Comment by bitserf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bitserf | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Its their discipline that impresses me: How much they are willing to play the long game, and take short term hits to do it.

While getting hammered by Wall Street and the press for not innovating, they stick to their guns and keep evolving in incremental steps, and laying the ground for the innovation they want to do in the future.

For example, current iPhone battery life isn't the greatest compared to some of the larger phones out there that are packing much more battery.

But they keep making small efficiency improvements, over and over, so that if (when?) release a device with a larger battery, it will be like the MacBook Air situation, where the MBA gets staggering battery life on the next hardware iteration compared to competitors that have just adequate battery life, basically being carried by the hardware.

I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting).

I think Google has the ability to continue competing with them if they remain focused.

I have my doubts about any of the other Android manufacturers, though Xiaomi could be interesting in the future, due to their focus on services.

> I imagine the larger display is a similar situation, they're not happy with some compromise they'd have to make to produce a display of the larger size, whereas competitors are happy to pump something out that is better by some metric (PPI, size), but has adverse effects (battery life, color oversaturation, artifacting).

The iPad 3 is a counter-example; retina display almost for the sake of it, and the hardware suffered. The fact that Apple pushed out the iPad 4 so quickly thereafter can, IMO, be chalked up to the fact that the iPad 3 was either a stopgap device or immediately regretted internally and caused the schedule of the iPad 4 to be bumped up.

No. I'm sure you didn't use iPad 3 and got that impression from reading tech media always chasing spec sheets. I own iPad 3 and there's nothing wrong with it.

I personally own an iPad 3 and have used it next to an iPad 2 and iPad 4 running the same applications. If you use a non-trivial application it's pretty clear that the iPad 3 is visibly slower than an iPad 2.

On it's own, it's certainly fine. However it's clear that there were trade-offs when moving from the iPad 2 to the iPad 3.

I use iPad 3 to watch videos, surf and read books and PDFs in iBooks and never had the impression that I have to wait on the CPU for something. What are your "non-trivial applications"? If they are games, I admit I haven't even tried any.

The one I've personally benchmarked is an unreleased application by a group of people I know, however it's very far along and (IMO) could be released today. The iPad 3 performs more poorly compared to the other platforms across several metrics.

Do say if the app is sloppy programmed or really needs the faster CPU to do the work. We're programmers here, well, most of us. Anyway note that up to recently you needed two graphic cards and in the desktop and the two monitor cables just to be able to connect the screen with the resolution of the iPad 3. http://youtu.be/KpUNA2nutbk

How is iPad a counter-example? I have been using it since it came out: Retina display is awesome; the battery life is longer than my iPad 2's battery life; 3G support is super; iPad 3 works with no problems!

And did I mention that I don't have to use new charging cables? My family uses MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPod, iPad2, and iPad3 and I am happy I have to use the same cables for each.

I'll take iPad3 over iPad4 any day (at least for the next few years)

For graphically intensive 3D games it may have suffered compared to the iPad2 but it is still a great piece of hardware and worthy update from the iPad2.

I bought my iPad 3 for reading, coding, and drawing (Procreate and Paper). It's perfect for it and I am yet to see how the hardware has suffered for the retina display.

iPad 4 was not "regretted internally". It normalized the data connector for iPhone 5 buyers.

Yes, discipline is a great word for it. Against a sea of nay-sayers and critics they keep their composure and stay focused on the long-term. The result is that their competitors blow their opportunities by rushing, and squander any stature. Apple remains in total control of the industry.

> Apple remains in total control of the industry.

This is a nice phone, but I'm sorry - if you think Apple "remains in total control of the industry" with sub 20% marketshare and shrinking you are delusional.

Whatever you may think of the theorerical advantages that Apple has, its not working for them outside of the US.

Do you measure BMW, Rolex and Gucci, by market share? Or profit share? There are more meaningful measures than market share and picking a measure the company isn't particularly interested or aiming for in is a strange choice.

I wouldn't describe any of those companies as "in total control of their industry" I would call them nice high end niche products.

If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean?

BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry, which is quite huge worldwide in terms of revenue and more importantly, profit. It depends on how narrowly you define "industry."

Sure, if you define it narrowly enough, then you can call almost every large company "in total control" of the niche in which they operate.

"BMW is definitely in control of the luxury car industry"

I think VW Group and Mercedes-Benz might argue with that.

Of course, it depends how you define "luxury" but with Bugatti, Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche and Audi brands, VW Group seem to be doing pretty well.

> If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean?

It may keep the shareholders happy, but ultimately it means nothing to anyone else. I don't see why people keep brining up this retarded meme.

They bring it up on response to the inevitable Android market share meme.

> If Apple has 20% market share but 50+% profit share, then what does that mean?

Except it doesn't: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/07/26/samsung-dethrones-app...

You Apple fanboys are constantly moving the goalposts. First it was who sells more devices, then it was who had more revenue. Now you've lost the "who has more profits" argument as well. What's it going to be next? Who uses more aluminum in their devices?

I never understood why people are so proud of a company having significantly higher margins than their competitors. Unless I owned _stock_ in a company (and then refused to buy their products), I'd rather buy my stuff with as razor-thin of a margin as possible.

But thanks for the link, I'll be using these statistics in future debates against the iCult.

People want to be on the winning team.

Margins are an indication of how good the product is. Either you compete on quality, or you compete on price, basically. Also, value != price alone, or even the margin the company is making on the product (they could just be more efficient and better at execution than their competitors).

Margins are an indication of how much you're getting screwed by your supplier.

Now don't get me wrong, a number of Apple-users are rational beings. They actually argue to me that they get huge value from iDevices, and I'm fine with that. If its your cup of tea, yes, go on and get it. (And I won't call these guys part of the iCult. Rational Apple-users are indeed... rational).

However, people like you argue that high margins are a good thing. NO THEY'RE NOT. Margins are: * Cost of the device MINUS cost that Apple spent to create the device

The larger the margin, the more Apple is screwing you out of your money. Period. No rational consumer should EVER be happy about being conned out of tons and tons of money.

And to see these idiotic members of the iCult, so proud... so happy to waste money, and BRAG about the margins that Apple is stealing from them... it really is enough to make me lose faith in the free market.

Remember, in a free-market with perfect competition, profits approach zero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition / http://www.economicprofit.org/Zero-Economic-Profit.html. Consumers in a free market should NEVER be pleased when they learn that the products they buy are leading to record-breaking profits on top of record-breaking margins for a company.

I'm not so infatuated with Apple products as I'm disgusted with the quality of the competition. When Android phones and tablets actually become usable and won't break after a few months, I might consider saving money on them.

The iCult doesn't exist, you are just trying to justify your own buying decisions. But go ahead and keep thinking otherwise, I really don't care.

Oh look, an actual _argument_. As I stated before, if you actually don't like Android or any of the other competition, I'm perfectly fine with that.

But as long as you "brag" about Apple's profits, you are masochistically accepting punishment from a company that you hold dear. You are bragging about how much Apple manages to take your money away from you...

And that just isn't right.

So IMO, keep the arguments against Android, argue about why other systems are bad. But whatever you do, do NOT pretend like Apple's huge profits are a good thing for you as a consumer.

BMW's higher profit margins than Hyundai is not good or bad for consumers; are BMW owners getting the same car for the money they pay? Can Hyundai compete with BMW in the lux market? I don't think BMW owners feel f*cked over by BMW because BMW makes more money per car than Hyundai does.

As long as we aren't forced to buy Apple products, i.e. we have a free market, Apple's huge profits don't matter to consumers. Perhaps Apple has a monopoly on smartphones that don't suck balls, but until the DOJ sees it necessary to break them up for it, I reserve judgement.

BTW, I happily use a Nokia 920, not an iPhone, but I'm tired of these Apple cultists economics-ignorant conspiracy theories. The cult argument is usually used by people who just can't understand free markets.

You know what? Maybe I'll start shopping at HSN instead of Amazon, because as we all know, HSN's higher margins obviously means that they're a superior store than Amazon's crappy margins. </sarcasm>

Profit margins are irrelevant to the discussion.

Red herring. If HSN and Amazon are selling the same crap, prices correlate more directly to value. Otherwise, if an apple costs 50 cents and an orange costs 25 cents, which one do you want?

In case you don't know, Strategy Analytics are the ones who define "units sold" as "units shipped". I'd imagine they are capable of taking similar shortcuts with profit share estimates.

Watch all the Android phones suddenly appear in late 2014 with fingerprint scanners. Just watch.

I think you are confusing "being influential" with "being in total control of the industry"

You mean like they already did in 2011? http://bgr.com/2011/02/09/motorola-atrix-4g-review/

You pointed a link to one android phone. I'm suggesting that in 2014 there will be many android phones with front-panel fingerprint scanners.

There was another one last August http://www.talkandroid.com/170717-pantech-officially-announc...

And a new one from HTC probably in Q4 http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobil...

I doubt that the scanner will be on the front, because it will take valuable screen space (there are no hardware buttons on android)

I also doubt the apart from a bunch of phones there will be many using this technology. It didn't catch with the motorola phone because the sensor was prone to errors.

Apple bought a fingerprint scanner company last year http://www.macworld.com/article/1167917/apple_acquires_finge... and had a good chance to create a good quality sensor, I don't think others will have the same technology available.

I certainly hope not, it severely restricts what you can do in terms of form factor.

Not if you stick the reader on the back (or side) of the phone.

iphone battery size isn't much compared to android phones, but they are constantly on top of the web browsing battery life tests in spite of this. disappointing that the 5s was a small step backward here.

Anand saw the small drop in the 5S and 5C when compared to the 5 and speculated that it was an iOS7 issue. Hopefully that's the case!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com