Slashdot Mirror
Android Passes Symbian As Most-Shipped Mobile Platform
nk497 writes "Symbian is no longer the most-shipped mobile platform, with Android finally knocking Nokia's OS out of the number one position. Manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices in Q4 of last year, compared to 31 million Symbian devices, according to Canalys. That gives Google a 33% share of the global mobile market, over 31% for Nokia's Symbian. 'It's gone from nowhere to number one in the space of two years, which is pretty impressive,' Canalys analyst Pete Cunningham said, predicting Android would double its growth rate this year."
That gives Android a 33% share of the global mobile market
Google has a heavy hand in Android, but doesn't necessarily "own" it. Quoth http://source.android.com/
We wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other. That's why we created Android, and made its source code open.
"No industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other" supposedly includes Google too.
Gee, they really have it in for Nokia. Symbian is "ailing" at slightly less than 2 million units less than the market leader. I bet Microsoft would like its mobile platform to be ailing by that much!
They are apparently a "struggling mobile firm", while at the same time it "retains solid market share" and sales of units are "still growing well". While nobody would argue that Nokia's marketshare hasn't slipped, it does seem to be too much damnation of what is "still the number one handset manufacturer".
FTA: "In the last quarter of 2010, manufacturers shipped 32.9 million Android devices"
Apple sold more iOS devices in their last quarter. 16.24 million iPhones, 7.33 million iPads, and over 9.25 million iPod touches (19.45 million iPods, over half of which were iPod touches, but they didn't give a breakdown). That's over 32.8 million iOS devices. I didn't include the 2 million Apple TVs.
Also, Apple's numbers are actual hard figures. Android sales figures are all based on estimates because there is no place to get proper numbers from. Samsung, for example, recently claimed to have sold 2 million Galaxy Tabs, but when pressed on it, stated that's how many are in stock at stores, not how many have been sold (elaborating that *actual* sales are much, much lower). This is from an analyst who has reported the highest numbers.
None of this is to say that Android is not doing great. It is. But reality is not quite what the headline states.
Overall, Android is more of a flash in the pan than anything else. Once developers realize there is no future with the platform, they will focus on iOS or platforms that matter.
I'd be curious to see just how much money you'd be willing to wager that this is so...
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
> It would be IE vs Netscape all over again
Except this time, Netscape is metaphorically Microsoft's product, and IE smells like fresh, hot gingerbread. Mmmmm!
Take away Google, and the streets will riot, Take away Bing, and... er... um... someone might eventually notice. Maybe.
Hotmail? Is that actually used for anything besides MSDN SSO credentials anymore?
IE? (rolling on the floor, gasping for breath amidst near-lethal amounts of laughter). People with *Windows Mobile* didn't even use Internet Explorer before Android came out. We used Opera, and paid for it, because Pocket IE sucked like a whore with braces. I'm sure Microsoft did a much better job with IE on WP7... but then again, a chimp with a Commodore 64 and a pirated copy of GEOS could probably improve upon PIE in its WM6.x incarnation.
MS Office Suite? Meh. Apps to view and edit word/excel docs are free and abundant. Outlook still can't do adhoc aliases properly, and Android can be induced to lie about its authentication capabilities so you won't have to indulge your company's IT department's wet dreams by entering a 16-digit passcode before it allows you to answer an incoming phone call.
I take it you never touched Qt? (which is the officially promoted way for some time now; while supporting ~4 year old phones)
One that hath name thou can not otter
No, Nokia should be focusing on Meego and come up with some real devices to run it. When N900 came out, it was the best. There were some problems with the OS and software, but it was way ahead of its competitors. Android was like a joke. But for almost two years, while Nokia is sleeping, everyone is leaping forward. How many releases of Android and how many generations of Android devices have we seen during this time?
Since I lost my N900 in a bar, I digged out my HTC Pro from the drawer and have been waiting for the successor of N900. I keep asking Nokia, what the fuck are you guys doing? Wake up. N900 and its successors could have been a boon for geeks, advanced users, the big cheeses, and all the business people. It's the real convergence: communication, life, entertainment, work, computing, all in the pocket.
I even wrote code on that device. My wife, who is in sales, said she could have run a real CRM on that thing, without having to carry a computer any more.
Nokia really needs to put its act together. They had the hardware, they hard the software, they had the distribution channel, customers are begging for it, I simply don't understand what the fuck are they doing.
Hell no!
Nokias N900 has the X Terminal right there if you want it and you can get root access with a simple "root" command on the shell. Nokia fully supports it. The Windowing System is X. You can SSH to the phone via it's wifi and use it just like any remote X system. It's essentially a Linux PC with a great phone application in-built. It runs Skype perfectly. Almost every app on Linux can be ported to the N900 by a simple make and configure on the phone itself (yes you can put GCC straight onto the phone).
There's no way in hell i want Nokia to take the relatively locked-down Android path. They are doing the right thing as it is.
almost guaranteed not. That's why they're execs, remember?
Hey, if Android could overtake Apple like that, I'm not going to bet against Microsoft... historically, they tend to always be behind Apple getting to the marketplace, but still somehow end up at the front of the line.
Wow! I was just thinking about the zune too.
grape - the GNU free, open source rape
I have a feeling that Nokia is actually two companies when it comes to OS development. On one side you have the Maemo/Meego guys that are relatively new and up to even two years ago were an insignificant part of the company. On the other.you have the old school Symbian guys that have been there for years, and who obviously do not want to lose their bread and butter by ditching their aging OS. So they chose to keep improving Symbian, hoping they will make it relevant and competitive. They might have had a shot if not for Android moving so quickly ahead.
Anyway, I posted in the previous Nokia thread from a few days ago, and there's no point in repeating everything I said there. But I definitely agree with your assessment of the N900. I still have mine and I use it as my only phone, pda, ebook reader, mp3 player and netbook. But it's not the hardware that is amazing, since a year and a half later it's starting to show its age. It's in the level of customization, since the thing is running a full version of Linux without any restrictions at all.
That's where Nokia should have pumped out more devices, even if the software wasn't perfect. I'd be very tempted to buy another Maemo/Meego device tomorrow if it had current 1Ghz+ dual core CPUs, more RAM and a slightly better camera.
Nokia shipped 123.7 million phones in 2010 Q4. Out of them smart phones were the quoted 31 million. So the summary should say that Android overtakes Symbian in the smart phone segment, not all mobile phones. Those over 90 million phones are cheaper models running S40 etc. That makes Symbian still the most-shipped mobile platform.
Sources:
http://www.intomobile.com/2011/01/27/nokia-q4-2010-sales-up-profits-down/
http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?newsid=1482864
Hence, they are close too announcing a product. All current Qt apps from Symbian will work on it, so if people are happy with their current Symbian phones, they should be all go.
They are sitting on a nice product, let's just hope they can deliver. Sounds from Intel are such to indicate we can expect phones/tablets Q2 2011 ( http://www.cio.co.uk/news/3258820/intels-meego-os-to-start-shipping-tablets-and-netbooks/ ). Don't forget the first thing the new CEO said was not to communicate about devices before they where actually ready to almost ship. So do things the Apple way when it comes to devices. That is a good strategy.
Nokia will be announcing the N9 at the MWC in a couple of weeks, supposedly it's the successor to the N900.
Capacitive 800x480 (or higher) touch screen, hardware keyboard, Nokia's usual high-quality construction, Meego, probably 32-64GB storage, it's going to be a monster powerful device and probably replace my netbook altogether.
Eat the rich.