hi and welcome back to Tech Talk I'm Ken Mingis executive editor computer world
I'm here with Mac world's Michael Simon we're gonna take a look at what's going
on in the smartphone market Apple sales seem to be down Samsung sales seem to be
down and we reach peak smartphone we're gonna find out or at least we're gonna
talk about it to stick around okay so Mike thanks for being here appreciate
you you know what caught my eye recently first of all obviously there was the the
earnings miss that Apple had based on slowing smartphone sales Samsung had
reported you know it seems like sales are down there and we had a stir in
computer world last week looking at the market the research firms are saying
basically that they're you know seeing the whole market in fact one of the
analysts said it's a mess right now and I thought I would just pick your brain
for a minute as to what we thinks going on
you know III jokingly think have we reached peak smartphone I don't think so
but I mean you've got a situation where certainly penetration is pretty broad
globally you know you've got super high prices on some of these devices which
maybe putting a cap on on some sales global economy could be slowing down so
you know what do you think's going on I mean to be honest I think we reached
peak smartphone about two years ago okay and what's happening now is so from
let's say the iPhone 7 yep the galaxy s7 or maybe the galaxy has eight we reached
the you know the balance of screen and features and design and now they're just
piling features on top of feed better cameras better Glenny cameras can you
get on the back of a phone yeah and all these things make the phone more
expensive rather than making it more desirable right and people are well for
one they're seeing the full cost of these things and Tim Cook talked about
this and I'm glad he did because it's the God's honest truth that most people
thought they were paying $200 for a phone it's true and I can talk to my my
mom as a perfect example we were talking about Christmas she has an iPhone 6 or
an iPhone 6s I forget which and is are you gonna get the you know the new one
she's like well I was looking at the Verizon store and they're gonna charge
me $30 a month for the new phone and I'm not paying them
and I like you were before yeah they just didn't tell you perception can
become reality and the other problem is so everything's a lot more transparent
but it's not like our phone bills have really gotten down that much because you
know the network is better and things like this and they're they're charging
more fees and whatever else so your end up paying more you know then you were
five years ago for your contract where you maybe you had it unlimited one now
it's not but you're you know it's faster and bla bla bla bla bla bla
people aren't haven't come to grips of the fact that we are carrying around
insane amounts of technology executive power in your smartphone is beyond what
took us to the moon 50 years ago they're not over price per se for what they are
they're they're they're overpriced for the fact that these are not mainstream
products and Apple doesn't sell a mainstream iPhone the iPhone 10 our is
the closest thing to it it's still 750 dollars yes so I mean I don't know where
they go from this they had the iPhone se that was a great idea they got rid of it
Samsung is gonna now have the Samsung 10 e if you I laugh I don't know where
these letters come and that's gonna be another thing you know $650 or some like
that but the different unit Apple and Samsung is Samsung has a million phones
below the s10 that's nine or whatever ones they can play in Li and the in
absolutely and they do and that's why Huawei and mizu and all these companies
are eating their lunch because they're they're coming out with phones that cost
$300 and do a lot oneplus companies like this that you know they can compete on
the power and the processing the storage and even the display and they're
hundreds of dollars less and people are looking at this form the thing why am i
paying a thousand dollars for an iPhone well because what you've got here is
sort of a Swiss Army knife when everybody just needs you know a fork or
a knife or a spork or whatever the people we saw this with laptops too and
that almost killed Apple because they were making $2,000 Mac's at a time when
everybody was making $800 pcs yeah and it nearly cost them their entire company
they rebounded are we gonna see it happen again with the iPhone are they
gonna play on that luxury end and you know gradually chip away until
they're just another has-been well you know it's interesting because
when I was looking at some of the trends that the analysts were coming up with it
really did remind me of sort of the iPad you know almost straight up and in you
and and sort of tailing off and now it's like trying to figure out what you can
add to this particular device in this particular form factor that's gonna make
it worth the price that people paying and you know you make the point you know
we were talking a little bit earlier about is this gonna spur innovation is
it gonna require innovation from manufacturers we were talking about the
upcoming folding phones and but personally I was like why do I want a
folding phone you know and and why am I gonna want to pay two thousand dollars
for a folding phone of course if that will come up came came out with one I'd
help me I'd be up at 3:00 a.m. ordering but the bottom line is nobody wants or
needs it right now right they have to show us why and I'm excited you think
there is a use case you're convincers convinced you kids I don't know if we're
gonna see it in 2019 but I think all right here's the perfect example you
have a phone and an iPad right now you're on your person and I assume you
can't you travel with both of yes if you could boil that down into a pocketable
device that performed both functions at you know that flips out and can be an
iPad when you want it to be and be a phone in this form factor roughly if you
build things well and it didn't sacrifice battery life and it didn't
sacrifice Queen Kruk a screen quality and there's a lot of questions we have
here and then things that need to be figured out and answered and I'm sure
the first ones aren't gonna do any of that but in a couple of years if you can
get a a listen it's not gonna have a 10-hour battery level you if you can get
eight yeah using it both you know the diverter bowl like office day you know
you can get eight hours worth of phone calls and you know iPad you someone you
know maybe there will be a breakthrough a better at battery technology we're
still waiting for there's been a while well see that to me makes more sense
than then you know I've seen some of these designs where like you know have
something like this it's folded in half and I'm like or you know fold it up and
I'm thinking that really is not gonna spur this I mean it does even spur me
and I like to think of myself as an early adopter so I guess it's going to
depend on what the manufacturers come out and
then of course is Apple is want to do they'll wait yes see how the mark
doesn't a couple years let others test the market and then theoretically come
in with their own take up maybe they won't worry maybe you know it'll it'll
crash and burn and then people will realize that this is it viable we don't
want it it's it's for you know certain Nisha the market and not for everyone
and and Apple never do anything but I think the the concept of a phone that
can open up into a larger device to for videos and for work more comfortably I
mean I I'm excited about that prospect anyway yep would you agree that as one
of the analysts said that the current smartphone market is kind of a mess as
everybody sort of jostling around trying to figure out where to you know where to
play at the high end what to play at the low end I think the biggest question is
no one really knows where it's worth going you know it was it was clear so
the iPhone came out then Samsung came out with there was bigger and it was
there was a general direction yeah we've reached six six and a half inch
screens and not getting any bigger right the processing is way beyond anything we
need to on our phones I mean there'll be an a thirteen chip there'll be a the
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chip I mean compare them all you want the the
processing power of both of them is just outrageous right you know far beyond
what you need to do to make phone calls and even do basic editing and and video
and of course I mean you can do whatever you want on them and you know they're
still you're still tapping forty percent of what it could do we've reached apps
yep I mean they are where they are you know they're great they're not great
whatever the help that we've whittled them down to the ones we need there's no
use case out there that any was waiting to fill between the iPhone one and the
iPhone six there was tons of them right and you know gradually the cream rose to
the crowd to the top and we got you know what we wanted Android iOS I mean I
think that they've you know ever see some iteration but you know yeah they're
both very good yeah there's nothing about them there's no features that
people are saying man I wish it did this I wish it did that yeah there used to be
that sort of you know back in the old days when you had Apple and Microsoft
competing to one-up each other with the operating system and then for a while it
was iOS and Android competing in one up up each other and I'm not seeing that
now it's like they're roughly you know you pick your poison pick the one you
want the ecosystem you like and you're gonna be pretty much fine in either one
and so you know so Apple came out with its notch to do more of a screen and
have Samson's gonna have a hole punch and you know so in it's a mess in the
terms of there's no clear direction as to what's next right the next iPhone is
gonna look like this iPhone yeah because where are they going
everyone's waiting for someone to you know knock down the door with this with
this great design maybe folding is it I don't know but without you know that
direction even the iPhone was obvious yeah I mean Steve Jobs is the person who
put it all together but we saw where it was going we could see kind of an idea
of where you know get rid of the keyboard on the smarter we saw it the
next step did there's really nothing there maybe it's those folding Elio legs
I don't know I wonder if it's actually the network and this gets me in doing I
have to I have to do a quick 5te rant here but you know I do wonder if the
next thing that's gonna spur you know upgrades and adoptions will be the movie
or 5g which is still several yeah at least a couple and even more although
and this is part of the forehand the fact that AT&T is now billing you know
it's old network is 5ge what's slightly new slut well slightly
newer all they're doing is taking advantage of the of the radios and the
in the phones to tweak the bandwidth a little bit see and get a little bit
faster downloads and uploads by getting 5g it's probably 40 megabits per second
yeah I think that's exactly yeah yeah which you know you might notice it a
little bit but I mean so I think 18 T is stepping in it here because if they're
telling people this is 5g and this is the next thing that's coming and we've
all you know anybody paying attention is heard 5g and you Dan but bandwidth and
you know smart networks and everything and they get this it's like what's new I
you know they have they run the risk of popping the balloon before to even get
somebody its ek5 GE and listen man Sam exciting fuck
did this four years ago and they got dragged for it and then we're doing it
again you know I get I guess it's a marketing tool and I guess it works I
don't know but I agree it was disappointing
when I started seeing an Android phone now it's showing up on some of the I
guess if you're in the right network or in the right area getting the right cell
tower you'll get it with iOS 12 so I can listen it is faster
and it is better but it's it's lte-advanced yeah which is what Verizon
costs it's okay it's not 5g light at all not even even close no such thing as 5
G's you're either 5g or you're not you can
it be halfway fifth-generation anyway so but it's it's it's kind of duplicitous
mostly because you cannot get 5g on these phones it's available you have to
buy a new phone right once it is available yes you you can't flip a
switch on the iPhone 10 s and get 5g service it's not gonna happen no all
right well I'd you're planning to go to MWC this year alright so we'll have to
revisit this in a few weeks and because I'm sure they'll talk about 5g based on
like in boxes here all gonna be fine is all 5g well ask him about 5ge okay well
great listen that that does sort of you know calm my nerves I do feel like I
know that the where the smartphone market is going and maybe we have
reached peak smartphone for now our iPhone sales gonna get an rebounds
that's the best approach that's I think they might plateau I mean look at what
happened as the iPad and we'll we'll know in a few quarters but I mean I I
mean I'm happy now with my iPhone 10's max sure 10s max is that yeah thanks um
because I'm one of the the I wanted the big form factor otherwise I would have
stayed with my iPhone 10 yeah I mean in terms of what it does so we'll see you
know maybe this will be the first year I don't upgrade and if you look at Apple
sales Mac sales were up iPad sales yeah wearables whale yep revenue because they
don't tell us sales anymore but all those categories were up yeah it's just
I phone sales is such it's such a monster if it drags down I mean it what
five billion dollars they lost because China was a and we do have recession you
know there's some talk about a recession could be affecting it too alright so
we'll leave it there for now and check check back with you you know in a few
weeks and see what's what's coming in a vm WC and whether you've got any more
insights but for now thanks for the insights here that's a wrap