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

151–160 of 188 posts

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#151

Post by czhiddy »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #115
taligent wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course just comparing on price ignores some big differences. Nexus 4 has no LTE. Nexus 7 has terrible build quality. Nexus 10 has nearly half the battery life.

You're the first person I've ever heard say that the Nexus 7 has terrible build quality and the AnandTech figures show that the 10 has around 90% of the iPad battery life rather than "nearly half".

Build quality issues were rampant when the device was introduced. I had to swap out my Nexus 7 twice because of loose-screen / screen-flicker issues. I did order it the day it was released, so maybe there were some unresolved factory quality control issues at the time.

My current unit has a speck of dirt trapped under the screen, but I don't really care that much anymore given that the thing was $199. You'd be a lot less annoyed about a rattle in the dashboard on a new Corolla than you would if you bought a BMW.

Battery life during use is generally good, but the battery in mine dies completely after ~4 days of non-use. Stock install, nothing but my Google account signed in. I'm not sure if it's a hardware issue, but reinstalling the OS hasn't fixed it.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#152

Post by akmiller »

taligent wrote: post #108
akmiller wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS has no fragmentation I think the correct statement would be iOS has "less" fragmentation. They still have fragmentation though. Not only through the devices but also the version of iOS running on the device. It can get pretty hairy trying to maintain support for multiple iOS devices with versions of even just 4.3 and up.

Actually I think the correct statement is that iOS has such little fragmentation (in comparison to Android) that it is effectively zero. Every developer can safely target iOS 5. With Android it is still 2.3.

Well that hasn't been our experience. We've dealt with many issues and we've had customers from 4.3 up to 6.0. Not to mention devices from 3GS and the original iPad up to the latest. I haven't done any Android applications yet but I can imagine it would be worse if you wanted to target a large base of users (I will be gaining that experience rather soon).

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#153

Post by Steko »

bookwormAT wrote: post #150
Steko wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think most of us fall into that category." I'm calling bullshit. People all the time refer to Maps as one of, if not the biggest advantage of Android. Same thing with the Gmail client. In this very thread you refer to a Chrome for Android (not Chromium afaik) feature as Android ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4734771 ). "What do you call the OS running on the Nook or Kindle?" Properly it's AOSP. That f…

A propritary software that only runs on Android is for sure an advantage for Android. But that does not mean that it is Android. One advantage of Microsoft Windows over Ubuntu is that Windows runs Photoshop nativly and Ubuntu does not. But that does not mean that Photoshop is Windows.

People don't say that it's an advantage that Maps "runs on" Android. The way it's commonly discussed implies that to people, Maps is Android.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#154

Post by drivebyacct2 »

Steko wrote: post #145
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Selling tiny computers with mobile broadband is clearly going to be the biggest hardware business for the next 10+ years and 10 years from now the device that generates the bulk of Apple's revenues will probably still be called an iPhone. It is completely my opinion, but I also suspect the opinion of others that if that's Apple's strategy, they're in for a very rude awakening. They're taking an increasingly smaller…

This misses the point badly. If you and me owned a unicycle factory... let's say we're #1 in the world for sales and quality and let's say that China's leaders wake up tomorrow and decide to ban bicycles and push unicycles, turns out the new leader of China's nephew runs China Unicycle. Now the fact that we're rapidly losing global market share to China Unicycle is going to be far less relevant to us than the fact th…

I have no idea what that analogy is supposed to mean.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#155

Post by bookwormAT »

enraged_camel wrote: post #37
nestlequ1k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, Apple is trying to maximize profit. But how does that help me? We're developers right? We need to find the market with the most potential. If I'm developing for a platform where the platform holder is laser focused on maximizing their profit, but not their marketshare... it seems like I've made the wrong choice. I see a lot of iPhone devs (not you specifically) try to justify Apple's shrinking marketshare by sa…

Simple: people who have the kind of income to pay a premium for Apple devices will also be more willing and able to pay a premium for good apps. There lies your profit. (Not to mention your costs will be lower since iOS ha no fragmentation.)

> iOS has no fragmentation

iOS is fragmentation. Android exists because 10 years ago, every mobile vendor was making his own incompatible operating system. So a developer had to make 300 different versions of his app to reach his audience. That was impossible, so there was no market for mobile apps.

Today, there are still 300 different devices, and maybe a 100 different operating systems. But because ~95 of these are based on Android, you can write a single cross-platform software that runs on all these systems. Android was build to defragment the market, and it was a huge success.

It might not work perfectly, but adapting your App to some strange behavior in some fancy Android device is still a lot less work than making a whole new app from scratch!

The only interesting OSes that you have to write everything from scratch for today are iOS and Windows Phone. These two systems are, unlike all the others, not compatible with each other and require a significant amount of extra work. And that is called fragmentation.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#156

Post by scottm01 »

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.

The iPhone 5 is $649 unsubsidized, not $699. Other features aside (some of which it lacks compared to Nexus), it does have an LTE radio and works on, say, Verizon.

Source: Someone who just paid full boat for a 5 after my Droid Charge was destroyed. At least I still have my unlimited data and subsidy coming up next year.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#157

Post by [deleted] »

Steko wrote: post #153
bookwormAT wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A propritary software that only runs on Android is for sure an advantage for Android. But that does not mean that it is Android. One advantage of Microsoft Windows over Ubuntu is that Windows runs Photoshop nativly and Ubuntu does not. But that does not mean that Photoshop is Windows.

People don't say that it's an advantage that Maps "runs on" Android. The way it's commonly discussed implies that to people, Maps is Android.

[deleted]

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#158

Post by dfrey »

bitcartel wrote: post #81
shinratdr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war. How does that work? Where is the open source OS that "won" the desktop war? Where is the open source codec that "won" the codec wars?

I am guessing the original poster is referring to GNU/Linux beating Solaris to win the server market. EDIT: Regarding the desktop, just saw this: "Ubuntu will account for roughly 9% of all global PC shipments by 2014" http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/11/ubuntu-pc-sales-skyrocket...

pro-tip: Every VP of sales for every company will tell you that their market share will increase in the next year. Half of them will be wrong.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#159

Post by Steko »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #154
Steko wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses the point badly. If you and me owned a unicycle factory... let's say we're #1 in the world for sales and quality and let's say that China's leaders wake up tomorrow and decide to ban bicycles and push unicycles, turns out the new leader of China's nephew runs China Unicycle. Now the fact that we're rapidly losing global market share to China Unicycle is going to be far less relevant to us than the fact th…

I have no idea what that analogy is supposed to mean.

It's easier to sell the world's best unicycle to someone who actually rides unicycles then to someone who's used to buying bicycles.

The fact that a half a billion people who bought flip phones 2 years ago bought cheap smartphones this year isn't bad for Apple's business, it's good.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#160

Post by drivebyacct2 »

taligent wrote: post #119
bryanlarsen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reviews are you reading? Every review I've read has been praising the build quality, the CPU/GPU performance and the camera.

Engadget and Anandtech. Engadget complained that the glass back easily cracked and that the camera was average. And we know from Anandtech benchmarks that the CPU/GPU is about half that of the iPhone 5.

>Engadget complained that the glass back easily cracked and that the camera was average

Did they actually crack one or were they inferior based on the iPhone and ignoring all of the work they did to make it more damage resistant?

Post reply on HN