
People will never line up for Android phones - mcantelon
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/01/meizus-m9-launch-amasses-thousands-of-jack-wong-fans-across-chi/
======
erikpukinskis
This is probably referencing John Gruber's quote from
<http://daringfireball.net/2010/12/emotional_rescue>:

 _"There will never be an Android phone that people line up for like they did
for Windows 95 — or like they do today, once or twice a year, for major new
products from Apple."_

I like Gruber. I think he does some great analysis sometimes. And he loves to
call "gotcha" on other peoples' "claim chowder". But his love for Apple gets
the better of him sometimes, and I doubt he will call himself on this.

~~~
codelust
Agreed on all points with the exception that Guber actually gets it more or
less right on that one. Apple products do have a huge emotional appeal to it.
The price for which is weirdly, both the cause and effect at the same time.
Most people who buy Apple will continue to buy Apple (they are already buying
products that are not cheap by any means, so cheaper Android phones won't do
much to dampen that enthusiasm).

Fact is that most people won't line up to buy Android and certainly not as
many as Apple fans. Does that mean Android won't sell - hell, no. It will only
sell more.

Most of the complaints about Android from Apple fans seem to be on the lines
of - "hey it is imperfect and a lesser phone but why does it still sell?" For
the Android fan club it seems to be a case of itching to see Apple in trouble.

People seem to forget a very basic fact: it is just a phone :)

~~~
wyclif
So the goalposts have moved from "won't line up for an Android phone" to "
_most_ people won't line up for an Android phone." Progress. Duly noted.

~~~
tjogin
I'm not sure the _original_ goalpost was at "nowhere in the world will even
one single line be formed of people wanting to buy an Android phone".

I think it was at "people won't line up for an Android phone", which is a more
general statement, which is still true. He's talking about things that tend to
happen, not claiming that it will never _EVER EVER EVER_ happen even ONCE.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Nobody's putting words into Gruber's mouth, he said "there will never be an
Android phone that people line up for like they did for Windows 95". Taking it
down a notch from there he meant "there will never be an Android phone that
people feel extremely passionate about".

He's wrong on both counts already.

~~~
lovskogen
Which Android phone is people extremely passionate about?

~~~
byoung2
People lined up outside my local Sprint store to get the Evo 4G, but it was
nowhere near what you would see at an Apple or AT&T store on iPhone release
day. It's hard to measure passion for Android phones because on one hand there
is the hardware, and the other is the Android platform. Aside from the Evo
with a front-facing camera and 4G, or the Moment with a slide out keyboard, or
the Droidx with a 4.5" screen, and a few other stand-outs, most Android phones
are pretty vanilla hardware-wise. Android as a platform is great because it is
free and open source, and has a lot of apps, but it is rough around the edges
compared to iOS. It is easy to see why people are passionate about iPhone,
because the hardware is amazing and the OS is polished. I love my Evo 4G, but
I wouldn't love other Android phones like the Hero that are just generic
Android phones.

~~~
diginux
That's because there are more Radioshack and Best Buys in a city than there
are iPhones. I am pretty sure The Evo sold out for several day after launch.

------
ck2
I think the real news here is there is a growing middle-class of consumers in
China that can also afford $400 luxury devices.

I'm more worried about their (less regulated) growing car purchases but it's
still something to consider as we compete for resources (and jobs).

~~~
r0h4n
It was america that taught people in India/China to drive inefficient Hummers
and It was america that taught India/China to buy one car per family member.
There are many trends like the Iphone rush which is teaching people in
India/China to be materialistic even though it is harming their environment.
These trends were set by america. Americans cannot stop anyone from buying
anything now.

~~~
jongraehl
I don't buy that explanation. Who taught the U.S. to drive one Hummer per
person? Isn't it more likely that whatever caused the U.S. to consume in this
way is also responsible for the emerging consumer classes in newly-wealthy
nations like China and India?

It's true that in some poorer countries there is a cachet specifically to
American things (that cost a lot more than an ordinary person can afford).

~~~
r0h4n
China and India were economically nowhere some in 1950. They had to take
whatever investment was coming in from other countries. So whatever the USA
sold to India/China. they had no choice to take it whether it was beneficial
to the environment/people in the long term or not.

And I think Americans opted for bigger cars was purely due to non availability
and zero motivation of efficiency in Life in General.USA has lots of land, it
has sources to get cheap oil (or it creates them). So there might have been a
neglect towards efficiency.

------
edw519
Android's problem is that it has no problem...

    
    
             People Who Buy Cell Phones   
    
       |                            
       |                . .    
       |               .   .
       |              .     .      
       |            .         .     
       |          .             .   
       |        .                 .     
       |     .                       . 
       | .      |                  |    .   
       |________|__________________|__________
         Those  |    The great     |  Idiots 
          who   |  masses who buy  | who stand
         don't  |    what their    | on line
          buy   |  friends bought  | all nite

~~~
dannyr
I live in the Bay Area and are spending a few weeks in DC.

We always hear that Android is for geeks but based on what I've seen from
people in DC, it's not.

Among my friends in DC who has Android: dentist, doctor, accountant, sales
manager. None of them are geeks.

This is the problem with tech blogs from Silicon Valley and people from area
in general. We make conclusions based on what's happening in the Bay Area but
we are very different from the rest of the US and the world.

We live in a bubble.

~~~
eli
Most normal people aren't going to switch carriers for a phone. And most
people aren't on AT&T. It's pretty much Android or the free flip phone.

~~~
jonknee
Or BlackBerry.

------
est
Chinese here. To be honest, it's a very smart marketing strategy for Meizu.
Lots of people preorder M9 phones months earlier, and Meizu just calls
everyone that their phone is available on a particuliar day, so there are tons
of people line up on Meizu M9 launch day.

------
ams6110
I guess there might be a social aspect to it, but it's absurd to stand on line
to purchase a commodity piece of hardware.

~~~
sliverstorm
I suspect it's largely a carry-over from the excitement of camping out for
movies or game releases of yesteryear, which was 10% impatience and 90%
friends & palatable excitement.

------
zdw
Looks as close to an iPhone as possible, as with most other Meizu products:

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/15/meizu-m9-christens-
site-l...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/15/meizu-m9-christens-site-launch-
with-full-specs-list/)

Combine the fact that these are probably being sold exclusively through those
2 first party stores, it being a holiday, and that there's a thriving resale
market (people buying the maximum number of phones they can, then turning them
around on the internet), I'm not surprised.

Edit: People even line up for bags of all the extra overstock junk they throw
in bags at Apple's stores in japan:

[http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/01/apple-lovers-in-japan-camp-
ou...](http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/01/apple-lovers-in-japan-camp-out-for-
lucky-bag-sale/)

Not comparable, IMHO.

~~~
alphabeat
Can't you just accept that it is in fact, somewhat comparable? I mean, you
just compared it yourself.

------
alexbosworth
Different standards here in China - people were literally fighting with the
Apple store employees when the iPhone 4 came out

~~~
andreyf
Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-store-in-china-shuts-
do...](http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-store-in-china-shuts-down-2010-9)

------
tsotha
Getting a few thousand people to line up in a country of 1.3 billion doesn't
seem all that impressive to me, actually.

~~~
zdw
Agreed. Two stores, 60 people at 6AM at each? Compare to the lines at every
Apple store for a major launch (300+ for the iPhone 4 at the local store), or
for any video game console launch at nearly every retailer that sells them in
the entire US (usually 30-100 in front of every BestBuy/Walmart/etc.). No
comparison.

~~~
patrickaljord
From the pics it looks like there were much more than 60 people though.

~~~
fleitz
Thats why you hire a good photographer and claim huge lines from places where
your readers aren't in order to claim people are lining up for something that
you could download off the internet.

------
codyguy
People shouldn't have to line up for any phone. I own an iphone but I'd never
line up for it.

~~~
slantyyz
It's probably got more to do with the excitement of getting something "new",
which for some people represents "fun".

That's why people lined up for Wiis, XBoxes and Kinects.

------
elvirs
Well, what can I say, it turns out people like lining up.

~~~
rbanffy
And gullible people were never in short supply.

------
dotcoma
I don't understand these people (nor people who line up for an iPhone). I
wouldn't line up like that even if they were distributing admission tickets to
'heaven'.

~~~
jodrellblank
I don't understand people who upvote comments like this.

"Yes, please encourage more comments saying "I don't understand X". Not
understanding things is praiseworthy and deserves upvotes. So is an attitude
of being dismissive and superior based on said not understanding".

~~~
dotcoma
so, me not understanding stupid people who line up to buy a stupid phone: not
praiseworthy.

you not understanding my comment or those who up-vote it: praiseworthy. Please
explain :)

~~~
jodrellblank
_Please explain_

But I don't think you are "not understanding" anything. You know damn well
people line up for new phones because they are excited about them and want to
be the first in their group of friends to own one, or want to get them on eBay
while there's leverage of scarcity. You are not expressing confusion and
puzzlement, or asking anything, you are only posting to signal that you are
better than the people who line up for phones, and people are upvoting you in
shared feelings of superiority.

My comment is also a similar lie - I do understand yours really, but I was
mimicking your comment style.

------
sandGorgon
Can the reason also be lack of forced obsolescence?

I have a HTC Magic (also known in the US as a Mytouch 3G). It is a first
generation Android phone. I thought about upgrading recently and was
_beginning_ to look around.

What I did instead was to download the latest version of Cyanogenmod (and
contribute some of the money saved to the project). I can actually say that I
am putting off upgrading for the second half of 2011.

Has the Android space become synonymous with Windows XP ? Because I now see
people upgrade phones to play Angry Birds (which I cant on my phone).

IMHO, a large upgrade happened in the PC world around the time Doom3 and Half
Life 2 were released - so instead of people lining up for Android phones, they
instead line up (figuratively) for the next killer game ... it would still be
a solid reflection of the platform.

------
lwhi
Want more people in your nightclub? Make them queue...

------
cormullion
I suspect that they're lining up to see Jack Wong. I hadn't heard the name
before, but it seems he's a bit of a draw all by himself:

[http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-the-
eni...](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/how-the-enigmatic-
jack-wongs-like-apple-to-the-core-20100916-15e9t.html)

    
    
       "Every time (Wong) makes a comment on his 
        company's online forums, there's this groundswell 
        of pandemonium around those posts."
    

so perhaps it's not so much the phone that they're going to buy...?

------
code_duck
It makes sense that people would not line up for Android phones and would for
iPhones. There is only one iPhone, and a new one only comes once every 12 or
18 months. There are 100 Android phones, and a new one comes every month. The
suspense and excitement just isn't the same.

------
FiddlerClamp
We got this back in August for the Galaxy S in Toronto:

[http://mobilesyrup.com/2010/08/06/samsung-galaxy-s-
vibrant-a...](http://mobilesyrup.com/2010/08/06/samsung-galaxy-s-vibrant-
apparently-had-a-lineup-this-morning/)

------
andreshb
Are people lining up because it's Android or because it's Meizu? It may likely
be that Meizu built their brand enough to cause the lines, not Google's
Android.

------
vegai
Because Android users are smarter?

Oh, sarcasm. That's original.

------
drivebyacct2
And why do we care? Yes, a lot of yuppies go out and buy iPhone 4s so that
they can be cool. They'll never install more than 3 applications, will pay out
their ass for texting and will be perfectly happy flashing their iPhone to
their friends. Meanwhile, 4 more Android phones are activated without any
excitement, where the respective user also probably never installs a wide
range of apps and pays the carrier's exhuberant SMS fee.

Is Gruber suggesting, or am I supposed to buy the notion that the emotional
appeal of a product is some sort of important measurement? Who's activating
more phones, who's making the revenue.

I'll never stand in line for an Android phone, I won't even stay up late to
press "Buy" on when the purchase link goes live for the HTC Thunderbolt. It
will still be there and will ship at the same time if I order it at 8am.

~~~
tlack
I think his suggestion is that the Apple experience is so much better that it
is worth forming emotional attachment with the company, and that this is
something Android will never be able to provide.

~~~
drivebyacct2
I'm indicting the linkage between the "Apple experience" and launch day lines.
I don't think the launch day lines are made up of the people who really want
the iPhone experience versus the iPhone brand image.

------
foljs
Emm, this is China. There are lines 2 times like these for the salad bar stand
at most restaurants.

------
shareme
check china news..they are in fact lining up for Android in China..Gruber is
wrong as usual..

There are 12 news reports this morning in Google News..about Chinese lining up
for android devices..

------
known
Android phones are draining battery very quickly.

~~~
ceejayoz
As does any device with a large screen, reasonably fast processor, and tiny
form factor. There's only so much room available for a battery.

