Tim Cook May Not Know Why, But Samsung Is Winning in China 327
An anonymous reader writes with this interesting snippet about the state of mobile tech in China: "Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook believes that 'over the arc of time' China is a huge opportunity for his pathbreaking company. But time looks to be on the side of rival Samsung Electronics, which has been around far longer and penetrated much deeper into the world's most populous country. Apple this week said its revenue in Greater China, which also includes Hong Kong and Taiwan, slumped 43 per cent to $4.65 billion from the previous quarter. That was also 14 per cent lower from the year-ago quarter. Sales were weighed down by a sharp drop in revenues from Hong Kong. "It's not totally clear why that occurred," Cook said on a conference call with analysts. Neither is it totally clear what Apple's strategy is to deal with Samsung – not to mention a host of smaller, nimbler Chinese challengers."
Re:Here's the reason... (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe those in some countries don't like us, but from what I've seen, having been across much of eastern Asia, the US is generally well regarded. The only exception is Indonesia, and that's religious/political. What country are you from, the country of "MakeShitUp?"
Re:Here's the reason... (Score:5, Informative)
This is odd but just today I took my kids to "Chinese Reconciliation Park [metroparkstacoma.org]" - a spot to recognize and apologize for the fact that in the 1800's thousands of Chinese people [tacomachinesepark.org] were driven out of our town in a spat of racial hatred. Most fled on threat of violence but the last 200 were rounded up forcibly, driven to the edge of town to wait a day unsheltered in the pouring, bitterly cold November rain and then loaded onto cattle cars for a trip to Portland, Oregon. At the end of that day there was not one Chinese person left in town. We had had an ethnic purge.
I'm not sure our kids got the whole horror of it, but it hit me pretty hard.
iOS does not support Cantonese! (Score:2, Informative)
Here's a big hint for Tim: on iOS, you can't write a custom keyboard. On Android you can. This is a really big deal in Hong Kong, because iOS has no support for Cantonese-based Chinese input. The best you can do is a kludgy app where you have to copy and paste the result (see https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/canton-guang-dong-pin-yin/id385519764?mt=8 [apple.com]).
Therefore, the Cantonese user is hamstrung by Apple's lack of support for the Cantonese-speaking market, together with their locked-down approach which prevents third party developers from filling the hole.
Compare this with the situation on Android, where there are at least five Cantonese-based keyboard input methods, together with Cantonese voice recognition. Why is it surprising if Hong Kongers find iOS seriously deficient?
Re:"It's not totally clear why that occurred" (Score:5, Informative)
You can't use Google Play on a Samsung either. This is China you know. When you buy a phone from China Unicom they get rid of all the Google stuff, from Gmail to Youtube and Maps. Mine had something called Amap as a Google Maps replacement, which I have to say, it is a kickass app. If you speak Chinese you don't really need Google Play here. Try to get a phone from a good Chinese manufacturer like Huawei or Lenovo, or even Xiaomi. The rest is crap.
Re:Apple doesn't have a strategy for winning here (Score:4, Informative)
Well if you are in China, you just fire up QQ Music and have all the music you want. If you are in the US you can use Spotify, or you can buy stuff from the iTunes store which I don't see as truly hard. Now if you want to pirate music and upload it to your device, you just copy that in iTunes and then sync, or where are you getting that flash drive music if it isn't from torrents or a physical CD?
So really, drop the crap. Apple is overpriced and they like to lock you in, but saying that it is not simple to use is a flat out lie.
Re:iOS does not support Cantonese! (Score:5, Informative)
Not only does iOS have voice control and dictation in Cantonese [apple.com], but Siri even speaks Cantonese [apple.com]. There's also the fact that iOS supports the traditional Chinese character set, which is used by Cantonese, as well as the extra characters that are specific to Cantonese. Did it ever occur to you to ask why that app you linked hasn't been updated for three years now? If you look back, you'll find that that Apple expanded its iOS efforts to include China around that time, along with adding input support for various forms of Chinese in iOS 4.
But hey, dinging them using information that hasn't been true for about three years is a favorite pastime of many a nerd, so please, continue.