Posted on 04/02/2011 5:13:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Google's Android OS has gained an astonishing 7 points of market share in the US smartphone market in the past three months, Comscore says.
RIM's market share over the same period collapsed, dropping almost 5 points.
Apple's share increased slightly, but is dead in the water and has now fallen way behind Android. Android now has a third of the US market (33%). RIM's share has plummeted to 29%. Apple is holding at 25%. In the "also ran" category, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 did nothing to stop its decline, which fell from 9% to 7.7%. And Palm, which is barely worth mentioning anymore, fell another point to 2.8%.
Why do the Android gains matter? Are Apple bulls right that Apple has an insurmountable hold on the "premium" segment of the market and that it doesn't matter who has the other 75%?
The Android gains matter because technology platform markets tend to standardize around a single dominant platform (see Windows in PCs, Facebook in social, Google in search). And the more dominant the platform becomes, the more valuable it becomes and the harder it becomes to dislodge. The network effect kicks in, and developers building products designed to work with the platform devote more and more of their energy to the platform. The reward for building and working with other platforms, meanwhile, drops, and gradually developers stop developing for them
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Linux on the desktop? LOL. Now, Linux on the smartphone...that’s a totally different story.
Which is considered the most developer friendly? Speed in developing cutting edge apps?
I just bought the Android 2.2 HTC Insight 4G. The 8MB Ram, 1ghz cpu, flashplayer 10.1 on that thing delivers the best H264 high-def video I have ever seen, and the cpu problems with flashplayer are GONE now. 8mpixel HD camera with a flash the brightness of the sun, with HD VIdeo recording / playback.
My wife dropped her IPhone like a bad habit. I suspect my youngest son will want one now too.
99 bucks. Not bad, Google - not bad at all.
From now on, companies hoping to receive early access to Google’s most up-to-date software will need approval of their plans. And they will seek that approval from Andy Rubin, the head of Google’s Android group. Businessweek
Motorola Mobility has hired a number of experienced mobile and Web engineers from Apple and Adobe and is developing a Web-based mobile operating system as a possible alternative to Google’s Android software, according to a source familiar with the matter. InformationWeek
It's interesting that Apple's marketshare is so large for having so few handset models: iPhone 4 and iPhone 3gs.
This is a kind of lame analysis. RIM and Apple make “products”. That is, hardware, software, service etc.
Android is an operating system -not a product. It is used by any manufacturer that wishes to use it. Android could accurately be described as the mobile OS for everyone that is not RIM or Apple. It seems that the market is much more likely to solidify in thirds with RIM, and Apple,holding close to a third, and everybody else sharing the balance using Android.
Iphone and Blackberry have fairly decent market segmentation. Blackberry is a tool used to do work, Iphone is a fashion accessory used to look very very cool.
Fame away appleheads...
That’s going to change a lot of how quickly new handsets will be coming to market.
If you develop for one phone, you have to port it to another phone.
Developing Java is a lot simpler than developing in IOS. Objective C is like stone age.
But that doesn’t matter as Windows 7 has the best development environment bar none.
The best thing I ever did was to replace my Blackberry with the Droid-X.
The OS or even the hardware platform isn’t the critical factor - smart engineers will innovate and continually improve both. Apple’s biggest contribution was the overall business model, which combined innovative yet solid hardware and software development environment with a back-office that made it simple and easy for non-techie users to customize their devices to their hearts desire. The rapid adoption of the product created an instant market for software apps and more software apps solidified the market position of the product - an extremely virtuous cycle.
Now the problem is - Apple has schooled its competitors and while they still have a large base they no longer are unique. Once a feature or benefit becomes commonplace it turns into a commodity and no longer enables a company to demand a premium for it. And competing on the basis of price is not something Apple is good at.
Amen!
Funny, I can still build my own PCs, but I’m happy (so far) as a mobile phone caveman.
I like my Nokia 6085 so much that I’ve bought replacements twice on eBay since it’s not being made.
In my defense, I have an office at home, so I don’t need much when I’m away.
I use:
phone
alarm clock
voice mail
calendar
timer
Turned off the net and texting. I could use texting on rare occasions, but not enough to be bothered.
No “fame”. I’ve used windows Mac OS is better.
Used Droid, iPhone 4 (iOS) is better.
Okay so I can upgrade my phone this month and I want to get either a phone with the android os or an Iphone...what, really, is the best? Or are they comparable?
As long as you don’t mind every single thing you do and where you do it tracked and shared with this WH...you are all set with android!
Google is pulling the Android OS out of open source...gee I can’t imagine why Google would want to do this...
Google is evil and if you buy their products you are helping people that want to destroy America.
Sooner or later Conservatives are going to have to stick togther and stop enabling our enemies.
I’d recommend the iPhone.
1. I don’t trust Google. 2. android.process.acore has stopped unexpectedly errors which force you to hard reset (and wipe) your device.
No, really. Finally we have competition in operating systems. Wish it had happened 30 years earlier on x86.
Honestly, I’d wait a few months either way. If you’re on Verizon, the first LTE (”4G”) phones are currently rolling out, but there are bound to be problems in the first gen, and I think the second gen will have a lot more to offer (this summer/fall). A good LTE phone to look at is the Droid Bionic (coming summer).
If you want an iPhone, the current gen (iPhone 4) is nearly a year old and is due for a refresh either this summer (if their yearly schedule continues) or this fall/winter (if the rumors hold).
The Android OS will be hard to get away from open source as it is nothing but a copy of various UNIX OSs. Open it up and look inside at the non-free blobs still there still signed.
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