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Android Outsells iPhone In Last 6 Months
tomhudson writes "Despite all the hype about Apple's latest iPhone, Android has sold more in the last 6 months (27% of all smartphone sales) than Apple (23%). The gains for Android are coming at the expense of RIM (still #1 at 33%, down from 45% a year ago), Windows Mobile (11%, down from 20%) and the iPhone (down from 34% at it's peak 6 months ago). If the current trend continues, Android is expected to be #1 within the year."
Boy Genius and Engadget are circulating a report that says that Android has already overtaken Apple and RIM in the US. Android devices collectively represented a 34% share of the US market in the quarter, and with growth of 851% Android became the largest smart phone platform in the country.
Turns out Linux doesn't suck and it is good for something mainstream after all. I still haven't seen the real "year of the Linux desktop" but Android has already given us a year of the Linux phone, and we barely even realized it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Yeah, the iPhone wasn't even close to being the #1 Smartphone in the US. That honor goes to Blackberry. So why compare to Apple? Ah, because it's cool to hate on Apple.
...I wonder which is more popular amongst geek culture. Android is Linux based, so it has a ton of geek cred...but many a geek has allowed Apple's products to take them over (Ars Technica recently had a statistic in which roughly 26% of their visitors use macs)
Living With a Nerd
The numbers for the iPhone are of course going to reflect that the apple crowd has been holding off and waited for the new generation iPhone 4. The numbers for Q3 will be more interesting.
And then again, who cares, it's just a phone.
Tell your friends about xenu.net
...but hasn't the iPhone sales been slow the past 6 months due to anticipation for the new model coming out last month?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
If this trend continues, Android will have 100% of the market in just over 8 years!
I love linear extrapolation.
welcome our new Android overlords.
I always thought of the new iPhone as a #2.
In about half a century, Android will dominate a 1000% of the market!
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Or rather, the exclusivity deal between AT&T and Apple.
Anecdote: I had lunch over the weekend with a friend who lives in a part of the country that AT&T doesn't cover at all. He and his wife had seen other peoples' iPhones while travelling outside of that area, and all things being equal, would have preferred to buy iPhones, but couldn't. (Yes, they could have bought one someplace else, sucking up a useless contract, jailbreaking, etc., but come on -- that's not a real option for most people.) They ended up getting Android phones instead.
AT&T's commercials assert that it covers 97% of Americans, but if you live in or spend much time in one of the areas (more than 3% of the map) it doesn't cover, the iPhone loses by default even if Apple's marketing is successful.
I find it impressive that the Apple's single handset is selling comparably to the multitude of Android phones currently being offered.
But the swarm of Android devices reminds me a little of the horde of Wintel PCs that swamped Apple's desktop offerings.
There is a bunch of problems with the title. The data is talking about NEW subscribers only, and has no iPhone4 data. Now people whom when from an iPhone to an iPhone, nor people whom bought an iPhone4. Apple is selling more iPhone4s alone then the iPhone and Androids in this review COMBINED.
I should have called it the problem but anyway, 'Android' is mis-understood or even mis-represented.
Case in point: Look at the title of this story, " Android Outsells iPhone In Last 6 Months". Essentially, the author is comparing an OS, (Android) to a device, (iPhone)! It would be better and more informative to the reader to rephrase the title to something near "Android devices outsell iPhones In Last 6 Months".
This is the same plague in Linux land. Some folks know Linux is an OS while others think it's RedHat or Debian or Ubuntu - troubling!
Since this is a platform for geeks or geek story lovers, I expected better. And even then, Android devices outselling iPhones should be expected because the latter is only sold on one carrier in the US and comprises of just 'one' product from one manufacturer.
Yawn... These are sales from January to June - before the iPhone 4 was released. People were intentionally holding off purchases because they knew iPhone 4 was coming out. Wake me up if they outsell iPhones for the next 6 months.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
... workplace blackberry usage
I'd never get a blackberry myself but my employer gives me one "for free" (i.e. I'd rather they just give me what they spend on it and I'd setup my own device on something besides at&t so it actually works... but they won't allow that)
I don't believe the others phones have quite the same degree of corporate lock-down functionality so they're typically less often paid for by one's employer...
...I'd rather have a robot than some fruit
Maybe the desktop wasn't the platform you were looking for...
Ya, I think the exclusivity with ATT hurts the market share. Many people don't want to go near ATT, or they are stuck with a huge contract break fee to leave where they are. Or like me, I have a family plan on VZ, but the other two lines just need to be regular non "smart phones", so it would be a huge pain to move all three of us to ATT just so I could get an iPhone.
Also, I think Apple is a bit more polarizing than Google/Android. Some people just don't want to buy apple.
And finally, when you have multiple HW manufacturers and multiple carriers it's seems that it would be easier to get a larger base established.
In another 6 months time the statistics will be different. This report doesn't include the launch of iPhone 4.
Quite a bit more than 3%; size of the map area not served doesn't follow anywhere near that close the percentage of population served.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's not just a phone. It is determining how portable device will be used by the mainstream. Locked down, or open?
To the mainstream, both devices are locked down. Android requires rooting for full openness, the iPhone requires jailbreaking.
Where you got confused is that the degree of open differs more significantly if you are a developer. But then you should not be confusing what is relevant to the mainstream, vs. the developer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
First of all these numbers directly contradict the numbers presented a few weeks ago that only 20% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Here it says that 71% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Still lower then Apple's 91%, but that can partly be ascribed to the fact that Apple has built a very strong brand loyalty over the last several years. Secondly, there is a direct negative correlation between the release of the Motorola Droid (which began the release of many droid phones like the Incredible) and the drop in recent acquirers of IOS4, going from 34% to 23% in the same period that droid went from 6% to 27%. Now this could be that people were holding out for the iphone 4, however the trend started nine months ago. It's doubtful most people were holding out nine months for the latest iphone. There were probably a few, but I don't think that explains these numbers. Third these numbers are going to be dramatically different in the third quarter simply because the hype of the release of the iphone 4. Because the new iphone is released rarely compared to a most other phones that event atmosphere lends itself to what I'm sure will be a spike in iphone sales. What will be most telling is what happens in Q4 as things balance out.
Where is the line between smartphone and non-smartphone? My last two phones have not been considered smartphones, despite being multifunctional, supporting multiple web browsers, having downloadable apps, handling email, camera, GPS, etc. My latest one does all that, is a touchscreen and better at multitasking than the iPhone 4, but isn't considered a smartphone. Why not?
I'm thinking they draw an arbitrary line that suits their point and only look at the phones above it, despite the many below the line that do the same things.
Is there any real definition for smartphone? It doesn't seem to be based on function. Is there a minimum technical requirement to be considered one?
This sentence no verb.
It's not just a phone. It is determining how portable device will be used by the mainstream. Locked down, or open? The ability to load your own music and ring tones, and app, or only loading what you are allowed ..at a price, of course.
Uh what android devices are as free as you claim? Last I heard you have to wait for someone to "jailbreak"/root the android device to be able to do what you want with it. This "android is open and free" is a load of bull. Motorola phones are all locked up so are HTCs. I also heard many Android devices, just like iPhone, has apps you can't even remove by the user. Yes, that doesnt sound very open to me.
What the FUCK did we win?
Every day I look in the mailbox for my Android prize.... nothin'.
It's a shame that AT&T held a gun to Jobs head to force Apple to sign an exclusive agreement with them.
And most important: multiple sources for applications.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is the skewed info that is just intellectually dishonest. For instance, there is only 1 iPhone model out there vs 15 or more Android phones across different carriers. It would be more accurate to say iPhone v4 vs HTC EVO 4G.
Having said that, I am a convert from an iPhone to an HTC EVO 4G.
As usual, TFA doesn't mention Symbian, the world's number #1 smartphone platform anywhere in the world except US... Not that i'm not saying that Symbian is better than any of those platforms, i'm just saying that Symbian IS(like it or not) the market leader.
Turns out Linux doesn't suck and it is good for something mainstream after all.
Like running the internet? There's a big world outside of consumer-grade products, you know.
(Consumers are cute, aren't they?)
What is this for bogues comparation.
iPhone is a phone
Android is a OS
compare iOS vs. Android; or iOS phones vs. Android phone; or iPhone vs. HTC HD-2 or so...
AT&T's commercials assert that it covers 97% of Americans, but if you live in or spend much time in one of the areas (more than 3% of the map) it doesn't cover, the iPhone loses by default even if Apple's marketing is successful.
97% population does not cover 97% land area, it probably is closer to 60% or less land area.
It's easy to outsell the iphone when you're doing a buy-one get one free special....
Why does this stuff keep making the news?
There are at least five mobile phone manufacturers out there using Android, where as iOS and BlackBerry are used by one manufacturer each.
It's not a straight comparison. Android vs. Windows Mobile is a comparison, because they're both operating systems being used by several OEMs.
But everyone seems to be crowing in triumph that five or more OEMs have collectively sold more phones than one. That's not news.
Yeah, absolutely. That (without trying to guess at numbers) was what I was trying to convey. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
because Apple are limiting themselves too much with the One True Form-Factor. Some people want a keyboard, either palm-style or N900-style, some people want a bigger screen, some want a smaller device (though the iPhone 4 is getting small), and some a more rugged one. No matter how good the iPhone gets, most people I know just won't consider it because of the form factor issue. I for one want a larger screen (my HD2's is 44% bigger by area than the iPhone's, I'm strongly considering a Dell Streak, 99% larger), above all other considerations.
All the rest (features, locked-ness, looks) can be argued about. Form-factor is a very straightforward issue, and there's a reason why there are so many different ones on the market.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
I think that is a large part of it. AT&T's coverage is terrible - and that's not even 3G coverage, just plain old phone (POP?) coverage. BTW, I live in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina - not exactly out in in the sticks.
In the US at least, there is only one carrier selling the iPhone, and only 4 or 5 basic models, if there is anybody still buying the 8GB 3G and 16/32GB 3Gs past the launch date of the 16/32GB iPhone 4. All 4 major carriers are selling multiple Android phone models from multiple manufacturers...so I think the sales figures for Apple are artificially low and hence not a solid footing to start touting that Android is killing the iPhone. You might say it's not an 'Apples-to-Apples' comparison (I wouldn't, but you could say that...) Android is having an impact, definitely, but I think the sales curve, as with any new gizmo, will start to taper off dramatically as soon as everyone that wants one has one. Are they giving Apple a run for their money? You betcha. I bought my daughter an iPhone 4. My wife has a crackberry, which she barely knows how to use. As for me, I'm waiting to see what Windows Phone 7 goodness comes out of HTC for AT&T to replace my Fuze since they decided the HD2 wasn't worthy. Dammit.
Nothing to see here but us trolls...move along...
I'm a die hard Apple-Hater. The mere sight of Apple's logo gives me the creeps but I still think it's unfair to compare the sales of an entire Platform with the sales of one phone. Coz if you're gonna do that then you should include ipod touch and ipad and it still wouldn't be fair.
Android is a wonderful thing....I 3 Unix/Linux. But this article is skewed...did anyone take into consideration what Apple would have done with iPhone sales if they offered a "Buy one get one free" deal like Verizon was? It's little wonder Android phones are flying off the shelf!
The summary beings with "Despite all the hype of Apple's latest phone," but the figures don't include the sales of the iPhone 4. In fact, the sales are from the period of time during the iPhone 4 prototype leak, which means potential 3GS customers were probably waiting for the next model before purchasing.
It turns out that the iPhone 4 saw the biggest single-month market share gain on record. That's over twice that of the Android. Will you see that article on Slashdot's front page? Of course not, because (in my opinion) Android astroturfers are using the site to drum up anti-Apple buzz among techies.
I must now go masturbate for all things Google. Google makes me so horny. Google is HAWT. Google is not evil. Google can never know enough about you.
I'm a total Android fanboy, mind you, but I'd like to see one or two of the "late comers" actually make a splash. Symbian and Palm are basically dead, HP might revive WebOS, but I doubt they'll pull it off. However, we still have WP7, BB6 and MeeGo on the horizon. Competition is good. I'm hoping history doesn't repeat itself like it did in the PC wars and we end up with a duopoly again. I think it's still early enough in the game that new entrants can still get a good share of business. Not to mention, people are much more fickle with their phones than their computers. During the PC wars, computers were serious investments that people expected to last several years. Phones are much more "disposable" and people replace them every year or two with something new and shiny. Hopefully that's enough to keep the market competitive and innovative.
Everyone is good and bad, it just depends on what benefits you.
add a few levels of indirection and you'll soon find out why the 'you' crowed slammed communism so hard in peoples minds.
Personally I'm more of the anarchist-communist (actually a lot like Christian-communists, which out the religious bit) than the marx-lenism of the more 'global' failed communist attempts.
You'll also realise why there so verment in their false accusations that 'communism' doesn't work, even whilst the whole world (less the communist bits) dive head long into yet another recession.
Are you telling me that a phone platform available on 4 major US carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile), is heavily advertised on at least three of those platforms, and is offered for $99 and buy one, get one free deals outsold a phone that retails for $199 for the base model (or $99 for the year-old model) during a time period when just about everybody expected a new model with brand new features to be coming out for the same price. Amazing! I don't know how that possibly could have happened!
Android is the 'PC' of mobile phones. Apple is, well, the 'Apple'...
Eventual share will be 90% Android, 10% Apple.
Apple haven't really helped themselves with such design atrocities as the iPhone 4 bumper. Feeling that awful plasticky thing in my hand after being impressed by the svelte unadorned original almost made me cry. I can't imagine what Jonathon Ive thinks of it.
SELECT TOP 100 [Company_Name] FROM [Fortune_500] ORDER BY [Annual_Revenues] ASC;
How will we whine that Apple is an oppressive monopoly holding back the smartphone market when it turns out that competition is alive and well?
iPhone market has reached saturation, and is going to dribble up and down as people migrate back and forth. Most adopters of iPhone4 were iPhone 3GS owners (just like most 3GS owners were 3G owners, lending to the numbers seen). Apple will have to keep creating the new shiny in order to sell anything. Their sales will always see a huge burst and then trickle. Android, with its larger ecosystem will be more steady.
If you're going to talk current market then Palm or Nokia are waaaaay waaaaaaaaaay ahead of iPhone. Samsung and a couple of other eastern brands are also ahead.
But in the US, maybe, because the "smartphone" market was either iPhone or Crackberry.
Apple cant keep up with demand... http://www.loopinsight.com/2010/07/20/apple-cant-keep-up-with-iphone-4-demand/
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Just like Windows Mobile was an OS that OEMs could shove on their phone, Android is designed that way.
Everyone else limits their software to their phones. I'm not sure what the score is with Symbian? but the fact that OEMs aren't using it suggests it's not licence free.
If Microsoft had released a modern replacement for WinMo about three years ago then Android wouldn't have been as successful. Exchange and office support on a decent Windows touch screen based OS would be very popular.
So what should the comparison be?
iPhone4. No, it's only just out!!!
iPhone 3. No, it's old!!!!
iPhone 3GS. YEAH!!!
Ok. so which version? The one with lockin, the one without, the one with 16GB of memory, the one with 32GB of memory, the one with 64GB memory, the one with triband, the one with Wifi, the one with Darth Vader on the back or with U2 branding, or ...
If you're going to segment the Android market with what is basically a package difference and brand markup difference, then we should segment the iPhone market similarly, yes?
And then the iPhoneX/Y/Z/i/ii/... gets trumped LOTS.
Seems simple enough to me.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
OP is comparing an entire platform, with a multitude of devices, to a single device. If you want the comparison to make sense, then it's Android vs iOS, so you have to include iPads, iPod Touches, iPhone 3GS, etc. And when you do this, and it's not like I care, but iOS wipes the floor with Android.
The Admin and the Engineer
Yep. So the story here (for what, the 3rd time on slashdot?) is that a phone available on 1 provider came in 1% behind a collection of phones available across 3+ major providers.
And people talk as if this is a huge win for android? To barely beat a single-carrier phone?
Yeah, 97% of American homes. But if you leave your house, no signal.
I'm not sure which iPhone you're talking about, but mine has thousands of tracks on it, only (count 'em) 2 of which came from iTMS, the rest being from CDs I own or other music stores (mostly Amazon or AllofMP3, back when you could still do that). I recorded and uploaded my own ring tone. Cost: $0. While I share your disgust about Apple's App Store policies, dude... jailbreak. It's not that hard and has been ruled perfectly legal.
So I'm having a hard time understanding what the problem is here.
Because, of course, you can do all that stuff on an iPhone too. Rooting an iPhone is just jailbreaking, which is free, easy, and legal. Then you can install any app you want no matter where it comes from. And you don't even have to jailbreak to change your ring tones - I'm not sure where that idea is coming from.
Seriously, although I agree that Apple goes way to far with the control freakery, the practical effect of it is minimal. There's actually very little difference between iPhone and Android in terms of what you can do with the platform.
AT&T was the only carrier that would let Apple retain a degree of control over the phone. Given the crap that, say, Verizon tends to load their phones up with, and their tendency to nickel and dime you to death with fees for everything, I can't say I'm sorry about how things worked out.
Sure, being flexible enough to run on a bunch of different platforms can get you more market share, which is good for developers... but it can also make it hard to figure out whether an application or feature is actually going to work on a given platform... which is bad for developers. Consider something as simple as causing a laptop to sleep when you close the lid. In Powerbooks/MacBooks: just works. In Windows machines: well, who knows? I haven't owned a Windows laptop in a few years, so maybe things have improved, but it used to be that you could practically never get them to wake up properly after sleep. And the reason is that there were so many different models of Windows machines that you could never possibly test them all. I'm not saying that Apple's model of control is definitely superior - maybe the Android model will win out. But it's suggestive that Mac market share is grown steadily for the past several years.
The market saturation for mobile phones (in general, not smartphones) is higher than 100% in most developed countries.
Partly due to the fact of having a phone for business and one for private uses, partly due to the fact that quite a few people have more than one phone (getting a new phone every 2 years on contract doesnt destroy the old one).
I understand that Nokia makes some excellent hardware, but with the explosion in popularity of Android and iOS, it seems we have two winning platforms here, and it's almost too late for anyone else to catch up. RIM had something good going, but they're losing out big time.
The market data disagrees with you. Even on current sales, Nokia are still number one, with RIM number two. In the US, Nokia have no presence (and they never have, so this wasn't them losing out to the Iphones or Android), but RIM are still number one.
"Ah, but Symbian and Blackberry are becoming less popular, with Android and Iphone catching up, right?" you'll cry.
No. Looking at percentages of market share is very misleading, as the smartphone market is increasing (or rather, the number of phones arbitrary defined as "smartphones" is increasing). From the article, you'd think that Symbian is falling. But actually, the number of sales is still increasing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10839034
"Ah, so they're still increasing, but Android and Iphones are increasing faster, right?" you'll say.
For Android yes, but for Apple, no. Again this is a statistical quirk, due to looking at percentage change rather than actual sales, thus penalising the larger players. The BBC love to spin things in favour of Apple, but here's the actual increases from Q2 2009 to Q2 2010.
Android 9,605,050
Symbian 7,950,430
RIM 3,272,880
Apple 3,200,350
Others 607,210
Microsoft -348,320
Total 24,287,600
So, Android are still top, but Apple are actually fourth! So worldwide, I'd say it's all about Symbian and Android, with RIM perhaps holding out, and Apple stagnating in fourth place. In the US, it'll be between RIM and Android, with it being likely that Android will win out on top, but again with Apple lagging, this time at third place.
I've been on a blackberry for three years and recently switched to the Android platform. Nearly everyone I know is ditching their blackberries for iPhones or Android phones when their contracts are up
I'd prefer actual evidence over anecdotes. Aside from anecdotes being poor evidence, one factor is that there's something about Iphone users that makes them have to tell everyone "I've just got an Iphone!" And then everytime they use it, it's "I'm doing X on my Iphone". Android users do this to a lesser degree. Other people just use their phone. I once even had some strangers in the pub butt into our conversation about Android, to brag "Oh, we've got Iphones".
People love apps, and it looks like most developers are focused on these two platforms.
Actually it's often just a focus on Apple. Yes, it is indeed frustrating that companies, including public funded organisations (in the UK, the BBC and the Government) seem intent on focusing on what is the fourth most popular smartphone, and only covering about 3% of the phone owning market (there's an uproar when people only develop for Windows, but at least that has 90+% market share!), and when they do consider something else, it's most likely to be Android whilst the two most popular platforms are forgotten.
However, despite all the astroturfing for Apple by companies writing their apps, and in the media, this has yet to help them in terms of sales. Also, it's not clear that Apple do have a larger number of apps overall (most claims only look at central app store sales), plus, even if there are more than quantity, who cares about thousands of different fart apps? There's still plenty of apps for Symbian at least, and the only thing that I thought was cool that I can't get is the Google Sky Map, which isn't available on Apple either (plus it's not something that's really useful, unless you're actually an astronomer, which most people aren't).
Originally, like 7-10 years ago,
a smart phone was considered a phone with a fully functional operating system that could be accessed a developer.
If the SDK provides access to (parts of) the file-system, screen and network its a smartphone.
Nowadays the term "smartphone" is just as meaningless as e.g. "next gen console".
Apple released their new iPhone product at the end of the sixth month of this year. Let's wait til year's end and look at a graph of sales throughout the year of similar products and compare the lifespan of a product line.
By the way, I would also say "the mainstream" does not really want or require to root the phone.
And they do want to jailbreak iPhones?
WHy is is any different?
The users who want to jailbreak or root are the same crowd. Technical users who have the ability to do so. "the mainstream" does not care.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
All of these phones become useless due to the battery, still.
I ended up going for a Symbian phone....
a Nokia E55.
2 weeks ago.
Bit crazy because the O/S will no doubt soon be out of date. But it does the important things... which are:
- still got putty ssh
- free maps, fairly global coverage, and you can download them before your holiday. You can't do that with iphone or android, maps orientate the according to how it's held
- it's smaller than all of those phones; thinner
- not touchscreen
- SIP internet calls can be integrated... personally I can't get it working so I use fring...
- takes a full sized bluetooth keyboard
And it was ~$200.
I know I can't write stuff for it so easily like android.. though it can run python alright...
and I'm sure it will be out of date soon
but for the moment it just does the normal stuff, you know.
I looked at iphone people playing flick the coin and all this stuff and thought to myself, I don't want that, I just want maps and be able to use that stuff as much as I want without worrying about battery.
So I had to go for this sort of phone. It's the only one I know that can do this stuff.
A blog I run for the wealth
Or, compared to the competition in the smartphone market, the iPhone just doesn't cut it.
Turns out Linux doesn't suck and it is good for something mainstream after all. I still haven't seen the real "year of the Linux desktop" but Android has already given us a year of the Linux phone, and we barely even realized it.
Yeah, but the price is to become for the smartphone universe what Windows was for the PC. With Google being what MS Office and the "industry standard" software was for Windows. Well, could've been worse.
The operating system matters because it doesn't matter if I buy a Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Legend or Motorola Milestone becasue I'm still getting the same Android OS.
Asking for a single vendor comparison is pointless. What you want is like to like and right now all Android phones can do the same things as Iphones (vice versa is not true) so comparing a single manufacturer is not like to like, it's stacking statistics in your favour and frankly it's a weak tactic.
They could but they wont license their OS because they would lose control over it.
This is not an Android problem.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Iphone 4 sold 3 million in 23 days. Lets see, that averages out to 130,000 devices per day.
In June Google announced that 160,000 Android devices were being activated per day. So Apple is still 30,000 behind Android.
Lets take into account that 1.7 million Iphones were sold in the first 3 days (ignoring the 2 months of pre-orders of course) and the number for the remaining 20 days is 65,000 units.
Simple math. If we accept Googles claim at face value (and we do if we expect to do the same with Apple's) then Android is still outselling Apple.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This is pretty obvious in my opinion (as a iPhone lover and user myself). With devices like the HTC Tattoo which sells for a third the price, it's bound to be a higher volume product. You can get Android phones for free (financed through the contract) with normal phone plans as well. So when you go to the store and decide "Do I want to buy my kid a basic do nothing phone or a phone which they can play games and music or surf the web on?" the answer becomes pretty clear pretty fast when you're paying the same price for either of them. You just get more value for the money that way.
On the other hand, if you go to a store to get an iPhone, even if it's with a "Free phone with plan" scenario, the cost of the plan will be MUCH higher.
It would be great if they differentiated based on price ranges and not just operating systems. Android is going to be on pretty much every inexpensive smart phone on the planet because of the cost of the OS and the fact that it is competitive with the iPhone.
This statistic is pretty frigging useless in my opinion. It generates some buzz, but as an iPhone lover/Apple hater, I have to say that it's not the OS or the phone which makes me buy the iPhone. It's the fact that my 1st generation iPod is working like a champ 9 years later and still works with iTunes and the latest music I download. It's the fact that Apple releases one phone a year and having worked with Nokia, Ericsson, HTC and most others in the business, I've learned that once they start shipping one phone, they move onto the next and leave the worst developers on the old one to fix problems that might come up. The other guys simply have no loyalty to the devices they make. I've even worked on phones with some of these vendors where they found out after a "critical bug" came up, they couldn't fix it because apparently their subversion repository for the project got lost and noone had the code to fix.
Apple might not be the best phone maker or the best OS maker, but they probably have the best overall product/service at the moment, so I pay the extra money for it. I don't trust the loyalty of the hardware vendors to Android phones. I don't trust them to keep their board support packages or drivers up to date and fixed. Android itself will keep being great, but I don't trust the hardware makers selling them.
See subject line above, and here are some truths to offset Bert64's usual straight outta pravda propoganda and 1/2 truths in favor of LINUX he always spouts here:
On KERNEL PANICS:
So, Bert64... what is a "kernel panic" then? Won't you tell us??
If they are a hung up LINUX Operating System, then why on earth do Linux fans like you make it seem as if they never happen, when in fact, they do???
Also, can you tell us why is it that this "free" Operating System in Linux has support contracts that cost money????
That's not free.
That's "BEER IS FREE, $1,000 BOTTLE DEPOSIT FEE REQUIRED", and last time I checked, spending monies of any kind does not make a product actually totally free either.
In addition to that, and above all else, what I do not like being said is along the lines of "Open source is better for security" when in fact the sourcecode being open and available to all (versus closed source stuff like Windows or MacOS X) actually makes it simpler for those who are crackers to find security vulnerabilities to exploit because the code is freely available, whereas it is not on a closed source system (where on the latter you must use debuggers/disassemblers or fuzzers to find exploits, and that is more difficult to do than parsing thru open source actual code, because looking at sourcecode takes less time than looking at assembly language dumps from a debugger).
Fact is, I've seen a lot of b.s. from Linux people here for the past 7 yrs. or thereabouts, and from having used both Linux and BSD based Operating Systems from the OpenSource world for quite a long period here alongside Windows 32/64 bit OS' as well? *NIX machines also have problems (e.g. - lousy clipboard function, faulty graphics drivers, spotty printer support, and far more (those are only naming a SMALL few)) too, unlike what the Linux crew around here and elsewhere fills everyone's head with (i.e.- misinformation and utter bullshit).
Windows has far better peripheral hardware support for itself and far more wares of higher quality/grade than those on *NIX based systems.
The only things Linux REALLY has going for it is lower cost, the fact it runs on more/other hardwares than Windows does, and that it is less used (for "security-by-obscurity", since less folks use it). The fact on security is that crackers target Linux less, because less people use it, and that is that. Plus, I for one, STRONGLY SUSPECT that most of the crackers out there ARE FROM THE *NIX WORLD and along with taking control and enslaving others' machines plus possibly ripping them off or just ruining their systems, they can also discredit Windows at the same time (but I do not think they realize that they are also doing Microsoft a HUGE FAVOR in being their rather 'erstwhile' security researchers (by finding security bugs MS doesn't find themselves)).
Now, you can bet that I'll get a "mod down" of this post, despite my putting out truths vs. Bert64's 1/2 truths, because everyone here knows that the Linux crowd's the kind that use 1/2 truths to support their 'cause' and will bury posts like this one, not even justifying why by disproving points I made above, and that they do so via alternate registered accounts logons to do it (see Bruce Perens, an open SORES advocate on that note in fact, specfically on "online perception management" companies).
but many a geek has allowed Apple's products to take them over
Excluding ipods && ipads && iphones, this is not necessarily a turn-in-your-geek-card type of situation. They can still choose to pop open the hood and live on the command line with a mac.
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Off-topic I'm sure, but I think Ringdroid is rather good. I dump an mp3 file onto the sd card, a little editing, and done.
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free maps, fairly global coverage, and you can download them before your holiday. You can't do that with iphone or android
You can on Android at least (probably also on iPhone, I just don't own one). Sure, it's not in the stock Maps app, but there are several third-party ones in the Market (e.g. Maverick) which can use preloaded maps in offline; and there are also desktop apps which can scrape Google or Bing Maps and save them in formats understood by those apps. I use them every now and then, mostly for hiking.
One company makes the iPhone and one company distributes it. Compare that to the Android. Wow, really? The Android outsold the iPhone? Shocker!
Rooting an N1 is fully sanctioned by Google, and they even provide instructions, though it does void the warranty.
The OP may have meant e.g. customising the phone's UI by, say, adding widgets to the homescreen.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
It's a shame that AT&T held a gun to Jobs head to force Apple to sign an exclusive agreement with them.
Poor Steve had to sign a deal with ATT and receive bazillon dollars in return. I almost feel sorry for him
Google failed on Nexus One, and success on Android. Handset makers with Android device on sale include HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG and more. Because the Android is OPEN SOURCE. iPhone still the No.1 smartphone of all. **** iPhone Transfer for Mac http://www.iphonemactransfer.com/
Why is everyone freaking out about this? Selling the most does not mean selling the best. PCs sell overwhelmingly larger numbers than Macs but we all know where most problems lie.