When it comes to Android handsets, Samsung rules the roost, selling the most hardware. In fact, Samsung is the market leader among smartphones, except for one little thing. No single model line outsells the iPhone, not even the Galaxy. Apple maintains the leadership not only in profits from mobile hardware, but in model-to-model units sold.

The iPhone’s leadership in the area of the market where it counts — where most of the money is made — continues to freak out Apple’s critics. Every new Samsung handset is regarded as the potential iPhone killer. In fact, one overwrought blogger for a major publication suggested that Apple was actually trying to build a Samsung killer.

Now even though Android has an overwhelming share of the marketplace, with an emphasis on cheaper gear, Google doesn’t earn money from OS licensing. Android is given away free. Google’s earnings are via ad clicks and their cut of Google Play app sales. But the sum total from the latter is still less than what Google earns from its search business.

Over the years, Google has taken stabs at hardware, beginning in 2010 with the Nexus One. The Nexus smartphones were meant to provide the pure Android experience, with no changes or gear stuffed with useless junkware in the spirit of many Windows PCs. That meant that you should be able to get regular Android updates, quite unlike other gear, where the chances of actually seeing an update, even a critical security or performance fix, were slim to none.

But it’s not that Google built a manufacturing facility to make this gear. They simply had one of their Android partners, such as HTC, build the products.

While Nexus handsets got plenty of coverage, particularly in tune with a new Android release, sales were nothing to shout about. Distribution of the new gear was limited. Google stopped short of actively competing with its partners on a global scale.

Clearly Google wanted to get more involved in the hardware business, so in 2011, the company announced its largest acquisition ever, spending some $12.5 billion to buy up Motorola Mobility. The purchase included Motorola’s mobile handset and set-top box businesses, along with loads of patents.

Only it didn’t work out so well. By 2014, Google unloaded the division for $2.9 billion to Lenovo. They evidently held onto the patents, however.

That year, Microsoft, ignoring Google’s unfortunate experience, decided to make a similar move, buying Nokia’s handset division for $7.9 billion in one of former CEO Steve Ballmer’s final major decisions. Since Nokia was the main supplier of Windows Phone handsets under the Lumia brand, I suppose this seemed to make sense at the time.

Well, Microsoft didn’t wait long to admit failure. With the Windows mobile gear holding just 3% of the market, Microsoft wrote off $7.6 billion of the Nokia purchase the following year, beginning a process where the company phased down its mobile operations. Yes there are still Lumia handsets for sale. Few care.

I just wonder what IDC thought about Microsoft’s failure to grab a significant share of the mobile marketplace, considering they predicted Windows Phone would be second to Android in 2015.

So what did Google do with its mobile handsets?

In 2016, evidently admitting that Nexus smartphones didn’t make much of a dent in the market, they tried again. First introduced in 2016, the new gear was known as Pixel, Phone by Google. Again, they offered the promise of the pure Android experience.

Did giving Nexus a shave and haircut make a difference? Probably not, although the gear, as with the Nexus handsets, received decent reviews. But limited availability again hurt its chances to challenge Samsung, which some suggested may have been the ultimate goal. As with some Nexus gear, the Pixel was also built by HTC.

Now with the failed purchase of Motorola Mobility by Google and Nokia’s handset division by Microsoft, I would think Google would have learned the folly of getting involved in the manufacturing business. These are two notorious examples that resulted in billions of dollars of losses.

And we all remember the “classic” definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well, don’t take that seriously, but you see the point.

So what is Google’s next move? Well, for $1.1 billion, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has decided to buy people rather than manufacturing facilities. So for that figure, some 2,000 engineers and designers from HTC will join Google, which means they will work strictly on Pixel hardware and whatever else they choose to design. I suppose that means HTC will still build the gear.

Honestly, I’m not completely sure what Google is hoping to accomplish, other than to have a large in-house staff to work exclusively on its mobile gear, rather than contracting those tasks to outside firms. It will certainly ensure loyalty if nothing else.

But it is fair to say that, even when you don’t consider the ongoing Google connection, HTC hasn’t made much of a dent in the smartphone space. Sure, the products get good reviews and all, but it’s not that Samsung has anything to worry about.

Will this investment, which is to go halfway on acquiring a manufacturer, make a difference? It just seems to be a variation on a theme and not much more. Hasn’t Google learned yet that maybe, just maybe, it’s not fated to become a major mobile handset manufacturer?

At least the price isn’t terribly high, which means that if this experiment also fails, it will be a trivial matter to give those people their walking papers and move on. These new Google employees shouldn’t expect much in the way of job security, but I would hope they at least got sizable raises from this transaction.

Are you ready yet? The iPhone X will arrive in a few weeks, and Apple is doomed to suffer for its ill-advised decision to build an expensive smartphone. What self-respecting company would dare engage in such foolishness. It has to be doomed to disaster.

According to one column from a usual suspect among tech pundits, the existence of an iPhone X must do harm to expected sales of the iPhone 8 series. You see, instead of buying the cheaper smartphone, people will buy the more expensive one, thus giving Apple higher profits. That’s supposed to be a bad thing?

That the iPhone 8 came out earlier supposedly caused a dilemma based on the lack of information on sales for the first weekend. This is allegedly a significant issue, since Apple has traditionally done that, so is it possible there was no “passion” for the cheaper iPhones? They are, after all, just ho-hum products with “little more than some updated chips and hand-me down tech from the iPhone X.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

Well, evidently the fact that all the new iPhones have the same processors and other internal components. Well, except for the OLED display and the Face ID hardware that’s exclusive to the iPhone X. But you get most of the rest on the lesser models which, one would think, ought to make them good values. You can get great tech and not pay the highest price.

So what about that weekend sales dilemma? Well, Apple didn’t do that last year either, and the critics were equally alarmed. Maybe customers were holding off for the year in expectation of a far superior iPhone 8 this year. As you recall, what became the iPhone X was previously known as the iPhone 8, at least when it wasn’t identified as the iPhone Edition.

Despite that perceived lack of enthusiasm, Apple did sell more copies of the iPhone 7 than the iPhone 6s. Maybe not a lot more, but more nonetheless at a time when people expected iPhone sales to continue to fall.

Unfortunately, certain pundits must be unaware of the fact, by having a wider selection of gear, by giving customers more choices, sales might actually increase. Most people will not spring for the iPhone X for reasons of cost and other considerations. Enough probably will do so to noticeably impact total sales. The rest will buy an iPhone 8 or a legacy model. Based on the usual customer surveys from Apple, they will be quite satisfied with whatever they buy.

Will some have iPhone X envy if they can’t afford the price of admission? Well, I suppose that’s true with any product perceived as high-end, such as an OLED TV set, a luxury watch or a luxury automobile. But that isn’t going to paralyze their credit cards. They will buy what they want regardless what a tech pundit tells them.

And certainly people aren’t inclined to base their purchase decisions based on what I write. Well, maybe some do, but I can only applaud their wisdom. Or something like that.

Now when you read blogs expressing such skepticism about Apple’s moves, wouldn’t it be fair to consider how other companies are treated?

So Samsung released the Galaxy S8 smartphones for sale in late April in the U.S. The pricier Galaxy Note 8 went on sale about four months later. I suppose you could, in a sense, roughly compare the product positioning of the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy Note 8 as similar to the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, even though the release dates for the latter are much closer.

Are pundits complaining that Samsung made a foolish decision to separate the release dates of these two product lines? Does the existence of the Galaxy Note 8, which lists for $960 with 64GB storage, threaten the existence of cheaper gear? Does anyone even ask that question, or even care?

And just for comparison, the 64GB iPhone X is $999, just $39 more than the top-of-the-line Samsung with which it is being compared. On a 24-month lease, the price difference isn’t significant. On T-Mobile, you’ll pay $30 per month for high-end gear with different down payments on its JUMP plan, if you have good credit. It’s $210 for the Galaxy Note 8, and I presume it would be roughly in the same range for the iPhone X. The differences in up front payments don’t seem to precisely track the retail prices except in an approximate sense.

Unfortunately, some of the people who write those blogs seem to believe that Apple is run by a bunch of fools that have no concept of marketing and maximizing sales. So they need to be told how to run the company, and certainly someone who carries the title of industry or financial analyst has the authority to tell them what to do and how to do it.

I will not pretend to guess how iPhone sales will fare based on the new models. The impact of the iPhone 8 to September’s quarterly totals will not be revealed until late October. If Apple correctly figured demand between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, there will be plenty to go around without long waits. As it stands, Apple is quoting 1-3 business days delivery on all the new gear I checked. It is expected that the iPhone X may be seriously backordered, based on published reports of production delays.

But that might not even be true. There might just be plenty of product to meet demand, which is the best situation as we get closer to the holidays. All that will mean is that Apple’s best guesses about supplies and demand are accurate and the production lines will be humming along. Nothing more, nothing less. You will be able to visit your favorite mobile handset dealer and get what you want without a long wait. Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?

The entertainment industry has given us one thing, and sort of taken away something else, and it all begins with the fifth generation Apple TV, which adds 4K and HDR as its main new features.

So as the new set-top box shipped, Apple announced an important change to the iTunes movie rental policy in the U.S. So up till now, you had 30 days to start watching the movie. So far so good, but once you began, it would self destruct in 24 hours. If you weren’t finished, that’s too bad; just rent it again.

That was not a policy set by Apple to inconvenience their customers. It was clearly enforced by a greedy and paranoid movie industry that didn’t recognize reality. There may be many reasons why someone can’t finish a movie. Whether a family matter or something else interrupts the process, it doesn’t matter. Did the industry really believe that people will happily rent a movie a second time without protest?

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The length and breadth of fear mongering about Apple knows no bounds. So on one day they are telling you that you shouldn’t even dream of buying the iPhone X because it is a new, untested product. Things might go wrong, Face ID might flake out and recognize canines instead of humans, so you’ll be stuck.

Well, maybe not, because you could always login in with your passcode, same as you do after the unit restarts.

I suppose you could cite the iPhone 5s and Touch ID as an example of being a tad glitchy. In those days, it was a little slower to react, and some people reported that it would become less sensitive over time. I recall having to recalibrate the unit every few weeks or so to more accurately detect my fingerprints. But iOS updates helped address most of the issues.

So if Face ID has some problems, I’m sure Apple will be quick to fix them. But remember, they have worked on this technology for several years. It wasn’t something tossed in at the last minute, as some online pundits have claimed, because Apple couldn’t embed Touch ID beneath the edge-to-edge OLED display.

Indeed, one Macworld writer demands that Apple must bring back Touch ID, if only as an alternative.

In all fairness, there’s nothing wrong with people waiting for a version two product. Besides, why pay extra for the iPhone X when you can buy the regular iPhone 8 series for lower prices and get the same level of performance and most of the features?

All right, some reviewers regard the iPhone 8 as dull, although the level of changes is similar to other incremental updates from Apple.

On the other hand, some of those online commentators are thus suggesting that you set Apple’s mainstream iPhones aside and buy the iPhone X when it ships. Say anything to reduce sales.

All right, you may have to wait for a while. Although it’s supposed to be released on November 3rd, few doubt that supplies will be short. It doesn’t matter if those ongoing rumors about production hangups are true or not. The iPhone X has been in the publicity hopper since last year. There’s lots of demand for it, and tens of millions are no doubt prepared to pay upwards of $999 for one. It helps if your carrier or dealer can set up a payment plan, or you can just put it on your credit card and manage the balance with your monthly payment.

One article begins by questioning the “split release” of the two iPhone lines, but the reasons are too obvious to waste much space about. It wasn’t a marketing decision, and if Apple could have 20 or 30 million copies of the iPhone X on hand for a September delivery date, you can bet they would have shipped them now instead of later. It’s obviously not being hoarded for later release for some insane marketing reasons that will only end up depriving Apple of potential income.

Do I have to say more?

That said, I’ve not seen any suggestions as to whether Apple plans to release preliminary iPhone 8 sales figures come Monday for its first weekend of availability. The prevalent claim is that there will be plenty of inventory in stock, and you’ll have no problem finding the configuration you want. It won’t be a recurrence of the situation that prevailed last year when there was far more demand for the iPhone 7 Plus than Apple expected, and thus it took weeks for supplies to catch up.

The real question is how many people will forego a cheaper iPhone to buy the more expensive model. As I said, most of what you’ll have with the iPhone X is on the iPhone 8. You won’t get an edge-to-edge OLED display with virtually unlimited viewing angles. You won’t get a large screen smartphone in a smaller case for easier carrying, and you won’t have Face ID.

Whatever the iPhone 7 did, the iPhone 8 will probably do it better to varying degrees. But if you own an iPhone 7, it may not even make sense to upgrade, but that’s usually true for annual product refreshes of this sort. Two years is fine.

But the iPhone X will provide an opportunity for Apple to experiment with the new technologies, and it’s very possible next year’s iPhones will all sport OLEDs and Face ID, with or without edge-to-edge configurations. It’s possible that, as Apple makes production more efficient, and OLED is still difficult to manufacture, prices will come down to something more comparable to “lesser” iPhones.

In the meantime, the usual Apple critics will simply state that other smartphone makers had most or all of the iPhone’s features a year or two earlier. So Apple is just playing catch up.

But how many of those products had a facial recognition scheme that couldn’t be defeated with a digital photograph? It wouldn’t be the first time that Apple has waited to perfect or nearly perfect a new technology before installing it on a new product.

Remember that the Apple Watch Series 3 is not the first smartwatch to have LTE capability, but how many of those other gadgets are worth more than two seconds of your attention?