I read that, but doubt its relevance. How many phones take the Android operating system? No doubt there are more Android users, because there are more phones with the operating system on there.
Numbers are numbers--there are more people out there with an Android-powered device than with an iPhone. If you start taking numbers off for Android, you'll have to also shave the numbers for people using the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G since compared to many Android phones today, they aren't really up to scratch.
sohum added 13 Minutes and 50 Seconds later...
They do it so they can give their all to the new products, and in 2 years, my Macbook won't be horrendously outdated like all windows laptops would be.
They do it because they make more money that way--make no mistake about it. The fact that they have one product line shouldn't exempt them from scrutiny. Before the iPhone, the phone market was always bustling with new products--take Nokia for example. I lost track of their model numbers.
Consider the Xbox360 from Microsoft. The original one was released in 2005. They still release essentially the same product, with their annual refreshes merely slashing prices, changing hard disk capacity and bundling live subscriptions differently. Microsoft could probably have stripped features from the 360 and released a brand new model every year with must-have features.
Apple has had a history of doing this with their products. The original iPod Touch was released 3 months after the original iPhone. The original iPhone came with an in-built camera. But we've had to wait 4 generations for the iPod Touch to get this addition. Each generational release had minor feature updates such as updated hard disk size and thinner form factor. Apple could have put a camera into the second generation Touch but they didn't because it would make them less money in the long run.
I'm not arguing that their sales/marketing strategy is bad, just contesting the point that they do it because they want to dedicate their resources to that one product. If anything, Apple is essentially limiting the shelf life of a product to 2 years (they stop pushing OS updates to any iPhone/iPod Touch that is more than 2 generations old). And their release cycle has been so regular that even if you buy the current device, you know with almost 100% certainty that a year from now there will be a newer, better device out.
If I'm honest, I'm a massive fan of Apple. In my opinion they do phones better than the competition, and now I've had a MacBook for a few weeks, I'm under the impression then damn sure do a laptop better than the competition.
You are obviously entitled to your own opinion, but it's unfair to compare a run-of-the-mill HP or Dell laptop to a MacBook, which is obviously priced higher. People compare MacBooks to everything from Netbooks to multimedia laptops. You should instead compare MacBooks to top-of-the-line business notebooks such as Sony Vaio's business line or the HP EliteBooks. These product lines are much more important to those companies because they have large contracts depending on them. They don't use cheap parts.
I've had my VAIO for almost half a year and it currently works a lot better than the HP's I've had in the past, because those were cheap, consumer-grade machines built with cheap parts. They filled their role well--I was using my laptop as a desktop replacement and didn't need it to be light, have a good battery life, etc. My requirements have changed now and I need a more stable, quick, light laptop.
The advantage with non-Mac machines is that you will ALWAYS be able to find a machine that is specifically targeted towards your requirements. For example, if you wanted a solid state drive in your laptop you'd have only the MacBook Air from Apple--which lacks many other things that you may want. Comparatively, Sony has several VAIO models that offer an SSD.
With Apple's computers, you are always going to be making a compromise as to what you're getting, depending on what Apple wanted to put into it. That's good enough for most people, but that doesn't actually make the machine better.
sohum added 1 Minutes and 5 Seconds later...
The thing is i'm a bit egoistical and would like to have the 'best phone' for as long as i possibly can. There seems to be a newer, better Android device released every week!
Like I said earlier, with Apple you're almost guaranteeing that you will have the top-of-the-line iPhone for only 1 year. And 2 years down the line you will have to get a new one because the latest OS updates won't be pushed up to you anymore.
