CUPERTINO, California — January 31, 2017 — Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2017 first quarter ended December 31, 2016. iPhone unit sales of 78,290,000 set a new record.

“iPhone sales will drop 12% year over year in 2019.The company’s difficulties in China aren’t just due to the trade conflict between the U.S. and the Asian country, but due to rising local competition.”

Matthew Cabral, Credit Suisse, 11 April 2019

“Sheets of glass are simply no longer the most fertile ground for innovation. That means Apple urgently needs to shift its focus and investment to AI-driven technologies, as part of a broader effort to create the kind of ecosystem Amazon and Google are building quickly. However, Apple is falling behind in the AI race, as it remains a hardware company at its core and it has not embraced the open-source and collaborative approach that Google and Amazon are pioneering in AI. The history of mobile phones suggests that when vectors of differentiation shift, so does market leadership. Apple has only to look at former dominant businesses like Motorola, Nokia, and Blackberry to understand how quickly a leader can fall from the peak in this market, and do its best to avert this outcome.”

Mohanbir Sawhney, Fortune, 2 November 2017

Apple could sell 70 to 75 million iPhones this quarter if KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is correct. That would mean only modest or even negative growth for Apple’s largest segment. It could also represent an important shift for the Cupertino tech giant, as the iPhone has not experienced an annual sales decline in any quarter since its debut.

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, Motley Fool, 15 November 2015

“If many of AT&T’s subscribers take the company up on the offer, or if the trend away from smartphone subsidies continues, Apple’s iPhone business could come under pressure in the coming quarters.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, Motley Fool, 7 December 2013 “If Google is effective in undermining consumers’ dependence on carrier subsidies, Apple shareholders should be very concerned.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, Motley Fool, 16 November 2013 “Apple’s struggles with the iPhone 5 appeared just shortly after the phone’s launch. That event coincided almost perfectly with Apple’s all-time high. Although the iPhone 5 has sold well (it’s the world’s single best selling phone), it failed to live up to the expectations of optimistic Wall Street analysts.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, The Motley Fool, 9 July 2013 “Apple-centric blog MacRumors posted images of what appears to be Apple’s next iPhone. Although they remain unverified, if they are legitimate, Apple shareholders should be concerned. The images show a phone identical in size and shape to the iPhone 5. And, despite whatever other features Apple plans to implement, such a phone could fall far short of sales expectations. Continuing to cling to a smaller form factor could lead to sluggish sales.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, The Motley Fool, 22 June 2013 “For a time, the smartphone market was a two-horse race. Now, that is no longer the case. In addition to competition from Samsung Galaxy lineup, Apple has to compete with HTC’s One. There’s also Google’s cheap yet powerful Nexus 4, and LG’s Optimus G. Sony’s Xperia Z has received rave reviews in the UK, and Motorola is widely rumored to be working on a revolutionary new “X phone.” The smartphone market is becoming more competitive than ever.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, Motley Fool, 29 April 2013 “A year ago, the iPhone was widely considered to be the best phone on the market. Today, that is far from true. There are a number of handsets powered by Android that are as good or better than Apple’s iPhone — Samsung’s Galaxy S3 and S4, LG’s Optimus G, and HTC’s One. There’s also Google’s own Nexus 4, which lacks 4G connectivity, but costs less than half the price of an iPhone 5.”

Salvatore “Sam” Mattera, Motley Fool, 19 April 2013

“My concern is after this (iPhone 6). You can’t see the reason for upgrading. It’s a huge jump in terms of the size. Everybody wants bigger screens and they delivered that. Going forward in smart phones it’s going to be incremental improvements. You can’t make it much thinner and lighter.”

Henry Blodget, Yahoo Finance, 26 January 2015



BlackBerry Tweet, 13 January 2015



Dear Apple, here’s a headstart for the iPhone 7.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 will be in stores mid October. Or alternatively you could wait another year

Samsung Ad, 29 September 2014



HTC, 9 Sep 2014



Samsung Mobile PH, 8 Sep 2014

Last week, the “Voice” coach and Maroon 5 singer, Adam Levine, launched Samsung’s Milk Music service and suggested there should be an “iPhone burning.” Today, he tweeted from his iPhone. Moreover, Levine’s band is playing the iTunes Music Festival this week.



Adam Levine, 8 Sep 2014

“The news that Apple is partnering with IBM to expand into the enterprise mobility market only underscores the ongoing need for secure end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions like those BlackBerry has delivered for years”

BlackBerry, 16 July 2014

“Myths Of Apple’s iPhone Market Share

Myth #1: Apple doesn’t care about market share

Myth #2: Apple shouldn’t and wouldn’t “move downmarket” or “cheapen its brand”

Myth #3 IDC and Gartner have deliberately distorted their market share data by inclusion of cheap “white box” Android devices

Because of limitations in the data, trends are only shown with yearly resolution, but the overall trend for Apple’s Top Five market share is very similar to what I showed previously. Apple’s iPhone market share declined between 2012 and 2013. Bottom line: exclusion of white box sales doesn’t really change the trend in Apple’s market share.”

Mark Hibben, Seeking Alpha, 24 June 2014

“There are good reasons why iPhone 6’s improvements will have little effect. Apple is only catching up in screen size to what most other phones have offered for several years. Apple’s A7 64 bit processor was a breakthrough last year, but this year Apple will face competition from Android phones running 64 bit Intel and Qualcomm processors. iOS 8, as great as it is, also seems to be playing catch up to Android in areas such as Widgets, cloud file storage, and notifications. So much of what makes iPhone great is “under the hood” and out of view for the average consumer.”

Mark Hibben, Seeking Alpha, 20 June 2014

“By copying the work of others, Apple seems to admit it has fallen behind competitors. By this fall, their product will have more features and the new features may cause confusion. The new features bring with them design languages originally from Meego, Android, and BlackBerry. Apple users not familiar with how Android and BlackBerry operating systems work may be confused by how their iDevices no longer respond the same way.”

Transcend Asset, 5 June 2014

“Note that the average Android price is heading toward $200 and the average iPhone price is heading toward $600. Apple is asking the question, do you want to pay three times as much for our phones? Thus far, 80% of the market has answered ‘no.'”

Jim Edwards, Business Insider, 31 May 2014

“Competition is increasing its lead over Apple. Samsung’s S5 seems to have enjoyed a strong launch, outstripping the iPhone 5S launch for which Apple bulls were prepared to declare a national holiday.”

Michael Blair, Seeking Alpha, 4 May 2014

“The inescapable facts are that despite the success of the iPhone 5s and the new iPad Air and its brother iPad, Apple faces two headwinds that will pinch in 2014. First, its products only address a fraction of the smartphone markets as I pointed out in my recent SA article and competition may do more damage than the bulls realize.

Michael Blair, Seeking Alpha, 24 November 2013 “BlackBerry has a chance in this space, since it is competing solely against Android and a smattering of Windows 8 devices including a soon-to-be-released Nokia Phablet, reportedly to be release in October, delayed somewhat by the Microsoft purchase of Nokia’s device business. Apple lacks an offering in the Phablet world, perhaps out of fear that such a device would cannibalize sales of iPhones and iPads. An Apple Phablet would very likely cause serious erosion of demand for the iPad mini while simultaneously eliminating a possible iPhone sale.”

Michael Blair, Seeking Alpha, 18 September 2013

“Crucially first time smartphone buyers are also picking Android – understandably due to price. Previously a poor user experience from these cheap handsets would usher them to Apple sooner or later. Now with Android better suited to low spec hardware and commodisation of smartphones seeing powerful handsets available at bargain prices, starting with Android could well shift from a cautionary tale to powerful gateway drug. At that point blind loyalty would be almost impossible. Even for self-confessed iSheep.”

Gordon Brown, Forbes, 21 March 2014

“In closing, the price cuts for the iPhone 5c and the shuffling of the iPad lineup do little to address the company’s core problems of its dwindling market share, slower growth, and contracting margins.”

Leo Sun, Motley Fool, 19 March 2014

“With Apple’s next smartphone still months away, fans have been gobbling up iPhone 6 rumors faster than Pac-Man on a power pill bender. However, even the hottest rumor mill in tech can’t turn this device into a winner. Based on everything we know now, the next iPhone will be a year late and a bitcoin short of the competition, doing nothing to slow Apple’s descent from smartphone pioneer to high tech has-been. Here are six reasons why the iPhone 6 has already lost.

1. Weak Camera Features

2. Poor Battery Life. No Removable Battery

3. No NFC

4. Too Few Sharing Options

5. Weak Keyboard

6. Limited Customization

Avram Piltch, LAPTOP Online Editorial Director, 14 March 2014

“Samsung is firing its latest shot at Apple with the launch of the Galaxy S5 on April 11. The Galaxy was once one of many also-rans in a market that Apple dominated, but Samsung’s persistence (and deep pockets) have made the Galaxy line into a worthy competitor to Apple’s most valuable product. The latest Galaxy has some advantages that may help it best Apple’s flagship phone in sales, at least for a little while. Here are five reasons the Galaxy should be a hit come spring:

The Huge Screen

Growing Brand Affinity

The Heart Rate Monitor

The Newness Factor

The Marketing Push

Victor Luckerson, Time, 25 February 2014

“Instead of the round-the-block lines that have greeted Apple product introductions in China and other countries in the past, only about a dozen customers showed up to buy iPhones at the opening of a store in Beijing – despite the presence of a special guest, the Apple chief executive, Timothy D. Cook.”

Eric Pfanner, New York Times, 17 January 2014

“Android now commands 80% of the smartphone O/S market and over 50% of the tablet O/S market. Apple, which pioneered the touch screen smartphones and tablets, finds itself increasingly becoming a niche premium player.”

Sneha Shah, Seeking Alpha, 16 January 2014

“Apple in my view made a huge mistake by not launching a mid end smartphone. I think that the iPhone 5c makes no sense at the current pricing. However, the technology industry is very dynamic and trends change very fast. I remain positive on Google and would look to buy dips, but Apple does not figure in my buy list.”

Sneha Shah, Seeking Alpha, 2 January 2014 “In my earlier article, I was criticized for saying that iPhone 5C was a dud. But current news flow is proving me right. The phone does not fit in any segment and most certainly not for emerging market consumers. Apple is losing the mobile OS war to Google, which is further strengthening its stranglehold on the mobile OS market. ”

Sneha Shah, Seeking Alpha, 19 November 2013 “I have been left disappointed by Apple’s decision not to release iPhone Lite as I thought this was the most important product for Apple to stop its marketshare decline. The new iPhone 5S is also underwhelming, while the iPhone 5C makes no sense at all (even the market seems to be proving that). I was heavily criticized by readers when I said that Blackberry was being stupid in pricing the Q10 and Z10 too high. However, I was later proved right as BBRY heavily discounted the Z10 and the company is now fighting to survive. I am not saying that Apple faces a BBRY predicament given Apple’s massive size and comfortable cash position. But, even the biggest Apple fan will have to concede that Apple has lost the edge it had under Steve Jobs. The company is being “out-innovated” by other technology companies that are rapidly closing the gap with Apple. I will look at taking my profits on Apple stock as I do not think that the company has much upside left at the current valuation and price.”

Sneha Shah, Seeking Alpha, 25 October 2013

“The most that Apple could think to do with the new, faster processor in the iPhone 5S was animate 3D effects that make some users feel ill and a fingerprint sensor that solved a problem that wasn’t exactly pressing. Apple’s new iOS7 mobile operating system, which felt ‘more like a Microsoft release,’ crippled many older iPhones and led to complaints of planned obsolescence.”

Christopher Mims, Quartz, 30 December 2013

“Many of my iPhone friends are converting to Android. The latest high-end phones from Samsung (Galaxy S4), Motorola (Verizon Droid Ultra) and the Nexus 5 (for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile) have better screens, are faster, and have a much more intuitive interface. They are a great Christmas present to an iPhone user!

Like the people who moved from PCs to Macs and never switched back, you will switch from iPhone to Android and never switch back as everything will be in the cloud, backed up, and there are so many choices for you. 80% of the world, in the latest surveys, agrees on Android.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 24 November 2013

“(Android) Not secure? It’s more secure than the iPhone.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 8 October 2013

“If Google gets it right, there will be an Android in every pocket. Many of our partners are working on phones in the $100-$150 range. The ultimate goal is a $70 device.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 28 Feb 2012 “You have to be careful with that word, fragmentation. I would say differentiation. Differentiation is positive, fragmentation is negative. Differentiation means that you have a choice and the people who are making the phones, they’re going to compete on their view of innovation, and they’re going to try and convince you that theirs is better than somebody else. Fragmentation, however, means that you have an app and it runs on one device but not the other. It’s not required that everyone use the same interface. People are free to make the necessary changes. What’s great is if you don’t like it, you can buy the phone from someone else. It gives you far more choices.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 10 Jan 2012 “Android is ahead of the iPhone now.”

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman, Google, 7 Dec 2011 “We have seen an explosion of Android devices entering the market and, because of our successes, competitors are responding with lawsuits as they cannot respond through innovations. I’m not too worried about this.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 19 July 2011

“Phones like the Samsung Galaxy are considered as good as or better than the iPhone. If customers cannot get an iPhone, they have an alternative. Of course, the biggest challenge Apple faces has nothing to do with the Jobs trick or constraints in supply. It is that the three-day wait for the iPhone is a sea change. People no longer rush to get the phone. When they can buy the Samsung, do they decide to wait for the iPhone 6? Apple will not say, but its next round of earnings will. In the meantime, it only takes three days to get an iPhone. Where are the lines for that?”

Douglas A. McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St, 21 November 2013

“The rocky economy and improved Android-based handsets sales will challenge the iPhone. Android has a real chance of challenging the Apple App store.”

Douglas A. McIntyre, 24/7 Wall St, 25 December 2009

“Apple could be negatively impacted by slower growth in iPhone sales. In my opinion, the company cannot grow indefinitely in the smartphone market area and one day, it will materialize in its share price. ”

Gillian Mauyen, Seeking Alpha, 15 November 2013

“As a value investor, I strongly believe in BlackBerry’s future because the company has several advantages, such as the security, the Q10 and the corporate world.

On the contrary, Apple’s potential increase appears very limited in the short run because the company won’t release new products, which can increase the interest of the company. Nevertheless, the goal of this article is not to try to value Apple. Even if I believe Apple will go down in the coming months because of the increasing competition in smartphones, I wouldn’t initiate a short position on Apple.”

Gillian Mauyen, Seeking Alpha, 28 April 2013

“Many people were thinking ‘why do we need 64-bit for mobile devices?’ People were asking that question until three months ago, and now I think nobody is asking that question. Now people are asking ‘when can we have that? And will software run correctly on time? Let me just tell you, we are… we have planned for it, we are marching on schedule. We will offer the first 64-bit AP based on ARM’s own core [reference design]. For the second product after that we will offer even more optimized 64-bit based on our own optimization. So we are marching ahead with the 64-bit offering, and even though it’s a little too early, I think we are at the leader group in terms of 64-bit offerings.”

Stephen Woo, President of Samsung’s System LSI , 6 November 2013

“After spending the better part of yesterday digging deeply into Samsung’s analyst day materials, it has become clear to me that Apple, over the long haul, stands very little chance against the Samsung behemoth. While Apple’s products truly are wonderful, and while its engineering prowess is certainly very impressive, it’s clear that Samsung will brute-force its way into taking more and more marketshare from Apple at the high end while at the same time will enjoy key structural advantages in the low end that Apple would – at least in its present form – not be able to match.”

Ashraf Eassa, Seeking Alpha , 7 November 2013

“Nokia may hasten the end of the Apple revolution.”

Kofi Bofah, Seeking Alpha , 30 October 2013

“With all things tech, fused products and commoditization are inevitable markers of the product cycle. The iPhone 5 will be Apple’s last hurrah as competitors increasingly gain ground.”

Kofi Bofah, Onyx Investments, 29 August 2012

“Likewise, radically improved products like the iPhone 3G (2008), the iPhone 4S (2011) and the iPhone 5 (2012) supercharged company sales. To put this in perspective, Apple went from selling 11.6 million iPhones in 2008 to selling 72.3 million iPhones in 2011. In 2012, Apple sold a mind-boggling 125 million iPhones. So far this year, Apple has sold approximately 116 million iPhones. (Apple’s fiscal year concludes at the end of September.) Wall Street analysts expect the company to say it sold about 31 million iPhones last quarter, which would bring the full 2013 total to about 147 million units. Looking at the yearly trajectory, one can see how the rate of iPhone sales growth is slowing down.”

Sam Gustin, Time , 28 October 2013

“Apple’s new iPads and iPhones will aid the company’s revenue growth going into the busy holiday season. However, Apple’s pricing of iPhone 5c will have a difficult time competing in the lower end of the smartphone market. If Apple products remain expensive the company’s penetration rates will hit a brick wall sooner or later.”

Ishfaque Faruk, Motley Fool , 26 October 2013

Smartphone makers will take any win they can get over Apple and its monstrously profitable iPhone, and Samsung has gotten yet another noteworthy victory in the form of the Global Brand Simplicity Index 2013. In Siegel & Gale’s Simplicity Index, Samsung has not only leapfrogged Apple, but now ranks above every other smartphone manufacturer on the planet, including the high-ranking Nokia and LG. Comparing these results with last year’s, Apple ranked 7th while Samsung did not appear in the top 10. Now Samsung has taken the 8th spot, while Apple has sunk to 19th. The Simplicity Index is a wide-ranging consumer survey that measures the ease that consumers have with different brands based on the simplicity or complexity of their “products, services, interactions and communications in relation to industry peers.”

Jacob Siegal, BGR , 24 October 2013

“You can’t use the iPhone 5C to make your friends feel bad about themselves, and that’s creating a problem for Apple. Unveiled in September, the 5C is Apple’s “cheap” iPhone — essentially the same as the iPhone 5 launched in 2012 but with a colorful plastic shell. The 5C costs $549 (or $99 with a two-year contract), and Apple appears to be having trouble selling them, according to multiple reports.”

Kim Bhasin, Huffington Post , 23 October 2013

“Look at the iPhone 5c. Not only has the 5c suffered price cuts at major retailers, but a recent report in The Wall Street Journal stated that Apple plans to cut orders from suppliers of its budget phone this quarter, presumably due to weaker than expected sales.”

Tim Beyers, The Motley Fool, 21 October 2013

“Apple’s iOS 7 launch is fast becoming its most troubled mobile operating system update, increasing concern that the technology giant has lost some of its magic touch since co-founder Steve Jobs passed away two years ago.”

Scott Martin and Alistair Barr, USA Today, 17 October 2013

“The iPhone 5c appears to be Apple’s red-headed stepchild. The tech giant is selling far fewer units of the 5c than it is of the (more expensive) 5s, according to recent reports.”

Cadie Thompson, CNBC, 15 October 2013

“If you’re not a fan of Apple’s new iOS 7 or its new line of iPhones, there’s a chance you may be flirting the idea of switching to Android. After all, Android devices seem to have all the fancy new features these days.”

Cadie Thompson, CNBC, 9 October 2013

“I know there’s a lot of noise because Apple did [64-bit] on their A7. I think they are doing a marketing gimmick. There’s zero benefit a consumer gets from that.”

Anand Chandrasekher, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Qualcomm, 1 October 2013

Anand Chandrasekher has been quietly reassigned — and removed from the company leadership page on its website as of 25 Oct 2013.

“Let’s face it this new iPhone is just an upgrade, a refresh, dare I say a sequel. I am sure that true tech devotees will tell me how wrong I am, that this new device is smarter, faster, revolutionary, etc. But to me and millions like me it seems a lot more evolutionary. It looks a whole lot like the last iPhone and the one before that and the one before that too.”

Sandy Cannold, ABC News, 23 Sept 2013

“In the past, the tech giant has been quick to boast about its high sales during the first few hours its devices became available. The fact that the company has kept mum on the matter so far has led some to speculate that the early pre-order numbers aren’t as good as they had been for earlier models. Other indications suggest the new iPhones are getting a shrug, with the Los Angeles Times reporting the TaskRabbit index, compiled by the San Francisco micro-job site on the number of people hired to wait in line for the latest Apple launch, shows only around 250 were tasked with the queue in all 15 of its markets, compared with around 350 just in San Francisco and New York alone last year. Despite the underwhelming consumer response in the U.S., Asia’s diehard Apple fans were enthusiastic.”

Leslie Shaffer, CNBC, 20 Sept 2013

Remember when the iPhone was truly innovative? Think hard, because you’d have to go back to 2007, and the release of the first iPhone. But since then, Apple has been tossing out retread after retread, and this year’s iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S represent a curious creative nadir for the firm. A new Windows Phone video shows how hard Apple must have worked to come up with these turds. Hint: Not that hard.”

Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 13 September 2013

“By all accounts, the iPhone 5 is pretty terrific.”

Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 6 October 2012 “Apple’s iPhone 4S may carry over the design of its predecessor, but it features dramatically better performance, better wireless reliability, and some amazing new features, including a superior camera, iOS 5, and Siri voice control. And it is a beautiful, lustworthy device, and a compelling and safe alternative to the Wild West of Android and the unknown future of Windows Phone. I happen to prefer Microsoft’s smart phone platform, but I see the appeal of the iPhone 4S, and you won’t be disappointed if you choose this device. The iPhone 4S is highly recommended.”

Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 2 November 2011 “Apple just handed both Android and Windows Phone a beautiful gift, one that will keep giving for up to a year before the company is ready to ship an iPhone 5.”

Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 5 October 2011 “The iPhone is demonstrably more important than certain Microsoft products, including the Zune or Xbox 360, if only because it will affect a much wider audience. You can choose to ignore the iPhone at your own peril. I will not be making that mistake.”

Paul Thurrott, Supersite for Windows, 6 October 2010

“Apple has become a value trap, This is a company with no growth, and profit margins that are way too high vis a vis the competition.”

Doug Kass, Seabreeze Partners Management, 17 Sept 2013

“Just how far behind is Apple trying to fall? I do not get Tuesday’s release and product launches. Something is just wrong.”

Doug Kass, Seabreeze Partners Management, 11 Sept 2013 “In essence, Apple will have gone from a disruptive innovator and category creator with unique and different products to a company competing on the basis of run-of-the-mill hardware features. This is not much different than the low-margin handset industry before Apple entered it and disrupted it.”

Doug Kass, Seabreeze Partners, 12 Oct 2012 “Apple used to have market-defining product that was literally better than its competition. Apple is now selling equal or less for more money. They have massive delivery issues considering the growing size of the company.”

Doug Kass, Seabreeze Partners, 9 Oct 2012 “From my perch, the market’s very favorable reaction to Apple’s iPhone is yet another example of disbelief being suspended … on the Street of Dreams.”

Doug Kass, The Street, 17 Jan 2007 “Handsets, as with science, love and beauty, will advance, step by step. But no one will never reach a “perfect science.” In The Birthmark, Alymer’s pursuit of “perfect science” can often lead to disaster, because people live “once for all in eternity to find the perfect future in the present.” So it could be with Apple’s iPhone. Any single, significant flaw could be problematic.”

Doug Kass, The Street, 16 Jan 2007

“It’s almost as if Apple has entered into a habit of disappointing its loyal customers in the post-Jobs era. The company disappointed with the iPhone 5, disappointed again with the new MacBook’s, and has now disappointed with the new iPhones. Although don’t be surprised if Apple comes back with awesome pre-booking numbers like ’10 million devices sold in the first week,’ this will be because even though the devices are nothing to write home about, they are unfortunately still one of the best ones out there, at least for now (Google take cue).”

Anand Rai, Tech Circle.in, 11 Sep 2013

“The 5c may be this year’s Surface RT.”

Rick Munarriz, The Motley Fool, 13 Sept 2013

Tweets after Apple announced iPhone 5c and 5S on 10 Sep 2013:

“Lack of differentiation, elongating replacement rates, and smartphone growth shifting to the very low-end below the iPhone 5C price point”

Peter Misek, Jefferies, 8 September 2013

“Historically when handset makers fall out of favor (e.g., the RAZR, Blackberry, HTC) they fall faster/further than expected.”

Peter Misek, Jefferies, 12 March 2013 “iPhone 5 Sales Are Decelerating Faster Than Expected”

Peter Misek, Jefferies, 13 February 2013 “We believe the drop in RIM shares yesterday was undeserved and would be using any further Apple-related weakness as a buying opportunity. Apple becomes the latest in a long line of competitive threats that have attempted to topple RIM’s dominance in the enterprise. Microsoft, with Windows Mobile/ActiveSync, Nokia with Intellisync, and Motorola with Good Technology have all fared poorly in the enterprise. We have no reason to expect otherwise from Apple.”

Peter Misek, Canaccord Adams, 7 March 2008

“Apple’s innovation problem is real. And it’s unlikely to silence the critics if it simply unveils multi-colored iPhones on Tuesday. Rivals have caught up to Apple in the markets it once dominated, and the tech giant’s rumored future products appear to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.”

Julianne Pepitone and Adrian Covert, CNNMoneyTech, 8 September 2013

“So who is safe from the perils of the smartphone? No one, it seems. Not even Apple.

The company is no longer the king of the hill in smartphones. Sure, when a new iPhone is unveiled on Tuesday, it will get outsize attention, and competitors will scramble to copy its latest features.

But these days, Samsung sells the most smartphones, and up-and-coming manufacturers like Huawei and ZTE are nipping at Apple’s heels. The new iPhones — at least the ones being spun from the rumor mill that claim color as the big innovation — do not exactly sound like great leaps in technology.”

Nick Bilton, New York Times, 8 September 2013

“Amazon’s pricing ambition is the clearest indication of its phone playbook: undercut rivals and grab meaningful market share. It is also shows that Apple’s worst nightmare may be coming true: prices could fall not just for cheap phones in developing markets but higher-end ones too.”

Amir Efrati and Jessica E. Lessin, jessicalessin.com, 6 September 2013

“iHeads” who continually proclaimed the imagined superiority of Apple smartphones vs. those of Samsung now have grudging respect for the Korean giant, and will soon be awed by Sony and LG.”

Henry Long, Seeking Alpha, 6 September 2013

“Without any help from Samsung, which has become Apple’s most significant smartphone competitor, there is reason to be concerned about how much of an advance the iPhone 5S will actually represent. If Galaxy Gear quickly creates a buzz, it will be hard not to look at the new iPhone and wonder why Apple is late to the smartwatch party. Samsung’s timing is beautifully calculated to challenge Cupertino.”

Douglas Ehrman, Seeking Alpha, 5 September 2013

“While Apple loyalists love the phone, it has been almost a year since the release of the iPhone5 and competitors have been stepping up their game. Heavy competition from rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One present another problem for Apple. I think the company has been late to the game for a lot of cool technologies like the smart screen features on the Galaxy and might have lost some of its brand cache.”

Joseph Hogue, Efficient Alpha, Seeking Alpha, 28 August 2013

“Call it blasphemy, but Apple’s next-generation smartphone could be the first iPhone model to debut without the usual lines of buyers outside stores on launch day.”

Patrick Seitz, Investors.com, 25 July 2013

“If you look at the customers we have on BB10 so far, 55 per cent of them are coming from [Apple’s operating system] iOS and Android, so obviously we have a large base of potential customers we can convert. How better to reach that audience than on the digital device they have with them all day? I see that as a great opportunity for us and we are going to over-index mobile marketing for that reason.”

Frank Boulben, Chief Marketing Officer, BlackBerry, 5 June 2013

“Consumers really don’t care that much what platform they are on, where their files are stored, or what the file types and file formats are. They simply want to be able to easily access and share a family photo, a letter to a friend, a favorite song or show.”

Donald Leka, Chairman & CEO, TransMedia, 31 May 2013

“Many believe that Apple has sat on its smartphone throne for long enough, and several companies are racing to see who can come out with the next best device to usurp the technology giant. Tim Cook, watch out. Here is a list of devices that are leading the charge to make the iPhone ancient history.

1. Samsung Galaxy S4

2. Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom

3. Nokia Lumia 925

4. Google X Phone

5. LG’s Optimus G Pro

Emily Coyle, Wall St Cheat Sheet, 30 May 2013

“Nothing new is coming from its pipeline. The iPhone5S and the iPad Mini aren’t new products. Therefore, no excitement will come out from these releases for Apple’s fanatics. These updated devices are only new versions of already well-known products.”

Stephan Dube, Seeking Alpha, 28 May 2013

“Apple’s philosophy has always been to be consumer-centric. It wants to make easy-to-use, broadly-accessible products. But on some level, it’s failing consumers when only 18% of the global smartphone population has an iPhone.”

Jay Yarow, Business Insider, 24 May 2013

“It seems clear that if Apple wants to grab the next piece of the smartphone market it will have to think different than it has so far. It seems like it will need a low-cost iPhone on new carriers to shake the iPhone business from its stupor.”

Jay Yarow, Business Insider, 14 May 2013 “There’s no way around it: The iPhone business as currently constructed is slowing down significantly. In the March quarter, unit growth was just 7%, down from quarters in years past where it was up triple digits.”

Jay Yarow, Business Insider, 23 April 2013 “One thing Apple investors are waking up to, in other words, is that the iPhone’s amazing run is winding down. And that there may never be another iPhone.”

Jay Yarow, Business Insider, 18 December 2012

“The American Customer Satisfaction Index conducts surveys with 70,000 participants looking at 230 companies, 43 industries, 10 economic sectors, and more. The ACSI recently published the results of its latest survey and showed Apple’s weakening grip on the throne. The survey has participants rate devices, companies, or services with scores between 0 and 100, with 100 indicating the highest level of satisfaction. In 2012, Apple’s iPhones scored 83 points, making it the most satisfying smartphone on the market according to the survey. However, in 2013, the iPhone only scored 81 points. This could be connected to the sales growth slowdown that Apple experienced with its iPhones in the last quarter. Interestingly enough, Apple’s other devices — laptops, desktops, and tablets — scored 86 points, showing that the ever-popular iPhone isn’t keeping up with Apple’s standards.”

Mark Knapp, Wall Street Cheat Sheet, 21 May 2013

“Samsung and Blackberry have constantly advertised themselves as the ‘elite’ ones. In this way, they create an environment where they tend to mentally enslave the consumer to buy their products. In terms of advertising, one is likely to see Samsung ad in every 15 minutes on television, whereas Apple ads are rarely there. Apple ads are only flashed at the time when a new iPhone is being launched. About 80% of the people surveyed had no idea what an iCloud, Facetime and iMessage are. Only the tech savvy people seemed to know and understand iCloud, Facetime and iMessage so the Indian consumer cannot really differentiate between Apple and other brands, which offer most of their products at half the price of that of the Apple products. Many consumers in India believe, that when they buy a Samsung or an HTC phone, they are buying a cheaper iPhone”

Trip Chowdhry, Global Equities Research, 17 May 2013

“Harvard University, the world’s wealthiest university, has liquidated its stake in Apple Inc. as the iPhone maker’s shares tumbled after reaching a record high of $702.10 in September.

The university, which is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has a $30.7 billion endowment, sold shares valued at about $304,000, according to a quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The sale comes as growth in demand for the iPhone has lost steam and investors and consumers await new products from Tim Cook, the chief executive officer who replaced Steve Jobs.”

Michael McDonald, Bloomberg, 10 May 2013

“As the mobile phone market increasingly offers more quality phones at a range of price points, Apple now faces a difficult choice. Does it try to remain a premium product-premium price company, or does it dive into the commoditized lower priced arena? Neither choice is very appealing.”

Bob Chandler, Motley Fool, 2 May 2013

“If you look at a smartphone, every single one in the world is pretty much a single slab of black glass. There’s not much space for hardware differentiation there, so your ability to make a superior return just by innovating in hardware is getting more and more difficult.”

Richard Windsor, Radio Free Mobile, 26 April 2013

“The strong inference from Qualcomm’s earnings report is that smartphone prices are falling so fast that the new low end Apple iPhone is not likely to be competitive.”

Nigam Arora, Contributor, Forbes, 25 April 2013

“With Apple, I sense a lack of urgency. When iOS 5 came out and there was a fifth row of icons and not much else, you say, okay, are they running out of steam, is iOS getting boring.”

Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President, Windows Phone, Microsoft, 16 April 2013

“In the smartphone arena, Apple has to contend with the likes of Samsung, Google and Research in Motion.”

Louis Navellier, NavalierGrowth.com, 11 April 2013

“More apps are available to Android users than to iOs and Windows mobile users, and that gives Android phones like Samsung’s an edge in the smartphone market.”

Anuj Kumar, professor of information systems management at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business Administration, 11 April 2013

“For Apple this is a critical year, can the next iPhone be a big hit again to protect the top end where Apple is no longer always the coolest most desirable device; but more importantly when will Apple give us a lower-cost i.e. mid-price iPhone to help its position in less-affluent emerging world markets, and hold some market share at the lower price points? I think Apple’s share this year will decline but gradually, as the global smartphone market breaches the 1 billion new devices sold per year level by Christmas.”

Tomi T Ahonen, Former Nokia Executive, Inc, 10 April 2013

“Here on our blog, looking very tightly only at the smartphone wars (ignoring the enormous success of the iPad for example which is obviously part of the iOS ecosystem), the iPhone market share growth has been anemic since 2009 when it was 14%. Since then the iPhone market share has grown but very mildly, barely exceeding the growth rate of the industry, to 16%, 19% and 20%.”

Tomi T Ahonen, Former Nokia Executive, Inc, 10 April 2013 “The decline of the iPhone has started. And that will become clear long before the year 2010 is gone, we will know the signs by June. And mark my words, the numbers are now very clear, Apple’s market share peak among smartphones, and among all handsets, on an annual basis, is being witnessed now. Yes its true, Apple cannot grow market share into 2011.”

Tomi T Ahonen, Former Nokia Executive, Inc, 9 April 2010

“Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, the main manufacturer of Apple Inc products, posted a 19 percent decline in sales in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, hurt by disappointing demand for the iPhone. Apple missed Wall Street’s revenue forecast for the December quarter. Disappointing holiday sales reinforced fears it is losing its dominance in smartphones.”

Clare Jim, Reuters, 10 April 2013

“Once America’s untouchable brand, the Apple brand has faltered, People now question Apple’s sustainability. Some now recognize Apple is vulnerable, and think its best times are behind it. And it’s all because Samsung ignored the industry lock-in to constantly focusing on product, and instead changed the game on Apple. But, at least for now, Samsung has demonstrated how a competitor can change the game on a market leader. Even a leader as successful and powerful as Apple. And Samsung’s leaders deserve a lot of credit for seeing the opportunity – and seizing it!”

Adam Hartung, Forbes, 4 April 2013

“Siri could signal the beginning of the end for Apple. First, the obvious. When you ask Siri for something, it inevitably sends you to Google. Second, even Siri itself is not truly an Apple product. Probably most importantly, with Apple’s paltry R&D budget, it is unlikely that they will be able to compete beyond interfaces and devices (and with the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy 4S, even their position there seems to be eroding).”

Greg Satell, Forbes, 26 March 2013

“The real game changers in the S4 are Samsung’s pace of innovation and the platform it is creating to challenge Apple in this crucial area of innovation – platform economics. ”

Haydn Shaughnessy, Forbes, 18 March 2013

“History repeats itself again I guess … the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don’t innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old.”

Thorsten Heins, CEO, BlackBerry, 18 March 2013

“Apple’s already lost. Samsung has taken over the global market share in terms of smartphones and tablets, and Apple still has a marginal lead here in the U.S., but during the second quarter this year, Samsung will become the market leader here, as well.”

Porter Bibb, venture capitalist, 14 March 2013

“The marketing chief’s rare attack on a rival, on the eve of the Galaxy S4’s global premier in New York, underscores the extent of the pressure piled upon a company that once stood the undisputed leader of the smartphone arena, but ceded its crown to Samsung in 2012.”

Poornima Gupta, Reuters, 13 March 2013

What [Samsung] are going is they’re innovating faster. I don’t know if they’re necessarily ahead of where Apple is, but just the pace that they’re coming out with [products] is so much faster, so think of it this way: iPhone comes out on an annual basis, Samsung comes outs with an impactful phone on a monthly basis and two or three really big phones a year. And so, the technology, I guess, that they’re actually working on, they’re able to get it to market a little bit faster.

Samsung creates a lot of the components that Apple uses, so there’s a cost advantage that Samsung has in terms of the speed that they can get some of these phones out over Apple.”

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray, 12 March 2013

“We are a company of innovation. We are always listening to learn from people around the world on what kind of progress they really want.”

JK Shin, President Mobile Communications Division, Samsung, 12 March 2013

“Google glasses may look and seem absurd now but (Brian) Sozzi says they are “a product that is going to set the stage for many other interesting products.” For the moment, at least, the same cannot be said of iPhones or iPads.”

Jeff Macke, Yahoo! Breakout, 27 February 2013

“After more than two years, Windows Phone still claims less than 3% of market share. BlackBerry 10 will be launching here in the US soon and I think they will increase their share to 3rd place and may even pass iOS in a couple years.

As I hear more and more people say they are bored with iOS, there is an opportunity for someone to come in and fire up the market again.”

Matthew Miller, ZDNet, 14 February 2013

“Here are four reasons why I don’t think Apple’s stock will see $700 again:

1. Growth in phones is slowing as competition increases

2. Margins are shrinking

3. Apple is losing its innovative edge

4. Apple may no longer be a growth story”

Howard Gold, MarketWatch, 1 February 2013

“‘iPhone Killer’ BlackBerry 10 is here: iPhone is Dead!

Emotions run high as BlackBerry 10 smartphones Q10 and Z10 make their debuts”

Bob Brown, InfoWorld, 30 January 2013

“Sorry Apple, the BlackBerry Z10 Is Hotter Than the iPhone”

Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo, 28 January 2013

“Phones and tablets are inevitably following computers into commoditization. Apple may still charge a premium for its products, but it will ultimately have to settle for a relatively small market share as a result, just as it has in computers. There is also a limit to that premium – with the likes of Google and Amazon setting the pace, the respective days of $700 smartphones and $500 tablets are numbered.”

Peter Nowak, MacLeans.ca, 28 January 2013

“Apple, indeed, has a history of making fine products that are very expensive and proprietary — only to give the market away to the competition. The problem Apple is facing currently is much like the same problem they encountered during the Operating System wars of the 1980’s – 1990’s, (i.e., they produced a far superior product that was light years ahead of the competition, yet they blundered by overcharging). This allowed a horde of inferior “affordable” and “good enough” products such as Microsoft’s Windows along with the legions of IBM-compatible clone makers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell to overtake Apple. Now we see Apple repeating its past mistakes…but this time with Android.”

Austin Craig, The Motley Fool, 23 January 2013

“We are afraid that Apple has lost its ground in the smartphone arms race against Samsung Electronics. This is especially after we saw the impressive next-generation Galaxy phones form factor of Samsung Electronics, at 2013 CES. We understand that Samsung is close to the mass production of plastic unbreakable substrate screen. In addition, larger size screen is critical to LTE smartphone, since the main purpose of a smartphone is migrating from communication (calling and SMS) to video consumption and web surfing. Then, iPhone’s 4” screen is likely to remain a drag versus popular phablet like Galaxy Note II. The worst case scenario would be that Apple exerts pricing pressure on LCD screen, when iPhone unit growth plateaus and LGD had sizeable idle capacity from order cuts.”

Daniel Kim, Macquarie Equities Research, 15 Jaunuary 2013

“However, for the company to truly move forward as a tech power, Apple should hang-up on the iPhone after one more iteration – presumably the iPhone 6. You might disagree. Granted, the phone is still selling well. However, aside from a different chip and larger screen, the change from the 4S to iPhone 5 was not that significant.”

Richard Saintvilus, Forbes, 6 January 2013

“If the market spits up Apple and Android devices for their inability to meet business user needs, RIM stands alone—or will, on Jan. 30, 2013 and the days that follow the BlackBerry 10 launch—as the company ready to embrace them. This is an unprecedented opportunity. As a result, 2013 could be an amazing year for RIM.”

Rob Enderle, CIO, 31 Dec 2012

“Watch the iPhone 5 launch with a critical eye, and you’ll see a device that has a smaller less-brilliant screen than competitors. It has a slower CPU and graphics processor. It’s more fragile. The vastly improved antennas may be Apple’s only technical edge – a necessary one considering the Antennagate woes of the iPhone 4.”

Rob Enderle, Digital Trends, 15 Sep 2012

“Application developers are becoming more constructive with Google’s Android smartphone platform putting Apple at risk of losing one of its key competitive advantages over Android.”

Financial Times, 27 Dec 2012

“When I predicted Samsung would be the market leader in unit sales, people wanted to sue me for slander. But Samsung has not only surpassed Apple in sales, it’s out-innovating Apple. Have you seen the new Galaxy Note II? It’s amazing.”

One Year Price Target $270

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 21 Dec 2012

“…new technology will leave smart phone users much less tied to their handset’s operating systems, and more able to access the same programs and content from any device.”

One Year Price Target $270

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 1 Nov 2012 “Enter Microsoft. Windows 8 is Microsoft`s first genuine paradigm shift since Windows 95. It completely embraces web apps based upon technologies like HTML5, Javascript, CSS3, WebGL, et al. Web apps will cause a violently disruptive change for Microsoft and for the entire industry. Make no mistake — this is not just about Apple. The entire cellphone and computing ecosystem will be shaken to the ground.”

One Year Price Target $270

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 10 Apr 2012 “If a price war breaks out in Android phones, Samsung wins hands down.”

One Year Price Target $270

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 15 Feb 2012 “Content is king again. It is available everywhere – not just from Apple. If we learn one thing from Netflix’s fall from grace, it is that aggregating content is no longer a viable business model.

Speaking of open ecosystems, what will Apple do when carriers introduce network-based video calling?

We maintain our Sell Short rating on Apple. The internet is the great equalizer. It saved Apple during the rise of the wired broadband internet. It will level the playing field for other vendors with the rise of the true mobile broadband internet.”

One Year Price Target $270

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 25 Jan 2012 “Apple has raised the bar on what’s normal, but other phones are easily narrowing the difference because web technology is easier to program.”

One Year Price Target: $126

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 7 May 2010 “The iPhone is a bandwidth hog and is not profitable for carriers. Rivals are entering the mobile browser space to compete with Apple. Although Apple’s gadgets are trendy, their hardware will eventually become irrelevant.”

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 29 Dec 2009 “When the iPhone came out, it was so far beyond what was out there on the market, pretty much up until now, but with what’s coming out from competitors, that advantage is going away. For the first time, Apple’s going to be faced with a serious growth challenge.”

Edward Zabitsky, ACI Research, 22 Apr 2009

“The company is facing fierce competition from established players like Google, Microsoft, Amazon and of course Samsung.”

Sujata Dutta, Motley Fool, 21 Dec 2012

“Overall, Apple is vulnerable. The company has a large lead in app store revenue, but the increasing big shipment lead Android has gained over iOS will likely reverse this by making an overwhelming majority of devices in the market Android. Also, the competition has clearly caught up to Apple. Apple might seem like a strong buy, but the company is facing major headwinds and is a riskier investment than it appears by just looking at financial statements. There is an illusion that the current lopsided shipment market share is irrelevant. This idea is completely false. Losing market share is almost always never a good sign. Android is roasting Apple and if things keep going the way they are, Apple will be toast.”

Alvin Gonzales, Motley Fool, 21 Dec 2012

“Overall, the iPhone 5 is a good phone and will probably sell well, but in the long run Apple will have a hard time maintaining its extremely high margins because the iPhone is clearly no longer cut above the rest. Since Steve Jobs is gone, Apple should be honest with itself and begin to dramatically increase its R&D budget to stay in the game. Otherwise, the competition will leave it in the dust.”

Alvin Gonzales, Motley Fool, 17 Sep 2012

“There is a striking difference between the two companies though, Apple produces their own hardware and software, they collect all the money whereas Google licenses out the software and occasionally gets in on the manufacturing of a device. iOS is a closed system, Android is open-source and if history proves to be right time and time again then I’m sure that Android will end up winning the battle.”

Ash Anderson, Motley Fool, 21 Dec 2012

“We’re winning that war pretty clearly now. The core strategy is to make a bigger pie. We will end up with a not perfectly controlled and not perfectly managed bigger pie by virtue of open systems.”

Eric Schmidt, Google, 12 Dec 2012

“The facts speak for themselves: (i) Google’s Android outsells Apple’s iOS by a factor of 4-5x in terms of monthly smartphone activations, (ii) Samsung ships nearly twice as many units of smartphones on an annualised basis (with sales values on a par with Apple’s), (iii) the iPad is quickly ceding market share to the tablets powered by Android and Microsoft’s freshly launched Windows 8. The patterns discerned are illuminating and ominous in equal measure. Apple may have fostered the rush of upgrades from feature phones to smartphones and from laptops to tablets through its eye-opening creation of the iPhone and the iPad, but the mass industrialisation process is progressively taken over by others willing to embrace a horizontal model.”

Per Lindberg, ABGSC Sundal Collier, 3 December 2012

“There is no doubt, in my mind, that the whole (smartphone) sector is hugely overstretched. The whole sector is priced as if the average player would sustain 25 per cent margin in eternity. It’s bordering on absurdity. This will end in tears.”

Per Lindberg, MF Global Ltd, Feb 2009

“Microsoft will ultimately muscle-out Apple as the leader in smartphones and tablets. Apple’s insistence on controlling every aspect of both its software and hardware puts it at a disadvantage to a more flexible Microsoft.”

Charles Sizemore, Sizemore Capital, 29 Nov 2012

“Apple is at a crossroads. After dominating the first decade of the millennium, the revolution that Apple started is shifting against it. The iPhone, with its single annual update and super premium price, has been run down from behind by a pack of rivals with segmented product ranges, 6 month product cycles and aggressive price points. Android phones now outsell Apple 5 to 1, and the iPad is on the same path, exacerbated by rivals willing to subsidize device sales in pursuit of e-commerce and advertising. At the same time, the nexus of the user experience is shifting off of the device and into the cloud, greatly disadvantaging Apple vs. its web-savvy rivals.”

Paul Sagawa, Sector & Sovereign Research, 19 Nov 2012

“It is stress relief; it doesn’t make you look at all your applications all the time. This is going to catch on with a lot of people.”

Thorsten Heins, Research In Motion, 13 Nov 2012

“I did iPhone already. I really go across the board, so I had an iPhone before because it was important for me to understand touch devices at the entry level.”

Thorsten Heins, CEO, Research In Motion, 9 Jul 2012 “They are in a pickle. Their pickle is security. When the first big security flaw even happens in one of the large enterprises, you will see this turn around. Wait for the day this happens.”

Thorsten Heins, CEO, Research In Motion, 29 Jan 2012 “Apple’s iOS is well-developed, but it is actually now the oldest mobile operating system, older than Android, webOS, Windows Phone, while BlackBerry 10 is now the newest mobile platform.”

Thorsten Heins, CEO, Research In Motion, 7 Feb 2012

“The smartphone market — until recently split between an ever-growing iPhone dominance, a stalwart BlackBerry and a divided Android field — is now, increasingly, an iPhone vs. Samsung world. The difference between one dominant player and a collection of would-be players and two clear alternatives is a vast one. Samsung’s consumer electronics marketing clout — and its breathtaking advertising budget — is even large enough to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s brand mythology and ubiquity.

Apple does what it does well, and then sluffs off everything else — like getting e-mail and actually making a call on the iPhone. Succeeding with that sort of hauteur and dismissiveness is awfully dependent on charisma and sex appeal, an expensive proposition in a commodified market.”

Michael Wolff, USA Today, 11 Nov 2012

“AAPL’s headwinds are many and varied. Its history of earnings beats brings sky-high expectations. Its products are fundamentally consumer-oriented and lack ideal stickiness (the ecosystem is great, but iOS and its back-end programs are not comparable to Windows and Office when it comes to customers contemplating a switch). The consumer electronics industry is rife with competition and riddled with the corpses of giants past (NOK / RIMM come to mind). Moreover, the company is so big and successful that it has become the target for handset manufacturers, wireless carriers, cable companies, and internet giants (GOOG / AMZN) alike – sometimes working in concert (not to mention regulators).”

David Weinstein, Seeking Alpha, 28 Oct 2012

“It shows (data chart from Nomura Holdings) that there is no historical precedence for Apple’s gross margins. Check this out. It shows gross margins for Nokia, RIM and Apple over the past ten years and it comes to us from Nomura because it believes the iPhone’s margins are likely 10% above the sustainable levels.”

Sara Eisen Bloomberg, 15 Oct 2012

Five Big Problems with iPhone 5

1. Design – Not very different from iPhone 4

2. Maps – Not accurate

3. 4G Networks – Will iPhone 5 be compatible?

4. The Connector – Existing users must buy a converter

5. Price – Expensive piece of kit

Oliver Wolf, Greenwich Consulting, 10 Oct 2012

“It’s been years — considered a long time in tech — since Apple delivered a “mind-blowing” product that made a cultural dent, some say, harking back to the iPad in 2010 and iPhone in 2007.”

Jon Swartz, USA Today, 4 October 2012

“Apple just reported that it sold more than 5 million iPhones over the iPhone 5’s opening weekend.

This is a very disappointing number. It’s below top Apple analyst Gene Munster’s estimate of 6 million to 10 million. Worse, it indicates that growth may be slowing at Apple. Apple sold the iPhone 5 in nine countries over its opening weekend. It sold the iPhone 4S in seven. It actually sold fewer iPhones per country this year than the last. That’s not just deceleration, that’s shrinkage.”

Nicholas Carlson , Business Insider, 24 Sep 2012

“‘Oh my god,’ read one Twitter message I saw. ‘Apple maps is the worst ever. It is like using MapQuest on a BlackBerry.’

MapQuest and BlackBerry.

Exactly.”

Joe Nocera, New York Times, 21 Sep 2012

“The $29 Mistake That Can Destroy Apple

Early adopters won’t care. Initial iPhone 5 pre-orders sold out faster than earlier Apple smartphone incarnations have, and there’s no reason to believe Apple won’t sell a ton of these iPhone 5 devices. However, shifting to a new connector may get in the way of how quickly mainstream consumers hop on the iPhone 5 bandwagon after Friday’s initial rush subsides. If it becomes the burden of iPhone 5 owners to lug around an adapter when they travel or whether they’ve just amassed too many 30-pin connectors over the years to abandon the platform, this could be trouble for Apple.”

Rick Aristotle Munarriz, Motley Fool, 16 Sep 2012

8 Things The iPhone 5 Still Can’t Do

1. NFC for mobile payments – Samsung’s Galaxy S III takes advantage of this feature.

2. An improved texting solution on the keyboard, like Swype

3. SD card support for extra storage

4. A 128 GB option

5. Non-proprietary dock connection – We’ve never understood why our iPhones can’t use a standard USB port and a standard USB cable to sync.

6. A micro-HDMI port – The Kindle Fire HD and several Android phones use a micro-HDMI port

7. Replaceable battery

8. While we’re at it, better battery life! – The Razr Maxx can last several hours longer than the iPhone 5.

Dylan Love, Business Insider, 14 Sep 2012

” Apple’s new iPhone 5 is a well-crafted device that’s likely to please the company’s fans and sell in the tens of millions. But if you’re looking for something truly innovative in a smartphone, look elsewhere. Its new features are welcome updates to the iPhone line. But they are incremental improvements, and many were pioneered long ago on rival phones. And the new iPhone still lacks some features that have long been standard in others. When it comes to new smartphone features, Apple seems to not only be playing a constant game of catch-up with rivals such as Samsung and Nokia, but also falling further and further behind.”

Troy Wolverton, Mercury News, 12 Sep 2012

Over the last 10 days, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia announced new smartphones ahead of Apple’s iPhone 5 event on Wednesday. Amongst the three, the bar has been set high for Apple, and attention has been drawn to certain features that have become the de rigueur for smartphones:

Apple should increase the battery size on the iPhone 5, substantially

Apple should announce an alternative to NFC, if it does not include NFC

Apple should provide an improvement over its existing camera technology

Apple should wow the audience with a new form factor

If Apple changes the charger, it should be more convenient

Darcy Travlos, Contributor, Forbes, 11 Sep 2012

“The bigger you become, the bigger the problems you face. History shows that every empire reaches a point at which its infrastructure begins to become stretched, after which it tends to shrink. Resource allocation is important, and it seems Apple may be facing a few problems in this.”

Jonny Evans, Computerworld, 6 September 2012

“The last quarter slowdown could be foreshadowing bigger issue to come for iPhone sales and mark a peak in the growth rate of the iPhone. The original iPhone was years ahead of its competition, but technological progress tends to converge and Apple’s advantages are no longer as obvious. Google’s Android is now the market leader in the smart phone market and has significantly narrowed its technological gap with Apple.”

Charlie Zhou, Seeking Alpha, 31 August 2012

“These days, Samsung is the world’s biggest technology company by sales, selling more flatscreen TVs than anyone else and trouncing Apple in smartphones. And it is not just a question of quantity; increasingly gadget fiends are tossing away their iPhone 4S to drool over the new Samsung Galaxy S3.”

Patrick Barkham, The Guardian, 9 August 2012

“6 Things The iPhone 5 Must Have Or I’m Switching To Android

While Apple has pretty much showed their cards, I bet that it’s holding out on some dynamic features that will draw me back to my favorite phone. On the other hand, Android has intrigued me lately. The newest version of Android, Jelly Bean, has closed the gap between Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems. As thing stands right now, the iPhone feels stale. If Apple doesn’t add these simple improvements then I’m switching to Android and not looking back.”

1. Show me exactly how much data I am using without having to download an app.

2. Make it easier for me to type

3. Give me some of Siri’s features offline

4. Make notifications better

5. Make Maps available offline

6. Let me unzip files directly on my device

Kevin Smith, Business Insider, 8 August 2012

“By waiting a year between iPhones, Apple is not only conceding the most important element in innovation, that of time, but also the one commodity in which all firms are equal. Other smart phone companies have utilized the period since the launch of the iPhone 4S to maximize the marketing edge by making products more appealing and optimizing the pricing differential. A huge advantage is being ceded to very formidable competitors by Apple in the months between the introduction of new iPhones, both in time and money.”

Jonathan Yates, The Motley Fool, 3 August 2012

“This time next year I see a RIM having a 15-20 per cent market share, a great ecosystem full of apps, games, and developers as well as lots of happy BB10 users.”

Dennis Reumer, BlackBerry 10 developer, 18 July 2012

“In this world, value growth moves up the stack to a new set of location based apps, mobile commerce, and web-based services. It’s not clear exactly what they will be, but GOOG’s effort to geo-tag all kinds of information (business locations, traffic, demographics) and build a massive geo-economic-demographic database provides early clues.

1) Consumers become more willing to manage complexity/want

choice

2) performance advantage from end-to-end vendor narrows

3) scale and standards of open ecosystem drive lower cost.”

Bill Whyman, International Strategy & Investment, 16 July 2012

“RIM’s cash position is strong and should easily bring it to the BlackBerry 10 release where there is a real market opportunity for the new RIM platform to power a range of smart devices. This strategy would have RIM play in a place where it could be “unchallenged” and is something much more attractive for RIM shareholders than competing against iPhones and Android devices.”

Eric Jackson, Ironfire Capital, 10 July 2012

“Therefore, the fierce competition in the smartphone/tablet industry is bad for Apple – especially in developing/emerging markets where many phone-hungry consumers don’t have bank accounts or credit cards (and consequently, likely not enough money for an expensive Apple product).

Skyler Greene, Seeking Alpha, 5 July 2012

“Apple has just one product, we have a portfolio. One size doesn’t fit all.”

Jim Balsillie, Former Co-CEO, Research in Motion, June 2012

“The second point is that smart phone/pad competition is brutal. Blackberry (RIM) dominated the mobile phone business space, but is rapidly losing market share. HTC has produced a number of top rated phones, but has recently been eclipsed by Samsung. Google is aggressive promoting its own operating system (Android), and is also designing its own phones. Microsoft is also making an aggressive push into the space with phones powered by Windows. Many companies, including Amazon, are trying to get into the tablet/pad space. It is difficult to forecast what technology will look like a few years down the road, let alone which companies will dominate the competition. While it currently has an edge, it is not clear that Apple will retain that edge.”

Matt Marcewicz, Contributor, Forbes 6 June 2012

“Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile will gain share despite a slow start. Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile will be aided by Nokia’s strength in key emerging markets. IDC expects it to be the number 2 OS with more than 19% share in 2016, assuming Nokia’s foothold in emerging markets is maintained.”

IDC Press Release, 6 June 2012

“Here are seven events, all of which could hurt Apple’s stock price in a big way:

1. Wireless service providers (WSPs) collectively decrease iPhone subsidy

2. Window 8 is a huge success

3. No surprise in iPhone 5

4. Departure of major executives

5. Lukewarm replacement sales

6. Global smartphone growth slows down

7. Chinese demand of iPhone unsustainable during the last quarter

Gutone, Seeking Alpha, 29 May 2012

“In other words, I bought the Apple-generated hype. I was a sucker. You see, I have been disillusioned by Siri. It strikes me as some kind of gimmick for self-indulgent people with a tremendous amount of time on their hands.”

Jon Friedman, MarketWatch, 25 May 2012

“The illusion of hypergrowth

It really happened: iPhone sales in the fourth quarter missed analyst targets by a country mile, jumping a mere 21% YOY.

The iPhone as a commodity

That’s really all Apple’s iStuff is — an enormous and very profitable fad. It’s the Pet Rock of the new millennium.

The “cool factor” is fading fast

Neither Palm nor RIM ever quite reached the lofty heights that Apple inhibits today, but you know what they say: the bigger they are …

The iPhone is too expensive

The networks that already hate the low margins it brings them can’t be expected to pay huge subsidies for much longer. If the iPhone becomes expensive, there’s no shortage of Android alternatives to choose from.”

Anders Bylund, Motley Fook, 6 Mar 2012

“I think Apple ‑‑ you’re right, you can download iOS 5 for iPhone 3G, and it won’t be usable, but it’s possible to install… It’s a great hardware sales tool as far as I can tell. Install this OS which makes your hardware unusably slow, so then you feel compelled to go back to the store and buy a new piece of hardware…”

Terry Myerson, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Phone Division, Microsoft, 2 Mar 2012

“All of a sudden, every teenage girl has an iPhone. The real danger is that Apple becomes so mainstream that there is a breakaway by consumers to something new.”

T. Michael Walkley, Analyst, Canaccord Genuity, 26 Feb 2012

“Apple is focused on defending the high end of the market, and that is becoming harder to do each year. Competitors, such as the Galaxy from Samsung, are starting to catch up. I think it is inevitable that the margin pressure increases.”

Mark Newman, Director of Mobile Research, Informa Telecoms and Media, 26 Feb 2012

“Apple’s share price is predicated on its continuing dominance of mobile. And as the saying goes, ‘The King is dead, long live the King’ and the tide could turn against Apple very quickly. One killer release from Samsung, HTC or another hitherto unknown Asian manufacturer, or a lackluster future iPhone release and the seismic shifts that have happened so often in the mobile industry could occur again.”

Stephen Samuel, Seeking Alpha, 22 Feb 2012

“Imagine Samsung introducing revolutionary new lines of mobile phones and tablet computers with twice the battery life of Apple devices! Imagine colors more vivid than you have ever seen in any display before and half the thickness of Apple devices! The foregoing is not just a hyperbole; Samsung is pouring billions into making this happen.”

Nigam Arora, Contributor, Forbes, 10 Feb 2012

“Android will become the operating system (OS) of choice for developers rather than IOS within 12 months.”

Adam Leach, Ovum, 23 Jan 2012

“The Lumia 900 and its successors will help Microsoft to reclaim the number 2 (replacing iOS) ranking in smartphone operating system market share in 2015.”

Wayne Lam, IHS analyst, 19 Jan 2012

“The iPhone is heralded as the most revolutionary mobile phone in human history, but the cold and harsh truth is that for all the cheering and punditry, the iPhone’s impact on the world is negligible. Sure, it had a huge impact on the smartphone market in rich countries – but it didn’t have such an impact on the world.”

Thom Holwerda, OS News, 29 Dec 2011

“As more developers reach consumers through platform-independent technologies such as HTML5, Apple’s app store could be cut out of the loop as customers gain freedom to transfer their chosen applications from one device to another.”

Michael Holt, CFA, Morningstar, 28 Dec 2011

“What we see is that youth are pretty much fed up with iPhones. Everyone has the iPhone.”

Niels Munksgaard, Director of Portfolio, Product Marketing & Sales , Nokia, 13 Dec 2011

“Microsoft is not the only competition. It seems like every day Apple has a new competitor, the competition that is stacking up very well are the Google Android phones.”

Leonid Kanopka, Seeking Alpha, 29 Nov 2011

“The iPhone has two major liabilities versus the BlackBerry. First of all, as this amusing article pointed out, the iPhone is not a very good tool for e-mail. This cannot be underestimated for the many businesses where being able to send quick and accurate communications from any location is the primary rationale for using smartphones. A physical keyboard is an absolute necessity.

The iPhone’s second liability is security (though this is a secondary issue). Apple has made good progress in catching up to RIM on the security front, but the BlackBerry is still the smartphone of choice if you need top of the line security. For many government agencies and companies that deal with sensitive or privileged materials, the iPhone is still not a viable option.”

Adam Levine-Weinberg, Seeking Alpha, 28 Nov 2011

“People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced. You can pick ‘em up and say ‘text Eric’ and say what you wanna say and it transcribes it. You can query anything through Bing by just saying the words. I mean, all that’s already there. Fully functional, been there for a year.”

Craig Mundie, Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Microsoft, 23 Nov 2011

“Our approach is different. The metaphor I like to take is – if it’s Star Wars, you have these robot personalities like C-3PO who runs around and he tries to do stuff for you, messes up and makes jokes, he’s kind of a comic relief guy. Our approach is more like Star Trek, right, starship Enterprise; every piece of computing surface, everything is voice-aware. It’s not that there’s a personality, it doesn’t have a name, it’s just ‘Computer’.”

Matias Duarte, Director of Android User Experiences, Google, 27 October 2011

“All in all, I am impressed with the new phone (Atrix 2). And I think Apple has reason to finally be scared of the competition. The Android OS has always had the capability to outpace the Apple OS. It was only a matter of time before the hardware caught up with the software and created the same seamless experience.”

Cullen Roche, Seeking Alpha, 25 October 2011

“(Siri) isn’t super useful.”

Andy Lees, President of Windows Phone, Microsoft, 19 October 2011

“I don’t believe that your phone should be an assistant. Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone.”

Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile, Google, 19 October 2011

“If Android “Feels Wrong” then I don’t want to be right.

Android may not have the polish or the sex appeal of Apple’s iOS, but it’s the smartphone platform of my choice.”

Jason Perlow , ZDNet, 18 October 2011

“I’m sick to death of Android.

I’ve spent over two years as an Android user. The next time around, I’m going elsewhere unless substantial changes take place in how Google manages its ecosystem and OEM/Carrier partners.”

Jason Perlow , ZDNet, 28 March 2012

“We are interested in offering all of our customers a no-compromise iPhone experience on our network. In the meantime, we continue to bring to market some of the most advanced, cutting-edge Android devices. Today, I had the chance to take the stage at the Mobilize event in San Francisco and introduce our fastest 4G smartphones ever, the Samsung Galaxy S II and the HTC Amaze. We’re very confident that these Android smartphones rival or beat any smartphone out there in terms of functionality, speed, overall experience and features – including the iPhone.”

Cole Brodman, Chief Marketing Officer, T-Mobile USA, 26 September 2011

10 Reasons Why iPhone 5 will be Beaten by Samsung Galaxy S2

1. Operating System

2. Processing Power:

3. Display

4. Design

5. Security

6. Flash

7. Near Field Communication (NFC)

8. Connectivity

9. Battery and Memory

10. Apps and open source

IB Times Staff Reporter, International Business Times, 14 September 2011

“Apple is innovating. Samsung is innovating. We are innovating. Everybody is innovating. And everybody is doing different things for the end consumers. I brought my daughter back to college — she’s down in Portland at Reed — and I talked to a few of the kids on her floor. And none of them has an iPhone because they told me: ‘My dad has an iPhone.’ There’s an interesting thing that’s going on in the market. The iPhone becomes a little less cool than it was. They were carrying HTCs. They were carrying Samsungs. They were even carrying some Chinese manufacture’s devices. If you look at a college campus, Mac Book Airs are cool. iPhones are not that cool anymore. We here are using iPhones, but our kids don’t find them that cool anymore.”

Martin Fichter, Acting President, HTC America, 12 September 2011

“It’s difficult to recover our market share in the U.S.”

Peter Chou, Chief Executive, HTC Corp, 24 April 2012

“I hated my call-dropping iPhone. If you’re an image-conscious hipster/rebel/brand-monkey and you don’t use the AT&T network in the SF Bay Area, the iPhone is a great choice, especially if you need obscure apps.”

Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert, 17 August 2011

“The reliance by Apple and Android phones on the ‘app’ as the central metaphor is outdated.”

Chris Weber, President, head of North America, Nokia, 10 August 2011

“Android is the only operating system, modern smart-phone operating system, that exists on devices that cost $200 or less. That is what is enabling the next billion of users of the Internet on mobile in the world. There might be players that are not so excited to see the margins and the prices go down like that and the variety that Android enables, but I think we are very convinced that we will be able to continue and create and protect the value of Android.”

John Lagerling, Director of Android Global Partnerships, Google, 8 August 2011

“To the Windows Phone team: I may stop using some Microsoft products now that I’m out of here. But not Windows Phone. The BEST product Microsoft has ever built. Do not let up!”

Charlie Kindel, former Windows Phone GM, Microsoft, 8 August 2011

“Android is on a tear. Despite the efforts of some of our competitors, there hasn’t been any slow down. We’re really committed to Android. We will support it in a cost-effective manner.”

Larry Page, Google, 14 July 2011

“Phones? In a year, we’ve gone from very small to … very small.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 11 July 2011

“There’s only one choice in the Apple world.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, 12 October 2010 “Well, we’ve got to look forward. The market’s still pretty nascent, but at the end of the day, I think the wall-of-icons [on iPhones and Android devices] is getting pretty complicated for people. That doesn’t mean people don’t want applications, though I’m not sure that’s really the way the average person really wants to work.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, 4 October 2010 “The truth of the matter is all the consumer market mojo is with Apple and to a lesser extent BlackBerry. And yet, the real market momentum with operators and the real market momentum with device manufacturers seems to primarily be with Windows Mobile and Android.”

Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, 24 Feb 2009 “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It’s a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I’d prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 30 April 2007 “$500 fully subsidized with a plan! I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine …. I like our strategy. I like it a lot….Right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year, Apple is selling zero phones a year. In six months, they’ll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace and let’s see… let’s see how the competition goes.”

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, 17 January 2007

“Competition is compressing Apple’s margins. Google’s Android platform and strategy is absolutely obliterating the competitive edge of Apple’s smartphone and iPad at the same time. All of my electrical engineering friends have been replacing their iPhones with Android powered alternatives.”

Glen Bradford, Seeking Alpha, 10 July 2011

“We think of the BlackBerry device as the greatest communication device on the planet, one which enables you –a push environment, a reliable device. It’s the platform that enables this.”

Anthony Payne, Director of Platform Marketing, Research In Motion, 13 May 2011

“Can you imagine Windows Phone 7 in two years, powered by the twin engines of Nokia’s global reach and RIM’s enterprise base? It would be a powerhouse platform, the stuff of dreams for Ballmer—and nightmares for Apple and Google.”

Peter Pachal, PC Mag, 4 May 2011

“For a handset with such a broad range of standout features and specs, the Galaxy S II is remarkably easy to summarize. It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period.”

Vlad Savov, Engadget, 28 April 2011

“Statistics from the last year show Android is rapidly gaining ground both as an operating system and through the advances made by manufactures. Apple has been around a bit longer and therefore may be seen as having a a slight advantage, but given time that hill will be leveled. When that day comes no longer will Android devices be thought of as a comparison to something Apple already did rather an evolution of something completely different. Judging by new device offerings debuting, that day is approaching quickly.”

Jacob Cunningham, AndroidSpin, 5 April 2011

“According to data from research firm BITG, checks at 150 Verizon Wireless stores indicate that in some cases the Thunderbolt is outselling the iPhone 4. According to the comany’s data, 61 percent of the stores said they were selling equal numbers of both devices, and 11 percent more iPhones than Thunderbolts, apparently mainly in the southeastern US. But 28 percent were selling more Thunderbolts, seemingly indicating that at least on Verizon, the iPhone may have met its match.”

Ed Oswald, technologizer.com, 1 April 2011

“For a handset with such a broad range of standout features and specs, the Galaxy S II is remarkably easy to summarize. It’s the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period.”

Vlad Savov, Engadget, 28 April 2011

“’RIM didn’t expect iPhone to take off the way it did because it was so badly flawed from Day One,’ the former RIM employee said. ‘They believed that users wanted great battery life, great security, great mail handling, minimal network use, and a great keyboard experience. They never expected users didn’t care.’”

Former RIM Employee, according to Reuters, 16 March 2011

“It’s quite likely that Apple is going to commit the classic Apple mistake of trying to be too controlling and therefore the market gets away from them and people start to move towards Android. I think Apple needs to be very careful that they don’t get sidelined as more and more devices [arrive]. And again, it’s the classic old story of Microsoft and Apple, where Microsoft with a more open platform. But it is true. Microsoft was far more open than Apple was and won because of that.”

Jimmy Wales, Co-founder, Wikipedia, 8 March 2011

“Apple is a company that has to come up with hit after hit after hit, every 12 to 18 months, but once you do the iPhone on Verizon, what’s the next thing past this?”

Patrick Becker Jr, Becker Capital Management, 7 March 2011

“Windows Phone 7 will be the most operator-friendly ecosystem today.”

Stephen Elop, Nokia, 14 February 2011

“Apple certainly has its reasons for wanting to keep its iPhone lineup as simple as possible. From the standpoint of product support, software upgrades, and fine-tuning of the overall user experience, it’s a lot easier to get the little details right with one phone model than it is with several. But with Google’s approach of letting a thousand Android flowers bloom, Apple’s devotion to simplicity is bound to come at a price. The auto industry’s history is good proof of that.”

Eric Jhonsa, Motley Fool, 12 February 2011

“Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform. Ultimately a closed system just can’t go that far … If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it’s pretty difficult as I see it.”

Patrick Lo, CEO, Netgear, 31 January 2011

“We have an extreme focus on the innovation of LePad and LePhone because these products will dominate the future market. Though Apple is winning a significant share in the Chinese market, it has not gained a clearly leading position yet. Our advantage is we know this market better.”

Liu Chuanzhi, Lenovo, 27 January 2011

“The launch of Storm 3 gives RIMM the long-awaited answer to the iPhone and high-end Android devices.”

Michael Li, Investing Blog, 16 January 2011

“For all that it offers, the iPhone has always been plagued by serious drawbacks. The ‘phone’ part of the iPhone has never worked very well, dropping calls with annoying regularity. Even when the phone works, the sound quality is often substandard. ”

Joe Nocera, New York Times, 14 January 2011

“No matter how many carriers sign on to carry the iPhone, in the long run, Apple has again set itself up to be a niche player in smartphones, just as it is in PCs.”

Daniel Lyons, Newsweek, 12 January 2011

“My sense is that today’s Apple event marks an important tipping point—the point where Android starts to surge past Apple the way Windows surged past Apple in personal computers back in the 1990s.”

Dan Lyons, Newsweek, 7 June 2010

“Apple is stuck at about 25% of the smartphone market.”

Fred Wilson, AVC, 9 December 2010

“See the thing we have to understand is globally.We have to think globally. So globally we still have the world running on 2G internet. Blackberry is perfectly optimized to thrive in that environment. That’s why the BlackBerry is becoming the number one smartphone in those markets.”

Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO, Research In Motion, 7 December 2010

“We’re finding — if you look at the surveys, you can see that large amount of the customers that have purchased touchscreen devices in last two years, they intend to get a device with the QWERTY keyboard on it now, right. I mean, they’ve got into a point where they’ve realize that a touchscreen alone is not enough; so that’s important”

Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO, Research In Motion, Inc, 16 April 2010 “They (Apple) have brought so much advertising and awareness in this space that they have accelerated the move towards the smartphones. We have customers coming into stores with a feature phone and they are walking out with a BlackBerry. Not everyone can type on a piece of glass. Every laptop and virtually every other phone has a tactile keyboard. I think our design gives us an advantage.”

Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO, Research In Motion, 4 June 2008 “How much presence does Apple have in business? It’s vanishingly small.”

Mike Lazaridis, Co-CEO, Research In Motion, 2 March 2007

“Thanks to the open nature of the Android platform, vendors from HTC to Motorola to Samsung are building more powerful hardware than Apple, and soon the iPhone will be relegated to a small percentage of the market, and Apple will be in trouble once again.”

Avi Greengart, Research Director, Consumer Devices, Current Analysis, 17 November 2010

“The iPhone no longer possess the top-of-the line hardware kit. Apple’s Software Advantage is Rapidly Eroding. Last, has anyone else out there grown tired of the iPhone’s cutesy candy icons, which have been copied ad nauseam? If so you’ll find Microsoft’s Phone UI, called Metro, a breath of fresh air.”

Garrick Hileman, The PolyCapitalist, 24 October 2010

“iPhone and iPad have been amazing products that have opened new markets. But I do not think they will own either market in a few years. Android will.”

Fred Wilson, AVC.com, 18 October 2010

“Americans now are buying more Android phones than iPhones. If that trend continues, analysts say that in little more than a year, Android will have erased the iPhone’s once enormous lead in the high end of the smartphone market.”

Miguel Helft, New York Times, 17 October 2010

“That is, I think the iPhone will be like the Mac — hugely popular in its niche, but a niche nonetheless. Just as most people have PCs, I think most people will have Android phones. That doesn’t mean you should have one now. But if you’re on the fence, it might be time to start using the OS that will be on the phone you buy four years from now.”

Nick Sain, TechTicker, 12 October 2010

“For the first time since its introduction in 2007, Apple’s iPhone is going to take a backseat at AT&T as Ma Bell prepares a glitzy launch of three Microsoft Windows 7 phones.”

Scott Moritz, TheStreet.com, 1 October 2010

“So I’ve got this DROID X. And I have to say, suddenly, I get it. I understand why this thing is surpassing the iPhone as we speak. Aside from one killer mistake, something that would be oh so easy to fix, this phone is hands-down superior to anything designed in Cupertino.”

Paul Thorrott, Paul Thorrott’s SuperSite for Windows, 21 September 2010

“If a user wants to walk from the kitchen to the dining room in her house, she simply walks through. It does not work like that in mobile–you have to go through the front door to get to the kitchen. iPhone has a home button which works like a go-back-to-front-door button. This is not a model that human beings are used to. People are spatial.”

Peter Skillman, VP Meego User Experience and Services Design, Nokia, 20 September 2010

Microsoft workers celebrated the release to manufacturing of Windows Phone 7 last week by parading through their Redmond campus with iPhone and BlackBerry hearses.

Microsoft Employees, Microsoft, 10 September 2010

“It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that”

Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft, 14 July 2010

“Apple products would boast more functionality. (The sleek iPhone has just one button; the more user-friendly Android-based smartphones have four or more.) And the iPhone wouldn’t be designed like a bar of soap, following the Jobs aesthetic that rules out right-angles. That makes the iPhone even easier to drop than other cell phones, and requires you to buy a cover for it that makes your iPhone bulky and ‘unpocketable’.”

David Olive, Toronto Star, 4 June 2010

” Is the iPhone losing its sheen? The changing of the guard was signaled earlier this month: Stats released by market research firm NPD showed that Android phones had outsold iPhones in the first quarter of 2010. Google must surely hope the mobile race has the same ending as the original operating system wars: Microsoft versus Apple. While Apple insisted on running its Mac OS on Apple hardware, Microsoft implemented no such restrictions and chose to license its software to hardware vendors instead. We all know how that story ended. Windows became ubiquitous; Macs were marginalized. Android, too, seems to be headed toward ubiquity.”

Pete Cashmore, CEO, Mashable, 21 May 2010

“8 Reasons Why Apple Should Fear HP/Palm

1. HP is Great with Acquisitions

2. The HP Brand Name

3. HP’s Money

4. WebOS: Beyond the Smartphone (there is no doubt that the OS will branch out to slate PCs and netbooks)

5. HP Means a Better App Catalog

6. An Immediate Connection to the Business World

7. Beating Apple in the Hardware Arena

8. HP, Palm and Content Delivery (with a company like HP pulling the strings behind the scenes, Palm could be positioned as the number one paid content provider in the smartphone world.)

Devin Connors, Tom’s Hardware, 7 May 2010

“The iconic Apple iPhone will either not exist or occupy a very small niche satisfying the needs of committed Mac fans around five years from now.”

Eugene Kaspersky, Kaspersky Lab, 27 April 2010

“7 Reasons Why The Windows 7 Phone Is THE iPhone Killer

The sleeping giant is back. With yesterday’s announcement of the new Windows Phone 7 I believe we are seeing the rise of Phone 7 as the iPhone killer. Forget Android, this is the one you need to pay attention to.”

1. Tiles

2. Hub Strategy

3. Sexy Apps, Lots of Apps

4. Games

5. A Great App Marketplace

6. Email

7. Mesh. Finally

Jamie Riddell, CEO of Digital Tomorrow Today, 16 March 2010

“Why Windows Phone 7 Is Dead On Arrival

We published a story called ‘7 Reasons Why The Windows 7 Phone Is THE iPhone Killer.’ People openly agreed with the heretical idea. That was before iPhone 4. Before iOS 4. Before Android 2.2. It was before the entire latest generation of top-tier mobile phones came out. Where does Windows Phone 7 stand now? If things have not drastically changed for the product, when it does come out this holiday season, Windows Phone 7 will be a year late and a feature short.”

Alex Wilhelm, Digital Tomorrow Today, 28 June 2010

“The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger. I hate it.”

Tim Bray, Developer Advocate, Google, Inc, 15 March 2010

“I’ve been using the Nexus One with TMobile since mid-December as my primary mobile phone. This is the best Android powered phone to date. It’s also the fastest and most elegant smartphone on the market today, solidly beating the iPhone in most ways.”

Michael Arrington, TechCrunch.com, 5 January 2010

“With its disruptive and leveraged strategy, it is Google that is attempting to be the Microsoft of the smartphone market. Perhaps ironically, Apple is well positioned to be the “Apple” of the smartphone market.”

Bill Gurley, AboveTheCrowd.com, 5 January 2010

“Still, a supercharged Google phone debuts at a time when Apple has been enjoying its third year of success with the iPhone. But three years with the same design is a long time in the gadget business, and every bright shiny device with a load of buzz is a potential threat.”

Scott Moritz, TheStreet.com, 4 January 2010

“Google phone Nexus One, whose launch is one of the most-awaited ones in 2010, boasts of tech specs that make iPhone look like a wimp. Wow! Other smartphones, especially iPhone, better watch out for Nexus One because it looks like one nasty, hungry beast on the prowl. Besides, we all hate blood spills.”

Nick Brown, IB Times, 30 Dec 2009

“Despite the well-publicized problems in New York and San Francisco, AT&T seems to have the superior network nationwide. And the iPhone itself may not be so great after all. Its design is contributing to performance problems.”

Randall Stross, professor of business at San Jose State University, 12 December 2009

“The development of mobile phones will be similar in PCs. Even with the Mac, Apple has attracted much attention at first, but they have still remained a niche manufacturer. That will be in mobile phones as well.”

Anssi Vanjoki, Nokia’s chief strategist, 30 Nov 2009

“All the apps that count will be ported to every one of them (smartphone platforms).”

Microsoft’s chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, at the Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference, 17 November 2009

“Though it’s likely to be two to three years down the road before all the kinks are ironed out, the iPhone could go the way of the Mac – very cool, with fading total demand.”

James Brumley, Freelance writer and registered investment advisor, 17 November 2009

“Apple’s iPhone has dominated the smart-phone market the past couple of years, tearing down would be ‘iPhone killers’ almost on a monthly basis. This could soon change with the new Droid. Coupled with Google’s open-source software, Verizon’s blazing network and Motorola’s new-age design, the Droid makes for a powerful Apple-directed dagger.”

Jose Moreno, Newsday.com, 9 November 2009

“I believe that this device (Droid) is the best smartphone on the market today.”

Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola, 28 October 2009

“I’m going to make a bold prediction: Apple’s iPhone will lose the mobile device wars.”

Joe Wilcox, BetaNews, 27 October 2009

iDon’t have a real keyboard.

iDon’t run simultaneous apps.

iDon’t take night shots.

iDon’t allow open development.

iDon’t customize.

iDon’t run widgets.

iDon’t have interchangeable batteries.

Everything iDon’t…Droid does.

Verizon, 18 October 2009

“Enter Android. Already we are seeing many of the unique aspects of the iPhone being duplicated with Android. I also believe that Apple’s ability to sustain an innovative edge over Android will be reduced to months – if that. The collective development opportunities made possible by the fact that Android is Open Source will see to that. Will it be as elegantly executed as the iPhone? Probably not. But it won’t matter to the mobile application developer if there are eight or ten Android handsets shipped for every iPhone. Addressable market will again trump elegance.”

Brian Prentice, Gartner, 21 September 2009

“For those of us without Apple tattoos, the reaction to Apple’s new iPhone 3G S, announced on Monday, seems to look pretty unanimous. ‘That’s it?'”

Nick Mokey, Digital Trends, 8 June 2009



Top iPhone Killers

1. LG GD900

2. Samsung Pixon12

3. Samsung OMNIA HD

4. Sony Ericsson Satio

5. HTC Touch HD

In order to be considered as a iPhone Killer, the phone must have a large touchscreen. And provide something unique that’s not found in an iPhone, whether it’s GPS, higher data rate, vibration feedback, video recording, HD video, higher resolution camera, etc.

iPhoneKiller.com, 1 June 2009

“The Palm Pre Will Be an iPhone Killer”

Ross Catanzariti, PC World, 2 Apr 2009

“You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later. Think about it — If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.”

Major Palm investor & co-founder of Elevation Partners, Roger McNamee, 5 Mar 2009

“The notion that the Android is an equivalent to the iPhone is silly. Apple’s ecosystem and the way everything works together makes it a radically better product.”

Major Palm investor & co-founder of Elevation Partners, Roger McNamee, 12 December 2012

“The Palm Pre has it all, making the iPhone look almost like — dare we say it — a version 1.0 device.”

Wired, Priya Ganapati, 12 Jan 2009

“Palm just did what Nokia and Microsoft and RIM couldn’t do: deliver a better experience than Steve Jobs did.”

Scobleizer, 8 Jan 2009

” I’ve only been able to play with one for a few minutes, but after seeing Palm’s impressive presentation of its Pre smart phone at the Consumer Electronics Show’s opening day I feel fairly certain the phone could just be the device that gives Apple’s iPhone a run for the money.”

Gary Krakow, TheStreet.com, 8 Jan 2009

“But when it comes right down to it, the BlackBerry Storm will be the superior mobile device and represents a true iPhone killer. Here are a few reasons why:

1. It has a better camera.

2. BlackBerry set the gold standard for corporate e-mail.

3. BlackBerry offers easy access to view and edit corporate documents.

4. The Storm’s touch screen is “clickable.”

5. BlackBerry is launching its own take on the App Store.

Andrew Hickey, ChannelWeb, 14 Nov 2008

“Windows Mobile has nothing to fear from either the iPhone or Google Android. One’s an emerging one, the other is a very limited form factor. One has relatively limited hardware support and limited distribution; the other is just one form factor from one company with limited choices of operators. So they both at this point feel fairly restrictive compared to all the great options consumers would have with a Windows Mobile phone.”

John Curran, Microsoft UK, 24 Oct 2008

“Bleier believes Apple will have to dramatically lower iPhone prices or risk losing market share to Android-based phones and/or RIM’s Bold, which he believes will be a big hit this holiday season.”

Scott Bleier, CreateCapital.com, 24 O