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"Google's Android is eating the iPhone's lunch."

I may not be the first to say this, but I can't help but think to myself that this is no different than Apple vs. MS when it comes to iPhone vs. Android. One company makes the phone and software, the other makes the software and SOME phones. And now that Android is the best selling PLATFORM, Apple is doomed all of a sudden.

MS has had a solid grasp software wise on the PC world for decades. Apple rules the smartphone platform for arguably three years, is challenged, and now is doomed because there is a more popular software out there for smartphones.

Well whoop-dee-freakin'-doo. How many iPhones (pick single generations, not all of them combined) sell compared to any individual Android phone? I haven't heard of any Android phone outselling the iPhone.

So in short: what's all the hub-bub about? So there's an OS outselling the iOS? So what?
 
qckslvrsiete said:
I'm pretty sure the official story on the CDMA chips is to build out the 3gs iphones for China's network.

This doesn't mean the iPhone won't come to Verizon. It just means that they at least have plans to manufacture hardware that COULD operate on Verizon. Whether or not it WILL, is a completely different story and certainly isn't a "given".
Click to expand...

It's a given. The iPad will go also. Remember this post. :apple:
 
wreckshop said:
Hey genius, they are comparing only phones. Otherwise we'd see stuff like book readers and TVs and set top boxes thrown in the mix for android.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that's precisely my point. They are comparing the *multiple* android based phones vs one single phone (iPhone). That's an old trick that marketing weenies like to do to change things around to suit their argument to fool people to believing what they want you to believe. It's a an irrelevant comparison. If you want it to be a fair comparison, then pick ONE Android based phone vs. the iPhone if you want to do a phone comparison.
 
thetexan said:
The only people who care are the idiot fanboys who belong to the "my phone sold more than your phone" crowd. Oh, and developers. Android and iPhone will both dominate the market, and the market is big enough for both players to continue.

I'm pleased both as an Apple stockholder and as an Android user.
Click to expand...

wonderfully put. Who cares, it's just a phone. ;)
 
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lnferno said:
wreckshop said:
Hey genius, they are comparing only phones. Otherwise we'd see stuff like book readers and TVs and set top boxes thrown in the mix for android.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that's precisely my point. They are comparing the *multiple* android based phones vs one single phone (iPhone). That's an old trick that marketing weenies like to do to change things around to suit their argument to fool people to believing what they want you to believe. It's a an irrelevant comparison. If you want it to be a fair comparison, then pick ONE Android based phone vs. the iPhone if you want to do a phone comparison.
Click to expand...

So its wrong to compare smartphone marketshare?

Isn't that just the same as "That's an old trick that marketing weenies like to do to change things around to suit their argument to fool people to believing what they want you to believe."?

To compare overall smartphone marketshare it has to fit two types of criteria:
1. It has to be a smartphone.
2. It has to run a smartphone OS.

Most statistics can be spun to your advantage to say what you like. There is nothing wrong with comparing individual device sales against the iPhone, nothing will probably touch it but that still doesn't change overall OS marketshare.

At the end of the day, Android has some fantastic momentum and Apple have come from nothing to a significant player in the smartphone arena in very little time, gaining sales from veterans like Symbian, RIM and Windows Mobile. That is probably the most amazing statistic of all!
 
ChazUK said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-gb; Nexus One Build/MASTER) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)



So its wrong to compare smartphone marketshare?

Isn't that just the same as "That's an old trick that marketing weenies like to do to change things around to suit their argument to fool people to believing what they want you to believe."?

To compare overall smartphone marketshare it has to fit two types of criteria:
1. It has to be a smartphone.
2. It has to run a smartphone OS.

Most statistics can be spun to your advantage to say what you like. There is nothing wrong with comparing individual device sales against the iPhone, nothing will probably touch it but that still doesn't change overall OS marketshare.

At the end of the day, Android has some fantastic momentum and Apple have come from nothing to a significant player in the smartphone arena in very little time, gaining sales from veterans like Symbian, RIM and Windows Mobile. That is probably the most amazing statistic of all!
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100% that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say if you set your criteria in a specific manner, obviously to suit your argument. I'm not denying that Apple does this as well. Hell, Apple probably is one of the better companies that do that.

There is nothing "wrong" with reporting on marketshare, but that's just one piece of the overall picture in terms of what device is right for you, the consumer, and doesn't really prove anything in terms of what phone "is the best" -- I say that tongue in cheek because so many people are so caught up with "what phone is the best phone". Sadly, there are a LOT of consumers that depend too heavily on the pretty and trendy graphs rather than what phone actually is right for them.

There's no single phone that's going to be the holy grail of smart phones. They all have their pros and cons. I guess what I don't get are the people that so strongly have to attach their identity to their choice of phone. I just don't get that and probably never will. I've had Palms, BBs, WM, iOS, etc. I'm not "tied" to my phone. If a phone comes along that is better for me, great, I have that choice to get it, but I'm not going to base my choice off of what some pretty trendy graph a marketing weenie came up with to spin things a certain way. It all comes down to right phone is right for YOU. Because a phone is right for you doesn't mean it's right for me. Good thing we have choices. In the end, it's the consumer that wins. It's just sad when people stop thinking for themselves and use these reports as a crutch rather than an aide in terms of choosing what phone is right for them.
 
I wonder NPD counted the iPod touches or not? enterprise iPhone 4 sales? It would be interesting to see if the iPhone comes to all carriers in the world besides just in the US. Most people bought Android phones because carriers promoted them and plus the lack of the iPhone in the store. What category would the iPod touch fall under? I kinda want Apple to make another phone besides the iPhone 4. Perhaps, a "geek" iPhone that has a 4.5" retina screen, hotspot wifi, 3-4g, hdmi, sd card, 128gb, 10hr battery life, 12 megapixel back, 5megapixel front, A-5 chip (2ghz), smug proof screen
 
lnferno said:
I agree with you 100% that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say if you set your criteria in a specific manner, obviously to suit your argument. I'm not denying that Apple does this as well. Hell, Apple probably is one of the better companies that do that.

There is nothing "wrong" with reporting on marketshare, but that's just one piece of the overall picture in terms of what device is right for you, the consumer, and doesn't really prove anything in terms of what phone "is the best" -- I say that tongue in cheek because so many people are so caught up with "what phone is the best phone". Sadly, there are a LOT of consumers that depend too heavily on the pretty and trendy graphs rather than what phone actually is right for them.

There's no single phone that's going to be the holy grail of smart phones. They all have their pros and cons. I guess what I don't get are the people that so strongly have to attach their identity to their choice of phone. I just don't get that and probably never will. I've had Palms, BBs, WM, iOS, etc. I'm not "tied" to my phone. If a phone comes along that is better for me, great, I have that choice to get it, but I'm not going to base my choice off of what some pretty trendy graph a marketing weenie came up with to spin things a certain way. It all comes down to right phone is right for YOU. Because a phone is right for you doesn't mean it's right for me. Good thing we have choices. In the end, it's the consumer that wins. It's just sad when people stop thinking for themselves and use these reports as a crutch rather than an aide in terms of choosing what phone is right for them.
Click to expand...

I agree! I like my iPhone and never thought about switching phones. However, I have thought about switching carrier. I don't have 3g where I live. I am not sure if Verizon has 3g here, but ATT is just fine. My satisfaction with my iPhone is so high that I don't feel a need or want to change. I am sure Android phones are fine. It sound like it might be great with gingerbread, however, I like my iPhone and don't have any desire to change from it. I do want Apple to succeed, in order, for me to be able to get newer versions of the iphone each year or every other year.
 
brayhite said:
I may not be the first to say this, but I can't help but think to myself that this is no different than Apple vs. MS when it comes to iPhone vs. Android. One company makes the phone and software, the other makes the software and SOME phones. And now that Android is the best selling PLATFORM, Apple is doomed all of a sudden.
Click to expand...
You're not, many people including myself were saying that when android hit the market. Now many columnist are stating the same thing. In fact the linked article is saying the same thing.

I wouldn't say apple is doomed all of sudden but they are competing on an even field. On one side you of android, an open platform that google does not censor, and has many phones and many carriers. On the other side you have apple dictating what's appropriate and what's not, they also only have one phone, and one carrier. that's not to say apple is doomed, but they cannot compete with google with shear numbers but produce a great cool product that everyone wants.

Well whoop-dee-freakin'-doo. How many iPhones (pick single generations, not all of them combined) sell compared to any individual Android phone? I haven't heard of any Android phone outselling the iPhone.
Click to expand...
Not one phone, but android doesn't need a single phone to outsell the iPhone. Besides the dynamics are different. With many carriers, and many phones, there's no need for a single phone to outsell the iPhone. Looking at it on a smartphone platform, android is outselling the iPhone, it doesn't matter if that's including the droid-x, evo, droid 2 etc. They're all running android

So in short: what's all the hub-bub about? So there's an OS outselling the iOS? So what?
Click to expand...
Marketshare, profits, apple's ability to control the industry, how apple has pissed off a lot of people and now there's viable competition etc, etc.
 
yodaxl7 said:
I do want Apple to succeed, in order, for me to be able to get newer versions of the iphone each year or every other year.
Click to expand...
Apple will be around. In fact, they were a much better company before they got into the "Shiny Toy" business. Now that everyone has an iPhone, it's boring, predictable & dull. The reason the iPhone does well is because it's for people who don't have the interest in learning something new. It's for the masses. Johnny lunchbucket can even figure out how to use it.

Apple's brilliance is convincing the public their cool by owning the same phone as everyone else. It's like a Chevy. Or a Ford. It's just a phone.

This is another reason fanboys hate / fear Android. They don't want to embrace change & new technologies. It's way to scary. They've already learned the most important words & phrases in their vocabulary: troll, just return it, mine's fine, I don't care about yours.... :)

But hey, those are just my observations. It's obvious mass produced toys sell, it's easy to be a follower.
 
woofermazing said:
We compare Windows to Mac all the time...
Click to expand...

When people say "Windows vs Mac" they mean "Windows vs MacOS". I think that's well understood. All "Windows vs Mac" statistics have to do with total OS market share, not hardware sales. However, all of the Android vs iPhone arguments are about Android hardware sales (multiple OEMs) compared to only iPhone hardware sales (single manufacturer). What about the total installed OS base? That's what's important.
 
wreckshop said:
Hey genius, they are comparing only phones. Otherwise we'd see stuff like book readers and TVs and set top boxes thrown in the mix for android.
Click to expand...

And what readers, TVs, and set top boxes running Android are available on the market to purchase?
 
If Droid (an OS) is being added up like that should we add up all iOS devices to make it a fair comparison? Add whatever Android tablets are out there for good measure.
 
lnferno said:
I agree with you 100% that you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say if you set your criteria in a specific manner, obviously to suit your argument. I'm not denying that Apple does this as well. Hell, Apple probably is one of the better companies that do that.

There is nothing "wrong" with reporting on marketshare, but that's just one piece of the overall picture in terms of what device is right for you, the consumer, and doesn't really prove anything in terms of what phone "is the best" -- I say that tongue in cheek because so many people are so caught up with "what phone is the best phone". Sadly, there are a LOT of consumers that depend too heavily on the pretty and trendy graphs rather than what phone actually is right for them.

There's no single phone that's going to be the holy grail of smart phones. They all have their pros and cons. I guess what I don't get are the people that so strongly have to attach their identity to their choice of phone. I just don't get that and probably never will. I've had Palms, BBs, WM, iOS, etc. I'm not "tied" to my phone. If a phone comes along that is better for me, great, I have that choice to get it, but I'm not going to base my choice off of what some pretty trendy graph a marketing weenie came up with to spin things a certain way. It all comes down to right phone is right for YOU. Because a phone is right for you doesn't mean it's right for me. Good thing we have choices. In the end, it's the consumer that wins. It's just sad when people stop thinking for themselves and use these reports as a crutch rather than an aide in terms of choosing what phone is right for them.
Click to expand...

You could also bring up Beta vs VHS. Beta was the superior format, but VHS won due to licensing the standard across multiple hardware manufacturers. Beta, on the other hand, was made by only one or two manufacturers. We all know which format "won", and the entire world took a collective step backwards in consumer video recording quality.

Releasing the iPhone 4 on Verizon is a total WIN for Apple and will come at the expense of Blackberry and Android market share. According to The Nielsen Company, 21% of Android and Blackberry owners want to switch to iPhone while only 6% of iPhone owners want Android. This would explain why we see so many Android "fanboys" hang out in iPhone forums! 89% of iPhone owners want their next phone to also be an iPhone - that statistic drops to 71% for Android and 42% for Blackberry.

According to these statistics, Blackberry is in big trouble. Android has lower overall satisfaction levels that will drive defections once iPhone hits Verizon.

neilson-smartphone-survey-1.png
 
kas23 said:
And this, we may not know.

Is Google making more than Apple from their "mobile phone" services (including mobile advertising).

Does Apple make more money selling 1 phone than HTC does selling all of their phones?

I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

This is easy. Apple makes magnitudes more money than Google in mobile (I mean MAGNITUDES). Android is essentially free so there is no direct way of making money from hardware vendors so advertising is the only way of monetizing Android. You look at Google's split between how much they make in PC vs. mobile and it is heavily skewed toward PC. They made about $24B last year in revenue so if you believe ~10% is mobile, $2.4B annually (don't know if 10% is right so someone please correct).

The iPhone is even easier to calculate on a revenue basis...~$600 ASP (easy to find from earnings statements and analyst reports) and they sell 35M units per year. This implies $21B from iPhone sales alone for Apple per year! iPhone is almost as valuable as Google's entire business in terms of revenue. No comparison on value here...
 
Android is going to eat Apple's dinner if Apple doesn't snap out of it and offer more than 3 model. Adding additional carriers will do very little in the long run.
 
Plutonius said:
Another troll posting here attempting to start a flamewar :eek: .

Is either Google or Apple paying you to push their products ? Then why do you even care ? Use what works best for you.
Click to expand...
When one has nothing of value to contribute, some stoop to name calling. A very revealing tactic.

Me? I use both iOS & Android, enjoying each for it's respective strengths. A long time tech enthusiast, I believe there is room for both, and competition is good.

Only the narrow minded are unhappy unless the one they use is declared the "winner". Therefore validating them and boosting their ego.
 
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