isn't fictional, though in a Global or even national sense it is fairly small. That said, it is very varied as personnel here tend to change very regularly and have a variety of backgrounds. So whilst not exactly up to the exacting standards of a scientific study, it's not a bad sample to work with - can only use what I've experienced after all.

          I'm also far from Rabid, I'd use an iPad/iPhone if they suited taste/wallet/needs but as they don't I don't. Perhaps one day they will, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that.

          In all fairness, we can all sit at our keyboards and say "but I've seen......", the point I was trying to make is that the OP was making an assumption that just doesn't stick. Some just don't want Apple gear (for whatever reason), some don't want Google gear, and most don't want Windows Phone (Sorry - hard to resist!).

          As I said before, if you're happy with an iPhone good for you. I know plenty who haven't been just as I know people that are. In terms of outright user satisfaction the one person I know who's 100% happy with his gear is an Apple User, though he does tend to wait until some of the kinks are worked out.

    2. Ilgaz

      They are upgrading to Android for a reason

      Right now, it isn't mature as Symbian but you can do almost all Symbian things (and more) on Android.

      All theme guys, advanced software guys (e.g. Melon mobile) are slowly moving to Android for this reason since nobody wants to "hack" a phone just to get different icons. I was amazed when I noticed even "Dialer" of Android can be replaced without any hacks or some $10.000 tier 1 certificate.

      Of course, the OS isn't mature as Symbian yet so nobody should blindly buy their Symbian apps thinking it is exactly the same functionality. Happens to lot of people.

      One of the most active areas of Symbian development were themes. While Android doesn't have the maturity of Nokia UI (no vectors yet I think), what would a Nokia/Symbian user even have software to change theme twice a day based on day/night use? Windows phone? He/She will change what? Tile font? Blue colour? Not like they are allowed.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        change theme twice a day

        "what would a Nokia/Symbian user even have software to change theme twice a day based on day/night use?"

        I can't quite parse that into English, but my ancient Symbian-based Nokia E71 (bought 2nd hand a year ago after I tried and disliked Android 2.1) is allegedly able to change theme twice a day based on business/pleasure use.

        Is that the kind of thing you were saying was Android-only?

    3. puffspluslotion

      Someone else might have mentioned this but I don't feel like reading these long apple vs android vs other comments. I think you mean noun not verb. I have never heard anyone say they are going to iPad. Also, if you did mean noun, there is no "pretty much," iPad is a noun, it's a proper name for a specific kind of tablet computer.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I can, and it's negative. I'm very happy indeed to be free of the endless pipe of distracting third-rate shit that is the Internet when I knock off or go on holiday. You could not give me a smartphone for exactly this reason; they're a ball and chain around the leg of your life."

    Yeah and who needs fire, or the wheel or any of that new fangled stuff - bah humbug.

    Maybe it's the user not the tool - used correctly a smartphone can save you a lot of time and be genuinely useful - to most people.

  24. kurkosdr

    Android is not just smartphones...

    ... it has already grown to "hybrid" tablets like the Transformer Prime. Where you have a proper screen and keyboard and everything to replace your Windows PC (and the complex UI it comes with). Windows has become so small in terms of bundled functionality (no office suite, no image editor, no audio editor and a terrible video editor that can't save to MP4) that once Android gets decent office, imaginb and multimedia apps it's game over for old Windows. On related news, Adobe released Photoshop Express for Android and videolan is working on an Android version of VLC.

    Ballmer is hoping that Android will get stuck on smartphones and all Hubrids will be Windows 8 tablets, however Android has already captured 20% of tablet sales from statistical noise it was some years ago.

    Apple is smarter and bundleslots of functionality into OS X, to protect canibalization from hybrids.

    1. dogged

      "so small in terms of bundled functionality "

      I think that may have something to do with all the anti-trust lawsuits that somehow Apple and Google aren't getting.

  25. honkj

    seriously, did you just use the "feature phone" market

    seriously, did you just use the "feature phone" market as a comparison to Smartphones?

    Apple has no interest in the "feature phone" market, and is making 90% of the Manufacture profits for a reason... they can barely build the things fast enough as it is, and you want them to compete with feature phones?

  26. Maverick
    Thumb Down

    @ Green Banana

    "And The Rich People In Dirt Poor Countries

    ..will buy iPhones as feverishly as the buy BMWs and Mercedess."

    assuming you mean Mercedes then if you ever bought one of those over priced pieces of crap then you'd know you were talking utter BOLLOCKS

    go ahead & buy a western badged, over priced piece of crap made in cheap labour countries (to the major detriment of workers there) but please don't fool yourself about the quality eh?

    wish I had a £1 (or €1.20) for every iPhone user I had heard screaming at their phone for being unable to pick up a call / hold onto a call

    TBH if my Nokia 6210 had BT (for hands free car use) it would never have left my side, I have a basic BB now and does all I need - BT connection / battery life / address push / basic calendar functions, just a shame it doesn't go all week without charging

    "it's only a phone love"

  27. Dave 126 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Good article, generally poor comments

    That article was a breath of fresh air. Many of the comments were the usual anti/anti-fanboi crap.

    The points raised in the article were thought provoking. Those by many of the commentards were boring.

    To those who think smartphones are toys for the rich: You are mostly right.

    To those who think smartphones can ONLY be toys for the rich: You are wrong.

    Why? Let's all agree here that computers can be useful. In the developing world you are going to want a device that requires as little power as possible, as few materials to make and is robust.

    Looks more like a smartphone than a desktop PC to me. Certainly a battery seems a good idea for those who don't have a wall socket (or a wall, even) to call their own.

    Screw the smartphone/computer definition: Talk in terms of who the person is, what do they require, and what device will accomplish this.

    Take the way that in many countries, mobile phone use has 'leapfrogged' that of landlines, and use it as a starting point of your thought.

    Go and read some Arthur C Clarke. His dream of geostationary satellites allowing the distribution of useful (ie, health, medical, politcal) news to widely spread populations without an existing infrastructure, for example. It might have veered towards what he feared- "the peddling of soap" - but at least he was thinking.

    Here we were, faced with an article that should have made see a bigger picture, and we were mostly repeating the same old shit.

    To those who responded in the spirit of the article, I'm sorry your wheaty comments were lost in the chaff

  28. NotTellinYou
    FAIL

    This is good?

    Do we really think it's a good that people making $2 a day are getting sucked into a phone that cost two months salary never mind a data plan. Add to this the availability of a place to change the phone and quality signal and exactly what are these people supposed to do? They're not going to buy anything on-line.

    Look, I've been to some pretty poor areas of a lot of countries even Brazil has mass poverty that I never imagined until I saw it. The goal TO ME shouldn't be to congratulate ourselves for providing cheap phones but rather life these people out of poverty and don't even start that "technology divide" BS...go to the hills outside Rio or Sao Paulo and tell me how surfing the web in the darkness of their huts and going to move the needle. We've passed that BS rationalization for technology haven't we?

  29. blueprint
    Facepalm

    Usual load of rubbish and wishful thinking

    While Apple and their 3rd party app developers cream of all the profits there will always be people sniping in the background, willing their pet crapola open source hobby horse to magically win some bigger than yours contest with iPhone/iPad/iWhatever and hopefully make them some money in the process.

    Missing the point, the very fact that it is the people with little money to spare who are the ones buying either Android or something else equally half-baked means that there's no chance of making a killing on the back of e.g. Android marketshare. The spare money floating around just isn't there, it's with the premium brand, in this case Apple's iWhatever.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Andoid vs iOS

    The problem is with the great unwashed who really don't want to know how the device works they just want to use it. These people are the ones who really believe that clicking on a web page that is saying their computer is infected please click here to clean is going to help them, for these people security needs to be taken out of there hands.

    Look at all the botnets and millions of infected windows computers around the world, this is because Microsoft produced operating systems that were easy to use first and security was way down the list so unless you know what you are doing and are able to harden your own security you were bound to get infected.

    I think Tablets are brilliant for these kinds of users who just want to browse the web and check their email, but they need to be made secure, which at the moment Android is failing.

  31. jbuk1
    FAIL

    Guess what, I'm still using a monochrome nokia 1110.

    The standby time is measured in weeks, it texts, it makes phone calls and I've never yet once found myself out and about and realising that I was missing something an iPhone would have given me.

    I'm just chuffed at the end of a long night that I can still call a cab while all the iphones around me have died from being fondled all night.

    The most important feature for me on a phone is still the ability to make a call.

    1. Rob Davis

      Still love my Nokia 5500 sport (symbian s60 v3)

      +1 for your comment about the 1110.

      Even though I have an Android phone, I take my 5500 with me when I go to the beach. It's Symbian/S60 inside its fairly rugged form and with GPRS I can check my train times online for the journey home.

      I love it that it is basic but Facebook, email also work well on it. I'm not precious about the odd grain of sand scratching the casing. It's had its casing and keys replaced a few times, cheaply, thanks to spares on ebay. The only original parts are the logic board and screen and camera.

      Such a shame Symbian seems to have been declared dead by Nokia's leadership - for people like me who might enjoy the freedom of simplicity from time to time - and for the developing countries where a healthy market still exists for cheap and power frugal handsets.

      If Nokia don't want all those symbian phones and indeed pre-Symbian such as the classic 1110, 3210s then why don't Casio buy them? Given that Casio make cashier machines and that mobile is the first form of internet for many developing countries - and a means to transmit money, I can see that Casio would bring some new ideas to the table.

      1. Ilgaz

        Casio makes phones

        they do make some amazing phones with seriously unique specs (water resistant!) but for some odd reason, they don't release them outside Japan.

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "emerging economies may be much wiser with their limited incomes than the developed world has been with its bloated wallets"

    I understood that the Far East was doing this in all walks of life, not just gadgets. Their economies are booming and they want the best for their kids and their old age so they are scrimping and saving like crazy to make sure they do not end up like their parents did back in the 60s.

  33. Mick Sheppard
    Facepalm

    Point .. missed

    Apple don't care about world domination. They care about protecting their investment and selling their kit to people that can afford them.

    Google don't care about what devices Android is available on, or how poor the experience is, as long as they are able to extend their advertising reach through them.

    The Android handset manfacturers don't care about Android other than its given then a low cost way to add smart phone features to cheap phones.

    Android phones were always going to outsell iOS phones.

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