
Android and iPhone: Possession vs. Utilization - raganesh
http://www.asymco.com/2011/09/21/the-perils-of-possession-without-utilization/
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daniel_solano
Is it just me or is this a really poorly written article with questionable
analysis?

For one, the graphs strike me as confusing. There's too much information
trying to be packed into the graphs. It also appears that the various
"utilization" measurements are the same on each graph. Furthermore, two
completely different types of measurements are used for the "possession"
metric, installed base for the U.S. market and quarterly sales for the global
market.

Then, there is the questionable "utilization" metrics.

1\. Browsing market share: Now, I don't know much about iOs, but on Android
there are several different competitive browsers (Opera, Firefox, Dolphin) in
addition to the stock browser. Could counting only the stock browser
undercount the Android share?

2\. Airport/in-flight market share: This is really a measure of what types of
phones are used by people who do a lot of flying. Can any conclusions about
general smartphone users be drawn from this data? If anything, it just shows
that if you are trying to market to the jet-set, iOs is the way to go.

All-in-all it just strikes me a hand-wavy argument that iOs is superior to
Android for development. I think there may be a way to make the case, but this
certainly isn't it.

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KaeseEs
The point of this article seems to be that, since Android users are much less
likely to submit to price gouging for wifi in airports and on planes, the
platform is ultimately doomed. This seems highly suspect to me. The platform
has a different monetization strategy for devs, to be sure, and this is even
hinted at, but the logical contortions needed to correlate willingness to buy
non-premium products at very high prices due to local monopoly with viability
of the system as a whole boggle my mind.

~~~
yock
It is interesting that two of the four categories in their analysis can be
easily described as "niche usage" and one of the others relies on the mobile
web browser. The single most common form of smartphone usage, mobile apps,
shows that ad impressions on Android far exceed iPhone. I don't know how you
draw usage conclusions from that though.

Is it because the barriers to entry into the Android market are much lower?
What about the comparative availability of paid vs. ad-supported apps on
Android and iPhone? If the research _does_ indeed show that Android users
spend less than iPhone users, is that a reflection on loyalty to the platform
or the affluence of the userbase?

So very many variables are completely ignored here that it's hard to fathom
how the author believed there was a point to be made.

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Zhenya
My BEEF:

Airport-Wifi:Why would someone connect to airport WiFi when the phone already
has data? Is it because ATT has shitty reception and for many years the iPhone
was available on ATT?

In-Air-Wifi: Something about price gouging and iPeople willing to pay for it.

Ad-impressions: How does this ad network marketshare look like between
iDevices and Android?

Explain this and then I will once again consider the authors points.

