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The Android Invasion Cometh; Is Resistance Futile?
DeviceGuru writes "Last month, we learned from Gartner that Android will probably be the number-two worldwide mobile OS this year, and may lead the pack by 2014. With Android's growing use as the OS embedded in phones, in tablets, in set-top boxes, and in LCD HDTVs, it seems like the Linux-based OS could end up dominating the entire non-PC consumer device operating system space. What do Slashdot readers think: Is resistance futile?"
I think the article is forgotting that there are already many widespread OS that are taking up that market. I and obviously other geeks love Android because it could mean more open devices for us, but we aren't seeing the whole picture either because it's not in news every day.
The "problem" is the same as with Opera. People think it's not as widespread as it's barely in news and their stuff isn't blastered all over your face all the time. However Opera dominates on embedded devices, televisions (especially in hotels!), mobile phones, even Nintendo Wii.
Windows variants are also the same. Windows 7, Windows CE and Windows Mobile are majorly used but it's not always so obvious. When you take a flight all the televisions in airports run Windows. When you go to ATM they run special version of Windows CE. Some hotel TV's also run Windows. With the upcoming Microsoft tablets and Windows Phone 7, it will get even more marketshare. Windows is also used pretty much in every organization and company.
If Android actually wants to take over all of that, it will be a long road. I hope they do, but I'm not so sure they will. Microsoft is good with business relationships and marketing and thats the point. It's not a small market and Windows is already dominating it.
Is resistance necessary?
I'd rather see MeeGo taking a sizeable portion of market from Android. With MeeGo, desktop Linux skills suddenly become very relevant in job market, and we'll get more desktop software (eventually).
With Android, Java skills are everything and... um... we got more people capable of doing Websphere/JBoss stuff? What a victory would that be.
I think Apple might have a thing or two to say about that...
No smoking sigs indoors.
IN B4 "Android Fragmentation"
The Android Invasion Cometh; Is Resistance Futile?
Look both options have their benefits. But I happen to agree with a recent survey that finds developers think Android is the long term solution while iOS is basically the immediate choice because of its dominance it has enjoyed with being the first. Given that the obvious is already happening, it's just going to take two or three years for developers to really unseat anything else in favor over Android. I was never given a chance to tinker or code for iOS so of course I'm biased towards the one technology out there that is actually trying to empower me without restrictions.
In the end, that sort of empowerment is going to trump any sort of assured device capability or graphical power that Apple can offer me. You may have a different opinion (BWJones did) but I simply cannot see how Apple will retain their lead in this fight.
Resistance is never futile. You could stick to your guns and enjoy immediate sales then moderate sales then fewer and fewer sales. Or you could enjoy moderate sales and then increasingly more and more sales. You might have to do more development if you want to target both TVs and handhelds (inputs get tricky) but I think investing in only iOS at this point is not a prudent decision.
My work here is dung.
Yes, and it needs to be loved
Be like shadow in the light or darkness.KMZ
...useless!
Of course not. If "resisting" against an incumbent in the market were futile then Android wouldn't have even been worth bringing to market. They'd say "oh, Nokia dominates the market let's not bother" or "Blackberry has a hold, let's not bother" or even "Microsoft - who can beat them, let's not bother".
There is a very good chance that Android will dominate the market for a while but eventually something will come along that's better (overall or for what consumers are looking for at that time). It'll probably take a while but the only way to be the one who does it is to keep trying as and when the ideas come.
this is exactly what statistics are for, it's way better than your anecdotal evidence.
did you forget to take your meds?
I for one, welcome our new Linux based non-pc consumer device operating system overlords!
Someone had to say it...
I sure don't see the kind of numbers Gartner is talking about. I see lots of iPhones, not many Androids, and never hear "civilians" talking about the Android. There is a Android kiosk in my local mall - I don't see any lines in front of it.
So, pardon me if I doubt.
go wrong?
Waiting for the other shoe to...
> I'll see 4 iPhones, a couple Nokia's and one Android based device.
So what you see is that Android is third. Isn't that what the article says?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
your looking 4 years in the future for an OS that has only been around for 2 years..... they way things are changing, i'm sure by 2014 we will have some new crazier gadget/os, and whoever is raving on about IOS or android will be looked on as old farts......
Resistance != Futile
It's Volts/Amps dammit!
Stupid borg, why not assimilate V=IR!
Apple - being Apple - will continue to concentrate on the overall user experience of their mobile devices. They will retain their reputation as the maker of mercedes-benz smartphones and other consumer goods, but the sheer volume of Android-based competition will eventually swamp them out of the lower-end of the market. Apple could probably care less - Steve and co. are all about the total experience and crafting the perfect device, and that's fine - they can lead the market in innovation and be the brand that everyone aspires to become. But the droid wave must eventually wash over them and absolutely eat their low-end lunch, and since most of the world ain't rich, that mean most of the world is going to be droid-powered, unless Apple can undercut droid prices, and that just isn't how they roll.
most people reading here are desktop-centric, and the smartphone os is a secondary platform, in terms of work, play, and psychological orientation
but we are rapidly entering a world that is smartphone-centric, and the desktop os is a secondary platform, in terms of work, play, and psychological orientation. the whole desktop segment will be marginal
google can ride this psychological shift to get android/ chrome os onto the desktop market. the shift will be second nature, not an alien intrusion. and it will happen with a whimper, not a bang: who cares about the desktop except old people?
the only people making noise about this "big deal", this great promise of unseating microsoft in the desktop market, chattered about on slashdot for over a decade, will be old people. the idea of using a desktop will be a fossil idea, that only fossils will care about. like looking at greybeards from the 80s with their funny unix command line interfaces
in which case, "resistance is futile" is a good allusion, because google will be the new microsoft. cue bill gates slashdot borg icon morphing into a sergey brin/ larry page borg icon. nevermind that even the idea of "the borg" is a silly scifi notion from last century that only old people even care or know about
slashdot, we're showing our age
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Its not about what is dominating right now... its what new product comes out that the masses buy.
I hate to use ESX as an example, but its hard to say "no" to a VM farm. Skewed analogy, but if you have those brain cells rubbing together yet (I don't - stupid decaf) then you'll get my drift.
With Android, Java skills are everything and... um... we got more people capable of doing Websphere/JBoss stuff? What a victory would that be.
So because there haven't been totally unrelated very large and sometimes hated Objective-C projects, iOS is better than Android? I find it humorous how quickly this has been sidetracked to a religious language flamewar instead of looking at the platforms and developer support. Yeah, it's in Java. Yeah, Java can be used badly. Just like every other language. Where's your evidence that Android uses it poorly? Or do you have to say "Hitler drank Java and Java is run on Android. Do you want to use Hitler's mobile operating system?"
Java skills aren't everything with Android. They're important and you will need to know a touch of Java. You also need to know XML and sometimes have a choice of how you store resources like Strings between Java and XML. Also, there is another way to construct your apps in Android.
My work here is dung.
I would like to see a big market share between MeeGo and Android, that would be interesting and would lead linux as #1 OS for devices.
i take the subway and lately i've been seeing more iPhone 4's than Android phones. i've noticed that a lot of android phones look like an iphone 4, but overall i see a lot more iCrap than Andoid. could be all the people with ipod touches i see have android phones in their bags they aren't showing, but then what is the point of 2 devices?
when people ask me what they should buy i tell them that it doesn't really matter since they are 90% the same
That was the trend I saw over a year ago. Now, especially at work, Android phones dominate, even at our office half a country away.
I just wonder if it will backfire if a new trendy OS comes out and companies like HTC and Samsung jump ship for that one.
And how do you know the one Android owner?
It's the person that says:
"Hold on, my phone just froze."
"Wait a sec, I am rebooting."
"Slow down, I am waiting for the screen to update."
As a de-facto standard cheap embedded OS for reasonably high resource devices, it is pretty hard to see Android doing badly. Mostly linux guts, so it runs on plenty of stuff, Google has been pretty aggressive about improving it, freely available(if you don't want Google's blessing and proprietary apps). Runs basically-java, so there are plenty of developers available; but also has the unixy underpinnings such that, if your horrid legacy application supports the architecture, you can run it natively and just interact with it via a thin android UI. Hard to argue too much with that, at least until you get to screen-and-keyboard devices were something a little less touchphone focused might be nice.
How well "android" in the sense of "Google blessed, app-store linked, reasonably up to date and supported by the vendor with upgrades(or left open for 3rd party support), it is less clear. By virtue of being open, the risk of carrier tentacles getting in and ruining things becomes higher, and the competition from more forcefully unified platforms greater.
Investing in Java is a safe bet in any case, even if predicting the future is always a risky proposition.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Fragmentation is going to ruin it.
Here's how Android could "pwn" the iphone and other embeddeds:
- Full Java SE
- Full Native ARM (No JNI hackery)
- Flash and Webkit kept in sync with the desktop versions
- standardized input
-- It is assumed that the device has a minimum of 1 "pointing" device and that
-- The screen resolution will always be 16x9 shaped.
- If the device is handheld it must have multitouch/gestures, and at least 4 hardware buttons that the application can use (Menu, Confirm/OK, Cancel/Back, IME)
- If the device is a TV type device, it needs to have multiple-input pointing devices with a remote (think wii) that can read gestures, in addition to a "D pad" + 4 hardware buttons.
- Regardless of the device, it should support usb AND bluetooth "input devices" like mouse, keyboard, and joysticks.
- Standardized UI goddamit.
And most important, I want to buy something only ONCE, and use it on ALL android devices, regardless of who made it.
Here are the only numbers that matter:
Phones that use Android (spoiler: ~80, ~110 including tablets)
Phones that use iOS (spoiler: 3, including tablets)
Number of Android carriers: 4
Number of iPhone carriers: 1
The fact (and it is a fact) that Android outsells iOS should come as no surprise.
I honestly don't care what wins as long as I can install anything on my phone that I want without needing to get "approval" from some corporate app store with "Christian" morals as part of their app approval policy. Personally, I'd buy a technically inferior product if it was open and the makers didn't try to shove restrictions down my throat.
The way I feel about it is: It's my phone, I payed for it, if you don't like what I'm doing with my own property, well, that's just too bad for you.
I, for my part, welcome my new open source overlord.
Resistance to Android is futile, however, if you can build something better you can exploit that and compete.
Symbian, RIM, Windows and Apple are all going to have to come up with something better, or collaborate to survive.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This is the year of Linux on Everything! *
* Everything excludes the desktop
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Apple creates a cool new device, it explodes in popularity and basically creates a market. Apple decides the best way forward is full control the hardware and all software that gets added to its fun device. Another company releases a competing software platform that runs on a variety of hardware platforms and does not require you to run all your software through an approval process. Hardware companies start making more and more systems with the "other guys" software as a platform and the cost of the other hardware drops. Everyone switches to the other guys and Apple implodes.
I am no fan of Apple but I can admit that they make some nice hardware. Why do they think it will play out any different this time?
There will be resistance from me as long as I am able to purchase WebOS devices. I *MUCH* prefer WebOS over Android.
I want a truly open operating system on my phone. Android is Linux but it doesn't feel like Linux, I had to void my warranty just to get access to the terminal. What would be nice is something like Ubuntu on my phone.
Or maybe Google could just use the GPL instead of the Apache license...
I care not for your karma and your mod points.
And if I sit down in a group of 8 people, I'll see 6 Android devices, 1 iPhone, and a dumbphone. It happens consistently with me, too. Sample bias?
My guess it will be tough to have one OS that spans many device types simply due to the complexity and permutations of hardware/software that occur as devices get more complex. That is, I have a very different expectation of a home PC and it's capabilities vs. a workstation or a so-called smartphone. Writing an OS that spans that gamut of hardware/software reliably and with a user experience that can be described as acceptable should be difficult for the time being. I see Android slowly gobbling up market share at the 'low-end' of the device sophistication market - i.e. tablet PCs, smartphones, TVs, and the like and then spreading up. By comparison, MS tried the opposite, i.e. gain market share dominance on the PC side before simplifying the OS to run on lesser platforms reliably.
The price-point of the Android OS is right and hardware manufacturers are free to block portions of Android capabilities as they see fit. Thus, in many ways they are getting their cake and eating it too. Meanwhile, Apple has in some ways missed the bus (again) by clinging to the crown jewels instead of making them a industry standard that everyone embraces. This single-minded obsession with controlling what goes into the marketplace, the bad organization thereof, etc. is unmanageable in the long term. Bottom line is that Apple would do better to allow all sorts of software to run on their devices but to only endorse some, i.e. the ones that they sell on their specific marketplace, while allowing users to screw up their systems as they see fit with stuff purchased outside the walled garden.
For me, the bottom line is the user-experience. Here, Android may well be a significant step up from some of the craptastic UIs that some OEMs have developed over the years (Sony, Symbian, etc.). If Android continues to evolve as it has to become better, more secure, etc. then I am all for it because it will force other OS manufacturers to step up their game or get out of the way. What I fear is that eventually Android will head into the same cloud of crummy choices as Windows OS did, i.e. once it became the dominant OS there was too much focus on making the DRM-folk happy, marketing tie-ins, and other bloatware that do nothing for the user but which please some corporate entity. Here, the key will be to allow users to eject the portions of the codebase they object to, something that is not yet possible on most devices. But with any luck, users will regain some of their taken-away user rights...
In other words, a better OS than Android would be something even more open, like Linux. But competing with the almighty Google and its deep pockets, legions of programmers, marketing machine, existing tie-ins, etc. is not a challenge I would look on favorably. Plus, how to get the OS onto devices, run them reliably, etc. when the OEMs in questions may have put in blocks (legal or not) to prevent users from liberating their property...
And make a Larry Page and Sergey Brin Borg pictogram.
Since android sources are available to the open market, a fork (or more, or better) will come one of these days and the compatibility nightmare will come true...
if Google always does good, what do we have to be afraid of?
>> Perhaps you guys should start getting your numbers outside of LinuxCon 2010?
and you, outside of gay bars and ladies restrooms?
4+2+1=7, not 8. Get a grip on arithmetic before you try to tackle statistics.
Actually, studies have shown android fanboys get laid the least. Sorry buddy.
At least not if you ask Oracle's lawyers.
Except the statistics don't match what's seen in the wild. They simply aren't believable if you compare what you actually seen in the wild.
That's my point.
I realize pointing out the descrepancy between reality and what slashdot wants it to be just results in a -1 troll, but I'll point it out anyway. At least a few people will think about it rather than just turning into a red faced gambit such as yourself. Your blinded but what you want to see and ignore the fact that the data doesn't match real world observations at all and have no explination as to why.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
...this "either/or" mentality. That if Android succeeds, everyone else has failed.
Let's look at computers. Microsoft and OEM's that use Windows have about 90% market-share, while Apple and OS X has a bit under 10%. Does that mean that Apple has "failed"? Not really. They seem to be having highly succesful computer-business, happy users, and lots of profits. Apple earns more money on their computers than HP, the market-leader, does with theirs. yet for some reason some people say that Apple should be like HP and Dell, since licensing OS from someone else is "the way this business works". Even though it seems that the OEM's are not earning that much, while Intel and Microsoft are the companies that reap the profits.
If we look at phones, we can see that Apple is earning lots of money there as well. More than Nokia is earning, even though Apple is a lot smaller. It seems that people are expecting Apple to gain iPod-like dominance in the phone-business, and if/when Android overtakes iOS, people decide that iOS has "failed", since history did not repeat itself. Well, Symbian dwarfs both iOS and Android, yet no-one is calling iOS or Android failures because of that fact. And gaining iPod-like share in a mature market like phones is quite hard, if not impossible. When Nokia was at it's biggest, it had something like 60-70% share of the market. But that was a market that wasn't all that mature yet. and they managed that for only few years.
What if Android gets 50% share in few years? Great! Android is a good OS, and we need more good phones. does that mean that everyone else has failed? I don't think so. It seems that people have this strange idea that there must be a clear winner and a clear loser(s). We got that in computers, when Microsoft ended up dominating the market. So we MUST have something similar elsewhere as well, right? I don't think so. And even in computers the "niche player" is earning quite nice profits. Even though they have single-digits market-share does not seem to be hurting them. You do not need to be big, biggest or dominating in order to have a good business.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Because iPhone is still much smoother than Android.
Most people don't care about Flash, HD video or dual-core phones. People want phones that can do well the basic stuff one wants to do on a smart phone (email, news, maps. weather, calls (!)). And the iPhone is terribly good at that.
I've had an iPhone for 2 years. Now that it's renewal time, I looked at all sorts of Android devices since I want to move away from the walled garden of Eden^H^H^H^H Jobs. The answer was simply that there is no match for the iPhone out there.
My advice to Google: focus on the Android user experience. That's the only way you'll ever beat Apple (and I hope you do).
je me souviens. J'ai un jaune gross crayon.
In the two research labs I work in. There are 7 iPhones 1 Blackberry, 4 dumb phones and 1 Android.
I have been a person who has been getting upset with my iPhone. I hate the huge bills, I hate the restriciton that Apple places on the app store.
Or rather, I hated.
What changed my mind? Had a friend who picked up an android phone a couple of weeks ago, and we played with it. Suddenly, I love Apple. The Android app store seemed to rarely have what I was looking for, and when I did find something, it was either a generic clone, or a virus, according to the comments. There seems to be zippo quality control. Other providers who offer Android phones in my area seem to have only slighly cheaper data plans than what i currently have with AT&T, and with MUCH worse coverage - especially on the data side.
From what I have seen, I think Android has reached its peak, and will start falling off. Pitty, It could have been good if they had of standardized a few things and had better censorship in the app store
Title says it all!
NYC subways for whatever reason seems to present a very different ecosystem than the rest of the country.
From looking around, you'd think that Sony PSP are absolutely dominating the Nintendo DS. However, in reality the DS has sold more than twice as many as the PSP.
Unless the GP is homosexual I think he'll take less sex over plenty of gay sex. Nonetheless I think he needs to explain to his wife why he's constantly in gay bars
As long as it means I get to hear less from the Cult of Apple, I am all for another successful embedded OS. Please Android, dominate the market but don't kill RIM and Windows Mobile, just help to make them better too so they can also dominate the market. The less iThis and iThat, I get to hear about - the better. Thank you.
This is not the PC market, and therefore likely no single device will dominate the way Windows did. Cost was a major factor driving Windows, as well as people needed interoperability to exchange files.
There is simply not the same forces in place that will drive one player to almost total control of the phone market. We will likely end up with several major players, from Windows 7, Android, iOS, Meego, and HP Palm having varying percentages.
There is also several things working against Android that have not become clear to consumers yet, but will. Android relegates phone makers to almost no margins on hardware unless they can differentiate on the software side. This is driving fragmentation of the Android OS. Verizon is already running commercials for Android phones with no mention that it is Android, setting up their own closed ecosystem with their own branding.
Windows phone 7 reviews are clear that while they are behind on some key features, the OS is cleaner and easier to use than any Android implementation. We have only began to see a billion dollar marketing campaign to push it.
Palm's OS that HP purchased was very good, perhaps one of the best on the market. They did not have the resources to push it, and the hardware was terrible. HP could fix that if they wish. While they have fallen off the radar, I would not count Palm OS out if HP ever feels like getting in the phone game in a big way.
iOS will continue to thrive, but will probably never dominate, as Apple's goal is usability and profit (high end), not market share. They also have such economies of scale now from a very clean product roadmap, to the largest purchaser of flash ram in the world, they they can make more profit selling at similar or reduced price points.
Nokia, the biggest phone maker in the world, will probably never go to Android, as they do not want to become the equivalent of a beige pc box builder. For this reason they will push Meego hard, and they have so many fans worldwide that they will likely succeed, even if late to the party.
Android will do well... But will not likely ever totally control the market the way Windows did. This market is different.
Other than it being built from Linux, what openness is there with Android? Seems like a locked down proprietary software like OSX. Google controls every aspect of your phone from remote install/uninstall of apps to locked down search providers. I am avid Linux user and Google supporter but I see Android as OSX for phones, not very open just built from openness.
How about giving us blank useless devices that the user must install an OS of their choosing? Not only would I have a far superior phone than most, it would weed out the idiots, like PC's shouldn't come with any OS installed just a blank drive with a disc of Windows or Linux that they must install! I am tired of having to have a license to drive while millions of idiots get behind "the wheel" of the pc everyday and cause havoc for me and others, now phones are becoming more like pc's therefore idiots automatically assume that I and other tech guys can magically fix their phones that they break, fuck you!
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Despite all the improvements, Android still lags behind Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS, according to Molchanov. "There's still nothing fundamentally groundbreaking in this release," he said. "With the new UI, video chat and hardware acceleration, Google is still playing catch-up with iOS," he added.
Really? In what area is iOS ahead? I can't think of any.
"the" android market is still by far the largest one, and is accessible from pretty much every android handset.
It's not accessible from any Android device made by Archos. In fact, it doesn't appear to be accessible from any available Android device without a cellular radio. (Samsung Galaxy Player 50 isn't out yet.)
The Year of The Linux Desktop Is Here! All we had to do was redefine the word desktop to equal phones + tablets + televeisions. Now Linux is set to take over the world! Rejoice!!!!!!111
I for one welcome our new android overlords.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
Android is already one of the top operating systems, and it has most mobiles OSes beat hands down in terms of functionality, usability, and connectivity. The only mobile OS that's even remotely a competitor still is iOS. There is some chance that Intel and Nokia do something good with MeeGo. But that's it.
Windows 7 is a big fat zombie at this point; it is common (and acceptable) on desktop machines, but on mobile the old Windows Mobile is dead, and the new Windows Mobile is a shot in the dark with a completely new and untested system.
The massive amount of network equipment like switches, wireless access points, routers, embedded firewalls ... they all run an OS too and the vast majority of them don't run Android or even Linux.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
He has a wife, you think he's getting laid?
I have used a number of homebrew ROMs on my Android device, and never have had to do all of that. The worst I've had to do was tap on the Advanced Task Killer icon to bump off some background apps which were slurping up more than their share of CPU.
Android has a number of weaknesses; having to reboot often isn't really one of them unless you are using a modded/custom ROM that isn't very stable.
If you want a real complaint about the Android phone market (not Android itself), its the fact that there are no developer friendly devices that have a recent CPU and specs available in the US. I know the N1 flopped, but I do wish Google would have an ADP refresh every 3-6 months.
Remember that this is a consumer OS for those that will consume media and information. There will always be a tier using the PC to create and maintain the matrix for those than inhabit it. Those that create and manage content will still need something more robust and ergonomic than a gadget in one pocket.
The fear here is that a culture of producing on one device and consuming on another might lead to PCs becoming unaffordable for home users. This would discourage prosumption, making it more difficult for people who are consumers to become small-time producers. This has already happened in video games.
Resistor is useless
,-----,-----, ,-, |
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Well, Symbian dwarfs both iOS and Android
Not in the United States market. Apple and Google are headquartered in the United States.
Or are you referring to just the US?
From the FAQ: Assume the United States market unless otherwise specified. Among industrialized anglophone countries, the United States has two-thirds of the population.
What you probably observe is simple selection bias: Your peer group is usually not random, but usually consists of people that have some things in common. Thus, every "fact" that you observe in your peer group will tell more about what people you are likely to be friends with (or generally what people you are most likely to meet), than about the preferences ot the general population.
75% of my collegues use linux, but that says more about my current employer than about the market share of linux.
I think it's way too early to predict Android taking over the world. But even if so, it could be worse. It could be Windows CE.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
...that when people talk about Apple dominating the market, it is positive, but when it is about Android, it is negative?
It's kind of hard to compete with market share when the other guys are doing 2-for-1 specials.
Apologies for posting anonymously, but I'd already moderated before reading your astute comment. The critical threat to Android is perfectly encapsulated in this excellent analysis by Horace Dediu, which states, in a nutshell, that the success of Android depends not on the marketshare of the platform, or its undeniable technical merits, but on the profitability of the manufacturers who use it.
Many commentators make the crucial mistake of focusing on market share as the most significant indicator of a platform's success, while ignoring whether it makes money for the manufacturers. Therefore it's more important to examine profit share as a clue as to whether the manufacturers can actually survive by selling Android.
At the end of the Q2 2010, a look at the profit share of the smartphone market revealed that Apple had 48% of the total profits, Nokia had 22%, and RIM had 17%. The remaining 13% was split among all other manufacturers, including Samsung with 10%, Sony Ericsson with 2%, and Motorola with 1% of the sector's profits (LG posted a loss for the quarter). While Android may have the potential to exceed iOS's market share, unless these manufacturers can actually make money from it they'll have no incentive to support it, and with the coming of Windows Phone 7, they'll have an alternative OS that they could fall back on. Plus never underestimate Microsoft's clout and marketing muscle. Also, the carriers have a major say in the success of Android, and if they put their advertising behind iPhone instead of Android *cough* Verizon *cough* or Windows Phone 7, that would bring further pressure to bear on Android. As it is, Android manufacturers are already in a race to the bottom. Consumers win of course, but only temporarily.
jamrock - (UID 863246)
Android lives in the U.S. only because iPhone doesn't live anywhere but on AT&T. If the rumors of iPhone on Verizon (and perhaps T-Mobile and the rest of the gang), there is a very good chance Android handset sales will shrivel significantly.
Android and Google do not have the mobile brand recognition that Apple does, not even close.
Already Android is having app/device compatibility and upgrade issues. As a longtime Windows Mobile developer (and currently iOS), I see the same issues Microsoft had; dead end devices, immature marketplace, app fragmentation, development difficulties and low return on investment.. These were all manageable for industrial use, but not for a consumer market. I'm all for the choice (iOS, Android, WM 7), but seems a bit early to say one will dominate.
Predicting the future is an impossible task where IT is involved. Analysts always base future predictions on current technology because it's impossible to foresee disruptive innovations. That makes their predictions largely useless beyond a relatively short timeframe. So while "Android will own 99% of the market by 2020" makes a great headline, it's not worth its weight in pixels. It's as relevant as "Economy seen growing at a 4% pace for the next X years" or "By 2100, humans will be stacked three deep in NYC"
"Last month, we learned from Gartner..."
That's where I stopped reading.
It is wonderful to see that Windows phone have shrinking by nearly 50% from 2009 to 2010: from 8.7 to 4.7%. I lol'ed. Puts a smile on my face :)
add one to nothing and you get infinite growth as a percentage . Add one to one and you get one hundred percent growth as a percentage . Add one to two and your growth rate drops to fifty percent . Add one to three and thirty three percent . In mobile market terms , android is somewhere between zero and one . Extrapolating the growth rate is dumb
Sure, there's lots of room for Android to grow, but consider: there's still, even after all this time, a fair number of ATMs using OS/2, iOS isn't about to roll over and die in the world of handheld/tablet devices (and of course there are lots of others there too - WebOS, Symbian, etc), there are plenty of MS Windows devices of various flavors... it's quite unlikely that any one technology is going to take over any platform to the extent Windows did in the PC world, and even there, MS's grip is slipping somewhat.
Well when I'm in a group, I usually see one iPhone (which is mine, if that matters), 3 or 4 Androids, and a bunch of "dumb" phones. And my anecdote can beat up your anecdote.
Or maybe we could all agree that anecdotes != data.
Android IS and WILL beat Apple the same way MS did:
By encouraging and allowing superior third party apps. I think it's hilarious that Steve Jobs never learned his lesson during the Mac/PC war. He's still operating a closed walled garden approach, and he's going to lose eventually and inevitably AGAIN, and for the same reason!
Not that I'm a giant Google fanboy. They've done plenty of evil lately and frankly I don't think Android is the best OS in existence right now. I'm much more of a Linux Mint fanboy, but there doesn't seem to be a good TRULY open OS for phones just yet.... I still have to hack my phone and install Cyanogenmod to get the best OS available. This is not the FOSS dream that I think many were hoping Android would enable.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The way I feel about it is: It's my phone, I payed for it, if you don't like what I'm doing with my own property, FUCK YOU!!!!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
It's PC vs. thin client. For serious work a phone is never going to replace a desktop, no matter what operating system either one of them uses. It's too hard to 1) get data into it (tiny keyboard) and 2) work with various windows, documents, etc (tiny screen). The only use cases where a phone would work for this kind of thing are those where the need for mobility trumps the need to easily do 1) and 2), as pointed out by GP. Tablets are slightly better in that they at least solve the screen problem, but you still need a keyboard. And once you've added a keyboard to the thing, how is it different from a desktop form factor?
slashdot, we're showing our age
...guilty as charged ;-)
For Apple's devices, that subsidy is coming from AT&T, and its only purpose is to tie you to AT&T for a minimum contract term. The restriction on what you can INSTALL comes (almost) entirely from Apple, and has nothing to do with the subsidy. These aren't "network" features we're talking about here.As an analogy, what if you bought a Dell computer from, say, Comcast, at a discount in exchange for getting internet service from them... and then Dell said "here's the list of what you're allowed to install on it". What would that have to do with your subsidy? Dell's not even a party to the agreement - they're just providing the hardware.
Hitler's politics are nowadays mostly described "Nazism", but he invented nothing, the underlying philosophy was Fascism. It was embarassingly also adopted by many US corporations of the time, a short-sighted, desperate reaction to the growth of anarchism and soviet communism. In regards to production, Fascism's model for distribution of labor was Corporatism . Corporatism mostly survived WW2 and continues to guide labor distribution. As corporate products, all cellphones would be results of contemporary Corporatist labor ideas. Open source however, important component of Android, has some labor performed in a method mostly compatible with Anarchism, (kernel.org, et al) and some labor from Corporatism (google.com.) so it is a rather a mixed animal, but already breaks with pure Corporatism labor management ideas. Even iOS has some open source, though perhaps not enough to make it mixed. Pure Corporatism-production would include no open souce code at all. That would leave us with WinCE and many other proprietary cellphones systems.
Evidence that windows os's are aligned with Corporatism, associated with Mussolini and Fascism, and adopted by Hitler and the Nazi, are that Enigma, the famous military encryption code, ran on Windows 95, and was created at George Mason University.
. http://www.thenextwave.com/EnigmaHP-Win.html
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
We had this exact discussion in my MBA class last night. My classmate was doing a presentation about an online shopping portal he wanted to make, and was planning to allow people to use it via SMS. Everybody jumped on him for using a "dying technology," one guy said "everyone I see has a smartphone, there's no point in catering to simple phones." Well, yeah. A lot of people going for their Master's degrees probably do have a smart phone. And in corporate jobs, most people do have smart phones now, either because they were given one for work, or because they bought it themselves. But the data says that 80% of cellular customers have simple phones, or "feature" phones, that don't have a data plan.
That's why you should use hard data, and not just look at what your friends are doing.
But it's not like Linux in that the average Android user is bound by carriers/OEMs/etc to use specific flavors of the OS that meet the carriers needs, not necessarily the users.
True, Linux distributions may also have the same flavor-like traits but at least the consumer can choose among said flavors for their devices. And if they're sophisticated enough, they can install and modify OS components to their hearts content, right down to the source level. As open as Android allegedly is, most devices I know of do not allow this sort of pick and choose approach.
Note how Microsoft has found it necessary to show off windows 7 laptops in their stores without all the crapware that OEMs like to install- all of a sudden the OS has a chance to be stable, fast, etc.
As far as I can tell, I can call Android phones with my iPhone. I can send them texts, I can even chat with them if we are both running the same IM client. This isn't the PC war all over again. As long as your phone uses the standard services and gets enough market share to attract developers, have fun with it.
So Android is going to be big. Who cares - it's just an OS with a UI and comm stack on it. It's a utility.
Besides, it's all the crap that's built around it that's the issue. I can put a locked down proprietary stack on any OS. And anyone who thinks that the OS and comm stack aren't going to be locked down when these things are sold with hardware is really naive. The fact is that support costs will kill anyone that tries to put a non-locked-down product. Margins in hardware devices are already slim enough that no one is going to go through the added cost of letting people install random X software on their hardware device. It will be a phone, or a TV, or a combo phone-TV w/browser. Use it for what it is and stop expecting it to be a full-purpose computer. If you want a computer, buy a computer.
Just because the OS is open doesn't mean that a hardware vendor needs to let you muck with it easily (or at all). If you don't like this, don't buy the device.
That is all.
It's similar where I work. It's new toy lock-in syndrome. Everyone here got an iPhone when they were new and when they get replacements they get an iPhone because they are used to it. Maybe 15% will switch each time. And there's still no AT&T connectivity on this site. Now nobody is buying iPhones except people who own iPhones. But that's people who work at a research lab. The rest of the world doesn't necessarily suffer from new toy lock-in syndrome. When I go to doctors' offices, I see Droids and dumb phones.
Support SETI@home
Unlikely, unless it's one of the pre-production demo models.
I apologize for the confusion; English lacks tenseless verb forms.
Well, when you eventually do get that Archos 43, you could download gApps4Archos.apk
Is that even legal? Remember this cease-and-desist from a year ago?
Statistics are just as bullshit. Usually sliced from a particular set of research data to prove the OP's point. "Apple just overtook RIM" Android to take over iOS this xxx" I'm sure those are both total truths and dirty lies depending on the "data fact" sheet.
I'm a software developer in Research Triangle Park North Carolina, home of Redhat and MANY other technology companies, with offices for development Sony-Ericson as well, and of course IBM.
I'm a geek, in the middle of several entire cities of geeks, who do nothing but work with phones and/or Linux all day long. If there was a place that was biased towards Android, the only one I can think of that would be more biased would be Google HQ.
My 'peer group' sells Linux, support for Linux and Linux software for a living. I agree with your logic, but I find it hard to believe considering exactly who my peer group is.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
bullshit, you think Apple giving AT&T exclusivity isn't a subsidy? AT&T, a company which never owned it's own network 'til recently was a bit player at best, until apple came with their zombie legion of ignorant fans frothing at the mouth to suckle at Jobs' teet...
you're analogy is flawed and you don't know what you're talking about, move along to the next thread please, kthnxbi
yes, but to obtain this geekdom paradise,you need to *jailbreak* the device. You have to jump through hoops to get the device do stuff that its makers don't want you to do. And you're at the mercy of the next update bricking your phone.
this doesn't make much sense,specially when there are perfectly valid alternatives.
systems which are homebrew friendly out-of-the box,and let you instal stuff out of the walled garden if you want (HP/Palm webOS has tonnes of interesting stuff you can instal on them. Including SSH, Bash, an XServer etc.)
systems which ALREADY feature all the goodies of a computer-in-a-pocket, (like the Nokia N900).
all these work without jailbreaking/exploits/or othe such non-sense.
the fact that android provide a little bit less features out-of-the-box, doesn't mean you must jump on the most locked up device and go through complex unsupported/unapproved/discouraged procedure that could backfire next time Saint-Jobs decides to Fart.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I wasn't aware that modern Jailbreaks are permanent. To be frank I completely stop following this story the moment more hacker-friendly hardware started to appear.
Nonetheless, my arguments are still valid.
On android, you get embedded tools, that's it. Embedded ssh, embedded commands, etc.
Yes, I know. I read it the first time you wrote about it. (And by the way, you're mistaken, it's still possible to install a whole Debian userland next to android, if you really want).
I'm not defending Android as "The Only True Platform". I'm just wondering why, as a consequence of the above, you're immediately jumping to the most locked phone of the market - a phone whose maker explicitly don't want you to run non-approved software.
On the iPhone you get full sets of BSD/Linux gnu tools. You get a full and powerful debian apt packing system. You really get a full computer's worth of tools
...which you access only after doing a procedure which the maker of the iPhone *does NOT* want you to do.
My webOS-powered Palm Pre also features bash, openssh and other real gnu&bsd userland. The whole thing is installable through "ipkg" (an apt derivative for embed linux) with a nice frontend (Preware is to ipkg what synaptic is to apt). And for that I didn't need to do any rooting/cracking/exploiting/jailbreaking.
I open the box I just bought, got the Palm and its charger, turned it on, and typed a very well documented command. I repeat : I didn't use some specially purposed EXE designed to crack some walled-garden protection, I just typed a special command as written in the devs' documentation.
Enabling end users to go out of the walled garden and install any 3rd party software they want is 100% supported by Palm - they give you the tools for it and provide the necessary documentation. They even designed OS upgrades in such a way that they shouldn't break when encountering a non-standard set of installed software. The whole thing is designed in a hacker-friendly way, even if this isn't their primary market (out-of-the-box, it features a Joe Sixpack-compatible walled garden model. Except that the wall has a door, they give you the key, you're free to open it and they'll watch the garden while you're away. Meanwhile, Apple has built watch towers and makes a fuss everytime someone manages to evade through the minefield they planted outside)
And meanwhile, there are stuff like the Nokia N900 which are full-blown Linux systems (complete with all the gnu userland and an X-Server out of the box) in a palmsized form factor.
I realize this could change, but currently, I still believe the iPhone is MUCH more of a nerd/geek/hacker's platform than android.
and still a piece of crap produced by an anally-retentive control-freak when compared to what exists elsewhere.
When I was to choose my current platform, I took time to look all the alternatives, and selected this which not only suited *ME* but also encouraged a *hacker-friendly* company. /.ers always speak about voting with one's wallet, I voted with mine : As long as Apple want to control what runs on their hardware at any cost, and actively prevent me from doing what I want with hardware I bought, they won't get a penny from me.
There are plenty of other alternatives around. Be it Android (which you don't like because of the initial lack of full bsd/gnu userland and good package managing, and because of the complexity of an installation procedure), webOS (I really like it), Maemp/MeeGo, and tons of others.
You : You're just financially encouraging a bully who won't let you play by anything but it rules (even if the bully fails).
It is as if you wanted to share toys, saw that one boy only has small uninteresting ones, and decided therefore to go straight for the kid who has big toys but doesn't want to play with anyone else, despite the garden being full of other boys who would gladly invite you to s
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]