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What is APPLE planning?

well with sales of 51 million phones.....they will run out of people...:tongue:.......Asia/china will still show some growth..having an i phone is an attainable status symbol. I see this as a buying opportunity.
 
NSXrebel said:
Jond, as for China, we have yet to see how they will affect growth, since the iPhone was only released out there starting with this (2nd) quarter. My take, is that Apple will only be selling more iPhones. We'll find out in a couple months or so about Q2.
Click to expand...

Good point, it's too early to say.
I'm in a pre-coffee pessimist frame of mind at the moment, but I have ZERO faith in China buying American goods for most anything.
Facebook made the argument of big growth in China, and then China makes it's own facebook.
Same with Google, although google was more mad about the China Government hacking them and not stopping when caught.
But China made their own google.
Seems the more likely thing for Apple/China, IMO, is China will simply steal the design, put a knockoff logo on it, and most people there will buy the fake instead of the American funded real thing. Right now the best selling phone in China is the "CoolPad". What's the coolpad? I have NO IDEA, it's a China thing...
Also, didn't they bust a bunch of fake Apple stores in China recently? Like entire stores that looked identical to real apple stores?

Second factor why china might not buy the iPhone is it's been revealed that the US Military(NSA) has backdoored all iPhones.
If China came out and said it had backdoored all Dell laptops and wouldn't stop doing it or fix them, would you go buy one? Same thing.
It's bad enough that your own government spies on your emails, sms, web surfing and phone calls, but a foreign government? No way.

We'll see though...
 
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A couple thoughts on China...
  • The deal with China Mobile gets them access to the largest network (~750 million subscribers) but is not the iPhone's first appearance in China.
  • The 2nd and 3rd largest carriers (about 480 million subscribers combined) have had the iPhone as early as 2009.
  • China mobile has much higher subscriber penetration in rural areas. While difficult to quantify, their subscriber mix can be assumed to be less affluent than Unicom and Telecom. Supporting this is their 3g subscriber rate of 22% vs 41% and roughly 43% for Unicom and Telecom respectively.
  • Grey market and unlocked have been available for some time, serving as both a slight damper on demand and a potentially more affordable route for customers to choose.
  • The china mobile device will cost 5,500 yuan (~$910). Consider that 71% of the country lives on $5/day and it is easy to see why the (generally) more affordable Android devices account for almost 80% of new smartphone sales in China.
Of course AAPL is going to sell more phones in China, that's a given. IMO it will be less of an impact than its been made out to be unless they have something cheaper to sell to the bulk of the population.
 
Alghough this article is from an analyst and not an Apple person, and although it really doesn't say too much after you read it 3 times, it gives me some hope for AAPL/Apple.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-ready-launch-brand-version-145455164.html

I feel hopeful because it sounds like at least someone at Apple (Craig Federighi, who leads OS & iOS software engineering) still gets that OS and iOS need to be different since the interfaces are entirely different (mouse/keybaord vs. touch). It also sort of kinda sounds like Shiller is indicating something hopefully along the lines that the hardware experience may be combined so you're not "forced" to be a laptop person or a tablet person, etc:

Apple SVP of Marketing, Phil Schiller told MacWorld, "It’s not an either/or. It’s a world where you’re going to have a phone, a tablet, a computer, you don’t have to choose. And so what’s more important is how you seamlessly move between them all… It’s not like this is a laptop person and that’s a tablet person. It doesn’t have to be that way."
No matter how much I read that sentence and the yahoo and Business Insider articles, I'm not getting whether he's pointing more to hardware or the software/interface, but...

So I hope that all that spin is saying what I've believed for a while: a converged OS/iOS like Windows 8 is completely not where it's at (iOS7's text-based interfacing that works fine with a mouse is God awful on an iPhone/iPad IMHO, and the new www.icloud.com iOS7-esque minimalism interface is hard to work with), and hopefully this supposed "category redefining laptop" is a combo 13" iPad/mac air that can switch between an iOS tablet and traditional-OS upon demand or reboot, and where any docking action serves to provide a keyboard, add'l battery power, and add'l memory and/or processing power. I guess we shall see!
 
Yinzer .. I don't know if it's what he was referring to .. but here's my perspective. At our house, I've been in corporate IT my entire working life but my wife has never been particularly techno and in our Windows environment, I was constantly her on call help desk guy. Then we started drinking the Apple Kool-aid .. couple of Apple TVs .. then I got her the first iPad .. then she got an iPhone .. then iCloud came out .. and she seemlessly moves from one to the other and my help desk load went to practically zero. She's always taking pictures on her iPhone and sharing on FB and other sites; but they also appear on her iPad (just got the Air) which she takes with her when dealing with home reno businesses and the like. She air-plays videos on the Apple TVs .. installs her own apps; and has converted from paper to electronic magazines. This is a 60 year old woman who had no interest in computers .. and now it's 'happy wife - happy life'. So, if that's the market they're going after .. they're totally succeding from my perspective. I tried to complete the picture with a Mac mini in the kitchen but she only uses it for sites with Flash player which won't work on the iPad .. and to be honest, the Mac OS isn't the same as iOS so that's the only weakness in the whole thing.
Just my $0.02 worth
 
Thanks for the hands-on perspective! I still hold that while everything you say makes 100% sense for a particular audience, there's going to be another that's unsatisfied with changing from best-in-class (IMO) purpose-built devices into attempting one-size-fits all. Unlike your wife and millions of others in the first group who are correct in what they want, I'm with the second group of millions who prefer more purpose-built devices and I'm correct too. Although I luckily have the option to reach back in time and stick with a purpose built device like a gen-1 NSX for my fun car where Acura doesn't prevent me from reversing any mods I try and don't like, I don't get that option with any iOS upgrades I try, and that's truly disappointing, lol.

Apple's back is against the wall and desperate need for growth, and it looks like they're shooting for volume more than innovation IMHO.

The bigger you get, the more people you have to please, and it's impossible to please everyone, you know?
 
Yinzer said:
I'm with the second group of millions who prefer more purpose-built devices and I'm correct too.
Click to expand...
Yinzer .. there's always of group of people who have a strong 'personal freedom' mentality and can't stand it unless they can put their own personal stamp on things .. for whatever reason. The whole aftermarket industry is there to feed the needs of those kinds of people. But that group is not equal in size (as you suggest) to the group who accepts things for what they are. As large as the aftermarket industry is, the amount of people who customize their vehicles is a fraction of those who don't. The majority of the people on Prime are also in this same minority in that we're typically interested in mod'ing our cars .. whether wheels; stereo; exhaust; FI; etc .. which might be compared to those who like to hack their phones; or their XBOXs; or whatever and they will legitimately claim that the end product is 'purpose-built' or 'better' than the factory one. But when it comes to the electronic things in our lives, things are just getting more complicated every day and when you start mixing the hardware (phone) with the software (apps) and maybe screwing with the OS, then I'm not saying it can't be done .. it's just that you become the integrator/tester and I know this from my I/T and personal experiences, that after a while it just gets to be more hassle than it's worth. Did you build your own 'purpose-built' PC or home theater server from scratch too? If so, I'm betting it's probably running Linux because you can't stand Microsoft lock-in. The point I'm making is not that you can't do it .. or that it might be better .. but unless you're a hands-on DIY kind of person, an integrated experience is going to provide an overall better experience and I think that's what Apple is trying to be known for. It's not that they're any less functional or any less complex .. it's just that they usually work first time and don't need a full-time help team.
YMMV
 
NSX2398 said:
Yinzer .. there's always of group of people who have a strong 'personal freedom' mentality and can't stand it unless they can put their own personal stamp on things .. for whatever reason. The whole aftermarket industry is there to feed the needs of those kinds of people. But that group is not equal in size (as you suggest) to the group who accepts things for what they are. As large as the aftermarket industry is, the amount of people who customize their vehicles is a fraction of those who don't. The majority of the people on Prime are also in this same minority in that we're typically interested in mod'ing our cars .. whether wheels; stereo; exhaust; FI; etc .. which might be compared to those who like to hack their phones; or their XBOXs; or whatever and they will legitimately claim that the end product is 'purpose-built' or 'better' than the factory one. But when it comes to the electronic things in our lives, things are just getting more complicated every day and when you start mixing the hardware (phone) with the software (apps) and maybe screwing with the OS, then I'm not saying it can't be done .. it's just that you become the integrator/tester and I know this from my I/T and personal experiences, that after a while it just gets to be more hassle than it's worth. Did you build your own 'purpose-built' PC or home theater server from scratch too? If so, I'm betting it's probably running Linux because you can't stand Microsoft lock-in. The point I'm making is not that you can't do it .. or that it might be better .. but unless you're a hands-on DIY kind of person, an integrated experience is going to provide an overall better experience and I think that's what Apple is trying to be known for. It's not that they're any less functional or any less complex .. it's just that they usually work first time and don't need a full-time help team.
YMMV
Click to expand...

Hi! Thx for the reply. By purpose-built, I meant I preferred an ios like ios6 that was purpose-built for touch control, vs ios7.0 that veered from purpose-built and arbitrarily replaced all touch-friendly skeumorphism with an over-simplified "flattened" text-based interface that I felt could work better with a mouse interface but not so well with touch interface. On the flip side, then www.icloud.com was cleansed and flattened to look more like ios7 with a minimalist "simpler" interface with few lines and cues to differentiate different areas of the screen and with flat artwork that still looks like a Fisher Price kid's product on South Park. All those retina display pixels and all that simple artwork... As for customizing, I don't want to mess with my ios, I just want it designed well and to "just work" from the getgo. For me personally, ios6 and prior ios's worked much better than ios7, and the pre-flattened icloud.com was much easier to use. :)

At any rate. Good news! Just upgraded my iphone4 to ios7.1. *BIG* improvement in speed and UI over ios7.1's artsy too-thin font and hazy low-contrast brightness. Fonts are thicker, contrast is greater, backgrounds (folders, docking area at bottom of screen) are more defined and no longer blend into the background, and now you can choose to have button outlines for command text. Instantly feel a large improvement. I have yet to look at the calendar app but I hear they brought back some of the pre-ios7 interfacing.

Oddly, the most noticeable improvements harken back closer to ios6 appearance and UI. Hmmmm....

Go upgrade. I'm happy to have a more workable iphone again!
 
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Yinzer said:
Hi! Thx for the reply. By purpose-built, I meant I preferred an ios like ios6 that was purpose-built for touch control, vs ios7.0 that veered from purpose-built and arbitrarily replaced all touch-friendly skeumorphism with an over-simplified "flattened" text-based interface that I felt could work better with a mouse interface but not so well with touch interface. On the flip side, then www.icloud.com was cleansed and flattened to look more like ios7 with a minimalist "simpler" interface with few lines and cues to differentiate different areas of the screen and with flat artwork that still looks like a Fisher Price kid's product on South Park. All those retina display pixels and all that simple artwork... As for customizing, I don't want to mess with my ios, I just want it designed well and to "just work" from the getgo. For me personally, ios6 and prior ios's worked much better than ios7, and the pre-flattened icloud.com was much easier to use. :)

At any rate. Good news! Just upgraded my iphone4 to ios7.1. *BIG* improvement in speed and UI over ios7.1's artsy too-thin font and hazy low-contrast brightness. Fonts are thicker, contrast is greater, backgrounds (folders, docking area at bottom of screen) are more defined and no longer blend into the background, and now you can choose to have button outlines for command text. Instantly feel a large improvement. I have yet to look at the calendar app but I hear they brought back some of the pre-ios7 interfacing.

Oddly, the most noticeable improvements harken back closer to ios6 appearance and UI. Hmmmm....

Go upgrade. I'm happy to have a more workable iphone again!
Click to expand...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/03/ios-7-1-on-the-iphone-4-as-good-as-its-going-to-get/
here's an in depth article on what you're experiencing if you're interested
 
Thanks, that was interesting. So this is all the 'snappiest' it's gonna get. :) I think this will make the wait for the iphone 6 more tolerable now.
 
Yinzer said:
Thanks, that was interesting. So this is all the 'snappiest' it's gonna get. :) I think this will make the wait for the iphone 6 more tolerable now.
Click to expand...


and then you'll find something to complain about iPhone 6/ iOS 8 ;)
 
If it's deserved my friend, then why not. Had no complaints until Steve Jobs passed away and then the insane ran the asylum. :)

Edit: ha ha yeah I've been a big complainer on this one I admit, even if I feel it's very deserved. Hopefully didn't complain too much to be a turn-off, though. I'm blessed that I don't have other bad things going on at the moment, so if whining about ios7.0 and today's meh auto styling trends are my biggest complaints, I'll take that all day long!
 
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For those who are interested, Steve Gibson has part 1 of his in-depth discussion of Apple's recently released security whitepaper.

http://twit.tv/sn

See episode #446.

Basically, he calls iOS and iPhone hardware (like the fingerprint reader) a monument to user privacy--extremely well architected to provide maximum protection against snooping and yet managing to hide all that complexity from the user experience. The only weakness he notes is one of the NSA-compromised algorithms snuck into iCloud keychain. Hopefully they will change that in the future.
 
Alleged iPhone 6 front panel. Judging by comparison, this appears to be the 4.7" iPhone that's rumored to debut in September. The other rumored size is the 5.5" iPhone that is said to debut later.

154239jolgq7p77r4g4187.jpg
 
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NSXrebel said:
Alleged iPhone 6 front panel. Judging by comparison, this appears to be the 4.7" iPhone that's rumored to debut in September. The other rumored size is the 5.5" iPhone that is said to debut later.

154239jolgq7p77r4g4187.jpg
Click to expand...


I hope that is not the size. That is too big already. One of the reasons why I haven't jumped on the Samsung Galaxy phones and such is because it's just too large. I would love a larger screen on the iPhone, but more edge to edge on the same width phone vs a physically larger phone.
 
Agreed. I moved off from Android to an iPhone specifically because it was a smaller and more compact device. 4.7 inches sounds awfully close to enormous and 5.5 inches is simply out of the question.
 
ChrisK said:
I would love a larger screen on the iPhone, but more edge to edge on the same width phone vs a physically larger phone.
Click to expand...

Ha ha, watch what you ask for! :) Even if the idea of a full-screen borderless iPhone makes Jony Ive all giddy at night in his grey turtleneck nightgown, I'm hoping AAPL doesn't keep pushing the industrial design envelope too far in that direction! I distinctly remember thinking the original iPad would've been so much more impressive if they either used all the available footprint for a full screen edge to edge or kept the viewable area the same size but in a smaller overall footprint. The border looked just too big, like an early 1990's laptop screen. That was before I used one. It wasn't long after I got one that I appreciated that border for ease of secure holding w/o unintended screen touches as well as allowing for a sizable rubberized casing that provided a lot of protection w/o really making the entire ipad that much wider. Also, iOS7 rendered my iPhone 4 case useless, as the case did a great job of protecting the fragile iphone by covering all but the viewable area but prevented me from accessing the new control panel feature. Had to go to a larger case with more access to the screen for swipes but which made it feel kind of brick like.

Oh well, that's progress right? :) So funny in that this reminds me of my appreciation of my feather-light pothole-friendly 15/16 inch OEM wheels. I really appreciate that extra sidewall and am no longer interested in low profile tires, especially in Pittsburgh, or until my livelihood depends upon maximizing my driving performance. What they lose in form, they more than make up for in overall balanced function for me!
 
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I think they needed the large sizes, but also might alienate people who like the 4" size. Samsung makes 100 sizes, so they have all their bases covered.

Personally I think the iPhone is way too small, but my wife likes that it fits in her little bag. The 4.7" won't.
 

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