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Topic: Mobility

Samsung and Nokia: Tomorrow's Apple and BlackBerry?

Summary: Apple has shown that having control over the hardware and software has its advantages, and BlackBerry once demonstrated that same success. Can this same model be applied to Android and Windows Phone?

Matthew Miller

By for Smartphones and Cell Phones |

Apple is the sole source of iOS devices and BlackBerry is the only maker of BlackBerry OS/10 smartphones. But the rest of the mobile world also looks to be moving toward a dominant manufacturer for each mobile operating system.

Samsung and Nokia: Tomorrow's Apple and BlackBerry?
(Image: Samsung)

As James Kendrick stated, Samsung is Android, and, as we see in market share reports, Nokia is Windows Phone. Can the likes of HTC, Huawei, LG, Asus, and Motorola continue to compete against these behemoths?

Samsung

Reports this week indicated that Google is worried about Samsung's dominance because it fears that Samsung might try to renegotiate its commercial terms. While data shows that Samsung ships the majority of Android smartphones and has the one true device that consumers consider over the iPhone, currently the Galaxy S III, there are other players that have better designs and lower-cost phones for the new smartphone owner.

Samsung is dominant with Android, but also has Tizen plans. They have just dabbled in Windows Phone, but if this platform ever takes off, they could carpet bomb the market with phones potentially running on three mobile platforms.

Nokia

Nokia is serious about getting Windows Phone devices into the hands of consumers at every price point, and its announcement at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013 of the Lumia 520 and 720 continues to fill out its lineup. Nokia not only offers compelling hardware, but distinguishes itself from the others with value-added software and services.

There has been talk in the past of Microsoft purchasing Nokia, and as Nokia continues to dominate the Windows Phone market, this idea doesn't seem that far-fetched.

Is either really likely?

Apple has shown that having control over the hardware and software has its advantages, and in the past BlackBerry demonstrated the same success. Can this same model be applied to Android and Windows Phone? Windows Phone seems more likely to me, since it is a very controlled platform, like iOS, and Nokia is so dominant in this market. Android has many more players, and is marketed as a more open platform, so even with Samsung's dominance I don't see Android becoming a single manufacturer platform anytime soon. I don't want to see that either as companies like HTC, LG, and Motorola are making better hardware now and have compelling offerings.

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Topics: Mobility, Apple, iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry, Samsung, Smartphones

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38 comments
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  • I am wondering?

    I am wondering why people are still buying android phones? the os is laggy, the UI is ugly, devices are ugly, look feel cheap.

    3 years ago, I was wondering why people were still buying blackberry.
    jk_10
    Reply 13 Votes

    • Which UI is ugly?

      There's the Sense UI, the TouchWiz UI, and so forth.

      Which UI is it that you're talking about?
      Michael Alan Goff
      Reply 3 Votes

      • All of them that run on android.

        Sense was good 10 years ago.

        When I walk in the malls, take a peek at the mobile boothes, those ugly androids are visually embarassing.
        jk_10
        Reply 4 Votes

        • I have to disagree

          I rather like stock Android.

          What is "beautiful" to you?
          Michael Alan Goff
          Reply 1 Vote

      • t.wiz to be exact

        Touchwiz looks like my closet... And you don't wanna look at my closet.. Let alone trying to clean it up... Haha.. But Sammy does put some impressive (a little inefficient) specs under the hood that makes the phones desirable.. Sense 5 is nice looking.. But the blinkfeed reminds me of some other platform.. :p :p :p.. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen haha..
        Zami90
        Reply Vote

      • the wiz to be exact..

        Touchwiz looks like my closet... And you don't wanna look at my closet.. Let alone trying to clean it up... Haha.. But Sammy does put some impressive (a little inefficient) specs under the hood that makes the phones desirable.. Sense 5 is nice looking.. But the blinkfeed reminds me of some other platform.. :p :p :p.. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen haha..
        Zami90
        Reply Vote

    • Nah

      Sense tends to be a decent UI and stock Android is cool as well. Motoblur has only minor tweaks to the OS so that isn't bad either. Personally I hate Touchwiz because it alters the functionality of Androids main interface.

      As for iOS, too limited and extremely boring.

      Windows Phone UI, meh, doesn't matter because their seems to be only one phone worth buying and that is on AT&T exclusively.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

  • Like the Lumia 920

    Android feels unpolished and unfinished to me. I prefer Windows Phone 8 myself. Like the Lumia 920 a lot.
    sfoalex
    Reply 14 Votes

    • there are 8 votes to your statement

      which means there are 9 people who bought lumia 920 out there! fantastic success
      polarcat
      Reply 1 Vote

      • and you got 0 votes

        So according to your logic absolutely a stadium full of 0 people found that funny .. Hey I didn't make the rules... :p
        Zami90
        Reply 3 Votes

    • BB

      Blackberry Z10 is miles ahead than both WP8, iOS and Android.
      jybumaat
      Reply Vote

      • Z10 comparison

        I compared Z10 and Lumina 920 to find they are strikingly similar. Check the hardware specs, the manual similarities and the gestures. If there is a big difference in prince, I'll go with the underdog. To me, they are the same. I'm ready for a new phone next month.
        David Nesbitt
        Reply Vote

  • Tizen is a pricey Intel-related project, not a competition to Android

    Also, Samsung can not really be Apple since they do not develop their own OS seriously (which is Bada; and Tizen, again, is not Samsung's own OS either, even though co-developed). The same is with SoCs: Samsung does not develop its own ARM cores, it licenses from ARM.
    DDERSSS
    Reply Vote

    • Umm

      All ARM cores have some type of royalty.
      slickjim
      Reply 1 Vote

    • Neither did Apple

      They used BSD as a basis of their OS
      Alan Smithie
      Reply 1 Vote

      • They used NeXTSTEP

        May seem like a small difference, but it's actually important. NeXTSTEP used the Mach kernel, which filtered on to Mac OS X through evolution. BSD was a complete OS, unlike Gnu/Linux which consists of a kernel development and a userland development combined. NeXTSTEP took code from BSD, but it was not a copy/paste job. At the time BSDstill contained code from AT&T. NeXTSTEP's objective-C based desktop, the ancestor of apple'd cocoa for example came from NeXT.

        NeXTSTEP also first appeared 10 years prior to Mac OS X. The state of BSD over those 10 years changed drastically. 2 years of development were lost in legal battle with AT&T, and it was officially ended, released as a completely open OS without the need to purchase an AT&T licence. From 1995 onwards it was community only project;s free/netted and the then new open BSD. By and large by 1998 they were all using the xwindowing system.

        Saying that Mac OS X came straight from these distributions, 386bsd or 4.4bsd doesn't give NeXT enough credit. By this time they had moved nextstep over to open step and this formed the basis of Mac OS X.
        MarknWill
        Reply 1 Vote

        • What he said

          Soooo..., yes, they used BSD as a basis of their OS.
          ricegf
          Reply Vote

          • So no

            They used unix following your logic.
            Unix-> BSD -> Mach kernel -> NeXTSTEP -> OPENSTEP -> Mac OS X

            So yes it has an ancestor in Unix,, via BSD as do to some extent all non windows OS in popular usage; including Android. Even windows is windows as a result of the unix operating system.

            But no. Apple did not develop OS X directly from BSD. They developed it from OPENSTEP. Bear in mind that, as I said back in 1998 BSD had, just as now ceased development. There were three different OS's or flavours in freeBSD, netbsd and the recently forked open bsd. They in themselves were based on the original bsd.
            MarknWill
            Reply Vote

  • Matthew - It is only Americans that do not remember more than 3 years

    Nokia used to be married to Symbian, that actually was an OS made by Psion in the UK as "open Source" and then set to be managed by the Symbian consortium, that first was dominated by Ericsson. The success of Nokia allowd it to gradually buy into Symbian and ended up with it all. The OS is stable, fast and made for mobile devices.

    Then the reverse Pole came to the company, and ran it aground - high and dry, and those that knew how to make phones ran from the company, causing the value of the company to be wiped out.

    The reverse Pole is not Wall Street's darling any more, he created disaster. He made one of the most successful company to a disaster, and exhibited with great clarity that your American notions of innovations are totally wrong.

    So sell Apple while you still can, the company has "peaked". They have never controlled their OS, MacOS is Unix BSD 4.2, and the command shell is the same as on Android - since this is Linux, "bash" - "Bourne again SHell". Their contribution to technology is how the main files are organised. They have "Applications" and "Libraries" where Linux/Android has /bin and /var/lib - really impressive. Great business idea - right?

    Look at a mobile phone, and understand the main difference between this and the Internet. The main component is the Subscriber Identity Module - SIM. That is 10 cents that identifies you and link you to the network and carrier. GSM invites to competition, all is standard, everyone can just make a device that complies and is it better then it will sell. If you don't like the carrier, then get a SIM from another carrier. Outside the US, if you don't like AT&T then move to Verizon or the one that is better and cheaper. If you do not like the iPhone and prefer a Nokia or a Samsung - then get the handset of your dreams, upload all contacts and calendar data to your laptop, and download them on the new device. The technology is made to compete. Anyon that tries to fend off competition will be hurt. Look at Windows disaster, while Google has success with Linux that everyone can go about and improve with own "add-ons" and included "apps".

    This is where Apple is wrong, they try to confine their market. They try to own their customers, as opposed to acknowledging that they are subscribers to their network operator/ carrier. They put this in place by demanding use of central resources to download "apps". This is like Marx and communism to a liberated mobile market. We have seen Glasnost and don't like what Apple and Microsoft is doing...
    knuthf
    Reply 1 Vote

    • I think the Apple model is aweful from a consumer standpoint

      But you can't argue that it has made very good business sense. Apple downright owns the cell phone industry if you look at profit share. Not even mighty Samsung, who sells many more devices, comes close.
      x I'm tc
      Reply 1 Vote
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