Now the people telling you exactly what apps you can and can't use
Apple does no such thing. The *only* thing they do is disallow a small number of apps. It's up to the developers what apps are made available, and what apps the user decides to buy or download.
Google does the same thing to a lesser extent. They've actually used their remote kill switch on apps, and they've booted apps from their store. Would you make the same statement were Android to ever get The Daily?
Anyway, I guess "now the people who refuse to carry *some* apps on their single-source app store..." doesn't have the same ring to it.
An open standard must be freely available for implementation, otherwise the 'open' adjective would be superfluous as disclosure is already a requirement for it to be a standard in the first place.
Why does "open" imply "free"? Although not applied to a standard, the open source Firefox project is actually less free in some ways than H.264. Look into Iceweasel to see what I'm referring to. Also, x264 is a valid and legal open source project, even in the US where software patents are valid. What it's not, however, is truly and completely free. That's because the copyright (which is open) is properly licensed. The ability to actually use the source code is limited by patents.
Open, in the case of H.264, also refers to the standard's creation, which was done out in the open. Also, everyone is allowed to license it. And finally, the source code for it is open source.
It is not, however, completely free, although it is completely free in some contexts, so in those contexts, it is also a free standard. But no one calls it that because you can't really do so without qualification. It is a fair point to consider, however.
The standard was created in a public manner, is openly available to anyone who wants to implement it, and the patents are fairly licensed to anyone who wishes to license them. That's what an open standard means. The idea that the standard has to be completely free is parochial.
it's also a legal issue. If MS is going to go after google to make people afraid to use VP8, by saying that chrome has patent threats attached (via H264) is exactly how it is done.
That makes absolutely no sense. MS is the one distributing the plugin, not Google. Further, Google has absolutely no legal responsibility for the IP of third party plugins.
MS wouldn't be the ones to sue Google, it would be MPEG-LA. And whether WebM infringes on their patents has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not users also have a separate plugin.
How have they extended HTML5 outside of the W3C/WHATWG? And assuming you mean H.264, what part of H.264 is a proprietary MS extension to it?
It's silly to claim that F/OSS software can't support H.264, when both Safari (WebKit) and Chrome (browser + WebKit both), in their open source incarnations, support it just fine. In fact, what MS is doing is providing that very thing to Chrome!
Also, what open source operating system cannot encode/decode H.264? Do you not know that MPEG-LA distributes H.264 as open source?
The video content will grow quite rapidly, now that several big archives are donating stuff for use in Wikipedia (like he German Bundesarchiv and the Dutch Nationaal Archief). For now, primararly thousands and thousands of photo's, but it is strange to think that video's will follow soon?
No, but it is strange to think that this will drive demand for Theora sufficient to make it commonplace on people's computers. They will just view the media from a site (like YouTube) that they can already use, and already know about.
Also media outlets like Al Jazeera are distributing material with a cc-license. (cc.aljazeera.net).
What's that got to do with promoting Theora? If it's CC licensed, and it's sufficiently desirable, someone will simply transcode it to a common format, like H.264. By the time something is popular enough that it would get a lot of people to install a plugin, it will have long ago already been popular enough for just one person to have transcoded it.
Wikipedia will be a big player with the video-content soon enough.
Yeah, because it's just so easy to do that. All you need to do is put a bunch of obscure video out in a format that no one uses, and people will go out their way to use your site./sarcasm
People don't even use sites that they *don't* have to jump through hoops to use. It takes more than a good idea to make something successful, and deliberately hobbling a good idea with a bad idea is not going to help.
Its worth noting that there are many many MANY exploits that own windows explorer via PDF, gif, and jpeg. (PDF being the worst offender)
Yes, there are exploits that target Internet Explorer's handling of images, and that target Adobe Reader. Not generically "PDF, gif and jpeg". The reason I am highlighting this distinction is that IE and Adobe Reader (and Adobe Flash and Oracle Java) are all so ubiquitous that they are worth targeting. Chrome users with a plug in from Microsoft is going to be a very small target set. You don't target a format in general (unless the format itself is fundamentally flawed, or only available from a single source, like the macro viruses in MS Office), you target a specific implementation.
As long as chrome is properly sandboxed it's not a big deal. But when clowns decide to integrate the browser into the OS, sandboxing becomes both difficult and critical, and things tend to go south. (as with IE) So although this does increase exposure, it doesn't have to increase RISK.
It only increases exposure very, very slightly. Also, I fail to see how the logic that says H.264 support is a security risk (not that you are saying this, just pointing it out in general), but somehow Theora (or WebM) support isn't.
That's not how language works. It is still an open standard, even if it's not an open standard somewhere or under one of many definitions. Besides, as noted to you by KingMotley, your assertion that it fails to qualify as an open standard under the EU definition is not as certain as you claim it is.
Anyway, your word play is like saying that a dining room chair isn't a chair because it's not: Chair n. 2. the person in charge of a meeting or organization.
Yes, I'm sure there will be countless exploits that use maliciously crafted H.264 videos to target Chrome users that have installed MS's H.264 plugin...
I've seen some extremely tenuous FUD before, but wow!
No, the whole reason it's not useful is that nobody uses it. Not being in IE may play a factor in it, but it's not the "whole reason" by any stretch of the imagination.
Theora is also quite useful, given that the Wikimedia projects only accept free formats. You're not going to be able to upload your video in H.264 there, and they're a big enough player for this to actually matter.
Not even close. I've never, ever, received a link to a video on wikipedia (or any other wikimedia project). Ever. I bet most people aren't even aware that there *are* videos on wikipedia.
If they were big enough to matter, people would already be installing Theora plug-ins or switching over to browsers like Firefox in order to view Theora videos. You'd hear iPhone and other smartphone users complaining about lack of Theora support. There would be how-tos on playing Theora content. Etc.
None of this is happening. Wikipedia itself is pretty huge, but their impact on the multimedia market is insignificant.
That's not how 'embrace, extend, extinguish' works. They are embracing H.264, but not extending it, are extending Chrome (in a way different from e.e.e. however), and extinguishing neither.
Adding support for H.264 is actually useful, unlike Theora support. Also, it's largely a game of upsmanship, basically saying, "here Google, we fixed your browser for you".
Supposedly matter cannot move faster than light. But the expansion of the universe following the Big Bang involves the dimensions of space-time. It's not the movement of matter, but the movement of existence itself in which that matter exists which can produce FTL expansion.
It's not just matter that can't travel faster than light. Information can't travel faster than light either. And the "edge" of the big bang certainly carries information, namely that the big bang took place. So I'm still puzzled as to what's going on here.
The information at the edge (or any other point in space-time) is not going anywhere faster than light. It's staying right where it is (or moving around that area at or below the speed of light). You can't move through space-time faster than light, but since that's not what's happening, it's fine. It's space-time itself that is expanding.
The numbers came from Apple's recent quarterly results. The Android numbers actuality were pulled out of the ass of some analyst group, and are the highest numbers estimated for Android last quarter.
And I didn't include Apple TV. In fact, I made the point that I deliberately left it out.
Android non-phone sales are abysmal. If they amounted to even one million I'd be shocked. The numbers in the article are the highest estimates for Android, and my numbers are the lowest for iOS. It's *possible* Android total sales during the last quarter exceeded iOS sales during the same period, but it's not likely. And even if they did, thie difference is nowhere near as large as the article states.
My main issue here is the deliberate playing around with numbers and market segments to make Android look mega popular, and iOS look like it's waning (in fact, iOS sales have doubled during the last year). Android is doing very well. No need to lie or mislead, but people have been doing that here for about a year now. Even if Android ends up outselling iOS, I won't care so much, it's the disinformation that's so annoying. Truth is fine by me. iOS is in no danger of going away any time soon, so I don't care, I'll always have a platform to use, and if Android ever gets better than iOS, I win again.
Some jackasses here keep calling me an Apple fanboy. I'm not. I'm a quality and user experience fanboy. Apple just currently rules those domains. If someone else where to dethrone them, I'd jump ship.
And the demarcation between phone and non-phone is being arbitrarily chosen simply because it makes Android look good. I'm not saying Android isn't doing well. On the contrary, it's doing quite well (no need for playing games with numbers or market segments). My point is that people read this and come away with the false conclusion that Android is now more popular than iOS, and have been falsely claiming this for about a year now when Android's worldwide numbers exceeded only the iPhone's US numbers.
You're right that it is interesting. Do you really want to look deeper? Why would people buy so many Android phones, but so few Android tablets? Price (specifically, frequent Android discounts) and carrier choice play a big factor here. In the arena where carrier is irrelevant, iOS trounces Android. That's the arena where it's solely down to price (and Android isn't doing as well when not so highly subsidized) and consumer choice of the product itself, and not the product plus the carrier.
No, they don't. Apple tracks actual sales, as does everyone who both can do so, and when the real numbers don't make them look pathetic, like what happened with the Galaxy Tab and Windows Phone 7.
You're a perfect example of a product of the misinformation being thrown about by Android fanboys. Android did not outsell the iPhone in Q1 2010.
And I *didn't* include Appke TV. Learn to read.
As for counting non-phones, Android sales are absolutely pathetic outside of handsets. That's because nobody actually wants *Android*. They aren't buying the phones for Android, they are buying them because they are in sale, and available on their carrier. If they actually liked Android itself, Samsung wouldn't have lied about their sales of the Galaxy Tab.
So keep moving the goal posts. It doesn't matter any more.
You guys are the ones who keep moving the goal posts. Every time Android reaches another milestone, you are the ones claiming victory. You keep confusing a first down for a touch down. Those aren't goal posts that you keep seeing moved, it's the line of scrimmage. You haven't even *seen* the goal yet.
Yes, the claim is being made that it has surpassed iOS. And I don't see how you can claim that the difference isn't likely made up, because the numbers show, lowballing iOS and highballing Android, that Android is barely ahead of iOS for sales during the last quarter. While it's possible that these low and high estimates are correct, it's not statistically likely, and the difference is so small that just a minor bit of error correction puts iOS back ahead.
And the regardless of how that plays out, the headline is absolutely incorrect. Symbian is most likely the most-shipped platform, and iOS is way ahead of Android. The headline is unqualified (it doesn't say, "during the recent quarter only"). This sort of sloppiness (deliberate, I might add) is why you find people here who have claimed, for almost a year now, that Android is more popular than iOS, and that iOS is waning. It's absurd.
What's wrong with stating the facts honestly, and without spin? Android is doing very well, no need to exaggerate or lie by omission.
That's over 32.8 million iOS devices. I didn't include the 2 million Apple TVs
Wait. So, when you count all the iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, they still didn't surpass Android powered phones? Not counting Android Tablets and other android devices. You even estimate:
My estimate is the lowest possible, it's definitely higher, but how much so is not reported. And the Android estimate given is the *highest* one *guessed at*, so it's all but certain to be significantly overstated.
Non-phone Android is presently insignificant. Most likely not even adding up to a single million. People don't really like Android itself, but they do like sale phones on their carrier of choice.
19.45 million iPods, over half of which were iPod touches, but they didn't give a breakdown
So your number isn't a hard figure either.
Right, but it's deliberately under-stated. It's the lowest possible number.
The Apple TVs don't count anyways, because thats not what we're counting or competing in.
And I didn't include it, even though it counts as iOS. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm being as fair as possible, countering numbers and arguments that are deliberately skewed to make Android look better than it is, which is kind of silly to do, because Android is doing well enough without having to play such games.
Granted considering we're talking about smartphone marketshare, the iPods and iPads shouldn't count either but I'll let that slide to prove the point.
That is an entirely arbitrary distinction to make. Comparing phones alone is definitely useful in terms of looking at different break downs in the market, but the overall market is far more informative. That's why, again, why I didn't include Apple TV. It's not running iOS as a portable device, or even an app device (if it had an app store, I *might* be inclined to include it)
Despite you yourself adding the numbers and showing that all iOS devices put together aren't selling more than Android smartphones alone. You still claim that Android smartphone sales haven't passed iPhone sales? Really?!
It's called math. iOS has been outselling Android for over three years now. This last quarter, the *highest* Android estimates *barely* eke ahead of the lowest iOS estimates. iOS sales are still way ahead of Android. Present sales are almost certainly ahead of Android, although it's possible, but highly unlikely, that iOS is really at the low ball number, and Android is at the high ball number given in this article. It's difficult to see how such a position can be taken as honest and non-delusional. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn't take that position.
Every time someone mentions Android phone prices, and I become curious, I google something like "how much is an unlocked droid" (and "unlocked android", just to be fair in case the Droid lines are overly expensive or something), and click the top few searches (letting google fill in the details on what's current), and always find the Android phone to be around $550-$750+ just like the iPhone.
The really shocking part is the Android phones are universally anemic in terms of flash storage (and feature set in general, but while a gyroscope is nice, and retina display is something hard to ever go back from, flash storage is the one most critical part of a smartphone, once everything else is at least adequate). That $650 Android handset *might* have 8GB flash. WTF?
The place where Android actually does end up cheaper is on the subsidized pricing, but not by much. iPhones start at $99 (and sometimes even $49), but there's often a sale on one Android phone or another, many times it's even buy one, get one free.
But whatever the exact prices, most people are fine with the $99-$299 for the iPhone. The thing that stops most people is the service plan or carrier choice. Carrier choice is about to become far less relevant, but no iPhone or even major carrier Android phone is going to be able to compete with a $50/mo Android phone on Cricket for those who are very price sensitive.
Slashdot Mirror
Now the people telling you exactly what apps you can and can't use
Apple does no such thing. The *only* thing they do is disallow a small number of apps. It's up to the developers what apps are made available, and what apps the user decides to buy or download.
Google does the same thing to a lesser extent. They've actually used their remote kill switch on apps, and they've booted apps from their store. Would you make the same statement were Android to ever get The Daily?
Anyway, I guess "now the people who refuse to carry *some* apps on their single-source app store..." doesn't have the same ring to it.
An open standard must be freely available for implementation, otherwise the 'open' adjective would be superfluous as disclosure is already a requirement for it to be a standard in the first place.
Why does "open" imply "free"? Although not applied to a standard, the open source Firefox project is actually less free in some ways than H.264. Look into Iceweasel to see what I'm referring to. Also, x264 is a valid and legal open source project, even in the US where software patents are valid. What it's not, however, is truly and completely free. That's because the copyright (which is open) is properly licensed. The ability to actually use the source code is limited by patents.
Open, in the case of H.264, also refers to the standard's creation, which was done out in the open. Also, everyone is allowed to license it. And finally, the source code for it is open source.
It is not, however, completely free, although it is completely free in some contexts, so in those contexts, it is also a free standard. But no one calls it that because you can't really do so without qualification. It is a fair point to consider, however.
The standard was created in a public manner, is openly available to anyone who wants to implement it, and the patents are fairly licensed to anyone who wishes to license them. That's what an open standard means. The idea that the standard has to be completely free is parochial.
it's also a legal issue. If MS is going to go after google to make people afraid to use VP8, by saying that chrome has patent threats attached (via H264) is exactly how it is done.
That makes absolutely no sense. MS is the one distributing the plugin, not Google. Further, Google has absolutely no legal responsibility for the IP of third party plugins.
MS wouldn't be the ones to sue Google, it would be MPEG-LA. And whether WebM infringes on their patents has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not users also have a separate plugin.
How have they extended HTML5 outside of the W3C/WHATWG? And assuming you mean H.264, what part of H.264 is a proprietary MS extension to it?
It's silly to claim that F/OSS software can't support H.264, when both Safari (WebKit) and Chrome (browser + WebKit both), in their open source incarnations, support it just fine. In fact, what MS is doing is providing that very thing to Chrome!
Also, what open source operating system cannot encode/decode H.264? Do you not know that MPEG-LA distributes H.264 as open source?
The video content will grow quite rapidly, now that several big archives are donating stuff for use in Wikipedia (like he German Bundesarchiv and the Dutch Nationaal Archief). For now, primararly thousands and thousands of photo's, but it is strange to think that video's will follow soon?
No, but it is strange to think that this will drive demand for Theora sufficient to make it commonplace on people's computers. They will just view the media from a site (like YouTube) that they can already use, and already know about.
Also media outlets like Al Jazeera are distributing material with a cc-license. (cc.aljazeera.net).
What's that got to do with promoting Theora? If it's CC licensed, and it's sufficiently desirable, someone will simply transcode it to a common format, like H.264. By the time something is popular enough that it would get a lot of people to install a plugin, it will have long ago already been popular enough for just one person to have transcoded it.
Wikipedia will be a big player with the video-content soon enough.
Yeah, because it's just so easy to do that. All you need to do is put a bunch of obscure video out in a format that no one uses, and people will go out their way to use your site. /sarcasm
People don't even use sites that they *don't* have to jump through hoops to use. It takes more than a good idea to make something successful, and deliberately hobbling a good idea with a bad idea is not going to help.
Its worth noting that there are many many MANY exploits that own windows explorer via PDF, gif, and jpeg. (PDF being the worst offender)
Yes, there are exploits that target Internet Explorer's handling of images, and that target Adobe Reader. Not generically "PDF, gif and jpeg". The reason I am highlighting this distinction is that IE and Adobe Reader (and Adobe Flash and Oracle Java) are all so ubiquitous that they are worth targeting. Chrome users with a plug in from Microsoft is going to be a very small target set. You don't target a format in general (unless the format itself is fundamentally flawed, or only available from a single source, like the macro viruses in MS Office), you target a specific implementation.
As long as chrome is properly sandboxed it's not a big deal. But when clowns decide to integrate the browser into the OS, sandboxing becomes both difficult and critical, and things tend to go south. (as with IE) So although this does increase exposure, it doesn't have to increase RISK.
It only increases exposure very, very slightly. Also, I fail to see how the logic that says H.264 support is a security risk (not that you are saying this, just pointing it out in general), but somehow Theora (or WebM) support isn't.
Actually, it's not an open standard either, at least as defined by the European Union, the world's biggest IT market by GDP.
That's not how language works. It is still an open standard, even if it's not an open standard somewhere or under one of many definitions. Besides, as noted to you by KingMotley, your assertion that it fails to qualify as an open standard under the EU definition is not as certain as you claim it is.
Anyway, your word play is like saying that a dining room chair isn't a chair because it's not:
Chair n. 2. the person in charge of a meeting or organization.
Yes, it is an open standard. And yes, it contains patented technology. It is not a free standard.
Yes, I'm sure there will be countless exploits that use maliciously crafted H.264 videos to target Chrome users that have installed MS's H.264 plugin...
I've seen some extremely tenuous FUD before, but wow!
No, the whole reason it's not useful is that nobody uses it. Not being in IE may play a factor in it, but it's not the "whole reason" by any stretch of the imagination.
Theora is also quite useful, given that the Wikimedia projects only accept free formats. You're not going to be able to upload your video in H.264 there, and they're a big enough player for this to actually matter.
Not even close. I've never, ever, received a link to a video on wikipedia (or any other wikimedia project). Ever. I bet most people aren't even aware that there *are* videos on wikipedia.
If they were big enough to matter, people would already be installing Theora plug-ins or switching over to browsers like Firefox in order to view Theora videos. You'd hear iPhone and other smartphone users complaining about lack of Theora support. There would be how-tos on playing Theora content. Etc.
None of this is happening. Wikipedia itself is pretty huge, but their impact on the multimedia market is insignificant.
This isn't embrace, extend, extinguish. H.264 is an open standard, not a proprietary MS modification to an existing standard.
That's not how 'embrace, extend, extinguish' works. They are embracing H.264, but not extending it, are extending Chrome (in a way different from e.e.e. however), and extinguishing neither.
Adding support for H.264 is actually useful, unlike Theora support. Also, it's largely a game of upsmanship, basically saying, "here Google, we fixed your browser for you".
Supposedly matter cannot move faster than light. But the expansion of the universe following the Big Bang involves the dimensions of space-time. It's not the movement of matter, but the movement of existence itself in which that matter exists which can produce FTL expansion.
It's not just matter that can't travel faster than light. Information can't travel faster than light either. And the "edge" of the big bang certainly carries information, namely that the big bang took place. So I'm still puzzled as to what's going on here.
The information at the edge (or any other point in space-time) is not going anywhere faster than light. It's staying right where it is (or moving around that area at or below the speed of light). You can't move through space-time faster than light, but since that's not what's happening, it's fine. It's space-time itself that is expanding.
The numbers came from Apple's recent quarterly results. The Android numbers actuality were pulled out of the ass of some analyst group, and are the highest numbers estimated for Android last quarter.
And I didn't include Apple TV. In fact, I made the point that I deliberately left it out.
Android non-phone sales are abysmal. If they amounted to even one million I'd be shocked. The numbers in the article are the highest estimates for Android, and my numbers are the lowest for iOS. It's *possible* Android total sales during the last quarter exceeded iOS sales during the same period, but it's not likely. And even if they did, thie difference is nowhere near as large as the article states.
My main issue here is the deliberate playing around with numbers and market segments to make Android look mega popular, and iOS look like it's waning (in fact, iOS sales have doubled during the last year). Android is doing very well. No need to lie or mislead, but people have been doing that here for about a year now. Even if Android ends up outselling iOS, I won't care so much, it's the disinformation that's so annoying. Truth is fine by me. iOS is in no danger of going away any time soon, so I don't care, I'll always have a platform to use, and if Android ever gets better than iOS, I win again.
Some jackasses here keep calling me an Apple fanboy. I'm not. I'm a quality and user experience fanboy. Apple just currently rules those domains. If someone else where to dethrone them, I'd jump ship.
And the demarcation between phone and non-phone is being arbitrarily chosen simply because it makes Android look good. I'm not saying Android isn't doing well. On the contrary, it's doing quite well (no need for playing games with numbers or market segments). My point is that people read this and come away with the false conclusion that Android is now more popular than iOS, and have been falsely claiming this for about a year now when Android's worldwide numbers exceeded only the iPhone's US numbers.
You're right that it is interesting. Do you really want to look deeper? Why would people buy so many Android phones, but so few Android tablets? Price (specifically, frequent Android discounts) and carrier choice play a big factor here. In the arena where carrier is irrelevant, iOS trounces Android. That's the arena where it's solely down to price (and Android isn't doing as well when not so highly subsidized) and consumer choice of the product itself, and not the product plus the carrier.
No, they don't. Apple tracks actual sales, as does everyone who both can do so, and when the real numbers don't make them look pathetic, like what happened with the Galaxy Tab and Windows Phone 7.
You're a perfect example of a product of the misinformation being thrown about by Android fanboys. Android did not outsell the iPhone in Q1 2010.
And I *didn't* include Appke TV. Learn to read.
As for counting non-phones, Android sales are absolutely pathetic outside of handsets. That's because nobody actually wants *Android*. They aren't buying the phones for Android, they are buying them because they are in sale, and available on their carrier. If they actually liked Android itself, Samsung wouldn't have lied about their sales of the Galaxy Tab.
So keep moving the goal posts. It doesn't matter any more.
You guys are the ones who keep moving the goal posts. Every time Android reaches another milestone, you are the ones claiming victory. You keep confusing a first down for a touch down. Those aren't goal posts that you keep seeing moved, it's the line of scrimmage. You haven't even *seen* the goal yet.
Yes, the claim is being made that it has surpassed iOS. And I don't see how you can claim that the difference isn't likely made up, because the numbers show, lowballing iOS and highballing Android, that Android is barely ahead of iOS for sales during the last quarter. While it's possible that these low and high estimates are correct, it's not statistically likely, and the difference is so small that just a minor bit of error correction puts iOS back ahead.
And the regardless of how that plays out, the headline is absolutely incorrect. Symbian is most likely the most-shipped platform, and iOS is way ahead of Android. The headline is unqualified (it doesn't say, "during the recent quarter only"). This sort of sloppiness (deliberate, I might add) is why you find people here who have claimed, for almost a year now, that Android is more popular than iOS, and that iOS is waning. It's absurd.
What's wrong with stating the facts honestly, and without spin? Android is doing very well, no need to exaggerate or lie by omission.
That's over 32.8 million iOS devices. I didn't include the 2 million Apple TVs
Wait. So, when you count all the iPhones, iPads and iPod touches, they still didn't surpass Android powered phones? Not counting Android Tablets and other android devices. You even estimate:
My estimate is the lowest possible, it's definitely higher, but how much so is not reported. And the Android estimate given is the *highest* one *guessed at*, so it's all but certain to be significantly overstated.
Non-phone Android is presently insignificant. Most likely not even adding up to a single million. People don't really like Android itself, but they do like sale phones on their carrier of choice.
19.45 million iPods, over half of which were iPod touches, but they didn't give a breakdown
So your number isn't a hard figure either.
Right, but it's deliberately under-stated. It's the lowest possible number.
The Apple TVs don't count anyways, because thats not what we're counting or competing in.
And I didn't include it, even though it counts as iOS. The point I'm trying to make is that I'm being as fair as possible, countering numbers and arguments that are deliberately skewed to make Android look better than it is, which is kind of silly to do, because Android is doing well enough without having to play such games.
Granted considering we're talking about smartphone marketshare, the iPods and iPads shouldn't count either but I'll let that slide to prove the point.
That is an entirely arbitrary distinction to make. Comparing phones alone is definitely useful in terms of looking at different break downs in the market, but the overall market is far more informative. That's why, again, why I didn't include Apple TV. It's not running iOS as a portable device, or even an app device (if it had an app store, I *might* be inclined to include it)
Despite you yourself adding the numbers and showing that all iOS devices put together aren't selling more than Android smartphones alone. You still claim that Android smartphone sales haven't passed iPhone sales? Really?!
It's called math. iOS has been outselling Android for over three years now. This last quarter, the *highest* Android estimates *barely* eke ahead of the lowest iOS estimates. iOS sales are still way ahead of Android. Present sales are almost certainly ahead of Android, although it's possible, but highly unlikely, that iOS is really at the low ball number, and Android is at the high ball number given in this article. It's difficult to see how such a position can be taken as honest and non-delusional. If the situation were reversed, I wouldn't take that position.
Which is a funny thing to say since Apple tends to top out on reliability. Far above average, if not number one.
Every time someone mentions Android phone prices, and I become curious, I google something like "how much is an unlocked droid" (and "unlocked android", just to be fair in case the Droid lines are overly expensive or something), and click the top few searches (letting google fill in the details on what's current), and always find the Android phone to be around $550-$750+ just like the iPhone.
The really shocking part is the Android phones are universally anemic in terms of flash storage (and feature set in general, but while a gyroscope is nice, and retina display is something hard to ever go back from, flash storage is the one most critical part of a smartphone, once everything else is at least adequate). That $650 Android handset *might* have 8GB flash. WTF?
The place where Android actually does end up cheaper is on the subsidized pricing, but not by much. iPhones start at $99 (and sometimes even $49), but there's often a sale on one Android phone or another, many times it's even buy one, get one free.
But whatever the exact prices, most people are fine with the $99-$299 for the iPhone. The thing that stops most people is the service plan or carrier choice. Carrier choice is about to become far less relevant, but no iPhone or even major carrier Android phone is going to be able to compete with a $50/mo Android phone on Cricket for those who are very price sensitive.