iOS and Android Combined For Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter (macrumors.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The research firm Gartner has crunched some numbers and found that Android and iOS accounted for a record 99.1% worldwide market share in the second calendar quarter of 2016, which is compared to 96.8% in the year-ago period. What some may view as even more shocking is that Android accounted for 86.2% of the market share in the second quarter, up from 82.2% a year ago. Meanwhile, iOS lost some ground as it dropped to 12.9% market share from 14.6% in the year-ago period. It's no surprise that Windows and BlackBerry have been losing market share. They dropped to 0.6% and 0.1% market share worldwide respectively. Just six years ago, BlackBerry and Symbian operating systems were industry leaders. Now, they're industry losers. Which third-party operating system has what it takes to take on the establishment?

Comments

We live in a 2 OS society

[The-Ixian]

Want to buy a third party? hahaha, go ahead, throw your money away!

Re: We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kane.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[im_thatoneguy]

The question is can Google move Android/Chrome to the desktop fast enough to capitalize on their phone dominance. Apple isn't showing any interest in OSX anymore. Linux has to wait for someone to win and then copy.

Essentially you have Google and Microsoft in a duel where the first to finish assembling the gun in front of them wins. It looks like nothing is happening but as soon as one of them gets an OS and app library that solves both desktop and mobile the race will be over in a near instant.

Major innovation started and stopped with the shift to capacitive touch/multi-touch touch screens and the availability of 2G Edge data. People scoff at Windows Mobile 5 using a stylus, but anyone who has tried to use a resistive touch screen with their finger knows why styluses were necessary. Apple got there first but their first-mover success is rapidly evaporating and they've lost all advantage they once had on hardware quality and design both in mobile and the desktop market.

So the question becomes who gets Photoshop first? Windows Mobile as a Universal Application or Google as an android app for the Chromebook?

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[ITRambo]

Couldn't Adobe put out a web only version of Photoshop that would "run" on anything, if they really wanted to? They would have to have some serious cloud processing power. But, why not?

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[BronsCon]

... and bandwidth... I often work on PSDs that are a couple GB in size, or more.

Re: We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

At less than 15% we're getting real close to a 1 mobile OS environment. Given Apple's recent behavior in blocking app updates for no reason, it's quickly becoming a question of "why the hell develop for Apple?"

Firefox is at less than 10% market share and already no one targets it. If it happens to work in Firefox, great! If not, who cares?

Given how much more expensive developing for iOS is than Android we are rapidly approaching the "who gives a crap about Apple" point. Apple is going to need to start supporting APKs soon or be left in the dust.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Opportunist]

Yes, what we do absolutely need on the internet is more insecure software.

Anyone. Anyone but Adobe.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything on from the project would live on the server. Really, all they need to show you is what's in a viewable area and the buttons. Bandwidth for a zoomed in pixel could be the same as the bandwidth for the same screen space of a 1Mx1M pixel picture. Which is the real advantage for them because they can build licenses with zoom restrictions, bandwidth limits, and compression quality for the viewable area screen.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[farble1670]

Essentially you have Google and Microsoft in a duel where the first to finish assembling the gun in front of them wins.

Chrome nor Android is a desktop OS replacement.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[thinkwaitfast]

Why? Honest question as I haven't used either. Has anyone tried recompiling cygwin for them?

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[AK Marc]

You store the file on the server, do the work on the server, and all you do is display it locally to work on it, and download a local copy occasionally.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[BronsCon]

And, to display it locally? You need to send all the layers to the browser and, BAM, there you have it, you're essentially sending the entire PSD. Plus, have you looked at Adobe's cloud storage pricing? CC for Teams is the cheapest option at $75/seat for up to 100GB storage per seat. I'll pass, thanks.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[rtb61]

Nah, there is no such thing as an operating system for typical consumer targeted appliances, it pretty much disappears in the background. M$ is dead on consumer appliances and with the Windows 10 probe leaving a permanent memory of 'M$ watching you masturbate' in everyone's minds, never able to cum (tee hee) back. Android with it's someone messy java layer looks to be a lock in. Now can that java layer be fixed to provide better access for high end games and be an extension to a more typical Linux distribution like Ubuntu, to provide greater access to interactive content.

Apple of course is not so much loosing market share, their high end market remains the same, they are simply not picking up the rapidly expanding low end of the market for smart phones, where the much more competitive and diverse Android systems are taking by storm (so larger market and Apples percentage drops but they retain the same sales because their part of the market was already buying smart phones years ago). Apple pushing privacy was a really smart well timed moved and did real damage to M$ on consumer products (they now hate using windows no matter what the public relations firms claim, that whole windows anal probe 10 a really stupid move by M$ and now demanding people pay for the probe even more insulting, paying to have their privacy stolen, talk about arrogance, mind boggling).

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

No you don't need to send all the layers to the browser you just send a composite image of the display buffer to the browser.

Re: We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is simply, even at 15 % market share , iOS generates nearly double the App revenue of Android for a developer - ie 4x - 6x per user.

Couple that with it having a simpler QA environment , it's something of a counter intuitive no brainier .

For most Android phones it's a few social media Apps, and the web browser that soak up much of the user activity .

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[BronsCon]

If you've got a very low-latency connection, sure. And I do mean very, as to say that anything with higher latency than a single hop on a LAN is going to feel VERY slow to your typical Photoshop artist. Put a digitizer stylus in an artist's hand and have them try it on a computer that can't give them immediate feedback; they'll tell you it's unusable.

But, even ignoring that, the cost for storage? Yeah, no... Again, I'll pass.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[AK Marc]

I've seen demonstrations of gaming as a service, where you play on a game server in a datacenter, and only see the graphics displayed locally. Works fine for Batman Arkam Asylum, not sure why you'd think that Photoshop would be so much harder to display. Gamers are pretty demanding as well.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Solandri]

Linux has to wait for someone to win and then copy.

Android is Linux. It's what Linux is capable of if the developers of the GUI actually give a damn about making it easy for non-programmers to use. It's been simplified a bit too much for desktop use. But putting back what they stripped out should be a lot easier than having to develop it from scratch.

Like immortality, Android has achieved the market dominance Linux advocates have always dreamed of, just not in quite the way they wanted.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[im_thatoneguy]

The problem is Apple is overly complacent.

Today you can write a top app for Windows UWP, Android and iOS in short order. You can even maintain an app on all 3. But these are really truly "Apps". And the dev effort is "Only" a couple million for most. They're glorified websites by and large. Apple is happily sitting on the premium customers and losing market share but enjoying app parity or even superiority. The question becomes though what do you write for when you want to write the next Autocad or $3,000 program? I think companies will stop seeing iOS as a given when faced with substantially higher dev costs for multi-platform development vs quick and easy apps. I expect sometime soon as apps are expected to do more for there to be a second round of winnowing to one dominant OS again.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[BronsCon]

The pen and paper experience of using a digitizer tablet is easily broken by processing latency on a loacl system, doingit remotely simply will not work. Networked games and remote gaming services use prediction algorithms to compensate for latency; if that was a viable solution for drawing, we'd already see it implemented.

Let me put it this way: if it ever happens, if Adobe ever does it, I'll eat these words. If it's actually successful and sees any meaningful adoption, I'll pay for a year of it for you.

And, yet again, the cost for storage? Nope.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

Photoshop? Are you sober? Can you see anyone... a.n.y.o.n.e. doing image editing on a phone? Its like writing software on a phone or writing a term paper on a phone. It's as easy to do as cooking a turkey in a microwave oven. No one does it because that's not the best use of the device. Photoshop on a phone. Lite laptops connected to data servers are the way, with phones for all the convenience of phones. People want reliable first and then cheap. If its not reliable, then they let the phone face get smashed or drop the phone in the toilet. No loss. After that they want cheap. Microsoft failed miserably on the first, Apple failed on the second (sometimes the phone really does accidentally fall in the toilet and gorilla glass doesn't last forever: when you need a new phone and you are looking at the same features for hundreds less, hundreds less wins).

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Dahamma]

Apple isn't showing any interest in OSX anymore.

Wait, what? Apple is on target to make well over $20B in revenue on Macs this year. The upcoming release (Sierra) has Siri and Apple Pay integrated (and a preview release of a new filesystem to replace HFS+ on SSDs, APFS). How the hell is that not showing interest?

And here's a really fun stat: while Apple has between 7-9% share on laptops UNITS, they have ALMOST 50% SHARE ON LAPTOP REVENUE. Market share by units is much less interesting than revenue. High margins have always been Apple's bread and butter, they obviously don't need a majority of mobile or laptop unit sales to be a $600B company.

Re: We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, and I'd imagine in the US too, it's always iOS first; the people who make the decisions and most of the devs use iPhones and iPads (and Macs for the development). Linux on the servers, unless the client insists upon Windows, and Apple kit to actually do the work.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

i actually prefer resistive touchscreens and a stylus

much much faster response time. Why that is so, i do not know

haven't used ios much, but considering how obnoxious apple is with their software, i don't expect anything userfriendly

having used android though, for about ten years (ever since the milestone came out) i have to say OH DEAR GOD WHAT A FUCKING PIECE OF CRAP

it's like they neglected all the cornerstones of a good user interface and after a dozen iterations suddenly remembered them, trying half-assedly to implement them

of course, after you've written the core, solving fundamental problems isn't possible.

documentation is almost non-existent ("lol why you need documentation, everyone asks on stackoverflow now" is the standard response. I am not sure if i should be laughing or crying.), fragmentation ruins compatibility (yeah, remember when they chose java for its "write once, run everywhere" idea? 'cause i sure do), performance is laughable (remind me again why a bytecode/vm-based os is a good idea on a battery-powered device? for security? not that modern cpus provide such functionality, but even so, security on android is pathetic).

i hate modern software. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Linux is trying... the kernel at least is somewhat decent. Boots fast, boots anywhere. The rest of the ecosystem is shaky at best.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

High margins have always been Apple's bread and butter, they obviously don't need a majority of mobile or laptop unit sales to be a $600B company.

Which is completely irrelevant to the customers.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Plumpaquatsch]

High margins have always been Apple's bread and butter, they obviously don't need a majority of mobile or laptop unit sales to be a $600B company.

Which is completely irrelevant to the customers.

But it is relevant to the argument that Apple doesn't care about Macs or macOS. Which in turn is relevant to the customers.

Not to mention that "OS X" is the core of all of Apple's productOSs.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Plumpaquatsch]

Want to buy a third party? hahaha, go ahead, throw your money away!

Well, unlike voting for a third party, with buying you actually get what you paid for instead of what the majority bought - even if what you got turns out as useless as predicted by others.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[stooo]

>> I've seen demonstrations of gaming as a service, where you play on a game server in a datacenter,

As a demo, with a datacenter nearby and a big connection, sure.
As an everyday use, available everywhere, everytime, not so sure ...

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need Cygwin on Android, which already uses Linux. The real problems are Android's security model, and a lack of standard tools.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[farble1670]

The real problems are Android's security model,

How is Android less secure than Linux?

and a lack of standard tools

Android is based on Linux but it doesn't claim to be "unix". So yeah if you expect you log in the a terminal on Android and run sed and awk, no. That being said you can install busybox and get all of that.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[farble1670]

What I wrote probably isn't fair. What I should have said is that if you are a power Windows or Linux (or *nix) user, Android nor Chrome is going to be a replacement. They are both of the trajectory of limiting what a user can do for simplicity and security reasons.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Android less secure than Linux?

You definitely misunderstood me. I have 2 Android devices myself, and neither one has any known way to get root.
Android is too "secure" to use as a real Linux. A large part of the file system can't even be read.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[david_thornley]

The key is "premium customers". If you're trying to market a $3K program, you're going to want to target people who can pay $3K. In general, you can get a lot more money out of the premium customers than out of the non-premium ones, because you know that they have enough money to go premium and are willing to spend it.

It's great that people can get a low-end Android phone or tablet for a lot cheaper than the iOS equivalent, but people who buy the low-end stuff because it's cheap aren't the best people to try to get as customers, particularly for a high-end product. (When I was young, there was a lot of golf shown on network TV on Sundays. It didn't attract all that much audience, but the audience was known to be willing to spend money on the stuff advertised, so it was worth showing golf instead of something more popular that the network couldn't sell the same value of ads for.)

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[Dahamma]

Which is completely irrelevant to the customers.

This thread is about Apple's interest in OSX. Being completely cynical about megacorporations in this case just reinforces my point: if money is what matters, OSX (recently renamed macOS to align their other products, iOS and tvOS) is still *highly* relevant.

Re:We live in a 2 OS society

[arglebargle_xiv]

Which third-party operating system has what it takes to take on the establishment?

Obviously it's Windows Phone. I mean, Microsoft believe in it so much that they're made it the standard UI for desktop/laptop PCs, so you know it's got to be a winner.

But But But!!!

[MightyMartian]

Any day now, Windows Phone and Blackberry are gonna like totally rule the world!!!!

Re:But But But!!!

[zlives]

people don't buy OS, just interface or functionality. who knows what 6 years from now is going to look in this market!!

Re:But But But!!!

[mattyj]

And Blackberry is making Android phones now.

I keep waiting for Blackberry to change their name and start pretending they're someone else.

Re:But But But!!!

[sanf780]

As with many other people's preferences, you end up with a smartphone that runs the software you want to run. Windows Phone never had much if any support by Google, while Android and iOS market places, or walled gardens, have software by Microsoft (access to Exchange, Skype for home and for business, Office among others). Third party software vendors did not embrace Windows Phone either. Tinder is not available as far as I can tell.

Re:But But But!!!

[BronsCon]

Tinder is not available as far as I can tell.

What would be the point? Who wants to hook up with a Windows Phone user?

Re:But But But!!!

[Opportunist]

That's going to be the day Linux takes over on the Desktop because you get your favorite distribution for free with every purchase of Half Life 3.

Re:But But But!!!

[sanf780]

Does "love" (1) of any boundaries? Or of race or religion? Then it probably does not know of phone OS either!

(1) Quotation marks are needed as this concept has different definitions depending on who you ask. "Friendship" has a new definition since Facebook was launched.

Re:But But But!!!

[BronsCon]

Does "love" have any boundaries?

No, but apparently humor does...

Re:But But But!!!

[Jason Levine]

I know you're joking but Blackberry's problem was that they DID rule the world and thought that since they were on top they didn't need to make any changes - that the market would always clamor for what they offered because they ruled. By the time they actually faced reality, it was too late, they were a distant third behind Android and iOS, and were falling further behind. Had they not taken their being #1 for granted, they might have stayed on top, but hubris did them in.

Windows is just an also-ran whose company thought they could rule the mobile OS world because they dominate the desktop OS world.

Re:But But But!!!

[Jason Levine]

They'll call themselves Raspberry.

As a bonus, that'll be the sound they'll make when anyone reminds them of how they used to dominate the mobile phone market.

Re:But But But!!!

[stooo]

>> people don't buy OS, just interface or functionality.
more precisely, People don't buy MS and RIM OS's :)

Re:But But But!!!

[UnknownSoldier]

> Does "love" (1) of any boundaries?

Most people probably agree that love "confined" to the boundaries of adults is a "Good Thing" (TM).
A few sicko's want that boundary expanded to include animals and children.
Yet other immature people want that boundary shrunk to not include race or religion.

The boundary is based on who you ask.

Re:But But But!!!

[RandomActOfKindness]

Blackberry's problem was that they DID rule the world and thought that since they were on top they didn't need to make any changes - that the market would always clamor for what they offered because they ruled.

I'm so tired of people repeating that old fallacy. BlackBerry stayed the course of maximizing battery life and minimizing data use because the carriers world wide told them they had to. When those who are throwing the bags of money at you set the rules of engagement, it's awfully hard to argue.

Re:But But But!!!

[david_thornley]

In other words, BB was short-sighted, did what maximized immediate profit, and got blind-sided and reduced to irrelevance as the world changed. It's easy to do that when you dominate the market.

Re:But But But!!!

[Plumpaquatsch]

When those who are throwing the bags of money at you set the rules of engagement, it's awfully hard to argue.

Maybe you and BlackBerry should look at how Apple handled the carriers.

classic chicken and egg.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody buys X because there's little software support, and nobody even knows it exists due to lack of market buzz. There's little software support and no market buzz because nobody buys X.

Pretty hard to break out of that cycle. Sometimes it happens, but often out of sheer luck more than anything that can be intentionally duplicated. It was tried with Tizen, Maemo, FirefoxOS, and others, and all failed.

These things tend to change over long times. We're just now after many decades ending the Windows monopoly with the average person moving to Android and iOS, and consoles replacing Windows in the gaming space. It will probably be decades before something seriously challenges the big-two mobile OS out there right now. Of course it could happen sooner, but it doesn't seem like a good bet.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[Opportunist]

Well, not to say it ain't so, but in this case you're looking at a market where the two current top dogs were rather late to the party and benefited from everyone else dropping the ball big time.

Nokia was the de facto market leader but simply snoozed when the big change towards touch screens set in.
Blackberry had the enterprise market firmly in their grasp, and not only did they have a lot of features enterprise users wanted, they also managed to make having a Blackberry as a manager an important status symbol. A decade ago you pretty much HAD to have a Blackberry to be taken serious in management circles. Look where they're now after a series of blunders and hubris.
And while MS never really had a big market share in the phone business, they had every advantage on their side, they have the de facto standard on desktops and could have worked out something huge with phone + computer tie-ins, in a depth nobody else could achieve. They finally try that but ... too little, too late, and all the accomplish by it now is to piss off their desktop users.

So, I cannot really say that this is one of those scenarios where the early bird gets the worm, grows big and keeps everyone else in its shadow so they can't grow as well. There were some serious mistakes made by the former market leaders and other competitors. Google and Apple won because they were able to predict better where the market is going and what consumers and business customers alike would want.

That can change rapidly again. We're today at the point where cellphones get powerful enough to replace netbooks soon. My prediction would be that the manufacturer that manages to find the right gadget at the right time to capitalize on this and offer something that could make the cellphone replace current netbooks, you have the next market leader.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[mspohr]

Looks like people are starting to think along these lines.
These people have a shell with keyboard and display which uses your smartphone as the processor.
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[tgv]

I bought a Windows phone (last year) because I don't like Android (bad experiences with Samsung and Moto), and iOS phones are too expensive. And I don't need all those apps. I just want to make a few calls, use internet from time to time, and perhaps look at a map, or send/read a few messages. That's it. Windows is perfectly fine for that, and the phones are competitively priced.

I guess there are not many like me.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent was only kind of right. One important missing fact is that Android runs Linux. Linux isn't bloated. Its very lean, has for a very long time been multi-platform, and has for a very long time worked very well with many many processors (go look at the top500 supercomputer list, look at operating system family. Billion dollar computers all running linux... but I digress). So what has that got to do with phones? Phones don't run intel x86 hardware. They run low power chips. As stated previously, Linux has been running very well on many architectures (even today there are over 30 different kinds of processors Linux runs well on, including embedded microcontrollers, big endian and little endian microprocessors (16, 32 and 64 bit), and with oddball instruction sets from many manufacturers (Hitachi, Motorola, Intel, Sun/Oracle (Sparc/Sparc64), IBM, NVIDIA, ARM, Blackfin, Openrisc, Parisc, Unicore, Xtensa, Hexagon, Alpha, etc.). A major problem Microsoft had is that they only ever wrote software for Intel 32 and 64 bit processors (little endian). Somewhere, some guy in a suit said that Intel 32 and 64 bit was the cash cow and to ignore everything else. There was no abstraction layer in any of their software for machine architecture. None of their software libraries were designed for it, nor was any of their application software. With a lot of work they could port the OS to another architecture, but porting each application involved just as much work. With Linux it was just a matter of adding a new architecture layer for each new device (just add a directory for that type of chip, add low level instructions that optimize that particular architecture and mesh with a Linux/Posix target. Usually separate parts for booting, memory management, ALU optimization, ALU emulation (if there is no Arithmetic Logic Unit on that CPU), endianness, etc. Once you have that, just compile the operating system for that architecture, and then recompile software for it (rewriting a program could take a large team months, recompiling for a new architecture can be done by one person, within a few minutes). As a result, Windows phone 7 can't accept any of Microsoft's desktop software. Even ignoring the lack of touchscreen interface, the software had to be rewritten for the new architecture target. Scaling the applications visual footprint and adding a touch interface (although by no means easy) are child's play compared to rewriting for a new architecture target.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[Anonymous Coward]

That concept is super old. X11 has supported it for decades. There are already other products that you can buy that do the exact same thing, they just don't dress it up in a fake laptop case. The concept is even outdated. Plan 9 could take the memory in the phone and the memory in the laptop* and bundle them together as one component. The consumer market moves so freaking slow. We can't have nice things because consumers are too stupid. 2 million for something that already exists but in corporate black? Is shiny really worth that much? People only had to do a minor search to find existing products instead of blindly following whatever marketing they first see.

*Assuming it was a real laptop. These guys can't even take over and re-purpose an outdated computer (there are lots of existing remote control applications). No, they make you waste money and resources buying a new laptop shell.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[stooo]

>> These people have a shell with keyboard and display which uses your smartphone as the processor.
Does not really make sense.
SOC cost are really low these days, so it's not the component to skip.
You cannot even answer a phone call without unplugging the phone, or your computer goes black. That's really a no go.

What would be nice is ARM SOC based laptops, and real sync possibilities between devices, which have no good solutions today !!

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[RandomActOfKindness]

I guess there are not many like me.

There's lots like you. But they've got all their peers telling them Windows and BlackBerry are the wrong choice, for so many reasons that, right or wrong, are hard to argue for anyone who isn't knowledgeable. We're social animals, most just move with the herd.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[RandomActOfKindness]

It will probably be decades before something seriously challenges the big-two mobile OS out there right now

I expect it will require a shift in how apps are delivered. Provisioning all the apps your buddy wants to share with you, and that your company needs to run their business, it now simply too tall a mountain to climb for any newcomers.

One app for all is the promise of HTML5, but it doesn't seem like it's managed to fulfilled that.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[ninthbit]

Get a Nexus or other generic AOSP type phone. Android isn't the problem, it's the crap software these larger vendors put on to try and differentiate their brand that ruin the platform. Generic Android with the play store is all you really want/need.

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[tgv]

Windows isn't that bad. Interface is decent, it responds, etc. But a phone just a tool for me. I needed something cheap that wasn't too crappy.

The Moto was free of crapware, BTW, but it had this stupid problem where after every update I had to do a reset and reload all contacts and applications and whatever. I ended up having no applications, because of the hassle. My last problem was trying to install Cyanogen. It just bricked the phone, so I gave the Windows phone a chance.

If I ever need another one (well, more like: when), I'll consider an "AOSP" phone. I have very little knowledge of all the models, though. It's become quite the jungle.

Re: classic chicken and egg.

[mspohr]

Like a Chromebook?

Re: classic chicken and egg.

[stooo]

Exactly, but the sync part is still crap.

Re: classic chicken and egg.

[mspohr]

I haven't had any problems with file, contacts, bookmarks, etc. sync.
I have a Chromebook, MacBook, and a few Android devices and everything syncs just fine.
Is there a particular sync problem you have noticed?

Re:classic chicken and egg.

[david_thornley]

If you know that you aren't going to want apps, and are happy with making a few calls (odd use for a smartphone, but....), hit the web now and then, use maps, whatever, then a Windows phone will work for you. Similarly, if you want to buy a desktop or laptop and are happy with email, a web browser, light word processing, and a few casual games you'll be better off with Ubuntu or Mint than Windows. Most people aren't that sure of their future desires.

When Pokemon Go hit, I had to download the app to keep in the office conversations. If it wasn't available for my phone, I'd have missed out.

Re: classic chicken and egg.

[stooo]

Yep. There's a huge problem : You give all your files to Google.

Android is now officially the new Windows

[toadlife]

I could see this years ago when Android was still very flaky POS and iOS completely dominated the smart phone landscape. The parallels between the Android/iOS market and Mac/PC market were too many for it turn out any other way.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

There was never a period when iOS completely dominated the smartphone landscape.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[flargleblarg]

What? The original iPhone in 2007 was the first true smartphone. So yes, there was a period when iOS completely dominated the smartphone landscape.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart phones existed for almost a decade before that along with apps. It was the first with javascript app support and an app store eventually for native apps. It wasn't that Jobs was great as much as AT&T believed his con.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[danbob999]

The first iPhone wasn't even a smartphone. It was a glorified feature phone with a touch screen.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[toadlife]

Oops. I am guilty of being the typical myopic USian here. Worldwide, I see that you are absolutely right

They dominated in the U.S. market.

Re: Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the iPhone retroactively remove the many smartphones that preceded it from the market? I must have missed that.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

So was Android

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit

Re: Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Be fair the first android devices were blackberry clones. They only changed to fondleslab format after the iPhone kicked it out of the park

Re: Android is now officially the new Windows

[AK Marc]

No, they did that for themselves.

Re:Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

the first iphone was not only a true smartphone, but it also was the *first* true smartphone?

well, i must have hallucinated my htc wizard, then

one of us must be high

Re: Android is now officially the new Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes no sense. The introduction of the iPhone does not change the fact that smartphones had been around for almost ten years at that time, even if you are willing to call the first iPhone a smartphone, which would be a bit generous given its limitations.

Re: Android is now officially the new Windows

[AK Marc]

No, but as Windows Mobile got popularity, they depreciated Windows CE phones. Windows, not the iPhone, declared that the previous "smartphones" weren't smartphones. Same with some of the others that did the same thing. The first smartphones weren't smartphones as people today think of it. They were '90s PDAs with phone capabilities. Unrelated to Apple, those attempts have been ret-con'ed to non-smartphone. Often by the maker of that phone, as an attempt to explain how much better the new phone is.

third-party operating systems

[Anonymous Coward]

A third-party operating system is nice and all, but what we really need is a third party that primarily has the interests of its users in mind. By now I am convinced any other large corporation cannot be that party. They would just turn into another Apple, Google or Microsoft, quickly morphing their OS into a tool to treat the users as cows to be milked instead of users.

Unfortunately I do not see anyone else having the deep pockets required to actually make a change, and the public at large is much to lethargic to care, let alone do something about it.

Re:third-party operating systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Too true, too true.

Blackberry

[maliqua]

Well since blackberry has started using android on its new devices its not even slightly surprising that BB OS is losing market share, i'd be more interested to see if blackberry's market share has gone up or down as a device maker since the switch

Re:Blackberry

[Just Some Guy]

If you read the article (yeah, I know), table 2 shows "Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q16". Last year in that quarter, Blackberry delivered 1.15M phones to end users. Same quarter this year, they delivered 400K.

Blackberry's market share has gone down enormously since the switch, but I don't know if that's causal or coincidental. Maybe Blackberry fans are allergic to Android and refuse to switch, or maybe they love it but their sales were trending down faster than the switch could bring them back up.

Re:windows 10 phone please

[toadlife]

https://devices.ubports.com/

Windows Phone

[fredgiblet]

WP has what it takes, but it got it too late, had too many missteps along the way and lost the mindshare war. So the only way it can make a dent is if one of the others takes a dive.

Re:Windows Phone

[PhrostyMcByte]

Huge missteps mostly recently. Windows Phone 7 through 8.1 were fantastic -- always smooth as butter, responsive, relatively bug-free, had a great UI, and had fantastic tools for devs. I also own several high-end Android devices and if you could live with less apps I really do think Windows Phone was superior to Android.

10 was a huge step back -- no longer smooth and incredibly buggy. I got a Lumia 950 to replace my aging 920 and only now a year later with the Anniversary release can I say it is something they should sell, but it's still only comparable to Android levels of smoothness. I really miss the lag-free 8.1 OS.

Re:Windows Phone

[fredgiblet]

7 had a huge lack of features and then was totally abandoned. 8 started out feature poor but got better over time. I haven't touched 10. I worked for WP support for a while, but not any longer and since my carrier doesn't support WP I have an Android. I still have my Lumia 520 that I won at work, but it's just for playing the occasional game for achievements.

Re:Windows Phone

[unixisc]

I disagree. I have a Lumia 550, and it's been great, especially now w/ the Anniversary update. In the US, it has a major app shortage, but in other countries, it gets a fairer shake from app makers.

Re:Windows Phone

[Lieutenant_Dan]

I have a 640XL. Win10 upgrade was crap; drained battery twice as fast, SMS is a mess, sluggish response. This past weekend, got a BITLOCKER blue screen and had to re-image it. Went back to 8.1. I should have never upgraded it.

I'm using my other Win10 (one I take for traveling) and seriously thinking of ditching my Windows phones. In all my years with an iPhone, never had it crash on me. Just hate spending $1000 on an unlocked phone though.

Windows 10 Mobile is such a mess. I wouldn't recommend it at all. It feels like Windows 3.11 in an era of OS/2, MacOS, and AmigaOS.

Re:Windows Phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Win10 upgrade was crap; drained battery twice as fast, SMS is a mess, sluggish response. This past weekend, got a BITLOCKER blue screen and had to re-image it. Went back to 8.1. I should have never upgraded it.

In all my years with an iPhone, never had it crash on me.

That's odd, because whenever a new iPhone OS is released you always get people saying the upgrade was crap because it drained their battery twice as fast, the UI is less responsive, the new apps are buggy, it constantly crashes on older devices, wireless drops out, over heats, etc... All the companies are the same.

Re:Windows Phone

[inking]

Microsoft has basically killed Windows Phone at this point with such extreme prejudice, I almost find it hard to believe they did so unintentionally. Not only is the staff skeletal at best now, with 7,800 fired last year even before the release of Windows Phone 10, another 1,850 this May and another 2,850 at the end of last month, they have discontinued the few pre-installed services that were interesting and split the already very weak ecosystem into two.

My last phone was the Lumia 1020, the one before that was the Galaxy S i9000. The two experiences could not have been more different. When I got my i9000, there were few good applications, but progressively their number increased and it became a very nice system to use indeed. The 1020, on the other hand, came with some nifty things out-of-the-box—I really enjoyed Photobeamer and the free 30GB OneDrive option—that Microsoft killed, while third-party support continued to dwindle over time. One got better, the other got worse.

They have a few nice ideas in Windows Phone 10, but none of them makeup for the certain doom the OS has been heading towards the past couple of years. It's a mediocre experience at best and doesn't offer anything worthwhile that iOS and Android cannot do better.

Re:Windows Phone

[stooo]

>> I almost find it hard to believe they did so unintentionally.
Why do you want to belive it's unintentional ?

Re:Windows Phone

[wicka_wicka]

They didn't kill Windows Phone, they laid off their former Nokia staff. The Lumia specifically is dead, not Windows Phone as a whole. Their next phone will be the Surface Phone that their in-house team is working on, makes no sense to keep the Nokia folks around to compete with themselves. And I suspect that project will be flying under the radar for a while until they figure out some kind of app strategy.

Re:Windows Phone

[david_thornley]

You say their next phone "will be", and that in preparation they killed off what they had. This is not the way to sell phones. In order to keep their sales going, they have to keep offering improvements whenever one of their three fans wants to upgrade. They've been finding ways to alienate their customers for a long time, including the WP7 upgrade promise.

Re:Windows Phone

[wicka_wicka]

They're not selling any phones at present. It makes zero sense to cater to their current users, an irrelevantly tiny group, rather than attempting to appeal to the billions of people who don't own a Windows Phone.

Impressive!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am impressed that useless crap still got almost 1% marketshare!

Re:Impressive!

[Anonymous Coward]

It actually got 12.9%. Even more crazy!

Meanwhile, iOS lost some ground as it dropped to 12.9% market share

Also

[Trailer Trash]

I think we should also point out that iOS, Andriod, and Windows Phone also account for 99% of all smartphone sales last quarter.

Re:Also

[Art Challenor]

I prefer the observation that Android and Windows Phone accounted for 87% of the market.

12% is dangerously low

[OpenSourced]

12% market share approaches the danger zone. For some applications, perhaps just 5% of your potential public will use iOS. Then you don't develop the iOS version. Market dominance snowballs in this kind of situations, as we regrettably know from the Windows story.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

iOS users spend more money than cheap-ass Android users. That's why it is still so relevant.

Sure, apps aren't exclusive to iOS much anymore, but the developers make more money from less user on iOS because they actually buy things.

iOS isn't going anywhere for quite a while.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

12% market share approaches the danger zone. For some applications, perhaps just 5% of your potential public will use iOS. Then you don't develop the iOS version. Market dominance snowballs in this kind of situations, as we regrettably know from the Windows story.

12% market share, but much greater revenue generation per user. Anecdotal accounts from app creators still have them claiming more of their income still come from Apple iOS apps than the equivalent Google Android apps.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Nemyst]

Bear in mind that this is sales, not install base. iOS still has a big install base and they seem to be bigger spenders than Android users in terms of apps.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Tough Love]

Anecdotal accounts from app creators still have them claiming more of their income still come from Apple iOS apps than the equivalent Google Android apps.

If it sounds too good to be true then it probably isn't.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

iOS is more like 40% in the US market. In dollar terms that is substantial.

I know, I know, 750 million Bangladeshis wielding Android phones counts for something too....just not a lot of dollars

Re: 12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

It hardly matters if they spend more if Apple gets most of it.

That's the problem: Apple is making it too difficult to make money on iOS, and they are rapidly losing market share. When Consumer Reports did a recent rating of the best smart phones, the iPhone didn't even make the cut of phones to test, it was so bad!

Apple is well in the danger territory, and with the only notable iOS 10 feature being stupid animations in the iMessage app and the only interesting thing the iPhone 7 is doing is removing the 3.5mm jack: Apple is in a world of hurt.

The Apple Watch bombed. Apple TV never went anywhere even after four attempts. The iPad Pro is a Windows Surface knockoff of all things.

Given Apple's downward spiral: why the hell would I target iOS any more?!

Apple had better have some amazing new secret thing coming with the iPhone 7, but given how those things leak, it's almost certain that they don't.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Lost2Home]

Actually if you look at the Gartner numbers (broken out by brand), you will see that Android owns the low end market with off brands. If you just compare Samsung vs Apple at the high end, it is about 63% to 37%. So while still a commanding lead, it isn't the overwhelming majority when you consider Apple's target customer base.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[OpenSourced]

True, but that is just one kind of application. You don't need to suddenly lose all developers to slowly drift to irrelevance. What happens when your local bus company only has an Android app? That kind of things move just by percentages. Or when most apps that want to be the next cool thing appear in iOS only six months after getting to be the next cool thing, because if you can develop just for one market, you aren't going for the 12%. Then it's 10%, then 8%, then you die.

Ask Microsoft, they have lived both sides of the story.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[93 Escort Wagon]

I think a more important thing to bear in mind is this is worldwide. Android completely owns Asia and Africa, almost completely based on dirt-cheap Android phones. iOS fares better in the developed world. But, on the other hand, the problem for both iOS and Android in places like the US is churn - people are more willing to go back and forth nowadays because there's just not much of a compelling difference in the eyes of most consumers.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

iOS users spend more money than cheap-ass Android users. That's why it is still so relevant.

It depends. If you are a developer wanting to make as much money as possible from a crappy game with in-app purchases such as a colored item for your virtual character, sure. If you want to charge $2 for a ZIP file extractor, again, I agree. If you want to make money from a fart application, iOS should be your main focus.

But that's not the type of application I care about.
Your bank application, social networks, messaging applications, useful free tools, open source applications, email, calendar, browsers, music, photos, are all free and the developers couldn't care less if you buy that crappy game or not, because they are not earning money through app sales.

So think about it. If you are going to develop a good, useful, free application, which platform are you going to target? One with 86% market share? One with 12%? Maybe both? I am sure a lot will choose both. But if Apple stays at this level or continue to fall, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of developers are going to drop that platform, just like there is more stuff (and more stuff first) on Windows than on OS X, despite the fact that Windows users are probably "cheap-ass".

I have yet to find a single iOS paid application that I would like to get on Android but don't have access to.
In the mean time, Android has got WiFi hotspot first, good GPS navigation first (Google Maps started it all) and custom keyboards first. Stuff I care about (I actually bought my first smartphone right after these two features were made available).

Android still has some issues to face, but its "cheap-ass" user base isn't one.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[WaxParadigm]

There is a problem with correlating this market share number (% of sales of new devices) with the market share number developers and such would be interested in (% of active devices in use). Many (not all) android phones are disposable and can be out of date (especially RE os version) before they leave the store. Many iOS devices, on the other hand, remain in use (and running current OS version) for 4 years. THAT creates a large, target-able user base for developers/etc.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

Well given that Apple has about 85-90% of the profits, they are doing just fine.

Also it has been shown time and time again that IOS users are more likely to buy software, so if you are a developer you chase the money.
This is also why Google gives Apple a massive chunk of $$ to have google as the default search engine, they also know that IOS will bring in more money than Android.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[youngone]

My wife's friends are all upper middle class middle aged women, and until a year or so ago they were 100% iPhone users.

A group of us went out to dinner on Saturday night and only about 4 out of 12 women there still use iPhones. It was so noticeable that my wife even asked me on the way home if she should get an Android phone "like the boys have" for her next phone.

Hardly a scientific study of course, but it was kind of striking.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is Apple hasn't done anything interesting since, well, the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 brought high-DPI displays to smartphones. It was badly needed. The "retina" thing was pure marketing BS for what was a very practical technical decision: to make porting easier, just increase the resolution by 2x in both directions. But the fact of the matter was that the existing smartphone displays were too low resolution to easily read while the iPhone 4 display finally made reading text in the smaller smartphone package easy.

It was, probably not a coincidence, the last iPhone Steve Jobs did the keynote for.

Every single iPhone since then has lacked any compelling reason to purchase. The iPhone 7 is looking to be especially hilarious: its new feature is the lack of a headphone jack.

Meanwhile, Android phones keep innovating. Things like Android Auto bring Google Maps to your car's navigation system. Samsung has added VR support to their phones. Various Android companies offer "modular" concepts where you can attach modules to add functionality to the phone, making them truly customizable.

Essentially, there's an Android phone for everyone. There are just two versions of the iPhone, and if they don't fit your needs: tough.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

The problem is Apple hasn't done anything interesting since, well, the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 brought high-DPI displays to smartphones. It was badly needed.

High DPI displays weren't needed. What was needed (and still is) is high resolution displays. A 1" high-DPI display would be useless. A 2 megapixel display can fit a lot of content no matter its size. It looks good on a 70" TV as well as on a 5" phone. Of course, you don't watch TV from the same distance as you hold your phone.

DPI was a gimmick, just like retina.
Up to the iPhone 3GS, the standard resolution on phones was 320x480. Apple had some of the largest displays at 3.5". The first Androids had 3.2" displays with the same resolution. Nobody ever thought on bragging that the DPI was higher on Android. It would have been dumb.
Then Android makers started releasing larger phones with higher resolution displays, such as the original Droid (854x480, 3.7"). It was a huge improvement over what existed before. Apple wanted to be back in the game, so they released a phone with an even higher resolution (960x640) which was of course even better. Except that since Android makers were releasing 4" phones and Apple was stuck at 3.5", they had to brag about something. So they "invented" (for all practical purposes, since nobody used the term before in the smartphone market) DPI (also refereed to as PPI). Since they now had the smallest displays, even if Android makers reached the same resolution, they would have less DPI so the iPhone would be "superior". Unfortunately, many reviewers bought into that crap and even some people on slashdot.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[NotInHere]

It can be exactly the opposite too. Just compare global linux desktop market share (about 2%) with linux market share for software developer desktops (about 20%).

Re:12% is dangerously low

[sundarvenkata]

That is a fallacy. iOS users are very highly likely to actually "pay" for an app since they already proved that they were suckers by buying an overpriced phone anyway :)

Re:12% is dangerously low

[thinkwaitfast]

So whatever happened to that guy on China who sold his kidney for an iphone?

Re:12% is dangerously low

[StormReaver]

I would buy an Ubuntu phone if it didn't use Mir as the display server. This is because Mir means I can't install Java. Aside from that, Ubuntu phone looks awesome.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[thinkwaitfast]

Only if you are not in it for the long run.

Re: 12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

idiot. Both Apple and Google take same cut from developers. I think cut percentage gonna be changed though

Re: 12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

Eve with Samsung, their volumes sales are in mid-low end phones - Galaxy & Note are typically a bit less than iPhone, although they usually make the top 10 sales list by model (the top sales by model are almost always a list of Samsung & Apple product)

Re:12% is dangerously low

[LynnwoodRooster]

Wait, are you saying a 2:1 ratio in sales is not a commanding lead? If not - what is?

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Solandri]

The iPhone 4 brought high-DPI displays to smartphones.

Um, the iPhone 3 was a paltry 320x480 and 165 ppi. The Galaxy S (announced 3 months before the iPhone 4) was 480x800 and 233 ppi.

The iPhone 4 at 640x960 wasn't that much better than 480x800 (Samsung even stuck with that resolution the following year with the S2). It just hit 330 ppi because it had a smaller screen than Android phones of the era.

The "retina" thing was pure marketing BS for what was a very practical technical decision: to make porting easier, just increase the resolution by 2x in both directions

It wasn't a practical decision, it was a stupid decision. Apple got it right with MacOS and Postscript - the display should be resolution-agnostic. The screen simply tells the OS its physical size, and the OS calculates the ppi and scales the display output so that an 8 point font is the same size on any screen, big or small, as it is on a printed page. It was one of the best decisions they ever made, and a large part of why Macs are standard in the publishing industry. With Windows, the size of your preview on the screen may or may not match the size when printed. Heck, even Windows 10 still has problems scaling fonts to an arbitrary size.

Then for some inexplicable reason, Apple locked the screen resolution in iOS to 320x480. Which was fine when all their model phones (or rather their single model) had a 3.5" screen (or 9.7" 1024x768 for tablets). But gave them the same Windows-esque scaling problems when they tried to market products with different size screens. e.g. An app UI which is fine on an iPad is a hair too small on the iPad mini. The whole problem stems from Jobs' insistence that a 3.5" display was "perfect" for a phone and no other display size would ever be needed. That was a stupid decision then and it's a stupid decision they're suffering from now.

Ironically, Android uses the scaling model Apple established with the Mac. Android has a hidden internal scaling constant set by the manufacturer (you can tweak it if you root your device) based on the size and ppi of the display. It scales the UI so the icons and fonts remain the same size across all Android devices with this constant set correctly. On my elderly parents' phones, I used to root it and tweak this constant so the icons and fonts are a bit bigger (there is now a separate font size setting).

Re: 12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly. As a seller of shiny dubious investments, I'd target iPhone/iPad users exclusively as they have proven to be dumb with spending money wisely.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[AmiMoJo]

High DPI makes text a lot more readable. You don't have to bother with so much hackery like sub-pixel anti-aliasing, and you can make the fonts more readable by not being limited to fixed 1 pixel wide lines that are pixel aligned.

Text on iOS and MacOS looked really shitty until they got high DPI displays. Now it looks a bit less good than Android and Windows, mostly because they chose stupid fonts (Helvetica is designed for print, not screens or UIs) but at least doesn't grate on your eyes.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

But that's not the type of application I care about. Your bank application, social networks, messaging applications, useful free tools, open source applications, email, calendar, browsers, music, photos, are all free and the developers couldn't care less if you buy that crappy game or not, because they are not earning money through app sales.

So think about it. If you are going to develop a good, useful, free application, which platform are you going to target? One with 86% market share? One with 12%? Maybe both?

Maybe the one with less fragmentation, where development is actually easier?

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is Apple hasn't done anything interesting since, well, the iPhone 4.

In the same way Samsung didn't do anything interesting since copying the iPhone?

Re:12% is dangerously low

[thegarbz]

DPI was a gimmick, just like retina.

Computers were a gimmick too, and like DPI they created opportunities for useful real world applications. ... see VR.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

Wait, are you saying a 2:1 ratio in sales is not a commanding lead? If not - what is?

You are ignoring that less than half of Samsung's sales are high end phones. Far less.

Or do you actually believe that Samsung would still bring out phones with screens as small as the "too small" iPhone 4 if they didn't sell? Let alone smaller ones (though not running Android).

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

High DPI makes text a lot more readable.

No, high resolution makes text readable. Just hold the phone further if you see the pixels too much.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[AmiMoJo]

To get a reasonable amount of information on a phone size screen, you need high DPI. You can't hold it closer comfortably or without going cross-eyed. If you old it further away the text is too small. You need high DPI.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

It can be exactly the opposite too. Just compare global linux desktop market share (about 2%) with linux market share for software developer desktops (about 20%).

Funny you should mention the Stackoverflow survey, according to that Mac OS X actually gained quite a lot on Linux compared to previous years and is now at 26.2%.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Wrong. You didn't understand my comments. You need high resolution, not high DPI.
You can't see more text/information on a 3.5" than a 5" screen with the same number of pixels. The 5" will have lower DPI, but text will be more readable.

Of course high resolution usually means high DPI. But what cause the text to be readable is not the pixel density, it's the pixel count.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[AmiMoJo]

I understand what you are saying. What I'm saying is that you can comfortably read small fonts when you also have a high DPI. With a low DPI you need to make them larger to be easily readable. So yes, a larger screen with a lower DPI can be more readable, but since carrying a >6" phone is somewhat impractical I'll take the higher DPI and smaller but still legible fonts.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Not only a larger screen with lower DPI can be more readable, it IS more readable if the number of pixels is the same.

Also, a 3.5" 960x640 is less readable than a 1280x720 4.8", even if the density is higher on the former. You can say you prefer the smaller size of the 3.5" phone, but you can't honestly say that it can display more readable content.

What matters is the number of pixels. You (and Apple) focus too much on DPI, and it is a fallacy.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[swillden]

Actually, what you really need is sufficiently-high angular resolution. The angular resolution of the eye is about one arcminute, or 0.0003 radians. You need pixels to be smaller than that so everything is smooth. Call it 0.0002 radians to be completely sure. At a viewing distance d, therefore, you need pixels that are tan(0.0002) * d or less in size. Close to zero, the tangent function is essentially a straight line, so that means you need pixels 0.0002d in size or smaller. Assuming you're measuring distance in inches, that means you need 1/.0002d = 5000/d DPI.

So, at an 18" viewing distance, you need 5000/18 = 278 DPI. At a 180" viewing distance (e.g. home theater), you need 5000/180 = 28 DPI. At a 6" viewing distance you need 833 DPI. Six inches is a closer than people use their phones most of the time, but not always. I see (young) people watching movies on their phones at that distance (us oldsters would need reading glasses). At a 1" viewing distance (e.g. Google Cardboard) you need 5000 DPI to be sure of indiscernible pixels.

I expect mobile display pixel densities to continue rising, into the thousands, to support VR headset use.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[LynnwoodRooster]

From the GP:

Samsung vs Apple at the high end, it is about 63% to 37%

According to the GP, Samsung sells about 2 high end phones to every Apple phone (63% to 37%). Is that not a commanding lead?

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Actually, what you really need is sufficiently-high angular resolution.

Just hold the phone further away then, you will improve the angular resolution. I am pretty sure that even with a cheap smartphone your arm is long enough so that you no longer see the pixels when held with straight arm.

It's like saying a 32" HDTV is better than a 70" HDTV because the pixel density is higher. Even if you see the pixels on the 70" TV, text won't be less readable.

So again, Apple had a great display with the iPhone 4, not because of density but because they had the highest absolute number of pixels. They were surpassed by Android makers since the introduction of 1280x720 displays, even if the pixel density was lower.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[swillden]

You didn't read the post you replied to.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

From the GP:

Samsung vs Apple at the high end, it is about 63% to 37%

According to the GP, Samsung sells about 2 high end phones to every Apple phone (63% to 37%). Is that not a commanding lead?

Well, he was wrong, and thus so are you And despite me pointing that out, you continue. Which is your fucking MO. Stick to that non.truth like its your pacifier.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[NotInHere]

Funny you should mention the Stackoverflow survey, according to that Mac OS X actually gained quite a lot on Linux compared to previous years and is now at 26.2%.

http://stackoverflow.com/resea...

Linux didn't lose percentages, instead it stayed mostly the same and in fact gained a little bit. The only loser is windows.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Yes I did.
The problem is that you think that the goal is not to see the pixels. You could have a 2x2 pixels display, with pixels small enough so that you couldn't see them. Such a display would be useless. You can't display text with so few pixels. With 1280x720, you can display more readable text than with 960x640. This is true no matter the screen size.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[LynnwoodRooster]

Huh. So your evidence that allows one to claim others are wrong is???

Re:12% is dangerously low

[swillden]

Yes I did.

Then you somehow missed that viewing distance is dependent on application, not pixel size. It makes no sense to move your phone further away so you can't see the pixels. Instead, pixel size should be decreased until the display provides perfect clarity at expected viewing distances -- which may be one inch if you're using your phone as a VR display.

With 1280x720, you can display more readable text than with 960x640. This is true no matter the screen size.

False. If the screens are at a distance where the 960x640 screen has sub-arcminute pixels, then the 1280x720 display will not allow you to display any more readable text. The minimum readable font size will be the same on both screens, and in fact you will not be able to distinguish any difference between them.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Then you somehow missed that viewing distance is dependent on application, not pixel size. It makes no sense to move your phone further away so you can't see the pixels.

Of course it doesn't. But seeing the pixels is not a "bad" thing. A 1280x720 display where you see the pixels will be more readable (for the same content) than a 960x640 display where you don't see the pixels. Of course a 1920x1080 display of the same size would be even better, but having more pixels is more important than having small pixels.

Instead, pixel size should be decreased until the display provides perfect clarity at expected viewing distances -- which may be one inch if you're using your phone as a VR display.

A 3.5" phone with 960x640
A 4.7" phone with 1280x720

which one is more readable at expected viewing distances? If you answer the former, you are wrong and don't understand the issue.

Now, consider two other phones :

3.2" 320x480
3.5" 320x480

Which one is more readable?

With 1280x720, you can display more readable text than with 960x640. This is true no matter the screen size.

False. If the screens are at a distance where the 960x640 screen has sub-arcminute pixels, then the 1280x720 display will not allow you to display any more readable text.

You are wrong. You imply both screens are of the same dimensions. They aren't.
Even if they are of the same size, there is a distance where the 1280x720 display WILL allow you to display more readable text. It's only a matter of being close enough.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

Huh. So your evidence that allows one to claim others are wrong is???

Jesus, RTFA. Samsung doesn't even sell twice as many smartphones as Apple, how can they sell twice as many high end smartphones? Is that possible in the lala-land you live in? Do you actually still believe that Samsung offers a couple dozen low-end smartphone models world wide despite not actually selling a single one - no, wait, they would even have to sell a negative amount of them for your claim to become true.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[david_thornley]

You're still missing the point. Apps are typically written to make money somehow, and iPhone users have more money to be extracted. Nobody's going to ignore the 12% of the market that brings in at least half the revenue.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[david_thornley]

A 1280x720 display where you see the pixels will be more readable (for the same content) than a 960x640 display where you don't see the pixels.

In other words, a larger screen is more readable than a smaller screen. If you've got more and larger pixels, you've definitely got a larger screen. If you've got a limit on the size of the screen, then more DPI is more pixels. My phone is already about as large as it can be and fit into my shirt pockets. Increase screen size and I'll buy something that's no bigger than what I've got now. My sister-in-law has impaired vision and motor control, and so we tried her with the big iPhones. Unfortunately, she doesn't think she can handle them, and she can handle the iPhone 4 we gave her.

Even if they are of the same size, there is a distance where the 1280x720 display WILL allow you to display more readable text.

How old are you? If your vision is good, or corrected so you can see properly at infinity, the distance you can see things clearly ("near point") creeps out with age. Bring the phone closer than your near point, and you're going to find it less readable.

You seem to be ignoring the facts that there are limits on screen sizes and human vision.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[LynnwoodRooster]

Looks like Samsung about doubles Apple's smartphone sales.

Sorry, I take facts over your handwaving and rantings.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

You wouldn't know facts if they bit you in the ass. And I'm not going to subscribe to any sites to check your "facts".

And if you "believe" (as in fucking religion) that 71.9 is anywhere near double 47.5, you are a fucking religious nutcase hateboy.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Oh I understand perfectly there is a compromise to make between having a large display and a small phone.
That doesn't make the small phone more readable. A larger phone with more pixels can't be less readable than a smaller phone with less pixels. No matter the DPI of each.

High DPI is a corollary of high pixel count. What make text readable is high pixel count, not DPI.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Plumpaquatsch]

Oh I understand perfectly there is a compromise to make between having a large display and a small phone. That doesn't make the small phone more readable. A larger phone with more pixels can't be less readable than a smaller phone with less pixels.

Yeah, but a bigger phone with less pixels isn't more readable. And that's what the first big screen phones had that came out at the same time the iPhone 4: less pixels on their much bigger screens. Take the Dell Streak for example: 480x800 pixels on a 5" screen vs. 640x960 pixels on the iPhone 4's 3.5" screen, came out the same month. Same thing with the Samsung Galaxy S 5.0 that came out half a year later and the Lenovo LePad that came out over a year later.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[danbob999]

Exactly. Like I said since the beginning, it's the number of pixel that matters, not DPI.

Re:12% is dangerously low

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bitztream, the autism-hating Slashdot troll!

I want maemo back!

[Anonymous Coward]

The spirit of maemo/MeeGo or even ugh Tizen. And not manufacturers bloatware and walled gardens :(

Apple below 15%

[Tough Love]

Apple below 15%, that's the real news. Well, and Microsoft completely squashed.

Re:Apple below 15%

[Plumpaquatsch]

Apple below 15%, that's the real news.

Not if you compare it to previous Q3s, then this last was the case 5 years ago - back when whatever-Windows-Phone was called back then had a higher market share than iOS..

Jesus Christ, are you even trying to do a sane comparison? Or are you going to cheer for Apple when their marketshare goes back up again? I dare you.

Or at least make the effort to know your enemy instead of just making shit up that sounds good to 3 out of 5 voices in your head.

Re:Apple below 15%

[Tough Love]

Apple below 13%, actually.

Re:Apple below 15%

[Plumpaquatsch]

Apple below 13%, actually.

That's supposed to be a reply to my post? Your IQ below 13 actually.

Re:Apple below 15%

[Tough Love]

Please excuse me for not being sufficiently clear in my last post. I meant to imply that your post had no actual content.

Apple going lower, and nothing of value is lost.

Re:Apple below 15%

[Plumpaquatsch]

Please excuse me for not being sufficiently clear in my last post. I meant to imply that your post had no actual content.

Bwaaaahahaaa. That was a good one coming from King'o'nono Kontent. Say, have you met that other idiot LamebrainRooster? Share the same IP by chance?

99% OF FBI TASKS LAST QUARTER? HACK IPHONE

[Anonymous Coward]

1% post bullshit topics on Slashdot.

Doubt it

[toadlife]

Apple has done fine on the OSX side with less than 10% share for more than a decade now. Yes, there are many more apps for Windows than OSX, yet their share has been remarkably consistent.

Apple devices are marketed towards a niche segment that is outside of the commodity (Windows/Android) markets. They enjoy *much* higher profit margins than any Android phone maker. Apple users, being more affluent group, are also more likely to pay for apps in the market, which keeps developers attracted to the platform.

To paraphrase Voltaire, If Apple did not exist, it would necessary for the market to create one.

Re:Doubt it

[mspohr]

Apple has been coasting on OSX for too long. All of their hardware is old, overpriced and out of date. The rumors of updates just keep getting more confusing. I think the company is seriously conflicted about the future of OSX and their hardware.
I personally gave up waiting for new hardware and bought a Chromebook which I found to be surprisingly nimble. It really does everything I need except occasional programming but I have a Linux machine for that.

Re:Doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X is older than Mac System Whatever was, when it was replaced by OS X. Not that it matters, or whatever, just saying.

And yeah, Chromebook with Linux on it, too, and a headless Linux server I can hit from anywhere. I can't get over how less than $200 in hardware does more for me than the $1000 iMac Rev A I bought in 1998 or whatever.

Re:Doubt it

[farble1670]

Apple devices are marketed towards a niche segment that is outside of the commodity (Windows/Android) markets.

Yes, with devices like the iPhone CE and SE?

I can guarantee if you made that claim to Apple's board you'd be drawn and quartered. Apple can't continue to grow supplying a niche market. They know that, and it's why they started providing middle-tier options (a few years back now).

Re:Doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple seems to be falling behind in many ways lately. Microsoft and Google are pushing out far more innovations. Like you said, their laptops and desktops are falling further and further behind. It seems like they shifted too much to the iPhones and iPads, yet despite that no one really has faith their iPhones will be the best on the market anymore. The iWatch isn't that popular or exciting to develop for. Meanwhile Google, Samsung, and Microsoft are all pushing VR and AR technology and are incorporating that into their software.

Re:Doubt it

[tgv]

> It really does everything I need

I've got a Windows phone. It does everything I need. No, I'm not being sarcastic, it's true. But it turns out that what I like and need doesn't translate to the rest of the population. Most people, perhaps as much as 99%, could get by with a Chromebook.

But I'm glad people still buy macs, because OSX is a very nice system, and for my music hobby I definitely need all the CPU power and storage space I can get.

2009: Everyone Else 82%; 2016: Android 86%

[CrashNBrn]

According to Statista's chart, in 2009 "others" were 82%+. iOS was 10-12% and Android was ~%6. iOS market-share looks like it hasn't changed much at all over the last 7 years.

Re:2009: Everyone Else 82%; 2016: Android 86%

[Anonymous Coward]

android's marketshare is getting too large for its own good. lawsuits over google's lockdown of the os and insistence on bundling ITS OWN apps and services with it will come.. and WILL SUCCEED.

android will have to be spun-off completely and "de-googled", either voluntarily or by force of court ruling. google would be smart to do it themselves, ahead of any major lawsuits, so it's all done on their terms and in a way they can live with, instead of having it all dictated by the courts.

Re:2009: Everyone Else 82%; 2016: Android 86%

[thinkwaitfast]

de-googled. Is that like alphabetted?

Re:2009: Everyone Else 82%; 2016: Android 86%

[Anonymous Coward]

lawsuits over google's lockdown of the os and insistence on bundling ITS OWN apps and services with it will come.. and WILL SUCCEED.

Google doesn't insist on bundling anything with Android. Google only insists that if you want the Play store you have to include several other apps. OEMs are completely free to run their own app stores -- or ally with Amazon -- and then they don't have to use any of Google's proprietary components.

my new phone is the nail in the coffin

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the ZTE axon 7 unlocked phone and it kicks ass. Upgrading from an Iphone 4, never again buying apple. Not that I bought that iphone anyway.

Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Something something market share. More words market share. Even more words and numbers market share. Also market share. Do I need to say market share again? Does everybody understand that the numbers I am talking about are market shares? Market share... rabble rabble market share......... ...market share...

Have I made my point?

Way to go, Windows!

[OneHundredAndTen]

Yes, way to drop dead. Die, Windows Phone (or whatever the hell it is called now) die!

And again Apple is doomed because iPhone 6 sold

[Plumpaquatsch]

And again Apple is doomed because iPhone 6 sold so well. Lets look at the data from the year before, mkay?

http://www.gartner.com/newsroo...

Q2 2014:
Android: 243,484k units, 83.8%
iOS: 35,345k units, 12.2%

IOW Apple has a higher marketshare Q2 2016 than Q2 2014. Apple is domed!

If only they had sold 10 million less phones in Q2 2015, there'd be a nice steady growth in marketshare, but no, they had to doom themselves by being so successful last year.

Linux /w Multiple userlands

[DrYak]

Now can that java layer be fixed to provide better access for high end games and be an extension to a more typical Linux distribution like Ubuntu, to provide greater access to interactive content.

You don't need to fix the java layer. You don't even need the games to target android.
Linux is a complex and flexible beast (chroot, containers, etc.)
There are already platforms out there where the android userland is co-sharing the phone with another userland.

e.g.: Jolla's Sailfish OS is a full blown GNU/Linux platform, using a QML interface on Wayland.
Still it also has Alien Dalvik, a port of the android machine and userspace so you can tap into the android echo system and run most of its games an apps.
(the community edition of Sailfish OS has SFDroid that similarily runs Sailfish OS alongside Cyanogen mod).

And if you look closely, platform like Valve's Steam also bring in their own userland (so closed source Linux games can target a predefined set of libraries and version prodivded by steam, instead of whatever happens to be provided on that Linux distribution).

So it might be that in the future, an Android Tablet is the "default" platform.

Want to play real, desktop-level games ? Install Steam, it will provide a full blown environment with all the low-level access that your games will need (well as long as the functionnality is supported by your hardware and kernel drivers).
Also plug-in a controller in the OTG USB port (or more likely, given the tendency of current home consoles, bluetooth-sync a wireless one)

Want to do serious buniness work on your tablet ? Once you've solved your keyboard needs (again, I suspect bluetooth will be more popular than OTG. Except maybe for dock-keyboards), environment like Fedoras/Red Hat's Flatpack or Ubuntu's Snap got you covered.
They'll come with the base library (more or less), and the rest will be packaged together with the LibreOffice.org flat pak you're installing.

Enjoy your hardware that is simultaneously running Linux/Android, and Linux/GNU (with 2 different providers for the GNU part).

The only limitations are:
- hardware. you need beefier tablet that can actually be used this way. But hardware constructors are comming this way.
- UI integration. The device's main UI need to beautifully integrate Android base apps, with Steam Games and FlatpPak/Snap office software, with all software looking like first class citizen and easy switching from on to the other, no matter which userland is used by which software.
- vendors that actually attemps such devices.

But the base message is that, a single convergent OS, à la Microsoft Windows for Surface, isn't needed that much.
Linux is a convergent kernel, and using several userlands depending on usage pattern is okay.

Photoshop on the phone : Think further...

[DrYak]

Photoshop? Are you sober? Can you see anyone... a.n.y.o.n.e. doing image editing on a phone?

On the phone screen? No. Nope nobody.

But using the phone once docked to a screen + mouse + keyboard setup ?
(Using anything like MHL's microUSB-to-HDMI and/or Display port over USB3 on the USB-C connector and/or plain normal bluetooth wireless for the input devices ?)
Sure, it's a possible use.

Or connecting the tablet to a keyboard?
(either dock-style keyboard, like asus transformer and microsoft sufrace, or simply USB OTG or bluetooth)
again it's possible.

Lite laptops connected to data servers are the way, with phones for all the convenience of phones.

And that lite laptop could as weel be a tablet docked to a keyboard or a phone connecter to a bigger screen.

People want reliable first and then cheap.

I regret to inform you that *geeks* want reliable first and then cheap.
Random Joe 6-pack wants as cheap as possible, and then loudly comply about the quality he got (he got what he paid for). That explains the popularity of cheap chines noName tablets.

  Its like writing software on a phone or writing a term paper on a phone. It's as easy to do as cooking a turkey in a microwave oven. No one does it because that's not the best use of the device. Photoshop on a phone. Lite laptops connected to data servers are the way, with phones for all the convenience of phones. People want reliable first and then cheap. If its not reliable, then they let the phone face get smashed or drop the phone in the toilet. No loss. After that they want cheap. Microsoft failed miserably on the first, Apple failed on the second (sometimes the phone really does accidentally fall in the toilet and gorilla glass doesn't last forever: when you need a new phone and you are looking at the same features for hundreds less, hundreds less wins).

iOS : Nope, not the first.

[DrYak]

The original iPhone in 2007 was the first true smartphone.

Nope, there was already a budding PDAs (personnal digital assistant) market going for years.

Since the 90s there has been things like Psion (running EPOC, grand father of Symbian)
Or later things like Palm (managing to reach success, born out of the massive flop of Apple's Newton).

Some (as early as Handsrping's also-running-PalmOS Visor - which eventually got bought by Palm and gave the Centro line) where also featuring phone functionnality.

(Though Psion could get modems or wifi Compact cards, I haven't heard of any of their digital assistant being usable as a phone.
The closest to it being Communicator by Nokia. Basically a Psion-like-ish clam-shell design, with a nokia phone bolted on the outside. You could use the phone to call, the PDA could see and use the phone like a modem, but both were separate devices sharing the same shell.
Handspring were really visionary with their Visor).

iPhone was simply Apple's finally successive attempt at doing the same, (after their previous fiasco with the Newton).
Their only advantage being simply the same as the iPod:
- nothing new, even a technological set-back (the capacitive "fingers only, no stylus needed" touch screen being the only novelty)
- huge logistics and production chains
- massive marketing campaign with deep pockets for budget
- and consequence of the previous one, managing to explain to everyone's grandma why they definitely need a pocket computer.
- and a huge fan base that is going to buy it, on the only ground there's an Apple logo on it, even before thinking if it's useful to them. (That helps spreading something new before it really catches on)

Re:iOS : Nope, not the first.

[david_thornley]

You're missing the fact that Apple does a really good job on some things, like interfaces. The iPhone didn't do as much as previous smartphones, but it was a lot easier to get it to do what it did. The smartphone market is completely dominated by the iPhone and Androids, and Google copied a lot of Apple UI for Android.

Not exactly

[DrYak]

The first iPhone wasn't even designed with possibility to run 3rd party Apps.
And though the kernel was multi-tasking, it wasn't doing multi-tasking with apps. More starting/stoping them as needed like PalmOS did decades before.

On the other hand, Android was an over inflated clone of the typical Java middleware found on most feature phones at the time which all had the possibility to install crappy 3rd party Java ME apps and games as a key feature.
Android just managed to :
- distanciate themself from the Java scene (both to avoid potential suits down the line, and to avoid the (justified) "crappy apps" reputation of JavaME)
- make the end product suck A LOT LESS than any of the Java ME crap.

(Yes I hate Java ME. I had a PalmOS PDA. You could *really* se the difference in quality of native PalmOS games and apps, and the average crap available on my PDA's IBM Java ME implementation).

Huge difference

[DrYak]

Market dominance snowballs in this kind of situations, as we regrettably know from the Windows story.

There's a key difference.
Android's source are available for anyone to use. (Only the Google-branded experience is protected).

And as a consequence of the above, it's possible to find solutions to run Android apps on other platforms too.
(Though it helps to have a Linux kernel, as Microsoft failed attemps at Android on Windows Phone (that morphed into WSL) has shown.
So Android apps on iOS might by a tiny bit more complicated than Android apps on Sailfish OS)

Re:Huge difference

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, you beat me to it. Wanting closed-source alternatives to open source is like wanting the option of being imprisoned when you'd otherwise be forced to go free.

"Apple isn't showing any interest in OSX anymore"

[Brannon]

If by no interest you mean that they are sitting comfortably on their huge lead over any version of Linux in terms of users, quality, and usability.

So, in other words, Apple is doomed.

[Brannon]

I think you're the first person to ever make that prediction.

Re:So, in other words, Apple is doomed.

[danbob999]

Not doomed, but I think the days of glory of the iPhone are behind.

Depends on your referential

[DrYak]

You're missing the fact that Apple does a really good job on some things, like interfaces.

I'm not missing it. I'm simply not considering them the best at doing efficient interface.
They are good at making them nice looking.
They are very good at making them skeumorphic so user don't seem lost to new functionality.
But they are not that good at UI in general. They usually need to dumb things down to an abyssimal level, just so to make things understandable to joe-6-pack. (which is enough to sell tons of shit, so why try harder ?)
As opposed to make an interface that can also be picked quite quickly by joe 6 pack, but don't stand in the way of more advanced users.

The iPhone didn't do as much as previous smartphones, but it was a lot easier to get it to do what it did.

Depends on your point of reference.

- Microsoft Windows CE/Mobile, whatever it was called back then had an absolute craptastic interface. So yeah, there's no way that Apple could NOT do better with iOS.

- PalmOS was already a much older interface for PDA (and smartphones, starting with some Handsrping Visors and later Palm Centro), that already had everything iPhone had on offer, except for multitouch scrooling/zooming (its touch screen wasn't *capacitive*, so no 2-finger gestures) and for virtual keyboard only as a 2ndary input method (main input method was "Graffiti": scribling special gestures. kind of simplified alphabet. keyboard was an alternative mode) (later centro model featured a physical keyboard, which was caried over to webOS devices py Palm/HP).

It did feature a main launch screen with apps, supported 3rd party apps, had standard tools for the era (calendar, address book, notes taking, etc.)

iOS looked no more than a rehash of what already existed on the better devices.

The smartphone market is completely dominated by the iPhone and Androids, and Google copied a lot of Apple UI for Android.

Except for some limited gestures introduced by Apple, both are quite similar to what was already available in PalmOS, or before that in Apple's own Newton, or before that on EPOC (symbian's grandpa). Or the first GNU/Linux attempts on PDA back then (Zaurus). etc.

In fact, Apple failed to innovate badly.

There are OS contemporary to iOS like Palm's own webOS, which at least tried to innovate and make multitasking easy to use (their stack of cards metaphor, with gestures).