01-23-2013, 09:37 AM
I think HTC and Samsung are going to steal more and more of the iPhone market. I'm starting to see more women in their 20s with Samsungs, which I feel has been the demographic most prone to succumb to Apple's marketing. These are the people who want sleek and chic, which Android phones have not typically been, but I think phones like the Galaxy S III and HTC One X have pretty well fixed that (also, when you have a purse there's no downside to having a larger phone, especially when you want to share videos and photos with friends in a "here, look at this" sort of way).
iTunes remains the curse of iPhone users, all of which seem to hate it but I have known people who upgraded to a new iPhone purely because they were too afraid to try and migrate to Android because iTunes has all their stuff and they didn't want to have to figure out how to deal with that. (Also, if you have stuff from iTunes before 2009, it's got DRM on it and will only play on an iSucker device.)
I also now think the "app" angle is overblown. I would say that what I see people do with their smartphones is about 98% internet stuff (web, email, messaging) and 2% app usage (and most of the apps they do use are just more "internet stuff", like Facebook app or online photo stores -- major apps available for all platorms). I think once you have a phone that can do all the basic internet stuff, I dunno how much appeal is really being added by an app store with 200,000 apps you'll never, ever buy. Apple also let out their Mr. Hyde side for public viewing with the whole maps boondoggle, which I think was a huge PR mistake. Not so much that they released their own app, but that they did so before it was well tested and ready, and blocking Google Maps showed the ugly side of how Apple views product control (it's not your phone, it's theirs).
iTunes remains the curse of iPhone users, all of which seem to hate it but I have known people who upgraded to a new iPhone purely because they were too afraid to try and migrate to Android because iTunes has all their stuff and they didn't want to have to figure out how to deal with that. (Also, if you have stuff from iTunes before 2009, it's got DRM on it and will only play on an iSucker device.)
I also now think the "app" angle is overblown. I would say that what I see people do with their smartphones is about 98% internet stuff (web, email, messaging) and 2% app usage (and most of the apps they do use are just more "internet stuff", like Facebook app or online photo stores -- major apps available for all platorms). I think once you have a phone that can do all the basic internet stuff, I dunno how much appeal is really being added by an app store with 200,000 apps you'll never, ever buy. Apple also let out their Mr. Hyde side for public viewing with the whole maps boondoggle, which I think was a huge PR mistake. Not so much that they released their own app, but that they did so before it was well tested and ready, and blocking Google Maps showed the ugly side of how Apple views product control (it's not your phone, it's theirs).