Illustrating the Socioeconomic Divide With iOS and Android

An anonymous reader writes: "Android has a huge market share advantage over iOS these days, but it hasn't had as much success at following the money. iOS continues to win over many app developers and businesses who want to maximize their earnings. Now, an article at Slate goes over some of the statistics demonstrating this trend. A map of geo-located Tweets show that in Manhattan, a generally affluent area, most of the Tweets come from iPhones. Meanwhile, in nearby Newark, which is a poorer area, most Tweets come from Android devices. In other tests, traffic data shows 87% of visits to e-commerce websites from tablets come from iPads, and the average value of an order from an iPad is $155, compared to $110 from Android tablets. (Android fairs a bit better on phones). Android shows a huge market share advantage in poorer countries, as well. Not all devs and business are just chasing the money, though. Twitter developer Cennydd Bowles said, 'I do hope, given tech's rhetoric about changing the world and disrupting outdated hierarchies, that we don't really think only those with revenue potential are worth our attention. A designer has a duty to be empathetic; to understand and embrace people not like him/herself. A group owning different devices to the design elite is not a valid reason to neglect their needs.'"

Comments

People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

can afford to be apple fanboys, for a while at least.

Re:People with money

[Moblaster]

Studies have shown that most people who hate apple fanboys are themselves closeted apple fanboys who are subconsciously terrified to confront that fact.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

And people who can't become Fandroids? Got it!
 
Either way, you're just a fucking fanboy.

Re:People with money

[Hal_Porter]

People with money can afford to be coke addicts, for a while at least. Give 'em a month or so and both sets of people will be 'borrowing' from the relatives to feed their addiction.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer Windows Phone 8 over everything available. Being in IT for almost 20 years has seen me take on some strange preferences. I prefer Windows Phone as I said, I thought BeOS was gorgeous and still miss it (yes, I know about Hailku and ZevenOS), I use Linux on my desktops at home and at work, I download no apps because I don't need anything save the phone dialer and a texting app. Call me weird, but it is what it is. If you've never tried Windows Phone 8, I highly recommend it. It's not popular, but it's solid, original, and fun.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

People with money

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Note 3 are the best selling Android phones in the world at the moment. Both are cheaper off contract than the iPhone 5S, but not by a huge amount, and both are older models now being discounted. The 5S is price-comparable with Apple's equivalent and is likely to be the best-seller when it's widely available.

So the demoraphic isn't showing that only rich people can afford iPhones.

It's more likely that the wealthy areas are more socially conservative and tend to stick with what they know. iPhones have maintained a consistent interface longer than Android, and compared to Android, have a kind of unchanging retro appeal which is well suited to the "if it aint broke" school of middle-class conservatism.

TLDR iPhones have become the Toyota Camry of phones, a solid, unfrightening, and familiar choice for people who don't want to make risky choices.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you've never tried Windows Phone 8, I highly recommend it. It's not popular, but it's solid, original, and fun.

I have a Windows 8 phone (Lumia 625) , and can confirm you got one out of four right, shillboy.

Seriously people, if you're reading this, don't believe a word this guy says. WP8 is full of irritations - like the battery guage is wildly inaccurate and you'll end up with your phone shuting down with low battery half an hour ater it was reading almost full. The calender app is ridiculously limited and confusing, as are most of the standard apps. The Here GPS tool shuts down randomly while you're using it, nasty if you're driving somewhere and need directions. I could go on, but really, don't belive the promo posts here.

The thing's barely a smartphone and the only reason they're selling at all is beacuse the corps get them for free on the standard business mobile plans.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have a crap device. I've had several Windows Phones and never had an issue with any of them.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

They handed those things out like confetti in our office, and they're almost univesally disliked. Most people want to go back to the old candy-bar Nokias.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be the case for an particular model...

However - if you take all the cheaper models together, they have a far bigger chunk of the market. Example: I can buy an Alcatel Onetouch with Android 4.1 for €50 over here. It works fine, and is cheap enough to be affordable for a large group of people.

So - no. I do not think you will see much Galaxy S4 and Note 3 models in "poor" area's. However - there are a LOT of cheaper models running very recent versions of Android. So - yes indeed, the "People with money" remark is still valid!

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

So - no. I do not think you will see much Galaxy S4 and Note 3 models in "poor" area's.

Sadly, what you think does not change reality. Those ARE the best selling Android phones.

An many of them are being sold into your so-called "poor" areas. The Note 3 in particular has sold particularly well in Asian markets because it's so capable of replacing both a phone and a laptop for most people (and saving them the cost of a second device). I travel in Asia all the time - walk around Ho Chi Minh, Shanghai or KL and you'll see Notes everywhere, and u\in the hands of some very unlikely looking users...

I know Apple is trying to promote this meme that Android is only selling to poor people, but it's simply not true. It's selling to everbody, and for many different reasons, not just cost.

Re:People with money

[TheRaven64]

I've never owned a Windows Phone device (or a Windows-not-phone device, for that matter), but I've got a few friends at MSR and played a bit with them. The UI seemed nice, but it's hard to judge that sort of thing without a period of extended use. This criticism just made me laugh though:

The calender app is ridiculously limited and confusing

I have an Android phone, and there is no way from the stock calendar app to subscribe to a calendar from a link. The recommended way of doing this is to sync the device with your Google calendar and then have that sync with the remote calendar. I spent two hours trying to find documentation for how to get the calendar to just pull a .ics file from http and import it, because I couldn't believe that in 2014 anyone would ship a phone without this basic functionality.

as are most of the standard apps

As another example, the contacts app in Android has a 'me' vCard, but no mechanism for telling it that a contact already on your phone is you. Again, basic functionality that's missing. If you keep your address book sync'd by CalDav (or some other mechanism) then you most likely already have an entry for yourself, but the suggested way of doing this is to copy the data to a different card.

The entire mobile phone ecosystem is a clusterfuck at the moment. Microsoft shouldn't have a chance with two established players, but they both seem intent on producing utter crap.

Re:People with money

[Stephen Chadfield]

If you only need a "phone dialer and a texting app" you have no requirement for a smartphone at all. Those needs are met by much cheaper feature phones that will give you much longer battery life into the bargain.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a world of joy waiting for you...

The moment when you try to import a contact list into a WP8 phone and find out you can't do it without Outlook will be priceless.

Re:People with money

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an Android phone, and there is no way from the stock calendar app to subscribe to a calendar from a link. The recommended way of doing this is to sync the device with your Google calendar and then have that sync with the remote calendar. I spent two hours trying to find documentation for how to get the calendar to just pull a .ics file from http and import it, because I couldn't believe that in 2014 anyone would ship a phone without this basic functionality.

You're doing something wrong. My Nexus 5 has this capability, I tested it just now to make sure I wasn't seeing things when people invited me to places last week, and I accepted it on my phone calendar. Maybe you're using an older version of Android?

Re:People with money

[TheRaven64]

Okay, so how do you do it? I'm running 4.4, with the stock calendar app. I don't have a Google Calendar account sync'd with it, I want to just subscribe to a calendar. I've found lots of forum posts saying you can't - you have to add it to your Google Calendar and then let it sync indirectly. So, since you can do it, how about sharing the mechanism? To make it more concrete, here's a calendar URL that I want to subscribe to from my phone: webcal://www.talks.cam.ac.uk/show/ics/6330

Step by step instructions please, since apparently it's easy...

Re:People with money

[ormondotvos]

You don't know much about addiction.

Re:People with money

[RavenManiac]

I store all my contacts on the SIM card. Move SIM from old phone to new phone. Done. No Outlook needed. Worked with Moto, Symbian, W8, Samsung...

When you try too hard because you think it's complicated, give up and do the easy way instead.

Re:People with money

[DaveV1.0]

That those are the best selling NEW android devices doesn't matter. They are a small part of a larger pie. There are many more LESS EXPENSIVE devices and people who can't afford a new Android device keep using their old Android device and buy newer devices in the secondary market which doesn't show up on sales reports.

The mistake you are making is only accounting for new device sales. Undoubtedly, some of the those new device sales have been financed by the selling of the old device to a third party, be it a private party or a broker.

Re:People with money

[pnutjam]

as opposed to upper class conservatism, "if it ain't broke, how can I nudge things towards broken and get hired to pretend to fix it."

Assertion of the day.

[Anonymous Coward]

A designer has a duty to be empathetic; to understand and embrace people not like him/herself.

Surely that depends who's writing the cheques.

Re:Assertion of the day.

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I was just about to respond to that myself, though differently.

I believe in being empathetic, but I don't believe anybody has any kind of duty or moral obligation to be.

I think the worst form of greed is expecting somebody else to be more generous than you yourself are willing or able to be. Asking is one thing, but expecting or demanding is another.

Re:Assertion of the day.

[sjames]

I would say everyone has a duty to be. I'll agree with your second statement.

Re:Assertion of the day.

[plopez]

The designer only has a duty to the Corporation, blessed may it be, otherwise the blessing the Holy and True Free Market Capitalism will not be bestowed upon him. Any sense of obligation beyond that is Heresy and Saint Rand will surely become wroth with him.

Re:Assertion of the day.

[ormondotvos]

Duty's not the word you want. You're referring to a built-in tendency to be social, because it's worked so well, in general, as a gene-protector.

But nowadays, when we know about the tendency to be social, we can always carefully evaluate its worth, and if we're willing to be a sociopathic asshole, with all its demerits, we can do so.

Re:Assertion of the day.

[sjames]

No, duty *IS* the word I want. From a moral/ethical point of view, we have a duty to at least act with empathy towards others.

You make it up in volume

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a false dilemma.

I stopped reading after ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... "Manhattan, a generally affluent area."

Re:I stopped reading after ...

[breeze95]

... "Manhattan, a generally affluent area."

Manhattan is generally an affluent area. What's the problem with the statement?

Funny

[nospam007]

"the average value of an order from an iPad is $155, compared to $110 from Android tablets."

The funny thing is, that often it's for the exact same thing both of them bought.
Sites check the user-agent and rich guys (IOS) are shown a higher price for the same objects, as it has been noticed quite a few times.
So if you want a bargain, you need a user-agent-changer for your iPad to mimic a poor people's OS.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, apps I found that were ad supported are available without ads on iOS for a couple bucks. Maybe it's swinging more towards center now but it's one of the reasons I moved from Android to iOS.
 
So I pay a few bucks more? It's worth it. It'd be different if I were living paycheck to paycheck but aside from iTunes albums I put more on the table as a tip at Red Robin than I pay for apps for my iPhones most months.
 
I see people who'll poison themselves with premium cigarettes who act like they're getting away with something by not paying for apps.
 
Oh well, I don't lose sleep over it.

Re:Funny

[TheRaven64]

Almost all of the apps I have installed on my Android phone are from F-Droid. I tried setting it up without a Google account at all, but there was one app (irritatingly, my Internet banking one) that required a Play Store account. I also have the Amazon AppStore installed for its free app of the day thing (it was NeoCal a few days ago, which is a really nice calculator app, but I use a calculator so rarely that I'd probably never have bought it).

The biggest limitation with iOS for me though is it's lack of some decent equivalent of OSMAnd - a map app that lets me download entire countries worth of vector maps and can do offline navigation, so I won't run up huge bills using it when abroad.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

This should be modded insightful. I've worked at two places that engaged in this practice, and they get away with it because iOS folks don't seem to care about paying 33%-100% more for the same functionality than they would with Android.

Re:Funny

[ralphaostrander]

Sort low to high.

Re:Funny

[BasilBrush]

Sites check the user-agent and rich guys (IOS) are shown a higher price for the same objects, as it has been noticed quite a few times.

That would be interesting if true. Do you have a link to a reputable source with actual examples? Or is this just a myth?

Amazing Insight

[Ralph Wiggam]

People with lower incomes buy less expensive devices and spend less money? Who could have ever guessed? Brilliant work by Slate.

Re:Amazing Insight

[St.Creed]

Actually, it's in direct contrast to other research that said most people with iPhones had a lower income than most people with Android phones: those who can afford it the least sometimes tend to buy the most expensive stuff based. But that was a few years ago - perhaps it has changed in the mean time.

Re:Amazing Insight

[Jmc23]

No, it is not.

Whether you live in an affluent neighbourhood and/or spend lots of money may be correlated with Income but ...

Re:Amazing Insight

[sessamoid]

Actually, it's in direct contrast to other research that said most people with iPhones had a lower income than most people with Android phones: those who can afford it the least sometimes tend to buy the most expensive stuff based. But that was a few years ago - perhaps it has changed in the mean time.

Gonna have call BS on this one. I need to see a link for this assertion.

Re:Amazing Insight

[rolfwind]

I would say it's a variety of factors. I got relatives this $99 Aldi tablet because they are almost completely computer illiterate so anything beyond email was a bonus. I'm not that near and dear to them as to afford them ipads.

I expected the hardware to be completely half-assed, but for the price it was surprisingly good, to the point that I could put Netflix on it and it would play videos. The problem was not the hardware. Granted, the screen was anything close to beautiful unlike recent iPads (or even old ones), the battery wasn't huge, but sufficient for 90 minutes of netflix. The CPU was okay.

The problem was the experience was abysmal. Had some anti-virus preinstalled that slowed shit down. Skype kept forgetting it's password. A ton of apps listed in searches in the Google Play store weren't compatible with my device despite being for a tablet (don't know why). My relative came back to me with their tablets nearly unusuable, one had a browser with over 50 tabs open. It became no longer a matter of just closing the app, or closing tabs (more and more would spawn, wasn't malware or bad websites, just previous tabs and the close button became unresponsive on them). A lot of the built-in apps were always on and sucking the life out of its battery. Apple got a lot of bitching for it's limitations but they got a lot of it right. (Still, I think some limitations should only be defaults able to be turned off by the power user).

I didn't give them a Google Store name/password simply out of their own protection. So they can never buy an app and have to come to me, but they honestly are just happy with what they have so it's unlikely.

So it's not just a money factor. I think anyone can afford .99 apps and the like. When you have people who don't know what computers do, they are likely to hunt down the cheapest options (or be given the cheapest options by others) and buy them and never go past that.

Re:Amazing Insight

[Enry]

Android phones haven't been inexpensive until fairly recently. I wanted to test T-Moble without spending a lot of money or porting my phone over, so I got a fairly decent Android 4.3 phone for $150. It doesn't have a removable battery or SD card expansion, but for what I wanted it was perfect and I've decided to keep it and give it to my daughter in a year or so when she's old enough to have one.

Re:Amazing Insight

[Mr0bvious]

I think this has some basis, but probably varies between different cultures and social groups.

Here in Australia I see this all the time (so it's only anecdotal evidence) it's very obvious that the low tier middle income earners and also the 'dole' receivers seem to always have the latest and greatest electronic devices, spend lots on entertainment etc. Whereas those with higher incomes tend to be somewhat more thrifty with their spending.

I assume this is not a coincidence - I think it's due to the same motivating forces that encourage people to seek and work towards higher incomes place higher value on their money and therefore tend to be more thrifty. Obviously there is always the other motivators such as wanting to appear and feel equally or more wealthy than those who are more wealthy.

It's probably also influenced by the fact that the more wealthy set their sights on larger big ticket items and are more willing to forgo the trinkets as they aim for the items that the less wealthy see as 'out-of-their-reach' (think houses, college degrees, early retirement, etc).

I myself forgo trinkets (new phones, the latest big screen TV, latest model car) and am more than happy to keep and use my existing gear since I have no need to feel or show my wealth. I know MANY people who have and earn a significantly lower income than I yet their priorities seem to lean more towards having and showing off their latest gadgets (which from my point of view do the same task equally as well as the previous trinket they just replaced).

I don't discount though that this may just be what I have experienced and other cultures and social groups may be quite different, but I'd *assume* it's the same throughout the majority of the western world.

Re:Amazing Insight

[jp10558]

I suppose it vary significantly, and may be me justifying liking new things, but here goes:
Your longer term big ticket items suggested are not necessarily more valuable than smaller items (though I don't know how "small" a car really is in comparison).

My thought process is as follows - There is significant uncertainty in whether a house or given college degree or early retirement is going to be worth the time or money, especially years on.

Houses just crashed a few years ago, and for lots of people it was a losing proposition. College degree costs vs jobs and actual increased income seem to be on a similar bubble path right now. Early retirement may not be desirable due to enjoying your job...

Your "trinket" items are also perhaps subject to significant potential disputes as to the worth of them. If all you want is a cell phone, any $30 e-bay flip phone is fine. But I would argue there is a significant value to be had in having a smartphone. It's not worth it for everyone, but a smartphone can do tasks the flip phone just can't. Newer smartphones don't get as big a bump, but there are apps that each successive phone can run that some older class of phones just can't. Go back 4 years on Android, and you might have gotten a 2.2 OS. There are many apps that are 2.3+ with functions in them that are 4+. This may be of no value to you, but I would argue there is a non "trinket" value to be had here.

The latest Big Screen TV may (and there are variables) use less energy due to being LED backlit vs Plasma or LCD. It might have a better integrated set of tools like Netflix and Amazon. It might play 4K media instead of 1080p or 720p. These are actual upgrades, though again, it superficially may look like it's doing the same thing. At the most superficial level a we all should still have CRTs. That's a potentially valid position, but I don't think we can say having a newer TV is a waste of money.

The latest model car is potentially the weakest "toy". I have a 2012 Legacy and am seriously thinking of upgrading to a 2015. Why? 1) CVT so better MPG by ~3MPG. 2) crash avoidance system. 3) Adaptive cruise control. 4) Built in back up camera. 5) Cross traffic sensors.

Now, this is a special bunch of upgrades in a particular model, and not there for every new model year. But each year, some car is coming out with non-trivial improvements to safety, fuel economy, and features. Buying new cars isn't an investment - you'll get no argument from me that it's a money loosing proposition. But no more so than buying vegetables at a grocery store and making a stir fry at home vs a value menu meal from McDonalds. That is to say, newer devices can have real benefits.

Now I agree if we're talking fashion, jewelry, the latest Madden release(but only for one year back, then there's the value of still having multiplayer over the net)...

I also think about inflation. Many smaller gadgets will last and function for years, they don't lose their value as fast as the cost goes up. Most consumer electronics don't follow this pattern, but many appliances seem to (Kitchen appliances such as Bosch Mixers etc), as do tools etc.

For many new "toys" it's buy it now and have it, or hope I can buy it later... Things I own would only go away if something catastrophic happened, and I'd still have lost the money I could have had instead - and money that's likely loosing purchasing power the longer I hold it.

Anyway I've rambled on, it's late, and we might actually agree.

Re:Amazing Insight

[metlin]

In economics, it's called the Veblen Effect, where a highly priced good is valued more because of the socioeconomic status that it confers.

So, you will see people paying a lot of money for an otherwise overpriced luxury good.

Re:Amazing Insight

[interkin3tic]

Not every hypothesis needs to be shocking to be reportable. Sure, lots of people could have guessed, but how many people actually proved it?

Re:Amazing Insight

[Geeky]

Funnily enough, I upgraded to an LED TV from a CRT just last week. My old TV was 14 years old, still a good picture and the sound was better than the new one (would need a soundbar to match it). I only did it because I was getting fed up with watching streaming stuff on the PC, and was finding that subtitles, scores etc are now displayed so small that they were hard to read (broadcasters expect you to have a bigger TV now, obviously).

I could have upgraded much sooner. I buy toys when I want them. There's nothing for me to save for, really. Interest rates are so low you're almost losing money by saving. I have a house, and the jump to upgrade that by moving would be too great (and bring too little benefit). So I agree, in the main - might as well have what I want when I want it.

And in context of this article, I'm an android user. Just prefer the interface. I prefer having live widgets on the home screen, and there are some useful apps that don't exist in the iOS world due to the sandboxing of applications. I like the auto backup of SMS to email, for example, and don't think an equivalent is possible in iOS (may be wrong, but couldn't find anything).

Re:Amazing Insight

[nukenerd]

My father-in-law always pays top price for everything and would not dream of trying to negotiate or walking away from an obvious rip-off. He would see that as loss of pride.

And he is as poor as a church mouse, so he does not buy things very often. Of course, paying top price for everything, and his general lack of financial sense, is part of the reason he is poor. If he wanted to buy a mobile phone (although he never would), someone, anyone, would only need to say to him that it should be the most expensive possible iPhone and that is what he would get, even if it took all his life savings; to do otherwise he would consider a betrayal of the other person's "friendship".

This just in:

[Anonymous Coward]

Rich people have nice things.

Google's ANdroid Playstore

[FudRucker]

is full of half-assed quality adware, this is based on personal experience with an android tablet i bought recently, for example there was no app for taking screenshots, so i search the Play Store for screenshot apps, instead of finding a couple to choose from i find dozens of them and most require i root/unlock my tablet in order to function, i think i will wait until i can get a more open build of arm tablet so i can install Debian on it or just throw in the towel on electronic gadets and live like an Amish farmer

Re:Google's ANdroid Playstore

[Jmc23]

Well,something is off about your story. Unless you bought a really cheap tablet without ICS then you didn't buy it recently.

Unless of course you're one of those people that would rather do a websearch than consult the manual you get.

Re:Google's ANdroid Playstore

[Anonymous Coward]

Press and hold the Volume down button + power button to take a screenshot in Android, you fucking idiot. LOL

Re:Google's ANdroid Playstore

[rolfwind]

From what I have seen on the cheaper android stuff, it's like Microsoft vs Apple all over again from the 90s.

Just from the POV of cheaper hardware but at the tradeoff of bloatware/computer monitoring/antivirus and the like vs a walled garden.

Re:Google's ANdroid Playstore

[noh8rz10]

i don't have time to consult the manual. i have a girlfriend.

Misleading map

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of the commenters on the Slate article point out that the map is drawn in such a way that the red (iPhone) tweets are drawn on top of the green (Android) ones. That creates a misleading picture.

Re:Misleading map

[MeNeXT]

Sorry don't have mod points but I'd mod you up.

What I see with the limited data is that the average sale will bring you more from iOS device but you will make more sales from Android devices. Android has a better penetration on more demographics than iOS. Which is common sense that the more expensive devices will sell to more affluent individuals. No kiddin Sherlock.

Is this news? I bet if we compared BMW owners to Kia/Hyundai owners we would come out to the same conclusion. For sure BMW owners would pay more for tires than Kia/Hyundai owners but the total revenue from Kia/Hyundai owners on tires would be more than BMW. BMW owners would have a higher average price for sure.

Re:Misleading map

[BitZtream]

And what you're ignoring is the better penetration on more demographics are ... demographics that aren't buying. So while it has 'bigger numbers', they aren't useful numbers.

Go turn your radio up to 11 and fanboy about how awesome it is.

Re:Misleading map

[Plumpaquatsch]

If you look at the heatmap of downtown San Francisco and you click off Apple you'll see that there are plenty of android users in wealthy areas. The apple red just blocks you from seeing the android blue underneath. So IMHO, Android has a lot of wealthy users but Apple only has wealthy users.

Well, somebody with an Android has to mow the lawn.

The real news here is the death of windows phone

[tuppe666]

I you look at the picture is the Moto G took 6% of the UK market in three months. What it does not say it that the phones it replaced where the cheap Windows phones which upto then had been carving a tiny niche in the market before then. No wonder Windows has become free and Nokia have started selling android.

The fact that Apple fanatics are clinging to past glories is not news. Show me a value phone...or even a watch. Otherwise just watch your market share continue to shrink.

Screenshots are built into Android

[dwheeler]

There's no "app" for screenshots because it's built into Android itself, and has been since 4.0 (which was released many years ago). It's volume down + power button. Just Google for "Android screenshot".

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[FudRucker]

just tried it, does not work on mine, Jellybean-4.1.1

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[aristotle-dude]

There's no "app" for screenshots because it's built into Android itself, and has been since 4.0 (which was released many years ago). It's volume down + power button. Just Google for "Android screenshot".

And? You have been able to do a screenshot on the iPhone/iPod Touch since version 1.0 using the power button + home button.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[Anonymous Coward]

And what? He is offering a tip to the OP. He is not attacking your precious iPhone.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[wonkey_monkey]

What about power+home, if you have a physical Home button?

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[DNS-and-BIND]

How did it take until version FOUR to do something as mind-blastingly obvious as take a screenshot? Even Windows has been able to do this as far as I can remember.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[tlhIngan]

There's no "app" for screenshots because it's built into Android itself, and has been since 4.0 (which was released many years ago). It's volume down + power button. Just Google for "Android screenshot".

And until late last year, you could get brand new Android phones with Gingerbread on them. Even older than ICS.

Assuming users all have ICS+ phones is not a safe assumption. At least Gingerbread users are unlikely to be accessing the Google Play store, so developers don't need to concentrate on it anymore. (The Google Play survey only covers phones that accessed the Play Store the past 2 weeks or so, so those ancient phones are not something developers need to worry about).

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[jedidiah]

The thing I took away from this is that Apple users are just stupid. They will pay extra for a 3rd party item that does something the base product already does.

So it's little wonder that Apple users spend more. They're idiots that wear thier ignorance like a badge of honor and they love to demonstrate that they can waste money.

They're the suckers that are born every minute.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[BitZtream]

Well, that just makes you stupid, not Apple users.

Your point may be valid, but since you can't buy a 'screenshot app', its impossible to say that apple users would buy an app that duplicates builtin functionality.

But hey, why pull your head out of your ass, you'd rather just rant on about how your favorite product is far superior to someone else's favorite product ... regardless of solid evidence that you're completely wrong and utterly ignorant of the subject you're talking about.

In short, you're post makes it clear your just a mindless douche, one of the 'omg@#$^@#$^@B linuxAndroids you a re looking for' morons.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple answer: It didn't. Many Android devices had screen capture included in the carrier-ware, or in a custom rom that you would use to remove the carrier-ware. So very, very few people even realized that Android did not have native screen capture capability until version 3, which was the tablet only version.

I still don't understand how Apple developers screwed SSL up for YEARS without anyone noticing. I fully expect every iOS user to have their online accounts hacked if they ever logged in before the SSL patch from a month ago. I know many people who were, and pretty much had to abandon their accounts.

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[Anonymous Coward]

Which model do you have? Note devices require the SPen to take screenshots.

I admit the timing has to be exactly right on some Android phones for it to work properly. So ideally, you should google for instructions to take screenshots on your particular Android device (just in case, there are any variations to it).

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[Plumpaquatsch]

The thing I took away from this is that Apple users are just stupid. They will pay extra for a 3rd party item that does something the base product already does.

You take that away from an Android guy looking for a third party app for his Android, and one iPhone user saying it was in the OS from the start. Gee, what am I supposed to take away from your post?

Re:Screenshots are built into Android

[Plumpaquatsch]

Simple answer: It didn't. Many Android devices had screen capture included in the carrier-ware, or in a custom rom that you would use to remove the carrier-ware. So very, very few people even realized that Android did not have native screen capture capability until version 3, which was the tablet only version.

Yeah, all they had to do was Google for "my Android phone model + my provider + screenshot" - nothing could be more obvious.

Apple is so 1%...

[mi]

In other words, Apple is for the 1%...

And sign me up for that...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I work in technology more, the more I want to remove technology from certain people's hands. Have you seen the comments on CNN or BBC news stories? Heck, even reviews for software in various app stores? If you work in software, how does it make you feel that you're partly responsible for putting easy to use software in those people's hands?

Re:The real news here is the death of windows phon

[Karlt1]

The fact that Apple fanatics are clinging to past glories is not news. Show me a value phone...or even a watch. Otherwise just watch your market share continue to shrink.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...

iPhone is for people

[Anonymous Coward]

with more money than sense.

Re:iPhone is for people

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the man who comes from the land of SUVs, 70 inch TVs, 1300 cable channels and Sam's Club...
 
Some people really have no perspective.

i literally have 50+ iphones

[Anonymous Coward]

So what does that say about me?

Re:i literally have 50+ iphones

[Tony Isaac]

It probably says that you waste a lot of money!

Re:i literally have 50+ iphones

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, totally missed the point of the whole article.

Lesson

[PopeRatzo]

So people who use iOS devices do more shopping with them than people who use Android devices.

Is anyone surprised? I'll bet they get their bodies waxed more, too. Probably spend more on moisturizer and bath oils. Drink more wine rather than beer. Watch more episodes of Girls and Ellen.

I bet we could come up with a whole list of things they do more.

Re:Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Android users could probably afford iPhones if they didn't drink so much malt liquor and do so much heroin.

Re:check your apple privilege

[Anonymous Coward]

iOS is easier to bring something up on quickly.

Re:check your apple privilege

[Anonymous Coward]

Android. ANDROid. Why not Gyndroid? This is problematic. Every time you use\develop for that evil platform the Patriarchy's War on Women and non-white males wins another battle. If you care about social justice, then you will not use anything tainted by Google.

This data is about Twitter not platforms

[joeflies]

The only conclusions that I can draw has to do with the people who use Twitter. While twitter's user base may be sufficiently representative of the overall mobile user space, I don't see how it can correlate to wealth of platform adoption until other factors are also ruled out.

Re:This data is about Twitter not platforms

[ArcadeMan]

Let's all remember that Twitter starts with "Twit".

I'm gonna launch my own service, called "Idiotter".

Re:This data is about Twitter not platforms

[wonkey_monkey]

Many a tweet makes a twat.

Re:This data is about Twitter not platforms

[breeze95]

The only conclusions that I can draw has to do with the people who use Twitter. While twitter's user base may be sufficiently representative of the overall mobile user space, I don't see how it can correlate to wealth of platform adoption until other factors are also ruled out.

Their assumptions are based on economics and geography. For example, most of the Tweets in Manhattan (a high income area) comes from iPhones. In comparison, most of the tweets in Newark (a much lower income area than Manhattan) comes from Android devices. Therefore, iPhone users are more wealthy than Android users. Of course other factors weren't taken into consideration making the author's conclusion dubious.

It's not just economic; it's personal privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

"iOS continues to win over many app developers and businesses who want to maximize their earnings. Now, an article at Slate goes over some of the statistics demonstrating this trend. A map of geo-located Tweets show that in Manhattan, a generally affluent area, most of the Tweets come from iPhones. Meanwhile, in nearby Newark, which is a poorer area, most Tweets come from Android devices."

You don't seem to get it. Yet.

Android is not "free" at all. For the vast majority of users, to have Android means to be a unpaid whore...and unpaid whore for Google. Google uses you. Google pimps you out for money. You get reamed. You get to play with a few baubles... a few apps which you think are 'free'. It's rather like the deal the original indians got when they agreed to sell Manhattan for trinkets.

It isn't SMART to choose Android. It's the ultimate stupidity, in fact. Unless, of course, you don't respect yourself and your privacy and are Ok with being tracked and cataloged and bought and sold 24/7. Myself...I'd rather pay a few extra dollars and be free of the targeted ads. I'm worth that. Now if I could just sue Google for flying over my house taking pictures, recording my ip address as they drive by, and asking my friends to give them pictures of me and my telephone number. Google ranks up there with Monsanto as a corporation which should be driven out of business.

"If you would not give your body to any passerby to do with as he wished, then why do you give your mind?" -Epictetus

Re:It's not just economic; it's personal privacy

[Arker]

You're right about android. Where you are wrong is thinking iOS is any better.

It's not. It's the same crap at a higher price. With a little extra spit-shine.

a car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people would love a Ferrari, but they are expensive, so they drive Toyotas instead.

I know of VERY few people who lust after an Android device. They lust after Apple, and buy Android because that's what they can afford. The low end of ANY market is always a lot bigger than the high end. Cars, houses, phones, whatever. Toyota outsells Ferrari by quite a lot too.

Re:a car analogy

[Dutchmaan]

Many people would love a Ferrari, but they are expensive, so they drive Toyotas instead.

I know of VERY few people who lust after an Android device. They lust after Apple, and buy Android because that's what they can afford. The low end of ANY market is always a lot bigger than the high end. Cars, houses, phones, whatever. Toyota outsells Ferrari by quite a lot too.

oh that's a load of horseS#$T, I know a LOT of people who lust after flagship android devices, The Samsung Galaxy line and HTC models are amazing. iPhones are fine devices to be sure, but they aren't the "Ferrari's" of the world no matter how much your ego would like to believe that.

Re:a car analogy

[amiga3D]

There are nice android phones. What the iOS world lacks is cheap ass junk phones. The android world is full of them, shitty little cheap smart phones. Yeah the S4 Samsung is really nice and the HTC one is cool but for every one of those there are 5 or 6 of the cheapo throwaway ones.

Re:a car analogy

[Anonymous Coward]

There are nice android phones. What the iOS world lacks is cheap ass junk phones. The android world is full of them, shitty little cheap smart phones. Yeah the S4 Samsung is really nice and the HTC one is cool but for every one of those there are 5 or 6 of the cheapo throwaway ones.

Lexus has cheap ass junk cars. They call them Scions.

Ferrari has cheap ass junk cars. They call them Chevys.

Not every vendor wants to relish on the cheap side. Some do just fine catering to the upper end.

Re:a car analogy

[amiga3D]

Toyota makes Scions and Lexus. Ferrari only makes Ferraris, GM makes Chevys. If you're going to do a car analogy at least get it right.

Re:a car analogy

[lonecrow]

No kidding. Anyone who has used Android for any length of time and then has to help their mom with their iPhone know just how crappy the UI on the iPhone is. Everytime I use an iPhone I feel like the developers are playing some kind of cruel joke on me.

Does anyone else have that feeling? I just don't get why people think iPhones are better on any metric at all.

Re:a car analogy

[Dutchmaan]

Actually Fiat owns Ferrari, also Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Ram and SRT

Re:a car analogy

[Belial6]

I agree. The iPhone UI has been behind Android since the second version of Android. As for why people would think iPhones are better, there are 2 1/2 reasons that I can think of on why some people think they are better.
1) Appeal to authority. Steve Jobs successfully convince people that he was great a UI design, and if he says something is the right way to do it, it is the right way to do it. It is the fabled Jobs RDF.

2) Apple products are good products. I think there are better products out there, but they are good. I did a couple of month experiment where replaced my PC and phone with Apple products. There were most definitly some things that were brain dead in the Apple products, and I was happy when I switched back to Windows 7/Android, but I can say that if Windows/Android disappeared tomorrow, we would all be just fine. And, other than the amazement that an OS somehow just up and dissappered, we wouldn't be thinking too hard about having to use OSX/iOS after relatively short breaking period. This is the 1/2 reason. Because OSX/iOS are just fine, it makes it reinforces #1.

3) Third party support. iPhone third party support simply crushes Android third party support. I'm not talking about apps. I am talking about hardware accessories. If someone sells cases, they sell iPhone cases. Then maybe they will sell cases for a limited selection of Android devices. There are toys for iPhone. There are alarm clocks that plug into iPhones. There are speakers that plug into iPhones. For the kinds of people that like to buy accessories, the iPhone has something that is just not available to Android. The fact that places like Toys R Us and Target have large sections dedicated to the iPhone accessories also helps with #1.

I do think that the accessory market is starting to change. By going with bluetooth, device makers can support iPhone, and all of the Android devices in one fell swoop. They also don't have to license the iphone propietary connector and get greater freedom in the shape of their device. The consistant form factor for iPhone will keep it as a favorite for those who want to sell cases for a long time though.

Exactly... the idea is wrong too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Be more empathetic to the lower end Android users by writing software for their shitty devices?

No, how about being empathetic to them by pushing for a higher minimum wage, fixing the education system, etc. so they can afford something a tad better whether Android or not?

Money is a Valid Reason

[ohnocitizen]

A group owning different devices to the design elite is not a valid reason to neglect their needs.

A group spending less money on your app is a valid reason to prioritize other groups first, or exclusively (depending on the cost of development and potential money on the table).

Re:check your apple privilege

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the obvious phallic symbolism of the Android logo, standing erect and solid like the triumphant penis of a rapist after his midnight prowl, green with womb envy and intent to destroy in the name of masculinity. Contrast that with the Feminine flows and curves of the artistic iOS which Google has tried in the past to appropriate as their own.

Misleading map

[TheNarrator]

If you look at the heatmap of downtown San Francisco and you click off Apple you'll see that there are plenty of android users in wealthy areas. The apple red just blocks you from seeing the android blue underneath. So IMHO, Android has a lot of wealthy users but Apple only has wealthy users.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean yes, there are expensive Android devices. You can have a nice, premium, phone or tablet if you wish. I loves me my Galaxy Note 3 but it certainly costs a lot, more than an iPhone even. However there are also cheap Android devices. You can get a smart phone for $100 or less (talking full price here, not subsidized). So Android phones are an option on most budgets.

Until recently, all you could get with Apple was the standard iPhone which is like $600-700 full price. Even the new "c" model is $550 full price. That puts them out of range of most people who want prepaid phone plans, which is often what people with lower incomes go for.

Well those people are also likely to spend less on apps. After all, if your finances are such that you wish to buy an economical phone, you probably don't want to ruin it with spending a ton of money on software.

So ya, that will push the average down on Android phones. Personally, I see that as a big positive to Android. There's something to be said for a thing that can be available to a wide segment of the population. Exclusivity to the affluent isn't something I consider to be positive.

Re:No kidding

[tepples]

However there are also cheap Android devices. You can get a smart phone for $100 or less (talking full price here, not subsidized). So Android phones are an option on most budgets.

Plus how much a year for the data plan? A lot of these prepaid carriers refuse to activate a smartphone on an occasional-use voice-only plan. People end up having to carry two phones: a smartphone to run apps on (with Wi-Fi data and no cellular service) and a dumbphone to make and receive calls on.

Re:No kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, really? The USA really does suck when it comes to phones.

Re:No kidding

[TheRaven64]

Sounds like the USA sucks for phones. In the UK, I'm on a pay-as-you-go plan. I top up £10 every few months and pay 3p/min for calls (about 5), 2p/text (about 3.3) and 1p/MB for data (about 1.6). Most of the time I'm near WiFi if I want to do something online, so I rarely turn on the mobile data for my phone, and when I do I rarely use more than 5-10MB. Aren't there any carriers in the US that do pay-as-you-go data, so if you don't use any you don't pay for any?

Re:No kidding

[Anonymous Coward]

There are MVNOs in the U.S. that offer similar prices (the sub-contract from the big carriers). H2O Wireless offers 5 cents per minute calls, 5 cents per text, and 10 cents per megabyte.

I don't know why MVNOs exist. I assume it's because of some regulation.

The big carriers are notoriously controlling, especially the CDMA ones (Verizon and Sprint). The GSM carriers generally accept any GSM device (barring some frequency compatibility problems with T-Mobile). The CDMA carriers only allow phones that they've contracted with manufacturers. The selection is horrid.

On top of that, Verizon MVNOs apparently aren't allowed to accept iPhones and pay-as-you-go phones. They aren't even allowed to mention that service is provided by Verizon. CDMA MVNO phone selection is typically terrible.

I'm starting to think it's time to vertically separated communications hardware from the communications service (make wired companies maintain hardware, MNVOs provide the service, no restrictions on devices).

Re:No kidding

[Xest]

Yep, it's an abuse of statistics. The fact is that the Android market is so much drastically larger than that of the iOS market (nearly at 80% marketshare now with Apple down below 15% IIRC?) that you can still have drastically more more wealthy Android users than iOS users and there still be room for a bunch of less wealthy users to drag the average down.

An equally nonsensical stat that could tell the opposite story is to sum up the wealth of all smartphone users using each device type - do this and I assure you Android users will hold drastically more wealth than iOS users overall but it's equally nonsense to then declare iOS users a poor segment of society as a result.

This is manipulation of stats to make a story, rather than news of any actual merit or worth.

Re:No kidding

[Plumpaquatsch]

Yep, it's an abuse of statistics. The fact is that the Android market is so much drastically larger than that of the iOS market (nearly at 80% marketshare now with Apple down below 15% IIRC?)

No honey, pretending that the theoretical market based on marketshare (and that's even ignoring phone isn use) is more important than the actual measurable market, that is an abuse of statistics.

Re:No kidding

[Xest]

Marketshare IS the measurable market, it's the amount of devices being sold.

What you're calling the real market is an utterly arbitrary set of definitions used to define "real".

You must be an Apple fanboy, because only a fanboy could make such an obscure mental leap in trying to redefine reality to suit their predetermined bias.

Re:No kidding

[Plumpaquatsch]

Marketshare IS the measurable market,

Not for apps. PERIOD.

Cry me a river

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is a modern day equivalent of an old take about if enough monkeys bang on keyboards eventually one will write a Shakespearean masterpiece but in this case if enough people bang on a touchscreen they will find a way to complain about every possible imaginary situation.

Or maybe we have finally achieved Nirvana because if poor people's biggest problem today is that mobile app developers aren't catering to them enough then we can say we have solved all the worlds major problems and are now only dealing with petty ones.

Trading time for money

[grantspassalan]

Most people in this world have to trade their time for money in order to pay their bills. This includes people who spend their time writing programs for phones and computers. Why is it so surprising that people that can afford Apple products are also able to spend more money?

It does not cost significantly less to make the hardware of phones and tablets from one company to the next. What costs a lot of money is making good software to run on this hardware. It is mostly because the software on Android is "free" that makes these devices cheaper than Apple products. This is also the reason why Android customers expect their apps to be free also. Android however is not really free for the same reason that over the air broadcast television is not free. For Google and broadcasters the users are the product and the advertisers are the customers. Both are selling the user's time. In the case of Google, the users private information as well as their time is sold to the advertisers. Besides huge profits, Google is using a large fraction of their substantial pile of money to provide "free" software to deliver more of their product (eyeballs and information) to their customers the advertisers.

You pick a platform based on market size.

[tlambert]

You pick a platform based on market size.

PC's historically have had a lot more software available for them than Macs because you have a larger target market. If you target one platform, you target PC's, unless the market for your application is graphic artists, musicians, etc., then you target Macs. If you target two markets, you target PC's and Macs, and you don't target Linux.

If I target iOS because I have a product that will work on a tablet/mobile platform, then I have the largest possible market. I'm guaranteed a practically forced upgrade to the most recent version of the OS the platform can run, and I'm guaranteed that the device is going to have the same set of sensors and input methods as every other device.

I'm guaranteed that, even though it's not in AT&T's best interests, given their contract model, to not have the carrot of me not being able to run the latest OS unless I re-up my contract, I'm going to get the latest OS anyway, and screw what AT&T wants, and screw their business model, because that's what Apple wants.

For Android, I have to target a lot of versions of the OS; I practically have to target whatever the version was at the time they did the repo code freeze on the android sources, and started the platform port. I have to target different screen resolutions. I have to target different input methods. I have to target different camera capabilities, resolutions, directionality, and so on.

Practically speaking, each android device is an island. Some have a lager market share. If I wanted to target 6 platforms, 2 of them would be iOS, 1 of them would be iOS on iPhone 5 (different aspect ratio), and the other 3 would probably be Samsung Galaxy products (2 phones and a tablet, based on market share).

If you could resolve the android version difference problem, that'd go a hell of a long way toward making android competitive. It would require changing the android development model, and some of the partnership agreements.

Instead, Google is concentrating on forcing branding onto the boot screen, and forcing apps onto the device by default. The apps are a good thing, in general, since they tend to rationalize the user experience, but not the same way the VGA standard rationalized the user experience on PC's: minimally, there should be resolution and aspect ratio requirements for android - they matter a hell of a lot more to establishing an applications base than putting up a logo at boot time.

The walls on Google's walled garden are also rather porous. They are more "We won't let you play with the toys we have" rather than "we will keep the bad guys out". And it shows. It shows that other people can run android app stores, that they do, and that there's a huge amount of malware out there in those place. They show in the balkanization of the market by OEM vendor stores, and by carrier stores.

It's crap that I can buy an iOS device, and get "The Apple Experience" - a uniform thing across all the devices - but that I can't buy an android device and get "The Android Experience" - unless you call a balkanized chaos "The Experience".

So yeah, as a developer, I don't target android unless I'm Roxio and have more money than God to spend on programmers for platforms where I'm going to end up selling 50 copies of the game that everyone has, and then sell follow-on modules on a monthly basis until the cows come home, in order to monetize that investment over a long (I don't care how long; I'm not living hand to mouth, I'm Roxio!) period of time.

So yeah, android has shit apps. Make it a uniform platform, instead of me trying to develop for the Mac and the Apple IIe and the Ohio Scientific, and the Orange Micro, and the TI-99/4A, and the Timex Sinclair Z-8000, and the Tandy CoCo, and the Wang word processing station, and the ... or keep your balkanized mosaic of "Choice, man! Yeah! Choice!" and write your own damn software.

Re:You pick a platform based on market size.

[R3d M3rcury]

You pick a platform based on market size.

It's not quite so simple, as you point out.

If you target one platform, you target PC's, unless the market for your application is graphic artists, musicians, etc., then you target Macs.

This is the important part. You don't target based on the number of devices sold--the market share--you target based on the platform that your intended audience is using. It is the rare application that will force people to forgo the newest things or switch platforms. There were plenty of DOS developers who eschewed Windows. Where are they now? There were some Mac developers who ignored Mac OS X for as long as they could as well. Eventually, they either updated or disappeared.

Also, as an aside, it can depend on what you're trying to accomplish. Take Bungie, for example, who made a name for themselves on the Mac platform before going to Windows and eventually getting bought up by Microsoft. It was a heck of a lot easier for Bungie to make a name for themselves on the Mac platform than it would have been for them to do it on the Windows platform because there's a lot more competition and it can be tough to shout over the cacophony of other developers. So if I were developing games for Xbox live, for example, I'd be looking at Windows mobile to try to make a name for myself.

I can't buy an android device and get "The Android Experience" - unless you call a balkanized chaos "The Experience".

While I agree, I'd argue that I can get "The Android Experience" from Google's Nexus line of phones. I can get a "Motorola Experience" from Motorola, a "Samsung Experience" from Samsung, etc. This is different from the PC world where everybody has the same "Windows Experience." The problem is that it leads to a commodity environment where all you can really compete on is price in a race to the bottom that nobody wins. Needless to say, Samsung and Motorola don't really want to be in a market like that.

Re:You pick a platform based on market size.

[tlambert]

You pick a platform based on market size.

It's not quite so simple, as you point out.

If you target one platform, you target PC's, unless the market for your application is graphic artists, musicians, etc., then you target Macs.

This is the important part. You don't target based on the number of devices sold--the market share--you target based on the platform that your intended audience is using.

Clearly, as an app developer, my intended audience is people with the willingness to part with money for my application, which is generally not the people who buy on the basis of price sensitivity.

But even foregoing that, if I develop for iOS, I basically have to tarket 7 platforms, while if I develop for android, I have to target many hundreds of devices instead.

Unless I'm Roxio, and my strategy is to own an app category on all devices, and I can afford it, due to an existing iPhone success, my ROI on developing for android is very low.

Can you identify a single market segment, other than "poor people who have no money to spend on apps" who would be interested in me developing my app for android instead of iOS?

Another metric

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have better jobs that offer health insurance use iPhones.
People with lousy jobs (and income) use cheap Android.

LOL

[ArchieBunker]

You think Apple doesn't sell advertising metrics and other stats? I guarantee Apple does the exact same thing Google does but they don't tell you.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does Apple sell advertising metrics? Google's business is advertising. Apple's is hardware. I saw probably over two hundred targeted ads today, most of which were in Gmail and Google.

Re:LOL

[BitZtream]

So they violate their own terms of service?

No, try again fanboy.

Re:LOL

[immaterial]

Why Apple and Amazon have trouble selling their ad services...

The lack of data both [Apple and Amazon] deliver is frustrating for marketers because these notoriously opaque giants sit atop incredible troves of information about what consumers actually buy and like, as well as who they are and where they live. One person familiar with the situation said Apple's refusal to share data makes it the best-looking girl at the party, forced to wear a bag over her head.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they just don't mention what they don't want you to know in their ToS. You should really run some traceroutes on your iOS device, it's quite an enlightening experience.

And at least it's super easy to block Google's targetted ads. I haven't had any ads on any Android device I've owned in years. That option just doesn't exist for iOS.

Re:check your apple privilege

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back to reddit you fucking neckbeard coward.

Av rev per app, Android $1,125 and iOS $4,000 ...

[perpenso]

You make it up in volume. This is a false dilemma.

Actually you do not get enough volume to make it up, at least as of August 2013. According to http://www.forbes.com/sites/tr...

Number of downloads per app, Android 60,000 and iOS 40,000.
Average revenue per download, Android $0.01875 and iOS $0.10.
Average revenue per app, Android $1,125 and iOS $4,000.

Why I chose Android over Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

I could easily afford an iDevice, but chose an Android phone because it offered the features and applications I wanted without all the drama. I have lost count of the number of co-workers who started off with a simple device like an iPod, then found themselves buying more and more Apple branded hardware assembled by Foxconn. An iPhone here, an iPad there, a Macbook over there. Why? Because "I like the design" or "I want all my hardware to match" or "I miss Steve Jobs" (RIP). Meanwhile, Apple's stock price soars higher and higher while your co-workers do the same thing.

No, Slate, household income has little bearing on iPhone vs. Android and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Choosing to not fall into what seems like a cult or drug addiction to us outsiders probably weighs more heavily on the minds of your technical readers. Now, to be fair, there are people in the category of "too much money, not enough brain" who view the latest iDevice as a status symbol. Those people probably have bigger problems in the grand scheme of life than which phone they use to tweet their latest fashionable selfies at Starbucks to their tweeps.

Apple == Stupidity Tax?

[Progman3K]

Tech-savvy people agree that dollar-for-dollar, android is better quality than Apple.

Apple has much better marketing, though, so they've got that going for them

Re:Apple == Stupidity Tax?

[RavenManiac]

Perhaps that's so. Maemo, Meego and Symbian are better than both. I like Android devices because I can use standard cables and standard peripherals, mount it on my desktop and view/hack contents, instead of having to decrypt/jailbreak, etc. to get into an iPhone. Best thing about Android: No iTunes!!!!

Is there a stupid tax for Windows 8 phones? Nokia Lumia 521 far exceeds expectations, more so with Lumia 1520. How many apps do you need anyway?

Re:Apple == Stupidity Tax?

[BasilBrush]

Apples's marketing must be indeed be far better, since it gets them a better result than Samsung with one tenth the marketing budget.

http://static.knowyourmobile.c...

In other words:

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most of my peers walked into the Apple ecosystem, for various reasons. I think they're stupid sheep and drama-llamas, so I bought an Android phone. Also, I hate Starbucks."

WHUT

HAHAHAhahahahahahaha! *cough*

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh curse you; now I have to clean a whole bunch of food crumbs off my desk

Elysium

[ChadSmith4920]

I promise you, one day I'll take you to Elysium where nobody gets sick and everyone has an unlimited iTunes account.

iPhone more appealing because less bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

Android vendors don't care about user experience, only about packing as much bloatware as possible onto their phones.

Spain loves Android

[nadaou]

Interesting that the map shows Spain to be so solidly in the Android camp.

I wonder if iOS is doing something funny there to skew the data, Apple has abandoned the market, or if it is local preference.

https://www.mapbox.com/labs/tw...

Re:Spain loves Android

[wanax]

Having recently been in Spain (with my unlocked iphone 4 in tow), I can tell you that the support for iphones (at least in Barcelona) is terrible. It took trips to 4 different stores to find an iphone 4 compatible prepaid mini-sim (if I had the iphone 5, I would have been SOL and had to pay for roaming data from my US plan). None of those stores prominently placed iphones (although they were available, at least through vodaphone, even the 5 new, but you couldn't use a prepaid sim in it).

I tend to think that the issue is that Spain has a really fractured retail environment, both with a lot of providers (vodaphone/movistar/orange/yoigo and lots of 3rd party options) and with a lot of kiosk type stores. Vodaphone has their own retail outlets, but most of the others seemed to be based in malls, and the malls in turn seemed to have one 'basket' of stores, depending on who owns the mall. During my search for a mini-sim for example, I was sent on a goose-chase from store to store with directions that turned out to be pretty approximate (wrong address, but within about 300 meters of the correct address).

Given that retail environment, I think it's pretty natural that android, with its myriad of slightly customized, provider branded phones etc, fares a lot better than iOS at the moment... People want something that can be supported by their local mall/kiosk.

Re:Spain loves Android

[Windwraith]

Well most phone operators will give you deals for Android phones, not iPhones. Apple products have always been notoriously expensive for Spain. Also, Spain is quite impoverished right now, which doesn't help "luxury" things like an iPhone getting sold.

Apple Stores only started having a presence well past the iPod days, so there isn't that much of a cult following for it as in other places. Of course there are regional differences, you will see more Apple presence (and following) on Madrid and Barcelona than other places.

Also, many developers are unemployed (Spain has a ridiculous unemployment rate since the Real State Bubble popped that has been exacerbated by the latest labor reform), and can't face the yearly cost of the Apple SDK. For that reason, as well, most "cheap money-grabby apps linked to certain service, company-or-product-or-tv-show" are developed for Android in Spain, since they rely on the ease to find a Java developer desperate for a paid job and the higher amount of downloaders for that platform.

So, in short, you'd say it's local preference due to lower income reasons. Apple is trying as far as I can tell, as new iStuff tends to be available shortly after the American release, which is a rarer sight than you'd expect. I remember having issues finding any phone (vendor-locked sale or not) using Android 4.x in January of 2013, where iPhones were at their latest US release in every shop I visited.

Re:Spain loves Android

[Windwraith]

I can confirm this, and that's considering Barcelona is a hotter spot for Apple than other cities, where Apple only has a small corner in a number of shops. Their presence is growing slowly but steadily, but the market here usually prefers those local kiosks for availability and price, and they predominantly offer Android devices of most brands.
Towns and cities with Apple Stores usually have only one of it, whereas there are dozens of sellers for Android devices scattered all over, predominantly in malls as you said.

Offers are usually pretty cheap subsidized phones, and even for free with binding contracts, and they even renew your phone once every year in several cases, for minimal or no cost. However, as you probably realized, this stops being nice and shiny the moment there's any issue or nonstandard need whatsoever. Every side service, from tech support to repairs, is sub-par. Most people will go around with busted phones waiting for a renewal instead of bothering to repair it, which is notoriously complicated, requires a lot of time (and trips) and it usually ends just in replacing the thing entirely.

The prices, the complicated repairs, and the large availability kind of created a culture of changing phones very regularly, even in people with limited income. Good repair shops exist, but they tend to be little electronics workshops in some little corner that you only learn about by word of mouth, and are only used when you are attached to your device for some reason (sentimental value, niche features, etc), or when someone wants to unlock a phone to use with other provider's SIM card.

better metric

[plonk420]

if you're going to sell an app, IMO, you should look at platform marketshare by country, among other things.

Re:better metric

[BitZtream]

Thats just stupid.

If you're selling an app, you look for everything and decide how you'll make the most money.

You don't pick one aspect ... so that fanboys like you can have their way ... and ignore the fact that that large market share group ... doesn't buy dick. Or you can target the slightly smaller group who actually spends money.

You utterly missed the entire point of the article.

It didn't have to be this way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google targeted the lowest common denominator with Android. And they got it.

Android is a phone, iPhone is a fashion accessory

[RavenManiac]

Apple is a marketing company. They're great at convincing people to pay more for older tech that Apple claims is new--they're customers don't know, don't care.

With Android, it's more about what you can do, and do well, without paying too much.

There are no iPad limitations

[SuperKendall]

Still, I think some limitations should only be defaults able to be turned off by the power user

They are - millions of people jailbreak iOS devices. Then they have full control and can adjust anything.

Anything less and it's way too easy to social engineer people to do things like enable side-loading and download content from a shady website...

The thing I really don't like about Android is that it's trying to continue the PC era which was an utter disaster for the non-technical population of the world. They deserve to benefit from technology without fear, not be reliant on a technically ept subset of the population.

The technically inclined people will always be able to do what they want with a device they physically control. They need to give up said control for devices that other people own and use.

Ignore majority of the world at your peril

[iamacat]

Most of human beings with access to Internet are using Android. They may not be spending most of the money right at this moment, but that is going to change very fast. Or, if your platform gets superseded by competition on iOS, alternative platforms may let you live to fight another day. Remember, Facebook didn't pay 19 billion for $1/year revenues of WhatsApp.

Re:Screenshots on HTC

[Anonymous Coward]

On certain HTC models it's power + quickly pressing "Home".

Re:Av rev per app, Android $1,125 and iOS $4,000 .

[AmiMoJo]

As usual the Forbes article is full of speculation and bullshit.

While the company does not break out revenue numbers on their apps, recent data in their financial filings seemed to indicate somewhere around $900 million in pay-outs to developers âoeover the last 12 monthsâ

So they are just making a vague guess about Android revenues, not based on any actual figures. Also that only includes payments that go through Google, not other in-app purchases or non-Play purchases. Yeah, you can buy Android apps from anywhere, including the Amazon app store or individual company's web sites, and I have done so in the past. Sat nav apps are a good example, with high value maps and voices being sold without any interaction from Google.

You also have to consider that in some countries the iPhone has very, very little market. If you want to write apps for people living outside America then Android may be not just a better choice but your only choice.

"economic divide"

[stenvar]

It's pretty hypocritical to use iOS usage to illustrate "the economic divide", since "economic divide" and "inequality" is the rallying cry of the modern American left. Those wealthy iPhone users are also much more likely to be "liberals".

http://blog.chron.com/techblog...

What that illustrates again is that many so-called "liberals" are using the supposed plight of the less well off as a smokescreen to advance their own agendas.

Re:"economic divide"

[jbolden]

What are you talking about? iPhone users are more likely to be Republican than Democrat. They are more likely to be social liberals but that has nothing to do with economic policy. There is nothing hypocritical from decrying the economic divide regardless of whether you are benefiting from it. The hypocrisy would be to claim to decry it in general and then to rebel against most all specific policies to correct it.

Re:"economic divide"

[stenvar]

What are you talking about? iPhone users are more likely to be Republican than Democrat.

Read the f*ing link.

There is nothing hypocritical from decrying the economic divide regardless of whether you are benefiting from it.

Of course it's hypocritical to say "making lots money is bad" and "the rich are corrupting the political process" when you yourself are making lots of money and are rich.

And there is no "divide"; the income distribution is smooth with a long tail, and year after year it shifts to the right. Inequality in the US has been increasing, mostly because more people get rich here than elsewhere.

The hypocrisy would be to claim to decry it in general and then to rebel against most all specific policies to correct it.

They aren't proposing policies to "correct it", they are proposing policies to enrich themselves. When they do it without understanding it, they are hypocritical; when they do it deliberately, they are just frauds.

Re:Av rev per app, Android $1,125 and iOS $4,000 .

[perpenso]

While the number of apps downloaded is coming from 3rd parties we are still left with Google's financial reports indicating $900M paid to developers compared to Apple's claim of $5,000M paid to developers.

Plus its not just Forbes indicating a huge disparity.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://techland.time.com/2013/...
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ay...

You can usually get cheap data

[Sycraft-fu]

Our student at work has a plan that is like $30-40/month or something that is unlimited data (I don't remember how much high speed, they throttle at some point), 400 talk minutes and unlimited text. It's a prepaid deal.

Re:You can usually get cheap data

[tepples]

That's the issue. Someone currently paying $120 per year for voice only would have to upgrade to $360-$480 per year that you quote for voice and data. That dwarfs the price of the phone itself.

Manhattan

[Anonymous Coward]

is an extremely affluent area, both compared to the neighbouring areas and to the rest of the US. His statement is valid.
  tha fact that he then derives from that : rich people like iOS, poor people like Android is sheer stupidity OTOH. Android comes on smartphones and tablet in price range $100-700 while iOS only comes on smartphones and tablets in price range $500-800, so yes rich people buy expensive stuff, poor people buy less expensive stuff. WOW MUCH NEW, SO INFORMATION !

link or it didn't happen

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very curious to see who had the balls to say that people buying $700 smartphone were poorer than people buying $100-600 smartphone. Please Show me the data.

Re:check your apple privilege

[nukenerd]

the Feminine flows and curves of the artistic iOS

I thought they were metrosexual.

Same with $25,000 handbags

[walterbyrd]

Fashion slaves, with money to burn, buy all kinds of useless, overpriced, crap.

Apple Nurtures Elitism

[Anonymous Coward]

And people who use Apple products would just as soon take a s*** on the poor.

My first reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

"Holy jumpin jeezus, what kind of people give a shit about things like this???" Seriously, some of the posters here are pretty friggin' passionate about a made-up issue that simply shouldn't matter to anybody who doesn't profit from the sale of these devices.

I dunno, maybe I'm just having a bad day, but maybe this is the last straw for me. I think I've finally outgrown Slashdot. I just came from several other /. stories, one of which was polluted by a bunch of moronic "I HATE audiophiles! They're worse than wine snobs! It's been proven that audio cables cannot change what you hear." postings and the other filled with rants about the "broken patent system," from Wile E. Coyotes who obviously didn't know the difference between a design patent and a trademark.

When I first joined Slashdot, back when pterodactyls ruled the skies, I could look forward to near-daily discussions of new tech that I actually learned from, threads that were often rich with interesting comments from experts in their fields. But today, so much of Slashdot is just -- this. Excruciatingly emotional reactions about stupid shit from arrogant dickheads who can't even tell how little they know. Most of the postings on this page seems to sum it up -- a relatively small number of rational people being sucked into navel-gazing debates about meaningless bullshit with people who apparently consider their opinions to have value, while presenting themselves as fucking idiots. You know who you are. To paraphrase Asimov, free speech on the Internet has grown to mean that my ignorance is just as important as your knowledge.

I feel like a troll leaving a message like this, but I feel justified in the luxury, because this is likely to be a one-time thing -- this may be my farewell to Slashdot. I don't feel at home here any more. I just can't deal with you fucking idiots any longer. I just wish there was a place to interact with the rest of you who are interested in rational, mutually beneficial discussions of new technology & media without having to deal with the FI's constantly interrupting their betters. Sadly, today, that place is probably not on the Web in 2014. What ever happened to MIRC?

iOS vs. Android, and vice versa.

[tqk]

I currently have five moderator points ("Use 'em or lose 'em."). I think I'll use 'em to down-mod the very article/submission.

-5 Flamebait.

No freaking duh

[neminem]

"People with more money, on average buy things that are more expensive. News at 11."