Unsurprisingly, mobile adoption continues to grow. Both Apple and Samsung have experienced enormous smartphone market share unit growth over the past two years, with Apple going from 16% share in Q1 2010 to 22% share in Q4 2012 and Samsung growing from 4% to 29% during the same time period.
Tablet growth has exploded as well, outpacing even smartphone growth. When comparing the first 12 quarters after launch, iPad shipments ramped up three times more quickly than iPhone shipments.
In fact, tablet shipments surpassed both desktop PC and notebook shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012, less than three years after tablets surged in popularity. A similar report from IDC earlier this week confirms the rapid tablet growth, estimating that yearly tablet shipments will surpass notebook shipments by 2013 and the total PC market in 2015.
Other highlights from the report include overall smartphone growth, which is up 28% year over year in the United States and 31% in China, and mobile internet traffic, which now accounts for 15% of total global internet traffic.
Wednesday April 30, 2025 3:59 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is preparing to launch a dramatically thinner iPhone this September, and if recent leaks are anything to go by, the so-called iPhone 17 Air could boast one of the most radical design shifts in recent years.
iPhone 17 Air dummy model alongside iPhone 16 Pro (credit: AppleTrack)
At just 5.5mm thick (excluding a slightly raised camera bump), the 6.6-inch iPhone 17 Air is expected to become ...
Apple may have canceled the super scratch resistant anti-reflective display coating that it planned to use for the iPhone 17 Pro models, according to a source with reliable information that spoke to MacRumors.
Last spring, Weibo leaker Instant Digital suggested Apple was working on a new anti-reflective display layer that was more scratch resistant than the Ceramic Shield. We haven't heard...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 1:30 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Despite being more than two years old, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 still dominate the premium wireless‑earbud space, thanks to a potent mix of top‑tier audio, class‑leading noise cancellation, and Apple's habit of delivering major new features through software updates. With AirPods Pro 3 widely expected to arrive in 2025, prospective buyers now face a familiar dilemma: snap up the proven...
Apple has completed Engineering Validation Testing (EVT) for at least one iPhone 17 model, according to a paywalled preview of an upcoming DigiTimes report.
iPhone 17 Air mockup based on rumored design
The EVT stage involves Apple testing iPhone 17 prototypes to ensure the hardware works as expected. There are still DVT (Design Validation Test) and PVT (Production Validation Test) stages to...
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, which launched on April 24, 2015. Yesterday, we recapped features rumored for the Apple Watch Series 11, but since 2015, the Apple Watch has also branched out into the Apple Watch Ultra and the Apple Watch SE, so we thought we'd take a look at what's next for those product lines, too.
2025 Apple Watch Ultra 3
Apple didn't update the...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 3:36 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
All upcoming iPhone 17 models will come equipped with 12GB of RAM to support Apple Intelligence, according to the Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station.
The claim from the Chinese leaker, who has sources within Apple's supply chain, comes a few days after industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that the iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max will all be equipped with 12GB of RAM.
...
Wednesday April 30, 2025 4:01 pm PDT by Juli Clover
In a victory for Epic Games, Apple was today found to be in violation of a 2021 injunction that required it to allow developers to direct customers to third-party purchase options on the web using in-app links.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who has been handling the Apple vs. Epic Games dispute for the last five years, said that Apple is in "willful violation" of the injunction she issued to ...
Tuesday April 29, 2025 7:00 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone 18 lineup will introduce a major leap in memory performance, according to new information shared today by Weibo-based leaker Digital Chat Station. Apple is reportedly planning to equip the 2026 models with a high-capacity six-channel LPDDR5X memory configuration, significantly upping the memory bandwidth for future AI features and multitasking.
Expanding the memory bandwidth...
I just think comparing Apple and Samsung is like comparing sales of Porsche and Ford.
If Porsche had a market share matching Ford, that would be considered more significant even if Ford had a slightly larger share. But that comparison wouldn't say alot since they sell to entirely differnt markets.
Remember this. If you ever think about making a car to computer analogy...don't. They're not apt at all.
Apple hardware might sport a slightly better build quality than most of the competition, but they cost about the same, and use roughly the same parts. If this were the case with the car market, then a Porsche and Ford would both cost about $15,000, but the Porsches have better bumpers and look nicer.
I just think comparing Apple and Samsung is like comparing sales of Porsche and Ford.
If Porsche had a market share matching Ford, that would be considered more significant even if Ford had a slightly larger share. But that comparison wouldn't say alot since they sell to entirely differnt markets.
Samsung and iPhone sell to the same markets. You can get both Samsung and Apple phones for free (at least here in the US for example).
Apple isn't a luxury product. You can get them at Walmart. A comparison of Apple to Samsung relating to Porsche and Ford doesn't work as analogous.
This is why Apple takes patent violations very seriously. Technological innovations and design and ease of use features stolen and put on a cheaper product makes a difference. China and other eastern Asian nations like Korea have a long history of stealing trade secretes rather than self innovation. The very history of the start up of Samsung and their corporate culture in the 1970s was to study televisions of the day improve and add on top of the existing technology. This is how they came to be and many other Television companies who could not compete with the low prices died out. I see a lot of comments here the dont take these facts in account when people discuss how apple is being frivolous. If you love Apple and want it to be around 20 years from now, hope they dont do to cell phones, tablets and computers what they did to the TV markets.
Wow - and this has what to do with what in this thread? Or did you just want to rant?