Apple v. Android Ping with a Liberal Slant Ping!
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Posted on 02/06/2015 1:06:24 AM PST by Swordmaker
Apple had a mind-blowingly amazing quarter. Good for them. But as much as we may want to cheer on the industry's most profitable vendor, the real focus should be on the user. Viewed through the lens of the end user, we should be hoping Google wins.
Apple builds software for the rich. Google? For the poor.
Thankfully, the mobile development ecosystem has demonstrated it can get by without Apple's fat margins.
Apple rich get richer
Apple is a luxury brand. While it caters to the lower-end of the "rich" demographic by offering last year's models at lower price points, Apple's primary focus has always been on delivering a premium experience to those that can afford premium price tags.
In doing so, Apple has followed (and fed) an interesting, if troubling, shift in household income.
As The Wall Street Journal's Christopher Mims highlights, "Apple's and Xiaomi's successes reflect the world's growing income inequality." Apple supplies phones to the rich, while Xiaomi caters to the comparatively poor. Phones priced in the middle range have seen a "hollowing out" of demand, with the world split into "a luxury market and everyone else."
Apple dominates the luxury market and profits handsomely thereby:
"[J]ust as a growing class of global rich is creating a demand for the highest-end phones -- made by Apple -- so, too, is a growing middle class creating demand for [mostly Android] phones made by Xiaomi and its ilk...."Predictably, distribution of profits between these two markets mirrors the distribution of wealth between the buyers of these goods.".
. . .as happy as we may be that Apple makes a lot of money, we should be much more concerned with the Android market and its impact on the world
Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit Android
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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Does anyone ever level this kind of Horse faeces against Car Manufacturers?
At 68 years of age, it’s safe to say that I know a lot of people. Those of the liberal persuasion prefer iPhones. Those who don’t hate America or themselves seem to prefer Android. I’m not the only one who has noticed the pattern. Of course, the iPhone is also popular with government workers, probably because they can afford them. As a powerful and influential Microsoft alumnus, I got a free Windows phone. Works for me - no one else can figure out how to use it :)
Rush uses an iPhone.
Samsung’s Android phones aren’t low end.
I am around veterans on daily basis, veterans from the Korea era, Vietnam era and wars in the Middle East. These are very conservative people who seem to hate Obama more than I do. Men and women who have fought and sacrificed for their country. Not one of these people could ever be accused of hating America.
I know this to be true because it is often a topic of discussion, most have iPhones. I do too. I hate it, and I am currently in the process of shopping to replace it. But it is absurd to believe that iPhone owners hate America. Several of the hate-America types I know are the liberals in my family who just love them some Obama. My younger sister and older brother for example, both love Obama and have said they want Michelle Obama to be the first female POTUS. And both own Samsung.
Homos and muslims love iphones too.
I will soon be 66, and all of my friends are conservative. They ALL have iPhones and Apple gear. Few want to have anything to do with going back to Windows or have anything to do with Android and Google's invasive policies.
In the Apple v. Samsung patent infringement trial last year, Judge Lucy Koh required Samsung to testify to the mix of Android phones they ship. Only 30% were considered "smartphones," that were mid to upper range in cost. Better than 70% of them are mid to low cost range Feature phones (40%) to bottom of the barrel candy bar and flip case dumb phones (30%) that don't even have the capacity to connect to the Internet and retail for under $20. This last quarter, Samsung dropped the number of Smartphones it shipped by 40%.
When people decide to spend $1 million plus for a phone, they don't mess around with peasant-grade Androids.
“Those of the liberal persuasion prefer iPhones.”
This guys antidotal statement is flawed. My family and I (four of us) are all on I-phones. My two daughters have the i6, wife carries a 5 for work and 6 for personal, I still carry the 4S As I’m poor from buying everyone else upgrades, lol :)
“At 68 years of age, it’s safe to say that I know a lot of people. Those of the liberal persuasion prefer iPhones. Those who don’t hate America or themselves seem to prefer Android....”
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Dude, some strange Apple hater has stolen your ID and password and has posted a strange posting implying that the MANY FReepers who own and use iPhones hate America or hate themselves. I suggest you change your password before further damage is done to your reputation.
Choice of phone has no actual correlation with politics. It has to do with perception and value.
Apple is a high and mid-high end hardware/software (i.e. system) brand. Period. They don't make crap.
Android isn't a brand, it's an operating system. You can't lump all the various Android-based phones together.
Samsung (for instance) makes a large range of Android-based phones, some of which are just as high-end as the best iPhones.
But a lot of Android-based phones are low-end crap. People with less money buy cheap products. D-uh.
Politics has little or nothing to do with choice of phone. Attempts to demonstrate otherwise are bullsh*t.
Well, that explanation doesn’t work for FReepers who have iPhones ... LOL ...
FReepers love iPhones too ... Swordmaker has a big list of those FReepers ... :-) ...
You would have to ask Swordmaker how big that list is.
The plural of anecdote is not data.
Some data sets are valid for building useful profiles.
An individual’s choice of cell phone, or operating system, is probably not one of them.
This article quotes a WSJ article to the effect that iPhone is a luxury smartphone. True.The same article mentions that,
globally, “the 1%” is anyone who takes in more than about $32,000.
This explains why iPhone can, globally be a luxury good -
and simultaneously, in the US, be a mainstream product which outsells Samsung.
Exactly. And ComputerGuy's follow up comments are spectacular crappola right in the same class.
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