

Android-based Smartphones Outpaced Apple's iPhone in Q1 2010 - tc
http://www.dailytech.com/Androidbased+Smartphones+Outpaced+Apples+iPhone+in+Q1+2010/article18338c.htm

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not_an_alien
While people will want to dismiss this because it's based in several devices,
prior to the release of the new iPhone, and because it's still restricted to
AT&T - all valid facts - the important thing to notice here is trend. Android
devices have been gaining market pretty solidly lately; first the AdMob ad
pushing statistics, now unit sales... this seems to be one from many more that
will come.

Apple has no reason to be afraid, I'm pretty sure, as they are probably happy
in having just a slice of the market and still being super lucrative (same
position they play in the desktop business). But for app developers, this is a
pretty strong hit of future market changes.

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hboon
Not necessary. Their strategy seems to be going for the mass market with their
iPhone-OS-based products rather than a niche with OS X-based products. Look at
their:

1\. Pricing for iPhone (after the initial launch), iPod touch and iPad launch
price. They aren't the most expensive "smartphones" and tablets. 2\. App store
app prices, especially for iPhones/iPod touch. They don't control the prices,
but they provide a list to choose from and they indirectly influence pricing.
See (3). 3\. App store top X, what's hot, etc charts. Apps are sold exactly
like mp3s.

~~~
martythemaniak
Can you name a major market where the majority of users own the same exact
product? People like different cars, different appliances, different houses,
etc. How do you expect the phones to be different?

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webwright
I can think of a major market: operating systems.

Phones aren't like cars, they are more like computers (and becoming more so).

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jamesbritt
Right. People own a variety of computers. Different models of Dell, HP, sony,
apple., etc.

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Retric
Also known as: Windows, Windows, Windows, or OS X.

~~~
jamesbritt
Or Intel, Intel, Intel ...

You can pick the abstraction level to suit the argument.

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martythemaniak
I think Android outselling the iPhone (and eventually overtaking it in raw
numbers) will soon become pretty obvious. Android is a pretty mass-market
product - its flexibility means that manufacturers can put a wide array of
products and users can make those products their own.

I really don't think a single product (especially a tightly-defined one like
the iPhone) can meet even a majority of people's needs.

~~~
symesc
I agree.

And I think this is why Adobe's anti-trust activity against Apple won't go
very far.

Apple is very comfortable taking part of the market, owning it, doing things
their way, and making boatloads of money. They are not trying to be everything
to everyone.

Disclosure: I just switched from iPhone to a Google N1 because I was tired of
the box Apple put me in.

~~~
revaaron
@symesc: I just switched from an iPhone to a N1 for the same reason. An
inferior phone for a dozen reasons- but a switch I plan to stick with, for
now.

~~~
blhack
_An inferior phone for a dozen reasons_

Could you elaborate on that? Everybody I know who has an N1 _loves_ it...

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ben1040
I can't speak on behalf of the grandparent poster but my gripes are not at all
with the N1 hardware itself -- in fact the N1 is quite possibly the best put
together phone I've owned. My issues are with Android and how it still feels
rough around the edges.

1) Lack of an integrated mail tool. I really don't care so much about POP/IMAP
folder integration but why do I need two email apps, one for Gmail and one for
IMAP. The stock IMAP client sucks for that matter and I've had a lot better
luck with Jesse Vincent's K9Mail fork off the core mail app.

2) The pull down notification bar seems clunky. On one hand it's nice to see
at a glance all the things that happened on my phone while I wasn't using it.
However when "you have unread mail" or "missed call" is mixed in with "XYZ
song is playing" it gets sort of muddled.

3) Deleting an app is quite possibly the most unintuitive thing on the whole
phone. If you're used to just hitting an "X" on the home screen from the
iPhone you're in for a disappointment.

None of these are dealbreakers for me and in general I am still very satisfied
with my N1. However it seems to me that Android is still very much a platform
for hackers. For example, Android has a running process list with an option to
kill tasks on the phone. Not so on the iPhone, because the OS developers
clearly decided their users shouldn't even have to think about this.

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ergo98
>For example, Android has a running process list with an option to kill tasks
on the phone.

Android does _not_ have this. There are third party applications that do task
management, however the word "placebo" applies to most advocates of them, and
user task management should never be necessary. If the system needs resources
it dehydrates tasks and terminates them, and this is a cardinal foundation of
the platform.

The new iPhone multitasking system works in a very similar manner to how
Android has always worked, it should be mentioned.

>Lack of an integrated mail tool. I really don't care so much about POP/IMAP
folder integration but why do I need two email apps, one for Gmail and one for
IMAP.

Because the gmail app has different features and functions?

> Deleting an app is quite possibly the most unintuitive thing on the whole
> phone.

Now this is just weird. The most obviously way to uninstall an app is to
simply go into downloads (where you installed it) and pick uninstall. The
second to go into applications in settings and uninstall.

Your gripes are seemingly that you've been mentally debilitated by using the
iPhone, and now you use everything relative to how the iPhone works.

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ben1040
>Android does not have this.

If I go to "Applications > Settings > Running Services" on a stock 2.1 Android
phone I get a list of running tasks with their corresponding package names.
Tapping one of them terminates the task. It's not "top" but it's still pretty
close to a process manager.

A user shouldn't have to care that "com.google.process.gapps" is running
"MailSyncAdapterService."

>Because the gmail app has different features and functions?

OK, that's fair, so merge them into one app and have it display gmail accounts
in an enhanced manner. It simply seems counterintuitive to have two
applications for the task of reading email.

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ergo98
>I get a list of running tasks with their corresponding package names

That gives you get a list of running services. Further, in no way is a user
_ever_ directed to go there for any reason. You have no reason to ever go into
that screen.

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revaaron
The reason I have is killing tasks like Camera, which appear to chew away at
the battery even as they sit in the background... It wasn't until I started
using a task manager that I started getting decent battery life out of my N1.

The first week, I followed the party line- I didn't touch a task manager. And
the first week I was seeing 20% of my battery drained by 10 AM in the morning
while using it for under 15 minutes since I pulled it off the charger.

~~~
ergo98
The placebo effect is remarkably powerful, so I know I'm not going to convince
you. However let me say that I took my phone off the charger at 8:30am, and
right now my battery is at around 95%.

I never manage processes or services. I use apps and leave them and allow
Android to manage the lifecycle.

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WiseWeasel
Now that Android has somewhat matured and HP is dumping massive resources into
WebOS, it may be time for Apple to think about winning hearts and minds again,
doing things like allowing iPhone users to install the apps they want to
install, including those which carriers and other partners may not be
particularly fond of, as Android and WebOS users are able to do.

Of course the yearly iPhone release cycle is a big factor, and it can be
expected that the product will do relatively poorly at the end of its cycle,
but that's also what makes the iPhone so incredibly profitable for Apple. A
possible solution to this may be for Apple to have two radically different
iPhone models serving different markets, and have the release cycles staggered
by six months. Another alternative would be to release a new model every eight
months instead of twelve, take a hit in profitability, and still be able to
line up with people's two-year plan refreshes, now every three phone models
instead of two. Overall, this problem is somewhat mitigated by the attraction
of iPhone OS app availability and the iPhone's brand strength, so it may not
be the most important issue to address.

The other obvious factor is the exclusive carrier agreement with AT&T in the
US, with Verizon pouring marketing money into Android to counter Apple's
iPhone. Apple is leaving the door wide open for competitors to establish
themselves with people who prefer other carriers for various reasons, giving a
great boost to Android device vendors. Ending this exclusive distribution
agreement as soon as possible seems like the most obvious answer to this
competitive pressure.

Personally, I recommend people get Android phones because I'm fearful of the
power Apple wields over its users (namely me, making me jailbreak my iPhone to
run valuable applications that Apple won't allow for whatever reason), and I
need credible competition to keep that power in check. I think many
technophiles are rooting for and promoting competitors, even if they use
iPhones themselves, simply due to Apple's repression of user empowerment with
iPhone OS devices. I honestly believe that loosening the reins on their iPhone
OS users would afford Apple a whole lot more goodwill with geeks, and remove
many of the reservations they have recommending iPhones to people. Making the
iPhone more geek-friendly should obviously not be done at the expense of
usability for the less geeky, but the value of courting this class of users is
to be ignored at Apple's peril, as they are the ones many people trust to
guide their purchasing decisions.

So that seems about the extent of what Apple can do to turn their fortunes
around. It will be interesting to see how this marketshare trend holds in the
next year in relation to the iPhone release cycle, ruling out the effect of
the end of the current iPhone model's life, compounded by the Gizmodo iPhone
4G leak. There are other obvious areas of improvement in the iPhone OS I'm
sure they're working on, such as a workable documents and basic filesystem
functionality, but the PR problem surrounding the issue of vendor control over
users seems like the critical one for the iPhone at this point. That said, I
don't want to take away from this momentous day for Android users, developers
and stakeholders.

This is a huge milestone for the Android platform, and a watershed moment for
mobile app developers. You can bet this is music to the ears of Android devs
looking for investment, and that Android will be getting a lot better software
for it. It's good to see Apple get a taste of humble pie; they've always done
their best work as underdogs, when the pressure is on. Personally, if Apple
stays their current course another year, I would expect this trend to be
irreversible.

Disclosure: I own some AAPL and PALM shares. Sorry for the essay!

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dave1619
Android is definitely picking up pace. I just hope Apple releases an iPhone
for Verizon. I think that will give the iPhone a boost. Apple should also
release an iPhone Nano, a smaller version of the iPhone. Maybe also have
colors.

~~~
listic
Hm, iPod nano might actually be a viable idea.

I mean, now, when Apple (a) stopped sticking to the only resolution for all
iPhone OS devices and (b) is putting much higher resolution screen into older
package - maybe it might make sense for them to also put old resolution (320 x
480) into smaller package?

The problems I see in these approach are the following:

1\. How can one meaningfully make iPhone smaller/more energy
efficient/cheaper?

2\. Do people need a smaller iPhone? Is physically smaller touch screen as
usable?

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dave1619
Yeah, good points. I think they can make the screen a bit smaller than the
current iPhone, but keep the 320x480 resolution. This way apps will still be
usable. But they can also remove space from the top and bottom of the phone
and make it a lot thinner. Overall, I think they can really shrink the iPhone
significantly. This could appeal to lots of people. Especially, now the iPad
is out and people don't mind having a smaller iPhone to compliment their iPad.

~~~
eldenbishop
My fat fingers can barely hit some of the tiny buttons now...I don't think the
keyboard could get smaller and still be usable.

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davidedicillo
No news here.

1\. More networks, more devices. It's like saying that Windows sells more than
Macbook Pros. 2\. Everyone and their mothers knows that in a month Apple will
introduce a new one 3\. Soon the big majority of cell phones will be what we
usually call smartphones. It would be fool to think that one single device
will maintain dominate the marketshare. The point is that if you look at the
single device, no-one is even closed to Apple's number.

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moultano
Does that matter to us? When I'm deciding what to support as a developer I
care only about the size of the platform.

~~~
dagw
If all you care about is number of potential users you should target either
S60 or JavaME.

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grinich
Or HTML/JS.

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yason
Android is the Windows of smartphone operating systems. iPhone OS is the OS X
of smartphone operating systems.

Guess which will have the majority of sales and smaller profit-per-phone and
which will have minority of sales and higher profit-per-phone, eventually.

~~~
jpark
If we follow that train of thought further...

Guess which will have the majority of apps and developers?

unless it becomes way too hard to target a sizable chunk of the Android market
due to hardware spec fragmentation.

~~~
loire280
Another thing to worry about is manufacturers abandoning support for old
phones prematurely, or causing long delays between updates to new major
versions. (I'm not sure if Android phones can update over the air, but if not
then you may have a large number of users who never upgrade their OS.)

Yes, technical users can probably acquire third-party firmware if the
manufacturers drop the ball, but that's not a mainstream fix.

Android will not be fun to develop for if you're targeting (hardware spec
fragmentation) x (Android feature fragmentation) different combinations of
phone.

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DrSprout
Well, the iPhone solution is basically throw away your phone every 18 months,
which should work equally well on Android.

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loire280
The carrier subsidy model provides an incentive to throw away your phone every
2 years, anyway.

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emehrkay
Good to see that an open platform is leading the way with these "super
personal computers" (phones/tablets).

I still love my iphone and pad, but it is nice to know that the market leader
isnt some corporation who is bent on defining how the market should move

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loire280
Google's interest in how the mobile market develops is at least as strong as
Apple.

Google provided the business muscle involved in getting a phone sold by a
major carrier (who provide the massive subsidies that make these phones
mainstream) and Google's massive popularity among regular internet users
helped drive interest.

Google's involvement is the key factor in Android's adoption.

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stanleydrew
There were a lot of iPod Touch devices (and now iPads) sold too though, so the
mobile application market is still heavily dominated by Apple devices. Good to
see competition in the smartphone space though.

