Android-based Smartphones Outpaced Apple's iPhone in Q1 2010
dailytech.com
dailytech.com
Apple has no reason to be afraid, I'm pretty sure, as they are probably happy in having just a slice of the market and still being super lucrative (same position they play in the desktop business). But for app developers, this is a pretty strong hit of future market changes.
1. Pricing for iPhone (after the initial launch), iPod touch and iPad launch price. They aren't the most expensive "smartphones" and tablets. 2. App store app prices, especially for iPhones/iPod touch. They don't control the prices, but they provide a list to choose from and they indirectly influence pricing. See (3). 3. App store top X, what's hot, etc charts. Apps are sold exactly like mp3s.
So their strategy is really to make a product that everyone wants, and to use that popularity to get phone companies to sell a high-margin niche product at mass market prices.
They make their money by making good, high quality and reasonably expensive products. If their stock price keeps going the same way then they shouldn't even consider changing the recipe!
Phones aren't like cars, they are more like computers (and becoming more so).
You can pick the abstraction level to suit the argument.
They might be able to do a lot of the things that a "real" computer does but you don't have the power to treat them like regular computers. You can't easily put a new OS on them, write software for them without going through a central market place, etc. Apple obviously has this vision, but it's becoming clear that Microsoft shares it, at least for Windows Phone 7.
I really don't think a single product (especially a tightly-defined one like the iPhone) can meet even a majority of people's needs.
And I think this is why Adobe's anti-trust activity against Apple won't go very far.
Apple is very comfortable taking part of the market, owning it, doing things their way, and making boatloads of money. They are not trying to be everything to everyone.
Disclosure: I just switched from iPhone to a Google N1 because I was tired of the box Apple put me in.
Could you elaborate on that? Everybody I know who has an N1 loves it...
1) Lack of an integrated mail tool. I really don't care so much about POP/IMAP folder integration but why do I need two email apps, one for Gmail and one for IMAP. The stock IMAP client sucks for that matter and I've had a lot better luck with Jesse Vincent's K9Mail fork off the core mail app.
2) The pull down notification bar seems clunky. On one hand it's nice to see at a glance all the things that happened on my phone while I wasn't using it. However when "you have unread mail" or "missed call" is mixed in with "XYZ song is playing" it gets sort of muddled.
3) Deleting an app is quite possibly the most unintuitive thing on the whole phone. If you're used to just hitting an "X" on the home screen from the iPhone you're in for a disappointment.
None of these are dealbreakers for me and in general I am still very satisfied with my N1. However it seems to me that Android is still very much a platform for hackers. For example, Android has a running process list with an option to kill tasks on the phone. Not so on the iPhone, because the OS developers clearly decided their users shouldn't even have to think about this.
Android does not have this. There are third party applications that do task management, however the word "placebo" applies to most advocates of them, and user task management should never be necessary. If the system needs resources it dehydrates tasks and terminates them, and this is a cardinal foundation of the platform.
The new iPhone multitasking system works in a very similar manner to how Android has always worked, it should be mentioned.
>Lack of an integrated mail tool. I really don't care so much about POP/IMAP folder integration but why do I need two email apps, one for Gmail and one for IMAP.
Because the gmail app has different features and functions?
> Deleting an app is quite possibly the most unintuitive thing on the whole phone.
Now this is just weird. The most obviously way to uninstall an app is to simply go into downloads (where you installed it) and pick uninstall. The second to go into applications in settings and uninstall.
Your gripes are seemingly that you've been mentally debilitated by using the iPhone, and now you use everything relative to how the iPhone works.
If I go to "Applications > Settings > Running Services" on a stock 2.1 Android phone I get a list of running tasks with their corresponding package names. Tapping one of them terminates the task. It's not "top" but it's still pretty close to a process manager.
A user shouldn't have to care that "com.google.process.gapps" is running "MailSyncAdapterService."
>Because the gmail app has different features and functions?
OK, that's fair, so merge them into one app and have it display gmail accounts in an enhanced manner. It simply seems counterintuitive to have two applications for the task of reading email.
That gives you get a list of running services. Further, in no way is a user ever directed to go there for any reason. You have no reason to ever go into that screen.
And I use it for this sort of thing frequently. Most services pull down battery life considerably.
It communicates with Exchange Web Services, just like every other Exchange integrating smartphone product. It isn't "scraping Outlook".
>And I use it for this sort of thing frequently.
I've never, ever touched it.
>Most services pull down battery life considerably.
Sure. How, exactly, have you measured this?
- GTalk
- Android Keyboard .
- BatteryLife
With these services up, my Droid loses maybe 40% of its battery life in a day (with minimal usage.)
While I sleep, it rarely consumes more than 10%. The counterexamples have been when I've left the Pandora Service running, as well as the Email Sync service.
So, I test it by enabling the service, changing nothing else about my usage, and watching my battery life take a nosedive.
And on the subject of what exactly it's doing, that's roughly the explanation I got from my friends on the Windows side. We have Exchange disabled outside the firewall, so my phone has to hit up OWA to get the data. Is Exchange Web Services an API available from OWA, but separate from the HTML? It's my understanding that my phone is in fact scraping the HTML.
Frequently in configurations, WebDAV access, Web Services access and ActiveSync are all enabled when OWA is enabled for the Exchange server. It is only in rare conditions when you will see OWA enabled and not one of the three.
The first week, I followed the party line- I didn't touch a task manager. And the first week I was seeing 20% of my battery drained by 10 AM in the morning while using it for under 15 minutes since I pulled it off the charger.
I never manage processes or services. I use apps and leave them and allow Android to manage the lifecycle.
Has the OS been fixed such that it monitors CPU and network radio usage by background processes? Task killing isn't done to reclaim the RAM (which, as you note, the OS handles itself), it's to ensure that poorly-written programs don't waste your battery without your control or knowledge.
iPhoneOS 4.0 gets around this by only allowing apps in the background to use a tightly defined set of APIs, the actual processing code of which is written entirely by Apple, so they have full control over their effect on battery life.
@ergo98: Please elaborate. Even if I concede that my problems with multitasking are imaginary, I'd love to find out how I can enable built-in support for Exchange calendaring, copy from emails, and make the N1's screen readable in bright sunlight... Believe me, I'd love to find out there was just a preference I missed!
(replying here because I can't reply to your comment directly)
The N1 has flaws, but many of your complaints are hilariously wrong. The fact that you give pronouncements on multitasking borders on comical, as you have no understanding about how Android's multitasking works.
I understand how Android's multitasking is supposed to work, but in my experience it isn't up to snuff. From your tone, I imagine you'd ask me to put up with a sluggish phone rather than doing something to deal with it. Maybe it'll get better in 2.2.
The iPhone 3GS is an inferior phone for a dozen reasons. In fact it could be called crippled.
Which limitations would those be?
>but an objective user would be hard pressed to call it inferior
It is absolutely inferior in at least a dozen ways. It is superior in a variety of other ways (polish), however I am simply using the same phrasing that you used relative to the N1.
My hopes and expectations for Android on the N1 were about here (holds hand 12 inches off of desk).
After two days with it I honestly had a headache. It just didn't work the way I thought it would, after having spent the better part of 3 years on iPod Touch and iPhone. Maybe the headache was my brain creating new neural pathways? Regardless, my opinion was here (hand 6 inches off of desk).
This was my trough of disillusionment. I even cheated. I turned on my now-SIM-less iPhone and checked my twitter feed. I felt dirty. Used.
Then something clicked. First I was finding things I could do with Android that I couldn't do with iPhone. Things like downloading 20mb+ podcasts without connecting to my Mac. Things like finding apps like AppBrain that create meaningful recommendations for me. Things like putting widgets on the screen instead of just icons. And the ease of multitasking? Sigh. My impression of this platform is now here (hand 24 inches above desk).
This is not to say there aren't issues. My battery life is terrible and I'm actively experimenting with ways to change this. Overall the Android platform is "scruffier" than iPhone, and by that I mean moving from one app to the next can be jarring from a usability perspective.
But that's part of what I like about Android. If the iPhone is like the suburbs, rows and rows of consistent housing and 2.2 children, Android is like living downtown where the action is. Sure it's dangerous. And now I wouldn't want to have my wife and kids down there after hours. They have iPhones and iPods. Safer that way.
But I'm not going back the burbs. In fact, I gave my iPhone away to a buddy who had his stolen. I don't miss it.
If Apple delivers something equally as compelling to my inner geek, great, I'll get one. Until then, I have never been happier with my phone.
Don't get me wrong, there things I prefer, even over a jailbroken iPhone- especially the notifications system. That's genius, IMHO.
My trough is the Facebook app- I went from making a few photo posts a day, mostly of my kid, to one or two over the last two weeks. Never bothered to update Feacebook until I got an iPhone- it's rough enough on Android that I've stopped.
1. the navigation app is better than what you can get on iPhone (use it almost every day) 2. Native Google Voice App 3. 5 megapixel camera phone (for me this was the threshold where I never carry a separate digital camera anymore, 5MP is enough for facebook) 4. I can use t-mobile instead of AT&T
Given the software isn't quite as good, these 4 features make it about a tie with the iPhone in my opinion. The fact Apple is irritating me lately makes the N1 a win.
I was impressed by the iPhone's camera, but that's only because I was coming from an HTC Mogul, which had a horrible 2MP camera.
That I can (mostly) do what I want with my N1 without relying on a jailbreak is what makes the N1 a win, overwhelmingly. That said, it is ironic and frustrating that your warranty is voided when you unlock your bootloader, a part of rooting a N1. It doesn't matter if there is dust under the screen, they see the "unlocked" icon and turn down warranty requests.
At least, they were- I'd love to hear that things have changed... Unless that changes I won't be rooting my N1, and I'm glad I didn't do that first thing- I just had to send my two week old N1 in for a swap to HTC because of dust under the screen. :/
Of course, your mileage may vary. :-)
I heard the same thing from several other people about the N1. I ended up buying it anyway - I really needed a smartphone, and I'd never been quite willing to go for the iPhone, mainly because of what my friends told me about their monthly bills (I like to prepay on a fixed-rate plan and not have to think about it).
So I was pleasantly surprised to find how easy everything was, apparently because it was all new for me. battery life was the only thing that upset me at first, but after juggling setting a bit I'm happy with that. Haven't had a problem with the other things, other than the flaky touch sensing - I'm pretty sure this is a software problem, because when I run into it (once ever 2-3 days) I've gotten into the habit of sleeping and waking the phone with the top button, which seems to fix it.
The poster above is right about it being a little 'scruffy' in terms of not having a completely smooth user experience...but like him, I'm OK with that because I like having a pocket computer rather than an appliance. It reminds me of the home computer v. game console debate in the 80s, actually, with Android as in the role of MSX.
Of course the yearly iPhone release cycle is a big factor, and it can be expected that the product will do relatively poorly at the end of its cycle, but that's also what makes the iPhone so incredibly profitable for Apple. A possible solution to this may be for Apple to have two radically different iPhone models serving different markets, and have the release cycles staggered by six months. Another alternative would be to release a new model every eight months instead of twelve, take a hit in profitability, and still be able to line up with people's two-year plan refreshes, now every three phone models instead of two. Overall, this problem is somewhat mitigated by the attraction of iPhone OS app availability and the iPhone's brand strength, so it may not be the most important issue to address.
The other obvious factor is the exclusive carrier agreement with AT&T in the US, with Verizon pouring marketing money into Android to counter Apple's iPhone. Apple is leaving the door wide open for competitors to establish themselves with people who prefer other carriers for various reasons, giving a great boost to Android device vendors. Ending this exclusive distribution agreement as soon as possible seems like the most obvious answer to this competitive pressure.
Personally, I recommend people get Android phones because I'm fearful of the power Apple wields over its users (namely me, making me jailbreak my iPhone to run valuable applications that Apple won't allow for whatever reason), and I need credible competition to keep that power in check. I think many technophiles are rooting for and promoting competitors, even if they use iPhones themselves, simply due to Apple's repression of user empowerment with iPhone OS devices. I honestly believe that loosening the reins on their iPhone OS users would afford Apple a whole lot more goodwill with geeks, and remove many of the reservations they have recommending iPhones to people. Making the iPhone more geek-friendly should obviously not be done at the expense of usability for the less geeky, but the value of courting this class of users is to be ignored at Apple's peril, as they are the ones many people trust to guide their purchasing decisions.
So that seems about the extent of what Apple can do to turn their fortunes around. It will be interesting to see how this marketshare trend holds in the next year in relation to the iPhone release cycle, ruling out the effect of the end of the current iPhone model's life, compounded by the Gizmodo iPhone 4G leak. There are other obvious areas of improvement in the iPhone OS I'm sure they're working on, such as a workable documents and basic filesystem functionality, but the PR problem surrounding the issue of vendor control over users seems like the critical one for the iPhone at this point. That said, I don't want to take away from this momentous day for Android users, developers and stakeholders.
This is a huge milestone for the Android platform, and a watershed moment for mobile app developers. You can bet this is music to the ears of Android devs looking for investment, and that Android will be getting a lot better software for it. It's good to see Apple get a taste of humble pie; they've always done their best work as underdogs, when the pressure is on. Personally, if Apple stays their current course another year, I would expect this trend to be irreversible.
Disclosure: I own some AAPL and PALM shares. Sorry for the essay!
I mean, now, when Apple (a) stopped sticking to the only resolution for all iPhone OS devices and (b) is putting much higher resolution screen into older package - maybe it might make sense for them to also put old resolution (320 x 480) into smaller package?
The problems I see in these approach are the following:
1. How can one meaningfully make iPhone smaller/more energy efficient/cheaper?
2. Do people need a smaller iPhone? Is physically smaller touch screen as usable?
1. More networks, more devices. It's like saying that Windows sells more than Macbook Pros. 2. Everyone and their mothers knows that in a month Apple will introduce a new one 3. Soon the big majority of cell phones will be what we usually call smartphones. It would be fool to think that one single device will maintain dominate the marketshare. The point is that if you look at the single device, no-one is even closed to Apple's number.
Really? Is that what matters? It seems to me the more significant thing would be the OS and not any one device, especially for HN-types that write apps and build sites for OSes/browsers and not a piece of hardware.
But if this quarter a sign of things to come, what platform do you want to be selling apps on long term?
I wouldn't be surprised if a divide not unlike Mac vs PC software developed- traditionally, Mac users were a smaller group but more willing to pay for overall better software.
Also iPhone users have been "trained" for years with iTunes to buy digital content.
Now that Android is outselling the IPhone, you should now choose based how many users actually buy digital content.
Would you rather have 100,000 potential users and make 1,000 sales or 200,000 users and make 800. Or maybe make the same amount of sale but being able to charge more because you know that who spend $500 for a phone is more incline to spend $10 on an app than somebody who spent $100?
If the iPhone user buys 3 apps for every 1 the Android user does, but in a couple years there are 10 times as many Android users, where do you sell your app?
The attach rate and the market size make all the difference, and there is no data to support the conclusion you are trying to make.
A gaming PC is a hell of a lot more expensive than a console, yet their attach rate is way way lower than a console.
Sales per-device is irrelevant, IMO. If I sell 100 for 10 devices, it's better than selling 90 for 3 devices. It's not like I have to add one IF() condition for each new model in my code; merely that I have to plan for slower CPUs and different screen sizes and resolutions, and when I do so, it's for a whole group of similar devices.
However, I have a HTC MyTouch android phone that is still stuck in 1.6 land. I upgraded from 1.5 recently, but it was not the simplest process to do so. HTC doesn't really make it easy for phone owners to upgrade their phone OS. It's possible for me to use the CyanogenMod to upgrade my OS to 2.0, but not without lots of effort at the command line.
The current slew of 1.5/1.6 android devices out there right now will probably never be upgraded to 2.x mostly because the phone manufacturers rarely make it an easy process.
Usage stats from my app in April (somewhat unscientific but illustrates my point decently): iPhone 3G: 49 users iPhone 3GS: 48 users iPod Touch 2nd Gen 4 users iPod Touch 1st Gen 3 users iPhone Edge 2 users iPod touch 1 user iPad 1 user (might have been me...)
That being said, it clearly says that the Android platform is growing.
Even more so, this may be a huge advantage in the emerging markets like china and india.
Is this like "the seven stages of grief" or something?
Yeah, there is big news here, denial-be-damned.
A few short months ago we were all told that there was just so much confusion in Android-land. So many choices and so many versions it was a major turn off for consumers. Instead the one-sized-fits-all iPhone model was the winner (and it was). Now it's "duh...of course Android moves ahead" as if that's the new reality.
>Everyone and their mothers knows that in a month Apple will introduce a new one
The Nexus 2 will be out in a very short while. The Samsung Galaxy S will be out with 3x the GPU power. The Evo 4G of course. And on, and on, and on.
>The point is that if you look at the single device, no-one is even closed to Apple's number.
It was never about a single device. It has never been a single device.
Guess which will have the majority of sales and smaller profit-per-phone and which will have minority of sales and higher profit-per-phone, eventually.
Guess which will have the majority of apps and developers?
unless it becomes way too hard to target a sizable chunk of the Android market due to hardware spec fragmentation.
Yes, technical users can probably acquire third-party firmware if the manufacturers drop the ball, but that's not a mainstream fix.
Android will not be fun to develop for if you're targeting (hardware spec fragmentation) x (Android feature fragmentation) different combinations of phone.
I still love my iphone and pad, but it is nice to know that the market leader isnt some corporation who is bent on defining how the market should move
Google provided the business muscle involved in getting a phone sold by a major carrier (who provide the massive subsidies that make these phones mainstream) and Google's massive popularity among regular internet users helped drive interest.
Google's involvement is the key factor in Android's adoption.