iPad 2

The tired status argument...

How about the practical guarantee that any kind of current and future app will be supported?

The Tour de France app is one example. How about Netflix, MLB11, Olympics, whatever other video related app? (MLB is not even supported on an Atrix phone, for example.)

Sure some of those are supported on some Android phones, but the fact that I'd first have to go to the netflix and mlb websites to check that my phone supports all of them is an effort that, frankly, I'm not willing to make if there's an alternative available that don't require it.

Never mind the fact that I can't know which future popular app on Android may or may not be supported on a particular model.

 

The fragmentation of Android is a BIG minus. But if you, like me, like messing with the internals, then there is no option other than android at all.

Even though Apple might have had a bit of a renaissance in the PC market, I am sure they wouldn't want to have just 10% of a market they invented.

 

Apple may be making more profits in the PC business than HP or Dell. Of course, it's probably not over 50% of the profits for the whole industry, which is the case with Apple's profit share in the smart phone (or it might be the entire cell phone) industry.

Of course, Apple isn't going to be able to maintain that indefinitely. If Nokia recovers share and profits to any extent, that will change.

 

Smartphones will get commoditized. And unless Apple is willing to leverage it's volumes to play the cheaper game, they'll get marginalized.

And the cozy deals they have been negotiating with third parties, will evaporate as well.

I'd expect some kind of price readjustment in 2012, if not in 2011.

 

The US$49 model is already a good ways there, and I'm sure they're looking at a cheaper phone to build for developing countries and also "free with contract" pricing.

I don't, however, see them compromising quality/performance to the degree that competing with the ultra low cost Chinese smartphones would require even though that means leaving a sizable portion of the market unreached.

Apple's "magic" is simply their focus on the user experience, always trying to make it as easy, responsive, and intuitive as possible. Opening their OS up, loosening control in order to compete with Android for every possible customer is just going too far from their core principle than they'd care to.

 

Yet the iPad2 turns out here in my neck of woods (always 16GB vs. iPhone4 16GB) cheaper than the iPhone4, while with Samsung's latest tablets vs. smart-phone it's the other way around. Here I am wondering what the iPhone exactly has compared to the iPad2 to justify the price difference; different or additional sw, a bigger screen, a bigger SoC or more simple what am I missing exactly?

What usually happens in other cases is that when a competing product appears that could be more appealing to some with a lower price you lower your price too in order to keep the competing product to steal market share from you and not the other way around. Instead Apple sues Samsung because they've built a "thin black rectangular device" which has been supposedly patented?

I haven't seen any statistics yet, but around here the S2 seems to be selling quite well. Oh and yes it's a think black rectangular device for anyone wondering

 

Legitimate patents are always all about the implementation of an idea, not the idea itself.

The general descriptions always say "a method for" doing something as opposed to covering all methods for doing it.

 

I have an old calculator that's a thin black rectangle, I expect apple will sue any day now.

 

Actually, the iPad 2 is down to 1-3 business days so they have finally caught up with supply.

 

Someone made the point that the iPhone's price may be distorted because of the deal with US carriers.

That is, the US carriers want a high unsubsidized price, to lock people into 2-year contracts.

Apple might still be able to make a healthy profit if they made the unsubsidized price at $400 but the carriers are the biggest distribution channel there is and all premium smart phones have unsubsidized prices starting at $500 or $550. Google has always priced the Nexus phones at $529.

Once in awhile, you'll see sales on Android phones so that instead of $200 or $250 for the upfront price on a 2-year contract, you can get it for $99 or even free. Or buy one and get one free. iPhone rarely goes on sale, however.

Apple will traditionally refuse to play in certain markets. For instance, they've been asked about the netbook market or building $500 desktops and they've always said no thanks. Can they do the same in smart phones indefinitely?

We shall see.

On the iPad vs. iPhone pricing, the $500 iPad doesn't have GPS, a modem or the nicer cameras that the iPhone4 has. Still, given that big screen, you would think the BOM cost is close?

Of course iPad is unsubsidized so Apple may be willing to accept lower margins.

 

That's pretty simple really, the iPhone is a....wait for it....phone. It's also pocketable. Price is an important factor yes that's why many iPhones are purcahsed with a contract.

Specs is not the only factor that determines street price..not with Apple products, however that may be true with "generic" products using the same free open OS.....*cough*...Android. That's one of the main problems with Android devices, they're all "generic" and the only differentiating factor is specs and Brand. Cover the brand logo on one of these Android phones and 99% of people don't know if it's made by Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola etc. A iPhone 4 on the other hand is immediately recognizable as a Apple product.

 

It would be a lot more simple to comprehend if the iPhone4 would be a iPhone5, as absurd as it may sound.

 

Well when iPhone 5 is released it wouldn't be more expensive than the iPhone 4 just like the iPad2 released at the original price as the iPad ie iPhone 4 will get a price drop when iPhone 5 arrives.

 

This.

Apple is always following this "threadmill" pricing. New parts replace the old parts at the same price, old parts gets discounted. Rinse and repeat for every new model.

 

Well Apple sold over 20 million iPhones (probably most of them were 4s, though the 3GS is $50 upfront) and 9.25 million iPads. Just a little under 4 million Macs. In less than 2 years, iPad grosses more than Macs while more than doubles the unit volume.

 

Not bad for a product that was obviously supply constrained until quite recently.

 

I'd dare to guess that if future tablets go for insane resolutions as it currently looks like, supply constraints may continue.

 

Apple spent half a billion dollars on a multi-year contract for panel supply, to make sure it's not a problem, so I think it was elsewhere (or at least not related to the panel manufacture, but possibly bonding the panel to other components in the display stack).

Everyone else might have problems sourcing high-res small LCDs though!

 

Someone asked about manufacturing yields in the conference call and obviously Tim Cook declined to answer.

The earthquake/tsunami may have played a role. But maybe they didn't ramp up capacity fast enough. The product category is still very new and there are a lot of competitors coming out, so maybe more conservatism.

Do higher resolution displays inherently have lower yields? Or is it mostly because the manufacturing process is new?

 

As a follow up to the patent wars and the point I raised in the Tegra 3 thread about HTC's "purchase" of S3 and its relation (or lack of relation, as it truly is) to PVRTC, sanity has prevailed:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...ng-system-violates-s3-patents-judge-says.html

As the article states, the details of the matter can't be made public fully yet, but hopefully more of the patent claims in this industry that are really outrageous can start to fall away.