[Graham]

OK, I'll bite.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Android handset makers are slowly committing suicide by exchanging profitability for market share in a pricing race to the bottom, not to mention the cash they pay out to Microsoft to licence patents.

As long as the makers aren't losing money on every phone sold then capturing market share while the market is still expanding so rapidly makes good business sense. You phrase this as though the big players didn't have high end expensive phones in their portfolio as well, which is nonsense of course.

It never ceases to amaze me how Apple's massive profit margins are held up to be a good thing for their customers.

Originally Posted by holymadness

The only OEM that makes money from Android is Samsung and—surprise!—their phones and software are just copies of Apple products.

Do you really believe that is true?

Samsung have been rightly pulled up because some aspects of their phones and their Touchwiz interface have borrowed significantly from the iPhone. That does not make them copies. There are a huge number of elements that make up a phone. Even the original Galaxy S is not an iPhone 3G 'clone'.

In the US and Germany Samsung were adjudged to have crossed the line. In the UK, Japan and the Netherlands they were adjudged to be OK. The South Koreans penalised both sides, but in the penalties awarded sent a message that the infringements were minor in the grand scheme of things.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Meanwhile, the Android ecosystem is fragmented all to hell, which explains why developers don't bother with it, which explain why 2/3rds of Android users don't pay for apps.

Really, the fragmentation argument? The vast majority of Android apps are backwards compatible to Android 2.1, so will run on 99% of Android devices.

Your link even espouses the benefits of what detractors like to call 'fragmentation':

Fragmentation allows users to take their pick from thousands of devices. You can choose from phones with 3D screens, projectors, CDMA, GSM, or even CDMA & GSM. You may not care that Tag Heuer has made an Android phone but at least one person does (and they use OpenSignalMaps). It's a triumph for Android that as a single OS it can target so many markets.

And you're claiming that the wide selection of free apps is somehow bad for Android customers?

The free app to try out followed by paid app for something you like that does what you want is working well, and the Android paid market is growing all the time. What you're saying may well have been relevant a year or two ago, but now with Android having nearly three times the market share, your one third of users paying for apps is presumably a good match for the number of purchasers on iOS.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Meanwhile, the popularity of iOS products netted Apple $11 billion last year.

This would be the profit based on a much smaller market share and a much higher profit margin? That's great for Apple and their shareholders.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Winning.

If losing to the competition looks like that, I am not sure Tim Cook minds.

Oh, I think he does you know. I can see a lot of law suits going on, and the relative stagnation or decline of his market share in most countries outside the US must be ringing alarm bells.

Which is good, because hopefully it will prompt Apple to do what they do best: apply a huge helping of style to a niche product, identify the essentials and trim the concept down to its intuitive core, make us all want one with fanfares and slick marketing, and open up another product range for us all to enjoy.

Graham