Samsung benefited from Korean Government’s (Ministry of Knowledge Economy) Industrial Policy component: Iphone sales were delayed in Korea for over two years, to ensure market share swath available to Samsung there, to help pay for the cost of developing the Galaxy S.

Apple nonetheless did enjoy a nine month head start, nonetheless and quickly sold about one million iphones in Korea before the Galaxy S came out. Had Apple been allowed to enter the Korean market two years earlier, the local marketed would have been saturated with the Apple iphone.

The Galaxy S is a fine phone. It has a good screen and is very light weight – it feels almost cheap and flimsy in the hand. Not every one can own an Apple product and the competition is good, even for iphone uses as it helps impel apple forward. Having said all that, if I am not buying an iphone, I’m probably buying the HTC EVO or Motorola Droid X simply because they have gigantic screens and the EVO is 4g.

I’m hoping that smart phones propel a new round of productivity gains that will ultimately end the great recession. So I’m glad that android phones exist. I hope they leave little market share left over for windows. They do so, I think, because android so closely duplicates the look, feel and functionality of the iPhone. Again, a good thing. At the end of the day, every one wants to own an Iphone… which is why they bought an android phone… functionally, android phones are a cheap knockoff of the iphone.

Samsung would never have achieved the Galaxy S if Apple hadn’t first created the iphone and google hadn’t secondly created android with an eye for duplicating the iphone functionality and thirdly if the Korean government hadn’t provided Samsung with a semi-protected home market to help pay for the development of the Galaxy S.

Still wondering why no one builds an android touch.

I own an HTC Desire. I could have gotten an iPhone4–it’s on the same carrier and costs the same. But I like having hardware back and menu buttons and being able to attach my phone to a PC like a hard drive (no iTunes!) and tether with it. The browser is better than the iPhone’s (not even considering Flash–the text flows properly and it’s faster) and the keyboard is MUCH better (I use Swype). I also like having active widgets and the lack of annoying animations. The screen is brighter than an iPhone4 and nearly as sharp. And the multitasking is better and more flexible.

In short, I *chose* not to buy an iPhone4, because the HTC was better in almost every way. And I’d do it again. I’d choose a Galaxy S over an iPhone too.

Apple snobs always think that Android users would get an iPhone if not for carrier or company issues. News Flash–the iPhone is no longer the best smartphone is many different ways. It’s still not a bad choice. But if you want a big screen, a physical keyboard, sideloading of third-party apps, and general flexibility to use it your way (instead of Steve’s way, than Android is often the better option.

Of course, Apple still sells a pile of iPhones to the sheep. But they have some real competition now, and their market share will only go down from now on. Live with it.

@Geoff K

Trollin’ trollin’ trollin’ keep those doggies rollin’

How come everything you post here has to be an insult, Geoff? Somebody drop you as a baby?

The Galaxy S is a fine phone. It has a good screen and is very light weight – it feels almost cheap and flimsy in the hand. Not every one can own an Apple product and the competition is good, even for iphone uses as it helps impel apple forward. Having said all that, if I am not buying an iphone, I’m probably buying the HTC EVO or Motorola Droid X simply because they have gigantic screens and the EVO is 4g.
Sounds good. It looks like the market is catching up. The first competitors to the iPhone that I saw really came across as shoddy–they were difficult to use by touch, swipes would not be recognized, you might have to try a gesture two or three times to get it right, and screen sensitivity was low. On top of that, many of the operating systems were difficult to navigate and din’t always look very good.

However, the market is catching up. A student showed me his smartphone the other day, expecting me to get all indignant about it not being an iphone, but frankly, I was impressed–it didn’t feel like all the other smartphones I had been shown before. This one (unfortunately, I was in too much a rush to ask the model) was very responsive, seemed easy to use, and had a good UI. The time is coming when the iPhone will really have to excel to make sure it isn’t swamped. Having name recognition is of course good, and the iPhone 4’s avalanche of new features helps as well. But I can see Apple leveling out and perhaps falling in market share if they dared to rest on their laurels. Which they tend not to do.

Interestingly, this student stated as a great preference the existence of physical buttons along the bottom to do things like call up preferences and so forth. I still do not understand this preference. I know it exists, and I get it to a certain degree… but the whole idea of a touch screen is the replace physical buttons. There is no reason whatsoever that the same buttons could not be part of the screen. There are at least two advantages to virtual buttons, in fact: first, the buttons can get out of the way when their functions are not available to make room for other things, and second, to reduce the number of moving parts so that there is less chance of malfunction. Ideally, a device with the least number of physical buttons is the best design. That is, of course, also a subjective preference for many, but functionally, there’s really no question.

I’m hoping that smart phones propel a new round of productivity gains that will ultimately end the great recession.
It is certainly a part of the equation. Added value to existing products.

Samsung would never have achieved the Galaxy S if Apple hadn’t first created the iphone…
This is kind of an important point for all those who would slam the iphone–like it or not, without the iPhone, you wouldn’t have your Android or Windows 7 phone right now. You’d probably be suffering with your Windows Mobile 6-type phone OS, or one of the even worse options out there. We tend to forget that before the iPhone, cell phones were generally very difficult to use and very poorly designed. This does not mean that all must bow before the great and powerful iPhone, but still, credit where credit is due.

In the end, it’s mostly a matter of what appeals to you. I like the iPhone, you like Android, he loves Windows 7 Phone… if we’re all happy, that in the end is what matters.

Geog K: Not content to just troll politics, but technology too? Or, do you think the Iphone is an indicator of party identification?

Actually, I don’t mind the technology trolling as much as the political trolling.

It is harder to lie and be in denial about technology.

Republicans are generally in denial of the entire field of Macroeconomics (and closed systems) and the very existence of Demand Side bias policies and the cases where they would be legitimate (because in order to do that you had to understand Macroeconomics and closed systems of economics).

It’s as if Republicans have never played through a game of Monopoly.

Maybe that’s the total difference between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats have all played through a game of Monopoly, and thus have an intrinsic understanding of closed economic systems and what happens in them when wealth is aggregated, concentrated, then sequestered at the top. (Hint: epic collapse of the commercial economy, and then a little later, the entire political civic system).