Apple's iPhone maintains lead over Blackberry, Android in US - Page 2

The number of people who even know what 'jail breaking' is or care about 'open vs. closed' ideological nonsense or could appreciate what on Earth it means to say iOS feel 'restrictive' or want to download a task killer is so tiny it's utterly insignificant to market share. This is the problem with assessing the impact of Android. In the iPhone space the people talking about the iPhone online tend to like it for the same reasons that the masses buying it do: brand, user experience, etc. But the people who talk up Android do so for reasons that the masses buying Android couldn't even begin to comprehend: openness, customisation, an irrational hatred of all things Apple, and so on (most actual Android-phone buyers probably couldn't even tell you it's developed by Google). These aren't the reasons Android is selling in the numbers it is and they will never be a significant reason for its sales. Rather, it sells because it's available on a wide-range of carriers, because Verizon has been pushing it hard in fighting against AT&T and the iPhone and because Microsoft's fumbling with Windows Phone 7 caused the handset manufacturers to start pushing Android devices. All this is going to change in 2011.

I don't buy your assertion that iOS is for old people. It's vastly overrepresented among young people. Moreover, the iPhone is a much more flexible device because of the availability of such a wide variety of 3rd party apps. Most people couldn't care less about changing existing aspects of the phone, especially when they already work well.

It won't happen. Apple's biggest feature amongst developers is platform unity. Further, Apple and AT&T are decent partners. Apple will not update the features unless it does it across the board.

PS:

Verizon stinks worst then AT&T. Don't see why people are so excited about Verizon.

I think you missed his point. As his graphs clearly show that Android OS is ahead of both iOS and BB OS in US marketshare. Where is the incorrect data?

Then he states…
Is this misrepresented? I don’t see where any of this article is incorrect. I do see where you post has an incorrect statement, though...


You’re comparing the Android [OS] to the iPhone [HW], only one of these is actually for sale. Now if you stated “All Android-based devices have surpased the iPhone in new unit sales.” that would be accurate.

Actually a number of non-technical friends of mine has asked me to help them or give them instruction on doing just that. I don't think most people choose android over a philosophical disagreement over software development or distribution, but simply because some important task that they would like to do, or features that they would like having are not available on iOS devices or that of other mobile OSes, or are easier to accomplish on android OS.


No one is talking about hating Apple or that iOS is philosophically wrong, or at least I have not mentioned anything about it. I actually think Apple in many ways are making very smart business decisions in moving to cover important segments of the market that others are ignoring at the moment. There is no debate here about OSS or closed source, open or closed platform, so please stay on topic.


I never said that, again please stay with the actual topic of the conversation, and reply to the things that I actually have said. What I said is that iOS is particularly suited to people who have little prior experience with computers or mobile devices. The largest portion of this group happened to contain people who grew up before the personal computer revolution lead by Apple and IBM in the 1980s, which I think anyone would agree with.

Again, what I said was not that Apple has the least potential market share to gain because its likely customers are older. In the world of mobile devices, it's actually the opposite, the largest untapped market is actually the older generations who have yet to come to know some aspects of technology. This is the area where Apple has been doing a great job. And that is my personal experience as well, time and time again in the past several years.

They are the same kind that will profess to be all for freedom of speech...

Until someone proffers speech that disagrees with their dogma

Your not a fan but still here? Sounds more like masochism...

Haha!


For raw "sales" numbers then, yes - that's kind of obvious - it's free! As for revenue for Google, it's partners and programmers of Android apps they don't stand a chance against Apple. Especially for independent developers. There hasn't been one developer on Android claiming the same kinds of successes in application development and profit as iOS developers, and I don't see that changing any time soon since the differences are pretty fundamental to the basics of each platform.

Anyone can manufacture "sales" by giving something away. Whether or not that has value is a whole other question.

Uh, no - Hubbard was a pretty decent Sci Fi writer and pretty well regarded as such by fans of Sci Fi. Aside from being a little long at times (certainly not something restricted ot Hubbard) Battlefield Earth is a classic and a really good novel. His bibliography is pretty impressive, and had it not been for his money grubbing through Scientology his reputation would probably be pretty darn good.


Dick was pretty darn prolific - many of his "short stories" are better than most novel's today. A truly underrated master. And Do androids dream of electric sheep is better than the movie Bladrunner. That doesn't detract from Bladrunner in the least - it's one of the best hard sci-fi movies of all time. But it does demonstrate just how much better the novel is!

Heinlein is still my favorite. The moon is a harsh mistress should be required reading for any political hack (and especially for wannabe political hacks).

Profit is what counts, nothing more. People change phones every second, so all these statistics are somehow meaningless.

WHICH company makes more money from smartphones? Until that is disclosed, everything else is pure nonsense.

$20 when Android without a shadow of a doubt passes iOS (more like already passed) DED will make an article about it, focus 5% on it, then spend the rest of the article shitting on the app store, security and quality of said store, lack of "immersive" advertising, fragmentation, rehash the Oracle lawsuite, etc.

And what would that be, specifically?


Based on what? I scincerly doubt it has anything to do with age and more to do with the fact that you hang out with or primarily interact with technically-oriented people. A minority, BTW.


So if to get the most out of either Android or the iOS you have to jailbreak - what's the advantage of Android again?


And this right here is why Android will not gain any real traction in actually being used as and generating revenue equivalent with other smartphone platforms.

I'm a pretty technical guy, but even I don't want to put up with Androids complexities and instead enjoy the "it just works" nature of the iOS.


This meme that only the ignorant or old don't like Android is pretty shallow, self-serving and thick-headed.

It's also going to continue to give the Apple haters fits as they remain puzzled as to Apple's continued success in the face of obvious benefits such as "free" and "open"


I do. Apple with the iOS. No one else focuses on the total end user experience as much as Apple does. I have no doubt that more overall units will ship with Android, but Android won't generate anywhere near the usage or revenue for the Android ecosystem as Apple will generate with the iOS.

And I don't think Apple is interested in dominating yet - especially not in the US or Europe where government regulation and interference over "monopolies" would be a significant distraction and limiter on innovation. Apple is in the mode of establishing their platform - and overall market share is not part of that equation just yet. They set their goal at 10% (which many ridiculed them for setting it so "high") and they have easily beat that. I think Apple is exactly where they want to be for sales at the moment, and due to the overall quality of their experience they will have no problem winning people over later. Android, with it's low adoption of paid applications and reliance on free applications generating revenues for Android developers means that Android users have very little sunk platform costs to encourage platform loyalty.

That will be an interesting dynamic to watch play out over time indeed.

Dell made $822 million net income this past quarter. So?

Some old people spent decades inventing all the shit young people imagine only they understand. When the old people get home from work, they don't want to beat their heads against walls on their personal devices, so they prefer Apple's stuff.

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Edited by MacRulez - 5/4/12 at 1:07pm

You have so many different ways to look at things. The Android camp will say so many things.

Of course RIMM will never admit that they are loosing ground.

Nokia will say that Apple only appears to be gaining ground on them because they stole all their good ideas.

Microsoft (Balmer) will only admit that they 'perhaps' made a little mistake. But make no mistake, They are the King of the Hill.

Dell and HP will always want others to know that Apple is a 10th their size.

Samsung, HTC, will tell anyone that wants to listen that THEY are the new kids on the Block.

Motorola will scream, and wonder if anybody is listening.

The 'Analysts', will say things that they profess to be sacred.

Wall Street and their speculation, will say so many things. But in reality, it is only how they can benefit from their prognostication.

And all those insiders, might every now and then, spill the beans on what is being built in China.

But me and many others will appreciate what Daniel Eran Dilger tries to do.

I have been an avid reader of he's writings for only a couple of years. And there is NO ONE out there that tells it as close as it really is than him.

Of course he might have his own agenda. But who doesn't. Of course, he might have his own point of view. But nobody seems to read Apple quite like him. Or even know the complete history as well as he does.

Even if he is correct only 50% of the times, he is still doing better than most all. He does go out on a limb occasionally. But when you are explaining all things Apple, (a company more secretive than any other in history) I would say he has a pretty good track record.

I would like to say that I truly appreciate he's very in depth reporting of things.

Many of them for me to mention, but I will stick to a few that I can't live without. Just the most important to me personally:

• video chat over cellular network.
• installing non appstore/android_market sanctioned apps.
• better notification system (this is somewhat subjective, so I don't expect everyone to agree)
• greater ability to use desktop widgets for one glance information.
• ability to increase storage by switching sd card.

Well, your assessment is base on your assumption that I hang out primarily with technophiles, which is completely incorrect. And there is no way that you could have known in the first place, since you don't know me. Most of my friends are in fact art, music, and dance majors, me being a long time dancer since I was young. I do have a degree in CS as it is wise for practical reasons. Me being mostly friends with non-technical people and having an IT background is the reason that why many people usually find me first when they need help with something.


What! It seems that you have never used an android device before. I don't think this warrants any further answer.


There isn't really much complexities to speak about, at least when you compare it to any desktop OS, or even something like BB and WinMo5/6 (which I used before 2007, talk about comlexity). I guess if the only thing you have ever used is iOS, then Android is marginally more complex. All the built-in functions and system settings are very easily accessed, and most do not need to be by vast majority with any type of frequency. iOS does have somewhat more consistent UI in terms of apps, but not in any significant degree where it would trouble the user.


I don't have an iphone, but I do own an iPod touch (latest 4g currently), so I don't know
where these "apple haters" come from. I guess the only arguments that you are capable of marshalling is that "anyone who doesn't agree with me must be an apple hater!" or "whoever is not with us must be against us"?


See what I mean earlier?


As usual, I respect your predictions, as with anyone else.

Good list, but with exception with the SD card all that can be done with a jailbroken iPhone, some thing that is made far too simple.

Brilliant post! Bang on.

I agree, but jailbreaking an iPhone would negate some of the advantage that iOS ecosystem provides; and it's usually not in my personality to jailbreak anything of my own. As I have owned a number of apple devices in the past, I have never really done anything unsactioned (although for Linux systems that I run, I have no problem modifying anything to my liking, since that's what OSS systems are designed to do).

It's basically a choice between having an ecosystem with more uniformity and integrity on one hand, and having extra features and functionalities on the other. Can't really fault the manufacturer of choosing one strategy over the other.

There's something I don't quite understand in these statistics, I wonder if anyone can help me out. I haven't followed the numbers for too long, but it occurred to me that the overall consumer market share is a cumulative result of the recent purchases over the past few years. That makes me wonder if at any given point iOS's market share was above 28.6%. If not, then I really don't understand how the overall share can be at 28.6%. Any ideas?

"In looking at demographics of users, AdMob's survey found that iPhone, iPod touch, and webOS user bases are all in the range of 54-58% male, while Android skews much more strongly to 73% male. iPod touch users are also typically much younger than the smartphone users, with 78% of iPod touch users being below the age of 25 while only 24-25% of iPhone, Android, and webOS users are similarly below age 25. The data corresponds with previous comments made by mobile analytics firm Flurry regarding Apple's positioning of the iPod touch as building a base of future iPhone customers."

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/25/...d-touch-users/

Too bad it appears that the reality (as measured in Feb of last year) differs from your bald assertions based entirely on anecdotal evidence.

Personally, I mildly dislike the Android platform after building a couple apps for it. I vastly prefer the iOS user experience and likely would prefer the WP7 dev experience.

That has to do with two different categories of devices, one is an PMP while the other is a phone connected to a cellular network (I happen to own both, and would never confuse the usage for either). And their sales statistics, which again cannot be compared directly or fairly. Here you are making a similar mistake as in the article, which I pointed out earlier. Not many people in HS would be able to afford a $70 individual smartphone voice+data plan, and not many more in college. And when they do have some type of smartphone, many are likely to be under their parents' plan than a standalone individual plan.


I have developed briefly for all of them, except WP7, and the experience universally has much room for improvment (for very different reasons each). I deal mostly with hardware design and AI anyway, so end-user applications is not my normal work, so I probably can't appreciate all of the reasonings that you might have.

Except for FaceTime, you can video chat over 3G using many third party apps including Skype. Interestingly Skype calls on Android only works over WiFi!

Available via Skype. However:

"The guys at 9 to 5 Mac ran a quick experiment, and found that video calls over 3G eat up roughly 3.4 MB of data per minute, something to keep in mind with AT&T's new capped data plans."


Meh.


This is nice to have.


This is sorta nice for increasing the lifespan of the device. My 16GB 3G is a tad small now but the only time I maxed it out was loading a bunch of videos for 2 days worth of flights. I think I got about 30 hours of video on it. Had to delete everything else which was mildly annoying. This is possibly the only time in the last few years that I would have used an external SD card for anything.

As a digital packrat I'd need a huge number of SD cards to hold everything so I have to downselect anyway. I can't just toss ALL of my photos, music and movies on to any reasonably sized device. Currently 32GB on my iPhone 4 seems enough for a day to day device.

I do use facetime, that one of the reasons why I found my iPod touch 4g very useful. Since most of the older members of my family run iOS, I can easily converse with them. I have not seen any cellular video chat on iphone working (with anyone in my family or my friends), but then again, I have not looked into that in recent couple of months (there was some kind of announcement on Skype, wonder if they've figured out a way around blocks, have to look into that).

Try reading the quote vs skimming it. Here, let me try again:

"while only 24-25% of iPhone, Android, and webOS users are similarly below age 25"

Therefore your age demographic assertion is not supported by the data available unless you have a more recent data source.

The iPod stuff was highlighted to show that Apple is positioning well for future iPhone users.


This assertion does not help your case at all and actually is supported by the observed demographic breakdown (only 25% of smartphone users are below 25...presumably because they are broke and only so many parents are paying for the data plan).


I find that designing a decent looking UI is more of a pain on Android than iOS. I don't actually expect WP7 to be better in that regard (except that I wouldn't have to deal with Blur or Sense) but I do prefer VS over Eclipse and the MS SDKs over Google ones.

Partially true. Skype mobile has 3G support for phones over Verizon. Why only verizon? Who knows. Oddly enough, it is available for the N900 without restrictions.


Link Look at Bottom of page

And as long as you can sideload apps, the restriction is moot any how.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/07/s...ked-into-real/

There are no blocks. The first video chat over 3G for the iPhone/iPod came few weeks after the iPhone 4 release (I believe it was Tango Video Calls). The problem with video over 3G is quality. My brother uses his iPod touch with his MiFi (over 3G) and the video quality is not consistent. I get many dropped connections with him. The quality gets even worst when he is in a moving car. Apple is probably working on optimizing FT for 3G.

I'm sure each feature is important to a certain segment of users, and none of them to everyone.


I'm much the same way, the most often used amount of video and music that I store comes to about 12-15GB, just into the area where a 16GB device might run into trouble. My next device (12-18 months from now) probably would need to recognize sdxc in order for it to have longevity. My total library is much larger, and would not live on anything that's less than 400GB, but there's no hope of getting that on any type of handheld anytime soon.

Perhaps, I have to borrow one from someone to try that again sometime. I guess ATT recently has loosened up on their restrictions on apps? I know my mom tried Tango, couldn't get it to work; but that could just be she couldn't figure out. My current device is 4g, so vid call qualities are usually excellent if I'm in the range to the right towers, still serviceable in other places.

If this is your answer I would say you don't actually read his articles at all. They are generally full of errors and very one sided, you don't actually have to read them to understand what he is saying, because he only ever says one thing.

True. But note that even on Verizon, Skype is not using 3G data. Instead the calls are routed through Verizon voice network. There are some restrictions as well.

PS. You can jailbreak the iPhone and do almost everything an Android can do. We are taking about stock phones.

You have completely misread the data, and continue to do so.

• The data quoted by macrumours from admob is the statistics of one category of devices vs a single device of another category, which is a completely invalid statistical method to compare anything, let alone drawing any conclusions from.
• When someone's parents are paying for data plan, or if they are on one family plan, that means the individual who actually makes use of the plan may not register on the plan of the service provider at all, so these age statistics (even among smart phone alone) are highly suspect, when you are talking about 22 or younger demographic.
• Even if we say given that company A has a much younger demographic than company B's devices, you have to keep in mind that growth in these types of markets (IT in general), are measured in months and quarters; while the types of effects you are referring to (younger generation growing up, having higher income to purchase the products/plans) move on the timescale of decades. In terms of the types of mobile devices that we are discussing here, the effect of that is nearly zero on the timescale that the industry thinks. It's much more valuable to have target untapped part of the market (which in this case what Apple is doing, targeting non-technical older users with iPhones).

That is always very subjective, as with any HCI subject, so I have no quarrels here. I do find iOS having a more pleasing looking and behaving UI, but android is not far behind (just slightly more chaotic). I especially like the camera app in iOS 4.1/4.2, super easy to use and great integration.

Larry Magid (tech guru for CBS news, etc) said today he was not looking forward to CES next week for a couple of reasons - he said there will be hundeds of new products that will not be there next year, ie there are way too many devices coming out with no reason d'etre. He said he is getting quite weary of being inundated with me-too products.

He also said he thought we need no further new Android phones every TWO weeks, no less, and applauded Apple for being somewhat less frequent.

That is quite common in sales wisdom to get TOO MANY choices, and thus, the consumer makes no choice at all. I think this goes double or more when it comes to tech goodies.

Of course Steve knows this all too well, and makes the obvious choice much more so.

If...

It is inevitable that android will have more phones and activations that apple. They have more devices and cheaper price points. However, apple still has the upside because its users are using the latest OS at all times (even on $99 3GS) and developers can easily deploy their apps designed for high end devices to lower end ones as well.

Android on the other hand has variety of versions and hardware on its ecosystem. A generation behind android is often not able to run the current version of the OS, and developers have to code differently for different hardware.

That's the old version. The wifi version came out in October, and hacked to remove the 3G verizon restriction period.

The problem with the iphone is that to actually get one, I still need Att and will have to pay them for a data plan. With a real unlocked phone, I don't have to. Jailbreaking for me isn't really the problem.

No, you just don't like data that doesn't agree with you.

Here's a another source of the same data.



http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/...-users-differ/


Incorrect. The data gathered is for each phone platform AND the iPod touch. Demographic comparisons between the iPhone and Android are completely valid.


"Those are a few of differences that emerged from a opt-in survey of 963 smartphone and iPod touch owners conducted in February by AdMob, the mobile advertising company that Google snapped up in November for $750 million."

You can claim that opt-in surveys have significant self-selection bias if you like.


The point is that you keep asserting that iPhones are for old people while young folks prefer Android phones. A point which you have ZERO data to provide as support.

Here are some other numbers:

"Android users tend to be slightly younger than their iPhone peers- 55% of Android users are under the age of 34 while just 47% of iPhone users fall within the same demographic."

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/...ne-vs-android/

8% is significant but not a dominant factor. Slight is the word I would have chosen as well.

The time between a younger generation growing up from 17 year olds to earning money demographic is 5-6 years after which they graduate from college. This is not decades.


Tapping into both ends of the demographic is superior to just one end. Given the product cycle is 1 year and the average contract is 2 years I'd say you vastly overestimate the timescale.

The iPod Touch is certainly a potent gateway to attract future iPhone users.

Yes indeed. It's all in the graphs for the reader to see. The whiners are neither specific nor compelling so I can't see where the bile is coming from. Possibly it's a couple of Roughly Drafted commenters who got themselves another arsehole cut by Dan in the RD blog.

And does it really matter? Some people take themselves way too seriously.

New Year's cheers

And the only division in their entire company that made any money was the enterprise division. Corporations buy from the lowest bidder, not the best. But I digress. Back on topic.