Apple iOS Losing Market Share to Android | Hacker News Reader

Apple iOS Losing Market Share to Android

geekwithlaptop.com

12 pointsmahmud15 comments

It would be interesting to see that graph plotted in raw numbers rather than in percentages. My guess is that iOS isn't actually losing existing customers to Android, but that Android is picking up more of the first time smart phone buyers.

This is the first thing I thought, but nevertheless, people are buying android, and using it to browse the internet. Not just buying them to replace their old phones, but using their new phones to do stuff they have never done before.

Apple had the lead, no doubt android is going to catch up for sure, which can only mean good things for everybody.

I'd also like to see customer satisfaction numbers, profit by manufacturer, profit by developer and so on. So many of the questions aren't about simple volume they're about what can be monetised and who can make profit out of it. Right now iOS seems to be sitting very pretty in those terms and that's the shift I'd be looking for from Android.

But I'm not sure it's really even that big a fight. I suspect that final position after this plays out will be both iOS and Android sitting atop the pile with decent market shares followed by everyone else scrabbling for what's left.

The really interesting questions are around RIM (who I personally still think have a future), Nokia, Palm and Microsoft. All companies who in one way or another have been significant in the mobile, handheld or phone markets and all companies who seem to be struggling to a greater or lesser extent in the new world.

It would be useful to consider only people buying Android whose carrier also offers iPhones. That'd remove other variables like "doesn't want to/cannot change carriers".

Until the iPhone is actually on other carriers (not just eternally rumored), that's somewhat irrelevant. It'd be interesting for the projected marketshare, though.

Also this recent Bloomberg article has less rossy reporting on the difficulties facing Android, despite itself massive growth, and even bigger potential.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-02/android-app-develop...

McDonalds has more marketshare than In-N-Out, and a bigger menu. However, the people eating at In-N-Out are having a much better experience enjoying their vastly more delicious food :)

Terrible argument. Neither Google nor Apple make the "menus", third party developers do. If you can make a high quality Android app, by your own argument, it should be appreciated and rewarded by users starved for quality.

I don’t think you analogy works much better. Third party apps are responsible for anything between zero and less than hundred percent of the experience, depending on usage (it’s possible to completely avoid installing third party apps, it’s not possible to avoid all contact with OS software).

I don’t know what the average number is but my guess would be that it’s not very close to hundred. It might even be less than fifty percent.

Really? It's true that the developers make the "menus" but Google and Apple make the "restaurant," to continue the analogy.

Having recently acquired an Android phone for dev purposes, I find the UI, built-in controls, installing apps, settings, etc. all completely jarring compared to iPhone.

(Off-topic, I love the Android SDK though, and being able to use Eclipse is great.)

Is there some catch all term or concept for someone saying "my new thing (or a thing I tried out for a short period) is different from my old thing and therefore uncomfortable to me with my expectations and habits and so I declare it inferior"? I get the feeling we're going to hearing that a lot as the iPhone early adopters shift to Android and after reading so many worthless Windows->Mac, Windows->Linux and Mac->Linux switching stories that just repeat this error at great length it would be good to be able to put a name to this concept and short-circuit it this time.

In-N-Out is also far more scarce than McDonalds. In towns where In-N-Out and McDonalds density is about even, In-N-Out has more marketshare than McDonalds.

How is this relevant to iOS vs. Android again?

iOS is also far more scarce than Android, being available only on AT&T (in the US). On carriers which carry iOS devices and in countries with carrier non-exclusivity, iOS has far more marketshare than Android and is not losing share at all.

That's not really true, e.g. in the UK, Android is also gaining similarly:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/30/android-goo...

I'd be genuinely interested to see some stats to back this up since it doesn't at all match up with my own observations.

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