

Android Passes iOS And RIM For U.S. Smartphone Subscriber Share - sadiq
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/07/comscore-android-passes-ios-and-rim-for-u-s-smartphone-subscriber-share/

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wmat
I'm still waiting for the "Android Developers surpass iOS and RIM developers
for Monthly App Sale Revenue".

Soon, soon.

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jokermatt999
Revenues may not be as good, but it seems like Android treats its developers
nicer than Apple does. No chance of rejection, no harsh guidelines, no long
review process (for acceptance or for updates), no taking 30% of subscription
revenue... overall, it seems like they view their developers as equal. When
you're developing for iOS, you're developing on Apple's platform (not sure if
this conveys what I mean here completely...). You can't compete with their
applications, you can't be sure they'll let you in, and you can't even chose
how subscribers will pay now. Yes, on Android you're developing on Google's
platform, but it seems less like a "sharecropping" situation, even though it
technically is.

On the other hand, your point about revenue is still spot on. Fewer paying
customers, less expectation of paying for apps, and the glaring fact that you
simply can't buy Android apps in a large portion of the world. The first two
are difficult (a culture shift is required, and that can't be passed down from
Google in an OS update), but the third is perhaps fixable. The issues with iOS
aren't likely to change, because that's Apple's culture.

I don't know about RIM, and "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain
silent".

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johnwatson11218
Even though I don't write mobile apps I am glad to see news like this. The
reason is that if I do have to learn how to code mobile apps then Android
would be my first choice. I wouldn't feel like I was wasting my time learning
another VB-like technology stack.

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grav1tas
Care to elaborate what you mean by VB-like stack?

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johnwatson11218
Like when your job forces you to learn Visual Basic for a project. Android is
something that I would learn in my spare time (if I had any) but I wouldn't go
and pick up Visual Basic for the fun of it.

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alperakgun
compared to the previous dec 2010 comscore press release (last 3 months ending
), apple, microsoft, palm and rim all declined but android.. as stronger
android models come up to at&t and lte android takes the lead, android
apparently will quickly rise to 50%. but beyond that it will be a
fragmentation between apple, rim, ms and legacy symbians.

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mdasen
These numbers are before the iPhone came out for Verizon. It will be
interesting to see if the iPhone's availability on more than a single carrier
will affect these numbers. I think it's clear that Apple's exclusivity to a
single carrier has hurt their marketshare.

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ChuckMcM
I agree, but also see other posts which seem to indicate (at least from early
results) that most of Verizon's iPhone business was coming at the expense of
AT&T (people switching carriers rather than buying into a particular OS). A
couple of app vendors were hoping for a big spike when V launched but have yet
to see it in terms of sales.

