Android continues to own Apple - Now half a million activations a day

Boutique video game retailer GameStop is looking to mobile hardware to expand its business, a new report claims.



According to Apple blog 9to5Mac, GameStop told dealers at a trade show in Las Vegas recently that it will start selling iOS-based devices in its stores. The company reportedly said that it will sell the iPad, iPhone, and iPod to customers across its stores.

GameStop has slowly marched toward the sale of iOS-based devices. Earlier this year, the company started offering a trade-in program on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod in a select number of stores. The company's president, Tony Bartel, told Gamasutra in an interview earlier this year that it planned to offer a nationwide trade-in program for Apple's products later in 2011.



Read more: http://news.cnet.com/apple/#ixzz1XCKgTchk

 

Another strike against Apple is that they impersonate the police and conduct illegal searches in pursuit of lost prototypes.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/06/i...ation-in-hunt-for-allegedly-missing-iphone-5/

 

Apple doesnt seem to have a problem tampering with evidence. Impersonating police seems like the logical next step.

 

(*)(*)(*)(*), Apple is quite a nefarious corporation. Steve Jobs is laughing all the way to the bank while screwing people over. If only there was some truth to the saying "What you cast on the water always comes back."

 

Samsung to drop Android by the end of next year:

http://androidspin.com/2011/09/05/rumor-samsung-dropping-android-for-in-house-linux-team-cyanosung-maybe-and-more/

They are developping their own linux based OS called BaDa.

And the South Korean government is urging both Samsung and LG to drop android...

http://androidandme.com/2011/08/news/samsung-and-lg-being-urged-to-ditch-android/

Not looking all that good on the android front now...

 

And for those who thought that Windows 8 would give them more liberty than Mac Os X... According to Twit, the apps for the new Metro interface will be exclusivelly sold via the Microsoft app store. You won't be able to install Metro apps outside of those pruchased from the store.

With Mac Os X Lion I can still download apps from anywhere and install what I want... How dare Apple give me such freedom while Microsoft oppress the masses...

 

To be fair, Windows 8 is primarily going to be a release for tablets. It's doubtful that people will need apps for the metro interface on regular desktops. I think it will be very cool if Microsoft can get the full blown Windows operating system onto tablets with Windows 8. That will be a major advantage, and would radically expand the utility of tablets. They're banking a lot on the ARM chip vendors scaling their offerings up.

 

Not unanticipated. That's pretty much what every analyst was predicting as soon as the Google - Motorola deal was announced. The other hardware partners were going to get a whole lot more nervous about Android once Google got into the hardware market too. If Google embraces this opportunity, they could still turn things around, but if they continue to try to offer Android for everyone, they're going to get left out in the cold.

 

Actually, Balmer want windows 8 to be the next version of windows for both single users and business. Windows 8 + Office 365 are the next Microsoft strategy to boost their revenue.

As for the Arm, every PC maker is planning or already using this plateform. NVidia is also entering the chipset/cpu business with their arm based pentacore plateform early next year.

More and more the cpu intensive task are delegated to the more powerful GPUs.

The computer market is changing.

 

The good point of Android was that it was sold as an open plateform. Starting with Android 3, the plateform isn't considered an open plateform by the opensource community since it now include a whole lot of proprietary closed api. Stallman, of GNU fame, came out recently denouncing the move from google to close up part of Android.

 

Sure, but Windows 8 can have more than one interface. It can present a traditional desktop view when it's used on a desktop, and a streamlined tablet interface when used on a tablet. There's no way that Windows 8 will be accepted by the business community if it can only present a cartoony tablet interface. Think of the metro interface as something like Windows Media Center and it would probably make more sense. It could easily be a mode that Windows 8 can use on tablets that doesn't impact desktop computers.

In fact, it could allow tablets to present both. Imagine an Atrix-like device that uses a tablet interface when it's used as a tablet, but presents a full Windows desktop when it's in its dock. There's plenty of options that Microsoft could pursue with this that would make Windows 8 usable on both. That's an exciting proposal, but it requires substantially beefier hardware than what's found on phones and tablets today. It's not impossible that this hardware can be delivered (and I think that eventually it will be), but I don't know that the timing will work out well for Microsoft.

RISC architectures have been proposed before on the desktop, but they never seem to deliver on the claims their manufacturers make in the media hype leading up to initial production. I'll believe that ARM is capable on the desktop or in the enterprise when it's delivered, not before. ARM is clearly the king of portable computing, but it's a hard thing to scale that up to the more rigorous demands of even desktop computing--to say nothing of enterprise demands. I don't think Nvidia is planning on Tegra 3 to be used for "desktop replacement" tablets.

A lot of tasks just can't be efficiently offloaded to a GPU. GPUs are great for tasks that can be split into many parallel tasks... but they're not so good for tasks that are inherently sequential. There will always be a role for something like a CPU, because the types of tasks that each is good at is so different.

Sure, I'd love nothing more than for ARM to supplant x86. I just don't see that happening any time soon on the desktop. It's a big performance gap that ARM manufacturers have got to cross. They might get there someday, but Windows 8 will be out before then.

 

Android just devoured half of Blackberry market-share over the last 3 months. Apple managed to stay exactly the same.

 

To really study this, you'd need to look at only providers actually carrying iPhones.

 

While Android isn't open source, it does provide more hardware options - Motorola, HTC, Samsung etc. That is healthy competition. It may also hurt Apple that they have a tendency to put privacy bending capabilities into their products. I know it did for me. Once Blackberry starts using Android, the die will be cast, I think.

 

Um...why?

What is stopping Apple from spamming iPhones to every carrier just like Android is?

I really dont get this desire to "handicap" Apple this way. All of their "limitations" are self imposed. I dont see why we need to limit the comparisons based on their self imposed limitations.

 

If you want to see if people really do prefer Android over iPhones, you have to analyze sales among companies that actually carry both platforms. If your employer gives you a discount for, say, Sprint, that's an artificial limitation preventing a person from buying an iPhone. That's just one of many examples of ways in which choice of carrier is not free.

Each carrier uses different networks. For example, to support "4G" with iPhones, Apple is going to have to issue a phone that supports two different "4G" specifications... This isn't really an issue for most other manufacturers because they already sell different phones (though sometimes only subtly different) to different carriers. Apple, however, tries to sell one phone to multiple carriers.

 

It's getting deep in here.

You can totally use an iPhone with any carrier if you know what you are doing.

In other countries, iPhones were never limited to just 1 network. Also, AT&T uses 2 different types of "4G" network connections. They make the claim that they are the only ones to use more than 1 type of 4g service.

http://www.att.com/esupport/article.jsp?sid=KB115951&cv=820#fbid=3lfrD3E0sgh

 

It's not just about unlocking the phone. No amount of wishful thinking is going to cause the correct radio to manifest itself in the phone. If you take your unlocked iPhone to a carrier that uses a network it can't understand, you're flat out of luck. This will be less of an issue for regular cell service with the iPhone 5 (which will have a dual mode CDMA and GSM radio), but it will definitely cause problems for 4G service.

Other countries also regulate their telecommunications industry more than we do.

 

I think what he means is that there are both CDMA and GSM versions of the iPhone. Therefore, yes, you could use the iPhone with any network. You just cant use a specific iPhone with any network.

You dont think availability is a variable when people choose a phone? Suppose someone really really likes T-Mobile for whatever reason? If they want an iPhone they are SoL.

It's a limitation imposed by Apple itself. BFD.

Each carrier uses CDMA or GSM. Apple has phone for both of those, and could easily install radios for more. Is it against Apple's religion to do so?

And that would just be impossible, right? LOL

Samsung doesnt seem to have a problem doing that. What is Samsung doing that Apple cant also do?

 

Well, AFAIK, the CDMA iPhones have dual mode CDMA/GSM radios. The bigger issue today is going to be 4G availability in the iPhone 5, which will probably be unveiled next week.

I think the vast majority of cell phone buyers go to their carrier's store and look at what the carrier has available. I don't think most cell phone buyers follow news about upcoming cell phones and cell phone release schedules, or even particularly care about that. I think you are vastly overestimating the amount of planning that normal people do when picking out a phone.

I think availability matters only in as much as normal people require the phone to be present in the carrier's storefronts before they'll buy it.

Well, T-mobile customers should be getting iPhones soon if the AT&T/T-mobile merger deal goes through.

For valid supply chain reasons.

It makes supply chains more of a hassle, which increases costs, and reduces profit-per-phone. It reduces Apple's profits, so it's against Apple's religion.

Samsung doesn't release the same phone to multiple carriers. That's one of the differences between Apple and most other manufacturers. Apple sells only two models at any given time, while the others sell multiple models, each to different carriers. This is the biggest reason Apple's making way more money than they are.

 

So you are basically saying they do not think that the iPhone is worth switching carriers for. Apple could solve that by simply releasing it for all carriers.

Well, I dont think Apple deserves a "handicap" because of their own business decisions. I think availability is part of a phone's appeal. I think that if the iPhone was such a big deal to people, they would be willing to go to carriers that have it.

I cant wait to hear what the new batch of excuses will be after that.

Gee, you dont say. Um...so why are you not handicapping Android for THAT then? Why are excuses ok for Apple when it comes to sales comparisons, but not for Android?

That sounds like a limitation of their phone then. So why is that not a vaild variable when it comes to sales comparisons.

 

I guess if your only concern here is getting something to crow about, then you're right. If your actual interest is seeing which phone customers prefer, you need to limit it to sales among carriers that offer both.

 

Sales comparisons are an indication of which phone customers prefer.

Using your logic: I could put out my own line of computers limited to my block. If everyone on my block buys my computer, I could say they are selling well, and we could not do a sales comparison between me and Dell computers outside of my block.

Since my computer is only available on my block, so we dont really "know" that people would not buy my computer over Dell elsewhere. Right? LOL!