Android Smartphone Sales Exceed iPhone in the U.S. for First Time

[Stella]

I disagree, In a short while the hackers will find the exploits and grandma will be forced to update her Android phone just to protect her "depends" behind. That the Android will come to be a behive of Virii and worms and other nasties is because it is so open. The code is out there, open to the world to study, and there is no app gatekeeper testing what may be downloaded to the phone.

These are the same arguments against *Nix that people used to throw around. Yet, *Nix remains one of the most secure operating system(s).

Basically, your spouting FUD.

 

[oysteins]

What should be incuded?

If this is comparing OS´s with all kinds of android products included, should iTouch and iPad be included, too, or are they?

 

[OllyW]

If this is comparing OS´s with all kinds of android products included, should iTouch and iPad be included, too, or are they?

It says Smartphones in the title.

iPod touches and iPads aren't phones.

 

[marcfogel]

The winners are...

1. Android users - maybe they will get more high quality apps.
2. iPhone users - competition is good for everyone
3. Apple - help if the FCC goes after their ass.

 

[spydr]

I think it is mostly pent up purchases from verizon customers having not had a decent enough smartphone until now and falling for Droid Does#it campaign. And also some BOGO effect. Which I think is great, as Apple can get totally complacent.

 

[LagunaSol]

Customer satisfaction surveys are not about build quality.

Of course build quality figures into these survey reports. You think people praise their Macs even though they're falling apart? Um, no. If a significant number of Mac owners had the same problems you've had, the survey results would reflect it.

I don't think Macs are "a league of their own".

With a MBP-price-equivalent HP EliteBook sitting in front of me right now, I beg to differ. This thing is a joke compared head to head with a MBP. Fortunately it's running again, after an IT person tore it apart and added some thermal paste to the processor to keep it from shutting down spontaneously (it's only a few months old).

I spent some time with a brother-in-law's newish HP touch-enabled laptop a couple of days ago. Complete junk, despite the fact he paid very close to a 13" MBP price for it. Cheap plastic shell, shoddy controls, trackpad buttons so deeply recessed in the case you could barely manage to click them (I see HP has gone with the Apple-esque buttonless trackpad in the newest model revision) - it looked and felt like something you would buy at ToysRUs. And the touch functionality was laughable, though I tried to act mildly impressed to spare his feelings. Perhaps you need to spend some time in the PC world for a little perspective. PC makers are forced to build complete junk just to stay price competitive with the competition. It's a sad state of affairs on that side of the aisle.

But if you don't think Macs are in a league of their own, perhaps you shouldn't be paying the premium to get them?

With the quality issues, I'm not an exception.

The survey numbers say differently. The data refutes your argument. Heck, my own personal experience refutes your argument. I have 3 iMacs in my house and a MacBook. I've had a single problem with one of the iMacs where the fan sometimes (like once every 3 weeks or so) goes into overdrive when waking from sleep and requires a reboot to kill it. That's the only problem I've had with these 4 machines.

Oh, wait, my MacBook did have one of the bad-batch batteries and started to refuse to take a charge. The folks at the Apple Store gave me a new battery and I was on my way.

So 4 machines and 2 minor problems in 4 years. Seems pretty stellar to me.

 

[mj1108]

This thread needs to be renamed to; People with absolutely no business sense, sit in a basement acting like they know what they are talking about.

Most intelligent post of this thread.

 

[thepylongenius]

the next iPhone will destroy android in sales

Not as many people are buying iPhones right now because they want to wait for the iPhone HD/4G to come out next month......duh http://www.macdaddynews.com/?p=2496

 

[Tailpike1153]

Of course build quality figures into these survey reports. You think people praise their Macs even though they're falling apart? Um, no. If a significant number of Mac owners had the same problems you've had, the survey results would reflect it.

With a MBP-price-equivalent HP EliteBook sitting in front of me right now, I beg to differ. This thing is a joke compared head to head with a MBP. Fortunately it's running again, after an IT person tore it apart and added some thermal paste to the processor to keep it from shutting down spontaneously (it's only a few months old).

I spent some time with a brother-in-law's newish HP touch-enabled laptop a couple of days ago. Complete junk, despite the fact he paid very close to a 13" MBP price for it. Cheap plastic shell, shoddy controls, trackpad buttons so deeply recessed in the case you could barely manage to click them (I see HP has gone with the Apple-esque buttonless trackpad in the newest model revision) - it looked and felt like something you would buy at ToysRUs. And the touch functionality was laughable, though I tried to act mildly impressed to spare his feelings. Perhaps you need to spend some time in the PC world for a little perspective. PC makers are forced to build complete junk just to stay price competitive with the competition. It's a sad state of affairs on that side of the aisle.

But if you don't think Macs are in a league of their own, perhaps you shouldn't be paying the premium to get them?

Standing ovation on a chair. The office gave me my new EliteBook a couple of days ago. Physical NIC died. Wireless card is flakier than breakfast cereal. Can't plug my bardcode scanner into the rightside USB ports or the OS will crash. Needless to say. mad: Paid alot for my iMac and have gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

 

[ChazUK]

Standing ovation on a chair. The office gave me my new EliteBook a couple of days ago. Physical NIC died. Wireless card is flakier than breakfast cereal. Can't plug my bardcode scanner into the rightside USB ports or the OS will crash. Needless to say. mad: Paid alot for my iMac and have gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

Are you sending it back as it's obviously faulty?

 

[Eric S.]

Apple lost the micro-computer war long before crap PCs came along. One of the principle reasons was that IBM came out with the PC and that legitimized it in the MIS-manager's mind at the time. The PC was 16 bit to Apple's 8-bit and offered early connections to the corporate big iron. There was a lot of factors at play early on, but price wasn't one of them...the early PC cost more then the Apple in those pre 1984 days.

You have a point but if you're going to talk about pre-1984 the PC was crap compared to products from other manufacturers like Zilog and Onyx. The PC was 8-bit (the original PC used an 8088, didn't go to full 16-bit until the PC-AT in 1984) and ran MS-DOS while those others were 16-bit and ran Unix.

As I recall the story from those days, IBM intentionally crippled the original PC by giving it an 8088 instead of an 8086 because they didn't want it to compete with another IBM product that was targeted for businesses. They wanted the PC to be clearly identified as part of what was then called the "hobbyist" market. But the PC was cheaper so ...

But the real PC war came later, after Microsoft dumped OS/2 and went after the full desktop paradigm that Apple was popularizing.

 

[Bleubird2]

This doesn't really matter to me. I don't use a smartphone because I don't want to pay for the data plan. I would probably use it if I had it, but it's never been a big need for me. The only way I would get a smartphone is if the data plans became considerably cheaper. Since that won't ever happen, I'll just stick to my simple phone.

 

[Bytor65]

This doesn't really matter to me. I don't use a smartphone because I don't want to pay for the data plan. I would probably use it if I had it, but it's never been a big need for me. The only way I would get a smartphone is if the data plans became considerably cheaper. Since that won't ever happen, I'll just stick to my simple phone.

Same here. I have the cheapest most basic cell phone I could buy. I have ZERO interest in paying ridiculous fees for data on the go.

 

[smiddlehurst]

Here's the thing I don't get... why are people surprised or even emotionally invested in this?

Apple's strategy is not, and has never been, based on being the leader in the market by volume. There was and is no way that the iPhone will ever be able to hang on to its share when it's (basically) one model at a high price point versus a vast selection of handsets at a range of price points. The fact it's hung on as long as it has is nothing short of amazing. So long as the iPhone keeps selling and making the sort of profits it has been there's very little to worry about from Apple's point of view.

The company I personally think DOES need to worry is Microsoft. They're about to launch a product into a market which is starting from scratch and the high-end (iPhone) and mass market (Android) segments are pretty much sewn up right now. They're going to have to produce something incredible to start making headway and I'm just not convinced WP7 is good enough to do that.

 

[LagunaSol]

The company I personally think DOES need to worry is Microsoft. They're about to launch a product into a market which is starting from scratch and the high-end (iPhone) and mass market (Android) segments are pretty much sewn up right now. They're going to have to produce something incredible to start making headway and I'm just not convinced WP7 is good enough to do that.

Oh come on, WP7 has text that spills off the screen. SPILLS OFF THE SCREEN! How cool is that? Totally cool, that's how cool. Microsoft is putting the "hip" back in "hipster" (and their marketing images prove it).

And you also get gigantic 2-color buttons (called "Tiles") that say things like "Mail" and "Phone" and "Text." Revolutionary! Fisher-Price ain't got nothing on these Microsoft design whiz kids.

WP7 is going to be huge. I bet they sell hundreds of these things in Redmond alone.

You heard it here first.

 

[Max(IT)]

Bye bye iPhone...

Analysts predicted that Android would surpass iPhone, although it was supposed to be in 2-3 years not this soon 😀
I guess the era of iPhone is coming to an end, but Apple wanted this... when you are that greedy and you impose all this control over a hardware, software and the process of getting software running on that hardware platform.

Android is getting better and better every single day, its user experience might not be as good as iPhone, but it is open and everyone can modify it and improve it; and proof of this is HTC and other manufacturers 🙂

I am glad that I bought the iPhone last September, it is a good phone, but thanks to Steve, I know I won't ever be getting another one. Android will be the next phone in one year or so 🙂

iPhone era to an end ... bye bye iPhone ... You clearly have no idea what Are you speaking of.
Android, after all, is just another "iPhone wannabe". A good one, to be honest, but just another one following ....

 

[Journojulz]

its user experience might not be as good as iPhone, but it is open and everyone can modify it and improve it;

If manufacturers the size of M$ and Google can't better what is basically a 3 year old OS - i have little confidence that amateurs will add anything more than a good coat of turd-polish

I'd rather invest in a company whose R&D process ENDS with a product on sale at the Apple store, instead of STARTING with it.

Personally - user experience matters more to me than saving 100 bucks/quid.

That's like 30p a day for a year.

Small beans compared to the price of regret and annoying flaws.

Was it Henry Royce that said "the quality remains long after the price is forgotten."

 

[smiddlehurst]

Oh come on, WP7 has text that spills off the screen. SPILLS OFF THE SCREEN! How cool is that? Totally cool, that's how cool. Microsoft is putting the "hip" back in "hipster" (and their marketing images prove it).

And you also get gigantic 2-color buttons (called "Tiles") that say things like "Mail" and "Phone" and "Text." Revolutionary! Fisher-Price ain't got nothing on these Microsoft design whiz kids.

WP7 is going to be huge. I bet they sell hundreds of these things in Redmond alone.

You heard it here first.

Nicely done, you've certainly earned your sarcasm merit badge this day 😉

I can certainly see what Microsoft is doing though, there's no way to confuse WP7 as any other OS that's for sure. But good lord they've got an uphill battle ahead of them right now. Personally, if I were Microsoft, I'd take a massive gamble and offer any developers that have an app approved within the first year (or even the first two) 100% revenue for the lifetime of that app. They can afford to eat that loss (hell, it's probably a fairly small chunk of the marketing budget) and that's the one thing they're really going to need, a big pool of unique apps. At the same time they need to really start hitting the game market as that's one area they DO have an existing resource to leverage and where Android isn't particularly good right now.

Android has one major problem to address before the end of the year and that's the upgrade path / application compatibility issue. Google desperately need to figure out a way to allow users to upgrade their handsets to the latest core OS MUCH faster than currently happens (uh, regular users, not geeks hacking it on). Otherwise they're going to run up against angry consumers who've switched over to Android (or come to it as a first smartphone) only to find the software leaving them behind very, very quickly. That's a major issue in the Android marketplace right now and one that's just starting to bite. It's not going to kill the platform or anything stupid like that but it will be the next big hurdle to overcome.

As for Apple... they really won't be worried. They've got the new iPhone (which is likely to be a fairly major jump forward) and OS 4 in the next month or two, iAd rolling out this year, Game Center by the end of the year (hopefully) and they're still going to be able to make massive amounts of money in the high end space. They've already started the next step of moving that OS into the tablet space and have a significant head-start there too. The one thing they may be thinking is if it's possible to come up with a better low-end model than the current strategy of marketing the previous years model at a lower price. Other than that, carry on and don't panic.

Edit - One more thing on Apple, keep your eyes on the cloud folks. THAT'S Apple's secret weapon that no-one else is in a position to match and if they move iTunes to the cloud (with a client for desktop and mobile platforms) as well as MobileMe they've got a potentially game changing option available where your media is literally available anywhere, on-demand, anytime.

 

[nilk]

Without the ability to sync with iTunes seriously what's the point? Don't get me wrong the Droid is a good phone and a strong competitor to Apple. But Apple's biggest fault is AT&T. Once they release the iPhone on other carriers would anyone really care about the Droid?

Wait a second, you consider having to sync with iTunes a good thing?

 

[nilk]

Show of hands how many people are waiting to June to buy the new iPhone? I know I am....

Show of hands how many people are waiting to install Android on their iPhone 3G. I know I am... Ok, so I might be the only one. I will be dual-booting of course.

 

[doktordoris]

Iam a recently converted mac-ist.
I love my MBP and I would dearly love to own an iphone, mainly so I could sync my itunes and watch my bought films on it.

However BT gave me an HTC Hero for free on my 30 GBP a month account, which gives me 10 hours of talktime and unlimited data and texts. whereas to get an iPhone on contract either involves an upfront fee and/or crappy talk time, minutes , and data plans.

When I promise to give a company 30 quid a month for a long period of time I expect the phone to be free.

Until that hapens I will be happy to own an android phone with loads of free apps and free and easy tethering.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Wait a second, you consider having to sync with iTunes a good thing?

What a strange question. Perhaps you don't create and/or modify any playlists (?). I have tons. [but —beyond music —all sorts of stuff (contacts, events, bookmarks, notes, apps, etc.) gets synced.]

 

[LagunaSol]

Personally, if I were Microsoft, I'd take a massive gamble and offer any developers that have an app approved within the first year (or even the first two) 100% revenue for the lifetime of that app.

You can bet the farm that Microsoft will be paying developers (in advance) to develop some WP7 apps for launch, just like they did with the Zune HD (I wonder how that worked out for them).

Wait a second, you consider having to sync with iTunes a good thing?

Uh oh, it's one of those "I like to drag and drop my music files to my device the ancient WinAmp way" guys.

Probably prefers vinyl records too. 😉

 

[Blacklabel34]

...its about time...the phone has been out long enough

 

[Mugambo]

Apple does it best because they do it "the Apple way" and because of Steve Jobs. It's because they have tight control of things that they make the great products that they do.

'Tight Control' thats right, nobody read gizmodo.