Android vs. iPhone — Who Wins In 2011?

Hugh Pickens writes "Philip Elmer-DeWitt writes in Fortune Magazine that Apple and Google have two very different strategies in the competition shaping up in 2011 between Android and iPhone. According to the conventional wisdom as espoused by Don Dodge, a Developer Advocate at Google, both Apple and Google will win because they are playing different games. Android will win the market share battle, but Apple will generate bigger profits. 'Apple goes for the high end of the market where they can charge high prices and enjoy great profit margins. Apple has been successful with this strategy multiple times, and will do it again with iPhone,' writes Dodge adding that Google's strategy with Android is to generate revenue streams from mobile search and advertising. Another Google employee, Tim Bray, sees things differently and says he won't be surprised if Apple ships a cheap iPhone and if this time next year, dirt-cheap iPhones were competing against Androids that push the user-experience lever farther than Apple. 'There's nothing fundamental in Android that would get in the way of a industrial-design and user-experience rock-star team, whether at Google or one of the handset makers, testing the hypothesis that these things are central to Apple's success.'"

Comments

Android is overrated

[Strange Ranger]

My wife has an Android. I have an iPhone. Comparing hers to mine is like comparing Windows 95 to Windows 7. Sure they both do email, messaging, web surfing, have apps, and basically do all the same tasks that most people do day in and day out. One is a pleasure to use. The other is annoying and sometimes frustrating. Using an iPhone makes me smile. And I'm a lifelong Microsoft junkie (I tried rehab several times). Never having been an Apple fanboy (I don't even like Mac OS a little bit), I'm now a total iPhone fanboy. It's elegant, ergonomic, pleasant, and intuitive. Android tries to come close, but it doesn't. Every time I pick up a new Android device I think surely this one will impress me. Nope. It's only impressive if you've never used an iPhone long enough to appreciate it.
 
I see people switching to iPhone from Android with some frequency, but I've never seen anyone go the other way _and like it_. If Apple can get the price down a bit, they'll "win" for a long time to come. Android has the many handset makers going for it. It'll continue to do well. There are still a ton of people (90+% last I read) that have yet to upgrade to a smartphone. Android might remain more popular. But Hyundai's are more popular than BMW's. Nobody pits them against each other. That would be silly.
 
I'll add, that I don't like Apple's locked down approach very much, or it's lack of basic features out of the box, like wifi tethering or just plain moving some damn files around without syncing with iTunes. But most people don't care about those things, and those that do are just the type of people to click here, and have their cake and eat it too.