Android gaining on Apple iOS in mobile web market share - Page 3

I'm old enough to recall in the early years of the Mac an Apple execute stating that the Mac OS would be replaced within 10 years. We got OSX which was more like 16 years later. The march to iOS for everything will be a slow one. Every iteration brings a wealth and richness to the platform. Eventually OSX will be replaced but not anytime soon.

I agree that OSX is brilliant and perfect for my needs. The question of it being retired is fueled by Apple's lack of information on the next major iteration of the platform. I honestly believe the Apple rotates their developers around (as Apple has attested to themselves) to have them gain fresh insights. My feeling is that a skeleton crew were working on OSX when iOS 4.0 was being crafted. Now I'm sure OSX 10.7 is in full swing.

I do hope the iLife and iWork teams are back to producing new iterations as well. I'm still wanting Xcode 4.0 badly too.

Right. I never disputed that they are now a general CE company.

I disputed that they are similar to either Microsoft or Google. There is some overlap, but they are in different sectors of technology.

Apple is now primarily in the business of making gadgets for non-technical computer-hating folks. Software, while never really important as a revenue source, is now even more the tail wagging the Apple dog.

There is only one metric that apple uses in these decisions: What will generate the highest total profit?

It matters not what any other company does, it matters not what their computers are like, except and to the extent it may affect Apple's profits.

They figure that they will make more money without BD than they will make with BD. These things are not hard to understand.

Apple is doing an unbelievably good job at staying at the bleeding edge of mobile computing. They keep upping the ante, so to speak. If you include the iPad within the arena of "mobile computing", they have upped the ante by a huge increment.

Because they have been doing such a good job at upping the ante, their market share will likely not suffer in the foreseeable future. But it is difficult to judge how far out into the future this will continue. If I were to guess, taking into account the upcoming availability of the iPhone in new markets and new carriers, I would guess that the iPhone market share, of smartphone market, will continue to increase for at least another couple of years, perhaps longer. And with respect to the iPad, it is becoming apparent that this thing is going to be a whole lot more popular than probably even Mr. Jobs himself would have dared to hope as recently as a year ago.

But it is not a question of whether Apple will eventually lose market share. It is a question only of when. The struggle between Oracle and Google will be resolved, almost certainly outside of the courtroom. Android will eventually become the predominant, de facto standard operating system for phones and for pads. It is not a question of whether this will happen. It is only a question of when. The best source of information for estimating what Apple's market share will be eventually, is their market share within the personal computer market. The mobile computing space is destined to eventually look much the same as the personal computer space looks at present. The prevailing factors that ultimately determine Apple's market share are fundamentally the same, with the exception that Apple has bolted out of the gate and that it is going to take a few years for things to settle out. The only way that this would not eventually happen would be if Apple continues indefinitely to find ways to differentiate their products from the competition. They are doing that amazingly well thus far, but this simply cannot continue indefinitely. There is a finite limit to the features you can add, and to how sexy you can make it.

That said, chances look pretty good that the iPad is going to be a game changer for a longer period of time. I will hazard a guess that Apple will rule the pad space for the next five years at a minimum. This is likely to be a cash cow for Apple for at least that long. Consequently, I expect to see the continuation of dramatic growth in the value of Apple stock for at least three more years, perhaps longer. It seems entirely realistic to me to anticipate annual increase in the value of Apple stock of perhaps 25%, for at least the next three years, perhaps longer. I expect Apple stock to double in value over the next three years.

I agree 100% with this comment. And, I would add, it is the only metric that matters in the long run.

At some point, Google will have to start to figure out a way to start to monetize Android (since they are not a charity, but a shareholder value-maximizing firm). That will be fun to watch......

Duh is right. Every manufacturer could like it, but that does not matter one bit.

The reason why Android is gaining market share is because consumers are buying Android devices faster and faster, certainly at a much faster rate than iOS devices. Fewer relevant consumers are buying iOS devices compared to greater numbers of relevant consumers buying Android devices.

These things are not mysterious. The rate of consumer purchases determines market share on a dynamic basis. The installed consumer base compared to competitors determines the static market share.

The reasons for market share are consumer buying habits, and not what manufacturers "like".

I'm reluctant to comment on OSX because I am not a software developer. I have enough on my plate being a software user.

But...When Snow Leopard came out, it wasn't as much a leap forward as it was a foundation for things to come. So what happened?

All I hear from Apple is iOS, iOS. I have iOS coming out of my ears. There is no information or even interest really on what is next for real computers that get work done.

Seems to me that Apple has left the creative community behind in order to cater to teenagers who want to text and ping all day. Usually while walking or driving. Makes me sad.

A common misunderstanding by people who don't understand Apple and think they are just another company. How much cash is Apple sitting on? When was the last time they paid a stock dividend? Apple is not beholden to their investors like so many other companies. Because they have no debt, they have far less interest in propping up their stock price as other companies do. Simply put, Apple is not about maximizing shareholder profits.


And yet Apple manages to maintain a 70+% market share in portable music devices without licensing the iPod OS. And perhaps you are unfamiliar with how disastrous licensing the Mac OS was for Apple?

As soon as I visited this review my conclusion was that AppleInsider's followers have to review this! http://hubpages.com/hub/rent-a-laptop-rentals . I can't comprehend renting a notebook at all! The cost of renting a portable computer for just a week and a half or so will cost you as much as going to the store and purchasing the netbook!

Why not? Was the iPod touch counted? It doesn't have a phone, either. The numbers are incomplete.
Will this company finally start counting ipads when there are android tablets? Oh, wait, there are! Are those android tablets included in the figures? Doesn't say....bogus numbers here...

The amount of browsing that those few iPads are doing is not insignificant. Here i am typing this on my iPad. I have also happily been watching BBC iPlayer on it for hours at a time. This is not so good on Android -- DaringFireball just posted about an article that said there have been 6000 BBC programmes streamed from Android devices (all of them), while there have been over 5,000,000 for iOS devices. The BBC has a great website optimised for the iPad.

So, I reckon the studies can show that millions more Android devices are ACCESSING the web. Maybe they go by IP addresses or something. And maybe they are accessing the web more individual times: ie., likelly those Android devices are set to check their email like every five minutes and sync with their calendars, etc.

But I highly doubt Android users are spending any serious time online browsing the web in any kind of comfort. I bet they can't wait to get back to their desktops. On the contrary, iOS users are eschewing their desktops in favour of browsing the web on their mobile devices!

I think they pretty much figured it out. Slowly killing Android and charge for Chrome OS. The next major battle will be tablet anyway.

Apple has plenty of money to deploy workers wherever profits are available to be made.

They were not short staffed on OS X (if at all) for any reason other than that they chose to be so. They choose staffing levels based upon the potential profitability of various projects (just like Adobe). If you think that OS X is starved of talent, then the reason is that Apple chose to cut back on OS X engineers.

Why on earth would you say that? You think they've learned nothing from their previous endeavors?Apple realized that they need the dev community and actively promote their well being. You only hear about the ones that got shafted because of a corner case rule, something Apple hadn't thought of. Or about the ones that are borderline legal that Apple doesn't know what to do with and in its typical secretive style won't tell you anything until it has decided.

If 95% of app submissions are approved within a week, I'd be hard pressed to imagine that all devs hate Apple. We hear about the publicity generating minority, never about the outfits, big and small that are perfectly happy doing business with Apple.

Find me a mobile platform that has paid out over a billion to devs consisting of 1 person to 50 person teams. There are none. Apple isn't stupid, they know they need to share enough to keep the devs on board.

This is delusion. Apple has one and only one goal: Shareholder value.

What do you base that on? It seems to be the premise you rely upon, but I don't see any support.

Got any facts to prop up that crucial contention?

Did you ever stop to consider that Apple might be happy right where they are? Why does Apple need to have a 20%, or 30% market share. Larger market shares require more investment and management. Apple is doing quite well for the share holders with the current market share. Also, considering they have only ONE phone, they are doing quite well. The only thing missing from your argument is the: "Apple uses old hardware" debate which has been proven lame in the past.

That they only sell software. D'oh.

Apple is increasing output to > 5 Million iOS enabled systems per month. I'll take 60 million+ users annually at those margins.

Yes, look at what has happened to the iPod!

Also, Android market share outside the US (where in most countries there are other carriers) is 1/10 of Apple's

Ok- I see your reasoning, but I disagree- I think that as long as iOS can maintain a quality feel over Android with inertia scrolling,etc it will be preferred- but it must go multicarrier asap. I think that is the big thing. I don't know a single person that actually bought a droid because it was superior to the iPhone- they all bought it because they can't get an iPhone and won't leave Verizon to do it, and it is the next best thing available to them. Here's to hoping that this market data is inspiring Apple to figure things out and get the iPhone to sprint, Verizon and tmobile's networks.

As opposed to what someone said, Apple NEEDS 50% share. They don't need to be the absolute rulers of the market, but they MUST have a big chunk of it to keep developer interest. Without it, iOS will fall down and say "Hi!" to its brother the Mac.

> Originally Posted by krabbelen
> The amount of browsing that those few iPads are doing is not insignificant.

Facts: In a recent overview by NetMarketshare.com the iPad already has 0.27 % of the total browsing (worldwide), as opposed to the best-scoring Android version, 2.1, at 0.09 %. If you add Android 1.6 and 2.2, the combined result is 0.17 % - lower that the iPad alone.
The numbers are here.

 is doomed!
Indeed!

\: So only  zealots buy iOS devices?

: How many iOS devices  can put alongside an Android one?



Android is everywhere!
IOS devices are not.

Wow, there are so many factual errors and conjecture in this post, it will take too much effort to counter. Jeez.

It will be some time before Android is really competitive. Apple's developer SDKs and tools are much better then Googles. Apple has a significant advantage when it comes to mobile app development. It is difficult to write anything beyond simple apps that wrap around a web page (like Facebook) or OpenGL based games on an Android device. Android web surfing is probably up because that (and Google Maps which is better then on the iPhone) is all you can do well on an Android phone. iPhone users probably use applications in place of web browsing for many tasks. Android will probably be very popular among people who just want to surf the web, but may never gain traction among users who want to run apps. I think the iPhone actually lives up to the hype and Android falls short when you actually try to use their phone to run applications. As others have said, a lot of people chose an Android device on Verizon. Those same people carry an iPod touch to run applications. There is a significant conversion rate (I don't have the link handy) for Android to iPhone users. There is virtually no defection from the iPhone. Market share doesn't tell the whole story. I still find it incredible how many professionals are using OS X. These are the people really propelling the economy. Something just doesn't feel right about comparing a NetBook to a MacBook Pro. You can of course slant statistics to any point you want to prove, but I care more about use-share and dollar-share then market-share. I think that Microsoft would trade places with Apple right now if they could.

I think google should get credit for achieving this web use statistic though. It is really pretty impressive, but to be fair to Apple it is the only thing they have been focusing on. They certainly have not been focusing on Apps. For various reasons I don't think Apple has wanted to make a less expensive iPhone with more limited capabilities to compete with Android. If Android continues to increase their market share after Apple switches to Verizon, maybe they will.

My prediction is that Android will be the dominant OS for low end phones. The middle and high end will continue to be dominated by Apple. The Android phone just doesn't (and will take a long time to catch up) compete well with Apple. It isn't just the 2-3 year head start Apple has in the Smart Phone business. It is the 10+ year head start they had by factoring in OS X technology. Google (or their partners) will never be as motivated or have the same resources as Apple to make decent SDKs for their Apps to take off. Besides the technical problems, it doesn't make a lot of business sense for most developers to target an App Store that generally doesn't sell enough apps to be worth the effort. Android phones do not yet have Enterprise features. Enterprise customers are all rallying behind creating iOS apps for their in house development. Despite being Java-based, Android will have an uphill battle in a couple years when they are ready to really support the Enterprise. Besides they are not running the "full" Java, so it really has little relevance for enterprise customers porting existing apps. The ubiquitous hardware and top down push (push from corporate executives) strategy is working very well for Apple in the enterprise sector. If anyone follows a "Windows" trajectory it will be Apple. Despite being from one vendor, they have the only hardware I would call ubiquitous. Multi-vendor and ubiquitous are not synonyms. If anyone asks me for an Android version of an iPhone app, I say we can do a "lite" version. (By the way, if anyone knows why it is called "lite" instead of "light" I would love to know.)

Not true....

You forgot one very important detail when measuring what Apple needs... Users are almost worthless if a very large portion of them have never and likely will never pay for an app. I listen to lots of podcasts and those who fly the hacker flag high and proud gloat that they'd never be caught dead BUYING an APP... These same people boast how useless the iPhone is and how awsomw Android is... Perhaps someone needs to dig out a photo of what ANDRIOD looked like before the iPhone was revealed. Anyway, what developer is going to back THAT horse, an entire user base looking for free everything?

I'm sure you can cite lots of successful iPhone devs who are developing apps for android too... How long do you expect them to keep up the charity work when nobody buys their stuff? Hey it's not like everyone can be google and just give their work away for free!

In the end if Google winds up with 80% of the freeloaders and Apple ends up with the other 20% that actually reward developers work then you can only guess where the developers will side.

Please post a link showing that Android has surpassed iPhone worldwide. Everything I have read says otherwise.

You're right, just look here. Mac OSX: 5%, iOS: 1.13%, Android (all versions combined): 0.2%.
So Android is less than one fifth of iOS in worldwide web browsing share. Even Symbian (Nokia) is bigger with 0.27% - the same number as the iPad has alone.

The truly last market to explode is China. Apple is making huge increases in China and will continue to expand with the iPad, not to forget Japan and South Korea.

If Apple wants to make the same inroads into India, it will.

math: if ATT has 1/3rd of carriers, and Android gets the other 2/3rds [meaning ATT has ONE and Android has TWO, what is the ratio?

This is probably a useful study for somebody in the business, but it is only a partial look at the market. It doesn't include net usage by apps which is growing quite a bit.

I think you are forgetting that Android can address the all US carriers, whig makes it 3/3.

You do realize that the BBC iplayer only works on android 2.2 with flash right?
Not many phones have been upgraded yet.
And tell me what makes browsing on ios so much better that you assume android users cant wait to get back to their desktops?

By that logic then there is no PC maker that is "important" since none have a monopoly of the PC market, but you are very wrong. Macs are important and a huge issue for all big name PC makers who can't make a decent buck on higher-end HW sales. And regarding the "market as a whole" Macs have the largest marketshare in terms of profits, the only thing thing that concerns a good company.



You just made Gruber's point regarding Flash.

You do the math with the facts, the ratio is 3 to 1 because Android is on ATT.

Shouldn't android be passed ios by now? I mean I think it's sad that they aren't.

I have never seen an Android phone in the wild in the UK yet, everybody I meet has an iOS device.

This argument is full of android zealots. Nevertheless I want to correct some assumptions, and misleading facts.

1) Apple outgrew the market in the 2nd quarter, which will be it's weakest quarter this year. Androids "catchup" was confined to the US - where it went ahead, but the US figures played into the world figures. One quarter of catchup is not the same as an installed base.
2) The iPhone i4 and 3GS 8MB are selling like hotcakes. Apple clearly said in the 2Q conference call that their YoY run rate was an increase of 90% until they announced the iPhone 4. Even factoring in the 1.7 million sold in the last 3 days their final year on year increase was 60%. So sales dropped off a cliff for a month. Hard figures, not speculation. So people who were unaware of the iP4 until the announcement held off from then, and the people who were aware of it were holding off all year ( like me, for instance). This quarter I expect a sequential increase on 100% or more.
3) People who buy Android in the US wanted an iPhone like device but not AT&T. That will change next year.
4) Please include the iPod Touch ( and now the iPad) in all quarterly comparisons. That matters to developers. Every holiday quarter Apple sells about 20M iPods, otherwise 10M. About half are touches, this will probably increase this year. Conservatively expect 15M iPod touches to come out to December. All running 4.X. Developers rejoice.
5) Steve announced 230K new activations a day. That is iPhone or iPad 3g only, and excludes iPod touches. It runs to 7M a month or 21M a quarter. It includes iPad 3Gs but it does not include upgrades ( i.e. sales to old customers, which must be 50%). The maths is simple here, the iOS is pulling ahead of Android this quarter rather sharply. Sales could be 40M.

To those of you who think that this is a re-run of the Mac - Windows market please learn about some other markets. The PC market is anomalous in being a dual platform. The Mobile market was multi-platform before the iPhone, it was after the Android, and it will be post Windows 7 - which will also be licensed ( so why do the licensing will always win brigade ignore Windows 7?) . Windows 7 will attract that portion of the Apple hating Windows loving crowd who now go to Android. It will be Windows 10%, Android 20%, iOS ( all devices) 40-50%. Sold apps will be far higher on the App Store, and will attract more developers.


Lastly Apple dont care about profits. They dont give their shareholders any money. Unless the company is losing money they dont look at it. They could, after all, make money from an Apple branded Windows machine.

Steve is a founder CEO, which is quite a different beast from a MBA CEO. He wants to win. Look at the prices of iPods. They want that in the Phone market too.

For those of you who think it is about money, not market share, when has Steve every mentioned the Apple Stock. Has he ever crowed about becoming the biggest company in the US? he belittled the idea at D8.

No, he comes on an talks about sales, and market share, and apps, and numbers of downloads and so on.

They want to win the Phone OS war,because they believe their OS is better, and they will because the OS is better.

( Android lovers will probably come back on that one, but trust me as a developer, it is night and day. Android is vile, ugly, restrictive, iOS is desktop quality SDK, and to us the SDK is the OS).