For me, it’s just the fact that phones… are phones. They all look the same, function the same, there’s just nothing new happening with them.
Sure, chips get better and faster, they’ll add another camera to it and fiddle with the dimensions a bit, but that’s not innovation. All phones look like boring rectangular slabs.
Back in the late 90’s, phones had way more variety and personality. Candybar, flip, even the sidetalkin’ taco that was the Nokia N-Gage. A Motorola Razr looked nothing like say, a Nokia or Sony Ericsson. And those were distinctly different from your Samsung or Mitsubishi phones (Yes, Mitsubishi made phones!).
I’d love it if we went back to more phone variety, but I fear the smartphone has effectively killed every other style. Most people wouldn’t ditch their big screen smartphone to go back to a small flip phone.
It really was the thing everyone latched on to with the N-Gage. I actually still own a first gen model that I bought on release. It was actually pretty decent, both as a phone and the games it played. Of course, it never really took off, but I enjoyed using it.
As for the sidetalking… I bought a headset for it to avoid that :D
I’ve never had a Droid, but loved every other Motorola that I’ve owned. Including the original StarTac and Razr. They made some really nice phones over the years.
It’s certainly more than a bit annoying that THIS is the product that Google keeps alive, while constantly killing other, much more useful products.
I’ve literally never met anyone with a Google Pixel. It’s just not on anyone’s radar when buying a new phone. I’m sure some like it, but it’s not exactly setting the world on fire.
Australia does have some quirks, as many Australians like to point out :D
According to marketshare figures, last year Google had 3 percent marketshare in Australia. IPhone was 43.8 percent, followed by Samsung with 31.8, followed by Oppo (4.5) Lenovo (3.6), HDM (3) and finally: there’s Google with 3 percent.
In the US, iPhone and Samsung have bigger shares and Google is at about 4 percent (was 2 in 2022)
So at least from the statistics, Google isn’t doing particularly well in Australia either. But you certainly might run with a particular group of people who prefer them over other brands. People do like to conform to a group.
It really can depend on where you are. For example, in the US Google had a 4 percent marketshare in 2023. It actually doubled compared to 2022: that was 2 percent.
Buf if you happen to run with a group pf people who go against the grain and buy Pixels, it might very well feel like a dominant brand.
In our company for example, everyone has iPhones. So to me, they appear to have 100 percent marketshare, when reality is closer to 50-60 percent in most markets.
Why I refuse to upgrade - 8 minutes video explaining why it's not that interesting to upgrade phones nowadays (www.youtube.com)
Dutch Defense Minister: Netherlands already shipping drones to Ukraine (kyivindependent.com)
The Netherlands announced on Feb. 14 that it would take part in a coalition led by Latvia to provide Ukraine with advanced military drone technology.
Google's inconsistent Pixel experience makes its phones impossible to recommend (www.androidpolice.com)
We typically like Pixel phones a lot, but we have some reservations about Google’s quality control