Hacker News Reader

Comment by jad | Hacker News Reader

> They are toast.

Apple earns about 50% of the profit in mobile handsets, a share that is trending upwards.

They managed to make a mobile phone a status symbol, but that is more a branding achievement than a technical one. Today i saw a garbage collector (really) with an iPhone, and both of my parents have one. The status symbol fades when everyone has one.

This number is just relevant for apples wallet, but what matters in the long term are market share and being technical superior.

Nokia and RIM had also very neat numbers some years ago.

"The status symbol fades when everyone has one."

Exactly. Apple has not been a status symbol or part of the counter culture for YEARS.

Yet their revenue and profit has been increasing... So even if you were correct, it clearly doesn't matter.

I have an Android phone, ATRIX specifically, yet I recommend an iPhone to any non-technical person I know looking for a phone. The main reason I do this is consistency. Android has come a long way, but iPhone still has a more consistent interface to include the applications.

If they have questions any other iPhone owner is a potential support person. If they get some Android phone they either contact me, need to find someone else with the same phone or someone who is willing to learn the UI shell of a given vendor and where things are on that device.

None of this has anything to do with status symbols. The last person I recommended an iPhone to was a retired police officer who wanted something to get information on but did not want to deal maintenance like a regular computer.

After talking to him about the different approaches, including how iPhones prohibit you from doing things that are possible on Android, he was confused why he should care about not being able to do those things. He didn't want to validate permissions of applications when installing them, he just wanted them to not screw up his phone.

He was more than happy to give up some freedoms that he may never have used in order for someone else to try and protect him from malicious apps or to have everything "just work." I can't see that ever going out of style with people that could care less about underlying technology.

"You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good."

-- Andy Warhol

I don't think Apple's goal with iPhone is to make you want it because it's exclusive; you're supposed to want it because it's good.

The Macintosh ended up as more an exclusive, niche product, but with later products Apple has moved away from that as a market strategy.

It is still a premium price, and the people are willing to pay this because it is a status symbol.

The huge profits come from a overpriced product, Coke makes his profits from a clearly distinctive product in huge amounts. You have to explain a customer why it is worth to pay a huge bonus for a similar product. Coke lost this status symbol and is now cheap since Red Bull became the next cool thing.

Apple is incredibly good in sustaining a premium image with new versions etc. That is what the high profit margins come from today, i just don't believe that this holds on forever.

Apple wants you to believe that they are the "best" not good, everything they do is dependent on that promise. When the regular people don't believe that any more they have a problem.

Garbage collectors are relatively well paid (~$15-25ph).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com