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Iphone Apple

The Most Popular Product Of All Time 367

Apple announced Wednesday that it has sold more than one billion iPhones. To understand the magnitude of the milestone, Asymco's Horace Dediu has compiled a list of the best-selling products across several categories. From his post (link shared via email by reader JoshTops):Car model: VW Beetle 21.5 million; car brand: Toyota Corolla 43 million; music album: Thriller 70 million; vehicle: Honda Super Cub 87 million; book title: Lord of the Rings 150 million; toy: Rubik's Cube 350 million; game console: Playstation 382 million; book series: Harry Potter Series 450 million; mobile phone: iPhone 1 billion.
The iPhone is not only the best-selling mobile phone but also the best selling music player, the best-selling camera, the best-selling video screen and the best-selling computer of all time. It is, quite simply, the best-selling product of all time. It is that because it is so much more than a product. It is an enabler for change. It unleashed forces which we are barely able to perceive, let alone control. It changed the world because it changed us. And it did all that in less than nine years.
Update: 07/28 20:07 GMT by M :Dediu just told me that the list doesn't include consumable non-durable products.
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The Most Popular Product Of All Time

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  • BS "most popualar" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:02AM (#52598667)

    There are plenty of others.. Like sliced bread, for example.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:08AM (#52598727)

      Exactly, this is just an exercise in mental fapping.

      Even then its still not the best selling product. Each model is a DIFFERENT PRODUCT.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:15AM (#52598801) Homepage Journal

        If they are counting all models of iPhone as one, they should count all Android phones as one too. In which case the iPhone is small fry - last year Android was estimated to have 1.4 billion active users.

        • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:28AM (#52598933)

          If they are counting all models of iPhone as one, they should count all Android phones as one too. In which case the iPhone is small fry - last year Android was estimated to have 1.4 billion active users.

          All Android phones from different manufacturers? That's like saying if the most popular car is the Toyota Camry, then all American cars are more popular. Apple and oranges.

          • by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:41AM (#52599071)
            It's all about setting the terms to make yourself look good.

            The question is what makes for a valuable metric. For instance, let's play with the terms a bit more. Has Apple sold more phones than, say, Samsung or Nokia? I'm talking all cellphones, not smartphones. For the sake of argument (and because I don't want to bother digging up the statistics) let's say that Nokia sold more phones, when you include feature/flip/etc cheap-o's. Why is that number less or more relevant? Why include the 2g iPhone, but not those? Basically someone is making a choice of where to draw the line on the category, one way or another. It's a PR/marketing move, so of course Apple wants to do it in a way that puts them in a favorable light. You say apples and oranges, but I say they were comparing Apple sales to Car sales to Album sales. Why is it a bad thing to want to compare fruit to fruit, in that vein?

            I mean, to play devil's advocate in another way, McDonald's has sold however many billions of hamburgers, but what does that tell us compared to smartphones?
            • Another good example is when a truck commercial states it has the most towing capacity and then quietly adds "in its class" and down at the bottom of the screen is a disclaimer about the class they are talking about which if you were quick enough and had the eyesight to see it could go look up to find it is the ONLY truck in the class because the manufacturer invented the class so it could make the statement in its commercial.
            • Since it took McDonalds 23 years to sell their 1 billionth hamburger (famously, on the Art Linkletter Show in 1963), and it only took Apple 9 years, I guess that tells us that iPhones taste better than McDonalds.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Android OS is a product in itself. I bet Windows has sold more than 1 billion copies too, over all versions.

            ARM processors definitely have sold billions, but not as many billions as some of the 8 bit ones. 8051 or Z80 perhaps. Depends what you consider a "product".

            I bet BIC have sold more than a billion Biros. And disposable razors.

          • If they are counting all models of iPhone as one, they should count all Android phones as one too. In which case the iPhone is small fry - last year Android was estimated to have 1.4 billion active users.

            All Android phones from different manufacturers? That's like saying if the most popular car is the Toyota Camry, then all American cars are more popular. Apple and oranges.

            Not really, an android phone is equal in scope to an iphone. That one company makes all the different versions of iphone and wont let anyone else make anything i... is irrelevant.

            Also, I'm not a car guy but aren't toyotas Japanese? But in that example it'd be like saying the motorbike is the best selling transport when compared against fords, nissans etc

        • Like most stories with a bias. It all depends on how you want to categorize things.
          For hardware brand Apple Wins. For a phone type Android may beat IOS. If you want screen manufacture perhaps Samsung will get it.

          Politics does this all the time. The Republicans may ask if you liked Hillary Clinton. Over half don't so they make the point that over half may vote for Trump.

      • They are also counting all models of the PlayStation as one.
        I think products like the Bible or Quran are selling way more copies. But they don't have any usable numbers.

      • Indeed, this is just cherry picking

        The Bible has sold more than 6 billion copies; Agatha Christie books (they're including all the iPhones models as one lump quantity, we can include do the same with her books) has sold 2 billion books. Using the same logic, the Beatles have sold 2 billion albums. And these are just off the top of my head (stats all taken from statisticbrain.com [statisticbrain.com], I've no idea as to their accuracy but assume the numbers are within a reasonable margin of correctness ;-).

        1 billion iPhones is a

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:34AM (#52598981)

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

      or the Bible at over 5 billion copies

    • McDonald's Hamburgers?
  • Big Mac (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:04AM (#52598679)

    The Big Mac is the most popular product of all time.

    • Re:Big Mac (Score:5, Interesting)

      by buck-yar ( 164658 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:15AM (#52598793)

      This. Something like 14 billion Big Mac's sold.

      Also, if they are grouping all the different model Iphones together, doesn't Toyota, Michael Jackson, etc get to group all of their similar products under one count as Apple got to?

      Seems like one of the most fraudulent claims heard this ____ (insert arbitrary date range here)

    • by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      I can't imagine that McDonalds has sold more Big Macs then it has sold regular hamburgers/cheeseburgers. In 2013 it was predicted McDonalds would be serving their 300 billionth burger (of any type).

    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      Not a chance. Coke a Cola would beat it hands down.

    • by Quirkz ( 1206400 )

      Which I really don't get, because the Quarter Pounder with Cheese is much tastier.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:05AM (#52598687)

    Would be a knife. Everyone alive and dead has (had) at least one since longer than we've been human.

    • by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      iPhone is a series of models of cell phone. A knife isn't a brand. Maybe if you said a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife but I doubt they've sold a billion.

      Even in the tech world, I can think of other things that have sold more than a billion. Windows licenses would easily be one of them. Intel processors routinely sell over 100m in a quarter.

    • Would be a knife. Everyone alive and dead has (had) at least one since longer than we've been human.

      Remember there is no spoon

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:06AM (#52598697)

    Look, I like my iPhone, but - I'm sure there are a myriad of products which have sold more than a billion units. Q-Tips and Reynolds Wrap are probably among that august group.

    • by geek ( 5680 )

      Look, I like my iPhone, but - I'm sure there are a myriad of products which have sold more than a billion units. Q-Tips and Reynolds Wrap are probably among that august group.

      Toilet paper. Pretty sure I've bought more than a billion myself.

    • by Kjella ( 173770 )

      McDonalds passed 100 billion burgers in the 90s, the estimate today is 3-400 billion. And it's definitively changed America(ns) too.

    • Q-Tips and Reynolds Wrap are probably among that august group.

      Things that you only use for a limited amount of time, before throwing them away and buying a new(er) one ?

      No, no. I assure you, smartphones also qualify in this category...

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Recent estimates put the Bible at 5 billion copies sold.

  • Perception (Score:5, Funny)

    by VorpalRodent ( 964940 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:07AM (#52598709)

    It unleashed forces which we are barely able to perceive...

    ...except with an oscilloscope.

    But seriously, hyperbolize much?

  • Sorry, Apple fanbois, the iPhone is not the best selling camera of all time.
    It may be the best selling "device with a camera" of all time, but it is not a "camera".

    Furthermore: bic pens? razors? pine tree-shaped air-fresheners ... I would wager a bet these all sold more.

    It has sold very well, yes, but let's not blow our load over it.

  • G.E. Lightbulbs: 100's of Billions.
  • I won't argue that the iPhone is a successful product - clearly it is. The uncritical leap from reasonable statements about its success as a product to the "so much more" and "enabler of change" bugs me a bit. The blatant worship makes me question the entire article and leads me to believe that the reality is somewhat less profound. And that's too bad, because it takes away from the deserved praise that the iPhone and Apple should receive for their success. I've heard of "damning with faint praise". N

  • The iPhone is not only the best-selling mobile phone but also the best selling music player, the best-selling camera, the best-selling video screen and the best-selling computer of all time.

    There is no "the iPhone". iPhone is a model designation that has covered a family of phones. It's just as idiotic as saying the Toyota Corolla is the best selling car because each year the product is tangibly different than the year before. The Toyota Corolla sold today bears little resemblance to the one sold even 10 years ago much less 30. If they want to specify a particular build of those products then fine. But calling the iPhone brand a single product is just stupid.

  • And it's surely also the one that sold most units of the same SKU, unlike all iPhone variants mashed up in one big statistic. It is in every single market in the world, for every single pocket type, rich or poor, black, white, red or yellow (sorry if that sounded racial). Of course it might no longer be the most profitable, but wake me up when there's relevant numbers of daily purchases of the exact same phone by the same subject for his or her own personal use.
    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      To be fair, however, there were at least three variants of Coca-cola that all went by that name in just the past 40 years.
  • Asymco (the website that published this 'story')? Never heard of them. What makes them the authority on sales numbes?

  • If the iPhone is one product, how many Galaxy S have Samsung sold since the first one? The iPhone have its variants, Samsung has much more variants but still counts as 1 product, right?

    This is as big fanboy clickbait article as it can be.

  • ...sales NUMBERS..

  • by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:35AM (#52598999) Journal
    One Mr. Kalashnikov would like to remind you that he has (often literally) revolutionized substantially more territory than Apple has; and he only had to sell ~100 million units to do it!
  • The iPhone is not a product, it's a brand. As in there are multiple different models.

    When they compare it to cars, they compared it to specific models - the VW Beetle, the Lord of the Rings. They didn't compare it to all VW cars, or all Tolkien books.

    That would have been a fair comparison.

    • by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      The Beatle did not go unchanged for it's production run and some of the changes where pretty significant including engine growing from 1100cc to 1600cc. So I would say it is valid. BTW they are wrong I would put money on Coke a Cola as being the most popular product of all time.

  • I dread to think what Horace Dediu was doing to himself as he wrote this, but I don't think it was sanitary.

    It is, quite simply, the best-selling product of all time. It is that because

    Because you've decided what counts as a "product" and what doesn't. How many cigarettes have ever been bought? How many copies of the Bible have sold? How many different versions of the iPhone are you bundling as a single product?

  • What about loaves of bread? How many loaves of bread have been sold?

    I'd call bread a product, certainly sold more than 1 billion loaves over the years. In fact, I'd bet quite a large sum of money far more than 1 billion loaves of bread have been made over the years and sold.

    This seems like a desperate attempt to take a big number and wack off to it while claiming Apple is the greatest ever.

  • or what about computers for that matter?
  • Supposedly, 6 billion bibles have been sold or donated. The iPhone still has a way to go.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Since their charge cables are so shitty, each iPhone user will go through at least 10 cables per phone, so 1billion iPhones = 10billion+ chargers
  • by Ecuador ( 740021 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @09:52AM (#52599177) Homepage

    You can't just arbitrarily take the sum of all the models that a company has produced in a category and compare it to specific models in other fields. Try comparing the iPhone to 3M's all types of post-it notes, who has sold more units? If you want Apple to win that comparison by going "by value" you are worse off, since most car manufacturers trump you, even if you just go by "model" as this BS topic does and not the total of cars that a manufacturer has made. Oh, and, by the way, and "Corolla" is just a model line when we say "brand" we usually refer to "Toyota".
    If you want to get more serious, you can find products that sell more both in units and value. E.g. Coca Cola sells in a week, about as many bottles of Coke as Apple iPhones have been sold in history and it is just a matter of how many years back you have to go with Coke bottles to reach a greater overall value in Coke than iPhones...
    And it gets even worse than that. Even among phones, the iPhone is not that remarkable in *numbers*. The lowly Nokia 1110 sold 250 million units. This is far above any single iPhone model. In fact, some of its directy predecessors each sold more units than all or most iPhone models (e.g. the 1100 also about 250 million, the 3210 over 150 million, the 3310 130 million etc). Similar to the iPhones Nokia made phones that were very similar in looks and software and differed only in the model number, so if you can sum up all iPhones you can sum up a line of Nokia phones and come up with more than a billion.
    Why not just stay at the fact that the introduction of the iPhone was a paradigm shift that shaped the entire smartphone market and it continues to be one of the most popular platforms to this day? Why do you have to make up such BS headlines?

  • Books don't break nearly as often, and VW beetles could be repaired.

  • If you stop supporting you're products after a while. When they come out with a new phone the old ones start to develop slow downs and other crap.

  • A friend liked to go to integrated circuit design events so he could point out that he developed one of the most common chips of all time.

    It was the AM/FM radio chip used in billions of devices. Does anyone know how many SATA connectors Foxconn has made?

  • I wonder how many iphones have been sold vs those basic casio watches that are fucking everywhere!
  • This article -- while an interesting opinion piece -- is clearly missing some key pieces in the argument it tries to make, which is largely why so many people are attempting to offer their own contrasting figures both here on /. and on the original article thread. So here's one more example, to add to the collection: The Bible is the best selling book in the world, at somewhere over 5 billion copies... but that's a sales figure which spans back over two centuries. So where's the time factor, in this analy

  • Not for Everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Braintrust ( 449843 ) on Thursday July 28, 2016 @02:40PM (#52601809)

    Call me a Luddite, and I respond that I've been using computers for hours every day since 1979.

    I know hardware, I know code.

    I will never own a smartphone.

    Why, you ask? (or most probably don't)

    I made an observation a few years ago that up until the early 90s, I would use computers to get away from people for a few hours. Now when I want to get away from people, I stop using them for a few hours.

    The social media hivemind empowered by the smartphone is not for everybody.

    Every evening I sit on my porch with my 16-year-old cat and watch people out walking their dogs or taking an evening stroll. It's astonishing how many people do so with their nose attached to a smartphone. Furthermore, it's really really sad to see.

    Smartphones have made it too easy to be super-stimulated. I know enough about computers and enough about addiction to know when to abstain from certain behavior.

    I know their utility, and having that much computing power in your pocket is certainly a dream I've held since I was very young, but how it's been promoted and indoctrinated and utilized by society at large is quite disconcerting from a certain point-of-view.

    Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and smartphones... it's like the worst version of advanced inter-connectivity from classic science-fiction has come to pass. /rant off

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