Android Jumps Past iOS in Overall U.S. Smartphone Usage

[Spoony]

add me to another purchaser of android phone. i myself have iphone. i wanted to buy a smartphone for a family member. considered iphone but one thing that drove me away from iphone was the requirement of a pc to activate it. no such requirement for android.

They can activate it in the store for you and do a personal setup if you want. setup your email etc..

You do not need a computer to own the phone. (updates going forward i believe require a computer but over the air updates are on the horizon)

My iPad i haven't yet synced with my computer as an example. walked out of the store smart cover on and my email already setup.

 

[carmenodie]

Competition is good Keeps Apple on their toes

Don't need another MS Monopoly.......

That comment made no sense!
Android is a free OS piggybacking on multiple 3rd party hardware. So it just makes sense that the adoption of Android is high. But break down the individual players. No, look at the balance sheets and then talk trash.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Deceptive Report... Let's not forget, Apple iOS encompasses more then just iPhones. If you included the iPad and iPod Touch which both run Apple iOS then Apple's market share is still ahead of Android.

It's not *that" deceptive... they did include "US smartphone usage" in the headline.

Here's why... Apple's smartphone is called "the iPhone"

And then you've got "Android" which is a tons of phones from many manufacturers.

When comparing smartphone numbers... it's the iPhone vs. many Android phones.

You're right... if you wanna have a platform battle... iOS vs Android... you'd have to include iPods and iPads.

But this is a comparison of phones...

 

[Tones2]

Now all this is based on the assumption that your motivation is to have your company make billions and billions of dollars. Maybe Steve Jobs motivation is just to make the best darn tech gadgets in the world.

Boy, you are sniffing a serious amount of glue. His motivation is to make brainwashed fanboys BELIEVE Apple is making the best darn tech gadgets in the world, such that Apple can make the most darn profits and he can get the biggest darn bonus. And with THAT, he is a genious.

Tony

 

[dba7dba]

They will activate it for you in store so that shouldn't have been an issue.

what about updates?

 

[hexor]

umm there are a lot of high end Android phones.
Apple sells cheap ass phone as well (iPhone 3GS) so it is in the Kmart shopper market is well.




I would not see that as useful. For a cell phone I would hate iOS but for a portable MP3 player the iPod iOS is great but I would never want it as a phone.
Lets look at smart phone only which means you can not count the iPod. Different market different rules.


And that argument is not worthless as it clear that even with the iPhone on Verizon iOS is losing ground in the smart phone market.

How is that not relevant??? What is the point of showing market share then? No really, what is the point? Doesn't it factor heavily into what market a company wants to develop software for? Since the same apps run on all those Apple devices then why would you not want to include those?

 

[MonkeySee....]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8H7)

Dumb stats that are irrelevant. I haven't read the whole thread but I assume some has done a comparison of iPhone vs htc. Any other stats are irrelevant

 

[dba7dba]

They can activate it in the store for you and do a personal setup if you want. setup your email etc..

You do not need a computer to own the phone. (updates going forward i believe require a computer but over the air updates are on the horizon)

My iPad i haven't yet synced with my computer as an example. walked out of the store smart cover on and my email already setup.

what about future updates? what if you can't go to a local apple store? i can but what about others who don't have one nearby? something apple should think about.

 

[johndallas999]

Competition is good! Especially for Apple and their my way or the highway way of doing things. I love my IP4 but Apple needs a kick in their wallet to get them motivated to keep up.

 

[tekmoe]

I had an iPhone 3g for about 3 months before I got rid of it and switched to Android. No regrets and that was close to 3 years ago!

 

[Spoony]

Android phone owners are iPod owners (at least most are)

Apple's not selling it's 9/10M iPods a quarter to iPhone owners.

Apple gets your money anyway. Why not just buy an iphone and combine purchases?

Free phones are great but not when you buy a 200 dollar iPod anyway.

Buy a 200 dollar iphone and call it a day.

 

[hexor]

It's not *that" deceptive... they did include "US smartphone usage" in the headline.

I'll bet you money they include Android tablets in the same chart if an Android tablet ever actually sells significant numbers. And it IS deceptive because they did not point out that the chart is completely different if you included all Apple iOS devices, whereas if you included all other Android devices besides phones the chart wouldn't change.

 

[the vj]

Usually Apple likes to be a "more exclusive platform".

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Baloney on so many levels. Apple doesn't need to be like Android to succeed unless you define success as market share. Market share means nothing if you have the margins like Apple does. Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons) said it best last year. To paraphrase, "In three years Android will be huge but we will still have the better business." And if you want to equate market share to developer interest, well, there are articles all over today announcing that developer interest in Android is waning because of fragmentation and tablets while interest in iOS is rising.

So what's better? More people using your product than the other guy's or having sustainable growth and good profits year in and year out?

Apple makes money on the handset, Google makes money on ad revenue. Apple needs iOS in order to continue growing and remain successful. How much does Google actually make from Android? Probably nothing close to what Apple makes on iOS and related devices. If Google determines that the Android model does not work for them, they have little incentive not to cut and run if the minority of their revenue is coming from that product. Apple has a whole lot more to lose in this game than Google.

While profitability and margins are important, ultimately the game goes to the one with the greatest market share. That has been proven over and over again. Having a huge profit margin means nothing if fewer people buy your product than the competitions'.

 

[JimEJr]

Where are the Android users that these stats support? I barely seen folks with Android devices. The vast majority clearly have iPhones. Maybe I need to be in a more tech centric urban area than Richmond, VA. I don't really care who's leading, I buy MY device for MY reasons, just saying from observation.

 

[SPUY767]

I thought Android was a terrible OS, but I am still extremely impressed that iOS is where it is. Considering a lot of manufactures are using Android now, this is still pretty impressive iOS is able to be the second from the top on three devices iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, although the report does state mobile phone usage so it might just include the iPhone and not the other two i mentioned

You do realize that this graph only shows the heavily subsidized phone market where an android phone can be had for free with a 2 year contract. When all iOS devices are considered, android is nowhere close.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

How is that not relevant??? What is the point of showing market share then? No really, what is the point? Doesn't it factor heavily into what market a company wants to develop software for? Since the same apps run on all those Apple devices then why would you not want to include those?

you forget a lot of apps really are designed for things that will always be with you and need data connection so the phone is more relevent. You forget that a lot of people own both iPod and an Android phone.
I will be one of those people soon. My iPod will be reduced complete down to just a music devices. I do not use the apps much on it for killing time as I do not always have it with me but my phone I will have with it

 

[SandynJosh]

But if Apple had gotten on board with Verizon a year earlier, those numbers would probably be reversed.

That extra year that Apple sat on their ass with AT&T was the crucial year that allowed android to gain traction and mindshare.

Neither your or I know what contract details with AT&T prevented Apple from opening up Verizon earlier than they did, so claiming Apple "sat on their ass" is just your silly opinion.

Once the 'greatly anticipated' Verizon launch finally did come, it was met with a large chorus of "who cares?" from the crowd - the crowd that had gotten their droid phone 6 months earlier.

Again you make a wild-assed leap of logic. I, like many Verizon users, met the news that the iPhone was available on my favorite carrier with, "Oh dam, I'm locked into a two-year contract with a ****** Android Incredible."

Your basic point that Apple needed to open up the iPhone to more U.S. carriers to avoid market share loss is correct and generally regarded as such by most analysts. However, from the launch of the first iPhone, Apple has struggled to meet the accelerating demand for its products, so adding more U.S. carriers may have not been as smart as us outside the company might second-guess.

 

[syc23]

You don't hear about Ferrari and Porsche worrying about their market share. Neither should Apple. Let the other guys squabble in the lower end of the market leaving Apple to continue to deliver a premium product and user experience.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Android phones don't blend.

 

[roland.g]

So what. Really, this doesn't show anything whatsoever.

News flash. 90-98% of people are so dumb it is unfathomable.

Most of them don't even know it.

Cattle lower their heads and chew.

I'm not saying using Android vs. iOS makes you dumb. Dumb people use both. But percentages of people making uninformed buying decisions when they are just as likely to watch Jersey Shore or father their first cousin's child are only just percentages at the end of the day. It's like bait car.

 

[PCClone]

People can only take being treated like children under the thumb of Steve Jobs twisted moral code for so long. Good too see Android kicking butt and taking names.[/QUOTE

Another insightful post from the goo fan. Maybe you should spend your time googling when to use "to" vs "too".

 

[PlipPlop]

I wonder if there will be 400k new Android phone a day soon. The power of Android cannot be stopped now.

 

[Popeye206]

Apples to Oranges (or Droids)

Makes sense. Android is really becoming the defacto alternative to iOS.

This is not about iOS vs Android. Both are doing well. It's the others who need to worry like RIM and MS. Where RIM was trying to beat the iPhone 2 years ago, now they have two platforms kicking their butt.

However, it's really not a fair comparison when you compare the iPhone vs Android. One is a phone and the other an OS. Wake me up when one single model of an Android based phone out sells the iPhone, then you can say Apple is in trouble.

 

[3N16MA]

This is not surprising and I'm sure Apple knew this day would come. Android is available on multiple handsets from multiple manufactures. Different price points, form factors, and even different looks with skins. The iPhone will continue to outsell any single Android phone and Apple will gain massive profits from it.