Why Flash died

For many years, Flash has been the way to enjoy video on the Internet.  It's low data usage (for video anyway) make it ideal.  One could also create interactive Flash Apps that could be used for games or other functions.

But the fate of the Flash technology was probably sealed back in 2005 when Adobe acquired Macromedia.  Adobe, in my opinion, is one of the greediest and least cooperative companies in the IT world (and that is saying something).  One of the biggest uses of Flash technology came to be intrusive video advertising that would disrupt a web site reader who was simply trying to read an article quietly.  Further, Adobe failed to maintain security and stability standards that created problems for the computer user.

Steve Jobs refused to incorporate flash into IOS, meaning flash could not run on iPhones or iPads.  Apple also stopped bundling Flash with new Macs in 2010, meaning users would have to download it separately.  Apple claimed to be doing this for performance, stability, and security reasons.  You can read Jobs' 2010 memo here.

Technical issues may have been part of the reason, but Jobs had no love for Adobe.  He felt they had screwed him several times in the past.   One was over postscript fonts.  In the 1980's early Apple computers use Adobe's PostScript Fonts.  This gave Apple computers a huge advantage over PCs for anyone who wanted to do desktop publishing.  But Adobe refused to lower licensing fees as the market grew.  This essentially forced it to become a niche product and greatly limited the growth of Apple.

Many years later in the late 1990's Jobs returned to a dying Apple, with a mission to resurrect the company. To do this, he needed to make sure software would be available for all sorts of functions on the new Macs. Jobs believed he had received an assurance from Adobe that it would develop a Mac version of its video editing software.  Then, suddenly, Adobe changed its mind after deciding that the Apple market would never grow big enough.  This greatly upset Jobs who then had to spend a few years developing a decent video editing program in-house.

So by 2010 when Adobe was facing tougher competition and Apple was ascendant again, Jobs was more than happy to find a reason to stick it to Adobe.  Flash made up 75% of all online animation at the time.  People thought Jobs was crazy.  But with HTML5 taking a more prominent role, more animation, video, and interactivity could be done without Flash.  More and more companies have been dumping Flash, as it continues to slump toward irrelevance.  Youtube has stopped using it.  Even the browser Firefox has been trying to eliminate it.

Oddly enough, I will miss Flash.  Don't get me wrong, I have found it quite annoying over the years.  But the big benefit of flash over HTML5 over the past few years was that Flash was a separate plug-in.  That meant that I could choose not to plug it in, or could use a simply flash blocker program to prevent being attacked by flash based ads or other nuisance video.  The move to HTML5 makes it much harder to block these annoying intrusions as they are much more tightly woven into the fabric of the page itself.  As such, I find myself subject to much more annoying ads, videos, and noise when I simply want to read a text article.  I'm sure I will find a way to block this nonsense eventually.  But with the end of Flash, I feel like I am starting my battle against advertisers all over again from scratch.

Samsung Galaxy is Flying off a cliff.

Back in March, I published an earlier post explaining why the Galaxy S6 would be a failure for Samsung.  Three months after the phone's release, it appears that I was right.  Phone sales are down. profits are down.  Some reports are saying Samsung target sales are off by 40%.  Samsung is desperate to push its acceptance and does not seem to understand why it is failing.

Don't get me wrong, the Galaxy S6 is not a bad phone.  It is not bug ridden or defective in any serious way.  But as I wrote in my earlier post, the S6 is essentially trying to be an iPhone clone.  Nothing terribly wrong with trying to be more like the best selling phone on the market.  But if your phone is more expensive than the iPhone, who is going to spend more for an iPhone clone when they can just buy an iPhone?

For many years, the Galaxy line surpassed iPhone because it offered features that the iPhone did not. The most prominent was that the Galaxy offered a much bigger screen.  Apple got the message on that. It came out with a much bigger screen for the iPhone 6 and an even bigger screen with the 6 plus.  As a result, iPhone sales have soared and Galaxy sales plummeted. And no, Samsung cannot respond with an even bigger screen.  At some point, screens get too big.  Both phones seem to be at right about the size most people want.

I recently attended a Samsung event for IT professionals designed to tell us why the Galaxy S6 was a great choice.  They even gave me a free S6 for attending.  That phone has sat on my desk it its box unused.  I have no desire to upgrade from my S5.  In doing so, I will lose my ability to swap out my battery (the S6 battery actually holds a smaller charge than the one that came with the S5).  I lose the ability to add memory using an external chip.  I would also have to upgrade my expensive Mophie Juice Pack cover.

To make the upgrade, what benefit do I get? The most celebrated new feature of the S6 seems to be the metal case over the S5 plastic case.  But I don't care about the case since I put my phone in an external protective case anyway.  I don't even see the Samsung case.  I'm also told the S6 screen has higher quality graphics.  But I haven't had a complaint about graphics on my last three phones.  4k graphics are great on a 100" TV, but no one cares about it on a 5" phone screen. Samsung is improving something that does not need improvement.

Samsung was also pushing special Samsung only features to encourage IT professionals to use Samsung in the enterprise environment.  Device management, encryption, and other security features are all well and good, but I cannot force everyone in my company to use a Galaxy.  There would be a revolt.  We have hard core iPhone users.  We have BYOD policies for people who do not have company provided devices.  Going to an all Galaxy environment is not an option.  That is the kind of thing that Blackberry demanded and it is why it failed.  Security and device management has to be cross platform.  Samsung is just wasting time and money with this.  Unless they plan in the future to offer a way of adding non-Samsung devices to the system almost no one will use these features, ever.

With its "big screen" advantage over the iPhone gone, Samsung needs to find a new must-have benefit.  Some people seem to like the unique benefits of the curved screen Samsung Edge, although I don't really see the appeal.  Finding that unique killer app is admittedly very difficult.  Because Samsung does not control its OS, there are dozens of other phone manufacturers who can copy pretty much anything that Samsung develops.

Absent some new "must have" feature, consumer preference will likely focus on price and performance.  Companies that find a way to reduce price and maintain top performing features will win this competition.  Prices for most premium smart phones are hidden in the monthly fees charged by the cell phone companies.  If I bought an S6 with a two year contract, I would pay only $200, but would be obligated to pay $50-60 per month for two years.  Without a contract, the full retail price of the phone is a whopping $700.  Compare that to my 7" Asus MemoPad tablet which also runs Android and can do all the same basic things but costs only about $80. You cannot tell me that adding 4G and phone capability adds $620 to the cost of a device.

As phone companies move closer to ending the subsidization of phones through monthly charges, phone makers will only feel more price pressure.  People will always pay a premium for the unique iPhone, but not so much for the Samsung Galaxy.  Samsung needs to begin thinking about a lower cost phone.  Making a high priced iPhone clone simply is not sustainable as it is not attractive to consumers.  Samsung cannot beat the iPhone on its own terms.  Samsung must consider changing the terms of the competition before it loses its reputation as an industry leader.

Microsoft is Finally Serious About its Cloud Services

Like many nerds of a certain age, I began my technology world with Microsoft back in the 1980's.  Microsoft so dominated the PC world that Bill Gates even had to buy a bunch of Apple Stock just to keep it alive so it could convince the Government it still had competition.

But for more than a decade, Microsoft has been mostly stagnant.  Perhaps it was like Alexander the Great who cried when he saw he had no more lands to conquer.  Microsoft dominated many areas of technology and could not be too aggressive in others without incurring the wrath of anti-trust regulators.  Microsoft survived just fine on minor updates to its existing cash cows, Windows, Office, Xbox, but was not really considered a cutting edge technology company.  Even worse, it had a reputation for being second only to Apple in its attempt to extract money from its customers.

Meanwhile, companies like Google moved to usher in the Internet Revolution.  Free services like Search, Maps, Drive, and Mail began to take control.  Today, almost everyone does email via an Internet Browser.  Even large companies are beginning to see the futility of running their own mail servers.  Individuals don't want to spend hundreds of dollars for MS Office when they can do the same things, sometimes even more easily, using Google Docs and Google Sheets for free.

Gmail vs. Oulook.com

Microsoft is getting back in the game now.  Having realized they lost the phone and tablet wars, Microsoft is focusing more on getting iPhone and Android users to use Microsoft Apps on those devices.  Outlook.com is the free email available that is in competition with Gmail.  Gmail, once the leader in giving away space for mail, limits you to 15 GB on a free account, and you have to share that space with your Google Drive documents.  Outlook offers "unlimited" space for mail.  I put unlimited in quotes because MS says it is possible to hit a limit if your Outlook grows to quickly.  I think this is to prevent people from dumping massive amounts of files in Outlook.  But if it grows slowly over time, there appears to be no limit.  Outlook.com also supports Activesync (in addition to IMAP and POP3) for your offline readers.  Gmail only supports Activesync for users that pay for business accounts.

Google Drive vs. OneDrive

Online storage is where Microsoft really beats Google though.  With a free OneDrive account, you get 15 GB of online storage.  This quickly doubles to 30 GB if you install an App on your phone to upload photos.  You can get another 5 GB by recommending other users to sign up, at 1/2 GB per user that signs up under your recommendation. With Google, free account users are stuck with a mere 15 GB, and again that limit is shared with Gmail.  To be fair, Google does not count documents created on Google Drive towards that limit.  Your limit only counts to files you upload in other formats.  Also, Google recently announced that you can store unlimited amounts of pictures in Google Pictures which, as long as they are not terribly large.  But if you are looking for space to upload lots of documents, Microsoft has the definite advantage.  Both companies offer occasional time limited deals that give free users a chance to increase their limits.  But you have to act fast and usually jump through some hoops to get the space.

If you are willing to spend a few bucks, the Microsoft advantage grows even more.  With Office 365 Personal, you get a full copy of MS Office on your computer plus a full 1 TB (~1000 GB) of storage space on your hard drive for $70/yr.  With Google, paying $50/yr gets you only up to 30 GB of storage space (again still shared with Gmail) and no extra software.  To get to 1 TB, you have to pay Google a whopping $120/yr - advantage Microsoft.

Another reason I am being drawn over to OneDrive is the ability to map a drive letter on your computer to your OneDrive account.  If you are interested in doing this, follow this link.  I find this to be a great convenience for many programs and utilities that required a drive letter, as opposed to some network connection without a letter.  It makes it easy to use LibreOffice or WordPerfect as well.  There is also a way to add a drive letter to Google Drive, which you can find here, but it really is a little convoluted.  First, you have to have the Google Drive program running on your Windows computer, not just a web link to your drive.  That program cache's a copy of your drive to a temporary folder on your computer.  You can map a drive to that using a DOS command or another third party tool, and then those changes are synched back to your Google Drive.  So, for example, if you have bought a bunch of extra space on your Google Drive to store things, you would need to have an equal or greater amount of space on your computer to cache all those documents.  As I often have near full hard drives, I find this inconvenient.

This Rivalry will benefit users for years

I have been a huge fan of Google for years, and will continue to be.  But the advantages of Microsoft's new cloud services are too good to ignore.  I will start using OneDrive more, and perhaps consider using my Outlook.com email account for some things.  In any event, the competition will likely spur both companies to continue offering better services, and keep many of these benefits available on free accounts.

Why Text?

I've had a smart phone for nearly 15 years now.  Before iPhone and Android, I had a Blackberry, and before that a Palm Treo.  In all that time, I've never had much a desire to text.

I guess part of the reason I never saw the point of text messaging was that I've always had my email on my phone.  Since anyone could always get a message to me on my phone via email, the notion of texting seemed pointless.  In fact, worse than pointless since texts are much more limited in size than an email, could not contain attachments, for many years could not contain pictures, and could not be stored in some other location for later reference.  On top of all that, my phone company charged a hefty fee of $20/month on top of my data charges in order to send and receive texts.

Text messaging always seemed inferior to email, so why would anyone want to use to it?  I suppose it caught on because many people did not have smart phones with email for many years, but were able to text.  I can certainly see why it would be attractive to send text message if email was not available on the phone.  But in the near decade since the iPhone was released, virtually everyone has email on their phones.  So why does text messaging still thrive?  Is it really just a matter of habit, from the days when cell phones could not support email?

My phone vendor finally decided to provide free text messaging included in my plan.  I used it for a few weeks, but found there really was no point to it.  In fact, I increasingly find it annoying for many reasons.

For starters, my phone is not my only device.  I use a tablet, as well as several laptops and desktops during the course of the day.  If someone sends me an email, I can get it on any one of those devices. If someone sends me a text, I have to check my phone.  That's just one extra step I need to do all the time.

I was also encouraged by my phone vendor to upgrade to business grade messaging for my work phone.  Why, I asked?  How was this any different?  I was told that because there is no centralized server for personal texts, some texts can get lost if the recipient does not have their phone turned on for a long enough time?  So regular text messaging is therefore untrustworthy for important communications.

Another problem, when I get a new phone, I have to migrate my existing data or I lose all of my texts.  If I switch vendors and phone types, my chances of losing all my old data are much higher.  I did find an app for my Android that lets me back up my texts to a separate file, but that was a pain. By contrast, email is simply stored in my Gmail account, and local copies are easy enough to create, simply by using a mail reader like Outlook or Thunderbird to download all of my messages.

Text messages are limited in how many characters you can send at once.  I suppose there is also some theoretical limit to the length of emails, but I've never had a problem there.  Since emails work find for both short and long messages, why should I adopt a second medium that will only work for short messages?

Text messaging is tied to phone numbers.  If someone gets a new phone number, they won't get my message.  While the same could be said for email addresses, I at least usually get back an error message if I email a non-working address.  With texts there is no such warning.  For the years when I was required to pay for texts, I had text messaging turned off by my vendor.  People would try to text me and get upset when I did not respond, not knowing that I never received their message.  If someone gives me their number, how do I know if I can text to it?  It could be a land line, or someone who simply cannot receive texts.

Email is more universal.  I know that practically everyone has a phone, but my children, for example do not.  They are too young for a phone.  At least that is what I say since I don't want to pay for one.  They do have free email accounts though.  My mother, and much of her generation does not either.  They don't like reading on small screens and don't see the point.  I also know a number of poor people who simply cannot afford $50 or $60 a month for smart phone service, but can easily check their free email accounts at the library.

International messages are another issue.  If I text someone in another country, there is an extra fee for that with many plans.  With email, there is never any charge sent to anyone ever.

People say that text messaging is faster than email.  That may be true if you have a POP3 account or something that only check for mail once a minute or every two minutes.  A minute or two may not seem like a lot, but in texting back and forth with someone, you don't want that delay.  But with my Gmail App or using ActiveSync, my emails come in just as fast as a text message.  There are no delays.

I read all sorts of articles about how email is old technology and is probably on its way out as a means of communication.  I don't think that is the case given how universal it is.  I also cannot think of one way that text messaging is superior to email.

What Google Needs to Defeat Microsoft

Google and Microsoft are now going head to head in cloud based services. Each company has its own strengths.  Microsoft dominates the PC and laptop OS arena.  Android, has a more powerful presence with its Android OS on laptops and phones.  Google also has a powerful lead in free email. 

For this post, I'm ignoring third big competitor in the arena, Apple, since they do not seem to be pushing for dominant control of cloud services beyond users of their own phones, tablets, and laptops.

Google is seeking to expand its presence by pushing Google Drive, a host of applications that allow document creation and collaboration, among other things.  This puts them more and more into competition with Microsoft Office.  Microsoft has been moving its Office Suite to the cloud with MS Office 365.  While you can still download MS Office onto your hard drive, more and more work can be done directly in the cloud.  The subscription model further makes Microsoft look more like a service provider than a software seller.

Microsoft's strategy seems clear.  It wants to use its market dominance in the Office market, to move individuals and businesses into its cloud services.  It makes sense.  Businesses especially are so tied into the MS Office world that it is nearly impossible to collaborate with other businesses without having MS Office yourself.  If they can leverage that, as well as dominance in Outlook to draw users into its cloud storage and online email services, it becomes a major player in that field, and moves away from the collapsing market of selling software to PC users.

Google's strategy similarly reflects its desire to leverage its strengths in search and email to move people into its other cloud services.  Google encourages its Gmail users to use Google Drive, where they can create and share documents, spreadsheets, and other works.

Microsoft's greatest weakness is probably its recent reputation for overpriced buggy bloatware, for falling behind in the race to keep up fast paced technology trends, and for its tendency to gouge customers for maximum short term profit.  The fact that its solution is much more expensive than Google's only contributes to this preconception.

Google's greatest weakness is its lack of any reputation in the enterprise arena.  While businesses use its search services or other online free services such as Google Maps, they have been reluctant to move to Google's enterprise email offerings or use of Drive as the only way to create documents.  At best, businesses use them as a supplement for online collaboration, while still relying on MS Windows computers running MS Office for office work and MS Outlook connected to MS Exchange for email.

Microsoft has every incentive to tie Windows, Office, and Outlook into its cloud services and offer a smooth transition for businesses.  Microsoft has zero incentive to make it easier to access your Google Drive documents from MS Office or to integrate Windows into your Google cloud storage, or improve Outlook interoperability with Gmail.  If history is any guide, you will see MS create deliberate bugs that make interoperabliity with Google a real headache.

This makes Google's fight much harder.  Google will not capture the OS market any time soon.  Google Chrome will not replace Windows in the foreseeable future.  Android does not seem to be able to leap from tablets to laptops.  Therefore, Google has to focus on making its cloud services so much better and less expensive that people will go out of their way to use them.

To do this, Google must come up with a more powerful office suite.  Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides are ok for simple documents.  But they simply do not have the tools that professionals need to create more complex documents.  One great option would be a partnership with an open source Office suite like LibreOffice.  Another option would be to buy a dying competitor like WordPerfect Office.

Either way, Google could integrate the office application into Google.  It could allow subscribers to download the office suite, or make the suite itself cloud based.  Either way, users would have a much more powerful office suite with which to use Google's online document system.

Google has done well with individuals who want convenient free apps.  But if it wants to get the more profitable enterprises to get on board with Google, it needs to have a serious Office suite for business users.

A lesson from QWERTY

The traditional keyboard layout on virtually all computer keyboards today is a direct holdover of the layout on typewriters going back well into the 1800's.  The first practical typewriters were on the market in the 1860's.  By the 1870's almost everyone was using the standard QWERTY keyboard layout that we still use today.

Was there anything particularly wonderful about this layout?  Not really.  In fact, many have complained over the years that its layout is inefficient.  Heavily used letters are not keyed to fingers that can respond most quickly.  People have shown in many instances that a person trained on keyboards with keys optimized for speed can improve typing speeds considerably.  Why then, do we continue with the QWERTY standard?

The reason, of course, is that virtually all typists have trained for years on this standard.  Everyone knows it very well.  Changing the layout would cause great confusion and chaos for all professional typists.  The years of retraining and relearning typing far outweigh the small performance improvement that might eventually be of benefit.

Technology industry leaders seem to have forgotten this concept, or at least decided to ignore it.  Apple has often been a repeat offender, completely changing user interfaces and failing to support legacy applications.  Microsoft seems to have adopted this view with gusto in more recent years as well.  It's complete rewrites of the way the MS Office menus work, and it's disastrous release of Windows 8 with a completely new interface has angered users and scared off many long time customers, who either refuse to upgrade, or figure its time to look at competitors since they have to learn a whole new interface anyway.

In the age of cloud applications, this problem has only gotten worse.  When MS came out with an Office interface that no one wanted, users could stick with the old version for many years until they were eventually forced to get a new computer no longer compatible with the old software.  But with Cloud computing the manufacturer can change the interface on you without notice, forcing you to relearn tasks which you could do just fine yesterday.

Sure, sometimes these changes are arguably for the better (although often not).  Sometimes a new look may get customers to take a second look at your product.  It may also help give the illusion that the company is changing things and therefore remaining new and cutting edge.

But more and more, users are seeing technology as a tool to accomplish tasks, not a great new innovation that need to amaze and astound us every six months.  We want to get things done and we don't want to have to re-teach ourselves something we already knew how to do.  Many of of these changes simply cause a reduction in productivity until users are able to become accustomed to the new arrangement.

Technology leaders would be wise to take a queue from QWERTY.  Once something has become a standard, and most people have adopted it, don't change the setup unless there are very good reasons for doing so.

Galaxy S6 is a major disappointment.

I have been a fan of the Samsung Galaxy since the beginning.  I still have my original Samsung Galaxy S, although it's in a drawer now, having been replaced several times by its subsequent iterations.  I currently enjoy by Galaxy S5.  I am very happy with it.

I am in a fortunate position in that my employer pays for my phones.  I have both a Galaxy S5 and an iPhone 6 as I need to know how to support both inside and out to help company employees with their phones.  Since employees have a choice of either phone, I must be an expert in both.

The iPhone is fine for what it is.  But my preference for every day use it absolutely the Galaxy S5.  I have long been a big fan of the Android OS.  The iPhone is fine for users who are willing to pay through the nose for apps and hardware accessories, and for people who don't care to tinker with their phones and use them in new and creative ways.  But for those of us who see the phone purchase as a starting point for us to come up with new an interesting ways to use it, the iPhone simply does not allow the flexibility we crave.

As someone who is tasked with keeping phones running for many users, I am also focused on the ease of repairing phones or recovering data.  Apple has always been good at presenting a product that looks wonderful out of the box, but if you ever have any problem with it, repair is rarely an option.  Typically, your only solution is to buy a new one.  Most Android phones allow for some repairs or upgrades, which I find attractive in a phone that rarely looks pristine after its planned two year life span.

My next phone will almost certainly run Android OS.  However, it likely will not be a Samsung Galaxy.  Samsung has decided to become an echo of the iPhone 6.  If they continue down this path, they will likely lose their position as the preeminent Android phone.

The S6 has taken away several of the most important features that distinguish it from the iPhone.  The fact that the new model is no longer water proof does not concern me much.  But the loss of two other basic features are the main reason I've decided to end my relationship with Samsung.

I am very disappointed by the fact that, like the iPhone you cannot replace the battery in the S6. Batteries run down over time.  They simply don't hold a charge for as long, no matter how well you treat them.  After a year or two, you need to get a new battery if you want the length of charge to remain high.  You may also want to get a third party battery that can handle a larger capacity, giving you even more time between charges.  Many of us also like to carry a spare battery for those heavy use days when leaving the phone in a charger is not an option.  The S6, however, has decided to make the same mistake as the iPhone, sealing the battery into the body, making it impossible to replace.  This is pure and simple a step backward with no obvious benefit to the user.

An even greater disappointment is the removal of the MicroSD card reader.  This is what allows you to add extra memory to your phone when you need it, so you can keep your media with you at all times.  Samsung again has followed the path of the iPhone in taking away this option.  Instead, you can purchase a phone with more memory built in. If it were just the fact that users had to pay more for the extra memory, as opposed to buying a cheap MicroSD card, I might be able to accept that.  But the removable card offers so much more benefit:

• First, I have had a number of phones where the USB charging port became damaged.  That made it virtually impossible to extract data from the phone other than by putting the data on a card and transferring it.  That option is now impossible.
  
• Second, I have been able to use multiple cards holding different data in the past, such as different movies.  Since I could not possibly store my entire video collection on one drive, the ability to swap cards made transfers easy.  That also is now impossible.
  
• Third, I have a genealogy project which I regularly update and like to have on my phone to show people.  The sync tool I use to sync changes requires I sync between two letter drives on my Windows computer.  Because I cannot assign a drive letter to my phone when connected to as USB cable, the easiest way to sync is to remove the card and plug it into my computer.  That option also disappears with the S6.
  
• Fourth, there is data I sometimes want to access on my phone, but other times on my tablet.  I MicroSD card means it's just a quick swap of the card.  Again, I lose that ability.
  
• Fifth, when I upgrade my phone, moving my media is as easy as popping out the card and into the new phone.  There will be no popping into the S6.
  
• Sixth, I don't need to buy extra memory until I need it.  I was great with an 8 GB chip for years.  But when I needed a 32 GB chip a few years ago, it was no problem to upgrade.  Since memory costs fall over time, it was much cheaper to buy the memory when I needed it, not to have to buy it at the time I purchase the phone at a much higher price.  Money aside, I may not even know how much memory I will want or need a year or two from now. With the S6, keeping my options open is, well, no longer an option.

Some of these issues could be addressed by cloud storage or wireless transfers.  But options are more expensive and also much slower.  So while I could find ways to adapt, why must we take a step backward with no obvious countervailing benefit?

Where will I go next?  I remain a die hard Android fan.  I liked the Galaxy line, not only because it was a pretty good phone, but also because it had become a standard.  That made it easy to replace broken screens or buy cases.  Getting a non-standard phone makes getting accessories more difficult and usually more expensive.  So part of my choice will probably be defined by what other phone gives Galaxy a serious challenge for the top spot.

I suspect this will be the HTC One.  It seems to beat the Galaxy in many specs that I like.  It has long had a reputation for a better camera, which is something that has always been a disappointment to me in the Galaxy.  Low light pictures are just not an option with the Galaxy.  The HTC One has been runner up for many years now.  The Samsung's latest stumble, this could be the opportunity for HTC to take the lead.

This stumble is a serious one.  People who want an iPhone-like phone will buy an iPhone.  The only way to compete with the iPhone as an iPhone knock off is to be cheaper than the iPhone.  From what I have read, the S6 without a contract will actually be more expensive than an iPhone.  I just can't see the market for this: people who want an iPhone-like phone, but want to pay extra to get an iPhone knock off rather than the real thing?

Because the Galaxy uses Android, the same OS available to dozens of other phone makers, people can make the switch much more easily.  Moving from a different OS means learning a whole new system and having to repurchase all your apps.  Moving from one Android phone to another, is much easier and relatively seamless.  Many people will make the switch in droves.  Once Galaxy loses its lead in the Android market, it will find it very hard to get back.  For reasons already expressed, people have good reason to go with the industry leader.  Once another company has the lead, it remains their until they stumble.

Getting more manufacturers into the mix will ultimately be a good thing for consumers.  Phones need more competition.  A new phone out of contract will cost me more than my laptop.  It's also more than double what I would pay for a similarly built tablet.  Prices outside the US are considerably lower for smart phones that are almost as good.  Perhaps the Samsung stumble will lead to greater competition and a price war that should benefit us all.