Counterpoint Research's analysis shows that at its peak in 2017, there were more than 700 smartphone brands contributing to the 1.5 billion units sold annually. In 2023,...
    • genoxidedev1@kbin.social
      40·
      1 year ago

      With all the shitbrands on amazon and similar sites I was only half surprised but still 100% more surprised than I should have been.

    • erwan@lemmy.mlEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      Most of them were not real manufacturers, but slapping their name on Chinese white brand phones.

    • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      91·
      1 year ago

      The movement for free and open source software has not achieved a world in which most people use only FOSS. But it has achieved a world where there is a lot of diversity in technology, including many Android smartphone brands you haven’t heard of.

    • toddestan@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      Maybe they are counting all the times Microsoft launched a new brand of phone and then unceremoniously killed off about 6 months later?

  • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    50·
    1 year ago

    Smartphones have reached a maturity level where upgrades aren’t really exciting. Sure there are the usual hardware power upgrades (and even those don’t really open up new applications), but in terms of features they’re not coming out with anything really novel. Last thing I could think of is bringing back folding which I do find appealing, but not for the cost or the reliability issues.

    • locuester@lemmy.zipEnglish
      102·
      1 year ago

      One of them has to do 3d camera sooner than later. It’s so close… just need another camera at the bottom back of the phone.

      • Jumpinship@lemmy.worldEnglish
        101·
        1 year ago

        This has been tried and I’ve tried one out back in android KitKat days. Glassless display and all. HTC phone. They’re now bankrupt. The battery lasted a few seconds, and the display was not amazing, and even if done better today it’s a gimmic at best

      • hark@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        The problem with 3D pictures is needing something to view them on. I’ve heard of one phone from maybe a decade ago that had a full 3D display that could be viewed from a wide range of angles, but it cost way too much and heavily sacrificed display resolution. Without widespread adoption, it’s doomed to be mostly a gimmick. Some would argue that it’ll always be a gimmick, but I think if it was widespread it’d basically be like high resolution i.e. an enhanced way of looking at content. Maybe not mindblowing after you’re used to it, but worthwhile if it can be done without sacrificing too much.

  • csm10495@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    I want a phone with a built in projector… and a bigger battery… and something else I haven’t thought of yet.

    I miss new features and innovation.

    Since we have neither, give me modularization to let me have ^

    • potoo22@programming.devEnglish
      12·
      1 year ago

      Phone makers: hmm this isn’t selling. Guess we’ll only make phones that look like and do the exact same things as every other phone.

      • MMNT@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I hate that Google killed that project. Haken’s block phone is still a great concept that is now used for Framework laptops. I hope thats someone can start doing that for mobiles. Fairphone is OK, but still far from Haken’s idea.

    • RedBauble@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      1 year ago

      That was the Motorola Moto Z series for ya, had pins on the back for modules to be attached. Some modules were a battery pack, jbl speaker, a projector, and even a little printer to have the phone work like a polaroid

      • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I was just wiping my Force 2 the other day to install an unlocked OS and was impressed how much battery life that clip on pack gives it.

        Without it the Force 2 was the slimmest phone on the market and with the pack on it just feels normal. Yet I can get like three days out of it, and I bought it in 2017.

      • negativeyoda@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Also the LGG5 to a lesser extent. I had a chin module that acted as an extra battery and fine control for the camera.

  • applejacks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5026·
    1 year ago

    We are heading towards a future of Apple, Samsung, and Google, with even the latter two struggling to stay afloat.

    And to be fair, Google deserves a lot of the blame for this happening.

    • seaneoo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      691·
      1 year ago

      How is Samsung struggling to stay afloat? Samsung has had the largest global market share for years.

        • mayonaise_met@feddit.nlEnglish
          301·
          1 year ago

          And are under the impression that what’s going on in the US is going on worldwide. Apple is doing fine worldwide, but isn’t nearly as dominant as in the US.

          • datelmd5sum@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Yeah if you forget your iphone cable here, you’re going to have to go buy another one since you’re probably the only person you know that has an iphone.

      • HaKeNdoR@lemmy.worldEnglish
        182·
        1 year ago

        Yes. But I think most importantly, Samsung can spin out budget phones and actually sell it. No one’s buying cheap Apple product. Currently mostly it is a status symbol… as most-if-not-all high end phones. Don’t get me wrong, great devices but we all know what kind of personalities mostly go for Apple stuff.

        • darth_helmet@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          42·
          1 year ago

          I pretty much go for the se models when they have them, and buy every 4-5 generations. Most people want a device that works, and most smart people want a device that’s going to get more than a couple years of software support. So Apple.

          • HaKeNdoR@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Google should have just spread Android features to 2, 3 years instead of as soon as possible, to match feature set of iOS. Then most Android would be getting easy 10 years of support. But then again most Android phone manufacturers selling a device, Apple is selling services and side products. Giving the die size of A16 SOC and quality hardware, Apple probably giving you their phones at cost and keeping them up to date so you can buy their other products.

            • darth_helmet@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Apple is making a profit on every piece of hardware, make no mistake. But that’s only possible because of their scale and focus, which is hard for competitors to compensate for. They literally bought all the 3nm chips for the next year.

    • ramble81@lemm.eeEnglish
      553·
      1 year ago

      Tell me you only live in an American bubble without telling me you live in an American bubble.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.worldEnglish
      241·
      1 year ago

      I’d doubt Samsung will be struggling to stay afloat. They’re so diversified they could pick one of their departments to throw money at and just run at a loss in perpetuity, if they felt like it. Apple makes phones, computers, and phone and computers accessories.

      Samsung makes phones and computers. And appliances. And chips. And container ships.

    • 💡dim@lemmy.worldEnglish
      192·
      1 year ago

      Huawei and Honor can both survive purely on domestic sales before you even worry about ROW.

      No idea why you think there are only three brands, or why you think the US is the only market that matters (it’s fairly obvious you are US based)

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      Absolutely nothing good came from them ending the Nexus program. I LOVED all the variety in Nexus. The Pixel phones are just shitty iPhone clones with barely better features.

      • GopherOwl@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t even say better features. This will be my last Pixel. I’m tired of Google just not maintaining their products at all.

  • doublejay1999@lemmy.worldEnglish
    243·
    1 year ago

    apple & china robbed us of so much, if you’re a gadget guy.

    i had sony phones, laptops, palm pilots, panasonic bit and bobs.

    i get that technology has advanced infinitely in the last 20 years, but we are on a very narrow path at the moment.

    • elucubra@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Sony still makes phones, some super high end, bur their marketing sucks balls

      • HollandJim@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        As did their support - I had a p800 and p910, and while they looked cool, they were really not great compared to my original iPhone. Everyone here can romanticize all they want, but leaving symbian for ios was like a revelation; I can still remember the wonderment.

        Its so cool to be contrary and hate the successful thing now, but nothing was “stolen”. You always had choice. Its not what was chosen though - that how evolution works.

      • PM_ME_FEET_PICS@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Sony is the only company right now that has a flagship phone with great camera, removable battery, all the holes and comes in smaller sizing.

    • Pratai@lemmy.caEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      Yeah…and google had nothing to do with that. It was ALL Apple & China.

  • EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    I didn’t even know there were that many.

    I’ve been using motorolla android phones for like…16 years now.

    I just remembered! I got a samsung recently.

    • Spaniard@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Motorola phones for me and my family, they are reliable and work. At work they give me Samsung phones I guess that knox things sells to companies.

          • eumesmo@lemmings.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Its a bit funny how I find that model to be too big. People like me have definitely been abandoned from the market.

            But thanks for the recommendation. I ended up grabbing an older model that still works as a low end phone, but I wonder for how long I will be able to use older phones…

            • tryagain@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              It’s definitely larger than I’d like but damned if the manufacturers haven’t heard our demands and realised that, once again, compactness is a premium feature. You can get an itty bitty iPhone or S23 but fuck all in the mid range. Thanks again, The Market!

      • BitingChaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Moto?

        Motorola lost my business when they sold me a phone and then provided a grand total of ONE OS upgrade its entire life (Moto G LTE, shipped with an outdated 4.4 build, and then got a single update to 5.1 before being abandoned forever).

        There is no potential for brand loyalty when the brand themselves tell their own customers to fuck off.

      • willnever_fadeaway@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        No idea why you’re being downvoted but I agree. My non flagship android is more than adequate for my demands of it.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I liked some of them. I still wonder how many were Amazon’s random relabeled crap like AIUEO.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        It clears out companies who fail to complete. There are only so many people willing to buy a phone at a time and too many phones on the market means that the phone companies won’t be able to sell enough phones to stay afloat. This means that the companies who can’t offer a compelling device to consumers will disappear.

        Its similar to natural selection

        • caseyweederman@lemmy.caEnglish
          91·
          1 year ago

          My response got eaten so here’s the gist: big tree gets all the sunlight, and you rejoice when a few saplings choke each other out.

          The entrenched companies don’t need to do anything other than exist in order to eliminate competition. Fewer saplings means less risk of the big tree getting disrupted. That means less innovation.

            • caseyweederman@lemmy.caEnglish
              5·
              1 year ago

              Break up the monopolies and encourage actual competition and innovation instead of this stupid hopeless deadlock.

              • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                I don’t think Tue android phone space is a monopoly. (Not counting Google’s control of course) A monopoly is when a single company is the only one selling a product or service