[delllapssuck]

Beautiful.

For Apple, it's all about controlling the minds of consumers. And controlling their access to information about the devices.

For Samsung, it's less about that and more about plain old lack of interoperability: proprietary plugs, crappy Windows proprietary "install" software that was written hastily, and other little annoyances, stuff that will only work with Samsung. Like every other Asian manufacturer for as long as I can remember. (But at least companies like Samsung make SSD's and other components that can be used in any device. They keep companies like Apple afloat. Can Apple make its own components? Not as cost-effectively as Samsung.)

The result is always the same: the consumer overpays for these cheap electronics and gets next to zero customer service. It's "take it or leave it".

Showing a random Starbucks customer OSX in a virtual machine? Priceless.

If they only knew what their iPhones, iPads, "iOS" and "OSX" were really made of. They might never care. But they do care about overpaying.

[nachteilig]

How can you claim to say what it's all about for Apple? You are very far out of bounds to claim it's about controlling something. From my perspective it's about making devices that offer a good experience, and from their current earnings I'd say that consumers believe it to be a fair price for that experience.

[MaysonL]

But they do care about overpaying.

But they keep coming back to Starbucks, and they buy subsidised cellphones, with two-year plans.

And they think they care about overpaying.

[delllapssuck]

One word: choice.

Starbucks has forced other coffee shops (assuming there were any- in many cities they wasn't anything comparable to Starbucks in recent times) out of the picture. Are Starbucks customers faced with an abundance of choice of which coffee shop to visit? Or is Starbucks front and center, the "default choice"?

Maybe things have changed but in the past there were no unsubsidised cellphones available to US customers. Are US consumers wanting a cellphone now having to decide whether to buy a subsidised (locked) or unsubsidised cellphone? Maybe things are changing.

In many other countries the phones are not locked.

Choice.

When someone in the US goes to buy a touchscreen tablet, how much choice of other alternatives will they have?

[taligent]

Well this is odd.

You do know that other companies beside Samsung make components and thinking that Samsung is keeping Apple afloat is pure and utter delusion.

[delllapssuck]

Yes, I know that. Samsung is one company among many. For example, in the first iPods (which kicked off this insane run Apple is having), they relied on Toshiba for the drives.

I also know that thinking Apple would be able to stay afloat if they did not use manufacturers in Asia, such as Samsung, is "utter delusion". Is that what you're suggesting?