Just to share an anecdote from my experience in China. I was in Beijing over the holidays and met up with a handful of friends who live there, surprisingly they all switched to Huawei within the past year, three of them even in the past 2 months. The Huawei phones they use are flagship models and not cheaper than iPhones and they have all been Apple users for years (like myself) and who still use Macs today.
I asked each one of them if patriotism or the recent Huawei/US kerfuffle influenced their decision. They all resoundingly said no. When I asked why they chose Huawei after being in the Apple ecosystem for a decade, all of them said "camera". They said camera quality isn't about DXO scores or 4k60 but being able to take "beautiful" photos out of the box for some definition of beautiful. To them, iPhoneXS is the same if not worse than a 6, because the iPhone camera doesn't take more "beautiful" photos, only more "realistic" ones.
Obviously anecdotes are meaningless and all that, but I want to note that China is a very homogeneous society given its population, so even a brief first-person glimpse into people's everyday lives can be pretty telling. I would not be comfortable making similar conclusions about any other cluster of 1.3B people.
TL,DR: I don't buy that the economic downturn in China and the Huawei/US situation are the sole perpetrators of Apple's problem in China. Apple is missing opportunities due not innovating in certain crucial areas.
>> because the iPhone camera doesn't take more "beautiful" photos, only more "realistic" ones.
I hear this all the time from friends and family. Such and such camera is so much better.
Most of the time the images really aren't. The brightness is just cranked up or something, the image doesn't look that great. I'm not sure why the iPhone doesn't have better low-light settings, even my 8 Plus doesn't take very good pictures indoors if I don't use a different camera app.
> When I asked why they chose Huawei after being in the Apple ecosystem for a decade, all of them said "camera". They said camera quality isn't about DXO scores or 4k60 but being able to take "beautiful" photos out of the box for some definition of beautiful. To them, iPhoneXS is the same if not worse than a 6, because the iPhone camera doesn't take more "beautiful" photos, only more "realistic" ones.
By "beautiful," do they mean those auto-Photoshopped images that are popular in China; where they eyes are made bigger, chin pointier, and skin lighter?
> Popular smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S8, the Galaxy S7, the Huawei P9, and many others often feature something called "Beauty" or "Beauty mode" when you turn on the front camera to take a selfie.
> Theoretically, it does what it says on the tin: airbrushing magic to make you look prettier in photos. Usually, it makes your skin look smoother and your eyes brighter.
A lot of Apple fan here are in denial that iPhone is a boring product, probably for some time now. Huawei P20 had 6 cameras and take super high-resolution lossless photos. At least that is something consumer is willing to buy.
I asked each one of them if patriotism or the recent Huawei/US kerfuffle influenced their decision. They all resoundingly said no. When I asked why they chose Huawei after being in the Apple ecosystem for a decade, all of them said "camera". They said camera quality isn't about DXO scores or 4k60 but being able to take "beautiful" photos out of the box for some definition of beautiful. To them, iPhoneXS is the same if not worse than a 6, because the iPhone camera doesn't take more "beautiful" photos, only more "realistic" ones.
Obviously anecdotes are meaningless and all that, but I want to note that China is a very homogeneous society given its population, so even a brief first-person glimpse into people's everyday lives can be pretty telling. I would not be comfortable making similar conclusions about any other cluster of 1.3B people.
TL,DR: I don't buy that the economic downturn in China and the Huawei/US situation are the sole perpetrators of Apple's problem in China. Apple is missing opportunities due not innovating in certain crucial areas.