Why does Apple only make 1 phone?

bertles86 said:
iPhone 1 = innovative

Every iPhone after that = not so innovative
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There's nothing wrong with that. Most companies once they have a successful product will make minor changes in each release cycle. That doesn't mean the company isn't innovate as shown with the iPad, which has changed that market as well. Before the iPad how many tablets would you see in public?

I'm on train into London right now and nearly everyone in the carriage has a tablet in their hand. This wasn't the case preiPad.
 
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spoffle said:
Why is this relevant? For me to say that apple isn't innovating, do I have to mean that others are?

The innovation in this sector is generally with the companies developing the internals that power these devices, which really is very similar across different handsets/devices.

ARM for example, are doing a very good job with innovation with the leaps they've been making with mobile performance.
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You seem very heavily biased here.

You can't claim ARM are doing a 'very good job with innovation' and then say Apple haven't innovated at all. That's just so, so utterly incorrect. Are you also saying innovation can only occur at a SoC level? What utter nonsense!

Apple have revolutionised the smartphone market, and more or less invented the tablet market. Yes, tablets have existed previously but nobody had or wanted one, and that isn't purely down to marketing. The iPad, compared to an old style tablet is just massively, massively superior. Innovative.

As soon as the iPhone came out, the face of the mobile phone market was changed forever, massively so (as people have pointed out with that picture). Samsung even went as far as to almost directly copy Apple with the original Galaxy S. The iPad was even more dramatic than that, there was no tablet market until Apple.

I can understand why people don't want Apple products, that's fine, but all of these Android fans and so on only exist because of Apple. Android was going down a very different road until iOS came along.
 
Indeed, the 2006 intended release 'google phone' (which would run V1 Android) was very much blackberry-esque. The specification included tons of menu and selection soft-buttons and a QUERTY keypad. It actually looked really refined, it was obvious they had been working on it for some time.
Post iPhone? everything about the early Android launches had the obvious feel of a rushed product because they company were aware they had backed the wrong horse, so to speak, in cloning Blackberry.

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There were photo's of Android running on a touch-screen device, but it was clearly un-intended at the time all in all due to the fact this device still had a million menu buttons.
 
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Alpherah said:
Indeed, the 2006 intended release 'google phone' (which would run V1 Android) was very much blackberry-esque. The specification included tons of menu and selection soft-buttons and a QUERTY keypad. It actually looked really refined, it was obvious they had been working on it for some time.
Post iPhone? everything about the early Android launches had the obvious feel of a rushed product because they company were aware they had backed the wrong horse, so to speak, in cloning Blackberry.

-edit-
There were photo's of Android running on a touch-screen device, but it was clearly un-intended at the time all in all due to the fact this device still had a million menu buttons.
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I had the first android phone released (the T1 I think it was called). It was nothing like a blackberry. It had a qwerty keyboard but most tasks were clearly designed just to use the touch screen. You could operate the phone perfectly fine without the keyboard.
 
ShortWarning said:
I had the first android phone released (the T1 I think it was called). It was nothing like a blackberry. It had a qwerty keyboard but most tasks were clearly designed just to use the touch screen. You could operate the phone perfectly fine without the keyboard.
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The G1 was the first Android phone that was released to the public but it wasn't the first designed by Google. They had different views on what the Android phone should look like as discussed above.

EDIT: Here's some early previews:

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Oracle-shows-off-designs-of-a-2006-Google-Phone-in-court_id29480
 
I have an iPhone 4. Arrived late to the party and was given it for free. It not having a micro sd slot sucks to be fair. Big fail. It is a 16gig model and feels full just after installing a few apps on it. NBA/FIFA/NFS etc.

Camera however is nice enough and the gallery is a joy to use. Slow now though compared to other phones including the newer models of the iPhone.

No drag and drop, having to convert video files so it would see them also sucks. Since jailbraking it I have now uninstalled iTunes. I've other software that allows me to drag and drop (how it should be) on to the device but again I have had to do a lot to get this up and running.

Whilst there are a lot of apps many are plain useless. This goes for Google's Play market too. I was using an Android device before. I don't get the argument when people use this to say a device is better than another.

I'm not sure which device I prefer, both have their positives and negatives. No doubt in the future I'll sell it to buy an S4 or whatever comes out later in the year. But for now I am enjoying using it as a phone. It "just works" so to speak.. well when it doesn't have to restart due to the springboard? crashing. Which is quite often. That might be down to it being JB though.

Innovative? Probably. But it isn't worth getting yourself worked up over.
 
spoffle said:
That's not because of the iPhone or Apple. There were phones before the iPhone that fit in with your picture. For example the LG Prada.
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You're absolute kidding yourself if you think the LG Prada is the reason why the smartphone market looks the way it currently does. LG just doesn't have the clout to make that sort of dramatic change. You give Apple far far too little credit for what they have achieved. They did it with iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad, all are products that have massively influenced the direction of consumer products and services.
 
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said:
There are some customers which we chose not to serve. We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them. We’ve seen great success by focusing on certain segments of the market and not trying to be everything to everybody. So I think you can expect us to stick with that winning strategy and continue to try to add more and more value to those products in those customer bases we choose to serve.
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Thought this was an interesting quote and showed where Apple comes from in terms of product choices. This is talking about netbooks and the demands that Apple make one. Or it would be the end of Apple.
 
Apple in the past have probably only kept to one iPhone a year to:

1. Reduce development costs
2. Streamline production
3. Reduce consumer confusion over product being sold and reinforce brand image - iPhone is as common as the phrase Google it in society

Why Apple products sell well in my opinion:

1. Shop presence - despite the doom and gloom of high street, Apple stores I have been do are always packed - the customer service and ability to pay for smaller items without even queuing for a machine or what is great

2. Build materials - I am not going to say Apple is superior in durability, etc but it feels like a superior product because of better materials - glass / aluminium whilst most of the competition uses this cheap feeling plastic. I got a 64 GB iPod Touch 5th Gen and it feels like a quality item compared to competitiveness.

3. iOS easy of use and app support. Yes I hate how you can't delete icons like Passport and stocks but everyone is pretty much accessible in a couple of clicks or swipes. Its easy to navigate but low customisation.

The App Store is a smoother experience a very large selection of Apps (developers still happy to make them despite Apple taking 30% cut in sales) Evidence also in news that App store has biggest downloads.
 
Phil Schiller's said this isn't going to happen, but then again Steve Jobs said the same about the iPad Mini.

Apple hasn't really been innovating since the original iPhone and iPad so they're having to be reactive to stop Android overtaking their market share. I can see if more phones follow the Nexus 4 price point Apple won't have much choice.
 
I could only find market share information for the US but after the IP5 launch Apple has the largest market share (source).

However, Apple's strategy has never been about market share, they've aimed for high margin products and been happy to lose market share as volume isn't a big deal for them. I think volume and price will only become an issue if people stop buying their devices in large numbers. At this time there is no indication of that happening.
 
Well with Apple its all about the brand image.

I remember in the news the public apology against the travesty which was Apple maps and the u-turn of Apple removing their Macs from the recycling scheme in the USA when some universities threaten to boycott Macs.
 
Salesfeed said:
Well with Apple its all about the brand image.

I remember in the news the public apology against the travesty which was Apple maps and the u-turn of Apple removing their Macs from the recycling scheme in the USA when some universities threaten to boycott Macs.
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Yes Apple is all about image which is why they also top every customer satisfaction survey on a yearly basis.
 
FishFluff said:
Yes Apple is all about image which is why they also top every customer satisfaction survey on a yearly basis.
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True, but brand image has A LOT to do with why they're successful, they're masters of that. History shows it's not necessarily the most innovative or feature-packed product that makes the most profit - Apple are a testament to that.
It's no wonder Apple marketing is studied the world over by business and advertising students, and no doubt it's competitors.
 
Apple designed the device around their bread and butter focus... the apps.

And nobody can give a constructive argument against the fact that apps on iOS are the best of the bunch.

They make one phone as such to maintain app parity, to keep them running well on a wide range of devices.

Android is extremely wasteful with system resources and I am convinced that if Google could go back now, they would have done things a fair bit differently.

One example being is the Galaxy S3. Beautiful phone, but so bogged down. Games like GTA don't run as good as they should considering the specs.

Having spent a good few years with Android across a wide variety of devices, I have to say that my experiences with the iPhone 5 have been more consistent and pleasurable.

I know that regardless of what new iPhones are released over the next year or two, I will still have the same good experience that won't be bogged down.
 
spoffle said:
That's not because of the iPhone or Apple. There were phones before the iPhone that fit in with your picture. For example the LG Prada.
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That phone didn't really changed the market did it? Apple weren't the first phone to make the full touch screen phone but they were imo the first company to do it well. They feel like premium products and even people who aren't sharp when it comes to technology can use it easily. Now near enough every phone is based on the same full screen touch interface and usually a few buttons at bottom or on the side. Same goes for the iPad, not the first company to make a tablet but the first to make a consumer friendly tablet and make it work well. The interface is so clean and things work well, we have Android based phones with great specs that just don't work as smoothly as the iPhone. Companies which change the market usually do quite well but it remains to be seen whether Apple can keep it going because things can change. Who would have thought 10 years ago Nokia would be in the position it is now?

That image is a bit deceptive though, unless I'm missing it, it doesn't have any of the Sony Ericsson phones like the P900 which had touch screens and were smart phones.
 
Came in here expecting Spoffle to be ranting about Apple being uninnovative, got what I expected. Anyone claiming that the iPhone didn't change things is so clearly deluded.

I couldn't stand Apple prior to that 2007 iPhone announcement, and as an engineer I was blown away by what they had achieved. Even more so with the 3G and an SDK that allowed devs to create decent apps - not the crap we saw on SE P900's or older Symbian OS's but actual applications that had functionality as well as a solid UI. I was continually blown away with things like a 'retina' high screen ala high PPI and watched as everyone followed suit on that.

Even though I have shifted to the Android camp on the phone side of things I still hugely respect what they have done and haven't forgotten how poor and cumbersome phones were prior to 2007.
 
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