I think all he will have to do is show snapshots of the largest developer checks and totals around how much has been paid to iOS developers in the last year and quarter. That should be enough.
As one very insightful poster/developer pointed out, people who get free phones really are not that interested in buying apps that cost as much or more than their phone. At some point in time, a developer has to pay the rent and feed the kids; even if they buy into "Jobs is evil and Google is open." They may not develop for iOS, but they will stop sinking hours into efforts that have no payoff.
This does get close to the truth. The reason to be concerned about the iPhone's market share is because of the app store. IPhone users benefit from the fact that there are more apps developed for the iPhone, there are better apps developed for the iphones, and if apps are on both platforms, they are usually developed for the iPhone first. Marketshare is not, however, a perfect proxy for app availability - at least at this point, ios users tend to buy proportionally more apps than Android users. This may or may not continue...but you can be more comfortable about it continuing if the iPhone maintains a high market share. If it ever drops down to 10% or so, it will be all over.
Some fanboi things don't matter. It doesn't matter that Android has buy one get one free offers (particularly where the 3gs only costs $49). It doesn't matter that Android has dozens of phones. We are not grading on a curve; we're not trying to chose the platonic ideal of a phone, and (for purposes of buying a phone), it doesn't matter how much more profit Apple makes on each phone. All of that is really just denial and special pleading - the reality is that Apple is falling behind in marketshare, and it's important to realize that.
But I see no reason to believe that apple is doomed to being a niche market. First of all, I don't think that the benefits of being able to use Verizon as a carrier have all been captured yet. Most people with a smartphone are on two-year contracts, and most people who are interested in getting an iPhone as their next phone will wait for the contract to end.
Second, as opposed to the old days of Macs vs. PCs, iPhones are not more expensive than Android phones. Apple is not pricing themselves out of the mainstream market with price points of $50, $200, and $300.
Third, while Android has copied the MS system of being an OS that can run on hardware from different manufacturers, it is not at all clear that this approach will work the same way for handsets as it did for computers - people care a lot more about the size, weight, and aesthetics of their phones than they do their computers, and optimizing this is a lot more complicated than just sticking components in a beige box.
Fourth, it's possible that the walled garden approach to apps may be preferable to a more open market - it certainly will be if it makes people more likely to buy apps, leading to greater availability of apps.
Having said that, I think it is time to refresh IOS in a thorough, thoughtful way.
