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Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

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Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#21

Post by sowbug »

psy-q wrote: post #11
meri_dian wrote: post #4

As the mobile computing ecosystem matures it's becoming clear that it will mirror the PC dominated computing ecosystem. You have the major player (Microsoft/Windows in PC, Google/Android in mobile) occupying about 85% to 90% of total market share [0] while Apple/Mac/iOS will do well in the high end market and control about 10% to 15% share. iOS today controls about 20% to 25% of global market share but Android growth…

I always hoped for a more 30%/30%/30%/10% distribution, with two big proprietary players, one FOSS one and a bunch of other more experimental or niche systems. Guess that hasn't happened so far. The only place in technology where I remember three big and roughly equally powerful players was the console market, but only for a while. Would be interesting to find out details about these dynamics.

Developers seem to be willing to support two competitive platforms, but when there are three or more, they throw up their hands and support just the top one, or maybe the top two.

Source: my own intuition.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#22

Post by mtgx »

JBReefer wrote: post #2

On one hand, this is a truly incredible accomplishment for Google, and in so little time! On the other, it's sort of amazing this hadn't happened already - so, so many people in the developing world are entirely reliant on mobile, and mostly use low-end Android phones. I use a Moto G4 and the experience is shockingly good for a device that costs less than a bar tab. It's no wonder that low-end Android's are winning,…

It's not so surprising when you consider that those people in developing worlds visit way fewer pages than someone on a broadband connection on a computer would - in part because it's still a smartphone with a small screen (especially the low-budget ones), it's slow, but mainly because data is expensive.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#23

Post by JustSomeNobody »

georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

Because the ideas on which Unix is based are sound.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#24

Post by loudmax »

georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

Well, Microsoft put OS/2 and BeOS out of business, and nearly did the same for Apple. While this was happening, FreeBSD and Linux emerged as excellent Unix variants, so when Apple and Google went to look for their own OSs to deploy, they leveraged what was already available.

If you're looking for alternatives, there is stuff being developed. Google's Fuscia is intriguing, and there are other non-Unix kernels from other organizations in the pipeline. IMHO, the difference this time around is that the web is the new compatibility target. If you design a new OS today and manage to get a full working web browser with javascript and Web Assembly, you'll be in good shape.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#25

Post by _wmd »

I guess this means we can officially stop hating on Microsoft for having such a lax attitude towards security, considering their last OS to suffer from that attitude was released 16 years ago, and it accounts for less than 3% of present day traffic according to statcounter.com

Meanwhile according to the same stats, Android sits around 37.9%, and I have to wonder just how many of those devices are still impacted by for example the 2015 libstagefright vulnerability. Given Google's guiltless ongoing "throw code over the wall" approach to security and passing the buck on to vendors who almost never ship firmware updates for old handsets, perhaps now is the time for us to begin holding Google to the same standard we applied to Microsoft a decade ago.

Google Security Team, here's your call to stop pontificating on the Project Zero blog and throwing cheap muck at Microsoft. You've got an even bigger and more complicated mess to clean up, you dug the hole yourself, it's going to take you longer, and you should have started on it years ago

edit: If it weren't clear, the tragedy here is that instead of most devices being governed by a well-tested security process owned by a single responsible vendor, they're at the mercy of a plethora of downstream vendors who do nothing, with the ultimate upstream washing its hands and paying little more than immature lip service to the issue, never mind having anything that even remotely resembles a solid process.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#26

Post by rtkwe »

digi_owl wrote: post #10
JBReefer wrote: post #2

On one hand, this is a truly incredible accomplishment for Google, and in so little time! On the other, it's sort of amazing this hadn't happened already - so, so many people in the developing world are entirely reliant on mobile, and mostly use low-end Android phones. I use a Moto G4 and the experience is shockingly good for a device that costs less than a bar tab. It's no wonder that low-end Android's are winning,…

AOSP may be open, but on its own it is a skeleton of a OS. Most of the magic in Android today is housed in Play Services, one of two things Google can push an update for (the other being the Play store app) without any dialog or concent from the device user.

That's kind of a demon of necessity though. Originally they did things more in the base OS but getting manufacturers to actually push updates was horrible. Now they can do bug, (minor) security and feature updates through a side channel that bypasses the carriers who don't want to update their older phones when people might go buy new ones instead.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#27

Post by huxley »

georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

A lot of Windows NT was based on work Dave Cutler had done on VMS and RSX-11, so while I'm sure most of the code was new, the ideas are of a similar vintage to Unix.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#28

Post by qznc »

georgeecollins wrote: post #18

When I was younger there IBM, Apple, Be, and Microsoft were all working on these amazing new operating systems. Now the #1, #3, #4 most popular operating systems are all some variation on Unix. What happened? Why did no one except Microsoft come up with a new operating system worthy of mass adoption?

Because there is no money in it. It is only worth it, if you use it to funnel people elsewhere, like Office or Play Store.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#29

Post by digi_owl »

sowbug wrote: post #21
psy-q wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always hoped for a more 30%/30%/30%/10% distribution, with two big proprietary players, one FOSS one and a bunch of other more experimental or niche systems. Guess that hasn't happened so far. The only place in technology where I remember three big and roughly equally powerful players was the console market, but only for a while. Would be interesting to find out details about these dynamics.

Developers seem to be willing to support two competitive platforms, but when there are three or more, they throw up their hands and support just the top one, or maybe the top two. Source: my own intuition.

It depends on there being strong cross-platform development tools or not.

Back in the early days of the micro-computer, many games used a virtual machine of sorts. The game logic was implemented in VM bytecode and then the VM engine was the only thing that needed porting between systems.

This was to a greater or lesser degree aided by the limited hardware of the time, and that said computers were single task more often than not.

Re: Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used operating system

#30

Post by problems »

_wmd wrote: post #25

I guess this means we can officially stop hating on Microsoft for having such a lax attitude towards security, considering their last OS to suffer from that attitude was released 16 years ago, and it accounts for less than 3% of present day traffic according to statcounter.com Meanwhile according to the same stats, Android sits around 37.9%, and I have to wonder just how many of those devices are still impacted by fo…

> perhaps now is the time for us to begin holding Google to the same standard we applied to Microsoft a decade ago.

The triggering factor for this was the worms though. No such similar thing exists in the Android space.

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