Slashdot Mirror
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?
Want to buy a third party? hahaha, go ahead, throw your money away!
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Any day now, Windows Phone and Blackberry are gonna like totally rule the world!!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
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.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
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.
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
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.
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.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The spirit of maemo/MeeGo or even ugh Tizen. And not manufacturers bloatware and walled gardens :(
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.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
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.
It actually got 12.9%. Even more crazy!
Meanwhile, iOS lost some ground as it dropped to 12.9% market share
I prefer the observation that Android and Windows Phone accounted for 87% of the market.
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.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
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)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]