Why Samsung Androids? Because right now they’re the cheapest phones in their segments. To put it mildly, economy of scale applies to the Android device market — and the absence of any royalty payments for the OS is a nice extra. Operators make more money by selling their clients Androids than on iPhones, BlackBerries, Nokias, and all the rest.
Thus, once consumers arrive in the operator store the clerks efficiently steer them toward the Samsung Androids that make everybody most money. (Unless the consumer demands an iPhone, of course. That short-circuits the plan.)
Many consumers don’t particularly want to surf on their phones, because they don’t see the point and they think it’ll cost them a lot of money (and, especially in the developing world, they are likely right). A friend of mine, who recently got a mid-range Samsung Android with his new contract, explicitly asked me to turn off his Internet access because of the cost.
What I think is happening is that consumers who in the past would have been happy with a mid-range Nokia are now buying mid-range Androids. They don’t really care what kind of phone they have, so they’re willing to take a Galaxy, especially if it’s “free.” But they won’t surf. That’s too expensive.
Guy Kawasaki on Android
Use the best tool is probably the best “tech-philosophy” out there. I think a good deal of company managers forget that most people think like that and assume that consumers are some sort of “herd” you possess and that won’t go away, no matter what stupid decisions you make to screw them over.
I do disagree on Guy on his opinions on widgets and the rest of Android all-over-the-wall approach though. But i strongly feel that it’s basically a matter of personal preferences and focus, not exactly what’s better technological wise. I’m a strong minimalist / just want it to work effectively /no fuss kind of guy when it relates to my phone.
I will rather have a simple cheap phone that does what a phone should do really well than have a crappy cheap Android phone that might be a reasonable pocket computer but a lousy phone. I love general purpose “full computers” but for some items i just want them to work really, really well. No fuss! My brief experiences with iOS were perfect on that matter. My experiences with Android were everything but that.
I have no doubt that my “first” smartphone will be an Android, though. iPhone’s current prices are absurdly expensive for my very slim wallet, and even though i had some hopes for WebOS and Windows Phone 7 (and even Blackberry) they all managed to drop the ball one way or another, (( considering my ideal of a phone )) which is a damn shame. However every time i open up my browser on my carrier’s available smartphones, i never find a single phone that i simultaneously really want or can afford. Maybe Blackberry with its recent skydiving prices and it’s new BB10 OS will do that i strongly doubt it.
PS: For any marketing department out there that somehow want to influence “all of the 20 daily readers” this website has, i’m perfectly happy to receive a free sampling of your smartphone line for analysis! (wink wink)
Stephen Elop interview
I actually think that Windows Phone (WP) is a pretty interesting system. I have however, two very serious concerns about it.
The first one is the future of Windows Phone as Ballmer’s Microsoft chains it to the “big Windows” fate and needs. Windows Phone on its own i could buy into, with scarce concerns. Windows Phone joined at the hips with “big Windows” paints an all new picture. Where will it go from here? Will the interface somehow change? Will the “Windows 8” unique system bring security issues to my phone? Will the lean OS becomes more bloated and messy because of that “one OS for all” approach?
And the second one, is that if Windows Phone is so important to the Windows Division as an enhancer and appealer to the “big Windows”, then how can i be sure of the other OS support for Windows Phone? When i looked up Windows Phone i saw that it had a Mac app, support for contact sync, iTunes sync and albeit still limited then, it seemed that, along with Blackberry, I could count on Windows Phone to seamless interact with my Mac information (something that doesn’t happen with Android if you don’ use Google Accounts or have an expensive third party sync software). But if Windows Phone and ‘big Windows’ are so complementary and important to one another, how can i be sure that that other OS support won’t just disappear in the near future? (( Considering the track record of Microsoft owned Skype regarding Linux support and its utterly unusable Mac version, it’s something that can seriously and honestly raise concerns.))
A rant about fins. And humps.
“When the iPhone 3GS debuted in 2009, critics were similarly unimpressed. Maybe that has something to do with the name. Many people expected Apple to announce a completely redesigned iPhone 5. iPhone 4S sounds much more like a facelift of a current product — which is fair because that’s what it is.”
Five reasons people are calling the iPhone 4S a dud – CNN.com
Words.
Let’s start this rant by reflecting a bit about the nice folks who use words as their tool of trade and yet manage to use them the most incorrect way possible.
Dear CNN:
A facelift, as the word itself implies, is a change in the “face”, and by this we mean the outside, the appearance, the non-fundamental. It came to be known from the automotive industry where roughly at the middle of the expected lifecycle of a car you would change some minor aspects of what the customer saw. And by this we mean both the car body design – such as the headlights design, the bonnet (( hood in the american english )) or simply a pair of new fins – or the interior – the fabric pattern, some new auto-radio or just some differently positioned buttons.
The “inside” of a car, the thing that actually makes a car would remain essentially untouched. And by this we mean the engine, the chassis, the suspension, the electrical components, all of the things that are highly complex to design, test, produce and put together. You see, designing and producing a car takes some hundreds of million dollars just to get the first unit out of the factory, so you don’t want to keep doing that every two years because you would be bankrupt before your second model even got out of the paper.
On the other hand most of the consumers like shinny new things (as you apparently) so a balance must be obtained. And that balance is the “facelift”. You, the consumer, get an almost-new shinny exterior and some minor nuisances corrected; We, the car manufacturer, get to keep the parts that takes the paycheck of every idiotic CNN journalist (for life) combined to produce.
Now compare this to the “dud” iPhone 4S that you call a facelift. The appearance of the previous model? Check. The inside of the previous model? No. See any contradiction here?
It’s the same old phone!
There was some disappointment among the tech “pundit” blogosphere and news sites regarding the iPhone 4S. Apparently it’s not new enough. OK. Walk with me through the changes:
- What the iPhone 4S has new:
- new system-on-chip: new dual-core processor and graphics;
- twice the RAM memory of iPhone 4;
- new antenna design;
- new antenna chip with dual GSM/CDMA and other communication management goodies;
- new camera sensor, lens system and other weird optical stuff;
- a additional module ISP in the processor for face recognition and other image processing algorithms;
- 1080p video with image stabilization;
- probably a new battery – the specs have changed a bit so, additionally to the new hardware and power management, a battery with some sort of modification is likely.
- Siri – the personal assistant – which unlike iOS 5 you can’t get in any other previous iPhone.
- What the i4S Phone shares with the previous iPhone 4:
- The glass and screen on the front;
- The glass on the back
- Maybe the sound control buttons;
- Oh! And the dock connector.
Yep. It’s just the same old iPhone. No difference whatsoever… (face-palm)
You just get 3 or 4 parts that come from the previous generation – because it lowers the cost of manufacturing it to something like a quarter of the price of a totally redesigned case not to mention the ability to produce large numbers of it in almost no-time – but yes, “it’s just the same old iPhone”, just a “minor facelift”…
Don’t let that glimpse of Reality and facts get in the way of your complaints of course. How more blind and futile can you get? If it doesn’t have something shinny and new i don’t want it! Even if it is a totally new beast where it counts…
We want fins. And humps.
Most of the techno-pundits apparently want something with a bigger screen (because bigger is better!) and with the so called “teardrop design”. What’s the teardrop design you ask? Well, it’s a great innovation from the Apple rumor mill that no one actually has seen but it sports a *aircraft wing” profile, with one end thicker than the other. Which makes a “lot of sense” in a device that is supposed to be hold either in profile or portrait, and you can turn it in any direction…
You see, this will mean that: first, you will have a thicker object to hold on one hand than on the other; and second, that that thicker part can either be on your right hand or your left, depending how you turned it. Which i seriously doubt is currently on anyone’s mind when they use any iOS device. But apparently it would be a really great innovation and no new iPhone is complete without it. I guess you can easily find some Samsung Android replica phone with it in no time.
Does it make any ergonomic, economic and design sense? Absolutely none whatsoever. But do the so called “tech experts” want one and complain loudly because they weren’t given one?? Absolutely. Because we all want a hump on our iPhone. It makes all the difference. You will never know when you’ll cross the Sahara desert and it might come in handy.
You also know what “we” want in the new iPhone 5? Fins. Yeah, Fins. Because they really look cool. And we don’t really need anything remotely similar to logic and good design. And it worked so great in the past. And if doesn’t carry fins, then: I. Don’t. Want. It. Even if it is finally called the iPhone 5. Because that’s all that matter. The @€£‰‰§ number on the model name.
@tomiahonen
In relation to this post by Tomi Ahonen, and because i can’t possibly write any useful discussion in twitter with that moronic thought breaking limitation of 140 char. i’l repost here the first replys and the rest of what i wanted to say. Tweets will be indented as quotes
@tomiahonen with due respect, the full post is mainly crap, sorry! there’s a difference between leading companies and leading mass market!
Tomi keeps confusing, i think, the “leading market” with “leading companies” it really doesn’t matter if the companies are korean, American or Finish. It does matter if the market is a source and leader in mass adoption by customer and provides significant momentum for new products/companies.
@tomiahonen japan is mainly a testbed for new technologies. always was and not only in phones. but mass consumer implementation is in EU&US
I hate to say it, but despite the technological superiority of European Mobile Networks, i fail to remember any exciting inovating product in the last years that did not come from the american experience. And yes, you might remeber Nokia N–E-S something series. I personally don’t. Nokia products are mainly a “handset blur” for me. What average consumer can remember any other Nokia handset except those that it possessed? Anyone remembers Nokia 66503123? or N-31341? or E-3131?
@tomiahonen also,having N features years before doesn’t mean nothing.Is the correct implementation and massive customer adaptation that does
if Nokia had a product line of 10 good thoughtful and well built phones, with a good set of those features it wouldn’t be burning. not 1000 ill-conceived and with slight variations between each other. A strategy you suppport by the way?! (Why o Lord why?) That kind of product placement died somewhere in the early 2000s. I hate, seriously hate every time i need to go look on a website to find out what the hell computer XA2123B does instead of ER121231? (and as the family geek i hear those questions a lot..)
It’s a royal pain in the a** every time my mother asks me to help her select a new Nokia phone. what should i choose? XPT10, XPT10A, XPTO11, XRRC15, … every one of them by 5~10 euros apart and with scarce information on the shops or carrier websites. They might as well had designed and built the Time travelling machine because no consumer would know where to find it on that lineup. Simplicity and Good feature Design, not endless technical features just by engineering prowess.
Which is what you point out in your post. I couldn’t care less that Ferdinand Porsche designed the first hybrid. I do care and i do acknowledge that the first mass produced and mass adopted hybrid was Toyota Prius. Even the first Honda Insight for me was just an auto-magazine cover. If you want to focus on the features Nokia developed before everyone, fine by me. But understand that for the consumer and the market what matters is the features that get adopted in mass and why they are adopted in mass…
By the way, you might want to read this post. If you can justify that to me, as a consumer, i would appreciate it.
Multitasking
So why are so many people fixated on “the true definition” of multitasking on a phone? These are the same people who are constantly closing apps that are running to save battery life. Why should you have to do this anyways? Doesn’t it seem insane that you are manually flipping apps on and off to save battery?
Yep. Exactly. And exactly why i gave up the idea of acquiring an Android Phone. I’ll just get a cheap “feature phone” until I can buy a cheaper iPhone or the new Hp WebOS phones are available and I can try one out.
HP&Palm
“Watching” the HP presentation (here and here) and you can already check out the new Palm products at their site. I might say, looking pretty good. Specially the new Veer. And the Touchpad also. Looks like the iPad might have competition at last.
Let’s just wait for the price tag and European availability…
Universal Charger
My prayers have been answered. But the add is one of the most inappropriate videos i have seen, and could easily be used to propose the other way around.
The quest
I’ve been looking around these last two weeks for a new mobile phone, to replace my old one who had a unfortunately screen collapse. And it’s been a very elucidative experience.
For once, i looked on the iPhone obviously, but my previous idea still holds. It’s very nice. Well built. And i wouldn’t mind at all of having one. But no way that i will spend almost 500€ to have one! That’s basically half of my monthly PhD Governmental Scholarship! And if i actually had that much money laying around, do i really need this phone?
It’s always a good idea to clarify what you need, what you want and what you would like to have. It’s also very useful to clarify what you really don’t want or what is a deal breaker. I usually just start looking around, with illusions of grandness until i realize the dark dark world, and reposition my expectations to a better level of adequacy. And this means avoiding 500€ phones and start looking at those under 150€, preferably 100€. I refuse to give more than this for a phone. (My relatives and friends would gladly explain to you that i have serious issues with the omnipresence of phones and their control over our lives…)
So i decided what I really really demanded for my new phone:
- Ability to synchronize contacts and Calendar with my Mac. (iSync or other). I’m tired of loosing contacts, having multiple versions of it on the computer and phone and backups, and copying them by hand when i change phones. (which happened just a couple of times but even so…)
- Ability to charge through a USB port. As i explained before, i find the idea of carrying around a phone charger something completely absurd and anachronistic.
Then i found out what i would like to have from a phone:
- Easy, functional email ability, a la Blackberry.
- Wifi, for the email functionality. I don’t want to spend money on a data plan when i have wifi all around me.
- Some Application ability, so that i can install some sort of WordPress blogging application and blog ideas and photos from my phone. (Granted this can be done from email, but i would prefer a isolated application).
And, then what i would like to have but wouldn’t spent more than and additional 25€ to get:
- Some useful browsing ability, that isn’t terribly handicapped like the blackberry, or the regular “feature phones”.
Armed with these solid, thought up requirements, i started looking the online stores of my carrier and other specialized sellers. And it’s been a blast…
First: As i stated before, Nokia have stranded themselves in the XX Century. Their phones are now subpar on OS technology, subpar on hardware features and I won’t even begin to mention the decline in build quality that’s been noticed in the last years.
Second: Blackberrys are a no go also. I’ve looked them again and discovered that you actually don’t need a Blackberry data plan to use them as smart phones, but just the alternative email application on the Blackberry App Store is another 25€, adding to the phone price. Just turned red on my book.
Third: Android phones, although much inline with the pricing i want, seem to combine the mess of the non-polished non-user friendly Linux Distros (which are unfortunately the vast majority of the Linux distros out there) with the “crapware experience” you get when you buy a Windows laptop utterly messed up by its maker with “free software demos”. (kind of a Sony Vaio, but even worse)
The phone that first caught my eye, a rebranded ZTE Blade ((Also known as Orange San Francisco)) as Sapo A5, has an Android market & a Carrier Market. A Gmail Maps & a carrier maps & a GPS program with some more maps. An animated background screen showing battery info, which i’m sure will help allot the battery life, in conjunction with a animated weather widgets. At least, this is what i’ve seen on its pictures , as the first batch sold was quickly withdrawn from the market with several manufacturer defects. I’ve also seen other phones but they are the same stuff, but with different carrier apps. They have so many duplicate apps and other random stuff i can’t identify in the app screen, that it is perfectly possible that a brand new phone on the shop has 3 “screens” full of app icons. It took me a couple of minutes just to find the SMS app.
Then i started looking around in forums, always a good source of “Common Joe” experience, and went to my favorite portuguese speaking forum. And then i really really noticed the difference between iOS and Android. In the iOS sub-forum, you have a couple of active threads, with topic subjects on some slight user difficulties, useful tips, and some discussions regarding pricing and purchasing options. On the Android sub-forum, you have topic threads of over 200 pages just for each single cell phone model and brand, discussions on tens of modified roms as the carrier or maker never updates soon enough, modified applications, several ways of installing and several third parties applications that do something as simple 3G data measure, tons of “rooting your android phone” tutorials, background screen and widget customization and “let’s turn your cell phone in a carnival fair” contests, and above all else, endless errors and app crash complaints. Oh, and battery consumption in less than a day too. Just what i wanted. A phone that would make me be his servant.
So, I’m back at square one. Need to buy a cell phone and feel “orphan”. What i want seemed simple for me. A not very pricey phone, which would let me play around a bit, and install some apps of my choosing (you heard that Steve? MY CHOOSING!) and worked without any hiccups. It didn’t have to be a top of the line phone, neither having tons of disk space and processing power. Just enough to browse a couple of simple websites, consult my email and consult some news sites apps. In a way, a slightly evolved and “liberated” Blackberry.
If nothing else appears i will eventually end up with an Android phone, even if only convinced by its price. But i long to hear what HP has done with it’s WebOS system and can’t wait for the 9th. Maybe they have a significant third way for the market.
Oh, and i also looked up Windows Phone 7, as i actually liked the metro user interface i’ve seen on pictures, but they cost the same or more than an iPhone. And an iPhone can sync properly with a Mac without extra applications or cost.
Blackberry vs iPhone
From the Deutsche Bank analysis.
My thoughts exactly. I have acess to a Blackberry Curve 8520 and a iPod Touch with iOS 4.2.1, and they couldn’t be any more different. If I ever decide to drop a couple of hundred euros per a smarphone, which is by itself a bit of madness, it definitely won’t be an blackberry. It’s unusable to verge of madness. I keep finding myself trying to interact with the screen with my fingers, just to remember that i either have to go in to a endless text sub-menu or use the damn optical trackball, dragging the pointer all across the screen in a time wasting experience. And the keyboard, although not unusable isn’t an easy experience either.
And the annoyance of having to spend another 200€ per year on the blackberry service in order to get my email is insane. I spend my day surrounded by Wi-Fi networks. I don’t really need the email everywhere at anytime. I just would like to access every now and then outside my home. But that’s why i share my network through Fon!
Why would i spend over 200€ per the entry model plus another 200€/year for the service? For that amount i can easily buy the entry iPhone! (in Portuguese prices at least) And just pay the standard pay-as-you-go phone call service if that is all I require from my provider. The rest i can handle through wifi.