Commodity software, commodity hardware.<p>Apple have always had low volumes and fat margins built into their business model. For many years, Apple have represented about 5% of the PC market by volume but about 50% by profits. Only by locking down the entire stack can they achieve this; If you want OSX or iOS, you have to buy Apple hardware. They sell a strongly differentiated luxury product at a premium price and reap the rewards.<p>The Android handset market is simply following the same market forces that have shaped the PC hardware market. Acer and Asus entered the PC market at the bottom and applied relentless margin pressure on the existing players. Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo are doing the same to the smartphone market. Bad news for the established manufacturers, but great news for the consumer.<p>The Android market is a wonderland of good handsets at silly prices thanks to Rockchip, Mediatek and the white box brigade. Google are seeking to commoditise the market even further with Android One, by creating a mass-market of handsets with near identical specs for consumers in newly industrialised countries.<p>I'm reminded of Société Bic, a company I deeply admire. They took expensive consumer durables (cigarette lighters, fountain pens, safety razors) and figured out how to churn them out in plastic for pennies a piece. They made these products into utterly unremarkable commodity items, and in doing so made them accessible to the very poorest.<p>Within a decade or two, I fully expect there to be a powerful internet-connected computer in the pocket of every man, woman and child on earth. That is a triumph of engineering, a beacon of hope for humanity, and an opportunity for software developers that will make the dot-com boom look like a yard sale by comparison.
This isn't an Android problem, it's an industry problem. Just like Samsung, Apple relies on a huge amount of marketing to push its phones, and at some point that's going to outweigh its profits.<p>But it's a problem only for the manufacturers, and it's the same problem as many industries - commoditization. Smartphones are becoming a commodity, just like everything, and they'll be made cheaply in volume by no-name manufacturers with razor-thin margins. Which is great for customers!
This editorialized article reads like it was written by a Apple appologist. I highly doubt that the iPhone 6 will single handedly cause the demise of the Android platform.