Guardian: Android now have a 40% market share, iPhone 26%

JTMan

Android has well and truly won the mobile OS battle. Android now has a 40.8% mobile phone market share against a 26.9% market phone market share for the iPhone ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/18/carphone-warehouse-mobile-phone-sales?CMP=twt_fd

Analytics firm Nielsen estimates Android accounts for 40.8% of US Smartphone sales – against 26.9% for iPhone.

After several decades of Microsoft desktop dominance, at least the mobile OS sphere will be dominated by a truly open source platform where innovation can thrive.

Oafley Jones

Fungus wrote: »

Android has well and truly won the mobile OS battle. Android now has a 40.8% mobile phone market share against a 26.9% market phone market share for the iPhone ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/18/carphone-warehouse-mobile-phone-sales?CMP=twt_fd



After several decades of Microsoft desktop dominance, at least the mobile OS sphere will be dominated by a truly open source platform where innovation can thrive.

America =/= the world. I'd like you to expand on your last point. How has MS's desktop dominance stifled innovation in the PC sector? For you what are ( specifically) the benefits of Androids open nature as to say a closed system, or indeed the likes of Symbian?

I'm not entirely convinced that the end user actually benefits much from Androids open nature. It's great for manufacturers, but for us end users we're still stuck with rooting our phones in order to tailor them to our own tastes.

srsly78

Oafley Jones wrote: »

America =/= the world. I'd like you to expand on your last point. How has MS's desktop dominance stifled innovation in the PC sector? For you what are ( specifically) the benefits of Androids open nature as to say a closed system, or indeed the likes of Symbian?

I'm not entirely convinced that the end user actually benefits much from Androids open nature. It's great for manufacturers, but for us end users we're still stuck with rooting our phones in order to tailor them to our own tastes.

How has MS stifled innovation? SERIOUSLY? Where have you been for the last 20 years, do you not remember all those court cases and them being found guilty?

You are right about Android being "too open" tho, manufacturers are completely free to mangle it and close it. Google have said they will be more stringent with 3.0, and not allow manufacturers to customise the core experience.

mickoneill30

Oafley Jones wrote: »

America =/= the world. I'd like you to expand on your last point. How has MS's desktop dominance stifled innovation in the PC sector? For you what are ( specifically) the benefits of Androids open nature as to say a closed system, or indeed the likes of Symbian?

Your right about America =/= the world. I was travelling through Asia in the middle of last year. The iPhone was non existent (pretty much whereever I was) while Android phones were easyish to find. Nokia was by far the majority though.

For me the main benefit I see from Androids open nature is that it allows us to have a load of different devices running the same OS. That's a benefit and a curse though (look at the cheap Chinese tablets) but it allows manufacturers to bring out a product and not have to reinvent everything from scratch (new OS, new apps, new markets, attracting developers etc.).

It is speeding up innovation though. Again a benefit and a disadvantage. Look at the phones from Jan last year and the phones / tablets shown in CES this year while Apple / Symbian seem to have a much slower developmental cycle. I understand why though both of those seem to care more about reliability and consitent user experience rather than cutting edge (I'm not inviting a holy war there)

Also (I don't know if this is because of Androids openness) but the fact that I can change pretty much any app on my phone is a benefit to me. On my Desire HD I've switched to LauncherPro, changed email to K9, changed SMS to GoSMS, broswer is Dolphin HD. When you look at two Android phones side by side frequently they're totally different looking from each other because of the customisations. That's not a benefit for simple users though. Confuses the hell out them.

All of this was without rooting. I know rooting can give more functionality which is fine but by default the user has a very configurable device.

PrzemoF

Fungus wrote: »

Android has well and truly won the mobile OS battle. Android now has a 40.8% mobile phone market share against a 26.9% market phone market share for the iPhone ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/18/carphone-warehouse-mobile-phone-sales?CMP=twt_fd

After several decades of Microsoft desktop dominance, at least the mobile OS sphere will be dominated by a truly open source platform where innovation can thrive.

You're mixing 2 different things: sales vs market share. It's 40% of sales not 40% of the market.

PogMoThoin

Fungus wrote: »

at least the mobile OS sphere will be dominated by a truly open source platform where innovation can thrive.

Truly Open Source? its not truly open source. Versions are only "open sourced" after Google release it, You cannot contribute. Just like Apple, they control their App Market

srsly78

You are confusing opensource with anarchy, there still has to be rules. Do you think you can just go commit your lousy code to linux kernel? Google acts as a "benevolent dictator" in this case. Yes it IS opensource, how are they supposed to release the sourcecode BEFORE they've written it? You obviously have your own whacky definition.

There are some closed components on the devices (device drivers), these are specific to the device, and not part of android as such. Also note that Android does not use the GPL (it uses apache 2.0), thus you are allowed to use closed source components with it.

Also, you are free to NOT use the android market. Amazon has setup their own android market, thus truly shows how open it is.

ixoy

srsly78 wrote: »

Also, you are free to NOT use the android market. Amazon has setup their own android market, thus truly shows how open it is.

And you're free to bypass both and install off any site, if you truly wish to. You don't need to jailbreak your phone.

bd250110

Im not sure we will see many more of this type thread. One word : Verizon. iPhone is shortly going to be available on the largest network in the US. Previously being available on AT&T only. In the last quarter apple sold 16 million iPhones globally and claims supply was "constrained". Apple expect to sell 10-15 million CDMA ("Verizon") iPhones in the next 12 months, according to production estimates. Verizon's had Android as it's halo device(es). US sales % for the droids are about to go through the floor.

I don't really see why people need to do the willy-waving thing. Android appeals to a different customer. In many ways, the customer the Mac used to appeal to.

srsly78

Verizon has been the #1 company behind android in america, are they going to discontinue all their android lines now? No. But yes, it will be interesting to see the statistics.

As an aside: Verizon farmed out some massive android development projects to Ireland

seanybiker

I wish nobody was buying the android phones. Then I would be the coolest person ever.

mickoneill30

bd250110 wrote: »

Im not sure we will see many more of this type thread. One word : Verizon. iPhone is shortly going to be available on the largest network in the US. Previously being available on AT&T only. In the last quarter apple sold 16 million iPhones globally and claims supply was "constrained". Apple expect to sell 10-15 million CDMA ("Verizon") iPhones in the next 12 months, according to production estimates. Verizon's had Android as it's halo device(es). US sales % for the droids are about to go through the floor.

I don't really see why people need to do the willy-waving thing. Android appeals to a different customer. In many ways, the customer the Mac used to appeal to.

It will be interesting but I don't think Androids will go through the floor.
Apple isn't constrained to one carrier in Ireland or the UK. How are Android sales doing in those markets? Through the floor is not the term I'd use.

There's no need to get defensive about Apple though. It's a different model. One hardware & software maker. That can't compete with multiple large hardware makers in every market. They'll still make several truckloads of money though.

evolutionqy7

well i would love an iphone if not for the way people act that own them,they make it out to be like golden ****e and its the best things ever. Most of the poeple i know would wreck my head "look at my iphone it can do this" "It can do that". Thinking that nothing else can do it. I just dont wanna get involved with such a dumbed down community.

Also the UI is plain boring, but i guess that a personal preference.

Reason why the iPhone sells cause their heavily over hyped and over marketed and over priced as the rest of their products.

srsly78

Well at least it's better than lol windows phone I cannot understand why someone would willingly buy or advocate such a device.

evolutionqy7

well id rather have a wp7 over either. Both of their user interfaces seem to feel ancient beside wp7 for me.

I agree its missing bits and pieces but i can put up with that anyway. it has everything i want from it for now.

I thought it wasnt anything special beside the different UI, up until a point where i got to use it, i release how nice and smooth everything was. No lag no nothing just everything as smooth as butter.

srsly78

Don't troll me bro :rolleyes: You are supporting locked-down walled garden systems, just as bad as apple. It's terrible, and looks like it was designed for 5 year olds. Noone cares about the "skin", you can just put this on your android if you really want to dumb it down.

Can't even get sdcards for the stupid thing, what a waste of time. The only thing windows mobile had going for it was the massive ecosystem of apps written, and that all got thrown away. I was winmo dev as well, waste of time. Why would anyone willingly use microsoft? We only put up with them because of their entrenched position.

maximoose

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

well i would love an iphone if not for the way people act that own them,they make it out to be like golden ****e and its the best things ever. Most of the poeple i know would wreck my head "look at my iphone it can do this" "It can do that".

I despise this generalisation. I have an iphone, know about 10 others who do and we dont all parade around declaring how awesome they are. All you are saying is that the people you know are gobsh*tes, doesnt make anyone with an iphone the same.

srsly78

This is a guy who says Android isn't open, and owns a windows phone. Cannot be taken seriously.

evolutionqy7

yeah but the difference for me between apple and ms is the UI. They didnt copy anything and went with their own UI. I agree lack of customizing is annoying. And theres very good reasons behind why MS doesn't allow removable storage. It wasnt designed to have it in the first place. It was either meant to have built in flash storage or a hidden locked down high class micro SD. Also the reason why you cant get them is because normal SD cards doesn't have enough speed to access the memory at random times which is not specified by the class speed.

either way as i said before you have to test it to see it. alot of people who got omnia 7 were absolutely delighted with it. Most of them coming from iphones

S.M.B.

Venom

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

either way as i said before you have to test it to see it. alot of people who got omnia 7 were absolutely delighted with it. Most of them coming from iphones

Moving from an iphone to real smartphone will do that all right

evolutionqy7

Well i wouldn't call WP7 a smartphone.

My definition of a smartphone is a phone that can do things that a normal computer can without breaking your balls to much. Neither iOS or WP7 can stand up to that name. Android is a bit closer but not there either.

PogMoThoin

srsly78

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

yeah but the difference for me between apple and ms is the UI. They didnt copy anything and went with their own UI. I agree lack of customizing is annoying. And theres very good reasons behind why MS doesn't allow removable storage. It wasnt designed to have it in the first place. It was either meant to have built in flash storage or a hidden locked down high class micro SD. Also the reason why you cant get them is because normal SD cards doesn't have enough speed to access the memory at random times which is not specified by the class speed.

either way as i said before you have to test it to see it. alot of people who got omnia 7 were absolutely delighted with it. Most of them coming from iphones

It was designed to be a locked down piece of ****, and it IS a locked down piece of ****. Why would you willingly impose such bondage upon yourself?

Android has no competition, and I pity those that fall victim to the marketing hype of other platforms. If is pretty clear you do not understand the technology behind this, and are just repeating Microsoft's bull**** (sdcards don't have enough speed, wut?). Here is some more Microsoft bull**** for you to defend: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/01/20/1319239/Microsoft-Explains-Windows-Phone-7-Phantom-Data

And again, Android is not perfect but it is best thing we have.

evolutionqy7

well once you see an official statement please tell me so. All issues are always added with a bit of lemon or sugar. Most tech news sites put their own twist to it. Each one of them reports a story from a story published by a different site.

Apparently phantom data only hit a few people not exceeding a number larger than 2 digits.

Either way as i said i flashed WP7 onto my phone coming from Nokia -> WinMo -> Android -> WP7 and i feel that android has terrible user interface compared to WP7. Its not as smooth or as consistent. No more sea of apps no more annoying effort to space widgets and make sure you dont over clutter the homescreen with too many widgets. NO MORE LAGS.

srsly78

Problem is with the user tbh, good androids phones don't lag. Note that Samsung do not make good android phones.

Alternatively you are comparing a last generation android phone with a current generation windows phone. You are a troll.

evolutionqy7

wtf are you on about? ALL windows phones run the same processors as all the current Android phones. Their running the same snapdraggons.

Id say your the troll here throwing accusations without knowing ****

Venom

Evolutiongy7 what phone you currently using as Iv read a few posts by you and each time a different OS is involved?

evolutionqy7

read the sig HTC HD2

srsly78

evolutionqy7 wrote: »

wtf are you on about? ALL windows phones run the same processors as all the current Android phones. Their running the same snapdraggons.

Id say your the troll here throwing accusations without knowing ****

Try reading my posts. Responding to you is a waste of time.

Johnny Storm

srsly78 wrote: »

How has MS stifled innovation? SERIOUSLY? Where have you been for the last 20 years, do you not remember all those court cases and them being found guilty?
.....

FWIW that lawsuit was bull**** from start to finish. The first thing the court did was to define "Desktop computer" so as not to include Macs, thereby excluding Microsoft's main OS competitor. In other words, Microsoft is a monopolist (as long as you ignore their actual main competitor).

srsly78

There were multiple lawsuits in multiple countries.

Scotty #

bd250110 wrote: »

Im not sure we will see many more of this type thread. One word : Verizon. iPhone is shortly going to be available on the largest network in the US. Previously being available on AT&T only. In the last quarter apple sold 16 million iPhones globally and claims supply was "constrained". Apple expect to sell 10-15 million CDMA ("Verizon") iPhones in the next 12 months, according to production estimates. Verizon's had Android as it's halo device(es). US sales % for the droids are about to go through the floor.

It will cause a nice spike in iPhone sales charts but in the long run Android is going to out-sell the iPhone. This will be for a variety of reasons.

The main one being price.