News - Apple becomes world’s fourth biggest mobile phone company

[Hicks12]

My bad! I was trying to distract myself from doing my report, clearly it didnt go right .

[mrochester]

Your link actually talks about market cap. Also, remember this story is about all phones sold, not just smartphones. HTC is a smartphone specialist.

Equally, so is Apple, yet they managed to get to number 4.

[Spud1]

Regardless of your opinion of apple or the iPhone, it's an amazing achievement considering that they have only got a total of 6 different models, of which only 3 are in production (2G, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4CDMA).

[crossy]

This is an amazing achievment when you think that Apple only entered the phone market in 2007. It's a massive embarrassment for the industry stalwarts to be so swiftly and massively usurped.

Or, putting aside the hyperbole, you could also assume that the established players are "handicapped" not only by doing budget models, but also in being slow to move from "dumb" phones to the more expensive "smart" variety. (As Gartner etc have suggested).

and add to that it's one of the most expensive series of phones out there, and most other phones copy it in at least a small way, but typically fairly similarly, so you can easily get a phone that does pretty much everything for a lot less money, and you have android competing thats used by a number of different phone makers, so to beat all that lot with a more expensive phone is pretty impressive

As Hicks12 pointed out Apple's also as "guilty" of feature copying as it is copied. Plus since - as you point out - Android's pervasiveness actually counts against it's manufacturer's, by distributing the ownership amongst a number of manufacturers.

Being snarky I'd be more interested in seeing if Apple can hold onto this position (or even build on it). There's now more serious competition (old WinMo and Symbian phones weren't in the same ballpark) and I'm praying that Nokia can finally get their act together and deliver a smartphone that's as good as their dumb models. iPhone owners I talk to seem to regard it as a "fashion" item, and I'd suggest that's dangerous for long-term market share.

That said, I'll be as interested as the next guy in seeing whether the iPhone5 is as good (or better?) than the '3/3GS were when they were launched.

[TooNice]

^ Agreed on the your second point, but regarding the first, smartphones existed long before Apple's entry to the market (yeah, I am referring to those WinMo / Symbian phones). Early smartphones were niche products, and I am guessing that manufacturers thought that was always going to be the case and didn't think that by changing the formula, they probably could've attracted a much bigger crowd to their higher end model. I am sure that Apple's success with the iPod helped their images, but I also think that they came up with a formula that works pretty for the "mass".

I reckon that their momentum will slow down eventually, but I can see them firmly in the top 3 in the foreseeable future. Also, at this point, I think that it's less about the hardware but more about the software for a lot of people (that mean the OS and apps).

In any case, I wouldn't call it an embarrassment anymore than what Sony pulled on Nintendo and Sega with the PS, and Microsoft did with the Xbox. Apple is hardly a no-name.

[Unique]

Or, putting aside the hyperbole, you could also assume that the established players are "handicapped" not only by doing budget models, but also in being slow to move from "dumb" phones to the more expensive "smart" variety. (As Gartner etc have suggested).

As Hicks12 pointed out Apple's also as "guilty" of feature copying as it is copied. Plus since - as you point out - Android's pervasiveness actually counts against it's manufacturer's, by distributing the ownership amongst a number of manufacturers.

Being snarky I'd be more interested in seeing if Apple can hold onto this position (or even build on it). There's now more serious competition (old WinMo and Symbian phones weren't in the same ballpark) and I'm praying that Nokia can finally get their act together and deliver a smartphone that's as good as their dumb models. iPhone owners I talk to seem to regard it as a "fashion" item, and I'd suggest that's dangerous for long-term market share.

That said, I'll be as interested as the next guy in seeing whether the iPhone5 is as good (or better?) than the '3/3GS were when they were launched.

there's no doubt apple copied many prominent ideas from other people over the past few decades, but what they do best is take ideas that may be good, but not popular, and they make them popular, and from there other people copy them. so whilst they copied the idea of a GUI on a pc, and copied the idea of a harddrive based mp3 player, they popularised the ideas, and other people copied apple, they didn't copy the people that apple copied. they didn't bother copying those ideas for themselves, they saw apple do it and then copied the idea

as a matter of interest, why would you "pray" that nokia get their act together? do you work for them? it's an interesting thing for someone to openly admit some kind of brand loyalty or backing for a company they don't work for, own or part own. the future in phones may be a brand new player altogether. the past 15 years has seen many brand new startups zoom into the lead and make massive profits, such as facebook, twitter, etc. maybe sony or google or microsoft will come up the the next big exciting idea, something completely different to what we have now. we've had phones with keypads, phones without, what's next?

[mikerr]

we've had phones with keypads, phones without, what's next?

The most unique phones ever IMO:

Nokia 7280 and the 7380 from 2004

No keypad, no touchscreen - just voice control and a scroll wheel

[crossy]

there's no doubt apple copied many prominent ideas from other people over the past few decades, but what they do best is take ideas that may be good, but not popular, and they make them popular,...

Totally agree - in fact, I'd go further and accuse Apple's innovations as being limited to polishing other people's concepts. Not that there's anything wrong with that at all - I still maintain that the ye olde fashioned iPod (pre-Touch) were spectacularly easy devices to use - and in fact the current crop of iPod's aren't as good. Yep, if I was Apple then I'd be quite happy to be accused of focussing on usability and looks over functionality. And as an Android owner I'd still say that there's some way to go in some areas to match the ease-of-use of iOS (although the gap is narrowing).

as a matter of interest, why would you "pray" that nokia get their act together? do you work for them? it's an interesting thing for someone to openly admit some kind of brand loyalty or backing for a company they don't work for, own or part own. ...

Uh-oh, nope I definitely don't work for Nokia, in fact the company I work for competes with Nokia (although not the bit I'm slaving away in). The reason for the comment is three-fold:
1. Everyone I talk to who's had a Nokia dumbphone seems to regard them with a little amount of affection - usually because they "just worked". And they possessed a certain elegance of design - even the cheap-as-chips 2330 that I've got as a works mobile sitting on my desk. So maybe they're due some success;
2. Every phone I've owned - apart from one Motorola, a SonyEricsson and my current phone - have been Nokia's. And all of them worked credibly well and have pleased me - so if you want to accuse me of Nokia-fanboydom then I'll agree;
3. Most folks seem to indicate that having a three-horse race in the consumer smartphones (iOS, Android and WP7) would be a good thing. And since Nokia is now the standard bearer for WP7, if Nokia does well then so will WP7.

Apologies for having to snip some of your excellent/thoughtful post for reasons of space!

[TooNice]

^ Besides, as an extension of point 3, they are also well positioned to compete.

If I am not mistaken, the 3210 also happens to be many people's first mobile (element of nostalgia). I could be wrong about that though, it might just be the case that I went to uni around that time, and many students at the time couldn't justify a mobile phone until they went to uni.

The odd thing is, I have never owned my own Nokia. I went with a Siemen M35 instead, which lasted a good number of years. I did use a borrowed 3310 when I was abroad, but I didn't get too attached to it (I thought that it worked fine as a barebone probably no better nor worse than most entry phones in the price range).