Ok. This ties into my question to Quadra. Why is it absolutely necessary for a single phone to come close to the iPhone in order for it the platform to be considered a success?
If it's a "flop", then why are there Android phones everywhere? Doesn't a "flop" usually mean that no one's adopting/using it?
"Android came from nowhere" ---- sure, an OS with the backing of Google is "from nowhere"
In the mobile phone space Google had zero presence of its own (aside from search). That's what I meant by "from nowhere". We all knew Google only as the search/e-mail company prior to that point. Would you have expected a search company to create a mobile OS that has such an impact?
Quote:
"Against a field of giants" ---- I think you mean on the backs of giants (HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc.)
And what's wrong with that? Google helped make Android enticing enough for those companies to decide to run with it. Like you said, these companies could have picked any OS at all. But they chose Android on its merits.
If Android's merits didn't fit, wouldn't those companies have continued to use their current OSs?
Quote:
"managed to shove aside WinMo" ---- Dude, WinMo was already dead
I'll give you that one. What I probably should have said was accelerated its death.
Quote:
Androids a great OS and all, but it isn't a little guy against the world success story, and OS marketshare is hardly the defining factor of success for Apple anyway (see OSX). The iPhone doesn't compete against Android, it competes against phones produced by other phone manufacturers, many of which are using Android right now. If a better OS becomes available to them, they will use that instead. Google should worry more about WP7 than iOS, because it's the OS that will try to lure hardware manufacturers away from Android (the open source MeeGo could also present a threat, but that remains to be seen). Apple and RIM aren't going to be licensing out their operating systems, so Google doesn't really need to worry about them too much.
Nothing worth getting bent out of shape to disagree with here. I will agree with your statement on WP7. At the moment, it doesn't seem to have gathered traction yet. Then again, Android was the exact same way when it first started out, so anything's possible.
Many different Androids, many different versions, many different carriers.
1 iPhone, 1 version, 1 carrier (for now)
and iPhone is still ahead of everyone else!
and everyone else has to GIVE AWAY phones to keep up!
Aside from bragging rights I don't see how this justifies that Android is a "flop".
Quote:
Originally Posted by BertieBig
Android doesn't look like a platform to me. If there is one defining feature of a platform, it's that you write an application for the platform, and it works on all the machines that run on that platform. This doesn't happen on Android. See Rovio's Angry Brids experience or evidence.
Android is a portfolio of technology that can be complied to run on commodity hardware and skinned. That's different. And I think the defining difference that does not allow for an accurate comparision between the installed base of Andriod and iOS.
So if I write a program for Windows 7 it should run on Windows 3.1?
...Androids a great OS and all, but it isn't a little guy against the world success story, and OS marketshare is hardly the defining factor of success for Apple anyway (see OSX). The iPhone doesn't compete against Android, it competes against phones produced by other phone manufacturers, many of which are using Android right now. If a better OS becomes available to them, they will use that instead. Google should worry more about WP7 than iOS, because it's the OS that will try to lure hardware manufacturers away from Android (the open source MeeGo could also present a threat, but that remains to be seen). Apple and RIM aren't going to be licensing out their operating systems, so Google doesn't really need to worry about them too much.
See cmf2 - there you go being all logical and stuff. Android cannot "beat" iOS without using the comparison of Android to the iPhone, so naturally that is what is being reported, and this point has been made both consistently and successfully - but it is also uniformly denied by the Android proponents - whose world view demands that their precious "open" OS be the champion of the world. This little stub from Linux is going to rectify all the languishing potential of Linux for the myriads of Open Source fans - hence the bends, twisting and concatenating of simple statistics into a lovely framework for this particular ideology.
Any OS or framework is only as good as it's uptake into the industry. By championing Android, Google was able to buy time to build out Chrome OS, which in no way was ready for prime-time on any platform. Gogle was very canny about switching form-factor from the previous Blackberry form to the iPhone form. Eric wasn't stupid he recognized the potential in what Apple was doing. It also forced Microsoft to revamp it's entire approach to WinMo, delaying entry into the fray by WinMo7, and allowing Google time to build out a marketshare before Microsoft came back to market with it's solution. It also meant that Google would, like any good illusionist, keep pointing at Apple while eroding Microsoft's mobile base.
Except that Microsoft wasn't watching where Google was pointing, and stepped in and offered HTC the choice of lawsuit or licensing touch interface from Microsoft. Cha-ching, now for HTC Android is costing them money. Motorola too. And for the Fandroids who keep insisting that Apple is the giant to kill, stop watching where Google is pointing and watch the other hand instead: Nokia/Symbian and RIM are the marketshares that lead for now, not Apple. You have been fooled and misdirected. Likewise Apploids, stop saying that Apple isn't concerned with marketshare - of course they are. Without marketshare you don't have sales and you lose. It may not be first priority and an absolute necessity like it is for Google/Android, but it is still important.
I'm sorry if this is too much commonsense for some of you but there you are. Google HAS to deeply penetrate the mobile ad space and Android is the trogan horse to do it - their business plan was plateauing with the installed desktop ad space and they needed to catch the next profit stream. It's all business folks. Fandroids, Goggle isn't the white knight championing open source out of the kindness of it's heart. It is prostituting the platform for it's own ends - and as long as the fans don't mind the metaphorical streetcorners and the "work" Android will bring in the revenue for Google. But if something else comes along
prettier and more profitable - Android will be put to rest.
Oops. My fault. That should be 2cent I'm referring to.
Though my thoughts still stand.
If Android was up against iOS on its own [on edit - = one manufacturer] on one carrier it would be a flop. It takes almost every manufacturer and every carrier to make a dent in Apple's armour.
Knowing that I have to ask why iOS is so compelling. Is Android really worth its salt or is it only popular because it's being thrown onto the market in the millions by any and every manufacturer in town?
I'm not sure how this could be answered (reason for popularity).
One area where I'd like to see stats is how many "paid" apps are being bought on each os.
I totally agree - my parents were incredibly excited when they realized that while the UI and performance may not be consistent, and the app selection is more limited and apps may or may not work well on their devices, that they could issue the above commands to compile their own kernel. I assume that's the main draw on GoogleTV as well?
So basically the only other tweet Rubin had was to counter Jobs, and then he totally missed the point of what the argument was. Nice.
I used to read the articles on this site for apple related info. Unfortunately, many of the articles are now simply unadulterated one-sided and poorly written opinion pieces. sad.
In the mobile phone space Google had zero presence of its own (aside from search). That's what I meant by "from nowhere". We all knew Google only as the search/e-mail company prior to that point. Would you have expected a search company to create a mobile OS that has such an impact?
Google didn't create the OS, they bought it and refined it. I'd expect a company with the financial clout of Google to be able to break into new markets from time to time (they've done quite well in the email and web browser markets too). Breaking into the mobile market was impressive, don't get me wrong, I just don't agree with the disadvantaged connotations the term "from nowhere" brings with it.
Quote:
And what's wrong with that? Google helped make Android enticing enough for those companies to decide to run with it. Like you said, these companies could have picked any OS at all. But they chose Android on its merits.
On its merits vs WinMo, basically the only other option they had, which was my point. You said they were up against the giants of iOS, Symbian and BB. I was suggesting that wasn't true from a hardware manufacturers perspective since their only other "viable" option was WinMo (or to create their own OS).
Quote:
If Android's merits didn't fit, wouldn't those companies have continued to use their current OSs?
Again that current OS was WinMo, which you agree was on its way out. Androids been a great success for Google, I just like to keep things in perspective. Google doesn't make their own phones, it needs the continual support of phone manufacturers to stay in the game. Once upon a time WinMo was the mobile OS of choice for these manufacturers, but it didn't last forever. Android being open source and receiving frequent updates should help it avoid a similar fate, but I think it's important to properly identify why Android is successful and what it's really up against.
Android doesn't look like a platform to me. If there is one defining feature of a platform, it's that you write an application for the platform, and it works on all the machines that run on that platform. This doesn't happen on Android. See Rovio's Angry Brids experience or evidence.
Wrong. When Android releases a new version, there are new APIs that developers can leverage to add newly exposed features of the OS to their app. New applications can utilize these new APIs or existing applications can be updated to take advantage of the new features of the release. This is no different than software development on any other platform, including iOS.
In the case of Android, if an application requires *new* API's introduced in the latest platform release, then that app will only appear in the Market to users with the latest version. The key is that new platform releases do not modify existing APIs such that they break compatibility with existing apps that use those APIs. Android does not.
Also, multiple Angry Birds versions was an effort by Rovio to target older, slower, legacy hardware. There was no "platform problems" or "fragmentation", it was an effort by the developer to provided optimized experiences for different classes of hardware. Exactly like Id Software did for Rage on iOS.
I haven't read all this thread but was lolling a bit at the Fandroids popping in at page 1. There must be Fandroids who have an RSS feed to a site devoted to a different and competitive OS. And how sad is that. Meanwhile here am I in post 139. And me, a fan of Apple.
Lets clear something up: The report says that
while just days ago, the company reported a weekly activation number of 1.5 million, or just over 214,000 activations per day.
which means what it says. A few days ago the number of activations was 1.5 million a week. These figures are not plucked out of anyones arse, they are measured. As they made the announcement they didnt just pick up last August's figures, nor could something so rudimental a mistake ( were it a mistake) be made by the smallest marketing department in the smallest company. If they were selling 300K a day then a simple multiplication by 7 would have the marketing department announcing more than 2M a week. They didnt, because they weren't.
So is Rubin lying. No he is not. Rubin is telling us when Android passed the 300K a day mark; he is announcing this either a day or two later ( so he can say each), or maybe a week later. He was always going to tweet the 300K level, and rather than give the game away by saying " just passed 300K" he puts the tweet in a way it seems they always where . But they weren;t, or they would have said it.
So Android has been selling above their long term ( but clearly stalled) average since Black Friday and early Dec, which is what we would expect as shopping peaks now. That they weren't before then, that we can be surprised at. That includes the Samsung tablets ( and since the Samsung tablet is definitely included as an Android device we should include all iOS devices: tablet, phone and music players - anything with the full capabilities of iOS).
As for Apple, their iPod sales double each holiday - thats 20M, about 60% iPod touches, or more this year ( the new iPod touch is a steal). Thats assuming no Y-O-Y growth.
So 12-14 M iOS small form factor devices there,.
About 14-20m iPhones ( assuming the previous years Y-o-Y growth)
iPads at 4-8M. 4M would be sequentially the same, and I think is a massive underestimate for the holiday season.
Thats up to 42M devices: I am seeing that at up to 450K activations a day ( over 92 days - not 66 "working days") . 42M is more likely than not.
Android dominates in 2 markets, America ( a problem with the carriers) and China, a problem of price and the HTC brand, and carriers. Next year Apple will get past our Android fans again: in the US with more carrier coverage, in China with a greater brand awareness and new carriers, and with whatever new iPad, iDevice and whatever it does to the TV - which has to be better than anything google are doing.
The limitations of Androids platform will be become apparent as it tries to compete as an iDevice. It cant even run Angry Birds. Its not so loyal BOGO market will divert back to iOS, leaving the shut-ins to root their system and get angry on forums dedicated to iOS and Apple.
See cmf2 - there you go being all logical and stuff. Android cannot "beat" iOS without using the comparison of Android to the iPhone, so naturally that is what is being reported, and this point has been made both consistently and successfully - but it is also uniformly denied by the Android proponents - whose world view demands that their precious "open" OS be the champion of the world. This little stub from Linux is going to rectify all the languishing potential of Linux for the myriads of Open Source fans - hence the bends, twisting and concatenating of simple statistics into a lovely framework...
After perusing 4 pages of Apple versus Android oneupisms I am simply reminded of that "can't we all just get along" mantra. As for me, I like the smartphone competition. And as long as there's a Verizon iPhone to choose next year, I don't care how many thousands of Android activations there are each day. I only want one iPhone activation.
Comments
Ok. This ties into my question to Quadra. Why is it absolutely necessary for a single phone to come close to the iPhone in order for it the platform to be considered a success?
If it's a "flop", then why are there Android phones everywhere? Doesn't a "flop" usually mean that no one's adopting/using it?
Quadra, nor I, said anything about a flop.
"Android came from nowhere" ---- sure, an OS with the backing of Google is "from nowhere"
In the mobile phone space Google had zero presence of its own (aside from search). That's what I meant by "from nowhere". We all knew Google only as the search/e-mail company prior to that point. Would you have expected a search company to create a mobile OS that has such an impact?
"Against a field of giants" ---- I think you mean on the backs of giants (HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc.)
And what's wrong with that? Google helped make Android enticing enough for those companies to decide to run with it. Like you said, these companies could have picked any OS at all. But they chose Android on its merits.
If Android's merits didn't fit, wouldn't those companies have continued to use their current OSs?
"managed to shove aside WinMo" ---- Dude, WinMo was already dead
I'll give you that one. What I probably should have said was accelerated its death.
Androids a great OS and all, but it isn't a little guy against the world success story, and OS marketshare is hardly the defining factor of success for Apple anyway (see OSX). The iPhone doesn't compete against Android, it competes against phones produced by other phone manufacturers, many of which are using Android right now. If a better OS becomes available to them, they will use that instead. Google should worry more about WP7 than iOS, because it's the OS that will try to lure hardware manufacturers away from Android (the open source MeeGo could also present a threat, but that remains to be seen). Apple and RIM aren't going to be licensing out their operating systems, so Google doesn't really need to worry about them too much.
Nothing worth getting bent out of shape to disagree with here. I will agree with your statement on WP7. At the moment, it doesn't seem to have gathered traction yet. Then again, Android was the exact same way when it first started out, so anything's possible.
Quadra, nor I, said anything about a flop.
Oops. My fault. That should be 2cent I'm referring to.
Though my thoughts still stand.
Revenue (Billions): Google , Apple , Difference
Sept Quarter 09: 5.94 , 12.25 , 206%
Sept Quarter 10: 7.29 , 20.34 , 279%
\t\t\t
Net Profit (Billions): Google , Apple , Difference
Sept Quarter 09: 1.88 , 2.85 , 152%
Sept Quarter 10: 2.46 , 4.31 , 175%
Revenue: Google Total\t , iPhone (only) , Difference
Sept Quarter 10: 7.29 , 8.82 , 121%
Things to note from the above data
The iPhone alone generates more revenue then all of Google's activities put together, and is increasing.
Apple Revenue and Net Porfit figures are increasing at a much faster rate than Google as a whole
Ok,
Many different Androids, many different versions, many different carriers.
1 iPhone, 1 version, 1 carrier (for now)
and iPhone is still ahead of everyone else!
and everyone else has to GIVE AWAY phones to keep up!
Aside from bragging rights I don't see how this justifies that Android is a "flop".
Android doesn't look like a platform to me. If there is one defining feature of a platform, it's that you write an application for the platform, and it works on all the machines that run on that platform. This doesn't happen on Android. See Rovio's Angry Brids experience or evidence.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...id-devices.ars
Android is a portfolio of technology that can be complied to run on commodity hardware and skinned. That's different. And I think the defining difference that does not allow for an accurate comparision between the installed base of Andriod and iOS.
So if I write a program for Windows 7 it should run on Windows 3.1?
...Androids a great OS and all, but it isn't a little guy against the world success story, and OS marketshare is hardly the defining factor of success for Apple anyway (see OSX). The iPhone doesn't compete against Android, it competes against phones produced by other phone manufacturers, many of which are using Android right now. If a better OS becomes available to them, they will use that instead. Google should worry more about WP7 than iOS, because it's the OS that will try to lure hardware manufacturers away from Android (the open source MeeGo could also present a threat, but that remains to be seen). Apple and RIM aren't going to be licensing out their operating systems, so Google doesn't really need to worry about them too much.
See cmf2 - there you go being all logical and stuff. Android cannot "beat" iOS without using the comparison of Android to the iPhone, so naturally that is what is being reported, and this point has been made both consistently and successfully - but it is also uniformly denied by the Android proponents - whose world view demands that their precious "open" OS be the champion of the world. This little stub from Linux is going to rectify all the languishing potential of Linux for the myriads of Open Source fans - hence the bends, twisting and concatenating of simple statistics into a lovely framework for this particular ideology.
Any OS or framework is only as good as it's uptake into the industry. By championing Android, Google was able to buy time to build out Chrome OS, which in no way was ready for prime-time on any platform. Gogle was very canny about switching form-factor from the previous Blackberry form to the iPhone form. Eric wasn't stupid he recognized the potential in what Apple was doing. It also forced Microsoft to revamp it's entire approach to WinMo, delaying entry into the fray by WinMo7, and allowing Google time to build out a marketshare before Microsoft came back to market with it's solution. It also meant that Google would, like any good illusionist, keep pointing at Apple while eroding Microsoft's mobile base.
Except that Microsoft wasn't watching where Google was pointing, and stepped in and offered HTC the choice of lawsuit or licensing touch interface from Microsoft. Cha-ching, now for HTC Android is costing them money. Motorola too. And for the Fandroids who keep insisting that Apple is the giant to kill, stop watching where Google is pointing and watch the other hand instead: Nokia/Symbian and RIM are the marketshares that lead for now, not Apple. You have been fooled and misdirected. Likewise Apploids, stop saying that Apple isn't concerned with marketshare - of course they are. Without marketshare you don't have sales and you lose. It may not be first priority and an absolute necessity like it is for Google/Android, but it is still important.
I'm sorry if this is too much commonsense for some of you but there you are. Google HAS to deeply penetrate the mobile ad space and Android is the trogan horse to do it - their business plan was plateauing with the installed desktop ad space and they needed to catch the next profit stream. It's all business folks. Fandroids, Goggle isn't the white knight championing open source out of the kindness of it's heart. It is prostituting the platform for it's own ends - and as long as the fans don't mind the metaphorical streetcorners and the "work" Android will bring in the revenue for Google. But if something else comes along
prettier and more profitable - Android will be put to rest.
Oops. My fault. That should be 2cent I'm referring to.
Though my thoughts still stand.
If Android was up against iOS on its own [on edit - = one manufacturer] on one carrier it would be a flop. It takes almost every manufacturer and every carrier to make a dent in Apple's armour.
Knowing that I have to ask why iOS is so compelling. Is Android really worth its salt or is it only popular because it's being thrown onto the market in the millions by any and every manufacturer in town?
I'm not sure how this could be answered (reason for popularity).
One area where I'd like to see stats is how many "paid" apps are being bought on each os.
I totally agree - my parents were incredibly excited when they realized that while the UI and performance may not be consistent, and the app selection is more limited and apps may or may not work well on their devices, that they could issue the above commands to compile their own kernel.
So basically the only other tweet Rubin had was to counter Jobs, and then he totally missed the point of what the argument was. Nice.
That command is the UserInterface of the device
Google(android) isn't "outselling" anyone. They are GIVING it away.
Are you sure, because they were asking money for all the phones in the flyer I got yesterday.
Google might be giving it away, but the phone manufactures aren't
Aside from bragging rights I don't see how this justifies that Android is a "flop".
So if I write a program for Windows 7 it should run on Windows 3.1?
If you write a program on windows 7 then there is likelihood that it won't run on windows 7 itself
You picked a wrong example.
That is because Google is trying to kill the iPhone. If not for that, it would be OK for them to coexist. But Google is trying to kill the iPhone.
Google makes quite a bit of money out of mobility. Why would they try to kill the iPhone?
In the mobile phone space Google had zero presence of its own (aside from search). That's what I meant by "from nowhere". We all knew Google only as the search/e-mail company prior to that point. Would you have expected a search company to create a mobile OS that has such an impact?
Google didn't create the OS, they bought it and refined it. I'd expect a company with the financial clout of Google to be able to break into new markets from time to time (they've done quite well in the email and web browser markets too). Breaking into the mobile market was impressive, don't get me wrong, I just don't agree with the disadvantaged connotations the term "from nowhere" brings with it.
And what's wrong with that? Google helped make Android enticing enough for those companies to decide to run with it. Like you said, these companies could have picked any OS at all. But they chose Android on its merits.
On its merits vs WinMo, basically the only other option they had, which was my point. You said they were up against the giants of iOS, Symbian and BB. I was suggesting that wasn't true from a hardware manufacturers perspective since their only other "viable" option was WinMo (or to create their own OS).
If Android's merits didn't fit, wouldn't those companies have continued to use their current OSs?
Again that current OS was WinMo, which you agree was on its way out. Androids been a great success for Google, I just like to keep things in perspective. Google doesn't make their own phones, it needs the continual support of phone manufacturers to stay in the game. Once upon a time WinMo was the mobile OS of choice for these manufacturers, but it didn't last forever. Android being open source and receiving frequent updates should help it avoid a similar fate, but I think it's important to properly identify why Android is successful and what it's really up against.
Android doesn't look like a platform to me. If there is one defining feature of a platform, it's that you write an application for the platform, and it works on all the machines that run on that platform. This doesn't happen on Android. See Rovio's Angry Brids experience or evidence.
Wrong. When Android releases a new version, there are new APIs that developers can leverage to add newly exposed features of the OS to their app. New applications can utilize these new APIs or existing applications can be updated to take advantage of the new features of the release. This is no different than software development on any other platform, including iOS.
In the case of Android, if an application requires *new* API's introduced in the latest platform release, then that app will only appear in the Market to users with the latest version. The key is that new platform releases do not modify existing APIs such that they break compatibility with existing apps that use those APIs. Android does not.
Also, multiple Angry Birds versions was an effort by Rovio to target older, slower, legacy hardware. There was no "platform problems" or "fragmentation", it was an effort by the developer to provided optimized experiences for different classes of hardware. Exactly like Id Software did for Rage on iOS.
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214,000 per calendar day x 7 ~= 1,500,000 per calendar week
1,500,000 per calendar week / 5 ~= 300,000 per business day
Theres none of this business day nonsense in retail, it's seven days a week, phone companies are open to support activations seven days a week.
UNDERSTAND FUDGE
Would you have expected a search company to create a mobile OS that has such an impact?
Google didn't "create" an OS, they bought a company that did.
Lets clear something up: The report says that
while just days ago, the company reported a weekly activation number of 1.5 million, or just over 214,000 activations per day.
which means what it says. A few days ago the number of activations was 1.5 million a week. These figures are not plucked out of anyones arse, they are measured. As they made the announcement they didnt just pick up last August's figures, nor could something so rudimental a mistake ( were it a mistake) be made by the smallest marketing department in the smallest company. If they were selling 300K a day then a simple multiplication by 7 would have the marketing department announcing more than 2M a week. They didnt, because they weren't.
So is Rubin lying. No he is not. Rubin is telling us when Android passed the 300K a day mark; he is announcing this either a day or two later ( so he can say each), or maybe a week later. He was always going to tweet the 300K level, and rather than give the game away by saying " just passed 300K" he puts the tweet in a way it seems they always where . But they weren;t, or they would have said it.
So Android has been selling above their long term ( but clearly stalled) average since Black Friday and early Dec, which is what we would expect as shopping peaks now. That they weren't before then, that we can be surprised at. That includes the Samsung tablets ( and since the Samsung tablet is definitely included as an Android device we should include all iOS devices: tablet, phone and music players - anything with the full capabilities of iOS).
As for Apple, their iPod sales double each holiday - thats 20M, about 60% iPod touches, or more this year ( the new iPod touch is a steal). Thats assuming no Y-O-Y growth.
So 12-14 M iOS small form factor devices there,.
About 14-20m iPhones ( assuming the previous years Y-o-Y growth)
iPads at 4-8M. 4M would be sequentially the same, and I think is a massive underestimate for the holiday season.
Thats up to 42M devices: I am seeing that at up to 450K activations a day ( over 92 days - not 66 "working days") . 42M is more likely than not.
Android dominates in 2 markets, America ( a problem with the carriers) and China, a problem of price and the HTC brand, and carriers. Next year Apple will get past our Android fans again: in the US with more carrier coverage, in China with a greater brand awareness and new carriers, and with whatever new iPad, iDevice and whatever it does to the TV - which has to be better than anything google are doing.
The limitations of Androids platform will be become apparent as it tries to compete as an iDevice. It cant even run Angry Birds. Its not so loyal BOGO market will divert back to iOS, leaving the shut-ins to root their system and get angry on forums dedicated to iOS and Apple.
God love em.
See cmf2 - there you go being all logical and stuff. Android cannot "beat" iOS without using the comparison of Android to the iPhone, so naturally that is what is being reported, and this point has been made both consistently and successfully - but it is also uniformly denied by the Android proponents - whose world view demands that their precious "open" OS be the champion of the world. This little stub from Linux is going to rectify all the languishing potential of Linux for the myriads of Open Source fans - hence the bends, twisting and concatenating of simple statistics into a lovely framework...
Great post, thanks!