Android has 41% market share in the US. It sounds like you've got some pretty heavy sampling bias going on.
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2023
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Clearly they're profitable. 40% of all phone sales in the USA are Android. There's literally billions being made.
Thing is, “Android” is not a monolith. That can mean a whole bunch of different things… there is version fragmentation, vendor fragmentation, stock vs bloatware apps, dramatic capability differences, etc. So it’s not an “Android” vs “iOS” equation, but Android vs Android vs Android vs iOS.
From a software development POV, unless you are a big brand it almost never makes sense to develop for Android until after you’ve shipped an iOS product (if ever).
- not to be rude, just an observation, but that's your bubble
- a product doesn't need to be a flagship to be profitable and being a flagship is not a sign of profitability.
- that's... not even a choice for manufacturers? Would you expect them to start producing and selling iphones instead, or leave a multi-billion dollar vacuum in the market?
iOS is a majority share, but not by much.
My opinion here might upset some fanboys:
Android is in a sad state right now with only a few big OEMs pushing into the market, and the fragmentation is what’s killing it. The average person doesn’t care about customizing or having a micro SD slot, they just want to text and browse TikTok - so they choose a phone that’s simple and works without headache for years.
On the android side you have really only Samsung, Motorola, and sorta google. Motorola covers a lot of the budget android market, but it’s cheap disposable phones. Samsung covers the whole range, but then you buy into the bloatware and duplicate apps. Then you have google sitting in the corner eating glue, consistently releasing phones with hot SoCs, bad reception, and botched software updates.
For the average person the iPhone makes complete sense as Apple only releases a few phones a year, and for a while now every single one has been relatively issue-free. Customers feel confident that the newest iPhone will be a similar experience, copy all their data over in 5 minutes, and work well for years to come.
So really I wouldn’t say it’s a case of “profitability”, moreso lacking compelling feature to draw in new customers, while continuing to bleed customers to the iPhone because the average person doesn’t want to be bothered with complicated features that aren’t consistent across android OEMs. We’ve seen a lot of Android OEMs leave the US market because of these reasons.
Just spewing utter bullshit. Google phones are top class. Generally the highest rates of android on the market. There's more android OEM than you can Shake a stock at. New ones come onboard pretty regularly and old ones fade away. I think HTC is coming BS k from the dead. Sony continues to churn out decent enough phones and youve got the OnePlus and other Chinese phones under that brand.
All pretty decent and every single one of them can text and play tiktok. If that's your criteria a dumb phone from 2010 can do that.
Why would you pedastall a 1200$ or however much apple goes for. If you want basics buy basics.
Google phones are top class.
If you get lucky in their QC lottery, perhaps.
https://www.xda-developers.com/google-pixel-fold-quality-control/
Same as any other phone. Apples had a tendency to turn off under 30%. Things are getting better but always going to be defective products. Not defending Google or any oem.
We the consumers should get better. But that doesn't change that plenty bloggers highly rate pixel phones.
I use a 6 pro. Had it's pros and cons like any other brand.
No, it's not the same as any other phone. Pixels get reviewed well because the reviewers get units that have been double checked and ensured that they are defect-free, and they are not used for very long before the verdicts get published.
If you go to places like r/GooglePixel or any of the Lemmy alternatives, they're full of users complaining about the finicky connectivity, bad displays, or unreliable fingerprint readers, in numbers that are far higher per-user than other brands.
Google phones sell significantly fewer units than, say, Samsung, but they have noticeably more users complaining about technical issues.
No, it's not the same as any other phone. Pixels get reviewed well because the reviewers get units that have been double checked and ensured that they are defect-free, and they are not used for very long before the verdicts get published.
Yeah. Literally every phone gets that. Not special case for pixels. C'mon aye.
If you go to places like r/GooglePixel or any of the Lemmy alternatives, they're full of users complaining about the finicky connectivity, bad displays, or unreliable fingerprint readers, in numbers that are far higher per-user than other brands.
If you go to rany sub. Folk are talking mad shit. OnePlus was just a wall of angry people. And for good reason. These phones are expensive and should be held to a high standard.
Give me stats on pixels being worse or it's pointless. Gotta back up anecdotal information which this all is.
Google phones sell significantly fewer units than, say, Samsung, but they have noticeably more users complaining about technical issues.
Oh absolutely, 1 point. Well made. Maybe source something next time but Yeah
Top class enh?
Must be why the forums and communities are full of people asking about battery drain, reception issues, and software update bugs.
Also what iPhone you buying that’s $1200? You do know samsung has several devices that are more expensive than even the top tier iPhone, right?
(Just to be clear, I use a Pixel but hate Google as a company)
Tbh idk about all of this, I think it's just a QA issue and these things don't affect most units.
You can say the same thing for samsung batteries, apple cables, etc.
My 6a has always had good reception (even though forums said it had problematic reception). The battery, software update, etc have been a non issue, and the bloat free software's been stellar.
Maybe I have biases because of confirmation bias and I got this phone for an outrageously cheap price, but I still think pixels are one of the best androids, if not the best.
Plus, you can install GrapheneOS
Regularly gets voted top android phone. So yeah. Top class. All phones have issues. Does pixel have more or less issues than any other. Hard to say. Plenty issues though. Battery drain is software though and impacts all phones.
No. iPhone has the most expensive phone options. What's the cheapest flagship for this year ?
Battery issues and overheating from the Tensor SoC, which we all know is based on the Exynos (which Samsung stopped using because it was so bad).
On the price:
Top spec models -
Samsung S23 Ultra 1 TB is $1619
iPhone 14 Pro Max 1 TB is $1599
Normal models-
Samsung S23 128 is $799
iPhone 14 128 is $799
How is the iPhone more expensive? At worst it's the same price, and you get more than double the years of software support.
Apologies at the $20 difference. I've no interest in fact checking you. I'm assuming they're a high end iPhone that's gold and cones with extra security and such. But yeah loads of phones have overheating. My OnePlus 9 had horrible over heating. Samsungs gave been prone to it and plenty other ones. Sometimes they explode.
Phones have defects like everything else.
No argument on software side. Apple is great with software. It had lawsuits because it intentionally slows the phone to a crawl though. Samsung and other androids can be unlocked and flashed though.
So both have some leeway there
What software would non-apple manufacturers use other than android?
Ubuntu Phone 🗿
Tizen 🤡
Windows? LMAO.
Windows Phone was so smooth and nice to use.
I'm sure other manufacturer's would build iPhones if they could.
But they can't so they have to compete against other manufacturer's in the Android marketplace.
So...Are Android phones cheap because they're unprofitable, or are they cheap because direct competition actually incentivizes those companies to control costs?
Maybe the question you should be asking is: "Are iPhones really worth the ballooning price?"