Gartner's iPhone, Android predictions radically revised in a year and a half - Page 5

Same SoC/PoP for that years iPhone model.
Same size display.
Same resolution display.
Same OS and UI.
Same apps without any changes.

Yet for some reason its now excluded from any talk of OS marketshare despite you having just stated "no matter [] what version of android it's running it can still run the same apps.

It has nothing to do with fair. It just is. And I don't know what fact it is that I'm ignoring. Since the first quarter of 2009, sales of smartphones using the Android OS have grown at a faster pace than iPhones. Fact and indisputable. While there might be some argument over exact current market shares for the two, I don't know any rational person who could argue differently. Android was reported at 2% of the smartphone market as of March, 2009 while Apple's iPhone held 11%, according to widely accepted figures from Canalys. There was no posted disagreement with those market stats by AI nor any staff, DED included, as far as I know. So accepted as valid even here.

By March of 2010 Android had achieved 10% market share whereas Apple had gone to 15%, again from Canalys. And now the most recent reports from both Canalys and Comscore show Android holding over 30% off the smartphone market, with the iPhone models at approx. 25%.

There's no mathematical model or use of logic that could explain how Android could come from 9 percentage points behind in 2009 to 5 percentage points greater market share by the beginning of 2011 without having necessarily grown at a faster rate. And that's the claim I made that at least of couple of you have trouble with.

If you want to change the subject to revenue's from app stores, or perhaps overall installed user-base or even a comparison of company profits, then have at it. It's a different field altogether. It doesn't make anything I've stated incorrect.

As soon as I got all of our training videos reformatted into H.264 HTML5, our company felt it was necessary to issue a press release informing our industry that we were now iOS compatible. I have not received any requests for WebM yet. I guess it must be because all those Androids run Flash well enough to not need it. I still think the majority of Androids in the market are not using the smart features. Android is the new dumb phone because only dumb people buy them.

Their biggest issue isn't the app itself, it's the way they placed the ads. A lot of people with those older devices can run the Premium version of the app (in the amazon app store) just fine. They could run the "demo" version just fine as well. It was the ads that caused the thing to chug.

And Angry birds crashe/stutters more on my ipod touch (iOS4, but no multitasking or wallpapers) than it does on my friend's LG ally (paid version of both)

I dispute this fact unless you can prove to me that sales revenue for Android OS has grown faster than sales revenue for iPhone HW.

See what I did there. What part of qualifying your statements are you not getting or are you purposely trying to be lose with your comments so when you backed into a corner you can say that isnt what you meant?

From recent reports I've seen, only around half of all smartphone owners do web-browsing from it.

IT'S NOT A PHONE. That's a pretty big change, especially in the context of the conversation.

We're talking about phones. What I was responding to was someone saying how the 3GS was still available and to name one android PHONE that was nearly 2 years old and still selling. I mentioned that you wouldn't see it since there are more android models and the hardware upgrades come more frequently to high end models. Thus my comment how the only reason the 3GS still existed was because it was the cheapest way for someone to get an iOS phone.

I figured that since the conversation was about people buying phones ON CONTRACT was the topic of discussion, the fact that I was talking about phones would be obvious.

I guess I can't assume common sense, I apologize for that. I'll just spell everything out from now on, since deductive reasoning no longer exists.

Youve mentioned Android OS many times and I dont recall you once excluding activations that were from non-phone Android-based devices.

But I ask again, why are you comparing all vendors who use the free Android OS for their handset with one vendor who uses an OS they build in-house? Why do you think that is fair and why do you think its then also fair to exclude their other devices that use the same OS that run the same apps without any change to the app or how its used?

I bet if Android OS was on a huge number of PMPs that exceeding the iPod Touch in terms of HW unit sales youd be all about using that comparison in your argument. As it stands now youve carved and molded your stats in such a way that you think makes Android looks good but it really doesnt. Until you can show that Android OS is pulling in more money for developers and that handset vendors on their own are rivaling the iPhone in revenue and profit its really just a commodity, bottom feeding platform.

Ok but I don't think you can include iPhone in that number because those people surf the web, I have proof. If Android users don't surf the web it is unlikely they see any Google ads, hence a major failure for Google's strategy. And, If they don't surf, they don't download many apps either. Furthermore, free apps that are ad supported probably suck for the most part. I'm just guessing since I have never seen an ad in an app. Either way, no matter the number of people buying Androids, if they don't click on ads, then Google is losing money.

OK:

WE WERE TALKING ABOUT PHONES ON CONTRACT.

It's really that simple.

We're not talking about Activations, or marketshare or anything else. We were talking about when a customer buys a phone on contract, what are their choices.

I'm not even presenting any stats here. I'm talking about RETAIL PRICES and number of models available and upgrade cycles.

For the love of God, F*&^ read the conversation before hitting reply.

What is fundamentally different that users of Android-based devices wouldnt be accessing webpages as frequently? The experience of the browser? The HW? The type of user that would buy an Android-based device over an iPhone?

There are multiple conversations within a thread. If you want to switch up the topic between posters thats fine, but dont lie and say youre only talking about phones on contacts when you write, "Because no matter WHO makes the device, or what version of android it's running it can still run the same apps. and then expect to be taking seriously when you say you are only talking about phones on contract when you are clearly also talking about devices, OSes and apps.

The quote you quoted me on was me responding to ACTIVATIONS on CONTRACT. which is why I didn't include ipod touches. So yes, I was only talking about phones on contract in that conversation.

My post about who makes the device was in response to someone talking about MARKET FRAGMENTATION. (I never even brought UP marketshare here)

In fact, I haven't used marketshare in ANY of my arguments in this entire Forum Topic.

If you want to pretend to talk in multiple conversations you can. But don't mix them up, like you do every single topic.

Context is important. Stop ignoring it.

MStone, I won't dispute your personal experience. But I do have some faith that actual reported sales and market share figures from industry specialists do have some connection to reality. If not, they why trust sales figures from anyone, including Apple?

To Solipsism: You keep trying to confuse market share figures with revenue figures. They are NOT the same no matter how many times you try to mix the two. I've made no claims regarding a comparison of Android/Google, Apple/iOS revenue from all sources. I've only acknowledged that Apple is currently making a greater share of the profits from every report I read.

Sorry. So far it's a fail on your part to show any of my statements false. (tho I'll give a bit on not being aware that Google management once had mentioned Apple as competition and made a not nice comment in a much earlier post)

Who knows? it is like saying, venison must be tasty, a million coyotes can't be wrong. I have never seen a coyote in the wild either, although I hear them howling in the hills at night on rare occasion. I have tried venison, not to my liking.

Seriously! What part of a share of a market are you just not getting? As previously stated, ad nauseum, marketshare can refer to either units or revenue.

http://www.asymco.com/2010/08/02/and...tphones-in-q1/

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events...r_Market_Share

I can't argue with you anymore. You just don't understand the difference between market share and revenue share. The links I provided are using the customary and accepted definition of market share. Apparently not your "special" version.

EDIT: market share
Definition
Percentage of total sales volume in a market captured by a brand, product, or firm.

As applied in this case: Product =smartphones
Sales volume= the number of smartphones sold, stated as a percentage of total smartphone sales

NOT sales of apps or accessories, revenue from ads, dollars spent per consumer, etc. It's simply the number of smartphones sold. Easy to understand, right?

No, I don’t think you can yet still are. Even Wikipedia gets it right...

Market share, in strategic management and marketing is, according to Carlton O'Neal, the percentage or proportion of the total available market or market segment that is being serviced by a company. It can be expressed as a company's sales revenue (from that market) divided by the total sales revenue available in that market. It can also be expressed as a company's unit sales volume (in a market) divided by the total volume of units sold in that market.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_share
But there is more…

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http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=463943 If you really don’t think market share can refer to anything but units then the 2nd link will likely be too complex for you to understand but at least understand the Wikipedia post above.

Fortunately some of your posts really do add to the discussion. Unfortunately this isn't one of them. If you follow the links and read the disclaimers, plain they are NOT referring to revenue. And as I've stated at least two times, neither am I. Revenue and volume cannot be combined into a single stat. It's either/or dude.

Nice article. predicting is always easy and not reliable at all. IDC also came up with a similar report (http://buzzintechnology.com/2011/04/...5-idc-reports/). I am wondering how good are they?

Where do these companies gather their data from?

I think WP7 is good mobile OS and Id easily choose it before Android but I havent seen any notion that its going to a winner in the market even with Nokia backing it in HW, which I think is a great move.

All these companies have "Nokia disease" the term I use for those going into extintion, but the public, analysts and the companies themselves, don't realize it yet!

I think Nokia is the 3rd most profitable handset maker, with RiM slightly ahead and Samsung slightly behind, with Apple far in the lead, of course. Its the SE, LG, Moto and HTC that are barely hanging on right now.

Id say that Nokias nature in the market has insulated them more than the others. Theyve lost marketshare on all fronts but they always made a profit and pulled in over $60 billion in revenue for 2010. Id be more scared of what Nokia can do in the future than I would be about what Moto and HTC can do as Android-based vendors will likely end up like HP, Dell and Acer as commodity devices innovating to cheapness for the same Android users.

I kind of like the separation of different devices in the statistics. It's always better to have more information and statistics for different devices can always be combined for a more general overview.

Of course, one has to be careful not to draw invalid conclusions from the data, such as saying something like "developers should focus on Android because they have the highest unit sales and fastest growth" (someone has actually said something like this to me!).

For that conclusion a far better data set would be the revenue generated from app sales on the entire platform, the number of app sales on the entire platform, or even the number of app sales for a specific type of app on the entire platform.

There are obviously a whole bunch of other things to consider as well such as the potential for related sales (like an tablet app that works with the smartphone app), the sale of online services, ad revenues, distribution costs etc etc

I suppose it all boils down to what the ROI is for any given platform.

Nokia going into extinction? You really believe that?

If the WP7 boat that they jump on were also sinking, their name as handset maker will come to extinction, and stay on cellular network business like Ericsson & Siemens.

Developers don't much like it, and manufacturers who fight to undercut each other just like Windows computer makers are completely at the mercy of Google's ability to keep it relevant. I see a very messy collapse for Android.

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Since you cannot understand that it's illegitimate to bundle dozens of incompatible phone OSs together as one single monolithic "Android" platform for purposes of comparison, we know for a fact it isn't you.

It's a shame the thread is sinking into a disagreement over semantics.

As far as the industry is concerned, all Android phones use Android as the OS. There's not "dozens" of Android OS's. There are custom UI's applied over the Android OS, just as some who jailbreak iOS have changed the skin or UI on their device. But the base OS is still iOS (or Android as the case may be). I don't think you'll find any industry-accepted source that will agree with your definition of Android Mac-socist.

You're correct that the UI variations that some phone manufacturers apply on top of the Android OS are a source of delay in applying the latest updates. Some would also call it a form of fragmentation, perhaps rightly so. But Android phones all have one base OS. . . Android, just as all iPods, iPhones and iPads all make use of one base operating system, iOS.

I know that's the Party Line™, but that doesn't make it any more true. Ask the potential Android developers who are staying away in droves, including Epic.

EDIT: On second thought, I don't care whether it's true or not. Fine, let's believe you and say the OS is exactly the same across the board, with just "UI variations" from manufacturer to manufacturer. The UI is what people interact with. It's the make-or-break part of the user experience. Developers can develop separate versions of their apps for all of these different UIs—a non-starter, surely—or they can optimize their app for one of them, in which case all the rest will suck, or they can optimize for none of them, in which case they'll all suck. That's the "Android" dilemma. I don't envy them that, "Market Share" or no....

Since you can't understand that the OS's aren't incompatible in the way it matters. The content they access and how to write apps for them. Yes, some phones might have an issue because of hardware, but at the end of the day, an App written with the SDK can work on any device running Android/Dalvik, no matter WHO makes it. That's what matters when you're talking marketshare, not if you can load HTC sense on a Motorola Droid.

By your logic, it's not fair to compare iOS to Android since iOS only has to compete against Windows, Android, BBerry, and WebOS while Android also has to compete against itself.

You're splitting hairs.

When you're talking about OS marketshare, you can wrap all versions of Android into one title (provided they have the DalvikVM, which any device with the Market has) just like you can combine all iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches)

When you're talking about company profitability and Profit margin, THEN who makes the device matters.

If were just going to include a base OS regardless of the UI or apps are designed for it then why cant Darwin be stated the way Android is which includes all OS X variants of Mac OS, iOS for iPhone/Touch, iOS for iPad, and iOS for AppleTV?

If you actually read Epic's complaints, it has NOTHING to do with UI elements. And only an idiot develops an app to take advantage of a skin since you can DOWNLOAD different skins in the market. In fact, if you just code the Menu to work a certain way (use default values), the Phone will skin it appropriately. This is apparent to anyone who's ever flashed a Framework-res.apk. The menus are dynamic and will change with the UI unless the developer wants them to look exactly the same across devices.

The issue Epic has is how Android handles available memory. The reason they brought up the skins is because something like Blur requires a lot more memory than stock Android, so it makes it hard to program advanced since you can't accurately predict how much memory will be available. This is largely because they're developing using the NDK since advanced gaming elements don't appear in the SDK until 2.3 and 3.0. This means as customers adopt new phones, or old ones are upgraded, the issue will become less severe, but yes, it will still be an issue.

It's an issue with ANY smartphone OS. The only reason Epic can accept it with iOS is because the OS across the devices is consistent so the memory limitation is predictable, but even Epic said that it's far easier designing games for dedicated systems.

You're throwing everything you can under the term "incompatible OS" when in fact, most of the issues you're listing stem from you not understanding how the platform works.

And other studies, like the one AI posted about Developers talking about fragmentation (I'm sure you have it favorited) show that developers ARE looking at moving into android. or the article about iFund developers branching into Android. The "fragmentation" issue might be keeping some developers away, but that number is getting smaller.

because you have to code an app differently for MacOS because of SOFTWARE differences that are bigger than an API level.

With Android, the SDK is the SDK, no matter if it is a Sony or a Motorola. Yes, there might be "Hardware" differences. But if you want to split them that way then you're just splitting hairs. At what point does a Windows PC not become a Windows PC? When it can't run Crysis? When if can't hit a certain framerate? I'm pretty sure the requirement of Windows PC is that it is running a Windows OS.

Android devices are running Android OS. They have the DalvikVM to handle apps and an app that runs on a DroidX thanks to the SDK will run fine on a HTC Incredible thanks to the SDK.

And app written for the iPhone will NOT run on a MacOSX computer.

If you can't see that difference, I don't know what to tell you.

(and no, you can't quote what I said in earlier posts in response to this because I was talking about CELLPHONES ON CONTRACT, not OS marketshare)

Yes, I'm sure all the people who took a free Android phone when they upgraded from their flip-phone will do just thatmaybe Andy Rubin could tweet them to that effect?

Seriously, if you don't see that the vast majority of phone customers are not the kind of propellerheads who are going to massage their OS to work with this or that app, I don't know what to tell you.

I didn't bring that up to say that people should flash that APK. In fact, there's really not a reason to do so unless you're a power user.

I brought it up to show that developers arn't building for specific UI's because Android will format their app automatically to that skin unless they SPECIFICALLY tell it otherwise.

Is it really that hard for you to grasp context?