September 21st, 2012, 12:47 pm
QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxQuoteOriginally posted by: CrashedMintQuoteOriginally posted by: farmerQuoteOriginally posted by: CrashedMint2) Apple was first. They are a bit like the Earl of Sandwich: Sure, bread and cheese and ham existed before but he invented the perfect combination. People like to buy the original thing, that's why you want a Burberry trenchcoat not a GAP trenchcoat, or a Prada bag and not a fake one. In the end it might come out of the same factory, but one is considered "real" versus the other one is considered "fake". In other words: If you want to you can show off with an iPhone, but you can't with a Samsung Galaxy.Cellphones have always been a status symbol. By being the most expensive, Apple multiplies or stands on the shoulders of this. I think I am seeing something in the US where cellphones are losing their novelty. The wow is fading, as they have become commonplace. So there is nothing for Apple to multiply or stand on the shoulders of. Expensive cellphone? Big deal.Apple made the novelty of cellphones last longer in the US, by introducing something that looked like an alien right when cellphones were becoming commonplace.But there are still 100 poorer countries where cellphones are not yet commonplace, which might go through smaller versions of the progression, over the next few years. That may be slightly mitigated by purchasing decisions in third-world countries being more in the hands of men. I am pretty sure men buy more Nokias and Samsungs than iPhones compared to women.I think the shattered iphones is a much more serious issue than the antenna. I think it is definitely a major user-experience problem. I guess it can be fixed with a bumper of some size, but I don't know too much about that.Sure the BRIC market is massive, but there is no law of nature that poor countries have to buy shitty phones, only because we had to first endure Nokias before Apple came along.Bandwidth?Probably a problem? Or is it. I don't know. Maybe somebody needs to take some money and build antennas, but it seems to me like a worthwhile investment, especially if you start in highly populated areas.