Rooting your phone...you can no longer get away with that if you own a Samsung smartphone.

[Joelist]

Meanwhile Android overall lost some market share in 2014:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjo...arket-share-leveling-off-in-some-countries/2/

Basically Android went down 3.8% in the US and iOS increased the same amount. Plus for the first time in a long time Apple outsold Samsung in smartphone volume in a quarter:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjo...-after-strong-market-share-gains-worldwide/2/

I would think this is Samsung stumbling as much as it is the iPhone 6 being well received (which it has been - the sales numbers are insane). The Galaxy S5 did not perform as expected plus makers like Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo cleaned Samsung's clock in the budget smartphone segment last year. Plus there has been a block of Android users who went from iOS to Android for larger screen sizes - these probably are now going back as many of them still preferred iOS but hated the small screens.

This is why I think LG has an opportunity here and so does HTC - Samsung is losing the low end segment to the three I listed and Apple is getting an upper hand overall in the "high end" segment. LG and HTC can with marketing and premium build quality and presentation push Samsung in the high end Android space too.

 

[Overmind One]

I give you the Galaxy Alpha, dubbed the iPhone killer.

Samsskunk has far better and more aggressive marketing. LG pales in comparison when it comes to marketing and that is the only reason why I feel that Samskunk will continue to dominate the Android market, just as Apple has done releasing the exact same phone over and over again.

Both the LG G3 and the OnePlus are considered, at the moment, the two best phones on the market, the latter having a price point as its advantage over the G3. OnePlus is plagued by limited manufacturing capacity, hence the "invite" purchase system (which, by the way, has also helped generate a mountain of hype around it) and LG is lagging because its marketing is not as aggressive. These phones mostly end up in the hands of people who are in the know.

Yes, I'm praising the G3 like a fanboy early on but I am really impressed by this thing's build quality and performance. The phone's screen is a battery drag, though, having to power a 538 ppi display, but keeping the screen dim under heavy usage has proven to stretch that battery life by several orders of magnitude.

On standby, however, it's been very impressive. If the phone is sitting idle, the battery barely moves. It has been off the charger next to me while I'm working for the last 3 hours, having picked it up to look at maybe 3-4 notifications and replied to two emails so far, and the battery still shows 100%.

Its "cute". It is really dumb to enclose a glass screen in a metal case. It was always a dumb move when Apple did it. Notice how many iPhones have cracked screens? I have yet to see people walking around with cracked Galaxy screens, but this Alpha should change that. I really just do not care what Samskunk (love that name!) comes out with. They (Samskunk phones) are all chasing iPhone, even though they already sell way more phones and have a larger market share.

Apple = iPhone
Samskunk = mE2 phone

No innovation to see here folks, move on....

 

[Bluce Ree]

Meanwhile Android overall lost some market share in 2014:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjo...arket-share-leveling-off-in-some-countries/2/

Basically Android went down 3.8% in the US and iOS increased the same amount. Plus for the first time in a long time Apple outsold Samsung in smartphone volume in a quarter:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjo...-after-strong-market-share-gains-worldwide/2/

I would think this is Samsung stumbling as much as it is the iPhone 6 being well received (which it has been - the sales numbers are insane). The Galaxy S5 did not perform as expected plus makers like Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo cleaned Samsung's clock in the budget smartphone segment last year. Plus there has been a block of Android users who went from iOS to Android for larger screen sizes - these probably are now going back as many of them still preferred iOS but hated the small screens.

This is why I think LG has an opportunity here and so does HTC - Samsung is losing the low end segment to the three I listed and Apple is getting an upper hand overall in the "high end" segment. LG and HTC can with marketing and premium build quality and presentation push Samsung in the high end Android space too.

In my circle, the exodus to iPhone from Android has been largely due to Samskunk's poor build quality. About a dozen or so of my wife's friends and family had some variation of the Galaxy (s3, s4, s4 mini, etc). All of them victim to the "it says charging but the battery won't charge" conundrum and all just out of warranty. They came from iPhones originally and all went back over the last couple months to their iPhones because, although limited in what they could get out of its locked-down, heavily controlled ecosystem, the iPhone never failed them. They all went to the iPhone 6.

 

[Overmind One]

Well, as far as I am concerned, Samsung is now off my list of "I want that". The new Galaxy S6 is a beautiful phone. I mean exceptionally beautiful, with glass on the back, a metal case, and subtle but awesome and unique curved glass and outside lateral surfaces (like the Edge, only on both sides). What is gont:

The ability to switch out batteries or MicroSD cards.
The ability to "root" the phone (you can do it, but you will void the warranty if you do).
The sensibility of a good Otter case goes out the window because of the edge display on both sides of the phone.

The thing is disgustingly Apple-like, and I no longer find it appealing. Samsung wants to be Apple, and Apple is wanting to stay at the top of the premium smartphone ladder. Even though the Apple phones are technically inferior as far as hardware goes, they are most definitely higher in the perceived "premium-ness" of smartphones. At least they were, until the absolutely beautifully constructed and designed Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is:

This device makes the iPhones (yes, also the iPhone 6) look downright cheap in comparison. That is a metal phone enclosure, with glass on the rear of the phone. It looks so expensive and elegant that it seems to be almost like jewelry. NOTHING like previous versions. But therein lies the negative aspects. It seems like a frou frou device and not the iPhone killer in jeans that it once was. It has Apple beat on EVERY metric this time, but at what cost?

Apple
Samsung
LG
HTC
Motorola
Nokia
Blackberry