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Android Sales Surpass iPhone Sales
gollum123 writes with this excerpt from VentureBeat:
"Smartphones based on Google's Android mobile operating system outsold Apple's iPhone in the US during the first quarter of 2010, according to a report by research firm The NPD Group. The data places Android, with 28 percent of the smartphone market [last quarter], in second place behind RIM's Blackberry smartphone market share of 36 percent. Apple now sits in third place with 21 percent. NPD points to a Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first-quarter numbers. Verizon saw strong sales for the Motorola Droid and Droid Eris Android phones, as well as the Blackberry Curve, thanks to its promotional offer. Verizon launched a $100 million marketing campaign for the Droid when it hit the market in November 2009, which likely contributed to strong sales in the first quarter as well."
Preston Gralla notes that it's not all bad news for Apple; this report could help their case in upcoming antitrust discussions.
I, for one, am shocked, that many products from several sources on various carriers have collectively outsold a single product available on a single carrier that doesn't even have the most market share. Utterly amazing, isn't it? /sarcasm
Or should that be iMpossible?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Apple is getting ready to release a new iPhone in the next few months. I'm sure this kind of regular product cycle makes consumers not want to upgrade for the quarter before a new release. I know I'm going to skip the 3GS and wait for the "4" or whatever the new one is called.
-Bill
I for one have an iPhone and I cannot tell you how much I wish it were an Android. Hopefully, the 'Droid can come out with a version that beats Apple's 4G series that are approaching the market.
There's a reason why Windows is still 95% desktop share, while Mac OSX is only 4%
Investment in existing software plays a huge roll in that. Smartphones don't have that issue (though a very small percentage of people have spent a ton on app downloads).
this report could help their case in upcoming antitrust discussions.
Or just as easily hurt it. As the report shows a big part of the sales was on Verizon network, which is a market Apple does not exist on. A large portion of those sales "might" have been for Apple's product had it be available on the Verizon network.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Android phones are not as open as Maemo/MeeGo phones. Andoird could have been way cooler if Google have picked up Maemo instead of starting from scratch using Java. That said, I don't mind that all the mobile games targeted for Android should eventually run on Maemo.
(Random text inserted at the end of the message to allow mouse chicks on text in Shashdot's edit window on Safari)
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
> (Sits back and waits for the karma burn.)
Yes, that karma burn is going to have nothing to do with your statement objectively actually being flamebait. It adds nothing at all to the discussion. Even people that agree with you that it was unavoidable that Android phones were going to surpass iPhones can at most ignore your post. There's nothing interesting, informative or insightful about it.
Maybe just don't post shit next time.
but companies could face anti-trust action even if they don't own a monopoly over a product or service. (Confirm/Deny?) I am also smirking over the reaction of Apple supporters over this news. Previously, it was "we are the champions, no time for losers" now it is "hey, told you we're not evil because we are the underdogs, support the underdogs!" Not trolling by the way.
There are RDP and VNC clients for both iPhone and Android.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Option 3 would be the Nokia N900 running Maemo (or its successor), I would think Thought about it myself, but hate the keyboard and went with a rooted HTC Desire.
Yes it does. There's an app (it's not free, maybe a few $$$) called "Remote RDP" that connects to both Windows RDP machines, and any Linux box running XRDP. It may work with VNC, but I've never tried it. I also have an app called "Connect Bot" installed which manages ssh connections. It supports full public key authentication and port forwarding.
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Apple is committed to making the same mistakes it made in the 80's. It amazes me how they think they can break the natural laws of the market and make their business model work. In five years the iPhone's market share will pale in comparison to Android and it will be for the sole reason that Apple cares more about its vision than its customers. Android is the Windows of the mobile world.
or else!
There's been anecdotal evidence that there isn't as much money to be made writing Android apps as there is to be made writing iPhone apps.
One theory has gone "that's because the user base isn't there yet; when the users show up, the developers will come".
Well. It looks like the users are showing up in numbers that are becoming difficult to ignore. So now it's time to keep a close eye on app developers, and see what happens! Is Android more like the XBox 360 (where a lot of third-party developers make a lot of money), or more like the Wii (where almost nobody but Nintendo ends up making much money)?
It's all going to be very interesting to watch. Yay competition!
It exceeded iPhone sales, not iPhone OS, as iPhone OS includes the iPod Touch and iPad. The sales of the iPod Touch are far from insubstantial.
Meanwhile, iPhone sales are down because new ones are due in June, as they have been the last three years. People know this (and if they don't, they ask a geek friend who does), and sales drop. Just watch, they'll skyrocket in June/July, just as they have the last couple years.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Yeah, the iPhone was certainly a blip that faded into obscurity after a few months on the market....
Seriously, 21% market share years after launch is hardly defined as "quickly fall down and die".
Not saying the iPad will fare as well. The iPhone was a game changer when it was released. It filled a desperate need in the market (a smartphone that wasn't a freakin pain to use).
The iPad however is trying to _create_ a market. That's a lot more difficult. Everybody immediately recognized the usability of the iPhone; hardly anybody has a clue what need in their life (beyond "oooh shiny!") the iPad might sate.
Also, when the iPhone came out, it took a while for Android do show up and match it. Android's here now, and tablets running it are already starting to appear. Though I'm guessing it'll be another 6 months before any really good ones start appearing.
Unless people have decided there's no market for these devices by then (in which case they'll all quietly vanish), I still suspect the iPad will do fine. It was first to the table, plugs into Apple's eco system, and has the app store.
Or that the iPhone is an inferior product in the Enterprise market. Or that people don't like dealing with the AT&T network. There could be a million different reasons for this.
My Sysadmin Blog
1 million sales is the first month is far from "hardly anybody". Particularly as that figure is limited by supply - they had to delay launch in non-US territories because US sales were higher than predicted.
It's going to crash a lot and get a lot of viruses? /duck
Verizon's droid does porn advertising campaign is what really hooked me into my purchase. If Jobs hadn't pointed it out to me I probably would have just bought an iPhone.
They have their work cut out for them. I understand the model they want, it's close to the model used by game console manufacturers to ensure quality on their consoles and also to reap the rewards of complete control. But what I've never heard of is a restriction on using a particular language that compiles to a native format using a published API. They're gonna have a hard time selling that one as something that offers value to the customer given they already have a fairly intense filtering process for their app store. Even console manufacturers don't dictate what code you compile in, as long as it compiles to a proper native image and meets all the checks and balances.
It's important to note that the iPhone is in one of the low-sales points of its product cycle for these figures. Everybody who's paying attention *KNOWS* that Apple is going to introduce a new model of the iPhone next month, with greater capabilities and probably at the same price as the current model. Anyone who can wait until summer solstice to buy their first iPhone is waiting, and the oodles of people who bought an iPhone 3G in the second half of 2008 are waiting to become eligible for a subsidized upgrade 2 years later. Kind of like unemployment figures, iPhone sales figures need to be "seasonally adjusted" to be meaningful.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
yes, being more open will always result in more sales. That's how Linux was able to surpass Windows so quickly.
BTW, Never underestimate the power of "oooh shiny!"
I'm not sure if you are serious or being rhetorical, but since it's a good point either way, let's just state it:
Google's Android revenue: 0.
Apple's iPhone revenue: over $5B per quarter and growing.
Summary: Apple could not care less about market share, as long as their total sales and revenue keeps growing at the insane rate they have been.
And since the iPad is really just a giant iPhone/Touch (ie uses the same OS)... 1M units in 30 days is probably about $600M revenue for their latest product - in a month. Yikes.
It has amongst educated consumers i.e. server admins, researchers, and the top500.
Also, the Android platform is based on Java running on Linux. Where were the wince phones on this list again?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
The leaked iPhone 4G looks like Apple is just trying to catch up with the Nexus One, and not even succeeding at that. People who already have iPhones will go for it, for others, it won't make a big difference.
Well, it's relevant in that if it turns out nobody is making any money off Android devices, a lot of companies will simply stop making Android devices, and switch to something they can make money from.
The manufacturers are probably making just as much money from sales of Android devices as they would from Windows Mobile or Symbian devices. A hardware sale is a hardware sale, regardless of what OS the hardware runs. The interesting question is if Google is turning a profit from all the resources they've invested.
Or just as easily hurt it. As the report shows a big part of the sales was on Verizon network, which is a market Apple does not exist on.
So to summarize what you are saying, is that because Apple is only only a single network instead of several, that makes it MORE LIKLEY they will be found to be violating antitrust because they are LESS ubiquitous than they might be?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...except an iphone is locked down.
Sure, I can jailbreak it but that's something that is scary to a lot of people. It's probably even scarier to geeks that actually understand the implications if something goes wrong.
So no. Not every smartphone starts out the same way.
With Android you can install stuff from where ever and with Apple you either lump it or leave it.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
That's one perspective. But I think you're misreading Apple. Apple doesn't care, and has never cared, about being the largest vendor in any particular space. They only care about being the "best" -- where they get to define what "best" means. Remember when they launched the iPhone and they claimed to want 1% of the smartphone space, which at the time represented perhaps 10% of the mobile phone market? They achieved that goal and then some. Other vendors had to respond to Apple and what Apple was doing. They still are. So success for Apple is to have the lead in mindshare and to make money hand over fist. They're doing that without dominating the market and I suspect they will continue in spite of Android's sales win for this quarter.
If Apple ends up with a minority share of the market they won't care one bit as long as their share is the most profitable portion of that market.
The main thing of concern for Google is probably whether or not the ecosystem is open to their way of making a profit. Maybe they saw a problem looming, with the walled garden approach of Apple.
Google wasn't really involved in activelly contributing to healthy mobile landscape when Blackberry was dominating in the US (still is actually) and Nokia globally (still is)
One that hath name thou can not otter
He didn't say they should or would do that, just that if it happened, there would be devices with it everywhere. And he's right.
What he also doesn't say is that the device quality control would KILL the OS as people ran from it in droves when it was shoved down on sub par hardware and the apps that were designed for it made the device look sub standard.
I've held enough Android phones to realize it's mediocre, not because of the OS, because everyone is trying to capitalize on it instead of make it good.
Google's Android revenue: 0.
Apple's iPhone revenue: over $5B per quarter and growing.
This is a very misleading statement.
Google does not get revenue directly from selling Android. However, they do indirectly get revenue from in-app advertisements, search advertisements, and app store purchases that are all tied to Android phones. I would be that if Google ever released numbers it would show a significant amount of revenue.
Considering that they did not have to develop Android from scratch and does not make the hardware; I'd say this is a pretty good deal for Google.
Couldn't this also be true of Android phones?
Every day I read about a new Android phone that has better specs and features than anything previously released.
I don't see how this thought is relevant.
. . not in the article, press release, or NPD's site. At one time, it was the leader. Can anyone recall seeing anything else of Microsoft going from such a top position to nowhere (Bob doesn't count)?
I guess it depends on where you live. I see just as many Android phones as iPhones nowadays. Hell at a boardgame party Saturday night (I am that lame) we even whipped 'em all out to compare. 3 iPhones, 3 flavors of Android phones (including my G1) and 1 Palm Pre. The most amazing thing is that a lot of the Android phones that I see are being used by non-tech people and they seem to be as happy with the experience as the iPhone users.
I never noticed motorcyclists on the road until I started riding.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Actually, if Google goes ahead with implementing Flash in their browser, that's actually pretty likely...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'm sure you'll get modded down for your comment, but you are dead on. The fact of the matter is many people choose style over substance without ever knowing that they're buying a very restricted device.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
The leak was last month. Sales have fallen off since Q4 2009...well before the leak started. Face it, the iPhone has fallen behind it's competitors.
My Sysadmin Blog
This all rather presumes that Apple simply wants to sell as many iPhones (or iPhoneOS devices) as possible.
Apple want to be No. 1 in the top 50 or 25% of the market. That's where the profit margins are.
You can now buy phones running Android for £100. The hardware sucks. The margins must be pretty thin.
That isn't a game Apple wants to be in.
The key to Apples success is selling aspirational products. Sure their hardware is more expensive, but it also *feels* more expensive.
This is great news for both Apple and Android users. This is just the sort of news Apple needs to hear to make them tired of their single-carrier approach in the US. As with many AT&T users, their lack of supporting tethering on the iPhone and the inconsistent network coverage (although when it does work their 3G is MUCH faster than Verizon's) has made me long for another carrier to be available to iPhone users who don't want to jailbreak their iPhones. However we shouldn't forget that there are two MAJOR problems with Verizon on all their phones that make me not want to switch to Verizon even if they did have the iPhone: 1. Verizon's 3G network is NOT capable of voice and data at the same time. Once you're on the phone, all data connections are closed until you hang up. Not so great when you're trying to use maps and someone calls you, or while on the phone you try to find a nearby restaurant to meet the caller. As Verizon callers know, "I'll have to check that and call you back" is not an uncommon thing to say. In an age of Bluetooth headsets being the norm, we should be able to use our phone's data channel while we're on the phone. Verizon's 3G network is very 2G in this instance (and LTE, Verizon's 4G network will fix this but launch is not until mid-2011 at least) 2. Verizon only gives their 3G data users 5GB of use before they start levying HUGE overage charges (http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/04/30/family_provider_far_apart_over_nearly_18000_phone_bill/). I personally have no intention of going over 5GB but I also don't want to WORRY about a limit at all. Again, very backward thinking by Verizon here, reminiscent of Compuserve and AOL charging hourly for Internet access back in the 1980s. Charge a fair price for unlimited data (I think $30 is fair but let the market decide) and then you'll have a shot at my business. In short, I'd love to see Verizon get the iPhone but not in an exclusive deal, not with 5GB data caps, and not unless they can support data and voice at the same time on their 3G network (which has excellent coverage).
And never underestimate the ability of people who bought into hype to rationalize their decisions.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
The difference is that a smart phone is basically an application platform like the PC. The iPOD is not, it's basically a souped up media player. And don't forget that although these kind of markets are highly volatile, it may take a long time before a relatively good product like the iPOD is taken over by its competitors.
This isn't an OS war. Microsoft got/gets paid for each and every computer that gets shipped out. I'm not sure Google is in such a position to demand/get such a royalty. OTOH, Apple gets $$$ for ever iPhone shipped.
Also, desktop is upgradeable (generally) and you want to want multiple parts from multiple companies in multiple variations playing with each other nicely, perhaps with a driver install.
A phone, otoh, is an appliance. No added ram, nothing. It gets upgraded every 2 years by most people. The experience of the hardware/software will be pinned on the maker. Apple offering the iPhone OS to other makers will give away Apple's edge for little added benefit and lots of aggravation ensuring backwards compatibility and that apps work on a slew of phones.
This is not the PC war. The best things Apple can do is wholly outside of licensing out iPhone OS and that is offering the phone unlocked and on multiple carriers. This other shit is irrelevant.
Google does not get revenue directly from selling Android. However, they do indirectly get revenue from in-app advertisements, search advertisements, and app store purchases that are all tied to Android phones
Actually, your statement is much more misleading, and in fact mostly untrue. Do your research next time.
"Google denies a report that it is sharing advertising revenues derived from mobile applications on Android smartphones with carrier and handset partners. The search engine maintains the only revenue sharing it engages in is from paying carriers a cut of its search-related advertising sales."
They only make money from good old search advertising revenue, which is really not Android specific anyway - they do the same thing on nearly every handset, including the iPhone.
It's pretty much conventional wisdom in the industry that Google's goal right now is to get an open platform out there to compete with the closed ones like RIM and Apple. Which is very cool. But THEY aren't claiming to be making money on that project right now, so no need for you to pretend they are.
Since when is "buy one, get one free - but you still need to sign them both up to a multi-year contract" free? Just like those $100 iPhones aren't really $100 once you look at the contract.
Check out the Evo 4g and try to say that with a straight face - it's kit like that which will kill both the iPhone and iPad. Bigger, easier-to-read display than the upcoming iPhone 4g, much more portable than an iPad ... it's the face of the next generation of smartphone computing devices that people will actually be able to type on half-way decently.
Maemo/MeeGo seems awesome, but I think it's just a sad case of too little, too late.
There's only one phone that runs Maemo, the Nokia N900, and none that run its successor MeeGo. Nokia's recently announced new flagship phones are all running Symbian.
I really like the concept of a truly open OS on a smartphone, but I haven't even ever seen one in person.
At this point I'd rather take and lend my support to something that is 80% as good (Android arguably) that actually has a shot at success in the marketplace rather than hold out for something perfect that is way too late to the party.
I had the same experience. I walked into Best Buy on launch day (this was in Boston) and they had a big display with 5 iPads. No lines, 3 of them were not even being used, so I wandered up and played with one for 10 minutes and only at the end did someone else come up behind me to try one out. I listened with amusement to the guy trying to avoid telling the elderly people who asked him how much RAM it had (he had a long explanation about how how a small amount of memory in an Apple device was like ten times as much in a windows computer, but couldn't bring himself to say the actual number).
Perhaps it was just incredibly uncool for any Apple devotee to ever cross the threshold of Best Buy, but I couldn't observe *any* kind of shortage either on launch day or in the weeks thereafter.
It's nice during the short period when you're in transit, but it presents a dilemma once you get there because it is so deprived of basic capabilities that people do tend to want.
For example I go on holiday, I want to take pictures. I need something easy to plug my camera into to download and quickly crop and edit pictures. The iPad is just horrendously horrible for this due to Steve's obsession with locking it down and removing all the standard ports from it. So you are confronted with the dilemma of bringing both the iPad AND the laptop and doubling up on a lot of capabilities or doing without a lot of the basic things most people *do* want to do when they are travelling.
If you target e.g. 1.5, and don't do any hacks, your app will work on any newer version.
I own a work BB Curve and a personal Android phone. I'm also a BES admin. The only thing I can see that Blackberry's have going for them is decent admin control on the BES (remote wipe etc) and good reliable email push, most of which you can get on other devices pretty well with a few apps. By any other measure the Android phone and iPhones totally outclass them. Android has many more apps, BB apps tend to be more expensive and very dully business orientated (financial tickers etc).
The newer BB next gen devices aren't very exciting and the Storm 2 is especially poor. I'd say the BB is a (very) good business email device and that's about it. They were very late to the 3G show, they still sell curves etc without 3G which to me looks very penny pinching and crappy now.
So who's making RIM number one, it surely can't be all just business sales. I wouldn't thank you for one as a personal device, but you do see it. Do people just like the full keyboards for social networking or something?
Or will this RIM advantage disappear as the market for smartphone grows overall and dwarfs the business sales that have put RIM where they are?
Supplies were low? Hardly!
What I don't get about this is every time I went by the local best buy they had hundreds of the things stacked up behind the counter in the computer area. Even on launch day - around noon I was able to just walk in and I could have bought one if I wanted - I even have photo proof of this.
Something doesn't ad up if you ask me.
No.. they were all sold units.
Try looking at it in a slightly different way.. The inconvenient not believing PR releases way.
Apple said 1 million units sold. And I'm sure they were telling the truth. As far as it goes.
They didn't really emphasise very strongly that they were "sold" to retailers and Apple stores. And the iFanboys took it from there. Just like the "Apple biggest phone maker in US" story a few days ago, or "iPad killing netbooks" story yesterday.
Which means all the iPads you saw on display, and the many more in the warehouse were all counted by Apple, as sold. Even though anybody could go in and buy them from Best Buy.
So more accurately... 1 million units shipped to retail outlets.
Not 1 million purchased by members of the public. Six months from now, the same units in that million could still be sitting on a shelf in some store.
Running out of stock from Apple's end is easily done. Ship any surplus units to some low performing out of the way Apple store, delay the worldwide launch, or announce it too early, and not have a a hope of meeting it. And get more PR. Easy. Zero sales lost due to underestimating demand. Plenty of stock to go around shipped from Apple stores to the various outlets.. Job done.
Microsoft quotes shipped figures as sold to retail licenses too, when it includes every copy in every shop, every bulk buy from OEMs. Every free upgrades from Vista, every shipped by default copy that gets erased and replaced with the company image. And naturally.. All the copies that get sent to volume license customers that are still using XP, and will for a year or two more.
It's an old trick that keeps getting swallowed by the fanboys, and regurgitated over and over.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
> To access an android phone you have to link it to a Google account... you download apps from the google app store...
> This is this different than linking to an iTunes account and downloading from the apple apps store how?
Android owners *can* download apps from Android Market... or we can download them from anywhere else, and install whatever we feel like installing without having to play "Mother, may I?" and get anybody's official blessing, first.
iPhone owners officially have no choice. They *MUST* download apps from Apple's AppStore, and *only* from Apple's AppStore.
Android owners bitch because we haven't quite achieved the ideal of end users being able to build our phone's OS from scratch independently of the handset makers, carriers, and Google. We throw public fits, blame HTC for violating the GPL, and eventually get a cookie thrown to us that brings us a step closer to our goal once we combine that cookie with the next rom image ripped from a related newer phone.
Put another way, if Steve Jobs says the iPhone 4 (or an older iPhone) will not do something, it WILL NOT do it. Ever.
If HTC or Sprint says the Hero won't do something, it's only a real limit until someone rips the rom from the next HTC phone, metaphorically bakes it into a new ROM, and everyone gets to have it anyway.
Perhaps you've heard of the Android marketplace.
It's not locked down like the Itunes store. You can browse it here, here and here. Androlib even has QR codes that you can scan with your Android phone that will take you directly to application in the Android Marketplace.
Because no phishing applications made it past the ever watchful censors at Apple?
NoThankYou.jpg to gateway only security. I'd rather have on-device security which informs me which services (API's, but in simple terms like "can send SMS", "accesses your contacts/personal data" or "can write and delete from the SD card"). Even third party APK's do this (because it's part of Android, not the thrid party software).
So stop spreading FUD and others stop modding up FUD.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
And no-one develops software for Windows because it's too hard and 90% of the world runs Apple because it's simple.
Awaken from your dreamy state, the fragmentation in Windows isn't an issue and neither is it in Android. As with Windows you can expect a lot of third party development tools that will deal with the testing issues. In fact, you don't even need a phone in order to test a simple application, you can do that with the Virtual Machines provided in the Android SDK, which is free and runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.
A quick Google has turned up that Motorola has already released a toolkit to help Android developers with Motorola handsets.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The iPad is just horrendously horrible for this due to Steve's obsession with locking it down and removing all the standard ports from it.
Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit: $29
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=connect+camera+to+ipad: priceless
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
I walked into Best Buy on launch day (this was in Boston) and they had a big display with 5 iPads. No lines, 3 of them were not even being used, so I wandered up and played with one for 10 minutes and only at the end did someone else come up behind me to try one out.
A week or two ago, I walked into Best Buy, and saw some iPads on display as well. One was available, and I wanted to toy around with it, but the greasy, oily fingerprints all over it made me want to vomit. I gazed at it wistfully and forlornly for a few moments, and then left.
I'm not sure the iPad is for OCD types like me. :(
In a world where over 90% of people are illiterate, yeah, that'd be a valid hypothesis.
Face it, pretending a significant percentage of iPhone buyers did so out of appreciation for its design is as senseless as pretending that a significant percentage of Android buyers did so out of a desire to download its source-code and hack it. The overwhelming majority of the world's population can't program worth shit, and similarly the overwhelming majority of the world's population does not have a degree in industrial design.
Admit it, both platforms are succeeding because of marketing. You know, the field whose entire purpose is to sway people to purchase a specific product? yeah. Not enlightenment or whatever.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
...in the mobile OS space anymore. They don't really have a dog in the fight right now. I've used WM6.5, and it is awful. I think it is actually worse for them having tried to ape some iPhone features.
They are already basically relegated to the sliver of the mobile OS marketshare pie chart labeled "Other." By the time they get WM7 into devices and on store shelves, Apple will have iPhone OS 4 out and be working on improving it, and Google isn't standing still with Android, either. Microsoft is going to be playing an endless game of catch-up, and they can't use their old tactics anymore to chase their competitors out of the market. Windows Mobile now has to compete on merit alone.
They laughed at the iPhone and basically ignored Android, let their own product languish, and now they're paying the price.
~Philly
once we combine that cookie with the next rom image ripped from a related newer phone.
You should come up with a catchy name for this process, like "jailbreaking". :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Why have outlandish features like USB when you can make people pay extra for completely sensible non rip-off extras like the "Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit"?
They say it's selling well, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it's for. Anything with a backlit display won't be as good an ereader as a Kindle. Too big to fit in your pocket, and no keyboard for serious business use. What are people doing with it?
I don't understand all the people that want one platform to be the other one's 'killer'. I dont want one platform to kill the other, no matter what the platform is... The market is probably large enough to support 3 or 4 (maybe even 5) large platforms.
My (non-expert) opinion is that:
- there's still some headroom for Apple (after the 5 year exclusive)
- there's some headroom for Android.
- HP's (supposed) commitment to WebOS can also make for some very interesting devices
- Symbian will probably become less important, unless Nokia changes it considerably
- I don't know what to think of Windows Phone 7, but it might be too little too late
- Maemo and Co will remain a niche platform for some time, either to wither away or grow to 5 - 10%
I would really like Apple, Android and WebOS to continue competing for market share in the coming years, since that will get us more features (or better implementations of current features), and more choice, which is rarely a bad thing...
You're making the assumption that it actually is "close enough for practical purposes". I don't think it is. Of course, I don't think the multitasking restrictions are technical in nature anyway; Apple is likely doing this to have yet another way of excluding apps they don't like. For example, with true multitasking, I could run things like a webdav server or metadata server in the background that would give users a better way of organizing and exchanging data between applications than Apple is providing. Apple would kill such an app simply because they don't want someone else providing such functionality.
Thing is, a superb programming environment is interesting to maybe 5% of the population, while a superb design is interesting to many, many more people. You don't have to be able to design, or even intelligently criticize design, to appreciate it.
Of course, you can't quantify great design, which is why it tends to be discounted in places like this, but it does exist.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Hell at a boardgame party Saturday night (I am that lame) we even whipped 'em all out to compare.
TMI, dude... TMI... ;)
Stop! Dremel time!