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Android Beats iOS As the Top Tablet OS
sfcrazy writes "Linux is on a roll. After conquering the smartphone space, Android is now dominating the tablet space. According to a new study by Gartner, 'the tablet growth in 2013 was fueled by the low-end smaller screen tablet market, and first time buyers; this led Android to become the No. 1 tablet operating system (OS), with 62 percent of the market.'"
Also, everyone is buying tablets.(~200 million sold in 2013 vs ~115 million in 2012). Microsoft still only has 2% of the tablet market.
It is finally here! Now we just need it to be an open platform.
So what, it took Apple to even do it right the first time. After all those Palm devices and Windows CE devices were just a bunch of low-battery-life devices that forgot their memory when they ran out of power.
Look OSS and Android guys, it doesn't matter how many how many of the devices are being shipped if all the money is being made on the more developer-friendly iOS ecosystem. If you want people to develop for Android, update Android consistently so that all devices have the same features, and quit letting vaporware and shovelware dominate the marketplace.
Where do they get their sales figures from? Do they include sites like DX, madeinchina et al?
If not, then I'm pretty confident Android has been outselling iOS for several years now.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Given that Android licensing costs are near zero and there aren't any other viable choices, why is Android a surprise at all? As for the sales volume, the low end of the market is big numbers. You can make Mercedes profit if you sell VW volume.
I'm curious what the sales numbers are for Surface Pros. I'm in the market for a new laptop and the Surface Pro is appealing as a sort of replacement. My existing dual-core 8 GB Dell with a 500 GB SSD is kind of a tank but with the SSD it's still usable for networking tasks. But for a lot of what I do, the Surface Pro would be fine and I could drag out the laptop if I really needed it.
My only fear is that I would accessorize it to death -- BT mouse, ethernet dongle, a bunch of USB sticks, and be basically back to lugging around the laptop.
But I have both an iPad and a Nexus 7, both new as of about 6 months ago. The Nexus is getting a lot more use by me on a day-to-day basis because it's the form factor of a kindle, fits in my jacket pocket and is easy to hold, read, and play games on.
The iPad is mostly collecting dust unless I want to watch Netflix, TiVo, or Amazon Prime videos on it. It's a much larger screen but it makes it a bit unwieldy to easily hold. My wife has the air. I think it's still a bit too wide to easily carry with you, but she likes it.
As for the Surface tablets, I finally got a good chance to look at them last week. They're much bulkier than I was expecting.
Seems like with tablets quickly approaching the $40 range they are almost a disposable commodity. I would expect Android tablets will quickly get to over 90% of the market in short order since everyone will be able to have one of these powerful little computing devices.
Don't believe.
There is NO Posix userspace on Android.
Posix kernel land is locked/limited.
Why does it take 16 GB RAM to compile the Android tarball? That's some BEAUTIFUL community inclusion!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Who is making all these tablets? Here's the rough breakdown of 2013 unit volume from Gartner for worldwide:
* Apple 36%
* Samsung 19%
* ASUS 6%
* Amazon 5%
* Lenovo 3%
* All others 31%
the first notable thing is that Apple sells more than Samsung, Asus, Amazon, and Lenovo combined. The second notable thing, who is the "all others"? All sort of white-label chinese makers? Who is buying these? And can you say that these are truly Android tablets if they have some sort of modified android 2.3?
Here are the categories that I see in this market:
* iOS
* "Premium" Android. The Galaxy Tabs, the Nexus tablets, etc. Sold in US, EU, etc. The ones we are familiar with
* Kindle
* MS Surface
* white label tablets. Presumably built and sold in China, elsewhere.
We need to recognize that premium android might as well be a different OS than white label android. The apps will be different, the languages will be different, the monetization will be different, the fragmentation will be different. For all intensive purposes premium android is as removed from white label android as it is from kindle.
There is one manufacturer of iOS tablets, there are butt loads of android tablet makers.
That fact alone tips the balance. And like the story says, lots of them are *cheap*, in a market where apple would never tread.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is Apple selling two or three?
Anyway, Apple has 36% of the market while selling only a few models.
I think they'll survive for awhile.
Sure, if you go with Gartner's numbers which undercut Apple's reported sales figures (you know, numbers that undergo SEC scrutiny for accuracy) by almost 4 million units while also adding in Android "white box" units that include TV dongles which track as tablets despite being not-at-all tablets while also clouding the results by reporting Apple's sales-to-end-users numbers with Android's shipped-into-channel numbers. So, yeah, if you cut Apple's numbers and artificially inflate Android's numbers, yes, Android is beating iOS in the tablet space.
And now you may mod me troll while claiming I'm just an Apple fanboy for speaking the truth.
I have such fond memories of when this site wasn't such a blatant tool of spin doctors for certain industry interests...
I love my Android tablet, it does 90 percent of what I used to need a laptop to do. The only minor niggle is no Flash support. I get why Google doesn't want to support it but so many sites still use it.
That and Chromecast is great for streaming Netflix content on TV.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Android IS an open platform. It's entirely up to you if you want to be locked into Google's ecosystem or not. Install Cyanogenmod or another third-party ROM, then look as there's no GApps or Google all over your phone. But remember it's now up to you to sideload a new app store and get the APKs to what non-Google services you use.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
Most of the "white label" tablets floating around are running uncustomized Android 4.0+. Customizing software costs money, so they just put vanillia Android on most of them.
I would pretty much take it for granted that close to all of those low cost crap tablets are in desk drawers by now. I myslef bought chromebook at an irresistable price to try it. Yes it stinks.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Gartner has a terrible track record. If you see any article citing Gartner statistics or predictions, you are best served by ignoring and moving along.
http://www.zdnet.com/why-does-...
http://seekingalpha.com/instab...
From Wikipedia:
"OHA [Open Handset Alliance] members are contractually forbidden from producing devices that are based off incompatible forks of Android."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
This has a chilling effect on hiring manufacturers to build your actual device when most of them are already tied to OHA.
This is a perverse definition of "open".
From http://appleinsider.com/articl...
"The most glaring inconsistency is a disconnect between Gartner's 70.4 million iPad sales and Apple's self-reported 74 million unit sales for 2013. From the first quarter — Apple's second fiscal quarter — to the fourth, the company reported iPad sales of 19.5 million, 14.6 million, 14.1 million and 26 million, respectively. The total: 74.2 million iPads sold during 2013. "
Note these numbers are reported by Apple on SEC filings, not on press releases.
you can add Debian and its ports to Android
quit your whining, you pansy
I have a employer provided iPhone, needed apps costing $$ to be useful. my android phone I've bulked up with quality freeware, it does more.
Or by number of eye-ball-minutes sold to advertizers?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
iOS has the most web traffic and was rated number 1 at mobile world congress this year.
It's fun to watch those lines of defense fall one by one, isn't it?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Despite this claim to large number shipped I just am not seeing Android tablets out in the hands of users. I've seen a couple (count them, two) Kindles in the real world.
Meanwhile I've seen many hundreds of Apple's iPad's and thousands of iPhones, iPodTouches, etc.
Something's not right with the statistics given in the article. It just doesn't match the real world. So is this a Shipped vs Sales confusion?
Or maybe the Androids are being hidden away in 'smart' devices like toasters and washing machines. That would certainly inflate the Android numbers.
Well, it doesn't really matter. Our family has six iPodTouches, an iPad and five MacBooks. How many Androids are being claimed to be sold is completely irrelevant. What matters is we can do the things we want to do from content creation to communications to consumption with the devices we have.
What this article is totally glossing over is the fact that Google is making a lot of inroads, not just through Android devices that are tied into Google services and apps, but also through their iOS apps which have gained a lot of traction as well. Two of the top iOS apps of 2013 were Google Maps and YouTube, both huge ad revenue generators for Google. In the long run, this could be troubling for Apple as it boxes them in to remaining mostly a hardware company. Hardware gets commoditized much faster than software and services do.
Again they are comparing Apple delivered to customer numbers and Android shipping wholesale numbers. Many of those are junk tablets that are never. In addition Apple reported higher numbers in an SEC regulated report that Gartner used, Apple says 74 million, Gartner used the figure of 70 million.
http://appleinsider.com/articl...
Head to the school yard. Tons of Android Tablets there.
Can't load additional comments, password goofiness at login. this blows.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I've been using computers for 35 years, and I'll be going to prison before I let myself get locked up in Apple's walled garden. I'd have more freedom that way.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Could it be true but there are still many problems that android users encountered like battery is easily drain.
Bill Gates must be pissed Pen Windows never caught on. First released in 1991!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
Hamburger tops steak in meat sales race.
Greed is the root of all evil.
It is more like a traditional GNU/Linux distribution. Just to take an example; if you want to install an app then nothing stops you from ssh:ing into the phone and install the rpm directly or through a frontend like yum or zypper.
i never get why the masses are always thrilled to see mediocrity beat down quality. windows was shit in the 90s and android will be shit in the 10s, i don't see how having the majority of the worlds computing devices be junk is anything to be smug about really.
free vs. commercial, free with cheap hardware will win every time.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
bzzzzzt, wrong! my gen 4 iPod touch can't be upgraded to iOS 7. or are you trying to say iPAD?
There was an unknown error in the submission.
can't we have a full GNU/Linux distro running natively on these phones /tablets ?
Linux in android is confined to the kernel. Virtually everything in user land is BSD based from the C runtime up. While the kernel performs a vital role, I suspect that if Google had reason to they could switch it out and users would barely notice.
If I had mod points now...
Developers of applications that run on Android code to the Android userland API, which largely isolates developers from the kernel. Developers of applications that run on top of embedded Linux, such as developers of home router firmware, code to a lower level API where the kernel is important.
How many applications absolutely require Google Play Services? I thought developers of applications designed for Android tablets were supposed to architect their applications to make Google Play Services optional in order to target Fire OS, the Android distribution used on Amazon's Kindle Fire tablets.
BREAKING NEWS! A UNIX-LIKE OS CAN BE SSH'D INTO AND SOFTWARE INSTALLED ON IT VIA COMMAND LINE
.DEB package manager, and they're definitely not Linux.
Linux can do it, Android can do it, Mac OS X can do it, and i can also do it on my jailbroken iDevices. Simply having a Linux package manager means nothing, after all, both Macports and Cydia (for jailbroken iOS devices) use the Debian
Don't get me wrong though, Sailfish is much closer to a real "conventional" GNU/Linux distro than Android is. IIRC it uses X.org, and it's main UI toolkit is QT, as well as having most of the same subsystems as a conventioal Linux distro would expect. This means that porting apps from GNU/Linux to Sailfish should be easier than porting from Android. Either way, Sailfish is a very interesting prospect indeed
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
God help you if you ever try Haiku OS.
If you gave me a choice between a printer and a giraffe with explosive diarrhoea, i'll get my ladder and my raincoat
I didn't intend to be witty or slam someone.
I wasn't trying to win a debate either. There wasn't an actual debate by any definition I know of.
Someone says 'we need an open platform' I say 'sailfish, bingo'
What am I a fanboi of exactly?
Your point can only be coherent if it is readily relevant to a particular point.
Your analysis of what my comment was, what my comment meant, and my personal status as some sort of fanboi are not apt.
In this case my comment is so entirely trite that there is not much grist for you to react to other than what you yourself are seeing.
In this case "bingo" just meant. You want an open platform other than android. here is an option.
I guess one thing keeping people from accepting Android's victory among Linux GUIs is that while GNU/Linux allows several different window management policies on top of X11, Android locks users into all maximized all the time. This policy works for some but importantly not all use cases. If you're trying to take notes on an e-book or other document, you can split the screen with one document on one side and your notetaking application on the other in any major X11 window manager, but not in Android. Even if a tablet is bigger than two or three phone displays put together, you can't split the screen. Even if you've docked the device to a big honkin' 24 inch monitor through a device's HDMI port, you still can't split the screen. What happens is that the Android Compatibility Definition Document allows applications to assume that the screen area never changes after an application is installed. Is this intended to get people to buy two devices, one for reading and one for writing?
In 2012 MS had 1% of the market, in 2013 MS doubled market share to 2%, but that hides the fact that MS went from 1.1M units in 2012 to 4M units in 2013.
Microsoft doubled market share in a growing market, nearly quadrupling the number of units sold between 2012 and 2013...
Ken
Can you replace your iPhone with it's paid apps with your android device and it's free apps? Doing more doesn't mean it can do the same thing. Also, just because your employer choose to with paid apps on the iOS device, doesn't mean there aren't suitable free apps for your iOS device.
Do you use your iOS devices in front of clients? Your employer may have spent money on your iPhone to improve your image in front of clients.
Ken
Is the only tablet up till now I would consider buying after my Thrive, that has a limitation of no removable battery.
It is very good.
Unless someone knows how I can get KitKat on my Toshiba Thrive, which is still a great tablet, going on its third battery.
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
here's your problem...you don't process the word "soon"
you say this:
NO ITS NOT...it's not an option at all...it **might** be an option "soon"
you comment as if something that **might** happen has already happened
that's bullshit...that's hype
Thank you Dave Raggett
From TFS:
Android is only "linux" in the sense that a poor man is a rich man. They're both men, but the former has so many limits compared to the latter that the day to day experience is in no way similar. Linux, the computer OS we consider on the same playing field as OSX and Windows -- and what people almost always mean when they say "linux" -- is on no more of a roll than usual. Until (unless... I really don't expect it to happen) there is an actual linux available for the phone where the legit owner of the phone can have root and can get at everything there is in the software and hardware, it's only linux in name -- the poor man. There are many reasons why the corporate and political world wants to keep us away from the actual telephone and radio hardware, and I can't see those going away -- they're worth far too much money. So that rules out the phones. Most tablets are similarly locked down, but with less reason, and again, I just don't see them as "linux." I can do a lot more -- a lot more -- on my linux desktops than I can on my various android tablets. And of course, I can't do much under iOS, either.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What semantic gymnastics you are trying to pull off. Why are you trying to imbue what I said with something other than what I said.
You misconstrued the bit I originally posted and then tried to tie it with something I wrote in response to you.
The original post is simple and too the point. I can't be responsible for your constructing another reality about what it all meant.
That is for you to distill for yourself.
In response to the OP I posted.
"Sailfish OS based on Meego will soon be installable on Android tablets and phones. Bingo."
There is nothing about that statement which patently false, fanboish, witty, or a debate point.
There is nothing misleading or unrealistic about the statement.
There is nothing in my statement which has anything to do with what is used or works in the tech world overall.
Although Sailfish OS is a linux based distro, I wasn't touting Linux.
I was trying to find something pertinent to the OP who wanted an alternative to Android OS I assume .
The statement doesn't make the tech world look stupid.
The statement makes no mention of the value of work of tech workers or anyone else.
The statement is not hype. It is called information. People can look at it or not as they will and see if the info has relevance for what they want.
I completely disagree with your vitriolic post.
I'm not sure what the point of it is. To attack me, whom you don't know. Why would someone wish to impugn a random person presenting simple information? To what end? Or is your point to rail against mock fanboi foes?
Incoherence does not make your case very well in either case.
Do you often pick random people on the internet to jump all over with vitriolic tirades? What is your goal?
Although you say seek as you say to present a coherent point, I fear you may have missed the mark since Ad Hominem attacks on random unknown folks on the web do not bode well for the logic or strength of ones own case. Too much labeling combined with non-existence of support for what you are saying is simply silliness.
Um, why? I'm very happy with my iPhone. (I presumably would be very happy with a high-end Android as well.) There's plenty of room in this market for various OSes, since the network effects are far smaller than with PCs, and a good app will wind up on Android, iOS, and any other market that gets significant.
I think we can have a stable environment with Android as numerically dominant, iOS having a good position at the high end, and a few other OSes. Niche applications, like eInk readers, will be Android variants for the same reason Linux gets into all sort of embedded applications: it's cheap, easily modifiable, doesn't need license negotiations, and it's good.
I really don't understand the fandom here. Get the phone/tablet you like, and expect continued support and improved successors. You don't need the competition to your favorite to fail; in fact, that's bad since it removes some competitive pressure. Yet I've seen fanbois for iOS, Android, and even Windows Phone (which has to be like being a Mets fan in 1962).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
hey man, it's not like I excoriated your whole existence
I *did* have a coherent point...about our industry and hype...that's where my rage was vented no you, Wild_dog!
Yes you exhibited fanboi behavior. Linux fanboi.
TFA seemed a bit like an ad for Linux...Android was developed by google, so a Gentoo user claiming that Android's penetration is a "win for Linux" was questionable. TFA was not what it seemed.
A commenter pointed out this and YOU responded.
Your response was a fanboi response. The GP raised a **legitimate point** and you answered as if your point **bingo** answered that criticism.
BINGO
"soon"
your point about Sailfish OS and Meego does NOT answer the GP's criticism!
Thank you Dave Raggett
It is more like a traditional GNU/Linux distribution. Just to take an example; if you want to install an app then nothing stops you from ssh:ing into the phone and install the rpm directly or through a frontend like yum or zypper.
The lack of appeal in doing such things just highlights some bad points that Linux developers don't get if they want to have it used more. Yum? Zypper? The names make zero sense as to the function of the service, plus they are odd/wanting to sound l33t as well. Intuitive it is not.
You can always do the same thing by clicking the install thingie in the store app. But what do I know, some people want choice.
It is more like a traditional GNU/Linux distribution. Just to take an example; if you want to install an app then nothing stops you from ssh:ing into the phone and install the rpm directly or through a frontend like yum or zypper.
The lack of appeal in doing such things just highlights some bad points that Linux developers don't get if they want to have it used more. Yum? Zypper? The names make zero sense as to the function of the service, plus they are odd/wanting to sound l33t as well. Intuitive it is not.
Can you install GIMP?
What on earth is "premium android"? Do you mean "custom ROM"? [...] The main difference is in the raw power of the hardware.
I don't know what noh8rz10 means, but I mean an Android device with enough "raw power of the hardware" to run a decent ROM. This means a fast enough CPU, enough RAM that the task killer doesn't kill Chrome as soon as you switch back to the launcher (possible exaggeration), and a responsive touch screen.
Every android user has access to the same software.
Not necessarily. There's Android with Google Play (OHA members), there's Fire OS (Amazon), and there's plain AOSP (everyone else).
Every apple user has access to the same software
Within less than a year after Apple stopped selling the iPod touch 4, it stopped releasing new versions of iOS for it.
and the same hardware.
Not necessarily. Apple's strategy for the low end of iOS has been to keep selling previous-generation products: the iPhone 3GS while the 4S was out, the 5C (iPhone 5 guts in a colored plastic shell) after the 5S release, and the non-retina iPad 2 after the iPad 4.
The reason they are falling behind is the same reason they fell behind in the 90s. They sell closed, proprietary tech.
So why haven't the video game console makers fallen behind despite their tech being even more closed than an iPhone?
As everybody knows, Linux is superior to FreeBSD :)
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I really don't understand the fandom here.
Easy: closed garden = please die now.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
If I put a 10" tablet on a stand and pair a keyboard, is it still a "handheld device"? If not, then why does a 10" tablet still labor under the UI restrictions of a 4" phone?
Samsung isn't making their own OS. Tizen is a Linux Foundation project. Yes, it's supported by Samsung and Intel. Samsung and Intel are also the two largest contributors to Android, aside from Google. Samsung's using Tizen as a replacement for BadaOS. In fact, there are two official Tizen APIs: the BadaOS API (the official NDK), which was ported last year, and HTML5/Javascript/JQuery. Samsung sold about 10 million low-end smartphones running BadaOS. Sometime this year, they're expected to release Tizen phones into that same market, but so far, they only have a developer unit available. They're also using it in the next generation smart watch, and a digital camera. Other companies are looking at Tizen as kind of a competitor to QNX in auto entertainment systems.
The point of Tizen is the same as the point of FirefoxOS: sub-Android smart devices.It's also not entirely open source: the SDK, for example, is published under a non-open-source license from Samsung. Some other non-GNU-compatible licenses cover other parts of the finished OS.
-Dave Haynie
Hopefully, Google and Samsung get together on making this a standard.
My gripe is that they haven't already. They've had since Honeycomb to do so.
Given that it's a two minute process (well, plus testing of course)
Does this sort of testing work flawlessly in the Android SDK device simulator, or does one have to buy a Galaxy Tab to do the testing? Perhaps part of the reason that not enough Android apps have the proper flag set in their manifest is that not enough developers own a suitable Samsung device.
I assume that you're similarly disdainful for anybody who uses a game console or handheld? A standard router?
I just read a report that claimed that 97% of mobile device malware was Android, and approximately none of it was from the Google Play store. It would appear that the walled garden is very effective in reducing malware. If you'd never use a smartphone you can't easily program, fine. Wanting everybody who prefers a walled garden over malware to die is fanaticism.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
i never get why the masses are always thrilled to see mediocrity beat down quality.
Perhaps we're just thrilled to see freedom to tinker beat down lockdown.
I assume that you're similarly disdainful for anybody who uses a game console or handheld?
Yes. Instead of a game console, one can choose a home theater PC. Instead of a handheld, one can choose a phone with a clip-on gamepad. Some clip-on gamepads even fold up like a GBA SP.
No one has ported it as far as I know, but it is technically feasible and should mostly be a matter of redesigning the user interface to work with the Sailfish interface guidelines.
no I have to look like a dweeb in front on clients with two different phones
the iphone does do one thing the android can't, tries to sell me Apple Store crap