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Comment by ewanmcteagle | Hacker News Reader

What I'd want to know is what percentage of users faced with a choice of iPhone and Android (on the same carrier) would pick one or the other. As it is right now a lot of people are buying Android phones because the iPhone is not available to them without switching carriers. If that exclusivity expires it could plausibly adjust the trajectories of each of these platforms.

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That may be the case in the US, but in most other major markets, the iPhone is no longer exclusive to one carrier. The entire US population makes up at most 10% of the global market. Subtract AT&T itself, and you are left with about 6%. Hardly significant.

I imagine this could be seen by looking at adoption rates in other countries where there isn't exclusivity.

Another data point is how many people are held back by carrier quality. AT&T should be great quality wise for at least 80% of America - so if someone really wanted an iPhone, I feel that most would have switched already.

I'd like to see data supporting that 80%. We had AT&T phones through work at my last job, and we'd use our personal Verizon phones because of poor signal quality and dropped calls during service calls.

If you believe the rumors, Verizon will be selling the iPhone in January 2011.

Most people stopped believing the rumors after around the 5th time they were wrong.

This works both ways,though. I'm stuck on at&t because of my wife's contract, so I bought a nexus one. I'd guess most people wouldn't buy unlocked, though. Not saying it's a 50/50 split, but it's something that should be considered.

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