The real killer, the wall that Android will run into, is international sales. Sure, the Android mob is doing well in the U.S. Partly due to the buy-one-get-one fire sales that many cell providers are running now.
But really, which Android hardware partner is winning? Is it HTC? LG? Motorola? If I were looking to buy an Android phone I'd hold off for a month or two because that Motorola Shadow looks like a real "iPhone killer." Of course, the problem with waiting is that HTC will announce the Nexus Two in a few months. And it too, could probably out-spec even the 2010 iPhone in one or two areas.
Fragmentation is even worse when you add the complexity of internationalized and localized software and hardware. Let's say you're in Tokyo and you're looking to buy an Android phone. (You'd be in the minority since iPhone currently has about 72% of the smartphone market market in Japan.) Do you think HTC, LG, and Motorola will all send their latest handsets there, with fully localized versions of Android 2.x, 2.y, and 2.z, and try to sell them in Yodobashi camera in Akihabara? And if they did, do you think they'd sell well against iPhone, Sharp, Sony, and the other indigenous smartphones? Good luck with all of that. Ganbatte kudasai!
Fragmentation in the Android hardware and software matrix is bad enough in the US, just with American English versions of the OS and apps. HTC, Moto, LG and all of them are trying to differentiate themselves from the other guy. With customized touch UIs and all manner of physical and virtual keyboards an differing screen resolution. The fragmentation problem is multiplied exponentially as more languages, hardware variants, and OS variants are shipped overseas.
This problem (at least on the software side) is the result of Google starting as a web-based software company. Their software development teams still have that same rapid-release mentality. They would post an initial version of something really quickly, then follow up with rapid revs with bug fixes, improvements, and new features. This isn't such a good idea in the OS space. Especially when upgrading the OS is an extremely difficult procedure for users, as with the HTC Hero. You need to re-install every single one of your apps as well as the OS.
There are many reasons why Apple only does major updates to their iPhone hardware and iPhone OS once a year. One of the most obvious is that this gives them plenty of time to pitch the current version overseas. It can take months of negotiations to finalize deals with major overseas cell carriers. All the details need to be sorted out. And if you hardware and software are obsoleted by another guy's hotshot Android phone after two months, what are you going to do if you haven't closed that deal yet?
That's just the tip of the fragmentation iceberg in the Android camp. What a total nightmare.
The Iphone is like... well... let me think... well it's like going to an Ice Cream shop and only being offerred Vanilla (quite good Vanilla though). ANDROID, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins! The sprinkles selection (a.k.a. the Apps) available at the Vanilla only shop is better (for now), however, the flavor does not come from those sprinkles but from the tasty goodness YOU CHOSE (from amidst many flavors) that they sit atop. Just Broke it Downz... for you Iclowns!
I wouldn't believe anything out of Nielsen if it were owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I wonder, however, it a good number of the missing half of all iPhones sold just don't have any AdMob supported apps on them. A lot of people don't like ad apps, and may just delete any downloaded, which totally skews the results if ad apps are more widely used on other platforms.
Then again, we probably should just discount any statistics like this out of Google/AdMob.
Good point! I will pay ATT $110/mo+ for mobile service...but I will be G-damned if I have to look at ads as well...it's one or the other! Same as CableTV which I just cancelled b/c of the inane and incessant ads. Either I pay $60/mo for cableTV w/o ads or I get it free and watch ads. I'll be G-damned if I do both!
R&D 9 times out of 10 doesn't lead anywhere. For every 1 new successful piece of technology that makes it to market, 9 do not and are never heard of. However, for the ones that are failures, the researchers learned something from them.
Can you give us some examples, instead of corporate-speak?
Damn you Apple-ite... keep it more pithy would you.?!. AND WHY ARE YOU AND OTHER APPLE-ITES SO O.K. WITH OVERPAYING FOR A PHONE??? Your sanity escapes me! And it doesn't matter if you're "holding off" for the next big thing because for the year following the Iphone release, and, in the case of the recent HTC phones, in the weeks prior, every major new Android phone (and there are increasingly many) will devastate and destroy that once-a-year Iphone. And I laugh... still... breeeeaaathh... laugh... ing!
The analogy about the ice cream shop demonstrates the over-emphasis of some people - especially Americans, in my experience - on the value of choice. Often choice *is* good, but sometimes, at best, it makes no difference. My TV gets hundreds of channels but I still record programs from only 4 of them.
And following up on the comments about ad-displaying apps on the iPhone, my Touch only has 1 app installed that shows ads, and I run that app perhaps once a month.
The analogy about the ice cream shop demonstrates the over-emphasis of some people - especially Americans, in my experience - on the value of choice. Often choice *is* good, but sometimes, at best, it makes no difference. My TV gets hundreds of channels but I still record programs from only 4 of them.
And following up on the comments about ad-displaying apps on the iPhone, my Touch only has 1 app installed that shows ads, and I run that app perhaps once a month.
Yeah... uh... it's not about the "value of choice", it's about the value of BEST. And, FYI, BEST is the American way joe... learn this... and I'll own this, the EVO that is.
No, it suggests extremely short lifespan for the iPhone.
I was thinking about that line too, it doesn't make much sense. "If only half are still used". That's a pretty big assumption, that 50% of the iPhones and Touches sold are still being used. I think more than that are still in service. I know my 3G, my brother's, and my brother-in-law, the guy at the deli, and a few others that are still rocking them. Only my brother-in-law had the original iPhone, but that was sold off, and I believe still in service. To assume half of all iDevices are not in service is a bit of a leap, then, from where I'm standing.
... the sweetest smelling, best tasting, creamiest and most skin tingling offering walking the streets is one 6 gallon carton over... and the option is all yours!
Skin tingling? I guess you mean the fugu ice cream?
Android, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins
Quote:
Originally Posted by evomyhero
it's not about the "value of choice"
Terribly mixed message, if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android and don't want other people to like/use iPhones. Why not try again when and if you finish high school?
The Iphone is like... well... let me think... well it's like going to an Ice Cream shop and only being offerred Vanilla (quite good Vanilla though). ANDROID, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins! The sprinkles selection (a.k.a. the Apps) available at the Vanilla only shop is better (for now), however, the flavor does not come from those sprinkles but from the tasty goodness YOU CHOSE (from amidst many flavors) that they sit atop. Just Broke it Downz... for you Iclowns!
Android is more like one of those ice cream stores where they offer so many flavours it's just ridiculous, and half the time you end up walking out with a Kimchee, Cabbage, or Horse Radish flavoured cone and wonder what happened.
Apple is the excellent organic frozen Yoghurt place across the street.
Edit: anonymouse thought of this before me. I guess the analogy is pretty obvious.
The analogy about the ice cream shop demonstrates the over-emphasis of some people - especially Americans, in my experience - on the value of choice. Often choice *is* good, but sometimes, at best, it makes no difference. My TV gets hundreds of channels but I still record programs from only 4 of them.
The thing is everyone watches a different 4 channels.
Damn you Apple-ite... keep it more pithy would you.?!. AND WHY ARE YOU AND OTHER APPLE-ITES SO O.K. WITH OVERPAYING FOR A PHONE??? Your sanity escapes me! And it doesn't matter if you're "holding off" for the next big thing because for the year following the Iphone release, and, in the case of the recent HTC phones, in the weeks prior, every major new Android phone (and there are increasingly many) will devastate and destroy that once-a-year Iphone. And I laugh... still... breeeeaaathh... laugh... ing!
See this is why you need to take yer meds on schedule! Seriously, (and why I love troll-braiting as much as the next) when you said
Quote:
Your sanity escapes me!
you very poignantly put it all in a nutshell dear droidy. Ya know - I'm purely OK with you running around with your crotch jokes and your attitude, because you are feeding the Google behemoth all your personal info and habits like a good little fanboy, and buying each and every new 'Droidy device as soon as it hits the market. NO??!! You aren't? But hallelujah here they come! Google is feeding each and every cellphone maker into the "race to the bottom" deadend, and making out like bandits while the makers rush to differentiate THEIR Android from the rest, cracking and shattering the platform as they try to be unique. So I rejoice with you in your hysterical shrill laughter, nodding pleasantly as they take you off to your Google-subsidized padded cell while ads play merrily in your head.
I was thinking about that line too, it doesn't make much sense. "If only half are still used". That's a pretty big assumption, that 50% of the iPhones and Touches sold are still being used. I think more than that are still in service. I know my 3G, my brother's, and my brother-in-law, the guy at the deli, and a few others that are still rocking them. Only my brother-in-law had the original iPhone, but that was sold off, and I believe still in service. To assume half of all iDevices are not in service is a bit of a leap, then, from where I'm standing.
May be we an assume that 50% of iPhones & Touches don't have free crappy apps with admob support installed.
Android is more like one of those ice cream stores where they offer so many flavours it's just ridiculous, and half the time you end up walking out with a Kimchee, Cabbage, or Horse Radish flavoured cone and wonder what happened.
Apple is the excellent organic frozen Yoghurt place across the street.
Edit: anonymouse thought of this before me. I guess the analogy is pretty obvious.
Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jellybeans! "Ah Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them-but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you? Alas! Ear wax!"-Albus Dumbledore.
Terribly mixed message, if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android and don't want other people to like/use iPhones. Why not try again when and if you finish high school?
aaahhhhh... joe... joe, joe, joe... "if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android"... please... I can only speak english joe... I only completed three-fourths of my foreign language requirement in high school joe... had to settle on a GED like yourself joe... so please reposit the thought joe... so we english speaking phone thread fans can comprehend joe. sarcasm joe.
See this is why you need to take yer meds on schedule! Seriously, (and why I love troll-braiting as much as the next) when you said
you very poignantly put it all in a nutshell dear droidy. Ya know - I'm purely OK with you running around with your crotch jokes and your attitude, because you are feeding the Google behemoth all your personal info and habits like a good little fanboy, and buying each and every new 'Droidy device as soon as it hits the market. NO??!! You aren't? But hallelujah here they come! Google is feeding each and every cellphone maker into the "race to the bottom" deadend, and making out like bandits while the makers rush to differentiate THEIR Android from the rest, cracking and shattering the platform as they try to be unique. So I rejoice with you in your hysterical shrill laughter, nodding pleasantly as they take you off to your Google-subsidized padded cell while ads play merrily in your head.
While you remain technologically retarded from June 2010 till June 2011, struggling to achieve what you had hoped on the T network, I will be presented choices, each better than the Iphone, but none better than the EVO 4g.
Comments
But really, which Android hardware partner is winning? Is it HTC? LG? Motorola? If I were looking to buy an Android phone I'd hold off for a month or two because that Motorola Shadow looks like a real "iPhone killer." Of course, the problem with waiting is that HTC will announce the Nexus Two in a few months. And it too, could probably out-spec even the 2010 iPhone in one or two areas.
Fragmentation is even worse when you add the complexity of internationalized and localized software and hardware. Let's say you're in Tokyo and you're looking to buy an Android phone. (You'd be in the minority since iPhone currently has about 72% of the smartphone market market in Japan.) Do you think HTC, LG, and Motorola will all send their latest handsets there, with fully localized versions of Android 2.x, 2.y, and 2.z, and try to sell them in Yodobashi camera in Akihabara? And if they did, do you think they'd sell well against iPhone, Sharp, Sony, and the other indigenous smartphones? Good luck with all of that. Ganbatte kudasai!
Fragmentation in the Android hardware and software matrix is bad enough in the US, just with American English versions of the OS and apps. HTC, Moto, LG and all of them are trying to differentiate themselves from the other guy. With customized touch UIs and all manner of physical and virtual keyboards an differing screen resolution. The fragmentation problem is multiplied exponentially as more languages, hardware variants, and OS variants are shipped overseas.
This problem (at least on the software side) is the result of Google starting as a web-based software company. Their software development teams still have that same rapid-release mentality. They would post an initial version of something really quickly, then follow up with rapid revs with bug fixes, improvements, and new features. This isn't such a good idea in the OS space. Especially when upgrading the OS is an extremely difficult procedure for users, as with the HTC Hero. You need to re-install every single one of your apps as well as the OS.
There are many reasons why Apple only does major updates to their iPhone hardware and iPhone OS once a year. One of the most obvious is that this gives them plenty of time to pitch the current version overseas. It can take months of negotiations to finalize deals with major overseas cell carriers. All the details need to be sorted out. And if you hardware and software are obsoleted by another guy's hotshot Android phone after two months, what are you going to do if you haven't closed that deal yet?
That's just the tip of the fragmentation iceberg in the Android camp. What a total nightmare.
I'm curious, have you used an Android device?
No. And, in my case, I have no interest yet.
If they create a radically new alternative to the iPhone, I might be tempted.
In any event, do you have a point you're trying to make?
The Iphone is like... well... let me think... well it's like going to an Ice Cream shop and only being offerred Vanilla (quite good Vanilla though). ANDROID, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins! The sprinkles selection (a.k.a. the Apps) available at the Vanilla only shop is better (for now), however, the flavor does not come from those sprinkles but from the tasty goodness YOU CHOSE (from amidst many flavors) that they sit atop. Just Broke it Downz... for you Iclowns!
The Android certainly seems right for you!
I wouldn't believe anything out of Nielsen if it were owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I wonder, however, it a good number of the missing half of all iPhones sold just don't have any AdMob supported apps on them. A lot of people don't like ad apps, and may just delete any downloaded, which totally skews the results if ad apps are more widely used on other platforms.
Then again, we probably should just discount any statistics like this out of Google/AdMob.
Good point! I will pay ATT $110/mo+ for mobile service...but I will be G-damned if I have to look at ads as well...it's one or the other! Same as CableTV which I just cancelled b/c of the inane and incessant ads. Either I pay $60/mo for cableTV w/o ads or I get it free and watch ads. I'll be G-damned if I do both!
R&D 9 times out of 10 doesn't lead anywhere. For every 1 new successful piece of technology that makes it to market, 9 do not and are never heard of. However, for the ones that are failures, the researchers learned something from them.
Can you give us some examples, instead of corporate-speak?
This is the cocky attitude that causes companies to fail.
ixho = Apple!?
That kind of ill-thought out conflation just about says it all.
And following up on the comments about ad-displaying apps on the iPhone, my Touch only has 1 app installed that shows ads, and I run that app perhaps once a month.
The analogy about the ice cream shop demonstrates the over-emphasis of some people - especially Americans, in my experience - on the value of choice. Often choice *is* good, but sometimes, at best, it makes no difference. My TV gets hundreds of channels but I still record programs from only 4 of them.
And following up on the comments about ad-displaying apps on the iPhone, my Touch only has 1 app installed that shows ads, and I run that app perhaps once a month.
Yeah... uh... it's not about the "value of choice", it's about the value of BEST. And, FYI, BEST is the American way joe... learn this... and I'll own this, the EVO that is.
No, it suggests extremely short lifespan for the iPhone.
I was thinking about that line too, it doesn't make much sense. "If only half are still used". That's a pretty big assumption, that 50% of the iPhones and Touches sold are still being used. I think more than that are still in service. I know my 3G, my brother's, and my brother-in-law, the guy at the deli, and a few others that are still rocking them. Only my brother-in-law had the original iPhone, but that was sold off, and I believe still in service. To assume half of all iDevices are not in service is a bit of a leap, then, from where I'm standing.
... the sweetest smelling, best tasting, creamiest and most skin tingling offering walking the streets is one 6 gallon carton over... and the option is all yours!
Skin tingling? I guess you mean the fugu ice cream?
I said your nether regions smell like Trout
Android, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins
it's not about the "value of choice"
Terribly mixed message, if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android and don't want other people to like/use iPhones. Why not try again when and if you finish high school?
The Iphone is like... well... let me think... well it's like going to an Ice Cream shop and only being offerred Vanilla (quite good Vanilla though). ANDROID, by comparison is like walking into a Baskin-Robbins! The sprinkles selection (a.k.a. the Apps) available at the Vanilla only shop is better (for now), however, the flavor does not come from those sprinkles but from the tasty goodness YOU CHOSE (from amidst many flavors) that they sit atop. Just Broke it Downz... for you Iclowns!
Android is more like one of those ice cream stores where they offer so many flavours it's just ridiculous, and half the time you end up walking out with a Kimchee, Cabbage, or Horse Radish flavoured cone and wonder what happened.
Apple is the excellent organic frozen Yoghurt place across the street.
Edit: anonymouse thought of this before me. I guess the analogy is pretty obvious.
The analogy about the ice cream shop demonstrates the over-emphasis of some people - especially Americans, in my experience - on the value of choice. Often choice *is* good, but sometimes, at best, it makes no difference. My TV gets hundreds of channels but I still record programs from only 4 of them.
The thing is everyone watches a different 4 channels.
Damn you Apple-ite... keep it more pithy would you.?!. AND WHY ARE YOU AND OTHER APPLE-ITES SO O.K. WITH OVERPAYING FOR A PHONE??? Your sanity escapes me! And it doesn't matter if you're "holding off" for the next big thing because for the year following the Iphone release, and, in the case of the recent HTC phones, in the weeks prior, every major new Android phone (and there are increasingly many) will devastate and destroy that once-a-year Iphone. And I laugh... still... breeeeaaathh... laugh... ing!
See this is why you need to take yer meds on schedule! Seriously, (and why I love troll-braiting as much as the next) when you said
Your sanity escapes me!
you very poignantly put it all in a nutshell dear droidy. Ya know - I'm purely OK with you running around with your crotch jokes and your attitude, because you are feeding the Google behemoth all your personal info and habits like a good little fanboy, and buying each and every new 'Droidy device as soon as it hits the market. NO??!! You aren't? But hallelujah here they come! Google is feeding each and every cellphone maker into the "race to the bottom" deadend, and making out like bandits while the makers rush to differentiate THEIR Android from the rest, cracking and shattering the platform as they try to be unique. So I rejoice with you in your hysterical shrill laughter, nodding pleasantly as they take you off to your Google-subsidized padded cell while ads play merrily in your head.
I was thinking about that line too, it doesn't make much sense. "If only half are still used". That's a pretty big assumption, that 50% of the iPhones and Touches sold are still being used. I think more than that are still in service. I know my 3G, my brother's, and my brother-in-law, the guy at the deli, and a few others that are still rocking them. Only my brother-in-law had the original iPhone, but that was sold off, and I believe still in service. To assume half of all iDevices are not in service is a bit of a leap, then, from where I'm standing.
May be we an assume that 50% of iPhones & Touches don't have free crappy apps with admob support installed.
Android is more like one of those ice cream stores where they offer so many flavours it's just ridiculous, and half the time you end up walking out with a Kimchee, Cabbage, or Horse Radish flavoured cone and wonder what happened.
Apple is the excellent organic frozen Yoghurt place across the street.
Edit: anonymouse thought of this before me. I guess the analogy is pretty obvious.
Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jellybeans! "Ah Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them-but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you? Alas! Ear wax!"-Albus Dumbledore.
Terribly mixed message, if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android and don't want other people to like/use iPhones. Why not try again when and if you finish high school?
aaahhhhh... joe... joe, joe, joe... "if there really is one somewhere besides you like Android"... please... I can only speak english joe... I only completed three-fourths of my foreign language requirement in high school joe... had to settle on a GED like yourself joe... so please reposit the thought joe... so we english speaking phone thread fans can comprehend joe. sarcasm joe.
See this is why you need to take yer meds on schedule! Seriously, (and why I love troll-braiting as much as the next) when you said
you very poignantly put it all in a nutshell dear droidy. Ya know - I'm purely OK with you running around with your crotch jokes and your attitude, because you are feeding the Google behemoth all your personal info and habits like a good little fanboy, and buying each and every new 'Droidy device as soon as it hits the market. NO??!! You aren't? But hallelujah here they come! Google is feeding each and every cellphone maker into the "race to the bottom" deadend, and making out like bandits while the makers rush to differentiate THEIR Android from the rest, cracking and shattering the platform as they try to be unique. So I rejoice with you in your hysterical shrill laughter, nodding pleasantly as they take you off to your Google-subsidized padded cell while ads play merrily in your head.
While you remain technologically retarded from June 2010 till June 2011, struggling to achieve what you had hoped on the T network, I will be presented choices, each better than the Iphone, but none better than the EVO 4g.