Like you I've always tried to be objective about choosing a smartphone, and I've always ended up with Android pretty much entirely because of cost. My Galaxy S2 was literally half the price of the equivalent iPhone when I got it, and my previous HTC desire was also almost half the price of the iPhone. Is an iPhone a (marginally) better piece of kit? Quite possibly. Is it worth all that extra cash, and worth putting up with Apple's occasional screwups like the maps fiasco? Not in my opinion. Personally, I think Apple have reached their peak and it will be downhill (in terms of quality) from here. The iPod and the iPhone have sold fantastically well, partly because they are "trendy" and "desirable" but also, importantly, because they were great pieces of kit. Now, though, with Apple products having become such massive news, I think they are becoming a bit lazy because they know they'll shift millions regardless of the quality. It will be interesting to see how much this maps f**kup hurts them. People will forgive the odd dropped call but removing a much-used, much-loved app and replacing it with a crappy piece of sh*t is not a cool move!
Nokia's Maps are the reason I've stuck with them for the last 3 years - the free, offline sat-nav is truly wonderful for a device that fits in your pocket (or doesn't fit, in the case of the 920). It works really well, and looks like it will integrate better with other apps when WP8 comes out. Anyway, here's hoping Apple get their **** together, 'cause I for one am not looking forward to a market where Google have a virtual monopoly...
I cant fault Nokia maps nice and simple. Not totally won over on the city lens thingy only thing im not pleased about is the battery life, not really used it much today and ive had to charge it! Hopefully Apple improve the iOS or we will end up with loads of iPhone users in lakes etc or just generally lost
That's fair enough good point well made, additionally personally if I had an iPhone 4 I wouldn't upgrade either. Most of the iOS 6 improvements don't run on the iPhone 4, so I think you'd lose more than you'd gain. When it comes to replacing my 4S next year I'm hoping that I can go Nokia/windows 8 to give it a spin personally. I've just never liked android as a phone os and until recently there hasn't been an alternative to android or iOS worth giving a look to. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Recently I got to play with an old Samsung Galaxy Ace running Eclair and a Galaxy III running ICS. I was impressed with how far Android has come along. Jelly Bean feels in many ways superior to iOS now. But right now I want to have a close look at the Lumia 920.
I heard that! Been reading up on Windows 8 phone all day, very excited! I am currently using Win7 launcher on my Desire and I love the simplicity.
When you consider 65% of googles revenue is from Apple Iphone and Ipad then you see maybe why google will want to offer a fix as has been suggested elsewhere. If google lost access to apples Iphone and Ipad there shares would suffer as a consequence. Apple is trying to block googles access to the Iphone and Ipad and i personally dont mind them doing it, Long since used bing as my prefered search engine gives me everything i need. Its not like microsoft will do any different with there windows phone and tablets. Big hurah made over mapping fail but cant say id ever trust a phone in place of a satnav for my car. Everytime ive tried a maps application on my SG3 or Iphone for work purposes they have never been accurate to the point of sending me close to where i need to go as they dont usauly include what streets are one way systems ect, they also dont work well in the countryside once phone signal disapears.( dont people have data costs to worry about or is sat nav not using any real data on a phone? ) Theres also one other thing to consider most apple buyers dont even know another smartphone or tablet exists. To them Apple is the product to buy as long as they have that dedicated following of 10s of millions of people then they can never really fail. I know a few people like this who if you ask them what a samsung note is they would not have a clue. Also way to many people are locked into IOS or Andriod Eco system for Windows Phone to ever take off in the way people are hoping. Some foke have spent hundreds on Applications for there phones / tablets for Andriod and IOS. Come Monday when Apple releases sales figures id expect the 4mil that the 4s recorded to be well and truly smashed into pieces, and Apple and Samsungs continued dominance of the smartphone sectors profits ( reported to be at 105% (70% apple 35% samsung ) in August due to other companies loosing cash ) to continue for the next 12months till the next phones are released for the cycle to repeat again.
You got to love these high numbers... Especially when they are wrong. iOS is low single digits on the arena of the Google revenues : http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/07/iphone-and-ipad-to-account-for-2-of-googles-2012-revenue/
Googles Advertisement Revenue is about 65% if the latest results it posted are accurate, and it does say in the link you posted that it is as high as 40% of its advertisement revenue still to this day. guess i missed the adver part out
But there is a slight, minor difference between "Google's revenue" and "Google's mobile revenue". Mobile revenue we talk about single billions (and that includes web, Android etc). Revenue, we talk about tens of billions. Even if Apple cuts everything Google from their OS, Google will still have their ads on mobile websites, various apps which will still use AdMob SDK,... In short, at worst Apple could hurt Google only marginally. Probably the loss of Google Maps licencing fee was the biggest hit they could throw at Google.
No it isn't. A significant part of Google's mobile revenue is from iPhone and iPad. Not the same thing at all.
I'm holding off upgrading until the very last minute I can (Hopefully by this time Google will have released their native app). The trouble is I need my iDevices to run iOS 6 for software dev work. But I'll always have my iPad 1 as that can't take iOS 6 anyway
Plus how were Google monetising Maps from the consumer? It didn't have adverts, so the only thing was the fee Apple paid to use it in the first place. Google is still the iPhone's search engine (Apple acknowledging that nobody wants to use Bing...), and that does include AdSense.
I would imagine data scraping is rife with all online map searches, google not only learn where iPhone users are when searching but what they search for. This has a huge value. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
They monetise maps well, don't you worry. If you search for a specific location the pin that maps drops had all sorts of revenue gathering links in it. I will concede however that a simple A to B search for directions can't possibly earn anything for Google unless you start browsing the route for locations of interest.
@Shirty: all nice, but as we can see from reactions, not many will use the Apple maps at least for now, and that means Google will get their cash either through devices running iOS5 or people using the web based Google Maps. Maybe in 3-5 years when Apple maps will be usable, then we will be able to talk about Google mobile revenue shrinking a bit due the removal of Google Maps. If we ever reach that point.
Wait! It's possible to actually use Bing? You can actually do that? I thought Microsoft threw Bing together on a Friday afternoon to help out Google win some crazy European monopolies judgement. Now you're making it seem as if it's a genuine effort at a competing product? Wow, you learn something every day.
