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Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

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Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#61

Post by Griever »

dannyr wrote: post #25
axod wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google showcased a ton of this at Google I/O. Android ties in really well to their webapps, Google TV (If that succeeds), etc. I remember one example was that you can go to maps.google.com and click on a phone icon, and it just sends it straight to your phone which opens a map in the same place. That's really useful integration. I forget the rest of the examples, but they were all pretty 'wow'. I think iTunes is an e…

If you have Android 2.2/Froyo, you can download both the Chrome Extensions & Android app. http://code.google.com/p/chrometophone/downloads/list

Thanks for the link! This is actually really freaking cool.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#62

Post by Anechoic »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #17
old-gregg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1. I absolutely love my Nexus One (we have iPhones in our family) and I believe that N1 represents the "next generation" of mobile devices, if you will. iPhone is stuck in the past - it requires a computer to be fully operational: a few months ago we went overseas and I wanted to put more stuff on it to listen/watch on the plane, but the people we were staying with only had a Linux laptop - iPhone was as useful as b…

If the iPhone is stuck in the past, then Android devices are stuck in the future. It would be nice if I could transfer all my data from an Android device directly to my computer without having to send it to any third parties. iTunes may certainly be a bloated, unwieldy piece of software, but it offers some powerful functionality missing from the Android platform. As for A2DP stereo over BlueTooth, the iOS platform no…

In the best case we would have the choice to sync over the cloud or via a computer. Given the hard choice of cloud vs PC, I'll take PC syncing everytime - I don't like having to go through a 3rd party for privacy and reliability reasons, not to mention that my business travels often take me to places where the cloud isn't ubiquitous yet (for example I'll be working for 5 days on a project in northern NH were there is no cell coverage).

YMMV of course but the cloud model doesn't work for me right now and while I may be in the minority, I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#63

Post by Samuel_Michon »

felideon wrote: post #52
andreyf wrote: post #37

I don't understand why people compare sales volume of iPhone to Android. Isn't that kind of like comparing MacBook Pro sales to Windows sales? People should either compare iPhones to Droids, or iOS devices to Android devices.

Well iPhone kind of implies iOS, doesn't it? So yes, technically speaking they should have said iOS instead. In any case, I think the comparison is fair, and more analogous to comparing Mac OS to Windows.

'IPhone' implies 'iOS', but half of all iOS devices are not iPhones. The iPhone is a smartphone model. It should be compared to other smartphone models, not other mobile OSes. But ofcourse, if iOS sales were compared to Android sales, there'd be no contest. I'm sure Android will overtake iOS at some point though; Android handsets are getting cheaper and cheaper, while Apple cares more about profit margin than unit sales.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#64

Post by commandar »

gregholland wrote: post #36
melling wrote: post #20

This trend was pretty easy to spot. Almost 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129465 The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps. I've heard several developers complaining that their apps don't sell on Android. Will this eventually change?

I don't think it will change anytime soon. 1, The marketplace sucks compared to the app store in many ways. There are few ways to feature your apps on the marketplace vs apple which has the "what hot", "new and noteworthy", "top paid", "top grossing" categories. In comparison, the android marketplace doesn't. 2, On the apple app store, you are given more promotion room on your app page itself for more descriptive tex…

>5, There is a culture of "free" and "opensource" in the entire Android ecosystem and most apps are released for free or are ad-supported. Google seem to love this since if you use their ad system, they get a cut and therefore they don't seem to have an incentive to push paid apps to have wider availability.

This isn't entirely consumer-driven, IMO. I have no problem supporting developers, and I've bought the "donation" version of a number of apps to support developers, but the fact is that often as not when I look for an app to do something, the free app is the best choice available.

There are times I find myself wishing there were more quality apps I need out there that the developer would take money for, just to help end this notion that Android users don't want to pay for software.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#65

Post by jrockway »

ElliotH wrote: post #60
tvon wrote: post #42

I wonder how much of a dent the iPod Touch would put into the numbers if it were counted. On a related note, it seems an iPod Touch sized clone for Android would be a worthwhile device for a company to make (especially if it fit in all those iPod Touch running armbands). I hear news snippets here and there, but you'd think there would be a worthy competitor at this point... (there could well be one I'm not aware of,…

I would pay a good price for a decent iPod touch style android tablet. 7" seems to be the pattern which is too big really.

Archos' first Android tablet was 5". It could use Android 2, but the media-playing capabilities are solid.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#66

Post by bobbyi »

melling wrote: post #20

This trend was pretty easy to spot. Almost 6 months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129465 The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps. I've heard several developers complaining that their apps don't sell on Android. Will this eventually change?

> The problem is that developers are making a lot more money on iPhone apps.

Is this necessarily a problem? Maybe there will end up being enough good free apps that the Android ecosystem will do fine without needing people to "make a lot more money" selling apps.

I happily used Linux on my desktop for years even though there wasn't much of an ecosystem of paid software.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#67

Post by moultano »

I'm just glad android seems to have passed the threshold beyond which companies have to care about it. A good android app is becoming a necessary part of any consumer cloud-based service (kindle, nook, etc.) just as a good iphone app has been for a while.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#68

Post by abstractbill »

jacquesm wrote: post #26

Of course it did, it simply had to. Now the question is whether the android ecosystem can keep its users as good as the apple one can. I sure hope so, but it definitely isn't a given. Android is a big step in the right direction but there are still plenty of things that need fixing before they can compete with apple on anything else but units shipped. When developers have to seriously think about which platform to su…

When developers have to seriously think about which platform to support first you can say they've achieved parity.

I agree we're not quite at that point, but we are getting close. We (justin.tv) are putting some serious resources into Android development right now - not as much as for iPhone, but still, I'd say we're now treating them as nearly equally important platforms.

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#69

Post by bajsejohannes »

If the movement between the user groups remain the same, then in 10 years time, it will have stabilized on around 6% blackberry, 70% iphones, and 24% android (ignoring everyone going to "other smartphone os")

(Finally I got to use Markov chains! Code here for anyone interested: http://codepad.org/cstzwXbG )

Re: Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

#70

Post by jrockway »

byoung2 wrote: post #15
axod wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google showcased a ton of this at Google I/O. Android ties in really well to their webapps, Google TV (If that succeeds), etc. I remember one example was that you can go to maps.google.com and click on a phone icon, and it just sends it straight to your phone which opens a map in the same place. That's really useful integration. I forget the rest of the examples, but they were all pretty 'wow'. I think iTunes is an e…

I remember one example was that you can go to maps.google.com and click on a phone icon, and it just sends it straight to your phone which opens a map in the same place That's in Android 2.2...which my phone (HTC Evo 4G) is supposed to be getting today!

You could have had it a few weeks ago, too, as Cyanogen released a stable-ish version for the Evo. (I have been using it since it was released. Getting rid of Sense was well worth the loss of the never-working 4G functionality.)
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