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Android is About To Eclipse Windows as the World's Most-Used Operating System (cnet.com)
John Falcone, writing for CNET: Android is poised to overtake Windows as the world's most-used operating system. That's the word from web analytics service StatCounter, which monitors worldwide web traffic with an eye towards device operating systems. The firm found that 37.4 percent of devices online were Android -- just a hair behind Windows at 38.6 percent. Perhaps the bigger concern for Microsoft are the trend lines, however: Windows is on a steady march down from 82 percent in 2012, while Android is mirroring it upward from 2.2 percent in the same 5-year period.
All hail Linus, creator of Linux! May he live long, and may he father many more kernel releases to come!
I prefer IntelliJ over Eclipse
It is a front-end that allows NSA access to your device. Linux is the OS, not Android. Android is just malware.
Glad I have flash disabled. I didn't read the article anyway after seeing the auto play attempt. I left the page. Good job!
Comparing apples and oranges makes a whole lot more sense than comparing two distinct OSes which run two distinct classes of devices.
bitches
Six posts in and still no "netcraft confirms" joke?
It's blocking a ton of /. ad spam on my mobile.
They sure seemed to rely on Data much more than their ship's onboard computer. One would think they would either upgrade the ship's computer to how Data was configured or just plug Data into the ship.
Despite the number of windows on the Enterprise, they still relied on an Android.
Good too see you're back Luddite dude! We thought your electricity bill wasn't paid.
IDEs are for girls
So Windows is finally going to be replaced by something much worse? (Both in terms of usability and openness)
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
Android is Linux. So it looks like Linux if finally winning.
Just got up. CIA got fucked!!
Well, such is the times of extreme polarization.
Two different operating systems that have virtually no overlap. This isn't telling anyone anything.
Now if we can get Linux on every desktop....
Why the hell would anyone think that stats for web traffic would equate to actual market share for operating systems?
First of all Android is based on Linux. Second - if you compare desktop to devices you have skipped all IoT devices that most of the time run Linux. So here we have it - 2017 a year of Linux!
See my subject: The alleged "all those eyes so no security issues" Android (a Linux variant) failed & is most infected constantly!
* Windows has been hardened VERY well due to that decades long experience & continues to be even moreso over time as patching occurs - STUPID JavaBased (dalvik) INTERFACES on smartphones etc. using droid are abused most (so much for restricting user rights on it also - doesn't work)... after all - we see Android being exploited almost DAILY for what? A decade++ now??
APK
P.S.=> No small wonder GOOGLE is not out to "OpenSORES" their next OS iirc - they don't want another EFast debacle either (Chrome doppleganger spreading malicious bs - so much for "all those eyes", MOST of which can't code to save their own lives = the problem & destruction of THAT "FAKE NEWS" often spread here on /. no less)... apk
That this could be the year Linux makes it to the desktop. After all, it's convenient place to put my phone while working on my windows laptop.
All of the people commenting that these 2 operating systems use 2 different types of devices are, of course, correct. The link at the bottom of the article about who is actually making money on mobile operating systems seems particularly relevant also. However, hasn't the idea been endlessly rehashed that the people are changing in the way they use devices and services? What if there are dramatic changes in technology that make mobile devices even more attractive for productivity? Also, are entrepreneurs (who live in manure) interested in starting companies and targeting markets more interested in a blue line that is trending downwards, or a green one trending upwards?
Really? You downloaded "the latest Android"? Which version is that? Which repository did you use?
If you've come to expect a bitchfest after every update, why are you updating?
Another big problem with the Android userland is that from the start through Android 6 "Marshmallow", stock Android supported only one application on the screen at once, as opposed to the tiling or floating window management policies that X11 window managers for GNU/Linux support. Got your phone plugged into a 1080p monitor? You can't view a web browser or PDF reader in half or your notetaking app in the other half. Using a 10" tablet? Enjoy your 10" full-screen calculator app. Android 7 "Nougat" finally fixes this, but existing devices are unlikely to get an official update to Nougat.
You appear to be under the impression that Android is free software, and therefore, the royalty for putting Android on a device is zero. AOSP is free software, but Google Play Store and Google Play Services are not. Furthermore, makers of Android devices with a microSD slot that supports SDXC have to pay an exFAT patent royalty to Microsoft.
Windows is a desktop operating system with its install base there, Android is a tablet/phone OS with all of its install base there. It's like saying coffee makers are about to eclipse ovens as the most used appliance....ok? Still need the oven for its purpose.
You are right that usage behaviors are shifting but Android is not a desktop operating system so comparing the two is just silly. We know they both are trying to break into the other market but that ship has sailed, so yes the on 15$ tablets at Walmart is going to have a much bigger footprint than the one that is on 300-3000$ machines.
Yes, we've won the desktop wars. Even if we had to cheat by slipping into mobile some 10 years ago and waiting for mobile devices to become nearly as capable as desktops.
PS - My first Linux portable was an Agenda VR3 (a 64-bit MIPS) some 15+ years ago.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
In short: the World Domination that our Great Leader predicted some twenty years ago, has come true...
Paai
I think you are grossly overestimating the cross functionality between tablets/phones and desktop/laptop devices, sure they kind of both *do* the same things but they are used for very different things. Yes people are using their phones/tablets more but they are using them more for the trivial things like angry birds or facebook. The moment they need to work on something serious like photo editing or an excel sheet etc they realize they need a desktop/laptop computer.
So yes, if Android OS starts gaining a foothold on the PC market then that is big news. This news just means android is on a *lot* of devices and that's completely not news because it's a free OS on every cheap device out there.
All that said windows/desktops are a relatively stagnant market because trivial us/gaming is on phones and consoles, but they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Like I said upthread it's like comparing the toaster to the oven.
I'm just amazed this wasn't already the case years ago.
It seems hard to believe that until now that there really are more PCs running windows out there than all the people with android phones in the world.
I wonder if they've still been counting windows licences for PCs that have actually been disposed of/recycled years ago, and those running Linux and other OS's just because they actually got sold with a windows licence?
"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."
- NYTimes article, Questions for Linus Torvalds by David Diamond (at the end)
Bill, Steve, and Satya have probably discussed this at some length. To be a fly on the wall...
The article headline is crap. Android/Linux total users passed Windows in long ago. The article should have said that, those users now create nearly the same amount of web traffic as Windows PCs.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
He's updating, you idiotic fuck-stick, because he needs the latest eighteen-thousand security patches to fix that broken pile of shit that you are supporting.
Android is the Windows ME of modern security.
Especially if the two OS/devices are used for the same thing... chat, email, web browsing, videos...
Twinstiq, game news
iOS doesn't have good backwards compatibility either. An example is the game BioShock on iOS that is broke on current iOS version.
If you want subdirectories on your home screen, use a different launcher.
(real question)
Linux scales to far larger systems than does Windows. Microsoft does not run on the top 500 machines.
Microsoft has been squarely beaten in mobile and enterprise systems. Microsoft is now the "OS of the gap" and is being crushed in the vice of Linux market share.
Apples to something less healthy, like Nougat/Lollipops?
Seriously, I thought Android had already eclipsed Windows simply on the number of units installed since there are already billions of Android devices out there, while Windows has yet to reach or just gone past the billion dollar mark on the more costly desktop.laptop platforms. In the third world you can buy a cheap smart phone running some old unsupported possibly malware infested version of Android for a fraction the price of the least expensive netbook.
Still no.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Google Play is "free as in beer".
The article "The hidden costs of building an Android device" by Charles Arthur and Samuel Gibbs states that as of three years ago, the compliance testing to qualify for a Google Play license cost tens of thousands of dollars, or on the order of $1 per device. Even though the article states that the amount is payable to approved "third party testing facilities," not directly to Google, the article does not mention how much Google charges said facilities to become approved.
The article "Why Microsoft Makes $5 to $15 From Every Android Device Sold" by Chris Hoffman states that as of three years ago, Microsoft was collecting several dollars in patent royalties for each Android device for the use of patented processes, such as those essential to the FAT file system.
What has changed in the past three years, other than the replacement of a license for the VFAT patent(s) with one for the exFAT patent(s) after the expiry of the former and enshrinement of the latter in the SDXC specification?
Christ, not this again. For somebody accusing others of falling victim of marketing you might want to check that glass house you live in.
Scheduling, managing virtual memory and device drivers are what the kernel does, which is a part of the operating system, but not the operating system itself. Linux is not, and has never claimed to be, an OS. People use the term "Linux" to refer to a family of operating systems incorporating the Linux kernel because they typically share many features and it's easier than saying "a family of Unix-like operating systems incorporating the Linux Kernel and the GNU userland with a set of default applications that allow them to behave as a general purpose computing device."
The very article you linked contradicts your pedantry:
In the mobile (smartphone and tablet combined) sector, according to third quarter 2016 data, Android by Google is dominant with 87.5 percent and a growth rate 10.3 percent per year ... The Linux kernel is used in some popular distributions, such as Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Google's Android. ... In 2014, Android was first (currently not replicated by others, in a single year) operating system ever to ship on a billion devices, becoming the most popular operating system by installed base.
Look at the about pages of the popular distros if you don't believe me:
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. (http://debian.org)
The Official Release of Slackware Linux by Patrick Volkerding is an advanced Linux operating system, designed with the twin goals of ease of use and stability as top priorities. (http://www.slackware.com/info/)
The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers. (https://www.ubuntu.com/about/about-ubuntu)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a world-class, secure open source server operating system (https://www.suse.com/products/server/)
The only people who buy that "it's not an OS it's a platform" you're advocating are the marketing folks at RedHat who _despite_ their branding efforts _still_ can't avoid having statements like this on the RHEL about page:
We're offering ...[a] cross-geographic high-availability environment, and we wouldn’t go there if we weren’t absolutely confident in our operating system. (https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/linux-platforms/enterprise-linux)
The definition of an OS in the link you provided (which I don't fully agree with, but still) is:
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs.
This is exactly what Android does: you write software against the Android API, so Android is an operating system. Under normal circumstances your software does not and cannot call the kernel or even most (any?) of the GNU userland utilities. Under normal operation, you can't even install your own (unsigned) software or bootloader. Therefore, Android is neither operationally or philosophically what most people mean when they say "Linux" and does not deserve the moniker "Linux".
stock Android supported only one application on the screen at once
My G3 came with Android 5 and supported running two apps side by side
That was a manufacturer customization, not stock Android. Some Samsung devices received a similar customization. Usually it involved zooming out, so as to maintain a requirement in the Android 5 "Lollipop" Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) that the screen size presented to the application not change after installation. But zooming out had the downside of often making text unreadably small. Some implementations, such as Samsung's, additionally allowed applications to opt into a tiling window management by specifying a Samsung-specific tag in the application's manifest file. But any application whose manifest did not specify so could run only in the full screen or zoomed out. In any case, it was not a standard feature of the Android operating system until Android 7 "Nougat".
so you are a liar.
Insults are uncalled for.
the desktop is dead because i'm standing far enough away from real work i can't differentiate the use cases please someone drown me.
Android, a popular mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel
[table] Operating system - Android [table]
Android was first (currently not replicated by others, in a single year) operating system
from your textbook
Android (stylized as android) is a mobile operating system developed by Google
from another page of the same damn textbook
From the wiki 'textbook',
Linux is an OS, Android also an OS, Windows also an OS, and MacOS also an OS.
Linux kernel is the kernel. Android uses Linux kernel. Windows uses NT. MacOS uses Unix.
In my book, Linux is a fat bird and Android is an edible robot. your augment is invalid.
though the Linux desktop "OS" has truly become thought of as being called "Linux" ... in this case Linux truly is just the kernel, and Android is the OS.
Not so. Android is an OS only according to marketers and those who believe them. For anybody who will trouble themselves to understand the textbook definition, Linux is the OS (e.g., it schedules, manages virtual memory and devices, enforces security) and Android is a platform, not an OS (e.g., Android does not schedule, does not manage virtual memory, does not implement device drivers and does not provide the base security mechanism).
Now, I would not be surprised at all to see this post modded down once again by some morally challenged Google or Apple employee with too much time on their hands and too much skin in the game.
Linux is the kernel. It's not a SYSTEM. The entire thing, that lets you DO stuff, is a SYSTEM, so the operating system is GNU/Linux, if it is a distro featuring principally the GNU utilities and Linux kernel. By contrast, Android can be thought of as an alternative set of utilities replacing the GNU utilities, and focusing and specializing on embedded systems, phones, tablets, and similar devices. So technically, the thing should be called "Android/Linux" the same way people insist the aforementioned should properly be called "GNU/Linux," in recognition of the fact that without the REST of the OS, the kernel would do NOTHING, just as without the kernel, the rest of the OS could do nothing. TOGETHER, either collection can constitute an operating system.
As for textbook definitions, they're no more than the opinion of whatever person or persons wrote or edited the textbook. Whatever THEY think, try running the Linux kernel by itself. Put the kernel on a disc of some kind ALONE, no LILO, no GRUB, no Chainloader, nothing, JUST the kernel, and try to boot from it.
Good fucking luck.
So since Android is also a Linux-based OS, (being as I pointed out, Android/Linux,) when people sit at work, with their Android phones and tablets sitting beside them on top of their desks, there are Linux-based operating systems, ON THE DESKTOP, and they, plus the GNU/Linux ones, probably DO outnumber the Windows ones, which makes 2017 truly the Year of Linux... On The Desktop! :-D
This is a nice silver-lining, considering what an utter hurricane of dogshit 2017 is turning out to be in every other respect, from the end of American democracy, the election of a mentally unstable, megalomaniacal chronic failure, underachieving, screaming angry toddler with daddy-issues as a so-called "president," to his installation of the very worst dregs of humanity into positions of authority in what used to be called the US government, killing millions of innocent American citizens by stealing their health-care coverage by making it impossible for them to afford, to the degradation of the environment, in the form of more extraction of and burning of the same, of fossil-fuels, which is unavoidably going to mean more leaks, and other environmental catastrophes, the uptick in coming pollution of the air, the waters, from streams to rivers to lakes and the oceans, more garbage being pushed into our bodies from every conceivable direction... the fact that other countries formerly seen as sane and responsible bunches of stand-up guys following America's lead into the abyss...
This being The Year of Linux on the Desktop would certainly be just the ray of sunshine we all need, on this otherwise very dark and cloudy day.