Mobile phones & tablets thread

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Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior

So if I wanted to build a PC to run a racing simulator (for instance), sure, I might ask the Captain for advice. But on the question of margins and market share, I can't see that he truly comprehends what this issue is all about. PC advice? Yes. You'd certainly ask him before you'd ask me. But business acumen? No.

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You hit the nail right on the head there, couldn't agree more.

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Originally Posted by ioan

That's a piss pour analogy (pun intended).

While you can read the time on a 5$ watch just as well as on a 1000000$ one, try to use a CAD software made to run on a 2000$ laptop on a 100$ laptop (same goes for a recent Adobe software suite and many other software), then we can have a serious discussion about what technical specs are worth.

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I admit my analogy was utterly simplistic but unfortunately more complicated explanations of the disconnect between technical specifications and market value were ineffective so...

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Originally Posted by ioan

Crap management was the reason there, really horrible job they've done on that one.

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Although there were certain management issues, that was not even close to being the root cause of our major issue. Again, when a product begins being seen as a commodity, margins shrink, and with that, the stock price of the parent corporation will begin to suffer, if that division is a meaningful part of the whole. The Chinese companies, with government backing and subsidies, didn't care about margins. They'll do things to (unfairly) kill the competition. We had out President sitting before Congress in 2004 to address the below cost dumping and intellectual property theft that was taking place. But our Congress was/is full of bribe taking scoundrels and the Bush Administration acted like they didn't know how to file a case with the WTO. So there we were. Off-loading that division made sense, from a corporate perspective. Even a half decent CEO knows enough not to let a 15-20% portion of the overall company drag the whole thing down.

It doesn't matter if we're talking about cars, car parts, computers or watermelons... given one or the other, margins matter more than market share. Fact.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

So yeah, you pretty much attacked me with assumptions, without knowing bat$hit about me, and now you're accusing me of assuming. That's rich!

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My statement was not based on assumptions, it was in direct reply to a statement you made.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

Again, I must live in a parallel universe. The 10-15 programmers I know (one of them works for Qualcomm in San Diego, CA, one for Google in Bangalore and some others for bioinformatics companies) are not Mac fans whatsoever. It is from talking with them that I got this "anti-Apple" attitude. :p

Linux is the primary choice, followed by Windows at least for the ones that I know.

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I reponded based on what you said, and after that time you stated it was simply a joke. So my statement was made on information you posted, yet your statement on users being hands on was based entirely on assumption.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

Again, you're missing the point by a landslide dude. Nobody is denying that on similar specced machines, rendering capabilities will be equal, and the Mac may even be a better computer for graphic design (not in my personal experience, but if people are so convinced, I'm willing to agree that yes, it may have some advantages).

The point is that for the price of a top-end Mac, you get almost a double spec PC, and at the end of the day, since you're so well aware of what factors affect rendering, you would know that smooth and fast rendering depends pretty much 90% on how good your hardware is. A "robust" OS can only go as far as the hardware will allow it to go, no matter how many times you have to reboot it. :rolleyes: So, repeating again, for the same money, Adobe CS and other graphic design software will operate the same on both machines, but since PC components, especially when assembling, are MUCH cheaper than Mac, you will build a significantly faster rendering machine.

I want to make it very clear that better hardware however means squat when it comes to general, every day use, and in that case, it really doesn't matter whether you buy a Mac or a PC. But for rendering capabilities, better hardware is always tops. And that is a FACT. I have worked as a graphic designer, and used the Adobe CS on both machines. You can't tell the difference operating wise, but a PC with better hardware will always render faster and be lighter on your pocket. I have also used Final Cut Pro on Mac and Avid on PC for video editing. If the raw file is huge, which it usually is, sometimes in 100s of GBs, it ALWAYS helps to have better hardware. While FCP is tops as far as UI goes, Avid will render faster on a PC with better hardware. Smoother and faster rendering also means lesser hangs, lags, glitches in the final video.

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I can't agree with the above. Once again based on first hand information and years of experience I've seen that software plays a huge role. I don't dispute for a second that given the same software efficiency that hardware will always help, but having two that work properly together is also a big factor.

In my sign days I had a DOS based program that only used 1 meg of memory. That's correct, 1 MEG of memory. I used this program for years into the Windows days, running under a DOS window. The program would spool plotter jobs, multitask, and do many things much better than any Windows based software of the time that I tried. I also ran Photoshop and Corel (I think Corel was version 8 or so at the time) and they could use all of the memory in my system... probably 32 or 64 megs at the time. They would frequently choke, lock up, or just plain fail at digitizing vector graphics that the old DOS program would turn out day in and day out without issue.

Granted this software did not come cheap... but that is part of your argument. Cheap hardware is good right? I've seen time and time again that cheap is not always better. Apple has the advantage of providing hardware and software, and thus limits issues with various products not always being compatible with certain operating systems and such. IMO this became much worse in the Windows world when they started using the "Plug and Play" approach. Back when Windows allowed more user control you could configure what you wanted much better. I ran plotters, printers, faxes, scanners and such all at the same time with older versions, yet when the new "better" systems came out they wouldn't allow me to run the same devices in some cases. The newer better hardware was doing nothing for me at the time, and at one point I put together a box with an older OS until I found better solutions.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

Also, US and UK are not the whole world. So, the claims that majority of the graphic designers all over the world use Mac is a bold one, and needs some serious backing up. Are you sure Apple sells the same amount of Macs in Asia, Asia Pacific, Europe than it does in US and UK? Sales figures say otherwise.

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You are correct on this issue. In developed western nations the majority use Macs. In areas of the world where people have no food or money a stick drawing in the sand is likely the preferred hardware and user interface. I've never seen any data that contradicts the majority of designers using Macs, but to be honest I don't really care if that has changed. People can use whatever they want, this thread is about opinions.... actually supposed to be about phones and tablets but has drifted to PCs due to the anti iPad and iPhone crowd.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

At least read my posts thoroughly before attacking me.

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See above. My response that you took offense to was based on your statements that I quoted. There was no attack involved.

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Originally Posted by CaptainRaiden

Again, you are comparing the wrong device, and also looking at it only on the surface with an "overly simplistic" view. Just because your daughter's old phone is "smoother", doesn't mean it's a better phone. Sure, on the surface it would seem like, but what about the majority of other tasks? Mac OS X's window transitions are faster and smoother than Windows 7, but does it mean it's faster? No. Does it render faster? NO. It would be pretty noobish for anybody to assume that just because a phone doesn't lag at the UI, it's a better phone.

Since you consider Apple products to be the best, compare them with the best. Sorry, but the Droid has a history of way too many problems for it to be considered a real competitor to even the older iPhone 4. All Android smartphone manufacturers have interspersed the Android OS with their own UI (user interface). Some win, some fail badly. Motorola's motoblur is one such fail.

Samsung is the main competitor to Apple in the smartphone market, and Galaxy S2 is a much better comparison. It has better hardware, bigger screen, doesn't lag, works faster, smoother, and is cheaper than even the older iPhone 4.

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It seems you are the one missing my point here. Does the older iPod have superior hardware to my Droid? What I'm stating is that the hardware and software combined create the package. I didn't even say the iPod in my example was superior, just that in some cases it had advantages. Side by side my Droid will outperform my fathers iPhone 4 in the vast majority of tasks, but not all of them. But both perform the tasks just fine, and most of the time you aren't side by side watching which one finishes first. As I said earlier, the user speed of interaction probably plays a bigger role.

Your own statements about the various Android user interfaces follow the point I'm making... hardware alone does not rule the show. If it did the higher spec system/tablet/phone would always win.



The only Apple product in our home is my kids iPod, but I'm open minded enough to know that having a PC or three that I've built myself doesn't make me better or smarter than an Apple user. And it certainly doesn't make any Apple users regret their decision because I saved a few bucks... they are probably laughing when I'm looking for a new driver for a device. :D

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Originally Posted by henners88

If there was no iPhone on the market, Android devices would be the market leaders no doubt

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They are ;)

according to yahoo news, Andoid currently have the biggest market share in the USA, Android holds a 51% market share in the USA.

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Android is still the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States by a wide margin, as comScore has once again
found that Android was on more than half of all active smartphones in the U.S during the three months ending in May. In all, Android accounted
for just under 51% of all active U.S. smartphones in over the three-month period, followed by Apple’s iOS at just under 32%, RIM’s BlackBerry OS at 11.4%
and Microsoft’s Windows Phone at 4%.

Android still has over 50% U.S. smartphone market share, says comScore - Yahoo! News

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Originally Posted by henners88

They presently have enough consumers to be considered the market leader at the luxury end of the market however. Its all relative.

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All I can say is :eek: :eek: :confused: . Luxury and mobile phones ....

iOS... Android... whos cares? they're all evil. It's my impression it's not the man owning the smartphone but the smartphone owning the man. You see them walking around listening to the evil device, talking to it... texting all the time... they text while driving.... facebook status... just missed a red light hihiihi.. forget about privacy... you go some place it's on the internet in a few seconds... X cheched in with Big Ben at some place... Big Ben went from being "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" or in a relation****...

and there's all this cheap internet, phone calls and loads of SMS'... if someone wants to come by I receive 4-5 calls on the matter... hey I might come by... hey just left... hey want me to buy something... hey just arrived. Sometimes I miss the days when you'd had to think a bit before making a phone call.

So instead of fighting lets unite and burn them all. grab you pitch forks and light the torches.

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Originally Posted by Big Ben

iOS... Android... whos cares? they're all evil. It's my impression it's not the man owning the smartphone but the smartphone owning the man. You see them walking around listening to the evil device, talking to it... texting all the time... they text while driving.... facebook status... just missed a red light hihiihi.. forget about privacy... you go some place it's on the internet in a few seconds... X cheched in with Big Ben at some place... Big Ben went from being "in a relationship" to "it's complicated" or in a relation****...

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Thats a very good point...

and speaking of facebook... it seems to me so many buy this expensive and powerful devices just because the old ones or just a computer wouldn't do the job... the job of 'liking' of so many stuff. There's funny sayings and witty remarks and cute cats doing funny things that their hundreds or thousands friends bother to share that have to be liked... and they need to have it with them all the time to avoid by any means being missed by someone. I think I'll have to explain to my nephews the concept of missing someone.

I came across a message or status or whatever those are ...the other day saying... I was involved in an accident... and this and that... and guess what you could read underneath? Y likes this! WTF does that suppose to mean? :laugh: