Why Verizon Doesn't Want You To Buy an iPhone 207
Hugh Pickens writes "Sascha Segan writes that although Verizon adamantly denies steering customers away from Apple's iPhones in favor of 4G LTE-enabled Android devices, he is convinced that Verizon has a strong reason to push buyers away from the iPhone. 'Here's the problem,' writes Segan. 'Verizon has spent millions of dollars rolling out its massive LTE network' but the carrier can't easily add capacity on its old 3G network. Since the iPhone isn't a 4G phone, sales of Verizon iPhones just crowd up their already busy 3G network while their 4G network has plenty of space. 'The iPhone is a great device. But it's making a crowded network more crowded. Until the LTE iPhone comes along, to rebalance its network, Verizon may quietly push Android phones.'"
Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
That is...actually a fiendishly good idea. I'm not sure why you got Funny, that should have been insightful. And any verizon wireless rep that's reading this, there's your answer.
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One reason is that I've read that among smart phone users, that those with Android tend to use a lot more data than the average iPhone user. My guess is that's because the average iPhone user is closer to "joe six pack" who is likely downing a few apps and songs, but mostly doing light surfing and checking email. Whereas a lot of android users are more geekish and tend to use the data side more.
I know with my iPhone I've averaged about 450MB of data per month over the life of my last contract and only onc
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Informative)
Your anecdote contradicts actual research. Android users don't surf the web as much as iOS users. - http://www.webpronews.com/ios-trounces-android-in-web-traffic-2012-04 [webpronews.com] (This was with a 5 second google search with 'iOS android internet traffic')
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Web page hits =/= bandwidth consumed. Surfing the web does consume bandwidth, but compared to other types of applications that can consume bandwidth, it's consumes a relatively small amount.
When compared to things like streaming radio, skype, netflix, video conferencing, etc, web surfing doesn't consume that much bandwidth.
It's entirely possible that android users typically tend to have high-usage of those high-bandwidth applications.
Also, here is an article that I found that also says that android users u
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Informative)
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Android also has more marketshare so it kinda evens out.
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...use a lot more data...
Web content is not the only form of data. Not by a long shot.
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More likely it is due to iPhone users getting a lot of updates and downloads through iTunes on their PC, rather than over the air directly on the phone. I bet the majority of Android users don't even have the manufacturer's sync app installed, where as with the iPhone it is mandatory just to copy your data on to it.
Combined Android handset sales easily outpace iPhone sales and I'm pretty sure technically minded users don't outnumber "joe six pack" types.
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iPhone is very aggressive about jumping onto wireless access. I know some Android phones are not.
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Wow, the only plans I've seen use throttling to 56k if you exceed your volume, not overage fees. I guess that's a difference between Europe and the US.
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I'm sure a lot of that depends on how the data use is metered.
Personally, I use about 100-300MB of data a month, closer to the low end of that. I have used less than 60MB on a couple occasions. How?
* turning off data when I'm busy and don't want to be bothered by notifications.
* Using nearby wireless access points instead of data services, when available (work, home, friends' houses). I'm guessing many of these 'data usage' numbers are reflective of people using wifi, so the carrier has an excuse to make su
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That is actually quite insightful, sir. Well done.
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Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
That last sentence is the fault of some dead white guys named Maxwell, Hertz, Shannon, and Nyquist, not anyone at AT&T or Verizon.
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Yes and no. It's true that you need more spectrum to get more bandwidth, but the carriers are the ones causing the shortage: Most people are in range of wifi most of the time. If all phones would default to using wifi for everything whenever it is available then it would take a huge chunk of the load off of the cell towers.
But that would take a huge chunk of the load off of the cell towers. Which reduces scarcity, which by supply and demand makes prices fall. They don't want plentiful bandwidth and low pric
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If all phones would default to using wifi for everything whenever it is available then it would take a huge chunk of the load off of the cell towers.
The iPhone does that. I don't know that the carriers want to force this though. And no this is not artificial. The real problem is congress not cannibalizing the HDTV bandwidth for over the air internet. Who uses rabbit ears anymore?
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If you are talking Canada I'm not even sure what the issues are regarding bandwidth or carriers or subsidies or.... Everything I wrote was very US specific.
As for carriers selling wifi, if the cost of their bandwidth is high enough in cities it might make sense. They could do something like 10m wifi = 1m over-air so they can still charge yet still encourage wifi.
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So I should pay AT&T for an unlimited plan, when my phone will do everything in its power to avoid using that service, and only use it as an absolute last resort?
That seems like something the carriers would love.
$600/yr for Internet access on the bus (Score:2)
Most people are in range of wifi most of the time.
Then what do you propose for the rest of the people and the rest of the time? I spend a lot of time commuting to and from work on public transit, and I don't feel willing to pay $600 per year to have Internet access on the bus. So instead of a tablet, I bought a netbook, and I can run PC applications that are designed to work offline.
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I'm rarely in wifi range when I want to use my telephone rather than an alternative (especially not public wifi or wifi I have a password to).
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Great post, and witty!
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Drop the power to reduce the range and put in more nodes. You don't even necessarily need to build out more towers, just increase the separation and number of elements to achieve whatever directionality you require such that each beam is not saturated.
You don't need to put a huge tower next to a mall if you can deal with the owners to put a dozen micro-cells inside the mall.
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Informative)
If that were true, then care to explain how we came to define and follow Moores law for many a decade?
What does the transistor density have to do with signal error rates?
Sorry, but an unlimited data plan is not some sort of physical impossibility.
Actually there are limits. That was his point. As for unlimited internet in other markets, generally those are capped to. But over the air is vastly more complex than wired so you bump against the one limit and not the other. People who backup their entire Blu-Ray collection notice the home internet limits.
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You are commenting on this from a consumer perspective. If you want to understand why verizon is doing this you must think from the business perspective. A business wants to increase their profits and increase their margins continuously. In order to do this you either expand into new markets or increase your profit on current markets. Their biggest growing market right now is data on their faster LTE network. They increase their profits by making you pay for the LTE connection. Then they guarantee future profits by limiting your data usage now since they know your data usage will only grow in the future and make them more money. Just because you want a cheap and unlimited and super fast connection doesn't mean that makes business sense. I'm guessing you still pay for a cell phone but complain about the price. If you don't like it, then don't buy it and the business will adapt. But last I checked, their business is booming and they are making very healthy profits. So clearly they are doing something right even though you personally don't like it.
Based on your mentality of defending a profitable model, I suppose every single oil company in the world is doing an absolutely amazing job as we all pay $4/gallon for gas, right?
There's a line between being profitable, and doing what is right. After watching the LECs of the world eat everyone else for lunch as they dance around monopoly accusations, I rarely find their actions commendable, even from a business standpoint.
And I don't pay for a cell phone, so there's no bias to find there either.
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"Based on your mentality of defending a profitable model, I suppose every single oil company in the world is doing an absolutely amazing job as we all pay $4/gallon for gas, right?"
Wrong! Because in Europe they manage to get that price doubled.
"There's a line between being profitable, and doing what is right."
Yes... for some people.
For corporations (sadly, I may add) "being profitable" and "doing what is right" are strict synonyms.
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"Based on your mentality of defending a profitable model, I suppose every single oil company in the world is doing an absolutely amazing job as we all pay $4/gallon for gas, right?"
Wrong! Because in Europe they manage to get that price doubled.
"There's a line between being profitable, and doing what is right."
Yes... for some people.
For corporations (sadly, I may add) "being profitable" and "doing what is right" are strict synonyms.
All very true...very sad, but very true.
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suppose every single oil company in the world is doing an absolutely amazing job as we all pay $4/gallon for gas, right?
The oil companies don't set gas prices, that's the commodities market. As for doing a great job in the last 5 years they've boosted production from 85m barrels / day to 90m against a world where easy to get to reserves are collapsing. Yes they are doing a great job. They are making far too much money for that great job, but gas would be $75/gallon if it wasn't for the technologies th
$80/mo is luxury. $80/yr is necessity. (Score:3)
Do you really need to make a phone call anywhere at any time?
Yes, and that's why I carry a $7 per month Virgin Mobile dumbphone in case I need to be picked up somewhere.
Do you really need to check that email immediately?
No, and that's why I carry a netbook that can download e-mail over Wi-Fi before I leave so that I can read and reply while I'm riding the bus.
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I agree with you....
However, I've seen a number of people, even here on Slashdot, espousing, that connecting to the internet, is now considered a basic human right, even a necessity of life right up there with water and food.
I don't get it either...it
Re:Easy solution (Score:4, Interesting)
A business wants to increase their profits and increase their margins continuously.
And that's the fallacy of continual growth. Continual growth is only possible if your growth rate is less than or equal to the growth rate of the market. If you growth rate exceeds the growth rate of the market, then no matter how small you start, or how large the market, you will eventually hit a maximum. Businesses (and stockholders) demand sustained growth exceeding the market growth, and that's simply impossible. You can only do that for a limited time. Moving into additional markets allows continued growth in those markets, but it's not enough to sustain continual geometric growth. It's simple math, yet it escapes most executives and stockholders.
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You are spot on and let me add this:
All the Cxx's out there are looking at the NEXT quarter, calculating their bonuses in their heads, working their stock profile...in short being the sociopaths that we have pushed them to be. The quarter after next? Who cares! That might not even be their problem.
Sure they sit though the meetings where the people who are thinking about beyond this quarter. That person who needs to make sure the business stays alive so they can just continue getting paychecks. And if it
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I don't see how this follows. First off I don't think they are pushing people away from landlines. But even if they were, the carriers don't want you to give up home internet in a meaningful sense, because they are pushing away from landlines.
And if your network can't handle it, then you're doing it wrong. Plain and simple.
No not simple or plain. Bandwidth costs. Over the air bandwidth costs a fortune. They are selling limited amounts of data to recover the costs of a network. Their is no magic bandw
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That would violate the standard "how dare you use what you pay for you need to pay exorbitant overages for that" clause that the cellular industry likes.
Did you see where the former head of AT&T said offering unlimited data with te iPhone (so you could actually use it) was a mistake? AT&T is trying to get people off unlimited. Sprint pushes it because they're dying, but they still cap you do it's not unlimited.
Unlimited is clearly bad, and consumers are wrong for wanting it.
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Sprint pushes it because they're dying, but they still cap you do it's not unlimited.
I guess you could call it a cap, but the last time I looked into it it seemed more like a type of QOS to me. It's just that if you are a super-heavy user you are one of the first to get rate-limited.
Unlimited is clearly bad, and consumers are wrong for wanting it.
Well, it is convenient. I recently switched to prepay... T-Mobile has a crazy 5GB 3.5G/Free Texts/100 minutes talk plan for $30/month and another 1500 talk or text with only a few megs of data for $30/month. That covers my wife's use case and my use case and saves us about 30-40 bucks per month over our old fami
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The strategy for Verizon would be to ultimately migrate everyone from its 3G network to its 4G network, and it has no dog in the iPhone vs Android phone fight. As the main story mentioned, their 3G network is already congested, and until enough customers switch over, it makes sense to have incentives getting people to their 4G. From a networking POV, 4G mandates the use of IPv6, which 3G isn't, and so w/ 4G, Verizon is not going to run into an address exhaustion situation. In fact, the IPv4 address exhau
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Unlimited is a very bad idea. You end up with a small percentage of users hogging bandwidth. And even regular users are much less careful when the data is unlimited. Delivering data is expensive. Cheaper phones OTOH is not. Throwing an extra $4/mo over the life of the contract into an Android is an extra $100 subsidy. You could have amazing "free" or under $100 phones on 4G.
...or a Windows Phone either, apparently. (Score:2)
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The problem is that the Nokia Lumia 900--the only Windows Phone-based cellphone that has LTE support--works only on AT&T's GSM/LTE combo network for the US version. If the Lumia 900 included a version that worked on Verizon's CDMA/LTE network, that would be a different story!
A bunch of corporate whining (Score:3, Insightful)
All I hear is, "we're making money hand over fist, but it's not all perfect...". Meanwhile they paid a negative federal tax in 2011 [1] and are lobbying for even lower taxes and local subsidies.
The iPhone is their best selling device. The next iPhone will have LTE support (like the iPad today). Verizon just sounds like a whiny child who didn't get *everything* they wanted for Christmas.
In short, fuck them and their entitlement complaints.
Re:A bunch of corporate whining (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the guillotine is out of fashion, so such conduct is allowed to occur unchecked.
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You realize that this commentary didn't originate with Verizon, right? And that Verizon is specifically saying they're not steering people away from iPhone(which is a popular seller and money-maker for them ). The entire article is someone's linkbait speculation that Verizon might not want to sell iPhones, nothing more.
4G/LTE kills battery life (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a 4G/LTE capable Android phone (Samsung Conquer on Sprint). 4G is fast, where it's available, but I leave it off except when I really need more speed than 3G can provide and I don't have Wi-Fi available, because it kills battery life. About 90% of the time, I have Wi-Fi, and most of the remainder, 3G is fast enough. So, if and when 4G/LTE chipsets can provide the speed without a major hit to battery life, that will be a viable option. Not so coincidentally, that's exactly the reason Apple gave for not supporting LTE yet.
So, from technical perspective, it may appear to make sense to push customers to 4G/LTE phones, many will do as I have and turn off 4G eliminating the technical advantages. Many of the others will complain about the battery life, it's not necessarily good customer relations.
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I've noticed the same with my mobile hotspot and typically leave 4G off unless I'm plugging it into my laptop. On 3G the device pretty much lasts all day with typical surfing. On 4G it's drained in a couple hours.
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I have a 4G/LTE capable Android phone (Samsung Conquer on Sprint). 4G is fast, where it's available, but I leave it off except when I really need more speed than 3G can provide and I don't have Wi-Fi available, because it kills battery life.
That's not 4G/LTE, it's 4G/WiMAX -- totally different technologies.
Link to phone arena [phonearena.com]
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You're correct that it's WiMAX, not LTE. However, that doesn't change my statement at all. They're not that different [wikipedia.org]. They have similar data rates, similar modulation methods, use a 20MHz channel, and use the same transmit power. They're not interoperable, but they're not significantly different. And WiMAX is the more mature of the two technologies, which makes the point even stronger. The more mature technology still kills battery life.
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No, it doesn't. LTE is actually claimed to be more efficient than CDMA. Where LTE consumes more power than CDMA, it's delivering much greater bandwidth.
The problem is, current networks continue to use CDMA for voice, adding LTE only for data. That's what kills battery life - having to run multiple radios. A current 4G phone has to do everything a 3G phone does, and more. I'd expect that once a carrier has completely built out their LTE network and gotten it tweaked, they'll roll
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Sorry, but the evidence doesn't support that claim.
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A phone doesn't need to be LTE only to provide evidence. The differential power draw/battery life when LTE is enabled/disabled is sufficient, and it demonstrates that LTE when enabled, but not actively in use significantly reduces battery life enough to make the claim unsupported.
LTE may be more efficient per byte, but unless you can power down the transceiver to a the same idle power when data isn't being transmitted (yet it's still listening for incoming data), then LTE will use more power and shorten bat
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Relying on the difference in current draw for a specific current phone is naive, at best. For the reason that assuming the delta in power draw from turning off the LTE radio isn't an accurate reflection of the actual power usage for LTE, you need to understand how Verizon's active dual-mode accesses the network, and the power costs involved in tracking, and switching between separate CDMA and LTE connections.
You need to read up on SC-FDMA, CDMA2000, PAPR and frequency diversity
Repackage the 4G package as "The New Unlimited" (Score:2)
in a new shiny chrome welcome box and the they flock to it.
The newwwww Alante booty shake, booty shake, booty shake....
LOL -- as if it matters what Verizon "pushes" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LOL -- as if it matters what Verizon "pushes" (Score:5, Interesting)
I have about 14 friends who got first generation droid phones back before the iPhone came to Verizon. The reason was it was the closest to an iPhone Verizon had and they were not going to go to AT&T. Given the difference in coverage in that area, Verizon had an advantage. That was 2010. I was back visiting recently and what surprised me was the fact they ALL had iPhones now. Every single one when they went to renew their contracts chose the iPhone over the newer droids.
Yeah I know, circumstantial evidence I know, but in the same time frame I've known exactly 1 of my friends who left the iPhone for the Droid Razr. Now a lot of my friends have left AT&T (including myself) for other carriers, but they've stayed with the iPhone.
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The customers you are talking about the loyal to semi-loyal Apple people are Verizon's high margin customers. They don't want to steer them anywhere but towards more accessories and additional services. But there is a huge group of consumers who know about the iPhone but are very iffy about it. On the surface, and quite often in reality the Android phones can look like a better value for what you get: even though the iPhone subsidies are higher Apple's profit margins can be much higher. Verizon also h
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I forgot to mention I've been a Verizon customer since about 2000. They tried to steer me away from iPhone when they first got it, and I was thinking of paying the penalty to get a phone sooner.
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I won't get Verizon because their network implementation is CDMA/LTE, and incompatible with most of the good Android phones out there. How's that for an answer? I know I'm not alone in this.
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I won't get Verizon because their network implementation is CDMA/LTE, and incompatible with most of the good Android phones out there. How's that for an answer? I know I'm not alone in this.
It's a good answer. :-) I won't get Verizon because they have notoriously bad customer service. It used to be AT&T was terrible in that area, but they have greatly improved. I wonder if verizon have improved as well. I think they have better coverage.
May quietly push Android? (Score:3)
Verizon may quietly push Android phones.
Or they may not.
Random People on the Internet Writes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll just quote from the source articles and let you make up your own minds.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/03/technology/verizon-iphone-sales/ [cnn.com]
Anecdotal evidence is stacking up on chat forums and other outlets...
http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/03/technology/verizon-iphone-sales/ [cnn.com]
A pretty hot story is going around, stoked by CNNMoney...
[give some facts]
Maybe those are minor factors, but they aren't the primary reason.
[reach any conclusion you want]
MAYBE it's true, maybe it's not, but I fucking hate "new media".
Enter Sprint (Score:3)
This past spring I was shopping for a new small business account. My contract for my iPhone had expired with AT&T so I did my shopping. One of the major things I wanted was tethering so I could connect my laptop or iPad (wifi only) when I needed to on the road.
Sprint sold me on a mobile plan for the iPhone which is about $70 a month plus a 3g/4g Mobile hotspot instead of tethering. Even with both lines it's still about $40 a month cheaper than either AT&T or Verizon with 6GB of transfer vs 4GB for "tethering". Not to mention the deposit for a new small business account was a lot less with Sprint vs. AT&T or Verizon.
So I have 4G speeds with the iPhone via the hotspot if I want them. Or if I'm getting close to my data limit, I can do more of my business with the iPhone's unlimited data at 3G speeds.
What about the money for Apps? (Score:3)
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Oh all things being equal the carriers love Android and hate Apple. But things aren't equal. The 30% is just a tip but the extra $50 in subsidy really bites. Worse than that though is the brand loyalty issue. If Verizon stopped carrying Motorola no one is following them out the door. But RIM used to and Apple does have the kind of brand loyalty where customers would change carriers to get the phone in large numbers. And those are the least price sensitive, i.e. highest margin customers of Verizon.
If
My response (Score:2)
"Why Verizon Doesn't Want You To Buy an iPhone"
Why I Care What Telecoms Want:
... hmm, sorry, coming up dry on this one.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem: the Lumia 900 is an GSM/LTE cellphone, not a CDMA/LTE cellphone. As such, the Lumia 900 can be engineered for GSM networks (which is essentially most of the world's cellphone networks!) that have added LTE functionality, for example Australia's own cellphone network with GSM and LTE.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Informative)
And the US your GSM options are T-Mobile and AT&T. Verizon and Sprint are both CDMA.
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Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't LTE actually converge these 2 standards - CDMA and GSM into one?
Nope. LTE is part of the GSM family - CDMA has functionally dead-ended (at least in the US) with EVDO Rev B. It seems like it's a convergence because you will eventually finally have all four major US carriers using a single 4G technology. But having LTE on a phone doesn't make 2G/3G CDMA and GSM technologies any more compatible.
This is especially important because in the US right now, none of the major carriers have implemented Voice over LTE (VoLTE), so when you use a data connection it's routed over the LTE network... but your voice calls use the 3G circuit-switched network instead. No compatible 3G = no phone calls. Also remember that the US carriers are all deploying LTE on different bands so an LTE phone designed for one won't necessarily work with the other.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Informative)
The attempts by people to badmouth CDMA never cease to amaze me. The original GSM was based on the horribly inefficient TDMA. Basically, the phones took turns talking to the tower, even if they had nothing to say. You got the same limited bandwidth whether you were the only phone connected to the tower, or if the tower were at capacity. If there were more phones than timeslices, you couldn't connect, period.
CDMA allows all phones to transmit simultaneously, they just use orthogonal codes which allow the tower to decipher which signal came from which phone. It's computationally more expensive, but it allows a single phone to use all the bandwidth if there are no other phones, while distributing the bandwidth equally if there are multiple phones. If there are more phones transmitting than bandwidth, you start getting dropouts (the volatility of SNR means there's no hard limit at which this happens, as with TDMA).
When carriers started adding data services, GSM was borked due to TDMA's inefficiency. That's why CDMA carriers rolled out 2G and 3G service about a year sooner than GSM carriers. GSM was forced to graft on a separate non-TDMA radio just to handle data traffic. (This is also why you can talk and use data simultaneously on GSM - the phones have two radios, one for voice, one for data. It's not a feature; it's a side-benefit to a fix which CDMA never needed. Most CDMA phones just have one radio which handles both voice and data.) The later GSM 3g data protocols used wideband CDMA. That's right, CDMA won - it was the better technology for data. GSM just incorporated it into their standard so it was still called GSM. If LTE is CDMA functionally dead-ending, then GSM dead-ended way back when cellular data services were first added.
What's happening with LTE is that most implementations are opting for OFDMA [wikipedia.org]. OFDMA can squeeze in more bandwidth than CDMA, but requires even more processing power. Until recently, microprocessors weren't powerful enough to decode it on a cell phone without severely impacting battery life (this is the reason early LTE implementations have a reputation for being power hogs). Because it's OFDMA, it requires a different radio. That's old hat for GSM phones - just add a third radio for LTE. But it's something new for CDMA phones - CDMA radio for voice and 3g data, add a second radio for LTE. (And yes, this means you can talk and use LTE data simultaneously on a CDMA phone.)
GSM and CDMA have nothing to do with LTE technologically; it is just the standard they've decided to use for 4g data. In both cases, a completely new radio has to be added to the phone to handle LTE traffic. GSM using LTE is not a concession to CDMA, and CDMA using LTE is not a concession to GSM. Theoretically, if you expanded the operating frequencies, an LTE tower should be able to service 4g data for both GSM and CDMA phones (the whole point of LTE was to standardize a lot of the underlying technologies for compatibility). But until GSM ditches TDMA for voice and/or CDMA ditches CDMA for voice, there will be no convergence.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
LTE capability is just part of it. The direction is to get off of dedicated telephony transport systems and move to an all IP solution. LTE to the carriers is not just bandwidth and a different spectrum but also the promise of controlling future costs by getting away from systems that have to be replaced every couple years with a new technology.
Phone design becomes simpler and the telephony application is disentangled from the physical system (towers, radios, cell management, etc etc). Most people are not aware of just how much infrastructure the cell providers have gone through in the past decade.
Not feeling sorry for them as there is always a profit in there but it does help explain why your carrier may not come out with your much anticipated latest device as quickly as you like. Often there are hidden system changes that have to be invested in and implemented: all of which requires investment, resources and time.
There is a payoff from convergence for the user as well. You may not know it but that old CDMA or whatever phone may have better coverage than your GSM iphone simply because your carrier chose not to upgrade/add/replace hardware on all towers. Lots of fragmentation in the cellular coverage because of the many different "standards" that have come and gone.
IP convergence has been a religious mantra in the wireline world for a long time now but it also is hugely important in the wireless world.
Your phone becomes a pure data device where the telephone is essentially just a canned VOIP application.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The Lumia 900 is not a CDMA LTE device. Which in the US kind of shoots it in the foot. Verizon which is number one in the US is CDMA as is Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T are GSM CDMA carriers.
2. There are three players right now. Don't forget RIM. While not doing great these days they have more marketshare than WP7.
3. The Lumia 900 may not run WP8 which is really going to suck for those people that bought the "first real Windows Phone 7 phone".
4. Windows 8 is the real OS that will make Microsoft competitive in the market.... Except that is what they said about WM6 WM6.5 and WP7 so I would not hold my breath.
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Yes they are saying it about Windows Phone 8 Which is going to be based one Windows 8 RT. You just don't pay enough attention. And yea they said the same thing about Windows 6 and 6.5 When the iPhone first started to clean WMs clock.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Interesting)
In their competition with other wireless carriers, the carriers do want spiffy devices that will sell contracts and data plans. However, in the fight between telcos and tech companies over how the money gets divided, having strong handset and internet-based-services entities is Very Much Not what they want.
The AT&T/iPhone case is the most blatant: AT&T had an exclusive on what people wanted, and scored substantial sales despite constant whining about how their network sucked. However, Apple demanded a nontrivial slice, and their expansion into 'iMessage' and 'Facetime' and whatnot, never mind the annihilation of carrier download stores in favor of their own, shows a distinct disinterest in protecting the carrier's future gouging for SMS and other such services.
Given Microsoft's strong control of their platform and(while currently rather larval) strong potential for future integration with MS-controlled services to the exclusion of carrier ones, it isn't obvious that a carrier would want to encourage them.
Android, by contrast, is fairly closely controlled by Google if you want the full, blessed, all-google-goodness, flagship; but Google's very weak control over the periphery of the Android ecosystem means that it is trivial to get just about any company that makes cellphones to puke up an Android handset for you, complete with carrier branding and crapware, at cutthroat commodity prices. There is also some flexibility when it comes to hardware design. Consider something like the 'Motorola Admiral'(known to its somewhat reluctant users as the 'droidberry'). Not a wildly compelling phone; but the fact that you can get hardware that looks like that churned out probably helps the next time you and RIM go to the table about Blackberry service pricing... [motorola.com]
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Excellent post. Let me just add RIM up until about 2 years ago did the same thing. They had an exclusive high end market. They gave the carriers a nice chunk of extra revenue in fees but they absolutely would not implement protections for things like ring tones the carriers wanted.
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The AT&T/iPhone case is the most blatant: AT&T had an exclusive on what people wanted, and scored substantial sales despite constant whining about how their network sucked.
Not true. Windows CE devices did everything iPhones did (and more) when the iPhone came out, in a similar price range. The whiz-bang was better, but in terms of available applications, hardware capabilities, and OS features, it was way, way behind until at least the App Store came out for it (2008), at which time it didn't really matter (because Android was on the horizon and CE was basically abandoned by Microsoft, if only in name/platform).
Aside from a trendy aesthetically pleasing device which was 'like
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The WinCE devices didn't have th
What's with all the pro Windows Phone stuff on /. (Score:3)
Not to jump on SpryGuy or anything but I have noticed a bunch of people posting about Windows Phone on here.
It's really not a very interesting OS, what Nokia had previous to the Microsoft "buyout" was: http://swipe.nokia.com/ [nokia.com]
I do agree we need more competition doing well in the marketplace than Android and iStuff, but can we not get stuck with another propriatary OS that doesn't even allow GPL licensed software to compete?
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to be #7 on Amazon best sellers.
http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-Service-Plans/zgbs/wireless/2407747011/ref=zg_bs_nav_cps_1_cps [amazon.com]
#7 isn't bad for a phone which nobody wants.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
#7 isn't bad for a phone which nobody wants.
Yes it is. It's a disaster. Because it's the only Windows phone anybody is pushing. You're basically comparing the entire Windows phone market to specific models of Android phones -- and even by doing that, you end up as #7 rather than #1.
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The claim is only false if you're being pedantic. Obviously the device has a non-zero number of sales -- I'm sure Microsoft has cajoled their employees into buying it, at least. The problem is that Nokia has made itself a one trick pony. Motorola has 10 phones in the top 50. HTC has 13. Samsung has 14. Nokia has 2, which are really just two different colors of the same device. If Nokia had an entire line of phones taking a dozen spots in the top 50 like their competitors then having their flagship at #7 or
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A possibly interesting tangent... if you click on the top-most link to the left of that page there - the one labeled "Cell Phones & Accessories" - the top twenty products are all iPhone accessories, not Android accessories. And on the next page, 21-40, all but three of the items are iPhone accessories.
People may be buying their Android phones on Amazon, but they're sure not buying much in the way of cases, extended-power batteries, and such for them.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's one of the reasons carriers are willing to pay a higher subsidy for iPhone users. Apple customers buy more stuff across the board. They buy more services, they buy more accessories, they add more people to their accounts.... Apple focuses like a laser not on market share, but market share among profitable customers. That's why they generally pull 80+% out of markets they often have 10% or less share of.
Re:Too bad they're not also pushing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well of course the numbers are larger you silly child there are more accessories for iPhone than for Android. Its a numbers game at that point and not a telling of the markets movement.
I'll have to remember this one.... Making more varieties of something guarantees you will take all the top sales spots. Brilliant!
If the #1 selling item does 1 million units and the #2 does 100,000 - then making 8 different varieties of the #1 item and splitting the market 8 different ways will move the #2 guy down to #9 without any change in actual units being sold.
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Sometimes salespeople are right. Just yesterday I had a guy ask me the difference between the cheaper HDMI cables and the pricey (yes, Monster) ones.
Halfway through my impromptu lecture on conductivity and signal interference and why everything's moving from analog signals to digital, he just grabbed the monster cables and walked off.
In this case, the douche deserves to spend 50 bucks on 5 feet of HDMI cable. Fuck you, guy who isn't interested in learning something new. I've had OLD people ask the same t
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What customers want is a quick HONEST summary; past history shows salespeople can not be trusted so getting a detailed lecture from a salesperson is not far from watching an infomercial. If you were a trustworthy source you might be worth my time but since you are just a salesman I don't care if you have a PhD it is not going to give you credibility.
You should just tell customers the Monster cable is just beefier and might hold up to more abuse but it is not going to impact image or sound quality at all. Si
re: salespeople (Score:2)
I'm sure your cheaper HDMI cables *still* cost a massive amount more than a comparable cable from, say, Monoprice? So who cares, really? The honest answer would be to recommend the guy order one online and save a bundle, but if he was there strictly for the convenience factor "need one NOW"? Then buy the cheapest one the shelf and he'll be fine.
Re:Verizon pushed me to an iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently decided to try out Android before someone takes away my geek card :)
It's fun from a dicking around perspective, but I can definitely see how the average user would see it as inferior. It has taken me untold hours of screwing around to figure out how to get the same battery life as my old iPhones had, despite having a larger battery. In the end, I settled on an application that fixes the screen dimming on my phone and another that limits how often apps can use the data connection when the phone's screen is off, and another that sets the data networks on and off depending on where I physically am located.
Now on the one hand, I'm massively impressed because none of that would be possible on a stock iPhone. On the other hand, I never felt the need to look for those kinds of applications on an iPhone. Oh, and the jailbreaking thing is easier than the rooting thing - or at least it was for me. And yes you need root for the really fun stuff (and to keep the geek card). Backup needs some serious help on Android. I have done the standard thing and replaced the rescue utility with the fancy CWM-based recovery utility, but really that kind of thing should be included.
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Oh, and the jailbreaking thing is easier than the rooting thing - or at least it was for me.
This was mainly a lack of information (or you got some hard-to-break Motorola phone). SuperOneClick does it for almost every Android I've tried.
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citation please.
Citation right here [slashdot.org]. [don't hate!!]