Posted on 05/10/2010 11:24:56 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
* Google's Android OS in 28 pct of U.S. smartphones in Q1
* Apple U.S. iPhone share 21 pct in Q1
* Research in Motion retains No. 1 rank with 36 pct share
SAN FRANCISCO, May 10 (Reuters) - Google Inc (GOOG.O) displaced iPhone maker Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to become the second most popular provider of smartphone software in the United States during the first quarter, the latest sign of the increasing competition in the fast-growing mobile market.
Smartphones featuring Google's Android operating system accounted for 28 percent of U.S. smartphone unit sales in the first quarter according to NPD Group, behind top-ranked Research in Motion (RIM.TO), maker of the Blackberry phone, which had a 36 percent share of the market.
Smartphones, which allow consumers to surf the web, send email and run specialized applications on wide, color screens, are increasingly replacing no-frills cell phones for many U.S. consumers.
The devices have become a prime battleground for a variety of tech companies seeking to ensure a good position in the evolving market.
Last month, Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ.N) said it would pay $1.2 billion to acquire Palm Inc (PALM.O), which sells two smartphone models based on its WebOS operating system. Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), whose Windows operating system is used in the majority of the world's PCs, unveiled a pair of smartphones last month and recently launched a revamped version of its mobile operating system.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
"BASKING RIDGE, NJ — The company with the nation’s most reliable wireless voice and data network today introduced Visual Voice Mail, a new application that lets customers manage their voice mail on their phones. Available today on the Voyager™ by LG, Visual Voice Mail provides an easy-to-use display screen with one-touch access to listen to voice mail messages. Customers can also delete, reply and forward their voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions, making Visual Voice Mail ideal for busy professionals who want a more effective way to manage and respond to messages."
http://news.vzw.com/news/2008/08/pr2008-08-11.html
I get a kick out of reading the blogs by various clueless "tech savvy" editors who claim developers have gotten a glimpse of the darker side of Apple. Please. Just... Please. I got an eye-full of that when I was forced to buy a Mac to do development for iPhone. I got another eye-full of that when I had to pay $99 for the privilege of downloading my own App to my own bleeding iPhone. I got another eye-full when I was told that I could only "provision" an unrealistically small number of iPod Touches for my testers, clients, and their helpdesk. I got another eye-full of it when my provisioning profiles periodically expired and I had to waste another billable hour going through the effing torture of acquiring another renewal. And so on, and so on, and so on. With my 'Droids, I can compile edit, debug, and download my app to an actual device -- not a Simulator -- without having to be a cubicle-code-slave to little Stevie Jobs. The irony is with this constant stream of abuse, Jobs thinks he's also entitled to tell me what language I can code in.
Wrong.
Apple goes on the back-burner for me now, unless the client wants to pay a very fat premium.
What the usual fanboiz on this thread don't seem to get is that it's immaterial both to Google and to Apple whether iPhone/iPod Touch is competing with one 'Droid device or Avogadro's number of different kinds of machines. Apple is a hardware maker. Google isn't. So every 'Droid sold by any manufacturer cuts into Apple's hardware market share or potential share, and hurts them. This costs Google nothing, and every 'Droid that connects to Google's content helps them. In the long run, I don't see how Apple can be anything but a niche player once they lose the anti-competitive leverage they've enjoyed by virtue of their numbers edge.
Jobs also doesn't seem to understand that his closing the door on millions of non-Objective-C developers comes at the worst possible time for him. The App Store is completely saturated, so developers looking to cash in are going to go to the new market, and that's 'Droid. And, there are a lot more Java and C# developers than there are Objective-C coders. Cool Google Apps will be developed very quickly -- even more quickly once MonoDroid kicks in. Then the awful way that Apple treats developers will really begin to bite, because nobody using an obsolete IDE like XCode/IB is going to be able to keep up with programmers who have modern tool-chains.
You stated:
"Visual voicemail? Verizon has had Visual Voicemail available on every phone they have made for probably the last 5 years."
To which I replied:
"No, they did not. "Visual Voice Mail" allowed users to chose which voice mail to listen to and not have to listen to them sequentially. It was a patented invention of Apple."
Now you provide a link to an article, from August 11, 2008, in which Verizon announces a "me too" visual voice mail system for ONE PHONE, the LG Voyager™, essentially copying Apple's Visual Voice Mail system, first demonstrated on January 9, 2007, one year and eight months before Verizon's copy-cat version, and released and used on every 2G iPhone on June 29, 2007, one year and 1/2 months before Verizon's release of the LG Voyager... One phone with an ala carte, extra cost service that Apple includes free with every iPhone. It certainly has not been available for your claimed 5 years on every Verizon phone.
I stand by the fact that Apple invented this... and patented the idea.
Thank you for proving that Verizon is copying Apple... and has only had a poor copy for less than two years on a few phones for extra cost.
Uh, no, Joe, we are BOTH wrong. NPD is not reporting actual sales for ANY quarter here. NPD did an online SURVEY of 150,000 voluntary respondents about what they purchased:
"NPD tracks US consumer purchases via surveys, so *all* retailers are covered, including Apple Store brick-and-mortar and online (i.e., it's consumer-reported data, not from the retailers themselves at the point of sale). Compiled from online surveys sent to over 335,000 people per month from NPD’s online consumer panel. Respondents screened for having acquired a cell phone within the last 30 days. Data balanced, weighted and projected to the represent the U.S. population."—NPD response to query about methodology."This is quite different than "actual figures" for sales and since NPD states they sent out 335,000 survey requests... and only 150,000 were used... I'd like to see the raw data. Why were the others rejected?
To which you replied:
No.
You are wrong.
You stated as FACT:
"Apple was taking $400 from AT&T for the iPhone itself, as well as another approx $18 per month from AT&T for every single iPhone subscriber. No surprise Apple's profits just kept getting fatter. Verizon wasn't ready for that kind of servitude."
There is a difference between your claim of a subsidized phone SALE and Apple receiving a portion of the subscription to the service. I submit I am not wrong.
The purchasers of the original iPhone bought their iPhones without the subsidy you claimed in post #48. Ergo, YOU ARE WRONG. Admit it. “Oppenheimer confirmed that Apple is receiving payments from AT&T related to the sale of iPhones, but he didn't want to discuss the specifics of the agreement between the two companies”
Yes, he did, but there are two things he was referring to there. One, the arrangement on the subscription. Two AT&T was buying the phones from Apple at a discount and selling them for a profit. Just as Best Buy, Wal Mart, and other resellers are. No subsidy to the customer.
That's like asking how Rasmussen manages to come up with polling numbers for 150 million potential voters in a presidential election, by only surveying 5,000 or less voters, with lots of the people they phone for polls, just hanging up on them.
NPD has been in this business for a very long time (measuring sales of video games and every conceivable kind of consumer product). If they say, Android smartphones beat the iPhone in the first quarter, then Android smartphones DID beat the iPhones in the first quarter.
The normal thing that happens is, the company that got beaten, finds all kinds of creative ways to complain, as Apple just did about NPD’s figures. Neither Nintendo, nor Sony, nor Microsoft have ever complained about NPD figures since NPD started issuing monthly video game sales figures for the last 15 years.
Funny thing is, the same Apple was boasting about figures from the same NPD, when NPD came out with figures claiming that Apple Mac sales at the higher end were very good. So which is it going to be? Are NPD figures great when they say Apple is winning a particular segment of the PC market, and the same NPD’s figures rubbish, when they say Android is beating the iPhone?
Apple's funny respone to the NPD figures.
“Apple fudges iPhone sales figures by bundling iPod touch numbers into the mix
It seems that yesterday’s NPD data which suggested that Android had a 28% market share and the iPhone a 21% touched a nerve at Apple HQ and prompted a response. But Apple’s response interestingly bundles the iPod touch in with iPhone sales, seriously fudging the numbers
-snip-
But what’s also interesting is how Apple is fudging the figures. The 85 million iPhone and iPod touch figure is correct, only 50 to 55 million of those are iPhones.
Way to fudge the figures Apple. Naughty, naughty!”
The gap between Androids and the iPhones is only going to get bigger, because the first quarter didn't have the superb hot selling, new Android phones like the HTC Desire, Incredible and EVO 4G, which only started coming out in April after the first quarter had ended.
Did you bother to read your links???
Your anecdotal examples are hilarious... the first was solved when a helpful person pointed out that his problem was a third party plug in...
The second issue... was FLASH... LOL
And your third example was a compilation of crashes and freezes from over FOUR years. really scary... all twenty or so... whow... scared me right out of my shoes.
Safari certainly hasn't been crashing quite often for me? Not to the extent that Flash causes crashes...
“Safari certainly hasn’t been crashing quite often for me? Not to the extent that Flash causes crashes...”
Now why am I not surprised by that?
I use Flash several times a day on my Windows 7 laptop to view all kinds of sports clips/tv clips etc on the internet, and it’s never crashed on me.
The movies and TV content on HULU work great with Flash.
The good news is, Android is busy overtaking the iPhone right now in US sales, so Adobe is not exactly going to be losing any sleep over the iPhone, when Flash comes out on Android next month.
Android to Apple: Flash works great, just watch this video
http://dvice.com/archives/2010/05/android-to-appl.php
Multiple vendors, mainly, so far more choice in hardware. The downside to this is that it's not consistent, and neither are versions. Android 2.1 is out, but some networks haven't made it available to their users on some phones yet. When a new iPhone OS is out, everybody gets it.
It also depends on what you value. Apple's App Store is restrictive, but that also means fewer crap and/or dangerous app. The Droid market is far less restrictive, which means more apps and more freedom for apps, but also has a higher potential for crap and dangerous apps. I've seen a lot of complaints of apps crashing Droid systems. Meanwhile Apple reviews each app for stability.
I've used both. As far as usability, the iPhone still has it. And after using a Droid for a while, I understand Apple's hesitance to allow multitasking. I flip to an app, use it, flip home. As a user I shouldn't have to worry about how much battery that app is now taking. Other usability bits apply. People complained about Apple taking too long to implement copy and paste, and now we know why. Copy/paste on the Droid sucks in comparison to Apple's.
Droid apps are also not consistent. For example, different date input methods are used. That's not good. A user, when hitting a date input field, should be presented with a standard picker.
Other than that, I'd still say Android is a very good system. There's a bit of a learning curve, and you have to be a bit more careful, but the phones are generally pretty good and many of the apps out there are very good. Also, if you are one of those who distrusts Google, you might not want to get one. Android is highly integrated with Google's services.
The police tend to do that stuff in criminal investigations. Whether that's right or not is an issue not related to Apple.
Well my recollection of the date was off. But it’s on more than a few phones (it’s on all of the LG offerings, and BlackBerry offerings.) It’s hardly exclusive to Apple and hardly revolutionary.
bttt
The Droid rules. Period. I’m posting from mine right now.
Yeah, probably kicking butt on the battery. Flash is a complete hog. Yes, I've programmed for it. No, I don't like to do that anymore -- too painful. I put Flash on the scrapheap of other products that passed through Macromedia's hands, like Cold Fusion, FreeHand and HomeSite (yes, Macromedia didn't invent any of them).
And it's all moving to HTML5.
Flash has been running on Windows Mobile for years without any problems. It hasn't made Win Mo smartphones any more “hogs on the battery” than any other smartphones. If you watch the video in my link, you will find out that Flash is doing some really cool stuff on the Andriod smart phone. The Apple zombie talking points are getting pretty tiresome and samish.
“Yes, I've programmed for it”
So what?
“No, I don't like to do that anymore — too painful”
I do.
Use Flash every day on the web. Never had any problems with it. I am not going to turn round and start trashing Flash just like a zombie just because Steve Jobs says so. The Apple foot-soldier talking points are getting pretty tiresome and sameish.
2008? Let me put it this way: Jobs was negotiating with Cingular to implement the visual voice mail feature.
No they don't.
For most criminal investigations, the police do NOT break down doors in the middle of the night, unless they are dealing with violent drug dealers, violent killers etc etc. In a case of dealing with a journalist and an editor with ZERO criminal record, ZERO, record of violence against anyone, who in addition had already contacted Apple to return a product he actually BOUGHT from someone (not stole), it's totally out of line, and furthermore, the very warrant used was against California's constitution regarding material used by journalists as the EFF pointed out in an article after the raid took place.
This is the same Apple that is busy pimping Che Guevera, a vicious Marxist killer, even while trashing Fox News. What else can one expect from such a company?
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