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Apple's U.S. Smartphone Usage Share Remains Above 40%
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And their non flagship phones are complete crap. The galaxy S3/4 and note are great phones. No denying it. But their budget phones under the galaxy name are awful. Some of my family and friends have gotten them because thy were free on contract and heard good things about galaxy phones, they didn't realize the phones are crap until using them for a few weeks and finding out they will never get a software update.
I'd surprised that someone who got a phone due to it being free would have any idea about Android software updates. I've asked dozens of people over the past year or so what version of Android their phone was running and 95% of them had no idea what I was talking about.
Windows Phone doesn't have potential because the way Microsoft is run doesn't have potential.
Heh heh.
This is one of those cases where you use percentages for click bait:
Whereas Android increased by 0.7% and Apple by 0.5%... Windows Phone increased its number of users by almost 7%... TEN TIMES as large a percentage of increase!!
Microsoft is on a roll, I tell ya
Being poor or not wanting to spend hundreds on a phone doesn't mean they don't understand about software updates. And regardless of software updates, samsung's mid range and budget phones are crap. I am so glad to see the moves Motorola is making. The moto g might have drawbacks but it isn't a piece of crap.
I've been Android for the past year (cheap Mytouch Q and LG Optimus L9), now I'm on iPhone I miss Google Now on my home screen, my mini Calendar widget on my home screen, the keyboard (shows lower case for lower case, easily autocorrect words by clicking them after typing an entire sentence), notification icons.
I like the better app store, the floor Apple sets for quality (Google just can't say no...), the camera (volume button capture, burst mode), fingerprint sensor, iMessage (seamless, # based unlike piece of **** Google+), the size of the phone.
I might have liked the Moto X too, it would have gotten rid of the hardware issues, but I would still miss apps, iMessage, Facetime, etc.
I miss Google Now on my home screen, my mini Calendar widget on my home screen, the keyboard (shows lower case for lower case, easily autocorrect words by clicking them after typing an entire sentence), notification icons.I like the better app store, the floor Apple sets for quality (Google just can't say no...), the camera (volume button capture, burst mode), fingerprint sensor, iMessage (seamless, # based unlike piece of **** Google+), the size of the phone.
I might have liked the Moto X too, it would have gotten rid of the hardware issues, but I would still miss apps, iMessage, Facetime, etc.
Sony, Nexus, HTC make very good mid rand handsets. I have a Nexus 5 which I bought after selling my iPhone 5 purely due to iOS7. And it's great, the build quality isn't as good obviously but the internals are damn powerful. Also having a 5" screen is a revelation.
Anyway agree with Samsung mid range headsets, Moto over engineer their handsets and alway's have, so they last well.
This site would suck if there are 18 pages of "I love you Apple and can do no wrong" posts drooling and offering their first born sons to Tim. Not everybody is a cultist you know?
Thanks for the stat shots.... Just got home and was about to post.
. Beat me to the punch.Hey there are still plenty of neckbeards that prefer to work from the command line
Not me though
The reason people call ios limited is the walled garden though. No access to the file system that actually really does exist on ios, etc..
Which is ironic because with Android you not only don't have root access to your device (without jailbreaking):
- You are stuck with Samsung/Google/carrier banners/branding all over your phone.
- You can't run iOS apps (which there are more of)
- Developers can't stop people from duplicating their apps and selling them on unofficial app stores (full of copied apps, viruses, unstable apps and pirated apps)
- You can't update AndroidOS unless your phone manufacturer and carrier have packaged the update to include their branding/approval.
- You can't run all Android apps on all current-gen Android phones.
- You submit to Google collecting all of your usage data and using it to target you with ads/data mine/sell on to others.
I love the idea of a phone being more 'free' or 'open', but Android is not that. The only 'open' part of it is the fact it uses a modified linux kernel... which is basically closed off because you can't contribute to it. You cannot recompile the kernel and install it onto your Android phone (without jailbreaking and hacking your way past restrictions). iOS Is the same (but with the UNIX-based open source Darwin kernel).
When people say 'Android is for nerds who like to fiddle' all I always laugh because it's definitely not the case. Manufacturers can add banners/advertising to Android, but that's really the only flexibility that Google allows, which Apple doesn't. Personally this isn't a feature I need...
Everything 'Android' is copied/stolen, including:
- Your private usage data (by Google)
- The names (all from the movie Bladerunner... I'm waiting for the Samsung Deckard)
- The OS design and gestures (all from Apple)
- The apps on 3rd party stores (from the loyal Android developers trying to make a living)
Open/freedom is cool, but Android isn't some cool OS that allows complete freedom that nerds can all enjoy. I'm still waiting for that option, but for now a jailbroken iPhone offers me as much freedom as I want. And NO I don't steal apps, I'm probably one of Apple (and the cydia store)'s biggest customers. I just like to customize the GUI, add features/gimmicks and enjoy the freedom of root access. This is possible for both iOS and Android ONLY WITH A JAILBREAK. Neither offer it out of the box... tell me when somebody does. Ubuntu phone maybe?
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Humor you? No, instead I will give you a real world use cases. I am not near a power outlet a lot of times. Having bigger and replaceable battery is godsend for me. I also tend to do a lot of real work on my Note 2 - having a bigger screen, a great keyboard and great multitasking experience is very important for me.
If the iPhone is anything like my iPad - I would have to type on something that is not as sweet as Swype or even the stock 4.1+ keyboard. Ain't doing that. If I run MS Remote Desktop app on my big screen Note 2 - I can actually usefully access my work laptop and get a few things done. On my iPad if I switch from the Remote Desktop to Safari and load a few tabs - more than half the times the RD app is killed in the background or vice versa - my Safari tabs reload if switching from RD to Safari. Ain't tolerating that either. (Also given how much Safari crashes on iOS7 on my iPad - Chrome or any other browser on Android is just much better.)
I also happen to use Google Apps - the integration with Android is just a whole lot better - Reply to an email straight from the great notification pull down, Widgets etc.
On the tablet side - my kids sometime borrow my iPad and mess things up - on Android, I can just create a restricted user profile or even another user ID for them and it works just great.
Then there are other annoyances - why can't I set a default app on iOS? Why can't I install what I want if I know what I am doing etc.
That's frankly ridiculous - we aren't comparing command line vs GUI here. We are comparing more powerful, more flexible UI (Android) to a more limited, dumbed down UI (iOS). No offense to either party but it isn't very hard to see why any one of them will not work for everyone. You are talking as if iOS is flawless and designed to cater to 99.99% of the market. The huge Galaxy Note 2 sales say otherwise and match the more realistic viewpoint that different people have different needs.
a "toy"! how original. just as they said about the first Mac, and the first PCs before it.
meanwhile, I'm using my toy to control my home theatre, my home lighting, my HAVC, plan my week, run credit cards, and keep tabs on my business. but other than that, total toy. riiight.
That is all fine and dandy. If you buy the right phone, it can be rooted out of the box trivially at any time via fast boot. Also, if you buy the right phone your updates will not be subject to telcos and bloat free. Buy stock android bro. I also never see a single ad thanks to ad away. I am well aware of the benefits of jailbroken ios but it is a pain in the ass. For post a4 devices you can never restore and therefore never screw up. Not to mention the usual one year delay until the jbs release. Jailbroken ios is great I agree.
The jb crowd is looked down upon in the ios community as well. It would seem apple does not care for it either. Meanwhile the android community largely embraces rooting and google devs will even offer solutions that require root in official support forums. The whole vibe is different. There is no ios equivalent to XDA. Outside of the hacks section here, I feel like everyone here looks down on me when I rave about jb'd ios' advantages.
For all intensive purposes the answer to , can you do ____ with you phone? Is yes on android more often than ios.
You also have a lot of anti google fud in there that I won't bother addressing. They are not ambient beings but they did include an 'allow apps from third party sources' checkbox.
How's that jailbroken iPhone 5s? Almost as good as my jb'd iPad air I bet.
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Oh boy looks like "Toyish" offended a lot of people - I did not mean it in a absolute way - what I really wanted to say was the UI look is toyish. Matter of preference really. My main grief is with the limited part.
Thanks for the stat shots.... Just got home and was about to post.
That doesn't show anything to do with the S4. It is Samsung's total phone sales and it is an estimate as Samsung doesn't release actual numbers beyond milestones.
I think it's a lot different going from Android to iOS. I gave it a shot for 2 months with a iPhone 5s but came running back to Android because I felt chained down by the OS and it felt like a downgrade. I haven't touched my wife's iPhone 5 and I don't want to. iOS 7 left such a bad impression on me I returned a retina iPad mini (unopened) because I got sick of seeing "low memory" errors on the 5s.
I think if you never used Android then you really don't know what your missing especially since Android was crappy for the first couple of revisions; I agree with many on that. But today it beats iOS hands down. For my wife I will always pick Apple because it just works (if you ignore the things that do not work).
Those are global numbers. Samsung's phones include a lot of the mid and low end (ie. not Galaxy S4, Note Series).
I have used both. And both has its own advantages and disadvantages. Andriod is a lot more flexible if you are willing to tinker with it. However, iOS is much more stable in terms of the OS. Granted the memory issue is a concern as more people are multitasking. But I don't think you can say one OS beats the other hands down. It is up to personal preference. iOS is more polish and stable, Andriod can be more powerful and flexible.
Yet Android grew more than Apple in the US and Android dominates the world. Your ranting sounds like the last presidential election. All the Republicans thought for sure that Obama was going to be a one term president; it was not even close. This is what happens when people live in a walled garden and only pick negatives while ignoring the positives. Can any Apple loyalist mention 5 positive things about Android without bashing it?
1) I'm not from the USA, I'm from Australia (where the Android:iPhone ratio is something like 10:1). I would no joke say Apple's Australian market share is ~10%. Apple has always supported the USA better and had a greater market share there. Such is life... I don't really care what the majority of people have, I choose what I like.
2) I'm on an Apple fanatics website, if you didn't notice, I'm an Apple fanatic who has chosen to use their gear because I like it. So what? Do Android/Windows fans sit around saying great things about iPhones/OS X? No, and why would they?
3) My points remain valid... Android is not as 'open' as the fans like to think it is when compared to iOS. There are significant restrictions and I feel the need to highlight these when people claim that iOS is too restrictive.
Windows Phone doesn't have potential because the way Microsoft is run doesn't have potential.
Microsoft had exactly the same growth in Market Share as Apple at 0.2%.
That means that just as many new/changing customers chose Windows Phone as iPhone.
Considering they only had 3% of the market to Apple's 40%, that is massive growth for Microsoft.
Clearly the management is doing something right.
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