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

Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

extremetech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 188 posts

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#41

Post by Steko »

eta_carinae wrote: post #23
atirip wrote: post #21

So now that one company is Google, that one man is Andy Rubin and that one phone is Android. Thats the future we wanted. Thank God Google acted.

Android is not a phone. If we standardize on one operating system, I definitely prefer a future where we have thousands of phones to choose from and not just five. Thank you Google for saving us from an Apple monopoly.

Talk of an Apple monopoly is silly. Apple has shown no interest in building budget smartphones. That market, which is hundreds of millions of phones per year, was always going to go to whichever competitor which managed to both copy the iphone the best and kowtow to the carriers. WebOS only met the first criteria, Nokia only the second, Android checked both boxes.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#42

Post by rimantas »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #18
sinnerswing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing impressive with this. I know of a few companies that sold crappy devices with crappy OS's. RIM, Nokia, etc. and they dominated the market. Android has become the new Nokia. Big Market Share. Worthless user-base.

Yep, 75% of the market loves to buy crappy devices with crappy OSs. The fact that high end Android devices are popular and sell well (SGSIII? Samsung's profits being damn impressive next to Apple's?) is just a weird inconvenient fact.

Can you make your mind what you are talking about? Unless 75% of the market is taken by those high-end devices (which are two models really: SGSIII and Nexus). If you want inconvenient facts: many of those Android phones are really just dumb phones (or used as such) with Android. Some with very old versions of Android.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#43

Post by pook1e »

eta_carinae wrote: post #25
cloudwalking wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

> iOS will maintain high price points What high price points? iOS devices (phones and tablets) are pretty much at the same price as the competition.

In the past, I'd agree with you. However, comparing Google's latest lineup with Apple's latest lineup tells a much different story (all 16GB):

Nexus 4: $349; iPhone 5: $699

Nexus 7: $199; iPad Mini: $329

Nexus 10: $399; iPad: $499

Of course, Apple and Google aren't in the same business, but they are very much competitors.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#44

Post by [deleted] »

eta_carinae wrote: post #25
cloudwalking wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

> iOS will maintain high price points What high price points? iOS devices (phones and tablets) are pretty much at the same price as the competition.

[deleted]

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#45

Post by sinnerswing »

eta_carinae wrote: post #23
atirip wrote: post #21

So now that one company is Google, that one man is Andy Rubin and that one phone is Android. Thats the future we wanted. Thank God Google acted.

Android is not a phone. If we standardize on one operating system, I definitely prefer a future where we have thousands of phones to choose from and not just five. Thank you Google for saving us from an Apple monopoly.

Thank God for giving us a shitty alternative to iOS.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#47

Post by bunderbunder »

danmaz74 wrote: post #19
bunderbunder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the gaming revenue side, it's interesting that iOS accounts for about 85% of money spent on mobile games, and their share of the whole app revenue pie is similarly sized. This suggests a very different picture than what we get from the raw handset shipment numbers. For the sake of argument, let's redefine how we subdivide the the mobile phone market market in terms of how people use their devices rather than what…

All the basic apps that define a smartphone are free on Android (and on iOS, AFAIK), so your definition only makes sense if you redefine a smartphone as a tool that successfully forces you to spend money on software...

Yup. In fact, that's exactly how I was proposing we might redefine it.

It's a worthwhile way to look at it because simply having apps to do certain things isn't really what defines a smartphone - feature phones were letting users buy and install BREW or J2ME apps for a long time. This includes all the basic apps that people tend to expect on their phones nowadays, like Facebook.

So, apps being nothing new, the line's always been a bit blurry. Using what OS the phone runs as a distinguishing criterion works fine, of course, and it's probably the most sensible one overall. But distinguishing based on the way people interact with the device, regardless of what OS it runs is also illuminative.

In this case, for example, it would seem to explain why the market for 3rd-party software (the thing that's supposed to be the heart and soul of smartphones) is so tiny on Android despite it being far and away the biggest smartphone platform. Perhaps it's the case that, regardless of what they're capable of, a huge percentage of the Android devices out there are still being used as if they were feature phones.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#48

Post by drivebyacct2 »

sinnerswing wrote: post #28
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, 75% of the market loves to buy crappy devices with crappy OSs. The fact that high end Android devices are popular and sell well (SGSIII? Samsung's profits being damn impressive next to Apple's?) is just a weird inconvenient fact.

75% of the market also like Britney Spears. people are idiots.

If we accept the framework that all people are idiots, which I certainly often find myself thinking, then it's probably great to be Android in that world. You know? Whether or not people are dumb (which is obviously a gross exaggeration of people's perception of Android... but let's be serious, you know that) does not change the numbers.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#49

Post by w1ntermute »

pook1e wrote: post #43
eta_carinae wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS will maintain high price points What high price points? iOS devices (phones and tablets) are pretty much at the same price as the competition.

In the past, I'd agree with you. However, comparing Google's latest lineup with Apple's latest lineup tells a much different story (all 16GB): Nexus 4: $349; iPhone 5: $699 Nexus 7: $199; iPad Mini: $329 Nexus 10: $399; iPad: $499 Of course, Apple and Google aren't in the same business, but they are very much competitors.

> Apple and Google aren't in the same business

And this makes a world of difference. Google is selling products at cost to drive their ad business. There's no way you can compare that to Apple's business model. The idea that Apple sells expensive products is a belief born out of the PC market, and if you want to compare apples to apples, you should be looking at the iPhone 5 vs the Samsung Galaxy S3.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#50

Post by neya »

This is seriously good news. What many people don't realize is how powerful Android is. Open Source doesn't mean shitty quality software, contrary to popular belief. Android can do so many things that other Operating systems still cannot provide. All Android needs is some time, and some iterations and no one can even dream of killing it (like many plan to). Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war.

I own a 42" Sony Bravia LCD TV. When I first purchased it, I got a hard copy of the GNU/GPL license. Wondering, I did a quick search and found out that my TV runs on Linux! Now, here's the sad part - Since I'm somewhat techie, I know my TV is powered by Open Source software. But the average end consumer doesn't know and doesn't care much, he just wants a good TV. So, the main area where open Source is weak at is marketing. And this too, is only a matter of time, till it catches up, I believe.

Imagine if the Linux foundation advertised on TV like Apple did, for their Mac vs PC commercials? Then the average consumer would probably care. If you have a good product, you should let people know about it. Sadly, even the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 have poor marketing in this context (Michael Arrington wrote a wonderful article on this[1]).

One day, Android will reach 95%+, and I will live to watch it happen and I will tell my kids and my grandchildren without hesitation - "This is the future."

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-mar...

Post reply on HN