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Android Advertising Businesses Cellphones Iphone Apple

How Android Phone Makers Are Missing the Marketing Boat 373

Posted by timothy from the you-must-have-some-steak-with-the-sizzle dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Why are Android device commercials showing giant robots and lightning bolts and not advertising features? Here is an interesting blog post of things Android device manufacturers could be doing to get ahead of Apple, but aren't." On a similar front, as a mostly happy Android user, I must admit envy for the jillions of accessories marketed for the iPhone, especially ones that take advantage of that Apple-only accessory port; maybe the Android Open Accessory project will help.
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How Android Phone Makers Are Missing the Marketing Boat More

How Android Phone Makers Are Missing the Marketing Boat

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  • Marketing and user experience (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nepka ( 2501324 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:32PM (#37965740)
    It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience. You can see it with Linux. Even if the Android advertisements would include features, I have a strong feeling it would be something like "Freedom! 1 GHz processor! 128MB RAM!", ie. just listing specs. That isn't interesting. Users don't know what and why. They don't need to know the specs. In this day and age everyone has lots of things to do, and contrary to popular Slashdot belief, normal people have no need to learn such things. Hell, there's many things I could learn and which would improve my daily life, but I rather learn more about things that really matter and interest to me - that being computers and everything related. At the same time I can see everyone is the same way, but about other things. I don't expect them to know computers or what I know, and they don't expect me to know everything either. Then you can just laught it off. That's being social, something nerds are really bad with.

    What most nerds don't get about advertising and user experience is WHY. What can this do to me and why? "What do I get out of the freedom of Android (or Linux)?" It needs to be something that the user, the normal user, actually cares about. As a side note, I honestly can't think of any reason the freedom of Linux would provide to casual users, compared to Windows and OSX. That is probably the reason why Linux still isn't on desktop. It's also what Stallman constantly forgets to mention and just comes out as an asshole trying to force everyone to FOSS.

    The iPhone ad shown in the article is actually perfect. It answers why, it shows what you can do and it doesn't go on and on about things users don't directly care about, like processor speed. Hell, I'm a geek and that ad made me want to buy iPhone (and on top of that iPad too!). The Android advertisement just left me thinking if it's an advertisement for some movie or wtf.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tthomas48 ( 180798 )

      No it's because iPhones are marketed like wine. The people who buy them are going to love them at least somewhat based upon owning something of "quality". Something that's exclusive. Something that's better than what you have, because it is. And much like wine, you're never going to convince them that Android has all the same features. Because they have a price differential to prove otherwise.
      Granted at one point the iPhone was far ahead. But it has long since become about the cachet of being able to afford

      • Re:Marketing and user experience (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:46PM (#37965836)

        Yeah, because Android users don't have contracts or subsidized phone. Get real. The vast majority of Android users are paying the same price for voice and data as their Apple and Blackberry loving counterparts. The vast majority of Android users are also using a subsidized phones and, yes, many of the leading Android phones are going for prices that are in line with their iPhone cousins.
         
        So you're dead wrong. While some Android device might be able to be got for a lower price point and while you may be able to get them with a cheaper data plan, the vast majority of Android users simply aren't doing this.

        • You missed his point ... it isn't about what the average android user has blah blah blah ... it is about his specific example where EVEN CHEAPER AND UNSUBSIDIZED his wife STILL isn't as impressed as a the more expensive option with Siri.

          In fact, you're being so obtuse you don't even realize that you and tthomas48 AGREE.

          • No. other poster was right. I was basically pointing out that my wife tweets by voice with her android phone and is really happy with it. Yeah, she has to click on the twitter app first. But she doesn't get why having Siri being able to launch twitter and then send the tweet automatically is somehow worth the price premium.

      • Re:Marketing and user experience (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:51PM (#37965868)
        Meh, most of the big name android devices cost the same as the newest iphone, with service plans that cost the same.

        Thing is, you can attack the problem from a price perspective or you can try to go head-to-head against apple in their own court. You can't really do both.

        Porsche and VW have been down this road. You have to keep things very separate or one messes up the other. To some people an Android phone is that dogshit $100 phone that looks and works terribly. To others its the insanely crazy (and iphone-expensive) galaxy. Selling the two next to each is bad news... but that's how it goes with an OS deployed over a gajillion devices.

        I see us heading to a bazaar situation in mobile some day. A real one. And then apple is going to get kicked out on their ass again, just like they did in the PC market when commoditized home computers yanked the market out from under them.

        • I see us heading to a bazaar situation in mobile some day. A real one. And then apple is going to get kicked out on their ass again, just like they did in the PC market when commoditized home computers yanked the market out from under them.

          We can only hope...

      • Re:Marketing and user experience (Score:4, Interesting)

        by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:57PM (#37965900) Homepage Journal
        Siri is a lot more impressive than Android's voice functionality, which is basically just voice-to-text with the ability to say "call X", "send text to X", or "navigate to X" tacked on. iCloud is similarly impressive.

        Yes, I can do almost all of those things with Android, using Dropbox and Flickr and Amazon, but with Apple you can just turn on iCloud and you're done. No setup required. If saving $60/mo is a really important thing to you, then you're not Apple's target market. They sell to people who have plenty of money and don't want to have to think about their technology. And the iPhone 4S, despite lacking 4G, is in most ways the best phone on the market. When you get down to it, now that Apple stole the notification bar, the primary reason I still use Android is Swype.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbolden ( 176878 )

          Where are you getting $60/mo? With most carriers the spread between feature phone and smart phone is $25-30/mo.

      • No it's because iPhones are marketed like wine. The people who buy them are going to love them at least somewhat based upon owning something of "quality".

        Partly. I bought my latest iPhone to replace the gen1 iPhone I had previously purchased second hand. At the time, android was still beIng tested, and the iPhone was better than my razr and Nokia candybar, and about 75% as useful for Internet stuff as my old Linux iPaq (but it actually fit in my pocket!). The iPhone4 was purchased due to laziness and lockin. Had I expended effort to port my data, I would have purchased an n900 just before Nokia whored itself out to Microsoft. Sure glad I didn't make the

        • promise of a new one homogeneity to when it dies

          @&#%ing iPhone word replacement. "promise of a new one to upgrade to when it dies"

      • No it's because iPhones are marketed like wine.

        No, it's because iPhones are marketed like lumber - as a commodity. If I go buy an iPhone, it's just like every other iPhone, right out of the box. No need to do any research. If I read about an app in a blog, I can download it and it runs, period. Etc... etc...

      • I have used many devices from many manufacturers (worked in telecom), and a few of the other devices are nice when they're new, but Apple devices (not just phones, also laptops) are still nice when a couple or more years old. Apple keeps supporting their stuff really well, especially if you get the cheap OS upgrades.

        Apple is in the game to keep their customers. That's how they create such a loyal following.

        To do this they make high quality devices, and those have a certain alure to some people like Mercedes

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ccguy ( 1116865 )

      Even if the Android advertisements would include features, I have a strong feeling it would be something like "Freedom! 1 GHz processor! 128MB RAM!", ie. just listing specs. That isn't interesting. Users don't know what and why.

      OK. Then if you were a manufacturer that made phones with say, 32 GB (let's assume that's double the maximum everything else), market it?

    • Re:Marketing and user experience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @01:10PM (#37965994)

      It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience.

      Hit the nail on the head. There was a huge contingent here jeering and predicting in dire tones the huge failure of the iPad between its unveiling and release. Some nerds gets filled with nerdrage when tech isn't marketed to them, I guess. They also go about trying to sell products in all the wrong fashion and don't understand what drives people to buy them, and end up calling said (and popular) products crap in some hipster-nerd type of elitism which doesn't exactly bring them closer to understanding the market.

      Anyway, from what I read, Apple's users more willingly pay for apps, so developers develop more willingly for iPhone. Since the price difference on iPhone and Android products are miniscule when subsidized, it's going to become a "It's the Apps stupid!" cycle ala Apple vs PC wars, except Apple is going to be on the flip side despite having a smaller base. (Also, less fragmentation of devices is nice for the developer as well, but $$$ is king of course.)

      Though I wish Web OS became more popular, iOS and its clone Android has UI quirks that annoy me.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Shihar ( 153932 )

        You are delusional if you think Android is marked for nerd by nerds. It is marketed like any other crap on the face of the planet, which is to say mindlessly to build name recognition. Nerds are not going to get their nerd specs from a fucking TV commercial. Ads more or less just scream over and over the name of the product and try and lodge some sort of image in your head. It doesn't matter if it is big green robots or dancing shadow people, they just want to lodge something in your head, not actually

    • It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience.

      Never seen HTC's "You" campaign, have you?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lUkF1vVudA [youtube.com]
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-QhxjJFl7E [youtube.com]
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md52PdldJ1U [youtube.com]

      Watch those, and tell me with a straight face that this is advertising for nerds, by nerds, and by people who have no concept what the words "user experience" means.

      Incidentally, every phone shown in those 3 ads is an Android phone.

      • Marketing to no-one (Score:4, Insightful)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @01:34PM (#37966172)

        Watch those, and tell me with a straight face that this is advertising for nerds, by nerds, and by people who have no concept what the words "user experience" means.

        I'll grant you that's not by nerds, for nerds.

        But how is that anything about user experience? The ad is TOTALLY devoid of any user experience using the phone, looking out from the phone you know nothing at all about how the phone is to use or what it can do.

        I am pretty convinced those kinds of ads (and I've seen them for other products) do nothing whatsoever to drive sales. How could they? Why would I remember HTC in connection to 30 seconds of nothing?

        Can YOU honestly say with a straight face any of those ads would compel someone to even think about asking to look at HTC phones in a store, much less go out and get one?

        I don't have an iPhone 4s. I have an iPhone 4. I didn't really feel like I needed a new phone right now, so I chose to skip this round... but every time I see a 4s commercial I start to question my choice to skip. Those are powerful ads.

        • I don't have an iPhone 4s. I have an iPhone 4. I didn't really feel like I needed a new phone right now, so I chose to skip this round... but every time I see a 4s commercial I start to question my choice to skip. Those are powerful ads.

          To Apple users. To me, I really don't see any reason to buy an iPhone when I can get all of the features I want for half the cost. (keeping in mind that I flatly refuse to sign a contract with a cell provider, so I'm paying retail, not a subsidized cost). Most of the iPhone sales I see happening right now appear to be people upgrading their old iPhone. The smartphone market is basically saturated, and the few people I know who've switched from one brand to another were actually switching from iPhone to an A

        • They call it "building the brand". The idea is that the name HTC is now in your head. When you decide to buy a new phone and you flick through the metaphorical catalogue, you'll think of HTC as an option, where before it might have been some anonymous entity you've never heard of.

          It probably works; most big companies play the same game. The recent UK McDonald's adverts, where there's barely a morsel of food in sight, is similar. Same goes for all those car adverts where you just get a stream of vaguely sugg

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbolden ( 176878 )

        You're right those are great commercials. HTC also does a wonderful job of keeping their phones up to data and has a great reputation. Had Verizon not signed Apple I would have gotten an HTC.

        I just wish they did battery life.

        • You're right those are great commercials. HTC also does a wonderful job of keeping their phones up to data and has a great reputation. Had Verizon not signed Apple I would have gotten an HTC.

          I just wish they did battery life.

          My wife has an HTC (the Droid Eris) and she would disagree about HTC keeping their phones up to date. She is stuck on Android 2.1 which means she can't even move her apps to the SD card. I rooted her phone and put Cyanogen mod on it, but it's not one of the main phones supported by Cyanogen mod, so it takes awhile for new releases of that to get to her. And after seeing that the iPhone 3GS (which was released before her phone) is still being supported and getting new releases, she decided that her new phone

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jbolden ( 176878 )

            You are right. The Droid Eris is unusual for an HTC. It came out 2 versions behind and only got one update (though it was a big one). Possibly HTC figures if you bought a 1.5 phone in late 2009 (after 2.0 was out) you just don't care about the version. Their reputation comes from the MyTouch and the EVO. The HTC Hero also is pretty tragic.

            I stand corrected.

    • Another problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @01:13PM (#37966020)
      That ad for what you can do with the iPhone was actually an ad for what you can do with iOS. That works fine for Apple because if they convince you to use iOS the only product you're going to buy is an iPhone.

      On the other hand if Motorola puts out an ad highlighting all the things you can do with Android then even if they convince you to get an Android phone there's no guarantee you'll by _their_ Android phone.

      This isn't an insurmountable problem, they could split the time between what's good about Android and what's good about their phone, or talk about features of Android without mentioning they're features that _all_ Android phones have. But it probably seems safer to the executives to only focus on what's cool about _their_ phone.

      And of course the other thing is that i believe historically commercials that have gone with the whiz-bang appeal have done better than commercials that tried to be informative. As a nerd this always bothered me because i'm more interested in facts than presentation. (Not that i don't enjoy a well done presentation, but i try not to let my purchasing habits be influenced by it.) But i guess the majority of the male 18-35 demographic that commercials always try to aim at doesn't think the same way.

      So another question to ask is, what demographic is the Apple commercial appealing to? And is it actually more successful overall than the Android commercials? The iPhone is certainly selling well above any individual Android model, but it's selling well below the total Android ecosystem. If one company switched to similar informative commercials would they actually see an increase in sales? Or is the iPhone's dominance as a single model due to some other factor? Again, as i nerd i actually like the tack the Apple commercial is taking (even if i get offended at all the times they imply, or even state outright, that you can't do the same thing on Android when you most certainly can) but historically appealing to people like me hasn't usually led to widespread market success.

      So given all the differences between the Apple/iOS/Apple/iPhone model and the Google/Android/Dozens of companies/hundreds of phones model it's hard to say when comparing marketing strategies and measures of success is valid and when it's comparing, well, apples to oranges.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jbolden ( 176878 )

        Good point about Android manufacturers. That's part of the downside of a fragmented marketplace. RIM and Apple just have to sell you on their platform while Android people have to sell you on their particular models, and that's frankly hard when they are so generic. Which is precisely the problem PC manufacturers have had, they are selling a commodity.

        The other thing is that Android does well selling to a lot of niches. Android feature phones don't do all the stuff the expensive HTC do either.

        What Apple

      • So another question to ask is, what demographic is the Apple commercial appealing to? And is it actually more successful overall than the Android commercials? The iPhone is certainly selling well above any individual Android model, but it's selling well below the total Android ecosystem.

        The commercial is appealing to people with disposable income who don't care about the tech specs or ROM versions of the devices that improve their lives. That's why Apple is leading the phone market in revenue by an amount s

    • What most nerds don't get about advertising and user experience is WHY. What can this do to me and why? "What do I get out of the freedom of Android (or Linux)?" It needs to be something that the user, the normal user, actually cares about. As a side note, I honestly can't think of any reason the freedom of Linux would provide to casual users, compared to Windows and OSX. That is probably the reason why Linux still isn't on desktop. It's also what Stallman constantly forgets to mention and just comes out as

    • Re:Marketing and user experience (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Sunday November 06, 2011 @01:45PM (#37966288) Homepage

      It's because Android devices are marketed for nerds, by nerds. And nerds don't understand marketing or user experience.

      I think the "not understanding user experience" is a big problem in the tech industry, and Apple seems to be the only company paying attention to the user experience. Nerds/engineers simply fail to understand; the whole thing goes over their heads.

      I've had lots of conversations with nerds/engineers about this, and when I try to talk about how Apple focuses on "user experience", they insist that Apple just makes "prettier" interfaces. To a lot of the people involved in these things, there's a false dichotomy that research and development is either focused on "useful features" or "useless superficial things, like pretty interfaces". They don't understand that there can be such a thing as "too many features", making the user experience confusing and frustrating. They don't seem to understand that it matters how you organize programs, options, and settings in your UI, that it only matters whether the features are there, and not how you access them.

      The reason usability is so important is that "features" are only useful if people can figure out what those features are and how to use them effectively. UI design is important, not just to make things pretty, but to give visual cues about how to use the Interface, and to provide intuitive organization. The fact is, smartphones and computers are about as powerful as they need to be to do the things we want to do, and improving usability is probably the most important challenge right now. That is, making it easier to do the things you want to do, and removing the obstacles that prevent you from being productive.

      I'm of the opinion that iCloud may end up being one of the great underestimated advancements in computing of the past couple years-- comprehensive data syncing between an entire ecosystem of Internet-connected devices. However, it requires a sort of vertical integration that only Apple is positioned to achieve. In short, I'm probably going to be stuck being an Apple customer for the foreseeable future because Apple is the only consumer electronics company that hasn't stalled out in terms of developing more usable products.

      • Exactly.

        I'm a nerd and I know how to set up backups with rsync and a cron job. Quite often I just don't get around to doing that.
        With my Mac I just turned on TimeMachine and since then my backup is never more than an hour old.

        The last I can also successfully get my mom to do over the phone, the first one I can't.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by abarrow ( 117740 )

      I had a minor epiphany the other day when an iPhone user was looking over my shoulder at my Android tablet. First words: "You probably can't get very many apps for it, can you?". Holy shit - Apple is pulling a Microsoft on the market. They've so fully saturated the market's hearts and minds that people see non-Apple portable devices as "less than".

      While I agree with everything in TFA, I think just doing a little more advertising is probably not going to do it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )

      heh, the first thing i see with the Apple ads is that the are basically show and tell instruction videos (here is how to take a photo, here is how to buy a app, here is how to do XYZ). No wonder Apple products are "easy to use", we are being told how things are done at every advertisement break...

    • Now that you have the big players like AT&T marketing phones, i have to disagree with that analysis..

      That said, i do agree that few marketing teams are as good as Apple's.

  • Standard Connector? (Score:3)

    by Rich0 ( 548339 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:47PM (#37965840) Homepage

    So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger, and not have to buy the $35 sold at the phone store.

    They don't really need a standard connector so much as a standard protocol for communicating over it beyond just filesystem access/etc.

    And yes, phone commercials that barely even show you the phone are really annoying. I really don't care that their CGI robot can smash a CGI alien or whatever - I'm buying a phone, not a combat robot...

    • USB does USB and power. The iAccessory port does USB, power, analog audio output and playback control. Very nice for accessory manufacturers, as it means they don't need complex and expensive electronics.

    • So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger,

      I can do the same thing with my iPhone because I can simply use the supplied cable into any USB port.

      But I can also do more. I can be reasonably sure I can go into most hotels and dock my iPhone with the radio for playback (or charging), no cables required. If I forget a cable when I travel I think it is MORE LIKLEY I will be able to find an iPhone USB charging cable or some device to charge the phone,

      • That's not "more standard." That's just de-facto acceptance due to the commonality of the device. The port is still totally proprietary and I have no doubt that Apple would sue the fuck out of anyone else that used it.

        USB is a standard. The dock connector is not.

        • That's just de-facto acceptance due to the commonality of the device.

          To the user on the street though that does not matter. The FACT is that as a user, you can find more ways to make use of the iPhone dock connector and more devices that support it in everyday life.

          To the end user that is all they know, is what they can do. And to them the iPhone connector appears simply to be more standard, more widely available, even if they have no idea why other companies cannot use it.

          So complaining about Android hav

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hitmark ( 640295 )

        variant? There is one kind of micro-USB...

    • So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger, and not have to buy the $35 sold at the phone store.

      What? iDevices charge from a regular USB socket. Just get something like this [amazon.co.uk] which turns a car lighter socket into a USB A power socket - works fine with iDevices or Androids - just check the reviews to make sure it delivers enough juice.

      Meanwhile, unlike standard USB, the iDevice dock connector also carries analog audio in/out and video, essential for the cheaper speakers/accessories.

    • So, what's wrong with USB anyway? I LIKE the fact that I can plug my android phone into a $2 car charger, and not have to buy the $35 sold at the phone store.

      They don't really need a standard connector so much as a standard protocol for communicating over it beyond just filesystem access/etc.

      The trouble with (just) USB is that only handles two sorts of use case gracefully, the second less so than the first:

      1. Phone is USB slave, some reasonably powerful device is USB master: In this case, the phone can be charged and can expose any function supported by a USB device class or custom driver on the USB master. Most phones only actually seem to expose a USB Mass Storage device, along with ADB if turned on; but there isn't any architectural barrier to exposing other phone functions, camera as USB

  • Android is not one man's vision. It is more/less. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wombatmobile ( 623057 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @12:47PM (#37965846)

    Why?

    Because:

    1. Android, unlike iOS, has marketing funded by many different organizations and managers separately, working competitively against other Android manufacturers. They are each trying to differentiate from the other.

    2. And don't forget:

    3. Android devices don't have a standardized dock/interface connector so dock accessories don't exist for Android.
    4. Android devices just show up as dumb disk drives when you plug them into my computer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bberens ( 965711 )
      When I plug my wife's ipod touch into my computer it doesn't show up as anything.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by artor3 ( 1344997 )

      You're talking out your ass. My Droid X2 has a dock in my car, another at my bedside, and doesn't show up as a "dumb disk drive" when connected to my computer.

  • If you are following the links looking for information on the origin of the port on the ipod, the link from the old slashdot story [oynk.com] doesn't work any more. Of course, that is a link to a site that isn't managed by slashdot or their overlords, so they don't have control over it (not) being there.
  • "On a similar front, as a mostly happy Android user, I must admit envy for the jillions of accessories marketed for the iPhone, especially ones that take advantage of that Apple-only accessory port; maybe the Android Open Accessory project will help."

    And 70% of iPhone users would replace your "mostly" with "very", whereas only 50% of Android users would. But it seems you're not even in that group so why not get something more likely to keep you very happy?

    (Incoming Mods!)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Daetrin ( 576516 )
      I don't know about the writer, but in my case it's because i've tried friends' iPods and iPhones, and they do not make me more happy, just more frustrated. I'm interested in what makes _me_ happy, not what statistically makes other people happy.

      Maybe that's because i got a top line Android phone that is in every way comparable to an iPhone. Do you actually have a study to back up your statistics or are you just making things up? If there is such a study did it differentiate between people who were willing

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Wingsy ( 761354 )
        Yeah, I can back it up. I read it on the internet.

        http://www.splatf.com/2011/07/mobile-satisfaction/ [splatf.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Daetrin ( 576516 )
          And it does indeed appear that all phones that are part of the OS are getting lumped together. The article complains about Windows 7 getting lumped together with Windows Mobile, but there's a similar problem for all the OSes besides iOS. Apple doesn't sell crappy hardware, so i'm not surprised Apple came in head and shoulders above everyone else. If they broke the results down both by OS versions and by phone models the results would be much more interesting and informative. As it is the results are practic

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbolden ( 176878 )

        Do you actually have a study to back up your statistics or are you just making things up?

        U.S. Smartphone Customer Satisfaction Survey [mashable.com] The only area where customers didn't like Apple was lack of 4G.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )

      Mind if i reference the allegory of the cave? (tho i admit, that is a sword that cut both ways in this regard)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Belial6 ( 794905 )
      Because the difference between "mostly" and "very" generally has more to do with the person than the phone.
  • One interesting thing about the "good" Apple ad vs. the "bad" Droid ad in the article is that the Apple ad is bright and sparkly and clean, while the Droid ad is much darker and sexier, with a pretty woman writhing all around.
    • Apple is very careful to keep a squeeky-clean image.

      Reminds me of those Microsoft ads promoting IE's new private browsing feature. Their example was of a husband using it to hide from his wife a purchase of flowers to show how he loves her... not only is there a huge elephant in the room, but the visible efforts of the writers to look away from it only serve to further direct attention to its presence. Everyone knows the *real* reason for private browsing. Something for which internet is really, really gre

  • Even the author doesn't quite get it... (Score:5, Informative)

    by gstrickler ( 920733 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @01:18PM (#37966064)

    Some should be showing off new features that Apple doesn't have like the new face unlock feature in Android 4.0.

    Yeah, when there are phones shipping with Android 4.0 and front facing cameras that can use the features. Marketing features that aren't yet available to the end users is a REALLY bad idea.

    Others should highlight their restrictive model: picture the old Mac vs. PC ads, but with the iPhone checking with Apple before denying the user's request to install an app of their choice.

    This would probably backfire, how many trojans and programs that send your info back to the developer's server have been found in the Android marketplace? Lots. Apple would almost certainly use that in a counter-attack ad.

    Market your strengths, but be careful of those that also have an underlying weakness/vulnerability, it will come back to bite you.

    Android needs more standardization. A standard UI, a minimum resolution, and a minimum hardware set. One of the things Apple has done very effectively is manage the user experience. MS Windows and Android have allowed manufacturers to put out devices with too little RAM, CPU, and/or poor quality screens, keyboards, touch-screens and it hurts the reputation of the platform. When a user buys a bad Windows or Android device, they're as likely to blame the OS as they are the hardware manufacturer. Failing to understand and address that is a marketing failure on the part of the OS vendor.

    • One of the things Apple has done very effectively is manage the user experience

      Apple is also a single company that produces both the OS and the hardware.

      MS Windows and Android have allowed manufacturers to put out devices with too little RAM, CPU, and/or poor quality screens, keyboards, touch-screens and it hurts the reputation of the platform.

      WP7, since that's the only thing that is relevant now, requires you use the hardware that Microsoft dictates, with a little maneuverability regarding design and gimmi

    • Android needs more standardization. A standard UI, a minimum resolution, and a minimum hardware set.

      The problem is that you have a bunch of different manufacturers who are all trying to differentiate themselves. Motorola and HTC don't want to have the same interface and hardware as each other, because they're competing with each other and each is looking for an edge. Almost as importantly, each is looking for a way to establish their brand and inspire brand loyalty. Oh, and they also don't really want standardized accessories because they want to force you to re-buy all of your accessories when you buy

      • And the reason they've shipped phones with too little RAM/CPU and poor quality screens is essentially that consumers often demand crap. It's kind of a general problem, not limited to cell phones, that people want stuff but they don't want to pay for quality. That's why we have McDonalds restaurants all over the place and Best Buys filled with eMachines computers.

        Consumers don't demand crap. Consumers largely shop on price. Retailers (and in the US, wireless carriers) buy devices to hit certain price points that they can advertise. Consumers don't have access to information to compare the devices, so put the blame where it belongs, with the sellers who are willing to sell crap because they know people will buy it and then blame the manufacturer (rather than the company who knowingly or carelessly sold them a piece of crap to make a profit).

        I've worked in retail comp

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jbolden ( 176878 )

      Android is open source after the 3 mo window for preferred vendors.

  • 1 i overlook as that do not impact Android as a system directly.

    2 Could be done via the mentioned Accessory system (it is barely 7 months old, so give it time).

    3 has the issue of design restraint. i suspect some kind of NFC/induction system is more likely to work then a physical connector. There are however an attempt at a dock connector, called PDMI. But so far the only big name that seems to use it is Samsung, and they even managed to "proprietize" the implementation.

    4 may come about via the Accessory sys

  • Operating System? Or just a phone? (Score:3)

    by ScottyLad ( 44798 ) on Sunday November 06, 2011 @02:31PM (#37966804)

    I'm pretty sure not many of my friends know the difference between IOS and Android.

    If I asked everyone I know outside of work what kind of phone they have, the answers would be something like this:

    iPhone
    HTC
    Nokia
    iPhone 4
    Samsung
    Motorola
    etc

    I'm not even sure the responses would be particularly different at work (I work in a technical environment). Perhaps tomorrow I'll try it and see if anyone actually mentions the terms "IOS" or "Android". I hadn't realised until very recently that lots of different phones ran the same operating system, and I'm reasonably technical - I just don't have much interest in phone technology beyond making sure the one I buy does the things I want it to do (make phone calls, sync with iTunes) without me having to learn how to work something new.

    My first mobile phone was a Nokia. Over the next 15 years, every phone I had was a Nokia. There were probably "better" phones on the market, but I liked Nokia, I knew how to work them, and I couldn't see any reason to change. When the iPhone came out, I thought "I wouldn't need to carry my iPod around everywhere as well as my phone if I bought one of those", so I got an iPhone. I like my iPhone, it does everything I want it to, and I know how to work it. Which probably means my next phone will also be an iPhone.

    In many respects, despite having a technical profession, and being a "geek" in many areas which interest me, I'm actually just a typical consumer. I buy stuff from brands which have made stuff I like in the past.

    Most consumers recognise brands, not technical specifications

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