iOS Adoption Remains at Lowest Levels Since 2014 as Android Captures Record 87.5% Market Share

[SteveW928]

Indeed, the other vendors have certainly stepped up their game but all depend on Android OS (as I am sure you already knew). Not being responsible for the OS that runs the phone certainly must reduce development costs. Likewise, as far as I know, most of them use off the shelf components (do any of them actually engineer custom chipsets?). That also cuts down development cost. It is unlikely they will ever be able to offer the efficiency of the iPhone but Apple will never be able to offer lowest price point and rarely the latest and greatest.

Some use good stuff, others, not so much. Heck the knock-off iPhones in China (some plastic, others nearly identical) run Android (so people can look like they have an iPhone for like $50-$70... they are complete junk though). All of that stuff adds into those percentages.

Jobs, by contrast, had he lived, would, I believe, have opened up the iPhone to all markets, thereby increasing the iPhone marketshare to the same 60% that the iPod enjoyed, thereby selling a magnitude more than Cook managed.

I'm not so sure about that, but I think the goal was fundamentally different. Jobs was about serving the customers with the best products Apple could make (within reason), where as Cook seems about maximizing profits. Jobs never made cheap junk (and in fact, eliminated some of it when he returned) to bring in the masses. He made great products, and at times whittled them down into a price margin nearly everyone could afford.

Love it or hate it, Android is a technological marvel and it's a modern miracle that cultures that still use ox to plow their fields have access to that kind of technology.
...
These last two bits are a problem though. Nobody can stay in a business they aren't making money from, and competing head to head with your OS vendor has to look like an existential threat particularly for the smaller players.

Oh, for sure. There's usually a place for a cheap, entry level product. That's just never been Apple's thing. And, not making *enough* money is a serious problem for the stability of a platform or vendor.

I feel that when people say smartphone ‘innovation’ they really only mean visible end-user features, not the platform as a whole.

Or, new physical enclosures. Yea, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I wish they'd have stopped at the 5s/SE, actually. The design seems backwards since. And, I don't agree about iOS... while they have advanced in some ways, iOS7 was a total disaster, and they've been trying to fix it ever since.

It would be interesting to see what Apple would be like if it were a private company, owned entirely by the Jobs family. But what frustrates me, is that people don't understand that Apple is out to make a profit, this is why they don't compete with Android.
...
Point being: Apple's growth is in selling in developing markets and expanding services. It's not in its hardware. MacOS isn't going to take over the world. It's not a revenue growth machine. It's stagnant, and people thinking that 'IF ONLY THEY WOULD RELEASE A DECENT MAC LINE!' are foolish. Microsoft is the dominate player, and it would take a huge, huge, huge, shift to get companies to use MacOS over Windows.
...
So, basically, think like a business person and what Apple is doing makes complete sense.

Well, it's a bit more complex than that. Apple is an entire eco-system. What made them great was focusing on UX and UI and making great stuff that made people more productive. If they lose that, it doesn't matter how much 'thinking like a business person' people do. The leaders Apple had in the 90s, arguably, 'thought like a business person.' Jobs thought outside that stale box.

The Mac is a crucial part of Apple's eco-system, as are the creatives, designers, students, etc. You can't just thumb your nose at that crowd without repercussions. And, Windows isn't dominant in business because it's the best platform for business. Apple had the perfect chance to make advances there, and blew it. Maybe they decided they didn't want it (fair enough). But if they did, they blew it.

Well, yes and no. Investors who are shareholders, own the company. So with that reguards, unless the CEO is a visionary and is willing to risk the company stock price, is most likely going to take the safe road. And most likely only aim for short term profits.

Oh, I agree that's what is happening. And, that's unfortunate (and not what Jobs did). I'm also pointing out that this is much of what's wrong with the corporate world today. Short term thinking is very dangerous, and calling people who cause it 'investors' is stretching it quite a bit. They are the problem, and a better term is gamblers and profiteers.

Well said. I think most people online are either kids or work for small/medium-sized companies so they don't quite get how much effort it takes for a global company with 10,000+ employees (and even more computers + in-house systems...etc) to upgrade from say Windows 7 to Windows 10.

I work for a place that employs 30,000+ employees globally and develops a heap of in-house solutions. Moving our computers over to Apple would be a nightmare (we only juat upgraded from XP to 7 and that was a MASSIVE headache for everybody). Unless you REALLY need to change your OS, IMO it's not worth the stress.

I've worked for a Fortune 100 (nearly Fortune 50), and I'm hardly a kid, so I understand what you're talking about. But, much of this is due to short-sighted thinking and poor IT design and practices. Why should it be hard to move from Win 7 to Win 10 or to Macs? Because they picked poor technologies that locked them into hard to move from eco-systems. That's why a lot of 'intranets' still need old versions of IE... can you say, stupid? But, yes, it's the reality.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if people are upgrading or just coming to the platform, it's all money in Apple's pocket and reported a such.
Split hairs all you want and call it whatever you like. It really doesn't matter.

To be fair, I disagree here. If growth is what matters, then you need to increase somehow, somewhere. If you're just flat, at say $1B in profit year after year, then that's not growth. I'll invest in such a company ANY DAY though!

Growth = more than before. You can get growth in many ways, but substained sales is not one when you've practically exhausted your economies of scale.

Yea, but who cares? If I could make $1M every year for 30 years with ZERO growth, I'd be ecstatic! The only reason we're talking about this is because what's considered 'investment' is a baloney game for the rich to feel respectable about their gambling and play money games.

Investors primarily care about profitability and returns on investment. Growth is icing. Wall Street isn't about investing.

When I shopping for a phone that is disposable after few year, I hardly care if that OEM make money or not. Wether Apple makes money or not is irrelevant to me and most consumer. Consumers are smart and they are seeing iPhone is biggest rip off.

Well, then they are idiots. I want the companies I buy products from to make money, because then I get support and a long-term stable eco-system.

I design websites. Do I use the $3.95/mo hosting for my sites? Nope. I want my hosting provider to make money and provide me with great service and a great product. I'm also getting into podcasting. Am I going to use someone like Sound Cloud that's bleeding cash? Nope. I'm going without someone charging adequate money and providing good, stable, long-term service.

If you think you're 'pulling one over on the man' by buying some cheap-o product from a company (or getting it for free) that isn't making money... you'd better enjoy the junk while it briefly lasts.

 

[x0vash0x]

Really, none of the 1.5 billion Android users are paying for services?

Do you know how incredibly easy it is to pirate games on Android? You think the majority of Android owners in China purchase games? Hell no. They download pirated copies and side load them. Plus, Google Play doesn't exist in China, so Google doesn't even get revenue from Google Play in China from In-APP Purchases. Google has basically no services in the largest market in the world, in the largest developing country in the world.

Google is losing out on billions of dollars a year and is being destroyed in China. Sure, Android is extremely popular, but the money is going to Chinese tech firms, not Google. This is the downfall of Android: OEMs can completely bypass Google and Google Play leaving Google with zero sources of service revenue.

Sure, the same thing happened to Apple and the iTunes Store. But, Apple is willing to play the Chinese game, and I expect the iTunes Store to return to China sometime in the future.
[doublepost=1478145316][/doublepost]

Really, none of the 1.5 billion Android users are paying for services?

Do you know how incredibly easy it is to pirate games on Android? You think the majority of Android owners in China purchase games? Hell no. They download pirated copies and side load them. Plus, Google Play doesn't exist in China, so Google doesn't even get revenue from Google Play in China from In-APP Purchases. Google has basically no services in the largest market in the world, in the largest developing country in the world.

Google is losing out on billions of dollars a year and is being destroyed in China. Sure, Android is extremely popular, but the money is going to Chinese tech firms, not Google. This is the downfall of Android: OEMs can completely bypass Google and Google Play leaving Google with zero sources of service revenue.

Sure, the same thing happened to Apple and the iTunes Store. But, Apple is willing to play the Chinese game, and I expect the iTunes Store to return to China sometime in the future.

 

[garylapointe]

There is only one company making iOS devices and they only have one line of phones that runs this OS and they have 12%. On top of that, these phones are at the high end of the price range. That's HUGE as far as I'm concerned.

How many companies make Android phones and how many lines of those phones do all those companies have together? keep in mind, some of those Android phones are $50 devices.

I'm curious as to what percent of the market of $600+ cellphone market they have.

Imagine if a new car company popped up, ran on Coca-Cola (instead of gasoline) and made a new car in a few different sizes and in 10 years had 12 percent of the market. People would say that's amazing.

 

[macfacts]

Basically an irrelevant number. As smartphones penetrate India, Africa, and other countries with extremely large no-income populations, the only factor is cost. That's not a "market". Android phones get dumped there in large quantities with low quality. A more relevant number is a country by country marketshare. Though, even that is easily misinterpreted.

Then why is Tim investing in India? I bet a few years ago you would have said the same thing about China but now iOS app sales there are bigger than USA.

 

[SteveW928]

It's getting harder and harder to believe there is zero profit in making Android phones, because we've been hearing it for five years. Android volumes keep increasing. It could be that the wild guesses and speculations behind phone maker profit are wrong.

It's lots of little players, willing to make lots of little slivers of profit. There is no 'Android market' entity making a ton-o-cash.

That's fine... my profits are tiny compared to SquareSpace. Though, instead of a little slice of the low end, I'm more like Apple, going after a little slice of the higher-end. But, my point is that it's about profitability (and how much is enough for your company), not numbers of devices or percentage of OS.

Really, none of the 1.5 billion Android users are paying for services?

I think maybe that was hyperbole... but the point is that it's small compared to what Apple is making.

I'm curious as to what percent of the market of $600+ cellphone market they have.

No doubt. I bet it's pretty tiny.
[doublepost=1478146249][/doublepost]

Then why is Tim investing in India? I bet a few years ago you would have said the same thing about China but now iOS app sales there are bigger than USA.

Tim might not know how to make good products or how to revive Apple to their former UX glory... but I bet he knows the USA is crashing, while India and China are on the rise (in terms of smartphone buyer base).

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

I think it's a clear sign that they need to make the iPhone thinner by removing all ports and the screen.

But not the home button. We can keep the home button, for a mere $900.00 USD. You can even have a mute switch included for only $200.00 USD. No word yet on supply constraints for volume toggles. We should know more during the next Apple keynote.

 

[garylapointe]

We only barely stuck with iPhone this year when we bought an SE, until then Apple did not even make a phone we were interested in. But a phone is a phone. With Apple not caring any more about my professional computer needs I see no reason to care about the iPhone. Yep it is a great device, but I won't be in two different ecosystems. No Apple computer, no Apple iPhone. This is the first time in my history that I am not recommending Apple products to family and friends. Fanboy status shrugged off.

So what phone are you going to purchase that goes with your professional computer?

 

[I7guy]

I switched to Android in 2011. This year, I thought I'd give iOS a go and bought an iPhone 7.

After five weeks, I've switched back. iPhones are great phones, but the software is frustrating, awkward and unintuitive. Apple really are being left behind - they're not listening to their consumers (or, at least, the ones who are leaving) whereas Android are.

Most annoyingly, I'm just outside the returns period for my iPhone.
[doublepost=1478117719][/doublepost]

Do they? I've been to third world countries. I must've missed all the "lower priced" Range Rovers and Bentleys.

I feel the same about android as you feel about iOS.
[doublepost=1478151508][/doublepost]

Wow.. history is repeating itself, Apple being ultra greedy and losing vision and marketshare like in the late 90s, rival OS reaching 90% marketshare.

New Apple dark ages approaching?

Losing market share but garners the lions share of profits. Go figure.

 

[emm386]

From my famous serious of "Android myths" I present you episode no. 1:

"Fragmentation remains THE big problem of the Android platform."

It isn't. It never was. And it probably won't ever be for a product with such short product cycles. So far it hasn't been a problem for Google or stopped people from buying into the platform.

It's definitely an inconvenience for developers , but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what handset make I hold in my hands or what screen resolution I use. It (Android) just works. On almost any device. Like Windows.

 

[Radon87000]

That's because of cheap phones being sold in some Third world countries.Cant deny though that Android nowadays can be more intuitive thaṅ iOS from a view point.I cant even do split screen on an iPhone ,something even a Moto G does.No 3DT menus for older iPhones while all old Androids get it.How's that for support?

Android has definitely destroyed iOS in so e areas.

 

[JackieInCo]

And yet I hardly ever see anyone using anything other than an iPhone/iPad. These research numbers seem inverted.

I don't know anyone with an iPhone. Everyone I work with has Android phones. I've been using my iPhone 6S+ for the past few months because of the jailbreak app iBlacklist but eventually will go back to either using my Note 5 or S7 Edge as my daily.

I will be skipping the iPhone this year and will buy the S8 when it comes out.

 

[shansoft]

There are a ton of things to dislike the S7 for, but the fact that you said the camera and autofocus was rubbish leaves me to think you either had a dud, or never had an S7 to begin with. As a current iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 Edge owner, I can attest that the AF on the Edge is very accurate and LASER fast. With all the talk about Samsung phones slowing down after a few months, the camera is just as quick as it was on day one.
The ability to have manual settings on the S7 is icing on the cake.

So... you even mentioned if a majority of people like the image quality off the S7, it doesn't make it a better camera? Okay then.

Autofocus is fast, but awfully bad accuracy whenever its not under the sunlight.

People like the photo taken off the S7 due to majority of people like the over saturated / sharpening image out of box.
Any camera can do just that, but the problem comes when you need to do more than just few facebook photo.
Using manual control on S7, the RAW output is just pure awful. It just shows how much sharpening and noise reduction is used to hide that horrible sensors.

Just because people like the over saturated / sharpening image, doesn't make it a great camera. Same thing as HTC 10, it's not a good camera if you just point and shoot, but if you starting to use manual + RAW, it's a total different story that can take the best photo out of all phone camera. Hence why Google decided to use the same sensor on Pixel, but still do worse than HTC 10 under manual due to lens f/1.8 (HTC) vs f/2.0 (Pixel).

 

[uwdude]

I think the reason for the small slump this year is that some people decided not to buy the new iPhone and/or purchased a cheap android just to get by this year, being tired of the close-to-$1000 pricing to have one of the latest flagship phones. I think that's becoming more of a factor. How many of those androids sold were the $600+ models?

 

[Scottadus]

I used to use android. I can't past all the lag everywhere in the os. I try every new flagship every year and they all have no much lag. iOS is thousands of times faster and smoother. That's why I love iPhone.

 

[7 others]

I think the reason for the small slump this year is that some people decided not to buy the new iPhone and/or purchased a cheap android just to get by this year, being tired of the close-to-$1000 pricing to have one of the latest flagship phones. I think that's becoming more of a factor. How many of those androids sold were the $600+ models?

i would like to think that an iPhone could last a long time, i have a 5s and it is still really good in terms of performance, there is no lag or whatsoever.

i doubt a phone from chinese OEM can last more than two years w/o having any issues.

s7 and pixel are premium phones too, let's see how long they can last.

 

[Radon87000]

I used to use android. I can't past all the lag everywhere in the os. I try every new flagship every year and they all have no much lag. iOS is thousands of times faster and smoother. That's why I love iPhone.

Google Pixel and Nexus dont have any lags.They are slower than iPhone,yes, but no lags

 

[plexdk]

This is a fairly objective iPhone/iOS review from an Android user. Its a matter of taste, both camps offer good phones.

And now with the speed bump of the iPhone 7, I think a lot of people will keep their phone for some time, unless they are gadget fanboys, and want the newest every year.

 

[symphara]

Examples?

A couple of days ago I had to download a .p12 file from an internal website and email it to someone. I don't think you can do this with an iPhone, at all.

Then there's a strange, byzantine work flow. Some things you have to do from the source app into the target app, some the other way around, and it's not obvious or intuitive which is which. Generally speaking in Android both app-to-app flows are valid.

There's the whole "Camera roll" thing, which I just don't understand. But I know from the iPad that if something is not in the "Camera roll", you're very restricted in what you can do with it.

You cannot just plug it into a computer and copy files. This is a pretty huge one. And I personally hate iTunes, I think it's rubbish.

Generally with Apple stuff, there's an "Apple approved" way of doing things, and there's the highway. On a Mac, you generally have more freedom, being a computer, and you can work around their restrictive way of thinking. But on iOS, there's just no freedom, and a lot of the time the "Apple approved" way sucks, requires money, or both.

I personally buy CDs. I'm into HiFi and I collect them. And as soon as I buy them, I rip them into .flac onto a RAID NAS so I can play them on my streamer. If I want the new album on my phone, I just copy the .flac files directly.

If I want it on the iPad, I have to convert the .flac files into .aac files using my Windows PC, then I have to copy the .aac files on my MacBook, then I have to import them using iTunes, and then I have to sync them to the iPad. This is horribly convoluted for such a simple task, and the reason this use-case is so bad is that I didn't buy the music from Apple. Apple would have sold me the music in 256kbps compressed AAC, for more money, and no physical media, just a virtual license on their servers. Bum deal, if you ask me, but everything about the iPhone is a bum deal.

Every time I have this discussion face-to-face, I just tell people that pretty much everything they do on the iPhone, I'll do it on Android with fewer taps, swipes and clicks. It's just more efficient, on top of allowing you to do many things which are impossible on iOS.
[doublepost=1478170285][/doublepost]

Autofocus is fast, but awfully bad accuracy whenever its not under the sunlight

That's utterly false. There's a wealth of SuperSaf clips on youtube showing how fast and precise is the S7's autofocus in low light. Beats the iPhone 7 clearly, and the only thing that matched it was the Pixel. I personally thought the Pixel was still a sliver slower. I don't have a Samsung and I'm not planning to buy one, but I have to say that Samsung did an amazing job with their S7-gen cameras.

 

[trifid]

I feel the same about android as you feel about iOS.
[doublepost=1478151508][/doublepost]
Losing market share but garners the lions share of profits. Go figure.

Profits is not necessarily an indication of a healthy company, things can turn sour pretty fast if the focus is lost. I found this gem the other day, this is Steve Jobs on how Apple went wrong in the 90s, interestingly Apple had lost focus (sounds familiar), and was utterly greedy and was making "outlandish profits" (sounds familiar). It's quite astounding seeing the parallels.

“they cared about making a lot of money… they got very greedy and instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision which was to make this thing an appliance and get this out there to as many people as possible, they went for profits, and they made outlandish profits for about 4 years, one of the most profitable companies in America for 4 years, and what that cost them was their future, because what they should have been doing was making rational profits…”

-Steve Jobs

 

[symphara]

This is a fairly objective iPhone/iOS review from an Android user

This review is textbook subjective. It's the opinion of an self-acknowledged iPhone user, filtered exclusively through his experience and needs.

 

[uwdude]

I'm not usually one to judge, but you go through an awful lot of trouble just to get your CD music onto non-Apple devices, much less an Apple device. Ripping it into .flac, then onto an NAS, then to some streamer, that's a lot more work than just tapping the buy button in iTunes or play button in Apple Music and have it on all your Apple devices. There's no way I would go through what you do to listen to your music on a non-Apple device even. But to each his own I guess.

I don't know how your .p12 works, but it seems like it would be something that you could put in Dropbox or some other cloud service and email it from there right on the iPhone.

 

[I7guy]

Profits is not necessarily an indication of a healthy company, things can turn sour pretty fast if the focus is lost. I found this gem the other day, this is Steve Jobs on how Apple went wrong in the 90s, interestingly Apple had lost focus (sounds familiar), and was utterly greedy and was making "outlandish profits" (sounds familiar). It's quite astounding seeing the parallels.

“they cared about making a lot of money… they got very greedy and instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision which was to make this thing an appliance and get this out there to as many people as possible, they went for profits, and they made outlandish profits for about 4 years, one of the most profitable companies in America for 4 years, and what that cost them was their future, because what they should have been doing was making rational profits…”

-Steve Jobs

Steve jobs is dead and this is now Tims company. Seems right putting Apple against the entirety of a competing o/s where many phones are for virtually free and having Apple garner the lions share of profits says what needs to be said. The only company that makes out on android market share is google.

 

[NT1440]

Then why is Tim investing in India? I bet a few years ago you would have said the same thing about China but now iOS app sales there are bigger than USA.

Because the gap between the poor and the uprising middle class has widened to the point where a built in multimillion strong middle class will be potential customers in the upcoming years, while the poor will be eager to work assembling the phones as India is the next sub-humane assembly plant for the world (as the Chinese workers are starting to demand wage hikes, god forbid).

It's a two fold strategy, and you can see every major tech sector is actively working to set up shop there.

 

[I7guy]

A couple of days ago I had to download a .p12 file from an internal website and email it to someone. I don't think you can do this with an iPhone, at all.

Then there's a strange, byzantine work flow. Some things you have to do from the source app into the target app, some the other way around, and it's not obvious or intuitive which is which. Generally speaking in Android both app-to-app flows are valid.

There's the whole "Camera roll" thing, which I just don't understand. But I know from the iPad that if something is not in the "Camera roll", you're very restricted in what you can do with it.

You cannot just plug it into a computer and copy files. This is a pretty huge one. And I personally hate iTunes, I think it's rubbish.

Generally with Apple stuff, there's an "Apple approved" way of doing things, and there's the highway. On a Mac, you generally have more freedom, being a computer, and you can work around their restrictive way of thinking. But on iOS, there's just no freedom, and a lot of the time the "Apple approved" way sucks, requires money, or both.

I personally buy CDs. I'm into HiFi and I collect them. And as soon as I buy them, I rip them into .flac onto a RAID NAS so I can play them on my streamer. If I want the new album on my phone, I just copy the .flac files directly.

If I want it on the iPad, I have to convert the .flac files into .aac files using my Windows PC, then I have to copy the .aac files on my MacBook, then I have to import them using iTunes, and then I have to sync them to the iPad. This is horribly convoluted for such a simple task, and the reason this use-case is so bad is that I didn't buy the music from Apple. Apple would have sold me the music in 256kbps compressed AAC, for more money, and no physical media, just a virtual license on their servers. Bum deal, if you ask me, but everything about the iPhone is a bum deal.

Every time I have this discussion face-to-face, I just tell people that pretty much everything they do on the iPhone, I'll do it on Android with fewer taps, swipes and clicks. It's just more efficient, on top of allowing you to do many things which are impossible on iOS.
[doublepost=1478170285][/doublepost]
That's utterly false. There's a wealth of SuperSaf clips on youtube showing how fast and precise is the S7's autofocus in low light. Beats the iPhone 7 clearly, and the only thing that matched it was the Pixel. I personally thought the Pixel was still a sliver slower. I don't have a Samsung and I'm not planning to buy one, but I have to say that Samsung did an amazing job with their S7-gen cameras.

Some crazy uses to prove android is better than iOS? Somehow I have never been limited to get "stuff" done on my iPhone.

As far as the s7 camera, color accuracy is not all that, autofocus is good though.

 

[CEmajr]

This old irrelevant stat again.

Android has the dominant market share but enjoys none of the benefits usually reserved for the market leader.

iOS gets the most developer support
iOS generates the most revenue for developers
iOS is the dominant developer platform
Apple generates far more revenue and profit from iOS than Google from Android

Basically this number just tells us that there are a lot of low end, cheap Android phones out there and developers are ignoring them. It also tells us that most users who make up this large marketshare aren't spending money on Android apps or services after the sale but instead are likely using them like feature phones.

It's actually an embarrassment for Android to have such a huge share advantage but still be the second tier development platform.