
Android and iOS continue to carve up the world - srathi
http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/idc-android-and-ios-continue-to-carve-up-the-world-another-rec/
======
msy
As a developer I think the stats that matter are % of web traffic and app
sales, which at least from the last I've seen dramatically lag total android
handset sales. That may change but my anecdotal experience are that a lot are
sold as upgrades without people really engaging with the additional
functionality where as iPhones seem to be an intentional choice for that
additional functionality.

~~~
bookwormAT
I think app sales a vastly overrated. In my last 15 years as a software
developer, only once did a company pay me to make an application that was sold
to people. As a customer, most of the software I use does not cost any money.
There are only a few categories where app sales work: mostly consumable items
like games or movies. Some tools are doing great as well. But most do not.

Most programs are written for business cases other than getting money from
license sales to individuals.

Last year I wrote an Android app for a gambling company that now generates 4.5
million Euro in revenue every single month. And the app is not even in the
Play store, you have to download it from a website that is embarrassingly hard
to find. And the app can only be used in countries where gamling is legal.

We did not charge 99 cents for the app, and somehow there was money to pay my
bills anyway.

Then there is the ebanking app I used today: free. And the hipmunk app I use
to search for flights. Free. And the audible app. And the kindle app. And the
facebook app. And the ebay app. And the Google Search app. And the wikipedia
app. And an information app from my government. And the app that let's me see
the TV program.

All free of charge. Still, there is a business model and good money behind
almost all of these apps.

Again: there are definitely certain apps that you can sell for money, and
statistics about how many people buy apps on each platform are of course
interesting.

But app sales are not what makes a platform live or die. What makes a platform
live or die is reach.

Android is currently in the hands of most people that own a smartohone. That
includes rich people and poor people and those who buy apps and those who
don't. If you want to reach people through their smartphones, then you want to
make an app that runs on Android.

~~~
hkmurakami
If this was a real money gambling app, then either (a) the odds were stacked
against the player by 1-2%, or (b) there was rake (for non house games like
poker), so there was no need to charge for the client.

If you think about it, that's how FTP or Poker Stars works. Download a free
client, even play for free for play money, earn money on rake once they
convert to 'real money' players.

------
spiralpolitik
What would be interesting to see is how that 68% is sliced. How much of that %
has access to the official Google Marketplace, How much of that % are non
Google approved phones etc. Those numbers give would give developers a better
sense of what the potential market size is like, and help identify gaps in the
market.

The Android share is somewhat like the DOS market at the beginning of the
nineties. While DOS commanded a sizable share verses Mac OS, it was broken
down into 3 variants (MSDOS, DRDOS, PCDOS) with sub versions (MSDOS 5, DRDOS 6
etc). While they were mostly compatible they had enough differences to cause
developers headaches.

~~~
DonnyV
Yes but how did MSDOS at the end of the game make out? .....yes market share
matters.

~~~
spiralpolitik
MSDOS technically won out because Microsoft married Windows and MSDOS together
to get Windows 95 killing off the other DOS variants (and the alternative
Windows shells like Norton) in the process.

Also remember that Apple's reward for losing was ending up the most profitable
PC vendor so things didn't end up so bad for them.

------
xutopia
I think the most fascinating trend here is that people are not purchasing
anything but a smartphone nowadays.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Fascinating considering data costs. It's hard to buy a dumb phone from a
carrier nowadays though.

~~~
coob
Which is why a higher percentage of Android phones are not used as smartphones
as compared to iOS.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Source? At least in the States, you can't (easily) buy a smartphone of any
kind without signing up for a data contract.

~~~
manmal
Browser usage has always been low for Android vs. iOS:
[http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/06/04/android-trails-ios-in-
mobi...](http://mobilesyrup.com/2012/06/04/android-trails-ios-in-mobile-
browser-usage-despite-market-share-growth/)

~~~
MatthewPhillips
What does that have to do with the grandparents comment?

~~~
manmal
Browser usage is an indicator of "using a phone as smartphone", no? It even
says so in the article.

------
stevenwei
Are there similar (recent) numbers for tablets yet? I am curious whether the
Nexus 7 & Kindle Fire are putting a dent into the iPad's domination of the
tablet market.

------
Apocryphon
Does this mean that Android is the Symbian of this generation of phones?

~~~
enjo
Android's growth was completely predictable for anyone who was intimately
familiar with Symbian. I'd say that Android is much more the "Series 60" of
this generation. It's the same model (albeit more open) that Nokia rode to
market dominance.

------
kunle
I have a hard time thinking this matters. 68% of smartphones worldwide are
Android devices. Close to 70% of profits from smartphones worldwide go to
Apple ([http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/06/apple-mobile-industry-
profit-s...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/06/apple-mobile-industry-profit-
share-q2-2012/)) which doesn't make Android devices.

On pretty much every metric except eyeballs, Android is losing (including the
value of eyeballs - advertising doesn't matter if the people seeing your ads
cant pay for your product), so why does 68% of market share matter?

~~~
tesseractive
This involves a pretty dangerous assumption, which is that the current methods
of monetizing phones are the only ones that matter -- and it sounds as though
you're trying to make an even more unpleasant assumption, which is that
wealthy people are the only people that matter.

This is Hacker News -- a site for people who set out to build things that
don't exist yet. the ability to target 68% of the world's smartphone-using
population seems pretty interesting to me. For example, consider an education
platform, as Nicholas Negroponte attempted to with the OLPC project. Whether
there's monetization or not, there might be an interesting opportunity there.

Open your mind a little. Not everything is about the profit-making horserace.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>Open your mind a little. Not everything is about the profit-making
horserace.

At the end of the day, it's money that makes the world go round. If you're
making more profit than your competitors, you're getting ahead, because you
have more money for R&D, more money for marketing, more money for buying
promising start-ups, and more money for lawsuits.

I mean, the fact that Apple has a war chest of tens of billions of dollars in
cash - more than the treasuries of many countries - paints a really bleak and
hopeless future for Android.

~~~
dannyr
Some Android manufacturers are profitable though.

This is like comparing two people with one making $1 million & the other
$100,000.

Then saying that the latter has a very bleak future.

And I have to disagree with you, I don't believe that money makes the world go
round.

In your world maybe.

~~~
spiralpolitik
While money doesn't make the world go round it does pay for producing your
next set of products. So if you aren't making money on your current handsets,
eventually you'll run out of capital to continue developing your next gen
handsets.

------
ThePherocity
I just picked up my first Android phone on the weekend (Galaxy S3), and some
parts I really love. Widgets change the way I use my phone. But compared to
the iPhone, it's far less intuitive, it's build quality is crap, and I can't
make it though a day on a charge. I wish there was another phone maker that
had the polish of Apple with the freedom of Android.

~~~
huggyface
I desperately pray for a day when I can look at comments on an Android or iOS
story without seeing likely fictitious anecdotes (why does anyone who has ever
used an iPhone seems to think they are in some sort of unique, privileged
position to pass judgment, as an aside?).

This is a recurring problem that undermines any ability to discuss these
platforms without noisy conversations.

Your observations are not meaningful or unique or valuable, nor are your
subjective comments (e.g. build quality) interesting. Let everyone who feels
some compelling need to inject these useless mini-reviews in every discussion
know this.

~~~
ThePherocity
I was just sharing my experience. What's your problem?

~~~
huggyface
There are countless very thorough professional reviews of the Galaxy S III
available. There are countless very thorough reviews of Android proper. Many
of them by people who have actually touched both platforms extensively, and
many extensively compare the two. Personal, usually agenda-driven, subjective
summaries are _not useful_ as as reply to stories like this. They simply
aren't.

~~~
ThePherocity
So you're saying that only professionals (and more importantly, professionals
that you personally agree with) should have and share opinions?

~~~
huggyface
Let's take one statement from your root post-

 _But compared to the iPhone, it's far less intuitive, it's build quality is
crap, and I can't make it though a day on a charge_

Ignoring hilariously subjective statements on intuitive interfaces or build
quality (that fuzzy measure that has nothing to do with actual suitability to
task or hardiness, but instead ends up being a reflection of what people have
been told build quality is. If you make a hammer out of glass, is that superb
built quality?), I'll focus on something more empirical -- battery life. I
happen to have a GS III, and coincidentally I forgot to plug it in last night
(it isn't the first time I've done this). I am currently on hour 29 off the
charger, with medium to heavy use, with the battery at 33%. So what now? Do we
wage a battle of anecdotes? Should we? Is that a productive use of HN?

The single objective measure you referred to is battery life, to which
professionals have actual repeatable, regimented tests. You don't. Your
statement on it is irrelevant.

~~~
lparry
Sounds like someone hit a nerve. Chill out guy!

~~~
abrichr
He seems pretty collected to me. And he makes some good points.

