So there are more 'shipped' Android handsets than 'sold' iPhones. Why does this matter?
People can buy whatever phone they like. It isn't going to stop the iPhone existing. Apple are not going to stop making iPhones because they only sell a few million per month!!
How many Android handsets are in the supply chain (wholesalers, warehouses, shop stock, ...)? With so many different makes / models. it must be quite a few!
With Apple currently offering 3GS, 4, and 4S in their iPhone lineup, covering five price points ($0, $99, $199, $299, $399), I wonder if that can qualify as "plethora of devices" now.
No, they all run the same version of the OS and in almost the same screen resolution (4 and 4S are double res). I don't think we has sufficient ecosystem fragmentation to qualify as a plethora yet. :roll eyes:
[edit] Also, none of them have any carrier-specific crapware preinstalled, a real downside!
Apple may make double or triple the revenue, but marketshare can dictate software releases. Look at what Netflix has just released first. It's not released for iOS first, but Android. So once again, we are slowly becoming 2nd class citizens. Much like Windows and Mac.
That may have less to do with marketshare (Apple's installed base is larger after all...) and more to do with Apple's App Store policies. Mind you, once Android surpasses the iOS installed base, (not an unreal possibility), there is a risk that iOS could become the second choice platform. But that's a long ways away. Android still has huge challenges in making money for developers: paid apps are not available everywhere, phone internals lack memory to support huge apps, limited ways to pay for apps, etc.
I will say this though. The whole "Android users are cheap and only want free apps" line is nonsense. The reason Android apps don't make money have more to do with issues that I've listed. Once they are sorted out, I expect Android developers will be paid as well as iOS devs.
The extra 50% would further drive R&D, bonuses, dividends, etc. I was a Mac loyalist/customer from 94 to 07 spending more to get the best. It made the purchasing decision easier until one day (I think around the time the iOS/itunes walls went up) it seemed I could do better by going with the best alternative product. I don't go for the low end, but spend about the same money up front and prefer the Android user experience, the choices and the relative freedom in purchasing apps and media. Still, there are many people I recommend iOS devices to. iOS is easy, like AOL, it's wonderful really.
When ios is around 5 - 10% market share (MacOS in the 90s) and earning record profit per unit, they'll still be earning record profits. That's who they are.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NasserAE
Why tack an extra 50%?! Apple smartphone profit accounts for 50% of the industry profits and is expected to account for 70% next year. As a customer if a company is making profit that gives me confidence that my investment in their ecosystem (by buying their products and services) will not go under any time soon. Furthermore, a company making profit will invest more in improving their products and services.
These comparisons are so effing stupid. The biggest reason is that all the Android OEMS are mutually exclusive. Android is just a ubiquitous OS, that is free with restrictions, that piggybacks on hardware. Apple is the only outfit that carries iso and it is hard wired to iPhone, period and no exceptions.
The uninformed will take this crap and run with it. Only we in the know, know the real deal.
And in closing. Apple can buy each of thier top competitors with that 81 billion they have in the bank. Lol!
It's early 80s Mac vs PC all over again. Who cares if the COMBINED market share of a bunch of PCs that happen to share the "DOS" OS is higher, right?
The iPhone had zero chance of being the dominant mobile platform. But make no mistake, marketshare is important. Marketshare is what relegated Mac to niche status for decades.
The point is that this is NOTHING like Mac vs PC. Try getting an "Android" app for your 7" Samsung tablet and then getting it onto your Kindle Fire. It ain't gonna be easy, and even if you manage to shoehorn it in there and cajole it to function, it probably won't be robust.
Windows was a proprietary and non-fragmented OS that ran (almost) exactly the same across the entire selection of hardware vendors that supported it. At least that was the goal. By contrast, Android doesn't look the same, feel the same, or run the same binaries from one vendor to the next. The vendors pull the source code and immediately branch it into something that differentiates their products - thereby breaking the platform paradigm. Sure, you can get different versions of "Angry Birds" for any one of those devices, but when you change to a different device, you are most likely going to need to buy it again. It won't just easily port via a USB transfer. This isolates the Android vendors from one another in almost the same fashion that they are isolated from Apple's iOS products. Adding their "market shares" together just because their kernels are the same DOES NOT MAKE SENSE, and it is NOT the same as Mac vs PC.
I bet if someone came out with a toaster tomorrow that was running an Android OS underneath, the media would start adding it to the overall Android market share too. Of course, I'm being tongue-in-cheek there, but just barely...
Netflix released a new app for Android tablets. The iPad has 80+% of the tablet market. If marketshare were the driving factor, shouldn't Netflix have released an update for the iPad first?
Maybe there's isn't anything wrong with the Netflix app for the iPad?! Therefore it doesn't need to be updated! It's a market share issue but in a negative sense.
With so many versions of Android OS coming out at such quick intervals, it's hard for any app developer to keep up.
It is easier to make more money with popular products. Additionally, a robust third-party ecosystem is vitally important to Apple.
For these reasons and more, Apple cares very much about market share.
And, yet, Apple continues to capture the lion's share of industry profits (a growing percentage, btw). So if we accept that you know what you're talking about (a questionable assumption, of course), then Apple has done even better since they're crippled by having a lower market share than Android and STILL capture the lion's share of the profits.
In fact, your statement is incorrect. The popularity of a product does not, in and of itself, make a product more or less profitable. Clearly, there is some advantage to having high volumes to reduce manufacturing costs, but there are many offsetting factors which function to reduce profits on a more popular item (such as greater price cutting from distributors in order to try to gain more share).
Considering a blog dedicated to the Mobile world...
...A blog to give the reader hints on how to exploit the features of the Mobile OS and to review Mobile Applications...
...maybe call it: Mobile Tips & Apps...
Thoughts?
I had considered the same. There's no dearth of tips, shortcuts and advice available for articles, but not sure if the effort could be adequately monetized, thus worth the time and aggravation. I discussed this with a friend and admin of a very successful and profitable forum a few months back. He had the same concern, not convinced that it was a worthwhile endeavor, at least at the time.
"Apple's apparent 1.6 percent loss came at the hands of Android, which saw huge year over year growth."
This would imply that Apple lost total users to Android, which I don't think is the case. I think the case is that as a partof the whole smartphone market (which increased), Android made up a far larger chunk of those new users than Apple did.
Not surprising since most people, even those that don't read tech blogs, knew a new iPhone was "overdue" by prior year standards.
You're making the error in logic. The article clearly states "share", but you state "lost total users".
Prediction: this thread will end in picturez. Either picturez of devicez or picturez or screenz.
Could we please not dumb down English? The plural to a word is "s". Not "z". We must fight to keep our grammar proper. Not have it diluted and dumbed down by illiterates, and annoying cultural "trends". After all, is what we want to be handing down to our posterity???
With Apple currently offering 3GS, 4, and 4S in their iPhone lineup, covering five price points ($0, $99, $199, $299, $399), I wonder if that can qualify as "plethora of devices" now.
This year alone, SE released 10 Xperia phones. Samsung has +20 smartphones on sale today. The 3 iPhones Apple sells, 5 if you will count price points are still small.
But that example completely ruins your marketshare argument. Netflix released a new app for Android tablets. The iPad has 80+% of the tablet market. If marketshare were the driving factor, shouldn't Netflix have released an update for the iPad first?
Of course, with all the "brilliant" business decisions Netflix has made lately, I'm not suppressed they decided to update for Android first...
Of course Netflix released Android first - it's easier and not controlled. You don't have to meet the obligatory standards on the iOS apps platform thus you can throw something together and rush it out the door while you have to be more deliberate with the iOS version.
Comments
People can buy whatever phone they like. It isn't going to stop the iPhone existing. Apple are not going to stop making iPhones because they only sell a few million per month!!
How many Android handsets are in the supply chain (wholesalers, warehouses, shop stock, ...)? With so many different makes / models. it must be quite a few!
Phil
With Apple currently offering 3GS, 4, and 4S in their iPhone lineup, covering five price points ($0, $99, $199, $299, $399), I wonder if that can qualify as "plethora of devices" now.
No, they all run the same version of the OS and in almost the same screen resolution (4 and 4S are double res). I don't think we has sufficient ecosystem fragmentation to qualify as a plethora yet. :roll eyes:
[edit] Also, none of them have any carrier-specific crapware preinstalled, a real downside!
Irony of ironies, most mobile surfing is done on the iPhones so did I miss something.
That probably has more to do with the iOS installed base being 20% larger. Market share =/= installed base always.
Apple may make double or triple the revenue, but marketshare can dictate software releases. Look at what Netflix has just released first. It's not released for iOS first, but Android. So once again, we are slowly becoming 2nd class citizens. Much like Windows and Mac.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/15/net...n-a-few-weeks/
That may have less to do with marketshare (Apple's installed base is larger after all...) and more to do with Apple's App Store policies. Mind you, once Android surpasses the iOS installed base, (not an unreal possibility), there is a risk that iOS could become the second choice platform. But that's a long ways away. Android still has huge challenges in making money for developers: paid apps are not available everywhere, phone internals lack memory to support huge apps, limited ways to pay for apps, etc.
I will say this though. The whole "Android users are cheap and only want free apps" line is nonsense. The reason Android apps don't make money have more to do with issues that I've listed. Once they are sorted out, I expect Android developers will be paid as well as iOS devs.
When ios is around 5 - 10% market share (MacOS in the 90s) and earning record profit per unit, they'll still be earning record profits. That's who they are.
Why tack an extra 50%?! Apple smartphone profit accounts for 50% of the industry profits and is expected to account for 70% next year. As a customer if a company is making profit that gives me confidence that my investment in their ecosystem (by buying their products and services) will not go under any time soon. Furthermore, a company making profit will invest more in improving their products and services.
And Android devices will never make as much money as an iPhone so who wins there?
the consumer?
The uninformed will take this crap and run with it. Only we in the know, know the real deal.
And in closing. Apple can buy each of thier top competitors with that 81 billion they have in the bank. Lol!
This kind of spin is nauseating.
It's early 80s Mac vs PC all over again. Who cares if the COMBINED market share of a bunch of PCs that happen to share the "DOS" OS is higher, right?
The iPhone had zero chance of being the dominant mobile platform. But make no mistake, marketshare is important. Marketshare is what relegated Mac to niche status for decades.
The point is that this is NOTHING like Mac vs PC. Try getting an "Android" app for your 7" Samsung tablet and then getting it onto your Kindle Fire. It ain't gonna be easy, and even if you manage to shoehorn it in there and cajole it to function, it probably won't be robust.
Windows was a proprietary and non-fragmented OS that ran (almost) exactly the same across the entire selection of hardware vendors that supported it. At least that was the goal. By contrast, Android doesn't look the same, feel the same, or run the same binaries from one vendor to the next. The vendors pull the source code and immediately branch it into something that differentiates their products - thereby breaking the platform paradigm. Sure, you can get different versions of "Angry Birds" for any one of those devices, but when you change to a different device, you are most likely going to need to buy it again. It won't just easily port via a USB transfer. This isolates the Android vendors from one another in almost the same fashion that they are isolated from Apple's iOS products. Adding their "market shares" together just because their kernels are the same DOES NOT MAKE SENSE, and it is NOT the same as Mac vs PC.
I bet if someone came out with a toaster tomorrow that was running an Android OS underneath, the media would start adding it to the overall Android market share too. Of course, I'm being tongue-in-cheek there, but just barely...
Thompson
...A blog to give the reader hints on how to exploit the features of the Mobile OS and to review Mobile Applications...
...maybe call it: Mobile Tips & Apps...
Thoughts?
Netflix released a new app for Android tablets. The iPad has 80+% of the tablet market. If marketshare were the driving factor, shouldn't Netflix have released an update for the iPad first?
Maybe there's isn't anything wrong with the Netflix app for the iPad?! Therefore it doesn't need to be updated!
With so many versions of Android OS coming out at such quick intervals, it's hard for any app developer to keep up.
It is easier to make more money with popular products. Additionally, a robust third-party ecosystem is vitally important to Apple.
For these reasons and more, Apple cares very much about market share.
And, yet, Apple continues to capture the lion's share of industry profits (a growing percentage, btw). So if we accept that you know what you're talking about (a questionable assumption, of course), then Apple has done even better since they're crippled by having a lower market share than Android and STILL capture the lion's share of the profits.
In fact, your statement is incorrect. The popularity of a product does not, in and of itself, make a product more or less profitable. Clearly, there is some advantage to having high volumes to reduce manufacturing costs, but there are many offsetting factors which function to reduce profits on a more popular item (such as greater price cutting from distributors in order to try to gain more share).
Considering a blog dedicated to the Mobile world...
...A blog to give the reader hints on how to exploit the features of the Mobile OS and to review Mobile Applications...
...maybe call it: Mobile Tips & Apps...
Thoughts?
I had considered the same. There's no dearth of tips, shortcuts and advice available for articles, but not sure if the effort could be adequately monetized, thus worth the time and aggravation. I discussed this with a friend and admin of a very successful and profitable forum a few months back. He had the same concern, not convinced that it was a worthwhile endeavor, at least at the time.
Considering a blog dedicated to the Mobile world...
...A blog to give the reader hints on how to exploit the features of the Mobile OS and to review Mobile Applications...
...maybe call it: Mobile Tips & Apps...
Thoughts?
You'll get more page views if you call it: Mobile Tits & Asses...
(Sorry, couldn't resist. You just set that one up).
Well, why would this blog exist? Aren't there hundreds like it already, one of them being AppleInsider?
"Apple's apparent 1.6 percent loss came at the hands of Android, which saw huge year over year growth."
This would imply that Apple lost total users to Android, which I don't think is the case. I think the case is that as a partof the whole smartphone market (which increased), Android made up a far larger chunk of those new users than Apple did.
Not surprising since most people, even those that don't read tech blogs, knew a new iPhone was "overdue" by prior year standards.
You're making the error in logic. The article clearly states "share", but you state "lost total users".
Prediction: this thread will end in picturez. Either picturez of devicez or picturez or screenz.
Could we please not dumb down English? The plural to a word is "s". Not "z". We must fight to keep our grammar proper. Not have it diluted and dumbed down by illiterates, and annoying cultural "trends". After all, is what we want to be handing down to our posterity???
Pictures. Devices. Screens.
With Apple currently offering 3GS, 4, and 4S in their iPhone lineup, covering five price points ($0, $99, $199, $299, $399), I wonder if that can qualify as "plethora of devices" now.
This year alone, SE released 10 Xperia phones. Samsung has +20 smartphones on sale today. The 3 iPhones Apple sells, 5 if you will count price points are still small.
How did Apple's profits do in that time frame?
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/11/...kes-the-money/
But that example completely ruins your marketshare argument. Netflix released a new app for Android tablets. The iPad has 80+% of the tablet market. If marketshare were the driving factor, shouldn't Netflix have released an update for the iPad first?
Of course, with all the "brilliant" business decisions Netflix has made lately, I'm not suppressed they decided to update for Android first...
Of course Netflix released Android first - it's easier and not controlled. You don't have to meet the obligatory standards on the iOS apps platform thus you can throw something together and rush it out the door while you have to be more deliberate with the iOS version.
Yep second class citizens. NOT.
... Marketshare is what relegated Mac to niche status for decades. ...
The Mac market has to be big enough to at least sustain itself. And that's an absolute number.
So market share isn't that important. And the Mac is now steadily increasing its share.
And that's because of the quality of Apples products.
In the long run Apples smart phone market share could very well swing back, but it isn't needed.
J.
...iOS actually lost market share in the worldwide smartphone market last quarter despite growing sales...
That's all you need to know.