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Decline in iPhone Shipments Could Make Apple Worst-Performing Top 5 Smartphone Brands

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Personally? Performance, battery life, app quality and reparability were all reasons why I chose a 6S over the Nexus 6P. Chuck software support in there as well if you're talking about an S7 or G5.

Performance I can see, but the battery life is actually similar from everything I've seen on it. For the most part they're the same apps too, you got me on reparability lol. Hey, to each their own. Also I wouldn't buy and S7 just because they failed to support the new USB standard and the G5....lol

I'll take the lower specs with much better performance. :3
Crippling lag, and malware has no place in phones.

If you buy a decent phone, android or iOS, you wont have either of those problems
 

Jeffrey

Member
premium doesn't really mean much when you can buy a $200 metal phone with chamfer edges.


I do agree its about time for a new look in conjunction with ios 10. the ios 7 look has always had a negative connotation with me due to how bad ios 7 and 8 were imo in terms of bugginess.
 

RootCause

Member
Performance I can see, but the battery life is actually similar from everything I've seen on it. For the most part they're the same apps too, you got me on reparability lol. Hey, to each their own. Also I wouldn't buy and S7 just because they failed to support the new USB standard and the G5....lol



If you buy a decent phone, android or iOS, you wont have either of those problems

Lol please!
I've owned the top android devices since I started using smartphones, going back to the G1.

S2, S3, S5, and now 6s+.
Let me assure you, only one has lived up to expectations.
 
Lol please!
I've owned the top android devices since I started using smartphones, going back to the G1.

S2, S3, S5, and now 6s+.
Let me assure you, only one has lived up to expectations.

Touchwiz strikes again, giving Android a bad name sense, what 2011?

At least they pulled their heads out of their asses and went lighter with the s6-s7
 
I feel like smartphones have to eventually hit some sort of saturation point, no?

Nah. People upgrade often, and with the rent to own instalment plans being implemented people will upgrade sooner.

My parents and sister have S5s, seriously the amount of bliat Samsung loaded into Android was insane, I'm not surprised that you like iPhone over the mess that used to be.
 

ShowDog

Member
Good. The only way to get reasonable storage and pricing is for sales to slow down. Apple ain't running a charity here.
 

inner-G

Banned
Since carriers have mostly stopped subsidizing phones, less people will probably choose to pay the 'Apple tax' when it's coming directly outbid their own pockets.
 

icespide

Banned
Since carriers have mostly stopped subsidizing phones, less people will probably choose to pay the 'Apple tax' when it's coming directly outbid their own pockets.

the phone leasing programs seem to be doing okay. $0 down and $30 a month sounds pretty good to a lot of people
 

Jeffrey

Member
I'll take the lower specs with much better performance. :3
Crippling lag, and malware has no place in phones.


there is malware on ios for years now.

And I wish my iphone 6+ got decent performance, sliding down the search menu has massive stutter, and 3rd party keyboards is sluggish to open, and crashes sometimes...

most disappointing iphone i've bought yet imo.
 
Since carriers have mostly stopped subsidizing phones, less people will probably choose to pay the 'Apple tax' when it's coming directly outbid their own pockets.

Leasing, $30 a month and get a phone yearly. It's been a huge boom for manufacturers omo rather than a negative.
 
When I say specs I don't just mean processor numbers. I also mean cameras and screen resolution. Apple competes in cameras but isn't at the top and it's pretty far behind in screen resolution. When it comes to processor speeds that only matters when it comes to actual performance and the iPhone preforms just as well if not better than it's competition.

My mistake. I apologize.
 

AP90

Member
$400 phones are the hot thing now

Think that is indeed the sweet spot for pricing. Especially since a lot of consumers like to get a new phone every 2yrs or sooner. And the fact that a lot of great phones are sometimes not offered through a carriers contract/next program can be a problem too, thus buying a phone for $400 outright is more easy to swallow.

I don't mind spending $600+ for a new unlocked phone if I intend on keeping the phone for at least 3yrs.
 

bill0527

Member
I've been so tied to the Apple ecosystem for so long, its hard to break away at this point. If they really remove the 3.5mm port that just may be the thing to do it.

Just bought my wife a new 6s last week and I had to go with the 64GB option because the 16GB option is complete garbage at this point. The 64GB should be the entry level phone. Especially now that they've tied so much iCrap that I don't use into iOS that you can't even remove.

I think another big thing that's keeping me from it is that I will have to put forth considerable time categorizing apps for 3 phones and rebuying them in another ecosystem - if they are even available, and reorganizing music into another library.
 

Owari

Member
That's because the iPhone 6S is the worst smartphone they've ever made. Too big. Bad design. 6+ is even worse. They need to find a middle ground between the SE and 6S. They've had about 4 years.. Still nothing. What do they do all day at Cupertino? Serious question. They must have some cool video games, cause R&D has all but screeched to a halt over there. It's sad to see.

if you don't see a decline in apple, you're blind or naive. the company hasn't put out a decent new product in how long? actually, to me they still seem to be doing catch up to their competitors.

lets go over some of their crap

1. iphones still coming in base models of 16gb with no expansion options.
2. their cloud services and integration between devices are still a mess
3. ipads are essentially unchanged while the competition soars with innovations
4. ios is playing catch up to android and now even windows
5. Osx is starting to lag behind windows, LAG BEHIND WINDOWS, think about this
6. itunes is horrific and purchase of beats has not made any real dent into spotify
7. apple tv, although improved, is still not better than offerings from amazon or roku
8. iwatch is an utter failure


the list can really go on here but i'll stop. there's no innovation coming from this company, anywhere, in any department. We can argue that their form factor and style is still above everyone else but how long is this going to keep them differentiated? i love my macair, i enjoy my iphone 6 and they are built with quality but so what? this isn't early 2000s, the competition has been building well made computers and mobile devices for the last 5+ years.
None of this is false.
 
there is malware on ios for years now.

This is disingenuous. You can't even compare the amount of malware and viruses on each. There are reports that Android accounts for 97% of mobile viruses (http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...s-is-the-easy-way-you-stay-safe/#2901310c7d53), and its openness makes it more difficult to patch security vulnerabilities compared to iOS, although the risk for either side is still relatively low (http://www.cio.com/article/2924183/android/experts-bust-android-security-myths.html).

So yeah, malware exists on iOS, but it's a much smaller risk than the (already small) risk on Android.

None of this is false.

Most of that is opinion based on biases rather than objectivity, so true and false don't really come into play.
 

Jeffrey

Member
This is disingenuous. You can't even compare the amount of malware and viruses on each. There are reports that Android accounts for 97% of mobile viruses (http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...s-is-the-easy-way-you-stay-safe/#2901310c7d53), and its openness makes it more difficult to patch security vulnerabilities compared to iOS, although the risk for either side is still relatively low (http://www.cio.com/article/2924183/android/experts-bust-android-security-myths.html).

So yeah, malware exists on iOS, but it's a much smaller risk than the (already small) risk on Android.



Most of that is opinion, so true and false don't really come into play.


indeed. but its still a bit annoying that people are still spewing that 'ios is perfectly safe and runnings swimingly' compare to android.


The vulnerable android phones do tend to be ones that aren't/can't be updated to the later versions though which is a huge issue though.
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
IPhone's are not good value for money and way behind the curve on so many things. Hopefully more and more consumers are picking up on this. Oh and if they really do drop the 3.5mm port in the next iPhone in place of even more thinness and more proprietary nonsense, I hope it bites them in the ass.

As a big iPhone fan, I can say I'll be immediately heading on the Android train when that happens
 

Owari

Member
Most of that is opinion based on biases rather than objectivity, so true and false don't really come into play.
1. iphones still coming in base models of 16gb with no expansion options.
This is a fact. And a ridiculous fact to boot. No one can survive with a 16GB iPhone. 16GB iPhone owners are plagued with never ending UPGRADE THAT ICLOUD LOL GIVE US YOUR MONEY prompts, with no "It just works" simple way to backup and format apps that are using the most storage.

2. their cloud services and integration between devices are still a mess
Fact. Compared to the competition? Uh, yeah. Navigating iCloud is literally impossible for the non tech-savvy. Where is the iCloud web team? Have you used Google Drive? It's basically perfect. Very easy to use and straightforward.

3. ipads are essentially unchanged while the competition soars with innovations
Well I wouldn't say "unchanged", the value of an iPad has depreciated tremendously because they are being marketed more and more as a PC-replacement, where W10 tablets for the same price are leaps and bounds ahead of what the iPad is capable of. I don't know if this is due to Apple's reluctance to merge OS X/iOS MacBook/iPad or what, but it's hard to ignore the growth W10 tablets has had in the past few years. All the iPad got was multitasking and (bad compared to the competition) pressure sensitive pen.

4. ios is playing catch up to android and now even windows
Exactly. No home screen widgets/interaction of ANY kind. (Not even notes. Nothing.) No mention of multitasking on iPhone, being able to minimize a movie to a small window on the iPhone .. No reason to have a larger screen at all until these are added.

5. Osx is starting to lag behind windows, LAG BEHIND WINDOWS, think about this
This is the saddest thing to see. What is happening to OS X? It's painfully slow to any Mac that doesn't cost literally $2500+ .. I don't know if this is to avoid cannibalizing iPad sales or what, but OS X has never been more painful to use. It used to be a great OS. Now it's similar to how OS 9 was right before X just in how dated it looks and runs.

6. itunes is horrific and purchase of beats has not made any real dent into spotify
Again, a fact. iTunes has always been a little on the iffy side, never the best music library manager.. But these days it's literally a Frankenstein of iota former self. Confusing menus, forced repeated logins, just all around bad UI. It's almost like they got the design from 2004, and tried to make it work in 2016. (Wait, that's exactly what they're doing)

7. apple tv, although improved, is still not better than offerings from amazon or roku
Right again. Where is the Windows AirPlay support? Why is Siri still useless? Where are half of the television channels official apps? Where's the game support? What's happening here? I love my Apple TV 4, but I wish it was more capable.. I bought a nimbus controller because I thought there would be some games on it eventually.

8. iwatch is an utter failure
I think the design of the watch is spot on. But the software has completely died. I've worn my watch edition every day for about a year now, and I love it. It's a great device. Taking calls, texts, navigation.. All the basics are there. But it's a little too slow, and the app support has pretty much completely stopped.

It seems like the whole company has kind of his the Pause button. Maybe they have a hell of a WWDC with iOS X, macOS 11, watch 2 and touchscreen MacBooks.. But I'm not gonna hold my breath.

If it were just one, or even just a few of these things it wouldn't be that big of a deal. But right now it's kind of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. They've really got to turn it around. Them being last in smartphone sales like this (their most profitable division) is really not a good sign. And may be a harbinger of more bad to come, if they don't figure out the issue. Heads need to get rolled. People need to be fired.
 

samn

Member
if you don't see a decline in apple, you're blind or naive. the company hasn't put out a decent new product in how long? actually, to me they still seem to be doing catch up to their competitors.

lets go over some of their crap

1. iphones still coming in base models of 16gb with no expansion options.
2. their cloud services and integration between devices are still a mess
3. ipads are essentially unchanged while the competition soars with innovations
4. ios is playing catch up to android and now even windows
5. Osx is starting to lag behind windows, LAG BEHIND WINDOWS, think about this
6. itunes is horrific and purchase of beats has not made any real dent into spotify
7. apple tv, although improved, is still not better than offerings from amazon or roku
8. iwatch is an utter failure


the list can really go on here but i'll stop. there's no innovation coming from this company, anywhere, in any department. We can argue that their form factor and style is still above everyone else but how long is this going to keep them differentiated? i love my macair, i enjoy my iphone 6 and they are built with quality but so what? this isn't early 2000s, the competition has been building well made computers and mobile devices for the last 5+ years.

'No innovation' is complete nonsense. I can list five recent ones off the top of my head. Touch ID. Force Touch. 3D Touch. Haptic Engine. True tone.
 

AHA-Lambda

Member
'No innovation' is complete nonsense. I can list five recent ones off the top of my head. Touch ID. Force Touch. 3D Touch. Haptic Engine. True tone.

Uh, are the last 3 things there like the same thing?

Touch ID, I admit is a godsend though, but loads of phones do that now.

EDIT: didn't see you mention true tone before.
 

samn

Member
Uh, are the last 3 things there like the same thing?

Touch ID, I admit is a godsend though, but loads of phones do that now.

EDIT: didn't see you mention true tone before.

Not really the same thing, they use some of the same technology but for different purposes and with different interaction models.

How is 'loads of phone do that now' at all relevant? Apple got the first good implementation on a phone, then everyone else stumbled around with awful copies for a couple of years until they finally figured it out. How this justifies not listing it as a real innovation beats me.
 
It's painfully slow to any Mac that doesn't cost literally $2500+ .. I don't know if this is to avoid cannibalizing iPad sales or what, but OS X has never been more painful to use. It used to be a great OS. Now it's similar to how OS 9 was right before X just in how dated it looks and runs.

???

El Capitan runs just fine on my 2011 MacBook Air (4GB) and 2011 Mac Mini? Really not sure how you came to this conclusion.
 

Owari

Member
???

El Capitan runs just fine on my 2011 MacBook Air (4GB) and 2011 Mac Mini? Really not sure how you came to this conclusion.
I mean, compared to a modern PC at the same price a Mac is much less capable. But I guess that's always been a thing. If you want to run anything serious (Logic, 3D) on a Mac, you better get the newest, most expensive model. Whereas a PC that capable would be half as much.
 

Kyari

Member
I think a lot of this is probably because people are less and less willing to pay the premium rate Apple charge, especially as software has reached the point where it isn't advancing as fast as the hardware. Older models still run "fine", a lot better than previous models' rapid obsolescence.
The iPhone 5 is still a passable phone for a lot of things, and it's from 2012. I think this is a large part of the reason Apple shifted to new sizes and etc.
 

Lashley

Why does he wear the mask!?
I have an iPhone and an android tablet.

Neither are massively better than the other, next time I need a phone I'll just go with whatever has the best value.
 
I've always been an Android guy but I have noticed that whenever I go to the store to buy a new phone, the equivalent iPhone costs hundreds more and has worse specs. Maybe people have begun to realise that.

This can't be serious.

I have had both high end android phones and high end Apple phones.

I am an Apple guy btw but specs don't mean shit, my Apple phone just works, does everything fast and I have never one time said if I only had more RAM etc.

use case for 90% of people I am sure is the same for both Apple and Andriod.

seriously guys just get what you like.
 

Hari Seldon

Member
With the end of subsidized phones there is absolutely no reason to upgrade until you have to. If you can get 3-4 years out of your phone you save a ton of money. The idea that people are going to upgrade every year is a small minority of people.
 
How on Earth is iOS playing catch-up to Android? It's still snappier, better designed and more cohesive in how it looks, and apps are still better, period. Updates alone are a complete blowout in favor of Apple. If anything, Android is still playing catch up in big areas. How long did it take Android to get granular app permissions?? Background app refresh control blows away Android, especially on third party skins.

Widgets are not and have never been any sort of deal breaker. Samsungs multi window support has always been janky and situationally useful, although I am curious to see how stock handles it. Google Now is definitely ahead of Siri at this point though. The historical battle between design, basic function and cohesiveness vs customization is still there - really up to preference which one you go with, and both can serve you well.
 
Wonder if we'll see a price hike then.

When iPad growth slowed down they went up in price to offset that loss. Now the new 9.7 inch iPad costs 599 instead of the usual 499.

I think the ridiculous prices are just one driving factor of many that is slowing sales. Very few people want to spend over half a grand for a base model tablet.
 

GSG Flash

Nobody ruins my family vacation but me...and maybe the boy!
Would not be surprised if this is true, iPhones are prohibitively expensive compared to their Android flagship counterparts that provide a similar experience for hundreds of dollars less. At this point, if you don't care about iOS vs Android, you're essentially paying a premium for the brand name.

Do whatever you want and buy what you prefer.

I rarely see Apple people try to convince Android users to switch, but Android user on the other hand are the Jehova Witnesses of cellphones.

Must be extremely selective reading because I see equal amounts of shit being thrown on both sides.
 

SURGEdude

Member
Nah. People upgrade often, and with the rent to own instalment plans being implemented people will upgrade sooner.

My parents and sister have S5s, seriously the amount of bliat Samsung loaded into Android was insane, I'm not surprised that you like iPhone over the mess that used to be.

I think the increased sales from installment pricing will only do so much to counteract the decreasing gains people see with yearly upgrades.

Purely anecdotally I'm an installment guy and I generally buy 2 new mid-high end phones a year (work, personal) and the last 2 years I've actually considered waiting since there current models no longer feel like a dinosaur by the time the next model rolls out.

It's interesting too because historically I've gone through my Androids faster (though they were usually less expensive) because of bloat and poor OS upgrade paths. But now that bloat is diminishing and Google is getting more forcefull with OEMs while also tying more too upgradable Play Services I'm holding onto them much longer than I did 3 or 4 years ago. So in that sense Android are not longer fairly or unfairly seen as disposible junk that is hobbled by shitty OEM support. So I can see Android folk lowering their upgrade rate.

On the otherhand the Apple yearly cycle used to feel so long that I knew some people who would have rather styed with iOS who were enticed by the fact that there's a nice new Android every few months.(I've done it) Now that the hardware is less dramatically improved I hear less people wondering if they should jump ship (and potentially stay).

I think the overall effect is people will switch platforms less. Android folks because they won't get fucked by cheap ass OEMs and outdated OSs on otherwise fine hardware. And Apple people because the Samsung that comes out 9 months after their current iPhone no longer seems significantly enhanced.
 
Does anyone think that taking away the option to subsidize the phone hurt sales?

I know lots of people who were not in a rush to go out and pay $800 for a new phone.
 

icespide

Banned
Does anyone think that taking away the option to subsidize the phone hurt sales?

I know lots of people who were not in a rush to go out and pay $800 for a new phone.

the lease/installment plans help out a bit there but it remains to be seen what the overall impact is
 

icespide

Banned
I wasn't in a rush to increase my monthly payments by $20.00 just to get a new phone.

typically if you go with a lease program, the carrier offers discounts on access fees and data plans so that you end up getting pretty decent deals. in my case I actually came out better per month when I went installment + mobile share data plan than I did with a regular plan and a subsidized phone, plus I get a new phone ever year and don't have to worry about the "eligibility" stuff.

for most people, the cost difference with the subsidized phones is hidden somewhere they just don't realize it
 
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