HP Touchpad: 'the last stand for competitors for the iPad'

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

All of those manufacturers separately take a piece of Apple's phone market.

That hasn't happened yet. That Apple is growing each quarter means their sales are coming from elsewhere.

And also, it makes a difference with developers. If I want to choose between developing for iOS and developing for Android, I'm going to look at my potential market. If iOS has a much smaller market share, I'm going to put my money towards Android, even if the iPhone is still the best selling single phone.

Also hasn't happened.

No, it's Google that doesn't profit directly from Android, and it's Apple that's winning a profitable share (the most profitable share) of all those who are paying for smartphone hardware.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by =X=

Interesting because...
Verizon iPhone sales are already slowing down, analyst says

Yup. Waiting for iPhone 5. Anyone (in the market for an iDevice) whose contract expired recently is.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by =X=

The reason why no one Android phone beats the iPhone is because with Android you have choices.

LOL. Thats rich.

And not any one single of those multiple 'choices' has been good enough to cast the iPhone under it's wheels, go forward and backward over it multiple times until it was dead, and not look back?

C'mon X. You're better than that.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Marketshare wise Apple is on the way down, that is a fact.

How long before they shelve the iPhone as a unprofitable product?

[wodin]

Originally Posted by bhartman36

I think Apple's best move now would be to release several different versions of the next iPhone. Expand the hardware options, and you'll entice some of the people moving to Android because they want things like micro-SD card slots or hardware keyboards.

What? Apple give their customers a choice?

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

How long before they shelve the iPhone as a unprofitable product?

Nobody said unprofitable, sort of like the Mac of phones. Who said you cannot make plenty of money having 15% of the market? But not a market leading high flyer, as you are suggesting.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

But not a market leading high flyer, as you are suggesting.

Compared to those actually making the hardware, yes.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

LOL. Thats rich.

And not any one single of those multiple 'choices' has been good enough to cast the iPhone under it's wheels, go forward and backward over it multiple times until it was dead, and not look back?

C'mon X. You're better than that.

Why on earth would we want one device to outsell everything else?

Some people like bigger screens. Some people like a speedy GPU for games. Some people like a physical keyboard.

Thus the android market splits up amongst the devices.

If there was an iPhone with a slide out keyboard, a 4.3 inch iPhone, and a standard iPhone, iPhone sales would be split up amongst those too.

I don't know why you insist one specific hardware device has to outsell the iPhone. It's nonsense. It's not the Android methodology.

Back on thread topic: I'm pretty impressed by the WebOS interface. Looks really nice. Good printing support too, handy. I'm not in the market for a 10" tablet but if I was I'd consider the Touchpad.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Why on earth would we want one device to outsell everything else?

Someone has to have the number one spot...it's not possible to have 300 devices in second place...

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Someone has to have the number one spot...it's not possible to have 300 devices in second place...

Which is exactly wherein Apple's problems lie --- they only have one choice and Android occupies the spots 2-300! And the one doesn't stand a chance in total market share against the 299 others. Do you finally get it? Why try to twist things around, why try to find excuses and always talk about something else? Where is this reflex to always find something positive (even if totally irrelevant in the discussion at hand) to say about Apple coming from --- this is fanboism at its finest.

We are not arguing who has the single best selling device, we are not arguing that Apple is losing money and going under. We are not saying that Android manufacturers are raking in the big bucks (though HTC, Motorola, and Samsung probably are doing quite well). What we are saying is that Apple's Iphone is on its way to becoming a profitable niche product with a market share of between 15-20 percent.

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Someone has to have the number one spot...it's not possible to have 300 devices in second place...

Ugh

Why on earth would we want one single device to outsell A BUNCH OF OTHER MODELS else PUT TOGETHER? Is that wording better?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

...No, it's Google that doesn't profit directly from Android...

I don't have any insights into Google's business model for Android, but at least 3 ways for Google massively profiting from Android come to mind (one might discuss, whether they're direct or indirect):
- All purchases in the Appstore, similar to iTunes, run via Google checkout. They certainly have their margin in this.
Okay, there are ways around the Google checkout, even easier than jailbreaking your iPhone. But certainly the majority of Apps is purchased via the Android market...
- There are tons of Google services integrated into Android. Some of them you find on iOS as well, but typically they are way more advanced (Googlemaps for one) on Android, Google's own platform. All those Google services, for example checking for restaurants in Googlemaps, basically link back to Google's original core business: Advertising via web platforms and their search engine.
- I guess it's similar to Amazon's bookstore. In the beginning, everyone was assuming Amazon's making a loss on every single ebook they've sold for $ 9.99. But that was, when building up their market share. Now, quite surprisingly, majority of the others sell for the very same price. Either the publishers have reduced their prices because of Amazon's buying power. Or the others have to go for that price to even survive against Amazon. Anyway: Android basically is a startup. Most startups aim for growth and only after that for profit.

In general: I'm pretty sure, Google, Amazon, Apple and the likes have longterm strategies and business plans for 2015 already in place...

[murraypaul]

- Advertising. If Google had allowed iOS to become the dominant phone and tablet system, they could have been shutout of the mobile advertising market by Apple pushing their own system. With an ecosystem they control themselves, they ensure an available advertising platform. It is a strong defensive move.
Google is not primarily a search company, or a mapping company, or an operating system company, they are an advertising company, that is where the money comes from.

[RockdaMan]

It's worth remembering, however, that relatively few Android handsets are the top-end, all-singing and dancing units like the HTC Incredible...the ones that'll get well-supported, and upgraded to new Android OSs as they become available. Many more Android phones are like this operator-branded Optimus Stockholm from Portugal, which sports Android Froyo 2.2 and costs a tiny €99 ($140).

That is, relatively few of the Android phones on the market, the ones that contribute to that great growth, actually compete directly with the iPhone.

Remember those figures about Nokia's collapsing market in Australia? That's one market where Apple's actually winning--and it's become the nation's biggest phone retailer of any brand, an amazing fact given that there are only two iPhone types on sale compared to an armload of different Nokia and Android handsets.

Yet another statistic for you to think about: 40% of European phone buyers, according to a recent survey, are planning on buying an iPhone next--twice as many as plan on buying an Android device, and this is a region where nearly half of the phones sold are on a pre-pay basis.

So whats the point?

Nearly everything we think about the smartphone wars rests on relatively few markets, and in the case of the U.S., mostly on contracted, post-pay vendor models. As smartphone sales explode around the world, Android is certainly the most popular OS for now--it's taking up the gap that the demise of Nokia's Symbian-powered feature phones once occupied. But if Apple really does bring its "luxury" iPhone to a lower price, then it will target that 70% global space that we tend to forget about. Though probably not for long.

Have a good day, folks.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1763697/p...e-barely-begun

[RockdaMan]

Back to the topic of the thread:

It is clear that HP, all the way up to the former CEO of Palm (and beyond) are reading the reviews from people in the tech world, and Rubenstein let his staff know that OTA updates are on the way soon to address a majority of complaints that are found in those reviews. At the end of his memo he compared the review of the TouchPad and webOS 3.0 to another company that he is very familiar with; Apple's Mac OS X received the same criticism from the same critics just 10 years ago, and now the company is on top in a way that is nearly unreachable. Rubenstein says, HP's webOS is in the same position now, and has a lot of greatness ready to push it forward.

I'll say this -- I read Windows specific websites, Apple specific websites, and general tech specific websites. The Apple writers are pretty excited about the potential for this this platform.

My money would be on the Windows Phone 7 platform as the next big thing though.