The Mac vs PC ads were very effective clips telling what makes the Mac so different and better than a PC. I wonder if Apple could try the same with iOS and Androïd. Here it goes.
“Hello, I’m an iPhone!”
“And I’m a Robot.”
“So, what’s up Robot? You seems a bit depressed right now, why is that?”
“Well, I’ve been told that people aren’t satisfied with me because I’m not very keen for optimized apps on tablets”
“Oh, I see. You mean some people buy a tablet only to find out that apps aren’t taking advantage of the large display, something like that?”
“Yeah, something like that. I feel a bit depressed by this. I don’t know how I could fix this.”
“Well, you could ask your creator to help you and try to improve things.”
“I doubt that this would make a difference. He doesn’t care too much about this kind of issue. He prefers wasting his time at showing at parties with some ads.”
“Oh, that is really bad.”
You get the idea.
First, a comment from John Gruber:
“Apple’s strategy for lower-priced phones for the last four years has been to sell one- and two-year-old models at a discount. But perhaps the glass-backed iPhone 4 and 4S (and, come next year, the aluminum-backed iPhone 5) are inherently too expensive to produce to hit certain lower price points. Maybe Apple just wants to get rid of the last remaining products using those old grody 30-pin adapter ports. But whatever the reason, this would be a significant strategic shift.”
Selling the previous two years models to address the lower end market may have worked in 2009 or 2010 but today, this strategy is showing sign of inadequacy against the proliferation of cheap Androïd devices.
I have the feeling that the iPhone 4 or 4S aren’t that cheap to produce even after two years of mass production. Creating an updated design with cheap components and cheap manufacturing needs will not only help protect current margins but would help keep the iPhone line fresh from the top to bottom. People like “new” things in new cases, new colors and new textures even if internal components aren’t state of the art.
A fresh iPhone entirely new and designed for the low end is mandatory. And only Apple can creating something great without falling in the trap of all cheap Androïd plastic devices. Not sure about this? I invite you to consider the just released iPad mini.
Market share of smartphone sold tells only one part of the story. I don’t know why this is so important for the press. If you want to know which platform performs better than you have to look a many more factors like ads revenues, how big is the developers community, etc.
With this latest comScore figures, we clearly see that Androïd as a platform is profiting Samsung and only Samsung. Google isn’t even making money out of Androïd. And don’t tell me that they do on search, they do it anyway on every platforms. Same for ads. And speaking of ads, these are so everywhere in our “free” digital world (thanks to Google, Facebook et al.) that their selling values is starting to decline. Think about it.
The coupling of Google’s Androïd with Samsung tells us one clear thing: the only real way to make real money in the smartphone business is to have an integrated stack, just like Apple with their iPhones and iOS. They sell a lot of them and they make a lot of money out of this. Same could apply to Microsoft with Windows 8 and … Well, they don’t do Smartphone. Yet.
JFMartin
