

Ceding the Crown - siglesias
http://daringfireball.net/2013/03/ceding_the_crown

======
nhashem
It's unfortunate that Gruber has essentially become synonymous with Apple
fanboyism, because I think he raises some salient points here. To any reader
that is familiar with his writing, it'll come across as the typical Apple
cheerleading, suggesting that weaknesses are actually strengths, and any
competition isn't really competition because Apple is really just engaged in a
long-term, visionary, eleventy-dimensional chess match in its noble and
exalted goal of driving the human race forward.

But I agree with him on the first two misconceptions he tries to correct. The
iPhone was never a market share game. In 2004, the original Motorola RAZR was
like $400 at launch, and three months later it came free in cereal boxes.
That's what you do when you are trying to gain market share. Apple's products
are effectively a luxury brand for consumer electronics, and criticizing Apple
for not winning the market share game is like criticizing Lulumelon for
selling fewer yoga pants than Target.

Also, the iPhone and iPhone 3G were objectively great products. It would have
been great even if RIM wasn't releasing awful products by comparison. Their
other product lines have continued to be popular even as other companies have
learned how to make products that are just as thin or have screens just as
sharp. So I agree with him on that point, that there's not much merit to the
argument, "well the iPhone only sold well because everyone else sucks, and now
the Galaxy is just as good so they're screwed."

But, his third point is where I diverge with him on his conclusions. _"Apple
is a great competitor. In the PC industry they’ve fought back from the brink
of bankruptcy to become the most profitable and fastest-growing PC maker in
the world. They came in and stole the music player market, and have dominated
it for over a decade."_

Well, look. To suggest that this is a _fait accompli,_ without even mentioning
the fact that _Steve Jobs is no longer with the company so maybe they're going
to struggle in learning how to 'fight back' without him,_ is extremely
misguided to me. I never knew Steve Jobs personally, but I'd like to think
that if he visited Apple now, he'd say something like, "I've been dead for two
years and we're still talking about which company is better at making flat
touch screen computers? That's boring now. Let's invent something new. And by
the way, fire whomever thought it was okay to have 21 icons on the iPhone 5."

Like I said, I don't know Steve Jobs, and I don't work at Apple. But it would
seem like if you're going to suggest Apple's still on the ball and market
share is irrelevant because they're focused on 'advancing the human race,'
you'd probably want to explain how they're going to do it without the one guy
that coined the motto to begin with.

~~~
pyre
With respect to people harping on market share, that's just what people do:

"Look at MS Windows' marketshare! Apple/FreeBSD/Desktop Linux is dead!"

"BSD is dead. Netcraft confirms it."

"Android will never have the marketshare of the iPhone. The AppStore has
100,000 apps! It will always be dominant!"

"Android will never have the marketshare of the iPhone. Apple has X% of the
market!"

... etc ...

People are now using to tout Android, but look to the past to see the
same(-ish) arguments for why Apple will always dominate Android.

~~~
eloisant
No, it's not the same arguments, because Android and iPhone are two very
different things.

The reason why Android won is because the iPhone is just one phone from one
maker. There's a limit in market share you can reach with just one phone
because you can't please everyone. Heck, even with a single brand there is a
limit in the market share because you can't build a brand image that appeal to
everyone (in particular you'll never appeal to the "I don't want to go
mainstream" people). This is why car makers sometimes create entirely new
brands - like Lexus from Toyota (luxury cars) or Dacia from Renault (low cost
cars).

Android, on the other hand, is dozens of phones from dozens of makers. Just
like Windows on desktop PCs. So it can reach a quasi-monopoly status. Now that
Android have this market leader position, the only thing that can displace it
is not a slightly different system (like Windows Phone) but a full paradigm
change. That's why Linux failed to displace Windows as the market leader, but
tablets are in their way to do it because they're completely different beasts.

...And by the way, for the same reason iPhone can't hold a monopoly, the iPad
is losing its market leader position to... Android.

~~~
gurkendoktor
Your posting assumes as a fact that a) winning means having more market share,
and b) Android's combined success stems from a very diverse ecosystem. Most of
Gruber's blogging in the last months has been about questioning these
assumptions.

------
mrich
This reads like a populist piece, trying to convince people with arguments
that sound logical but are just wrong.

Of course Apple had the market share lead with the iPhone. But the category
was not "smartphone". They had a dominating lead in the category "mobile phone
with touch UI and great web browser" from 2007-2010. Nobody cared about
Symbian anymore after the presentation of the iPhone. That category was left
to die. The iPhone became the new state of the art for smartphone.

Apple lost the lead around 2011 however due to the unwillingness to provide
more than one model or innovate faster. Android was more flexible and could
address more users.

Now it may well be that Apple doesn't care about this at all. But please do
not make arguments how technically Apple never led in the smartphone market.

~~~
coldtea
> _Apple lost the lead around 2011 however due to the unwillingness to provide
> more than one model or innovate faster. Android was more flexible and could
> address more users._

More users, but not more users that really matter. That is, more users that
generate more profits. Hence the difference between Samsung and Apple. It's
similar to how Apple can have ten times the profit of Dell even if Dell ships
twice the units.

The Android companies are like the PC companies: they have a commoditized OS
and sell to all tiers, low and high, but mostly low and mid, and for smaller
margins. Apple only sells to the higher end of the market, as they always did
with their laptops and desktops.

> _Now it may well be that Apple doesn't care about this at all. But please do
> not make arguments how technically Apple never led in the smartphone
> market._

Smartphone? I thought you meant "mobile phone with touch UI and great web
browser".

Which is BS btw. Apple made a smartphone. Competing with entrenched
smartphones. The fact that none (or few) shared it's design and particular
qualities at the time means nothing.

In the smartphone market (which is a real market segment, instead of the
"mobile phone with touch UI and great web browser" which is an ad-hoc thing
you came up with), the iPhone was never top in market share. It was however
top (and still is) in profits.

Apple does not care about the lower end (or total market share) for the
iPhone. They care for the same things they do in their PC department:
capturing the upper end, the more expensive, better margins and more headroom
for build quality, end of the market.

That's why you have Android users be 3-1 to iOS users but iOS users still are
80% of those actively web browsing from their mobiles. Because beside the
"tech-enthusiasts that don't like Apple" (a small-ish market) Android also
caters to the lower end of the market, people who could not care less about
mobile browsing or "computer-like phones", and just use it as a glorified
phone that they get for free with their low-tier subscription.

~~~
RyanZAG
_iOS users still are 80% of those actively web browsing from their mobiles_

Please stop repeating false information with no source, it makes the rest of
your post very difficult to believe.

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201202-20130...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-
monthly-201202-201302)

~~~
othermaciej
I think
[http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8&qpcu...](http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8&qpcustomd=1)
is more believable based on correlation with other sources of data.

~~~
RyanZAG
While it may be more believable, the sample sizes and methodologies behind the
two sites appear to differ.

marketshare.hitslink.com lists that they track "approximately 160 million
visitors per month" to "40,000 websites" [1][2]

statscounter.com lists that they track "15 billion page views per month" to "3
million+ global websites" [3]

This seems to imply that there is a bit of difference in which traffic is
tracked by the two, and that statscounter.com is probably tracking a larger
share of global traffic. I'd be hesitant to say that marketshare.hitslink.com
is 'more believable' - perhaps it simply tracks a subset of websites more
similar to your own?

In addition, with statscounter.com tracking page hits rather than 'unique
visitors' as marketshare.hitsink.com does, it seems to imply that each Android
user would use their web browser more heavily than each iOS user?

[1] <http://marketshare.hitslink.com/mobile-methodology.aspx> [2]
<http://marketshare.hitslink.com/faq.aspx#Methodology> [3]
<http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#net-apps>

EDIT: Indeed, filtering statscounter.com by USA market only gives figures very
similar to marketshare.hitslink.com:

[http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-US-
monthly-201202-20130...](http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-US-
monthly-201202-201302)

I'd argue that the global stats are far more important than the USA only ones,
but you're free to disagree! And just to try and tie this back to the original
point a bit: all of these stats are a very long way from 80%.

------
polemic
I don't know if the article has been edited since Gruber first read it, but
there appear to be sufficient statistics to back up Gupta's assertions:

> _"Samsung had 30.3 percent of the smartphone market in 2012, up from 19
> percent a year earlier. Apple's share was 19.1 percent last year, up from
> 18.8 percent in 2011."_

Gupta's general tone is eminently reasonable:

> _"That onslaught, coupled with growing uncertainty about whether the U.S.
> giant can sustain growth in coming years, has contributed to a 30 percent
> decline in Apple's stock since its September peak."_

I don't see a _“Oh, how the mighty Apple has fallen” narrative_ \- Gupta is
commenting on _the market's bet against Apple_. _If_ the market is really
knocked off 30% of their value based on media scaremongering, you've got (a) a
huge market failure, and (b) a sure bet in Apple.

Gruber's only contribution to the discussion appears to be hand-wringing about
the way poor old Apple is being treated.

~~~
invisible
You did not read the article adequately. Gruber points out that while Apple
may have a lower market share (which was never an Apple goal), the profits it
brings in far exceed Samsung. Furthermore, if the market share of Apple is
going UP, how is it being described in Gupta's article as going down?

Your post was basically all of the assumptions Gupta made without any
contribution to the discussion.

~~~
polemic
Gruber has only changed the terms of reference.

The idea that _Apples original aims_ anything at all to do with the current
state of the smartphone business is laughable. Apple's stock price is not
based on the relative success versus their original aim. It's very much based
on the projected future success of the company.

This is called _spin_. There definitely is a lot of crowing about "Apple's
downfall" (which is certainly not true, and definitely premature), but Gruber
reads more into the article than is really there. Tilting at windmills.

~~~
invisible
Here are some facts:

    
    
        - Gupta was not talking about the stock market for the entire article.
        - Business is about profits.
        - Gruber is talking about Gupta's article which says Apple is failing in mobile.
        - The stock market is basically sensationalism in monetary form.
        - Apple hasn't announced any new products and that is hurting it's stock.
        - Apple never announces new products before they are manufacturing.

~~~
polemic
_"Gupta was not talking about the stock market for the entire article"_

Except when he refers to the drop in their stock price - the _entire basis for
the "Apple naysayers narrative"_. Unless you think the opinions of a few
business writers knocked off 30% of their valuation instead. Like some sort of
epic reverse pump & dump? Hardly.

 _"Business is about profits."_

Gee that's deep. It's also deeply misleading. Current profit earnings and
forecasts are what drives the stock price movement. The only way _you or I_
can profit from Apple are by purchasing shares _where those predictions are
priced in_. If their profit forecast halves _regardless of their relative
performance vs competitors_ , I'm going to suffer as a shareholder.

 _"Gruber is talking about Gupta's article which says Apple is failing in
mobile."_

And like I said, Gruber misses the point.

 _"The stock market is basically sensationalism in monetary form."_

Ah, so you don't like what the sharemarket is doing, so you dismiss it as
"sensationalist". Don't kid yourself, you're not kidding anyone else.

And I'm not sure what the last two points have to do with anything, so I won't
comment on them.

~~~
bruceboughton
If you compare the fortunes of Apple and Amazon in the stock market, it is
immediately clear that the stock market is not a good way for individuals to
benefit from the profits of corporations they choose to invest in. That seems
pretty broken.

------
realize
His main point (and the title of his article) is that people are stating as
fact that apple has fallen, whereas their profits are still stronger than
anyone's. This is true, and he must feel like hes in a world of crazy people
that its even necessary to point this out.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The tech world _IS CRAZY_!

Imagine you're a VP over at Microsoft right now watching everyone rave about
Samsung's profit figures and their utter dominance and you just want to scream
"hello?! we also made $21 billion in profit last year, except we did it on 1/3
of Samsung's revenue! does anyone care?!" No, no one cares. Microsoft has
already been relegated to the dust bin of history even though it's still alive
and kicking, still one of the most profitable companies in all of human
civilization, etc. Sure, they've ceded much of the initiative in tech to other
movers, but they're very much far from dead and far from irrelevant.

Stepping into the world of tech punditry is a bit like stepping into a Target
department store, except instead of seeing advertising and merchandise for
holidays 2 seasons away you see companies declared winners, losers, or dead
years ahead of their time.

What really annoys me is that people are talking about dumb stuff, horse race
stuff. It's like sitting at the lunch table and overhearing how Johnny dumped
Erika and is now dating Michelle or some such other riveting high-school
gossip.

What's that quote? Small minds discuss people (companies). Average minds
discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.

Can we talk more about the ideas relevant to this massive second revolution in
personal computing going on under our noses and less about which multi-billion
dollar mega-corp is the most popular kid in school at the moment?

~~~
simonh
The problem with Microsoft is that they're turning into IBM. Wealthy yes,
profitable yes, but dull as ditchwater.

~~~
InclinedPlane
I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint but I wouldn't say it's true, yet. I think
it would be more accurate to say that they are becoming bureaucracy/management
heavy and out of touch. However, some of their recent initiatives have shown
that they "get it", but maybe not enough to make them relevant again as they
once were.

------
sgdesign
I won't read this, because I feel like I've been reading the same exact
article every day for the past year.

It's not a question of fanboyism. I completely agree with everything he's
saying. I just don't understand why he needs to address that Android vs Apple
_day after day_.

Am I missing something here? Does what blog X says about Apple or what
magazine Y says about Samsung have any impact on the world whatsoever? John
Gruber seems like a smart guy and I'm continuously baffled by his decision to
devote so much time and effort to such a trivial matter.

~~~
erichocean
_Am I missing something here?_

He does it for page views. News at 11.

~~~
Ygg2
He promotes a brand he loves and gets paid for it. But yeah, Gruber is either
an Apple fanboy and/or someone profiting on other people's devotion to Apple
brand.

------
bad_user
I wish people would stop posting garbage from John Gruber.

~~~
InclinedPlane
It's certainly biased, the question is whether or not it's a well-founded
argument that leads to a worthwhile discussion. I think it fits that bill.

~~~
bad_user
I've never seen an interesting discussion on any piece by Gruber, since most
articles are flamebait-ish populist articles that bring out the fanboyism in
people, with discussions degenerating into dick measuring contests of who's
favourite is better. Nothing good can come out of it.

------
shadowmint
I think he's missing the point. This isn't a commercial fail for Apple, its a
public relations fail.

Two years ago, I knew maybe 2 people who didn't want an iphone. I now,
personally, know perhaps 4 people who want one.

You think that isn't a fall from grace in the public opinion?

It is. It's a colossal blunder for Apple, and "once stood the undisputed
leader of the smartphone arena, but ceded its crown to Samsung in 2012." seems
a fair (harsh, yes, but under the circumstances, I think pretty fair) comment.

I'm not arguing with the points in the article; they seem quite reasonable
(unusually so, for Gruber), but there's more to this story than 'how
commercially successful is Apple'.

~~~
alex_doom
Your reasoning that Apple has fallen from grace is a personal observation that
most people you know don't want one?

------
nasmorn
Going by the headline I was hoping he would finally anounce that he is
officially ceding markdown leadership thus making the life of the people
actually working on it better.

------
rglullis
_We've never been at war with Eastasia..._

