Apple Sneaks Up on Motorola in Mobile Phone Sales, Android Surges Past iOS

[avanpelt]

I would still be using an iPhone 4 were it not for the proximity sensor problems that left the phone unusable for me as a phone. Apple still hasn't fixed that problem.

If I wanted a phone that I could use as a phone that still did most of what the iPhone 4 does and some things that the iPhone 4 doesn't do, I had no choice but to switch to an Android phone. I now have the Droid X. I'm very pleased with the phone and the Android OS thus far.

 

[varera]

Uh, slow down everyone. Does it matter that Nokia has the #1 spot and has had that spot in the past? No. We never cared.

So if Android (in total) moves ahead of just the iPhone by itself, why would that matter?

Apple's goal was never to be #1 in phone sales. Just to carve out a significant and profitable chunk of the market. The phone market is far too big for any one company to take it over. It will always be fragmented. The key is to pick up a big fragment. Apple has done that. Seems as if the Android combined market has done it too. Everyone wins.

Simple, most of Nokias are not smartphones. All Android ones are. That is why.

 

[deannnnn]

Do we have US-specific numbers anywhere? I'm just curious because the only person I know who owns a Nokia is my grandpa and he's had it since like 2002.

 

[hitekalex]

Have you tried 2.2 on a recent 1Ghz SnapDragon handset? In terms of fluidity and polish - the UI is probably about 95% on par with latest iPhone.

I have HTC Wildfire with 2.2 and it's nowhere near as smooth as iPod touch 2G with iOS 4.

Get a decent phone my friend. Note that I said "recent 1Ghz Snapdragon" set. You have an entry level 528Mhz CPU with mere 384MB of memory in your Wildfire. iOS 4 wouldn't run on that thing either

 

[435713]

Damn I have to say Android hardcore fans = Apple hardcores, I have never seen so much circle jerking over a......phone! I mean damn the way some of these posters put it you can throw out your Mac/PC and use your Droid for everything and it will be 100x better than anything out there. The Droid also did all the special effects for avatar. Yup all done on a phone.

 

[NebulaClash]

Simple, most of Nokias are not smartphones. All Android ones are. That is why.

Irrelevant to my point. It simply does not matter who is #1 and who is #2, what counts is to have enough market share to be profitable and have a vibrant developer community. Apple has it. Android has it. Blackberry has the market but not as much the dev community. Nokia is fading. Symbian is fading. WinMo is almost out of the game.

So it's silly to pound your chest and say "We're #1!" It would be as if Chevy gave up just because Ford was #1, or Mercedes felt it was pointless if BMW passed them in sales. Everyone can win at this stage because the market is vast and wide open.

 

[archipellago]

Wildfire and i had it with 2.1 for quite some time.


That's right there is no consistency and adds to fragmentation of already very fragmented system.



Standard reply i hear all the time. First is "try it's awesome and kills iPhone hands down" and second if you didn't like it is "Well means you are too stupid".



Biggest amount of lipstick on a pig i have ever seen.

what a ridiculous comparison

Wildfire vs iPhone 4.....!

TCO (UK) 18 mth contract

Wildfire (Voda)

500 txts, 100 mins, 500 mb data

£161

iP4 (Voda)

250 txts, 75 mins, unlimited data

£759


its all about value, what you get for the money!

is an iphone better than a Wildfire?

maybe..

is an iphone nearly 5 times better than a wildfire...? (as the costs would make you believe)


no way!!!

 

[alent1234]

Originally Posted by NebulaClash View Post
Uh, slow down everyone. Does it matter that Nokia has the #1 spot and has had that spot in the past? No. We never cared.

So if Android (in total) moves ahead of just the iPhone by itself, why would that matter?

Apple's goal was never to be #1 in phone sales. Just to carve out a significant and profitable chunk of the market. The phone market is far too big for any one company to take it over. It will always be fragmented. The key is to pick up a big fragment. Apple has done that. Seems as if the Android combined market has done it too. Everyone wins.

i remember the 1980's when DOS was a tiny player in the market and the computer world was fragmented. we had commodore, Apple, MS, IBM, Tandy and I forgot who else.

same thing with smartphones. won't happen next year but at some point the developers are going to realize it's too expensive developing for too many platforms and will start dropping support.

this usually happens when software becomes more complex and requires more time and money to fund development. this is when you start doing risk analysis and drop support for platforms that may not provide a ROI.

right now it's the freer android vs what seems to be the more profitable app store route. but the app store carries the risk of apple changing the rules at any moment

 

[NebulaClash]

I think Android users are going to be surprised when Google moves on to their goal of Web-based app development.

 

[LagunaSol]

But coming from iPhone - the UI on my EVO running 2.2 is just as smooth and responsive as any iPhone.

At what point did judgment of a UI's effectiveness come down solely to "smooth and responsive???"

Let's see.. proper notification system

Agreed, iOS sucks in this regard.

active wallpapers.. voice control that's actually useable.. proper file sysem.. API-based cloud-to-phone push.. And those're just UI-oriented features (not even mentioning WiFi hotspot, Flash 10.1, etc).

Active wallpapers? Who cares?

Voice control - I never really use it. Can't comment.

WiFi hotspot - only works if your carrier allows it (and/or charges you for it).

Flash - not a "feature" in my book. I'm actually glad Apple is taking a stand against mobile Flash. I've been sick of desktop Flash for years. It's time the Web moved on from proprietary (and crummy) Adobe technology.

But I am sure Apple will tell you "our users don't need these features".. they are "too confusing" etc. Until they finally introduce them themselves, then of course they become "magical".

History shows Apple has a pretty good handle on what customers actually want and use, and the "magical" bit - while cheesy - typically accompanies an Apple implementation that surpasses everything else currently on the market (i.e. FaceTime).

 

[LagunaSol]

That's why when you hear apple nerds trying to diss some android phone its always something about how its not as smooth, or how the interface isnt as good (because its not ios duh). Or its not as pretty or elegant. It's always some stupid subjective thing. Rarely any criticism about the actual featureset of the OS.

Here's what "Android nerds" - and 90% of computer and electronics companies - don't realize: people care more about how something works than the "actual featureset." It's true!

Why, I remember back in the day when the Zune was going to wipe the floor with the iPod because it had an FM tuner. And everyone wanted an FM tuner! Surely the iPod couldn't compete without that essential feature. Well, actually...

Do you honestly think 99% of consumers care about a file system on their smartphone or the ability to customize every aspect of the OS or even WiFi hotspots? Yes, you probably honestly do think this. But you're wrong. Apple understands this. That's why they're selling a bajillion gadgets while the haters grind their molars in fury.

In the consumer world, the user experience is king. Feature set is a distant second. Let's get the iPhone on all US carriers and see how sales fare vs. Android on a level playing field, hmm?

 

[wreckshop]

In the consumer world, the user experience is king. Feature set is a distant second. Let's get the iPhone on all US carriers and see how sales fare vs. Android on a level playing field, hmm?

If user experience is king, then why does iphone need to be on all carriers?

 

[hitekalex]

At what point did judgment of a UI's effectiveness come down solely to "smooth and responsive???"

Where did I say that "smoothness & responsiveness" should be the sole criteria for judging the UI effectiveness? And I did list a number of functional advantages of Android UI over iOS. But "smooth", "fluid" & "responsive" are usually the first thing that comes out of iPhone fan's mouth, when they claim how iPhones are superior to anything else on the market. I am just pointing out that's no longer the case.

Active wallpapers? Who cares?

Voice control - I never really use it. Can't comment.

WiFi hotspot - only works if your carrier allows it (and/or charges you for it).

Flash - not a "feature" in my book. I'm actually glad Apple is taking a stand against mobile Flash. I've been sick of desktop Flash for years. It's time the Web moved on from proprietary (and crummy) Adobe technology.

Just the type of response I expected. So you "don't care" about a feature, and therefore it's useless and insignificant, right? Active wallpapers can be implemented in a functional way, not just an eye candy. For example, map-based apps can integrate their components in a wallpaper format, which leads to some interesting uses. Can your iPhone 4 do that?

Flash will go away when every website switches to HTML5, which is FAR from reality right now. I have "click-to-flash" enabled on my EVO, and combined with Flash 10.1 - I can display flash content when I want to, and view 100% of the web. While you can't access Flash content on your iPhone period, because Jobs says you can't.

You can sit here all day and shoot down things that Android can do (and iOS can't).. But I would rather have a CHOICE of what features/options I decide to take advantage of, and how I choose to customize my phone. While iOS users are basically stuck in an Apple jail, and what Jobs thinks should or should not be a part of your user experience.

And that's why iOS is losing so rapidly to Android - dropping market share is just an early symptom of a bigger shift in mindshare yet to come.

 

[alent1234]

If user experience is king, then why does iphone need to be on all carriers?

it is king, that's why Windows wiped the floor with novell and IBM in the 1990's. it takes an hour or so to set up a corporate domain on Windows NT, at most. with linux and openldap it would take you a month just to create the schema

and OS whatever from IBM compared to Windows was a joke in the user experience department

 

[LagunaSol]

Where did I say that "smoothness & responsiveness" should be the sole criteria for judging the UI effectiveness? And I did list a number of functional advantages of Android UI over iOS.

Sorry, I wasn't referring to you specifically - I just hear that comment all the time. "Android is just as smooth and responsive as iPhone now!" as if that resolves all the other interface problems.

But "smooth", "fluid" & "responsive" are usually the first thing that comes out of iPhone fan's mouth, when they claim how iPhones are superior to anything else on the market. I am just pointing out that's not longer the case.

Touché.

Just the type of response I expected. So you "don't care" about a feature, and therefore it's useless and insignificant, right? Active wallpapers can be implemented in a functional way, not just an eye candy. For example, map-based apps can integrate their components in a wallpaper format, which leads to some interesting uses. Can your iPhone 4 do that?

The market doesn't care about the features you mentioned. Honestly, they really don't.

Flash will go away when every website switches to HTML5, which is FAR from reality right now. I have "click-to-flash" enabled on my EVO, and combined with Flash 10.1 - I get 100% of the web. While you can't access Flash content on your iPhone, because Jobs says you can't.

And you'd be hearing very little about HTML5 right now if it wasn't for Jobs' crusade against Flash.

Sometimes you just gotta cut that cord, as painful as it may be. Flashless iPods/iPhones/iPads are going to have a significant impact on HTML5 adoption. I say hooray.

Now if only Google and Microsoft would get on board.

You can sit here all day and shoot down things that Android can do (and iOS can't).. But I would rather have a CHOICE of what features/options I decide to take advantage of, and how I choose to customize my phone. While iOS users are basically stuck in an Apple jail, and what Jobs thinks should or should not be a part of your user experience.

It's true - and if Android better suits your needs then go for it.

That said, I find this mentality that Android is somehow some type of Linux for mobile for the people, by the people naive at best. Android is from Google. Google doesn't give you Android for free out of love. They give you Android because they want to analyze your data. So they can use that data to sell advertising and information services. Personally I'd rather have a "locked-down" device (that I can easily unlock if I'd like via a quick jailbreak - perhaps you've heard of it?) that doesn't require that I shuttle all my data to some server owned by a corporation-with-an-agenda (world information domination). But maybe that's just me.

Seems a jailbroken iPhone is the ultimate device - a fully flexible and customizable device without some company keeping a watchful eye on all your data.

And that's why iOS is losing so rapidly to Android - dropping market share is just an early symptom of a bigger shift in mindshare yet to come.

I'll tell you why people I know are buying Android phones and not iPhones - because the iPhone is not available on their carrier of choice. Period.

I've yet to hear a single person say "I just bought this Android phone over an iPhone because I really love the active wallpaper feature and I can transfer files to it via Bluetooth."

 

[wreckshop]

Just the type of response I expected. So you "don't care" about a feature, and therefore it's useless and insignificant, right? Active wallpapers can be implemented in a functional way, not just an eye candy. For example, map-based apps can integrate their components in a wallpaper format, which leads to some interesting uses. Can your iPhone 4 do that?

One of the most popular threads in the iphone forum is dedicated to just wallpaper. Another popular thread is for showing off homescreen layouts, which for an iphone means moving icons around lol.

imagine if iphone users could customize the interface like android phones.... their heads would explode!!!

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Are you sure about the data thing Laguna? You can use Android without giving Google a single bit of data.

There is no requirement to use the Google services at all. You could even source and install applications via other sources (direct from the developer, alternative app stores like SlideME).

The only platform I know that you are bound to its masters is the iPhone and iOS. From loading media to installing apps, you are pretty much locked to Apple.
Unless you jailbreak that is.

 

[hwhalers]

The argument that Android is going to attain popularity through 'user customization' is weak. The market for people who want to spend hours tweaking insignificant features of their phones is so small as to be entirely marginalized by other demographics. Compare sales of laptops and desktops to 'enthusiast' parts. It's not bringing a knife to a gunfight, it's bringing a sharp stick to a nuclear war.

If you want to argue that Android will succeed, there's logical reasons for it. Google has no qualms putting Android on anything with a microprocessor, and the existing OSes on messaging and feature phones are even worse than Android, so it makes sense that they'll eventually completely dominate the low end. And the low end is the largest segment of mobile devices, and that doesn't look to change. Why dispute Android's strong point?

 

[Pushkar]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Are you sure about the data thing Laguna? You can use Android without giving Google a single bit of data.

There is no requirement to use the Google services at all. You could even source and install applications via other sources (direct from the developer, alternative app stores like SlideME).

The only platform I know that you are bound to its masters is the iPhone and iOS. From loading media to installing apps, you are pretty much locked to Apple.
Unless you jailbreak that is.

Isn't the hardcore thing about Android the Google Services? Seems it's not the best then, as for Google collecting your data, its happening, we don't know what they do with the data. Some will care and some won't.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1-update1; en-gb; Dell Streak Build/ERE27) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17)

Are you sure about the data thing Laguna? You can use Android without giving Google a single bit of data.

There is no requirement to use the Google services at all. You could even source and install applications via other sources (direct from the developer, alternative app stores like SlideME).

The only platform I know that you are bound to its masters is the iPhone and iOS. From loading media to installing apps, you are pretty much locked to Apple.
Unless you jailbreak that is.

Isn't the hardcore thing about Android the Google Services? Seems it's not the best then, as for Google collecting your data, its happening, we don't know what they do with the data. Some will care and some won't.

I would say that an advantage of Android is Google services if you use them but there is nothing stopping you from not using them at all, instead opting for an alternative (yahoo mail for Android for instance) that can and will integrate itself like one of the default applications.

I believe one of AT&T's android phones features Yahoo search as default.

 

[hitekalex]

I find this mentality that Android is somehow some type of Linux for mobile for the people, by the people naive at best. Android is from Google. Google doesn't give you Android for free out of love. They give you Android because they want to analyze your data. So they can use that data to sell advertising and information services.

Of course. I have no illusions that Google gives out Android out of love. They want to get you out on the Web so they can present you with targeted ads (or AdMob ads inside of Android apps). That's what Google does.

However, as long as Google is transparent about how they use my data, and don't abuse it - I am perfectly fine with that. Fundamentally, it's about the same thing Apple is trying to do now with iAd. Monetizing mobile platform via targetted ad revenue isn't exactly a great mystery you make it out to be.

And putting Google's (mostly open) and Apple's (mostly closed) approaches to mobile platform side by side - I will take Google's any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But that's just me.

 

[NebulaClash]

Google is spying on you no matter what apps you use. That's the whole point of giving Android away, Google makes its money on search views, and that means tracking your views.

Google is great, but boy, you sure have to give them lots of your data whether you realize it or not. And no, it's not just which search engine you use. Now that they have their own ad network, they follow you everywhere.

So either trust the walled garden of Apple where nefarious behavior is kept out (or quickly kicked out once discovered), or take Android's freedom to do whatever you want. But don't kid yourselves as to why Android is free: Google it making money on you when you use it.

 

[boncellis]

Well, it would make sense that Android will capture a larger market share given the sheer number of manufacturers making devices.

However, I have yet to meet a single person who uses an Android based handset. Not that *my* social circle counts for anything, but the smartphones that I personally see in people's hands are either RIM or Apple devices... so far.

Totally agree on the first point--seems like a strange comparison. Also, what is the percentage of handsets that are purchased after they go on sale for half price like the Droid after a few months. Hard to get actual meaning from the raw data.

In my office building, I see a few Droids but probably about 3x as many iPhones...and almost never any HTC devices.

 

[hitekalex]

Are you sure about the data thing Laguna? You can use Android without giving Google a single bit of data.

That is absolutely true. In Android, I can choose not to use Google's services - no Gmail, no Calendar, no Voice. I can change my default search engine to Bing or whatever. Obviously, Google hopes most people won't do that - but truly paranoid can use Android and not let Google make a penny of ad revenue on you.

The only platform I know that you are bound to its masters is the iPhone and iOS. From loading media to installing apps, you are pretty much locked to Apple.

And just wait until they get iAd fully ramped up! People complain about Google now - with iOS they will have a built in ad engine they cannot uninstall.

 

[BaldiMac]

And just wait until they get iAd fully ramped up! People complain about Google now - with iOS they will have a built in ad engine they cannot uninstall.

If you don't have any apps that use iAd installed, what are you worried about iAd doing?