Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android Sales Overtake iPhone in the U.S.

gigaom.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 133 posts

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

#101

Post by Zev »

cheald wrote: post #96
hop wrote: post #75

This is pre iPhone 4 information, it doesn't take into account the biggest phone launch in history. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/02/nielson_androi...

Not to discount the size of the launch, but it's estimated that 77% of iPhone 4 purchases were upgrades from earlier-generation iPhones. Still an impressive launch, but Apple didn't grow their marketshare by 3 million handsets. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/25/77-of-iphone-4-sales-...

Getting 700,000 users in one weekend is nothing to be ashamed of. And quite likely enough to pull the gap much closer, or reverse it to put the iPhone back at top.

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

#102

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

starnix17 wrote: post #88
crocowhile wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For how many apps, if I may ask?

It's just one app, it's a third party Instapaper client (there's no official Instapaper app for Android [yet]) http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.tonycosentini.hardcopypro

You just got yourself another sale...

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

#103

Post by starnix17 »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #102
starnix17 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just one app, it's a third party Instapaper client (there's no official Instapaper app for Android [yet]) http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.tonycosentini.hardcopypro

You just got yourself another sale...

Oh wow, thanks. It's definitely not as good as the Instapaper iPhone app, but I've been tweaking it over time and it's slowly getting better and better :-).

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

#105

Post by jonknee »

rimantas wrote: post #87
jonknee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is the only mobile phone running iOS so the only way to do market share for mobile phone operating systems means just counting the iPhone. If you're doing laptop OS marketshare it makes sense to just count Apple's laptops even though the same OS runs on other devices.

Uhm. iPhone is the only phone running iOS, but there are other devices running it too, so if you count instalations of iOS you should consider iPod touch and iPad, if you count only iOS on iPhones then the remark is valid: it's comparing apples to oranges.

... Their are other devices running OS X too, but if we're talking OS market share for laptops those devices don't get counted. They are comparing Android phones vs. iOS phones. Perfectly legit. Apples to apples.

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

#106

Post by ben1040 »

jra101 wrote: post #86
ben1040 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that may address your first two points is that Google demoed at I/O a web presence for the Android Market that would work in conjunction with the push service on the phone. Buy an app on the web and it's pushed to the phone. I imagine that if done right this would allow them to match Apple in terms of providing more real estate for promotional content from app developers, and reduce the barrier to buying si…

> I'll copy it to my SD card and delete it within the 24 hour return window. That should be fixed with the new Android licensing server that Google recently announced. http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/07/licensing-ser... Edit: Well, fixed when developers update their apps (which they have a big incentive to do).

I think this is a good thing so long as developers are also generous enough with the grace periods that legitimate users aren't affected.

If you travel to a foreign country for a week and don't have international data roaming turned on, will you need to find a coffee shop and connect to wifi sometime in the middle of your trip to re-authorize your apps?

The nice thing is that it does leave these decisions in the developer's hands. If it's a network-centric app that accesses a web service that costs the developer money to operate (and thus piracy results in monetary loss), there's no reason not to have the license be strictly checked every time the app is opened. If it's just a game, maybe not so much, because someone probably will want to play it on an airplane.

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

#107

Post by Xixi »

Considering how much at&t seems to suck, this is hardly surprising. And indeed Android seems to be a very US-centric thing so far.

Take France for instance, where all careers are selling the iPhone :

* iPhone : 2.25 million units currently in service

* Android : 220,000 units currently in service

That's a 10 to 1 ratio ! (as of April 2010, so pre iPhone 4 launch)

http://www.geeketchic.fr/geek-blog/admob-android-vs-iphone-o...

Conclusion : study carefully your target market before deciding on which platform to launch an app.

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

#108

Post by jlgosse »

starnix17 wrote: post #88
crocowhile wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For how many apps, if I may ask?

It's just one app, it's a third party Instapaper client (there's no official Instapaper app for Android [yet]) http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.tonycosentini.hardcopypro

That's pretty good for such a specialized application, if you ask me. I'm looking to make decent passive income between BlackBerry, Android and iPhone app sales over the next few months, so a few applications with $100 monthly sales would be perfect for what I'm looking for.

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

#109

Post by nixy »

cheald wrote: post #96
hop wrote: post #75

This is pre iPhone 4 information, it doesn't take into account the biggest phone launch in history. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/02/nielson_androi...

Not to discount the size of the launch, but it's estimated that 77% of iPhone 4 purchases were upgrades from earlier-generation iPhones. Still an impressive launch, but Apple didn't grow their marketshare by 3 million handsets. http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/06/25/77-of-iphone-4-sales-...

And those iPhone 3G(S) that were being replaced were simply thrown in the bin? Or were they passed on to the second hand market?

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

#110

Post by novum »

gregholland wrote: post #93
orangecat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that one of the major problems with the Android Market at present is certainly this culture of "I won't pay for an app -- and if I have to pay, I'll copy it to my SD card and delete it within the 24 hour return window." I haven't seen any evidence that piracy on Android is worse than on iOS. My paid app has a 5-10% return rate; even if that's all piracy, it's not worth worrying about.

The problem with piracy on android is how EASY it is to pull it off. On the iPhone, you have to jailbreak your phone, a step which many consumers are weary of doing in fear of bricking their phone, after this, they also have to find a cracked .ipa to download/install. On android, you simply need to buy an app, copy to SD, return it and viola! free app. Based on stats of my paid android app, there are about 3x as many…

The new iOS 4 jailbreak doesn't require any of that. You don't even need a computer; everything happens in userland on the device.

Curious to see if this affects jailbreaking numbers.

Post reply on HN