Android Soars Past RIM And Apple In Q2: Now The U.S.'s Top-Selling Smartphone Platform

Business Insider ^ | 08/02/2010 | Dan Frommer

[SeekAndFind]

It's happening, Apple!

Google's free and open-source Android operating system shot past its competitors last quarter to become the top-selling U.S. smartphone OS, according to research firm Canalys.

Android accounted for 34% of the 14.7 million smartphones sold in the U.S. last quarter, while RIM was 32.1% of the market and Apple was 21.7%, Canalys estimates. That's a huge victory for Google, which was zero two years ago.

Yes, Apple's iPhone 4 didn't launch until the very end of the quarter, and Q3 should be bigger for Apple. But the fact that Google is anywhere near Apple's market share -- let alone halfway above it -- must concern both Apple and RIM.

What does it mean for Apple? It's time to start selling the iPhone at more U.S. carriers, and not just AT&T.

Apple must sell the iPhone at Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. carrier, as soon as possible, and potentially at T-Mobile, too. In the U.S. smartphone market, carriers still handle most of the distribution -- Google learned this the hard way when its would-be-disruptor Nexus One store flopped. And now only about a third of iPhone buyers are switching to AT&T from other carriers. So if Apple wants to take the top position in the market, it's going to have to sell the iPhone at more carriers.

[dangerdoc]

I found it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Treo

I couldn’t remember the exact date, Wiki lists the first phone model in 2002. I do remember wanting one. I also remember tech magazines at the time hailing it as the first computer phone.

It had a large selection of apps from many venders. It also had a touch screen with handwriting recognition. Seemed like the Jetson’s at the time.

[Swordmaker]

It had a large selection of apps from many venders. It also had a touch screen with handwriting recognition. Seemed like the Jetson’s at the time.

Uh, no, you didn't. The Palm Treo took after the Blackberry and had a physical keyboard and stylus touch capability. The first palm phone with a full finger touch screen was announced in late 2008...and not actually released until January 8 2009... two years after the announcement of the iPhone. Up until then, the Palm phone depended on keyboards and multiple buttons. The touch screen was more of a navigation gimmick. Palm released it's AppStore in 2009 to sell apps.

The Palm Treo series could be called a smartphone, with it's set of limited apps, but it was not a modern touchscreen smartphone, until after Apple set the bar.

[SunkenCiv]

• Android Outpaces iPhone in Share of New U.S. Smartphone Customers for First Half of 2010
• Nielsen: Android flourished before iPhone 4, but Apple 'most desired'
• Piracy problems undermine Android's growth against iPhone
• Beatweek calls Android platform "sinking ship", VZ needs iPhone
• [Beatweek] Verizon needs Verizon iPhone more than Apple, after Droid debacle
• Ballmer: Microsoft-Powered Tablets Are 'Job One Urgency'

[The Theophilus]

The appearance of Android is far more disastrous for MS in the phone space than anyone else.

Even with Windows Phone 7?    One word: Silverlight

[dangerdoc]

If I remember correctly, the keyboard and color screens were added later. Resistive screens were state of the art way back then and are by definition a touch screen.

Technology has progressed I’m not sure why you are arguing minutia with me. That was the first computer phone I ever saw and other than the limits of the technology of the time, it performed the same basic function. It had a wide variety of apps. It had a GPRS radio which allow email, data transfer and web surfing.

It’s like saying that the non Intel Mac’s are not Macs because they don’t run OSX and didn’t come with a modern touch pad.

Apple had an exceptional product with the release of the original iPhone but it was an evolutionary advancement. If you want to argue that a resistive screen isn’t as good as a capacitive screen and the old Palm smartphones were dinosaurs compared to new smart phones, I’ll give you that. But then again, every computer I owned prior to the one I am using now is a dinosaur, are we going to come back in a couple of years and argue the computers we have now are not really computers because they don’t have 3D screens and holographic storage?

[Swordmaker]

Technology has progressed I’m not sure why you are arguing minutia with me. That was the first computer phone I ever saw and other than the limits of the technology of the time, it performed the same basic function. It had a wide variety of apps. It had a GPRS radio which allow email, data transfer and web surfing.

It had a limited, cramped screen that was pretty much useless for surfing the web... accessing only web altered sites, or scrolling around full size webpage on a huge 2x2 screen . . . unusable. People who tried to use it found it so and didn't. The number of apps available for the Palm numbered in the dozens, hardly a "wide variety," and I would argue that it did not offer the "same basic functions."

The iPhone raised the bar far more than an "evolutionary" movement... it was "revolutionary" in that it made the internet actually useful in a phone device... and added a lot more functionality and it integrated it into a cohesive whole. They put it together in a package that anyone could find all that functionality and use it... something that was difficult on all previous phones... that made it revolutionary.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Not to mention you can completely root the iPhone by simply visiting a website. Own the entire OS at the root level, do whatever you want, and no one can stop you...

Oops. So much for the “vaunted invulnerability” of the iPhone!

[PugetSoundSoldier]

That's OK, I listed several "modern" touchscreen smartphones that predated the iPhone by several years, but Sword wants to keep ignoring it, and continue the lie that "Apple invented the modern touchscreen phone".

Facts are difficult things, they always get in the way of a good yarn!

[Mr. Blonde]

So far there are no Windows Phone 7 phones out. In the meantime, companies that were exclusively WinMo have gone Android in a big way. HTC was exclusively WinMo, now they are going to be no more than 50/50.

[Swordmaker]

I asked: "Please, name the first modern touch screen smart phone, one that is primarily a computer rather than a phone, that relied almost entirely on the screen for the interface, capable of displaying a full internet webpage, that predated the iPhone. You keep claiming his, but you never produce anything."

To which you replied: "HTC TyTN. Eten M600. Qtek S100. Samsung i700 and E898. Motorola A1000. And there are many others, out since the 2002+ timeline."

You are back to your pattern again, Puget.

HTC TyTN:

I count no less than 52 buttons. Released in Summer of 2006, the HyTN FAILS to meet the criteria set.

Eten M600:

Close, but there are no less than 14 buttons to control the phone and it has a whopping 256MB of memory... really useful as a computer. NOT! The itty-bitty screen is useless for surfing the internet. The phone is totally dependent on having a stylus to navigate or type anything on the microscopic virtual QWERTY keyboard. Lose it, you can't use the phone. FAIL!

Qtek S100:

RAM: 64MB... need I say more? It's a phone with Microsoft Pocket Office reader applications in ROM along with basic email, browser, etc. Dependent entirely on a stylus. FAIL!

Samsung i700:

Wow! This one has the joy of dialing with the stylus... whoopee. I counted 13 buttons... hardly intuitive. Again Windows Mobile with MS Pocket Office reader apps in ROM. No alarm clock, no calendar. Really useful PDA... not. FAIL!

and Finally, the Samsung E898:

This phone fails in every way... it's not even classified as a smartphone. It's a media phone with a touch screen using a stylus. It has 80MB of RAM. Comes preloaded with the following "software":
- MP3/AAC/AAC+ player
- MP4 video player
- KINGSOFT bilingual dictionary
- Organizer
- Voice memo
- Wireless / PictBridge printing

None of these phones were easy to use, intuitive, or integrated in the way the iPhone was. They all used styluses or multiple physical buttons for navigation around the applications... They are not modern smartphones like the iPhone or those that followed it's introduction. None of those preceding the intro of the iPhone can be said to have everything the iPhone had at introduction combined with its easy user interface. That is what made it revolutionary. Lists of specifications are NOT what makes a usable device. USABILITY is.

[Swordmaker]

War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"

CRAP! Joe.

Are you having a problem with the truth, SmokingJoe... That was an accurate description of the LG Prada at the time it was released. Just because YOU want to claim it's propaganda, does not make it any less true...

I could call you on ad hominem attack... but I will refrain.

[Alas Babylon!]

Amazon has a Kindle app for Droid. LOTS of ebooks in Kindle!!!!

[Swordmaker]

If I remember correctly, the keyboard and color screens were added later. Resistive screens were state of the art way back then and are by definition a touch screen.

You aren't remembering correctly. Here is the first Palm Treo Phone, the model 180. The Palm Treo 90 was a PDA, and had no phone functions.

[dangerdoc]

“The number of apps available for the Palm numbered in the dozens, hardly a “wide variety,””

Swordmaker, I’ve been conversing with you for a long time now, and I know you are a good guy, but honestly, when you get wrapped up in an Apple related discussion, you lose your mind. Did you ever use a Palm device? I’m guessing not because you completely made that up. And I say made up as in you have no idea so you pull a number out of the air and quote it authoritatively. How am I supposed to tell what you really know vs. what you pull out of thin air now?

When I had mine, there were thousands of apps available. Wiki lists the number of apps for palm OS as more than 50,000. That may not be a wide variety in your book but it is certainly is not dozens.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

As much as it pains me to say so, Joe, you are right. I was remembering an article of a few days ago that said that Apple “may soon” pass Exxon as America’a largest company as far as market capitalization goes. Exxon is only slightly ahead now and Apple is gaining fast.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2561496/posts

[SmokingJoe]

“Are you having a problem with the truth, SmokingJoe”

Read posts #’s 57, 62, 71, 79, 85 again will ya? Then come back and tell me who is peddling lies here. YOU! The iPhone was not even close to being the first touch screen smart phone released.

[Swordmaker]

When I had mine, there were thousands of apps available. Wiki lists the number of apps for palm OS as more than 50,000. That may not be a wide variety in your book but it is certainly is not dozens.

Doc, now the Palm ecosystem has 50,000 apps. Go back to the introduction of the Palm Treo 180 phone in 2002 and see how many were available then. Certainly not 50k. I did actually have a Palm IIIc that I used extensively. At that time (2001 or so), the number of apps was in the hundreds. It wasn't much higher a year later when the Palm Treo line was released.

I didn't pull that "dozens" figure out of my hat. You'll find I don't do that. if I'm not sure, I'll either research till I find the fact, or I won't say it. When I was fact checking my post to you, which is something I always do, I scanned a contemporaneous review of the Palm Treo 180 which decried the fact that the exclusive carrier (Verizon IIRC, but it might have been Sprint) was only making several dozen of the most popular Palm PDA applications available for download for the new Palm PDA phone on their network. . . and that these were at a higher cost than the same programs were direct from Palm.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Sword, you’re lying again (what’s new...)

EVERY SINGLE ONE of those phones can be used with just the screen. Buttons are redundant. I proved your claim wrong - the iPhone brought nothing new outside of an app store (even then, Nokia had one back in 2006).

So you nit-pick and change the goal posts. What’s new...

[PugetSoundSoldier]

We stated that "Apple invented the modern touch screen smartphone." All of the words in that quotation are important. DO NOT TURN OUR STATMENTS INTO LIES BY DELIBERATELY OMITTING WORDS FROM THEM AND MISQUOTING THEM! I refuse to allow you to do that again!

That does not fly and I will report your misconduct to the admin moderators. I will not hesitate. So stop it here.

Sword, you're a GD liar, and so is Rachel. Provably. Report me to the moderator - you're a PROVEN LIAR, and Rachel and you are two of the most antagonistic, evil, hateful, attack-laden fanatics here. See post 6 where RachelFaith posted:

Apple invented the modern touch smartphone

So suck it up, admit you're freaking wrong, and that you exist on FR for one thing - to hype the crap out of all that is Apple.

Stuff it Sword, I'm done with your crap. You and Rachel can go and have your jolly little Apple-fest, but your lies and twisting and goal-post shifting are tired, deceitful and downright evil.

Oh, and Sword? The iPhone has a BIG FREAKING GAPING HOLE OF SECURITY THAT YOU CAN ROOT A PHONE BY JUST GOING TO A WEBSITE. So you're a liar and a hateful one at that for attacking me constantly for ever stating as such.