Google's Schmidt predicts developers will prioritize Android over iOS in 6 months
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has said he believes mobile developers will prioritize the Android platform over Apple's iOS in the next six months, as the market shifts away from iPhone-centric development.
Schmidt made the comments in Paris, at the LeWeb conference, on Wednesday, according to CNet. He said he believes the high volume of Android shipments, which has given Google the largest share of worldwide smartphone sales, will win over developers.
"Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking," Schmidt said. "There are so many manufacturers working to deliver Android phones globally. Whether you like Android or not, you will support that platform, and maybe you'll even deliver it first."
After one audience member complained that mobile applications frequently appear on Apple's iOS App Store first, Schmidt then went on to predict that six months from now the roles will be reversed. He said he believes Android 4.0, known by its code name Ice Cream Sandwich, will put Android in the leadership position for application developers.
While Android may be leading in current activations, one category where it lags behind Apple is developer revenue. One study publicized last month estimated that Apple's iOS platform takes in about 90 percent of all dollars spent on mobile devices, while Google's Android market has generated about 7 percent of the gross revenue of the iOS App Store.
Earlier this year, Canalys estimated that mobile application stores will top $14 billion in direct revenue in 2012. While the volume of applications downloaded on Android is expected to surpass the iOS App Store, iOS is expected to generate $2.86 billion in application revenue by 2016, compared to just $1.5 billion on Android.
Schmidt also revealed on Wednesday that about 200 million Android phones have been activated to date, and 550,000 new devices are activated daily. In comparison, Apple executives revealed in October that sales of iOS devices, which include the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, surpassed a quarter of a billion last quarter.
Schmidt also reportedly declined to comment on whether Google's Android has copied iOS features. But he did state that "Android was founded before the iPhone was."
Development of Android began before Apple introduced the iPhone, when the mobile operating system was seen as a challenger to the then-market-leading Research in Motion BlackBerry lineup. But changes to Android, including the addition of a touch-centric interface, led Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to accuse Google of stealing from iOS. Jobs said to biographer Walter Isaacson that he would spend his "last dying breath" fighting Android, as he believed it was a "stolen product."
Schmidt made the comments in Paris, at the LeWeb conference, on Wednesday, according to CNet. He said he believes the high volume of Android shipments, which has given Google the largest share of worldwide smartphone sales, will win over developers.
"Ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking," Schmidt said. "There are so many manufacturers working to deliver Android phones globally. Whether you like Android or not, you will support that platform, and maybe you'll even deliver it first."
After one audience member complained that mobile applications frequently appear on Apple's iOS App Store first, Schmidt then went on to predict that six months from now the roles will be reversed. He said he believes Android 4.0, known by its code name Ice Cream Sandwich, will put Android in the leadership position for application developers.
While Android may be leading in current activations, one category where it lags behind Apple is developer revenue. One study publicized last month estimated that Apple's iOS platform takes in about 90 percent of all dollars spent on mobile devices, while Google's Android market has generated about 7 percent of the gross revenue of the iOS App Store.
Earlier this year, Canalys estimated that mobile application stores will top $14 billion in direct revenue in 2012. While the volume of applications downloaded on Android is expected to surpass the iOS App Store, iOS is expected to generate $2.86 billion in application revenue by 2016, compared to just $1.5 billion on Android.
Schmidt also revealed on Wednesday that about 200 million Android phones have been activated to date, and 550,000 new devices are activated daily. In comparison, Apple executives revealed in October that sales of iOS devices, which include the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, surpassed a quarter of a billion last quarter.
Schmidt also reportedly declined to comment on whether Google's Android has copied iOS features. But he did state that "Android was founded before the iPhone was."
Development of Android began before Apple introduced the iPhone, when the mobile operating system was seen as a challenger to the then-market-leading Research in Motion BlackBerry lineup. But changes to Android, including the addition of a touch-centric interface, led Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to accuse Google of stealing from iOS. Jobs said to biographer Walter Isaacson that he would spend his "last dying breath" fighting Android, as he believed it was a "stolen product."
Comments
Let's not forget these predictions have been made rather consistently for several years now. They've never been true.
Isn't it nice to be in a position where even being dead-wrong has no consequences?
Like politicians, I think this will come back to haunt him.
There is next to no money to be made off of Android. Development tools suck. The consumer base thinks anything above free is too expensive, and fragmentation is best left for another thread.
I dunno if Schmidt is right, but I would certainly like to see some balance. More devleopers being platform agnostic would be nice. As a consumer, I don't really like having to buy certain hardware just to run certain software. I'd hope that some day they go one step further and allow somebody who bought an app on iOS to get the same app free on Android or vice versa (iTunes Match for apps?).
They don't have to make more money they already got it . Android is a big mistake. As a developer I would love to release 50 different versions of my app to support the 50 different or more Android devices. I don't think so. Google also predicted that Google+ would crush Facebook too. I think the problem with Android they didn't standardize it. Every device has a different UI of Android.
^^^THIS^^^
Android may roll market share by the sheer volume of phones, however, if every platform is a little different from the next, which makes a nightmare scenario for any developer, then sheer volume will matter very little.
He's wrong. Verizon doesn't even want to release the Nexus from the looks of it. While 4.0 seems nice, and Android is catching up in quality apps (albeit slowly), there's no effing way this would happen in 6 months, if ever.
This guy should stop getting high IMO!
Funny! Made smile, thx!
Too many hardware platforms to worry about and deal with. Even new platform that comes out have different specs like screen size memory allocation, processors and the list goes on and a develop can not be guaranty because they tested it on one platform it will work on every other platform out there.
This is a classic example of its strength is its weakness, As M$ about that problem.
S*** Eric!
If volume was the only problem, this would be true. However, if it is the fact that many android users don't spend money on apps, the last thing they need is more users who don't spend money on apps.
The reality is actually opposite to what you say in this post. For iOS, it's VERY easy to pirate apps. All you have to do is jailbreak and get installous and you're laughing. You can get any app, no problem, and work almost always.
With android, you have to try and hunt down apps on torrent websites, with most of them not being available, and when they are, most of the time they don't work (formatted for a different CPU/GPU, different resolution, etc.).
So with android, I actually buy a lot of apps because I have no choice, but with iOS the story is different.
Funny thing is, the only player that seems to be right more than not - is Apple. For Schmidt to be right, so many things would have to happen - things that Google and their product partners have no control over - like getting consumers who have android powered devices to start buying apps in much greater numbers. Why he thinks things will change just because of a new OS offering - when so many handsets will not be able to upgrade in the first place. If a consumer isn't buying apps now, why would they start, assuming they could upgrade the OS?