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Can Any Smartphone Platform Overcome the Android/iOS Duopoly?
Nerval's Lobster writes "The company formerly known as Research In Motion—which decided to cut right to the proverbial chase and rename itself 'BlackBerry'—launched its much-anticipated BlackBerry 10 operating system at a high-profile event in New York City Jan. 30. Meanwhile, Microsoft is still dumping tons of money and effort into Windows Phone. But can either smartphone OS — or another player, for that matter — successfully challenge Apple iOS and Google Android, which one research firm estimated as running on 92 percent of smartphones shipped in the fourth quarter of 2012? What would it take for any company to launch that sort of successful effort?"
i am hoping ubumtu comes out very strong.
...if giant asteroids hit Mountain View, South Korea, and Cupertino at the exact same moment.
... if anybody knew the answer to that question, they'd probably already be filthy rich.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I think Microsoft can. It's a matter of how many billions of dollars they want to bleed first. It worked with the XBox. Of course the XBox was also helped by Sony's stupidity.
As is always the case with /., if the subject is a question, the answer is no.
Unless you let enough time pass, then the answer to this case is most certainly yes. Nobody knows how much time that would be, though.
Can any smartphone platform overcome the Nokia/RIM duopoly?
Impossible, Android is the best platform!!
No.
(Blablabla padding bla. bla bla.)
I didn't know I really, really wanted an iPod until I saw one. Same with a cell phone, GPS, digital cameras, and palm pilots. It wasn't a stretch to imagine a device that integrated them all, but that took about another 7 years.
What it will take to break the duopoly is someone bringing me a new capability on the order of the iPod, cell phone, GPS, digital camera, or Palm Pilot. And , of course, it needs to be integrated with the phone. Just giving me a new user interface, or a way to stir facebook, twitter, and the rest of that crap together won't do it. NFC payment systems are trying to be this, but don't make it. Whatever it is will be a whole new class of feature.
Didn't they say the same thing about Sony when Nintendo and Sega were the only game in town? And then later, Microsoft?
AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy, Nokia, Gateway, Compaq
The technology industry loves giants.
there were a lot of nice features about the ubuntu phone... but the one thing i disagreed with was the lack of a lock screen... at least as far as i could tell
Presenting the EyePhone
All a company has to do is to come up with something that none of the big companies have thought about, patent the shit out of it so they have exclusive rights and then they will have people falling over themselves to buy it while everyone else stands around saying "Why didn't we think of that?". The big companies do not have a lock on innovation.
But can they do it is a different question from "How easy is it to do?"
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
If you are still thinking about just a smartphone OS then you pretty much left with no options.
However, there is a huge potential for any OS/framework that can tap into Cars, TVs, Office Cubes, Kitchen appliances..
The Z10 wont be available for sale in the USA until "sometime" in March. The CEO blamed this on the slow and methodical process US carriers use to verify new phones on their network, yet he failed to mention that the testing delay was actually because RIMM was so late in delivering production-final samples to the carriers.
if we are legally prohibited from unlocking our phones to make any modifications to the software or firmware?
When Android hit the market, Blackberry was just introducing the Blackberry Storm, and it was kind of a big deal. The refinement of Android and the phones it ran on was absurd. I think the biggest thing that's changed is that you now have much smoother interactions with phones and computers. I think it may be in Blackberry's interest to try to work with big media providers (Amazon, perhaps) to try to match the ecosystems Google and Apple have formed.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
The thing that makes Windows stay is not "because it's better." It's because it has critical mass and the cost of moving away from it is too painful and complicated.
Smart phones in the form of Android and IPhone have not quite reached that point but they will soon. At the moment, there are no "can't live without it" apps though the games are a kind of resistance to change already.
Integration with business will be a critical piece for any smartphone challenger to offer. Blackberry has done this while offering fantastic security. IPhone and Android are wonderful distractions, but they haven't done anything to become entrenched... even the beloved and expensive iDevice turns out to be disposable within a year or two. And that's kind of the problem. They are disposable... dispensable... replaceable. And this is done by the carriers "by design" so they can keep selling new phones and extending contract obligations. This is not particilarly compatible with business interests.
So like the PC before it, find a way to integrate with business as RIM did before and you've got a winner.
It wouldn't hurt anyway. Seriously though. They had better either do something remarkable or have some great features. For example, I'd pay good money for a phone with a physical scrolling wheel. Ditto for sound. Or an On/Off switch that didn't make you wait for the computer to contemplate its navel would be worth something too. Sometimes you can't beat physical controls. Nobody has yet done scrolling right and you always end up clicking something you wish you hadn't. Truly painless linking to Outlook and other phones (all the other phones) would be another awesome. By painless, I mean, 100% easy and without stupid arbitrary limitations of content length of anything. Battery life that mattered would do it. If the phone lasted even three days between charges, that would matter a lot. Voice recognition that was less stupid than Siri.
There are a lot of things they could have done. They won't have done any of the ones that would help, I expect. Like Microsoft, they'll probably solve a bunch of problems that neither I nor any other customer actually had.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Well. They have to find a very unique angle to be able to do that. Either they can go for superior hardware. Or they go for cheep, secure, user controlled or something that neither Apple or Google will provide.
if Blackberry can get the apps and the carriers they could do it.
*Another thing they could do is use their image as the "business" tool and imply that Apple an the others are the smart phones for kids and wannbes but if you need to get work done and use your device to make money, then the Blackberry is the tool for you.
*It doesn't matter if it's true or not - image is what counts.
OTOH, over the last few years, many businesses have based their infrastructure (phones included) on Apple. My wife's company is all Apple: her "office" is her iPad - FYI she's in medical.
If Blackberry can make their stuff easily integrated into a corporate IT structure, they could capture the new installs.
And of course, they really need to be offered by all the carrers.
I had a smartphone when Nokia had a monopoly on them. Even the almighty Ericsson wasn't able to make headway, albeit into what was a very small market. Palm then did relatively well, before doing its usual disappearing act, and then RIM took over.
The difference between then and now, of course, is that Smartphones are now a big thing, rather than something nerds appreciate (while being bizarrely ignored by the marketing geniuses at Nokia et al who insisted that only business people on the go would want these kinds of devices. No wonder they never went mainstream.)
The simple truth is we have Apple who popularized the concept, largely by concentrating on making the UI touch, rather than stylus or keyboard, friendly, and Google, who produced the first genuinely open mobile platform. While these are both awesome, the only degree to which people are tied to either platform beyond loyalty and brand recognition are apps, and given the numbers of people who do, indeed, switch back and forth from iOS to Android, I don't think it's the case that the app issue is that significant.
Sometime to look at, as an example, is Amazon's Android. For developers, it's the same operating system as Google's version. For end users though, it might as well be an entirely different system. Your collection of Google Play software just isn't going to run on it. And yet it's popular.
If Amazon can do that, then there's little reason to suppose that another company can't do the same thing. The major issue is that the companies that have, thus far, don't seem to be very good at it, and perhaps even are hampered by a very poor image. Blackberrys are what people used to use. Windows is that unreliable piece of crap we swear at every day. HP? Same problem. Nokia had a chance, as a very popular maker of phones that were even once admired for their design and innovation (OK, that was about 10-15 years ago) but bizarrely switched to Windows at precisely the point they had an OS ready to go.
So yes, there's an opening. The question is whether someone will bother to produce something sufficiently decent that phone makers will be willing to adopt. I haven't seen that yet.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
One of the last touted options was a sort of micropayment that would be forfeit if the caller complained. The way I figure, if these telemarketers are operating illegally, suppose a criminal element among them might also be using illegal funds from say stolen bank accounts, credit cards, or accounts with stolen identities. If so, what do they care if they forfeit a micropayment that wasn't really their money anyway?
I guess I'm equating telemarketers that bypass these laws with fraud. You know like "Congratulations! You've been selected to enter a prize drawing. Just enter all of your credit card numbers, and if one of them is lucky, you will win a prize!" For non-scam cases, it might work. Then again, perhaps scams are much more targeted (like to the elderly) than blasted.
1: Make sure it has a great app for pdf
2: Release the phones off contract and UNLOCKED directly online or in stores.
3: Make it easy to write text and keep it organized on a simple clip board that can cut and paste to data text, e-mail or convert to pdf as attachments.
MOST IMPORTANTLY
4: Make your phones easy to update and do not let carriers like the jerks at BELL screw over the rom and then deny updates!
someone at some point in time will come out with something better.. IOS is actually sort of boring platform in my opinion it just has all the apps and the phone is very functional.. There are niches yet to be filled.
Linux made inroads in the server market but that wasn't dominated by Microsoft to the extent the desktop was.
I think even iOS will have difficulty staying relevant in the long run.
A better question is "what's coming after the smartphone?"
Aging population + Jitterbug phone = THE FUTURE
Probably best to start with "products that don't suck" (or, if you prefer, "products that suck less").
...if they can leverage the enterprise. Our support people have about given up on Android, too many flavors to support. I'm not saying they will pull it off, I don't think they can get away with their old tricks to take over the market, but I wouldn't rule them out either. RIM is toast.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Out of all the contenders, (Open WebOS, BlackBerry, Windows, Mozilla, Ubuntu) I don't think any of them have a chance, Not unless lawsuits end up shutting down Android or making it entirely unsuable. I think the business model Google has setup shields them from the fray as a monopoly, especially with Amazon offering up their own Android Appstore in direct competition. Google and the manufacturers have more people and more resources and can iterate faster than Apple ever can, and none of the other upstarts can even hope to invest enough on their own to make a catchup play. I don't think Windows Phone with it's somewhat integrated position with Windows 8 even stands a realistic chance.
I'd like to see a new interface. Touchscreens are all the rage, but I don't want to have my head buried in the virtual sand all the time; that's my description of the ubiquity of people walking or sitting around, head-down with the eyes and their brains buried in the contents of a 4-5 inch screen.
I want a translucent heads-up virtual display overlaid in front of me, but only when I want and need it to be there. Apparently Google is already working on such a display. The keys for me will be the ease of transitioning my focus from the world around me to the contents of the virtual display (on|off, dim-to-background, full-on-Monty), usability (how I command the OS/software; spatial gesture recognition would be nice) and the proper contextual cues that allow me to avoid burying my head back into the tiny little window in front of the battery (how does the phone alert me to calls, messages, email, battery condition, connectivity issues, etc.).
Some subtlety would be nice for a change. I've always been desirous of a call alert that doesn't jolt me out of my socks when it vibrates or alert the rest of the world that I'm the idiot who can't remember to turn down the volume when I'm in the library, thearter or lecture hall.
Give me a better options in the way the device and OS make information usable and any company will have a decent chance of success. That's why Samsung's keyboard pattern recognition is a selling point for me.
BTW - I don't care whether RIM/Blackberry falls of the face of the markets or not, and this marketing shill piece won't help.
..with dynamic form factor. The next generation OS / device will be "AI on Demand". It will have the ability to aquire "over the air" expertise to become your chauffer, your chef, dog, massuer, masseur, a wife or a nurse. Your fetish on disposal. Cheers to that!!
I come to Slashdot only to read sigs. One you are reading is mine.
The answer is Mu. The smartphone market is not a duopoly since Android is a (semi) open platform used by multiple corporations, and customised by them to create an ecology. By contrast, iOS is owned, controlled and sold by a single company - Apple.
Basically, rephrased the question asks "Apple versus the world - can anyone else join in?", which I assume is all part of the Microsoft "paint Google as a monopolist" strategy.
to go back to the Android/iOS beginning and compete on equal footing. Just look at MKV vs. Xvid as an example.
What kind of idiot story is this? Android and IOS just got done destroying the Microsoft/RIM duopoly... Suddenly they are the underdog deserving of our sympathy? They are doing poorly because they suck... not because they are being crushed by Google/Apples corporate might.
Did the submitter read this blog posting from an analyst first?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Speaking for myself, I'm waiting with baited breath for the Mozilla phone to come out. The walled gardens are becoming tiresome.
I am not just going to agree with the popular view. In other words I have bad Karma.
Its laughable for Microsoft or RIM to believe they can claw their way into the top 2, and I mean every other smartphone OS developer would have to have a solid year of chronic brain farts for FireFox or Ubuntu to even break 4th place.
The fight is going to be for #3 for a good long time.
Its not impossible for Apple or Google to slip (will give it to Apple to fall from grace before Google any day), just look at how quickly RIM dropped from nearly 50% global market penetration to less then 1%. But I can safely say that nothing released, about to be released, or even hinted at is capable of breaking the top 2..
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The early blackberrys were highly optimized text messaging machines...everything was aimed at maximizing battery life.
Once you start bringing in big bright high def screens, arbitrary apps, fluid video, fancy gui elements, etc. you pretty much by definition are going to use more battery keeping the whole thing running.
You could have 3 days of battery life now if you were willing to go back to the feature set of the 8830.
I just got my second Windows Phone today. I really like it. I don't care about all of the "Apps" because it does everything I need right out of the box. I think that a well integrated OS like Windows Phone 8.0 doesn't need to rely on millions of "apps" to be able to sway customers.
I don't respond to AC's.
When I was your age, we took our phones with whatever software the provider gave us and we LIKED IT. We had DOS and plain text and damn it, we had those choices.
Waaaahhh I only have a choice of two fully featured, well supported software/hardware ecosystems. Waaaaaaah my linux distro isn't supported . . .
Do we automatically whine about lack of choices when each choice becomes popular? god.
Likely? No.
Once any one or two players get to a majority like that, they typically only lose share if 1) they start being stupid, lazy, or ineffective, or 2) something drastically different comes along.
Related to #1 is when there is a strong competitor that gets incrementally better over time and overtakes the leader, but that usually only happens when the market is relatively young and there's lots of room for improvement. We saw it early on with battles over spreadsheets and word processors, and later with things like Quark being retarded for years and letting Adobe eat their lunch.
People don't change when "OMG it's 8% faster and 2 grams lighter!" because change takes effort and brings with it uncertainty. What good is a 1% productivity gain if it takes you a week to get to that point? People change when there is a SUBSTANTIAL gain to be had -- either a 50-100% improvement in some area (usually performance or stability) or a whole crop of new features: "I didn't used to be able to take pictures or listen to music with my phone, now I can."
People still use many-years-old computers because they do just about everything. They evolved from text on monochrome screens to high-res full-color screens, sound playback, video playback -- from 160x120 to 1080p -- and they do 3D gaming. Not much else left to be done there except to make them smaller and cheaper. Cell phones when from brick phones that could only show you the digits you dialed, to the same thing in a flip-phone form factor, to candybars with LCD screens, caller ID, and address books; then texting and cameras, then smartphones with good cameras, browser, email, and all the rest. Now we are where we were with computers a few years ago: not much left to be done there. If you have a current smartphone of ANY kind, you have a very capable device that isn't that different from the rest.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
imho only another tie-in with network providers (as we have previously seen with Apple and RIM) will do the trick.
imagine a provider which finally gets rid of any roaming whatsoever. data, texts, calls everywhere, internatoinally available and as flat rate offering. plus integration with the next big social media hype. At an affordable (albeit higher then what we are currently used to) price.
But only available with that new device.......
1) Augmented reality, overlay virtual information on the real world.
2) 3D motion sensing, like the "leap motion" device.
3) Ability to dock with something that has common ports (USB in, video out, etc.) and turn into a full-fledged computer with full sized keyboard/mouse while also charging the mobile device.
4) Better battery. (like 10x better)
The new Blackberry OS has some interesting functionality (reminiscent of webOS in some areas) that I could see some people really going for. In particular the separation between business/personal could reduce BYOD concerns a lot (though I think it should also be able to have separate sim cards as well).
With the new OS, I think it's reasonable to give Blackberry another chance, and so the question becomes what it would take for them to actually succeed.
-1997: can anubody overcome the DOS/Epoc dominance
-2000: can anybody overcome the Palmos dominace
-2002: can anybody overcome the WIndows CE dominance?
-2005: can anybody overcome the Symbian dominance?
-2009: can anybody overcome the Iphone/Blackberry dominance?
Yes, at some point sombody will. Nothing is as fluctuating as PIM devices. They have a well defined set of apps which really will make my buying decision, and i am not hesitant to change the OS. Did that two or three times. If QNX proves to be solid and the the important apps will be right on the next RIM device, why not to switch? If microsoft puts a decent version of mobile office on Windows 8 phones and they dont suck otherwise, why not buy one? If Samsung decides to put another Linux-based and more or less open OS onto the HW which i would have bought with Android, and e.g. the power sonsumption is lower, why not switch?
The things which mattered for my first PIM/Mobile computing devices were: Price, usability and battery life. Nothing changed for me up to now.
Symbian used to be THE ecosystem in mobile phones, and look where is at now. iOS and then Android hit big, both with their own ecosystems, and have most of the market by now, but it could change. Windows Phone want to be the next one, but i think it won't have good chances, not sure how much compatibility will be between desktop and mobile programs, and the clean cut they did with "old" win 7.x phones and apps is not a good signal).
But could be an incoming new ecosystem. Blackberry 10, Sailfish, Ubuntu Mobile and others are getting QT/QML as main api, apps could be ported between all of them. A lot will be linux based, so apps, even desktop ones, compiled for ARM could run (and ubuntu will have a big app base if is just for that). And some of them will be able (not sure how well, but able at least) to run android apps, so "legacy" apps wll be available. And they could have another way to get an userbase, not only with manufacturers including them, but being able to install those OS on Android phones (like i.e. will be possible to install Ubuntu Mobile in Nexus phones, or Sailfish on the N9), very much like is be possible to install CyanogenMod.
Back when only corporations had computers, Jobs and Woz came out with a computer for the average person.
Smartphones and tablets are almost completely under the control of corporations, so maybe it's time for somebody to come out with one that is modular, that the average person can build and have full control over.
I would buy one.
It's too late for this round. For the same reason that no one can replace Windows on the desktop, nothing will displace iOS/Android on "slabs with a large touchscreen". There are too many applications written, too many people who rely on them, they will not switch for something that's more or less the same, but different. People will switch only if it's something radically different, a new category of devices, just like Apple created with the original iPhone or the iPad, they're just not comparable to previous feature phones (or even previous "smartphones"). Windows Phone and BB10 are DOA, no one wants them, it's too late. They're like the DRDOS and the OS/2 of smartphones.
We've already seen this movie. Consider when iOS entered the market nearly all smartphones weren't iOS. Granted nothing quite like iOS existed. It was a disruptive force and Google was quick to take notice. Blackberry's first reaction was to ignore...and that may well be the kiss of death.
So, can some other "phone" platform come along and destage Apple and Google? Absolutely! But it has to deliver game changing capability in the same way that Apple and Google made the Blackberry appear fossilized. Anything less and there simply isn't enough value offered for a mainstream shift.
It's all about apps. Windows phone 8 works well, and I'm sure the Z10 does too, but there's no apps. I demo'd an ATIV S recently and the device was fine but no swype keyboard, google maps, NES/SNES emulator, banking apps, google talk, teamviewer, webex, torrent software, upnp player/server, games, etc, etc. So why would I switch from android to a less functional device?
It's a bit of a conundrum these folks who were late to the party are in. They need a large user base to generate developer interest, while also needing developer interest to generate a large user base. And early reviews of BB10 seem to be demonstrating this exact scenario again (no google maps? really RIM? really?).
The next ground breaking feature for smart phones is going to be Google Now. With the competition still struggling to catch up on core functionality and app support I'm predicting a very healthy future of market domination for Android.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
The battle will really be over the non-smartphone users.
Android has an Achilles heal. It's old, immature and hard to update. It reminds me of Windows XP in terms of user experience and platform vulnerability. It's dug into the market well, but it's only mature enough for "smartphone" users who readily work around quirks and ill behaviors... not enough to grab the non-smartphone user.
This is why iOS will hold on to it's lead while it can maintain the premium smartphone image befitting of its contemporary Mac OS X. That said, "premium smartphone" is the iOS Achilles heal. A cheap, hobbled iPhone won't grab the non-smartphone user either.
BB already lost it's page to Microsoft in the Enterprise market.
More importantly, while MS isn't that popular in the US, it's got a jump on the non-smartphone users overseas... which I bet will only spread. It's got the base OS maturity (security) of Windows 7, the UI consistency of it's contemporary Windows 8 desktop, and the price range to make them accessible.
My wife traded her clunky droid for a WP8, and both our moms (our kids' grandmothers) love their Windows Phones ... this strikes me as good indicator that Windows Phone could bring the non-smartphone market into the smartphone era, eating up that market as it goes, if given the chance.
if it's actually significantly better and backed by a big company, it could.
I don't see anything like that on the horizon. I don't think Ubuntu, Firefox, or Blackberry for phones are sufficiently better to be able to compete.
When the HTC G1 with Android hit the scene, many people doubted the chance of success of Android against the market dominated iPhone.
Recently, I came across a review of the Ubuntu phone initiative. The review author signs off by saying that he / she is uncertain of its ability to make him / her put down their Android phone. It made me laugh, I remember the exact same statement ending in "iPhone".
"So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
Look..
Could anyone break the Crackberry monopoly? Well yes, iPhone could, and quite spectacularly too.
Could anyone break the Symbian phone system, with all its apps? Yep, iPhone again.
Could anyone break the iPhone monopoly? Yes, Android did that.
You can't judge the future just by what is now, folks. People have tried that before:
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication."
-- William Orton, president of Western Union, in 1876, when Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell the company his invention.
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
-- Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, in 1977.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Here's the key: apps and/or app stores.
A lot of small businesses, such as the one I work for, have built some apps for iPhone and Android. However, our budget simply doesn't allow us to build an app for every single phone out there. For example, we're definitely not going to bother building one for Windows or Blackberry. We also have an internal app that runs on Android and we won't be porting that either.
So, I think the best way to get a new phone out there is to steal an ecosystem. Either an entire app store or make porting the apps as simple as the click of a button.
----- obSig
https://www.tizen.org/ is up and coming. going to release phones in japan next year!
No guidelines is what is damaging Android. Too many devices to test for, too many screen sizes, compbinations of buttons etc etc. The opposite is a better plan as far as I see - very strict guidelines, at least in early statges.
I doubt any one smartphone will be able to "overcome" the current situation. Microsoft's offerings are, as is so often the case, a joke.
Google have been clever with their liberal licensing of Android - something similar to what happened with the IBM BIOS in the 1980s, except this time no one needs to clean-room reverse engineer anything. Therefore we're seeing more and more clones, if that is the right term, and it is becoming increasingly irrelevant who the hardware is made by.
That given, any new upstart is going to have three options:
I know which option I would choose were I in that position.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
The cellphone as a computer is something that might happen, and might benefit those smartphones that come with a full-blown OS (and here is an opportunity for ubuntu). The user would plug the device to a monitor and a keyboard and start working. We already have 1.5GHz processors, +1Gb RAM, and graphics chipsets that support OpenGL. We might see in the future clever ways to dock the smartphone into a monitor and keyboard (maybe wireless displays are in the future, but I doubt it because of bandwidth required). Maybe a dock that has the shape of laptop, only it provides the keyboard and display, but nothing else inside.
Android and iOS might be at a disadvantage for that, because those OS's weren't borne with desktop grade multitasking, file management, etc. (android has multitasking but only has windows in some samsung products), iOS wants you to forget that files even exist.
Smartphones already have: gps, bluetooth, wifi, 3g, accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes, sd storage, hd displays, opengl, lots of RAM, more than 16gb storage, etc. What more could you add to them?? They are almost a PC, so why not use them as a PC that already has the capacity to fulfill most casual users needs.
On the cost issue, for WP8 or BB10 to take the market, they need to learn a lesson from cheap android phones and cheap S40 phones, that cover most of the needs of its users while remaining affordable, and even sometimes having more battery. If they don't come up with sub $100 devices (with subsidy), they are simply not going to penetrate latin america and india.
In the short term, meaning within the next year or two, no. In the long term, however, of course it's a yes. I don't really understand why people are so narrow-thinking especially since leaders have been unseated over and over again. Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry being the most relevant examples to this discussion. Apple's dominance so far has been quite brief and Android's has been even shorter.
We're talking about industries that are evolving at a rapid pace, not just in terms of technology but in terms user interface. This isn't like the auto industry which is very mature and exceedingly difficult to break into without a very unique niche. And even the players with very compelling offerings, Tesla and Fisker, are struggling to get established. The investment costs are massive and these guys are stuck doing a lot of the development themselves. It isn't like any of the smartphones makers who are all buying the same hardware from a handful of players and can have a device up and running relatively quickly. This places the focus on user experience and integration.
All you need is a scenario where Apple and Google start lagging and the competition offers something legitimately compelling with all the essential boxes checked off. That means a robust and rapidly growing app selection and partnerships with all the relevant players. In some ways I think it's beginning to happen. The fact that we're even discussing this is a indication that the shift is occurring. Of course, that doesn't mean Apple or Google couldn't rekindle interest in the platform at some point.
Shortly? No.
Not too long ago, people were asking if anyone would break apple's monopoly.
Wasn't this subject covered earlier this year? Can't find the article, but for every handheld on the market today, there's something like 200,000 patents that are entwined on said device.
That specific technical industry, cellular, was designed so that a 'from the ground up built device' would never be able to operate on that market. It was designed to be a closed, with entry available only through certain patent holders approvable.
It's been game, set, match from the beginning! How is it not known at this point?
Any asteroid big enough to wipe out Cupertino is going to wipe out whatever economy is necessary to buy new WinPhones and RIMs. No, I think the winners of that civilization-altering event will be the makers of survivalist communication gear like walkie-talkies.
Its been apparent for at least three cycles now that an OS or an App can claim a generations mind set and people will retire from professional life experts in the software they prefer.
Same is true of cars, gadgets, anything they find easy to use.
Problem is finding anything easy to use.
Software developers handicap themselves as they mature by loosing touch with people, reality and business economics.
People can't understand their user interfaces, and just stick with that they've already figured out.. hence the stickiness of something already popular.
iPhone was a product practically developed by one man.. and I don't mean Jobs. The company had turned inwards and let people.. individuals focus on pet projects.. so they made them easier to use for themselves.. selfish.. but elegant. Obfuscation is often the tool of choice when defending ones position.. but if you feel comfortable you'll develop to satisfy yourself.. eky thing is how do you relate to other people.. Artists tend to relate to some of us.. or we come to appreciate their contributions.
Same thing happened with Android.. got bought by Google and got comfortable and social.
Windows Phone.. exact opposite.. Blackberry.. exact opposite.. even hardware vendors.. Nokia turned from comfortable internally to desperate overnight.
Those don't have a chance.. they're just going the motions of a death dance for investors.
Look for it.. if there is a challenger.. it will come from some place like Elon Musk's skunk works.. programmers who feel safe and comfortable and eager to scratch an itch.. probably before they have lots of kids and a mortgage to worry about.
Or it will come from a platform that allows people to build their own.. like a Facebook mini-tablet with 18 hr battery life and a VOIP app.. of Amazon Kindle with a Voicetime app.
iOS is vulnerable, because Apple can screw up. Apple can screw up the hardware, the OS, the App Store, or carrier relations, and cripple it as a result. And somebody else can become #2.
Android, on the other hand, is set. If a handset manufacturer screws up, it'll just get eaten by one of the others. If Google screws up the OS, it'll get forked from the source to the previous version. Google Play turns bad, there's Amazon's Appstore, and plenty more less well-known alternatives. There isn't any one controlling entity to screw up carrier relations, either.
Make it so carriers have to allow any device (but retain some controls over what is on the network to keep things flowing for all) and you could have a Debian Linux phone tomorrow.
The way it is, carriers are allowed to say what can and cannot be used. If you can't convince them your device will help them sell contracts, you're SOL.
Major shifts in consumer desire are rarely brute-forced in the world. It takes a combination of having the right product at the right time. It's hard enough to do with untested markets, but much more difficult in existing ones. I think a shift is becoming more possible, with the smartphone market, but only because consumers are starting to lose interest in the current devices, and might be receptive to something new. Who knows what that will look like, but I doubt it will be another 3x5 touchscreen smartphone with hundreds of thousands of apps available (really need to move away from this whole quantity over quality thing...).
you can bet it will come from Samsung. Samsung's the only phone manufacturer the world not named Apple that's making money, and the only reason it's able to do that is by relying on an operating system controlled by the company that owns Motorola. That's not a situation Samsung can be happy with.
Prediction: Samsung will fork Android, buy Android, or build its own OS from scratch.
Yes. Nobody has a lock on the enterprise space. This area also happened to be RIM's and Microsoft's strongsuit at one point in time. And lest you discount RIM, my gut feeling is that RIM is still very focused whereas Microsoft is spread thin.
Yes. Next stupid question please.
because it is predicated on the false assumption that there is currently a duopoly. There really isn't.
There's the First Evangelical Church of Apple, and then there is the real world. They're pretty separate and distinct, and don't really compete for each others users. Apple followers are just going to buy Apple. The curious but naive will try it and switch to Android. Then, productive society just goes straight to Android because it's actually useful for something.
In any case, at this point, it's all Android with a few annoying thorns in their side.
Can you really say there's a duopoly between handheld OSes when one of them is Linux?
IT'S GPL, it's basically a non-entity in the proprietary sense. If you wanted to make a smart phone that ran Android apps, you could just fork Android, I think...
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
I like how there are multiple alternative words for monopoly for people who want to complain about monopolies but can't.
Everyone says Apple, oh and Android, and they note that Samsung is slightly ahead of Apple. And that's both true and a lie. Samsung *is* slightly ahead of Apple. Its also true that Android eats iOS's lunch, and by that I mean iOS is only Apple, and they have 19%, and Android is Samsung, plus Acer, Asus, HTC, Sony, Toshiba, Motorola, ViewSonic, LG, and dozens of others, and collectively, Android had as of the last quarter of last year, over 75% of the market (and growing). Symbian, that thing from microsoft (windblows phone something) and others make up the other 5%.
Fashion Trend... so good marketing is the only answer. Like Nike vs Reebok.
It's a well-worn path.
USA/Russia - War (Good vs Cheap), Detente (Nuclear brinkmanship, Cold war), Disrupt (new economies), Decline (high cost of supporting existing infrastructure/policies)
RIM/Nokia - War (Good vs Cheap), Detente (stuck to their product lines), Disrupt (Touch replaced T9 / Qwerty), Decline (high cost of losing customers & late entry to new markets)
Apple/Google - War (Good vs Cheap), now settling into a comfortable Detente. They're not stupid. They both know there will be a Disruption. It won't come from Microsoft and Blackberry making "me too" phones.
Apple will try and do it themselves, with loads of secret R&D. Google are trying to do it with loads of public R&D (driverless cars, Glass, Nexus Q, Ingress).
But it's inevitable. One day, some other company will blindside them and Disrupt them utterly.
If Microsoft is really seriou about having a successful mobile presence this late to the party then they need to be bold. Lose money with high end, top of the line hardware in their phones to start out, they've got the cash to spare. Give away the entire XBox catalog as an enticement for IOS/Android users, if they don't win over the users with games the others can't offer now, there will never be a good enough reason to ever switch to MS. Anything else but a bold move like this they might as well concede the mobile market to the existing dominant players and get out now.
Google and Apple are two of my most despised companies. Thank goodness I use a BlackBerry smartphone (9930) and Tablet (Playbook). I would never buy or use anything from a rampant privacy abuser like Google and a fascist company like Apple.
Apple's only REAL innovation was turning technology into a fashion statement. A defining characteristic of fashion is that it goes OUT of style. All it will take is for Dr. Dre or somebody to use a blackberry in a rap song and BOOM, it's cool again. That's it.
Google is pretty scary environment to trust your life to. Where you work, where you sleep, where you eat, who you talk to, what you say, what pictures you take, how fast you drive, how often you visit your lover....
If someone can figure out a way to be more open source than Google (Android being an open platform from the perspective of hacking/programming/admin) and also be more safe and secure than Google, then there is a chance.
Someone like RIM? Not a chance. Google has set the bar very high with open standards.
If there was an internet in their day and age, people would have been posting questions of the sort about the East India Trading Company and whom ever their competition was at the time of posting. Time changes all; though in your short amount here, it may seem like forever.
that doesnt suck ballzzz. love the tracfone plan, hate the OS. not sure if that makes sense. am I the only one one doesn't use their phone enough for a plan but wants a smart phone. I pay $100 for a year and have get more minutes the I need.
Windows Mobile 8 is going to take over the whole world, least iOS / Android.
Could anything topple IBM DOS?
Could anything topple SysV?
Could anything topple Linux?
Could anything topple Windows?
For fucks sakes, is this for real? The answer is: Yes. The question is: How long, and what will it be (it could even be something not yet invented)?
I mean, really, you all think in 100 years we'll even have smartphones? Heck, even in 50 years it'll be a silly idea.
The answer is simple, but not easy.
1. Ask your customers what they like/dislike/want;
2. Focus first on the primary features:
-The best and fastest connectivity
-Best batterylife
-Best call quality
-Best readeable screen in the sun
-Pherhaps water proof phone for use in the rain? Nokia is working on it and it would be a massive selling point
-Offline maps with offline GPS data to reduce data usage
-Best HTMLv5 browser like Tizen, with deep phone integration, and multiple tabs and desktop grade browser features
-insanely responsiveness
-Insanely great API; as insaneley good as AmigaOS back in the day
Then focus on the best components like a camera that rivals the best consumer compact camera, a fast CPU, lots of RAM and a realy fast CPU. Have a robust body and look nice with the focus on useability, not design, like the Nokia E7-00.
Make sure that you also launch the smartphone era into a real pocket computer era. This means having the option of a closed DRM appstore, but also a truely open platform and then never switch CPU architecture and never break any API. You can do this with API versioning, like Microsoft uses DLL versioning.
The rest is up to marketing and consumer feedback.
Here be signatures
There was a time, about 2-3 years ago, when iPhones and Androids were in the market, but businesses were largely still running on Blackberries. This was the time for Microsoft to strike. If they had released a "secure, business integrated" phone back then, I'm sure a lot of Microsoft-based IT shops would move toward that instead of trying out the iPhone and Android.
Problem is, IT departments got pressure from execs to try out new smart phones, so eventually they did. When those companies ran into very few, if any, problems by doing so, they suddenly became the de facto standard. Microsoft delayed their strategy too long, and they're going to need to come up with a game changer for either everyone or some niche in order to get back in the game.
Make a Windows phone that runs .exe files. Done.
Phone capabilities
Text capabilities
Web browser
Music player
Angry Birds
Facebook
Youtube
Netflix
Camera app
GPS/Mapping app
Bonus if they add these for extra appeal
Bad Piggies
Sandboxed email app w/ ActiveSync capability
Sandboxed Word/Excel/PowerPoint
Torque ?
Important point to notice is the fact Android is open source, at least for the most part. Google wrote android on top of Java ideas and Linux code. Since android is for the most part open source, it does not make much sense for any company to rewrite the part of the operating system that is already available to them unless they can come up with a system significantly different and better. If a wheel was closed source technology it would make sense to try to improve on it, but as it is everyone is using it and making great things on top of it. Cars, tires, even airplanes have wheels. Similarly, is Blackberry wants to be competitive it would make sense for them to make some sort of encrypted secure layer of software on top of Android that would satisfy business requirements for secrecy instead of reinventing the operating system itself.
It's not going to happen. The problem is that there just aren't enough good mobile developers and enough developer mindshare to go around. Lots of developers don't even want to support TWO platforms, let alone three or four or five. There have never been more than two successful mobile platforms at once. First we had Palm and BlackBerry. iOS came along and Palm faded away. Then Android appeared and BlackBerry declined. But I don't see any of the current contenders displacing either iOS or Android; they're just too entrenched. Any new OS would have to be dramatically better in some important way, and neither BlackBerry 10 nor Windows Phone 8 is.
What about Symbian, you ask? Lots of Symbian phones were sold, but although it was theoretically a smartphone platform its success wasn't based on its smartness. The vast majority of Symbian devices were sold as feature phones with no real app capability, and the ones that could meaningfully use apps never got any significant number of them to choose from.
There is one possible scenario for limited success of BlackBerry 10 or Windows Phone, though the latter is not pursuing it. That would be to ignore the consumer market, which is a lost cause anyway, and double down on enterprise applications and try to become the preferred device of IT departments. The BYOD trend means it will be a challenge to turn this into sales, but it could at least get them a place in large corporations that are big on centralized IT and in security-conscious organizations. This would mean things like giving the mobile a top-class application for email, group calendar, and other enterprise uses, rolling VPN and full remote management support into the OS, including a remote desktop client, and so forth. It would also mean including enhanced security features like biometric ID into the handsets.
I am skeptical about the prospects for Mozilla Phone and Ubuntu Phone for the same reasons. It appears, however, that both of those platforms are going to make their push primarily in the third world, where the lower cost of those platforms might matter enough for one of them to gain some traction. It's not just that the software is zero-cost - so is Android - but that they're intended to offer acceptable performance on low-spec devices. The vast majority of apps for the two first-world platforms will likely never get to these platforms, though the big-name apps will.
There's a high-feature option (iOS) and a high-ubiquity (low cost sometimes) option (Android). Copycats here won't get far no-matter how much they finance it unless they find a crack in the wall (like what Verizon's Droid campaign did for Android). For example:
- High-feature increasingly means Cloud (Maps, Siri, etc), an Apple weak point
- Carriers doing updates slowly makes for unsafe Android phones. A safer (or centrally-updatable) base may be desired in a low-cost phone. (Firefox-phone Advantage)
- The first phone onto a new technology that's somehow hard to cope with?
- - Wireless Mesh as the primary communication channel (vs Internet or carrier channels) - - Robotics (somehow)
- - Screen-less phones, or Goggle-phones
- - Native emulation (simulation?) of multiple phone OSes
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