How many Samsung devices are on the latest version of their respective operating systems?
Many consumers don’t know or care that they’re buying an outdated version of Android, but that ignorance will not last forever. Samsung needs to solve the fragmentation problem if they expect this kind of success to be long-term.
or 
…finally.
or Mat Honan, writing at Wired’s Gadget Lab blog:
It is an amazing triumph of technology that gets better and better, year after year, and yet somehow is every bit as exciting as a 25 mph drive through a sensible neighborhood at a reasonable time of day.
I am still waiting for Verizon to push Jelly Bean to my Galaxy Nexus. Meanwhile, the damn thing throws a force-close dialogue every couple of hours, stutters whenever I try to switch between apps, and occasionally reboots itself just for fun.
My fiancée has had an iPhone 4 for a little over a year, so I’ve had a lot of time to sit on the couch late at night and compare the two phones (like the unashamed geek one has to be to do such things…). The verdict is clear, quick, and simple: go Android for customization and Gmail (a far bigger point in Android’s favor than non-Gmail users might imagine…) but go iPhone for stability and app availability.
That has been the state of things for some time, and it’s no different with the introduction of the iPhone 5, iOS 6, or Android Jelly Bean.
Maybe it’s because I’m 29 this year, but my desire to customize the hell out of my phone is fading fast, especially at the high cost of stability. I’ll always keep an Android phone or two around for playing with custom ROMs, but I need something more refined for my primary phone.
Also, I’ve found on other Android devices that the four-inch display is my preference. The older iPhone displays were too small, and the Galaxy Nexus, at 4.6 inches, is a bit too large. Some people are complaining that iPhone 5 looks the same, just as the 4S looked the same. But it doesn’t: it has a bigger display and a thinner depth, without sacrificing anything in the spec department. That’s change enough for me.
Honan nailed it: iPhone 5 is great and it’s whatever. But it’s stable, app-rich, uniformly-updated whatever. And unless my first experience with it in a store or from a friend’s unit is surprisingly negative, it’s what I’m getting the next time I need a new phone.
Indian mobile tech blogger Clinton Jeff of Unleash the Phones, talking to The Next Web’s Brad McCarty:
We got a call from Samsung India saying ‘You can either be a part of this and wear the uniform, or you’ll have to get your own tickets back home and handle your hotel stay from the moment this call ends…
Samsung released a statement calling the debacle a “misunderstanding” but only apologized to Mr. Jeff in the privately-emailed version of the statement. They said:
I would like to reach out to you and deeply apologize to you for your experience in Berlin at IFA. We put you through undue hardship and we are trying to rectify the situation.
Samsung’s behavior is inexcusable, and even worse for the lack of a public apology.
Ian Sherr, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
In cross-examination, Mr. Forstall said Eddy Cue, now head of Apple’s Internet services efforts, had used a 7-inch Samsung tablet for a time, and sent an email to Chief Executive Tim Cook that he believed “there will be a 7-inch market and we should do one.”
While the rumor mill is still citing anonymous sources, this quote, for me, seals the deal. If Apple thinks there is a market (and at least one of its high-ranking executives does), and Apple thinks it can dominate that market (and they already dominate the ~10 inch tablet market), Apple will enter that market.
