Samsung- I have never loved you more

[CFUG]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10000872396390444358404577609810658082898-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwNDAyODQ3Wj.html?mod=wsj_valetleft_email

[wappinghigh]

I just wish they (Apple) just looked after their existing customers a bit more rather than fighting endless legal battles about the iphone/ipad. Whilst these are no doubt important, are they taking their eye off the main game?

No NAS. How about making one we can all buy and use?

Locked in DRM. Ok. So *this* is the legal battle you should be fighting. Sure, if Apple isn't at fault here (that is the excuse I'm always told), well then fine, but show us you care by doing something about it!! Take on the studio's and media barons instead of Samsung..

Hopelessly Outdated Router. Need I say more?

Cloud computing nightmare. icloud has never worked as well as mobileme...in any case, I don't want my data on some darn cloud that I have no control over.....

No upgrade to mac pro. Q/ Where is this going? A/ looks like nowhere

Itunes badly outdated in formats supported and library management. Bring on JRiver

*Still* no Blu Ray drives in their computers... I mean... COME ON ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!

Yeh sure, the main revenue game might be iphones and ipads..but where to now?..

Apple...How about looking after your enthusiast computer user base for a change? HELLO> That is where it all began. Quality digital audio and media handling. Have you forgotten.? Yes. That's right...It all began with something called the "home computer"

[HeliNut]

I just wish they (Apple) just looked after their existing customers a bit more rather than fighting endless legal battles about the iphone/ipad. Whilst these are no doubt important, are they taking their eye off the main game?

I disagree. Apple has a lot of battlefronts to play in, and although they are not perfect and have some areas of improvement, you can't say there is anyone else doing better. At the time the iPhone came out, every other phone on the market really sucked. I used many of them. Their user interfaces were not intuitive and what they did have performed miserably. Apple truely innovated a good piece of hardware with good software, and an infrastructure and community of useful apps to make it even better.

Samsung has never been an innovator in the smart phone market. They were late to the game. They don't have a smartphone OS, instead used Android to jumpstart (which is not a bad choice, but the point is they are benefiting from others hard work). And when you look into the details of their recent court loss, they blatantly copied as much as they could from Apple.

Samsung has a long history of doing crap like this. They admitted price fixing in the memory market in 2005, they were price fixing in the LCD market in 2011, and oh, big surprise, they were blatantly stealing ideas from the market leader in smart phones too. I have zero respect for a company that clearly operates that way as a matter of corporate culture. I'll never buy their crap.

No NAS. How about making one we can all buy and use?

Locked in DRM. Ok. So *this* is the legal battle you should be fighting. Sure, if Apple isn't at fault here (that is the excuse I'm always told), well then fine, but show us you care by doing something about it!! Take on the studio's and media barons instead of Samsung..

Hopelessly Outdated Router. Need I say more?

Cloud computing nightmare. icloud has never worked as well as mobileme...in any case, I don't want my data on some darn cloud that I have no control over.....

No upgrade to mac pro. Q/ Where is this going? A/ looks like nowhere

I agree with these points mostly. On the MBP, I actually asked a Apple store person about that. The 17" MBP was the least selling version, and overall MBP sell a fraction of what iPads sell, so it's really a matter a discontinuing your slowest mover. Still sucks though...

Itunes badly outdated in formats supported and library management. Bring on JRiver

*Still* no Blu Ray drives in their computers... I mean... COME ON ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!!

This makes sense as far as strategy goes. Blu Ray is dead and is incompatible with Apple's business goals. They want to sell you the movie through iTunes, so why support a format that has never made more than a 15% market penetration and makes no profits for Apple, when the iTunes store bypasses the need for Blu Ray and makes Apple profits? It's a choice you make when you buy an iPad/Mac/AppleTV/etc.

In other words, don't hold your breath.

[seth_j]

I just wish they (Apple) just looked after their existing customers a bit more rather than fighting endless legal battles about the iphone/ipad. Whilst these are no doubt important, are they taking their eye off the main game?

...

Apple...How about looking after your enthusiast computer user base for a change? HELLO> That is where it all began. Quality digital audio and media handling. Have you forgotten.? Yes. That's right...It all began with something called the "home computer"

Exactly! Apple is getting it so wrong with their $600B market cap and $100+B cash on hand... if they keep failing their true customers they're going to end up drowning in all that money.

[AceOfSpades]

How can you put a patent on a Rectangular shaped device? What in the hell!!! I need to create a patent on a Square-shaped device with a squared-screen.

[HeliNut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_dress

[thegreatheed]

Rectangular is not valid trade dress. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Apple is only hurting themselves with this crap. I read an editorial that Samsung in fact WON this trial. They only had to pay a billion dollars to become the worlds leading cell phone manufacturer. People are also now saying, 'well if the samsung is the same as the apple, why would I pay more for the apple?'

[xc420]

I read an editorial that Samsung in fact WON this trial.

Yeah If you consider paying over a billion dollars in damages as winning, then yes they won.

Where's this editorial at? I want to read it, I need a good laugh. This guy ought to work for the Obama administration as Press secretary or maybe head of the DNC. I'm sure they can always use a good spin-doctor (BS'er).

People are also now saying, 'well if the samsung is the same as the apple, why would I pay more for the apple?'

They aren't the same, only an idiot would say something like that... Samsung sucks. It's obvious to me - Samsung didn't copy the Iphone, they copied the IPad. Bigger is not always better. No wonder the battery life is so horrible on them.

[Cyknight]

This makes sense as far as strategy goes. Blu Ray is dead and is incompatible with Apple's business goals. They want to sell you the movie through iTunes, so why support a format that has never made more than a 15% market penetration and makes no profits for Apple, when the iTunes store bypasses the need for Blu Ray and makes Apple profits? It's a choice you make when you buy an iPad/Mac/AppleTV/etc.

In other words, don't hold your breath.

I'm sorry, no more than 15% market penetration? Even if accurate, what's Apple's current market penetration for laptops and desktops again?

I won't touch on the usual quality discussion here, but I've yet to see anyone NOT buy Blu-Rays/DVDs because they have Apple TV, or Netflix or whatever else.

Let's keep in mind that the intention of Apple is not to STOP you from buying from someone else. Just to make sure you buy there stuff. The iPod/iPhone and especially the iPad is the PERFECT example of "not producing to the market need, but producing a market need" philosophy that Apple, through Jobs, has used to such success.

[seth_j]

Everyone has an opinion but a jury came to a conclusion that Samsung willingly copied Apple's products and design. You can't do that. End of story.

If Samsung wasn't so blatant about copying so much from the iPhone, Apple would have won fewer of their claims. Its also telling that the jury decided that Apple didn't infringe on any of Samsung's patents -- even when its pretty clear they did. This tells me they made up their mind that Samsung was in the wrong and just awarded everything to Apple.

http://stopcopyingapple.tumblr.com/

[chicagoskiguy]

BTW, those 2 pictures above are not the same scale. I think apple was criticized during the trial for using a similar image. Not saying that there isn't similarities, but it's not quite as bad as that picture shows.

http://www.gizmodigit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Samsung-Galaxy-S2-Vs-Apple-iPhone-4-Size-Comparison.jpg

[HeliNut]

I'm sorry, no more than 15% market penetration? Even if accurate, what's Apple's current market penetration for laptops and desktops again?

I won't touch on the usual quality discussion here, but I've yet to see anyone NOT buy Blu-Rays/DVDs because they have Apple TV, or Netflix or whatever else.

Let's keep in mind that the intention of Apple is not to STOP you from buying from someone else. Just to make sure you buy there stuff. The iPod/iPhone and especially the iPad is the PERFECT example of "not producing to the market need, but producing a market need" philosophy that Apple, through Jobs, has used to such success.

Sorry, my stats are behind. Now Bluray is up to 17% by unit sales. Measuring by dollars is somewhat misleading since they are more expensive, but even by that measure, it's 25%. Here's a data source:

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/market-analysis/sales-report-week-ended-081112

Note also that overall disc sales are down 7%

As for Apple laptop and desktop market shares, you have to include ipads now, since tablet sales take away from ultrabook and laptop sales. So that makes the answer 19%, and currently in the #1 position.

http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments

And at the same time, overall DVD+Bluray disc sales are shrinking.

Do you still think Netflix+iTunes+whatever else is not effecting the traditional channel?

Historical lesson learned - How are CD sales doing?

[pentium77]

People that buy the iphone and use itunes vs using a Galaxy S2 or S3 or Note need to have their head examined. I'd say likely the majority of the iphone buyers want to be "cool" pretending they are back in high school with the latest fashion statement.

@helinut To say "blu-ray is dead" is just an uneducated statement. Where else are you getting 1080P / 3D with Lossless DTS-MASTER / Dolby True-HD audio? and further down the road with 1600P and beyond. Sure you can download 1080P content but to date none have lossless audio mentioned. Maybe you use the TV speakers though. Especially now that blu-ray players are cheap and will eventually be as cheap as DVD players not too long from now what are people going to buy? 4.7-9.4GB DVD player or 50GB Blu-ray with internet capable content delivery.

Lastly I'll say that I'm happy for Apple's ingenuity, however how much of that will be left with Jobs gone we don't know yet. We saw what happened when Jobs left the company last time. I hope they stay around because as a consumer the more competition the better for everyone.

[cashmoney]

The iPhone/iPadis the most well put together devices currently on the market. From OS design and functionality to the fit and finish of the actual device, the Apple products are superior. Yes, I have the newest Galaxy and an Asus Transformer.

Apple, just like C4, designs and sells to their biggest market not to those of us on these forums who in no way represent the typical consumer. As for the MBP not being upgraded who cares. I can get an Asus G75 for half the price of the top of the line MBP and still blow it out of the water from a performance standpoint. MBP were the goto devices for graphic artists and musicians when other software was not available and when windows was not the most reliable, that's changed. I can get the same functionality, often with the same software, on a Win7 machine now and Win7 is just as stable as OSx. The MBP is a fraction if total sales, makes little to no sense to continue to support it with engineering and design costs.

iTunes, with a plugin, can do nearly anything JRiver can do. Head on over to computer audiophile or similar and read about all the plugin options that will let you store, manage, and play your high res files.

BluRay in the eyes of the studios IS dead. Plans are already underway to go fully digital with a "pay to play" platform. That is you'll never actually own a piece of physical media, just the right to view the title x number of times depending on the license you purchased. This however is not currently slated for commercial application for approximately 10 years. However it is the future.

[Cyknight]

Sorry, my stats are behind. Now Bluray is up to 17% by unit sales. Measuring by dollars is somewhat misleading since they are more expensive, but even by that measure, it's 25%. Here's a data source:

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/market-analysis/sales-report-week-ended-081112

Note also that overall disc sales are down 7%

As for Apple laptop and desktop market shares, you have to include ipads now, since tablet sales take away from ultrabook and laptop sales. So that makes the answer 19%, and currently in the #1 position.

http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments

And at the same time, overall DVD+Bluray disc sales are shrinking.

Do you still think Netflix+iTunes+whatever else is not effecting the traditional channel?

Historical lesson learned - How are CD sales doing?

Considering that the iPad is NOT a laptop, nor does it have any reasonable ability to add an optical driver reader, I'm not sure I agree adding it to the comparison.

That said, either way, any group that constitutes less than 1/3 of a market should not ever be dumping generally accepted equipment. Even if that "group" consists of the biggest single player on that market.

I NEVER said that it hasn't affected the way the market is. Far from it.

However I'm seeing people use BOTH digital means and non-digital means. Most of my clients buy Blu-Rays for the movies that "count" while getting the "oh let's watch a movie tonight" goes through digital means.

Overall disc sales down by 7% may not even have so much to do with the market share as it has with the overall poor economy.

People seem to own many MORE movies these days then they ever have, and there are many more TOO own. Even if most are digital, and most of it is due to digital options, that colours the meaning of market-share numbers considerably.

Historical lesson number 2: Everyone said that Cinema's would disappear completely when the DVD was introduced. Haven't seen that happen yet...

As for "physical" ownership of movies disappearing (be it "digital" or disc -or whatever- based).. this is being explored yes. If that will ever actually happen or not is very much in debate right now as there are some really large obstacles to overcome, ranging from distribution issues to legal concerns, that may make this impossible at least for the foresee-able future.

Do want to note that I'm not against ANY of this (though I am hesitant about the whole no more ownership part), it all just makes my life more interesting.

[AceOfSpades]

As for Apple laptop and desktop market shares, you have to include ipads now, since tablet sales take away from ultrabook and laptop sales. So that makes the answer 19%, and currently in the #1 position.

http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments

There is no way the Apple is #1 in Laptop/Desktop. Apples ratio doesn't even compare to Microsoft. You figure that probably only four Companies that don't use Microsoft Laptops/Desktops:

-- Apple

-- Google

-- Redhat

--SUSE/Novell

Apple may have 19%, but MS has over 60% Market Share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

[IHateC4]

Samsung produces the screen, processor and memory for apple products.

What apple make for Samsung?

LoL.

http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-04-02/tech/30089528_1_android-phones-google-s-android-smartphone-market

http://androidandme.com/2011/06/news/five-features-in-ios-5-that-show-how-apple-is-now-playing-catch-up-to-google/

[cashmoney]

As for Apple laptop and desktop market shares' date=' you have to include ipads now, since tablet sales take away from ultrabook and laptop sales. So that makes the answer 19%, and currently in the #1 position.

http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments[/quote']

There is no way the Apple is #1 in Laptop/Desktop. Apples ratio doesn't even compare to Microsoft. You figure that probably only four Companies that don't use Microsoft Laptops/Desktops:

-- Apple

-- Google

-- Redhat

--SUSE/Novell

Apple may have 19%, but MS has over 60% Market Share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems

Microsoft does not make computers, it makes an OS. Apple and HP go back and forth as the top computer maker, not OS maker.

I love when people compare the iPhone to Android and say that android is the too smart phone.. Android is the OS, the iPhone is still the top selling phone.

[HeliNut]

Considering that the iPad is NOT a laptop, nor does it have any reasonable ability to add an optical driver reader, I'm not sure I agree adding it to the comparison.

You can no longer exclude tablets from the "PC" market, whatever that means anymore.

If you divide markets by processor type, then you might go with x86, ARM, etc. Or maybe divide it by OS, then you have WinX, OSX, *nix, Android, iOS, etc. Or maybe even form factor, Desktop, Laptop, Netbook, Tablet, Smartphone. However you slice it, it's fuzzy now. So the stats that I had quoted came with the following criteria:

Note: Canalys defines a client PC as a computing device designed to be operated by an individual and positioned to serve a broad range of purposes, achieved by running third-party applications, some of which can work independently of a network connection. When designed to be portable, it must be able to function without mains power and have a built-in display of at least 7 inches in diagonal.

So basically everything with a 7" screen or bigger is a "PC". This makes sense, because you can do real work on a iPad or Asus Transformer, just as you can a Dell Optiplex. Different tools for different jobs of course. And also *everyone* in the PC business knows that laptops are being killed by tablets. Have you noticed how laptop prices are crashing? This is why.

So in short, yes it's fair to include iPads in the "PC" market share. Not having an optical drive not a disqualifier by most, IMO.

[Cyknight]

Considering that the iPad is NOT a laptop' date=' nor does it have any reasonable ability to add an optical driver reader, I'm not sure I agree adding it to the comparison.[/quote']

You can no longer exclude tablets from the "PC" market, whatever that means anymore.

If you divide markets by processor type, then you might go with x86, ARM, etc. Or maybe divide it by OS, then you have WinX, OSX, *nix, Android, iOS, etc. Or maybe even form factor, Desktop, Laptop, Netbook, Tablet, Smartphone. However you slice it, it's fuzzy now. So the stats that I had quoted came with the following criteria:

Note: Canalys defines a client PC as a computing device designed to be operated by an individual and positioned to serve a broad range of purposes, achieved by running third-party applications, some of which can work independently of a network connection. When designed to be portable, it must be able to function without mains power and have a built-in display of at least 7 inches in diagonal.

So basically everything with a 7" screen or bigger is a "PC". This makes sense, because you can do real work on a iPad or Asus Transformer, just as you can a Dell Optiplex. Different tools for different jobs of course. And also *everyone* in the PC business knows that laptops are being killed by tablets. Have you noticed how laptop prices are crashing? This is why.

So in short, yes it's fair to include iPads in the "PC" market share. Not having an optical drive not a disqualifier by most, IMO.

Actually try to read what I'm trying to say: I'm stating that the iPad (nor any tablet be it iOS, android or windows powered) shouldn't really be part of a COMPARISON that ties back to adding blu-ray drives to laptops or desktops. Seems fairly reasonable to exclude device groups within the PC overal market that are by their nature incapable to use an optical drive (at least internally) from a discussion partaining on why Apple should or should not support Blu-Ray optical drives in their products.

I also state in the very sentence you quote that an iPad is not a LAPTOP. Didn't say it was or was not a PC or even a part of overal PC marketshare.

Do try to keep on track.

[HeliNut]

@helinut To say "blu-ray is dead" is just an uneducated statement. Where else are you getting 1080P / 3D with Lossless DTS-MASTER / Dolby True-HD audio? and further down the road with 1600P and beyond. Sure you can download 1080P content but to date none have lossless audio mentioned. Maybe you use the TV speakers though. Especially now that blu-ray players are cheap and will eventually be as cheap as DVD players not too long from now what are people going to buy? 4.7-9.4GB DVD player or 50GB Blu-ray with internet capable content delivery.

These features that you quote are generally only available on BluRay, true. However other than the high end enthusiasts and techie types (highly biased on forums like this), most consumers don't care. 3DTV is probably the biggest of that list, and by most reports, the take up is slow still. But I have a feeling it doesn't really matter what I say, since you'll dismiss it as being an uneducated statement. So here, maybe listen this this guy:

Blu-ray is not really a big selling point any more. The fact that a product plays discs is a secondary factor, the main thing is that it's Smart.

[seth_j]

Samsung produces the screen, processor and memory for apple products.

What apple make for Samsung?

Money.

[Cyknight]

Samsung produces the screen' date=' processor and memory for apple products.

What apple make for Samsung?[/quote']

Money.

And a market for a "new" generation of smartphones that Samsung is reaping the benifits from.

[thegreatheed]

Samsung produces the screen' date=' processor and memory for apple products.

What apple make for Samsung?[/quote']

Money.

And a market for a "new" generation of smartphones that Samsung is reaping the benifits from.

What!?

Apple didn't create the market.

Sorry, I had 2 windows mobile phones before the iPhone came out. 2 PDAs before the windows mobile phones. Portable productivity and gaming gadgets existed LONG before the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Did they create a boring grid of icons UI? Yes. That's about all they created.

Was/is the iPhone a good device? Absolutely. Did it create a market? Nope. Smartphones were coming and the market was created long before the iPhone.

[cashmoney]

Yup, all those things existed... For a VERY short time, they all sucked and didn't survive. Apple was the first to intro a device that actually worked, worked well, and most importantly the general population really wanted. The previous iterations were mostly bought by people like us, geeks.