Android and iPhone Own Nearly The Entire U.S. Smartphone Market

[MacAddict1978]

Do not count MS out.

It is a safe bet that long term the big OS will be Windows Phone, Android and iOS. I would almost argue that it would go 1) Android 2) WP and 3) iOS.

Reason for it is iOS is limited to Apple only and the other are put on multiple different phones. Apple will more than likely still be #1 in single phone sells.

MS is willing to put the money to break into the market.

MS unfortunately spends their money on all the wrong things. To date, the most insightful advertisement for WP7 was a man taking a leak at a urinal that seemed to say, "this guy can get everything done in the time it takes to wizz."

The platform is almost 2 years old. In technology, that's a long time to be in the game with almost no success. If Nokia's launch with AT&T fails to make a splash... I think that's it for MS. They have no carrier support, almost no public interest, and a very high return rate of purchased devices.

The only thing propelling Windows Phone currently is that the last available model is under $50.

There's a slice of pie for someone, but I wouldn't wager my money on MS. I think if anything, Android is the most vulnerable despite their numbers. It's a really crappy OS under the hood. Google entering the handset market isn't being taken well by their partners. Android's really benefited from being freeware to device makers.... there are handsets in every price range. MS's launch partners all lost their shirts on WP7 devices. Right now they've basically got Nokia and a lone HTC model coming. Compared to over 200+ Android models? And a whopping 3 options for iPhones... not a pretty picture.

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Yeah. Usual MS. A great product that received barely any marketing, and withered on the vine because of it.

Don't think it didn't sell because it was a crappy product. No. It didn't sell because no one knew about it. The handful of people who actually went out and bought one thought it was an excellent device top to bottom.

It's the same way with WP7. They had that heavy marketing push at first, but now? I just went to one of the local mobile stores to see if they had any iPad slips in stock, and all I saw were Androids, Blackberries, and iPhones. There wasn't a single Windows Phone on display. How do they expect to sell their phones when stores won't even put the things out on the shelves?

I'm actually going to disagree. When the Zune launched, Microsoft threw tons of marketing at the devices. Ads ran on every network at every demographic, they had all the major retailers as launch partners. There were demo stations in mass retailers like Target and Best buy... and they got "crickets."

The Zune was a great device as far as features. It had much better features then the iPod... but the first version was U-G-L-Y. THen they never did much in the way of upgrading the hardware or design... and threw all their money at the Zune HD to rival the iPod touch which was an epic fail. Perhaps because of the lack of any real app store or content for the device... and it's music store was sorely lagging behind iTunes.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the very first thing he did was pull in all the software engineers and designers to cuss them out. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was to the effect that, "there's no sex in the machines."

That's what Microsoft always seems to miss on. They put out half baked technology with no sex appeal. And when they try... we get things like the Kin... or the first Zune that looked like a big terd.

 

[surma884]

Where do you see these blue screens of death? I haven't a blue screen of death since Windows 98. Which version of Windows are you using?

I used to get one every other day on Windows 98. That was back in 1999 when Gateway 2000 was good. With XP it was less often, but I still saw blue screens. After XP it has been less, but I've seen it on every machine more than once. I had a Lenovo laptop and saw it several times. I have a crappy Dell from work and I still see blue screens. You must be very lucky to not have any blue screens.

Windows architecture sucks. If you use Mac OS or Linux and get used to where everything is and how to use it you will learn that Windows is inefficient. The only time my Mac ever freezes is when there is heavy HDD activity. My work laptop (Windows 7) freezes anytime there is small HDD activity.

 

[sha4000]

I used to get one every other day on Windows 98. That was back in 1999 when Gateway 2000 was good. With XP it was less often, but I still saw blue screens. After XP it has been less, but I've seen it on every machine more than once. I had a Lenovo laptop and saw it several times. I have a crappy Dell from work and I still see blue screens. You must be very lucky to not have any blue screens.

Windows architecture sucks. If you use Mac OS or Linux and get used to where everything is and how to use it you will learn that Windows is inefficient. The only time my Mac ever freezes is when there is heavy HDD activity. My work laptop (Windows 7) freezes anytime there is small HDD activity.

I personally have never had a blue screen running 2000 pro, XP or Win7 but I have seen it a hand full of times on friends PCs.

 

[surma884]

MS unfortunately spends their money on all the wrong things. To date, the most insightful advertisement for WP7 was a man taking a leak at a urinal that seemed to say, "this guy can get everything done in the time it takes to wizz."

The platform is almost 2 years old. In technology, that's a long time to be in the game with almost no success. If Nokia's launch with AT&T fails to make a splash... I think that's it for MS. They have no carrier support, almost no public interest, and a very high return rate of purchased devices.

The only thing propelling Windows Phone currently is that the last available model is under $50.

There's a slice of pie for someone, but I wouldn't wager my money on MS. I think if anything, Android is the most vulnerable despite their numbers. It's a really crappy OS under the hood. Google entering the handset market isn't being taken well by their partners. Android's really benefited from being freeware to device makers.... there are handsets in every price range. MS's launch partners all lost their shirts on WP7 devices. Right now they've basically got Nokia and a lone HTC model coming. Compared to over 200+ Android models? And a whopping 3 options for iPhones... not a pretty picture.

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I'm actually going to disagree. When the Zune launched, Microsoft threw tons of marketing at the devices. Ads ran on every network at every demographic, they had all the major retailers as launch partners. There were demo stations in mass retailers like Target and Best buy... and they got "crickets."

The Zune was a great device as far as features. It had much better features then the iPod... but the first version was U-G-L-Y. THen they never did much in the way of upgrading the hardware or design... and threw all their money at the Zune HD to rival the iPod touch which was an epic fail. Perhaps because of the lack of any real app store or content for the device... and it's music store was sorely lagging behind iTunes.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the very first thing he did was pull in all the software engineers and designers to cuss them out. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was to the effect that, "there's no sex in the machines."

That's what Microsoft always seems to miss on. They put out half baked technology with no sex appeal. And when they try... we get things like the Kin... or the first Zune that looked like a big terd.

The core issue is that MS can't design/make hardware. They have tried many times, but failed. Remember when WIFI was starting out they had WIFI cards and routers? Buggiest of them all back then. The X-Box is still buggy. The only reason why people buy it is because of the games and Xbox Live.

The Zune HD failed because they did not have any 3rd party apps. I bought the Zune HD when it came out thinking that they would thousands of apps (big mistake).

MS only knows how to make Windows, Office, and X-Box. They have had too many failures.

 

[GFLPraxis]

The iPod touch and iPad are not "Smartphones", so no.

Obviously they're not smartphones, but the question is how they are calculating these statistics. If you look at the chart, it just lists "iOS". If they're counting Mobile Safari hits as iOS, then iPod Touch and iPad are included in the numbers.

 

[thekev]

Windows architecture sucks. If you use Mac OS or Linux and get used to where everything is and how to use it you will learn that Windows is inefficient. The only time my Mac ever freezes is when there is heavy HDD activity. My work laptop (Windows 7) freezes anytime there is small HDD activity.

I like Linux, but that is beside the point. How full is the drive on that Windows 7 machine, because my own experience on PCs and under bootcamp doesn't mirror that. In the case of OSX, you might wait a couple seconds if it spun the drive down. I've never seen a major difference in that regard. BSOD was more common on older machines, especially if you had a bad driver or hardware issue.

 

[njean777]

I dont know why people would be surprised. WP7 and Blackberry have been galling off the wayside. Although the new nokia merger may be interesting to see with WP7. The Lumia 900 is a gorgeous phone.

 

[notabadname]

Bull of an argument. Android is still on top of the market, regardless of what phones they're on. And there are some phones which are selling like hotcakes. Not iPhone volume sales, but still a lot. Galaxy S2 for example?

So you must believe Microsoft is the leading PC maker because their OS is on 90% of computers? Apple makes and sells far more computers than Microsoft and far more (infinitely more) phones than Android. An "Android" Phone is merely a descriptor for the OS. Any one of the individual hardware manufacturers running Google's free "Add-roid" is being absolutely trounced by Apple in sales, including the S2 - for (your) example

The facts- Galaxy S2 broke 10 million units sold in 5 months. Apple sold 37 Million in essentially one month during the 2011 Holiday period. So nearly 4 times the volume in 1/4 the timeframe.

But feel free to keep pouting "Bull" to any logical argument that is contrary to your own beliefs.

 

[scoobydoo99]

Oh really?
Care to back that up with actual poof?
And don't whip out the tired pics of a BB style prototype since Android has been hardware agnostic since day 1.
We're talking OS, not hardware.

http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wild?tag=gadgetsandroidhardwareinthewild

The photo is still valid. You can't be hardware agnostic when you design for a physical keyboard and d-pad or joystick. This was six months after the iPhone release, while Android was still transitioning from the "old" RIM-style interface to the "new" iPhone-like interface. The change was entirely due to the iPhone. And, yes, this is Blackberry-style hardware, because that's what Android had been designed for before they saw the iPhone.

 

[rjohnstone]

http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wild?tag=gadgetsandroidhardwareinthewild

The photo is still valid. You can't be hardware agnostic when you design for a physical keyboard and d-pad or joystick. This was six months after the iPhone release, while Android was still transitioning from the "old" RIM-style interface to the "new" iPhone-like interface. The change was entirely due to the iPhone. And, yes, this is Blackberry-style hardware, because that's what Android had been designed for before they saw the iPhone.

The "interface" on Android has always been a grid of icons with a dock at the bottom.
Nothing changed.
They added widgets later in the design phase.

The OS has been hardware agnostic since day one.
You design for whatever input methods that happen to be available on the hardware you install it on.
Android works with or without a physical keyboard, D-Pad or even physical buttons.
That's why to this very day you get get an Android powered phone it just about any hardware configuration you want.

Both versions of prototype hardware existed during the development phase.
Apple fanboys like to ignore the HTC protoype that was in development at the same time as the BB style device.

 

[charleshudgen]

It seems Android is getting better among other smartphones. There were a lot of Mobile market who offers a better phone and introduce a new gadget to people. Android vs. Iphone really gets a tough competition when it comes to consumer. We all know Apple products is to expensive compare to Android, so I guess people would love to get Android.

 

[SactoGuy18]

Unfortunately, there is a big potential killjoy in all this: the litigation against Android by Apple (through suing cellphone manufacturers) and Oracle (over the use of a form of Java in Android).

These litigation cases could end up stunting the growth of Android, and that could end up making Windows Phone 7.5 ("Mango") and 8.0 ("Apollo") very attractive to cellphone manufacturers, especially since the Metro interface of Windows Phone 7.0 and is unlikely to trample of any of the iOS interface patents and copyrights. With the Nokia Lumia 900 now including 3GPP LTE support in addition to GSM support, that means you can enjoy the same LTE data speeds now enjoyed by a number of Android phones now on the market.

 

[Dmunjal]

I thought Oracle didn't gain much from the Google lawsuit? Apple and Samsung will settle with only the lawyers winning. At some point, the apps will dictate the winner and I don't see room for WP in this market. It's iOS and Android from here on out.

 

[dethmaShine]

It's pretty well established that Android was completely revamped as a direct result of the iPhone. So, yeah, they did copy iPhone OS.

What part of 'typicalDenial' you didn't understand?

 

[KdParker]

Of course Microsoft will support it... it's just that no one really sees a reason to buy it.

WP7 commercials aren't all that exciting... and it was so late to the game that everyone is now focused on Android and the iPhone.

Maybe when everyone is running Windows 8 and if there is some amazing integration with Windows Phones... there might be some reason to NOT choose Android or iOS.

But 91% of recent US smartphone purchases were Android and iOS... it will be difficult for Microsoft to change that.

The WP7 phones are decent phones and for non-techy people that simply want a smart phone this is a viable choice. Once the people start seeing the WP7/WP8 phones, they should gain some traction in the market place.

 

[tbrinkma]

The WP7 phones are decent phones and for non-techy people that simply want a smart phone this is a viable choice. Once the people start seeing the WP7/WP8 phones, they should gain some traction in the market place.

People have had ample chance to see WP7 phones. They got precisely zero traction in the marketplace. WP8 phones may be different, but there's absolutely nothing to make me think so based on prior phones based on an MS OS.

 

[tbrinkma]

I'm actually going to disagree. When the Zune launched, Microsoft threw tons of marketing at the devices. Ads ran on every network at every demographic, they had all the major retailers as launch partners. There were demo stations in mass retailers like Target and Best buy... and they got "crickets."

The Zune was a great device as far as features. It had much better features then the iPod... but the first version was U-G-L-Y. THen they never did much in the way of upgrading the hardware or design... and threw all their money at the Zune HD to rival the iPod touch which was an epic fail. Perhaps because of the lack of any real app store or content for the device... and it's music store was sorely lagging behind iTunes.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the very first thing he did was pull in all the software engineers and designers to cuss them out. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was to the effect that, "there's no sex in the machines."

That's what Microsoft always seems to miss on. They put out half baked technology with no sex appeal. And when they try... we get things like the Kin... or the first Zune that looked like a big terd.

Agreed. MS actually *can* put out devices based on decent hardware, but they consistently show a lack of follow-through sufficient to kill the market. It's not a lack of advertising, they do more of that than Apple does. It's a lack of *effective* advertising, and a lack of any effort to build any sort of sustained ecosystem around those devices.

One of the biggest selling points for the iPod is the sheer size of the accessories market associated with it. It doesn't matter what accessory you're looking for, you're almost *certain* to find one that fits your particular needs. That's the result of the 'dock' connector that Apple has maintained for years, with it's communication/control capabilities, combined with maintaining similar form-factors across multiple generations, and their active effort to cultivate the accessories market.

MS, on the other hand, has a history of 'partnering' with other companies, and then doing something a couple years down the line to completely screw them over. Let's look at the Zune for an example of this:
Prior to the Zune, MS partnered with several MP3 player manufacturers with the 'Plays for Sure' DRM scheme, so they could claim support from more stores/providers than the iPod. Unfortunately, PfS never *quite* lived up to it's labeling, so it was always a bit touchy buying content. (Yeah, it worked fine *most* of the time, but it wasn't 'for sure'.) Then, when they released the Zune, they didn't just *add* a new DRM type for it, they *abandoned* the existing one.

Let's say I've got a big 'PfS' MP3 collection. What motivation do I have to buy a Zune to replace my existing player if my collection won't move over? And what about the 'popular' subscription arrangements? Suddenly, even though I *want* to keep the subscription, I'm out in the cold, and I have nothing to show for all the money I spent on it over the past few years. Suddenly, in comparison, the iPod looks much safer, because it has a *long* history of maintained compatibility, and I'll have to re-buy large parts of my collection no matter what since the PfS stuff won't work on anything new.

That's classic MS. They do decent enough work, but then they shoot themselves (and their partners) in the foot with their follow-up (or lack thereof).