Android Will Be Number 2 Mobile Operating System Worldwide by Year-End | Hacker News Reader

Android Will Be Number 2 Mobile Operating System Worldwide by Year-End

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While the Year of the Linux Desktop may forever be a joke, 2010 is the Year of Linux on the Small Computer you Carry With You Everywhere.

And the Small Computer you Carry With You Everywhere is the new Desktop so in the end Linux will get there.

If and when android tablets are going to be sold in numbers the 'small computer' may not even be all that small.

It will be small, medium large and everything in between.

I think Chrome OS tablets and netbooks/desktops are more likely to succeed than Android tablets actually. They both run the Linux kernel so for this discussion perhaps the point is moot.

If only... the year of the Linux Desktop was also supposed to be the year of the open operating system. I have nothing but nice things to say about the android that google makes, but the custom versions of android that manufacturers ship tend to be just awful. There are exceptions, of course, but I can't see the proliferation of android on cheap devices reversing this trend. The spirit of openness is truly being perverted by the uninstallable crapware being put on those phones. The year of linux everywhere finally arrives, but the only way it managed to get here was by becoming most of what the open software movement was against.

It's particularly bad as a long-time free software desktop user who finally this month broke down and bought an Android phone as his first smart phone. It's like going back to the days of Windows 95.

Back to the days when you had no idea what you were downloading installing when you grabbed a free utility off the 'net, and had no legal way of finding out.

Lol... sorry, but that sounds desperation. :D

If that were the case then we already got the Year of Unix on the desktop and the Year of Unix on the smartphone. Yep, I am talking of OS X. Funnily enough Linux people (and others) laughed at the idea that OS X is Unix... it was too far from it.

I think we can agree that Android is not really Linux, at least not what we mean colloquially for it. So no, it won't be the year of the Linux.

But yes it will be the year of FOSS on your mobile. That, I think, is the big novelty. :)

I've never understood the point of these marketshare prediction pieces. What does it matter if some form of Android runs on more phones? Who actually cares? I know that emphasizing the horse race drives up page views, but is it actually worthwhile news?

Market share numbers for Android have to be interpreted differently. A phone can run Android without using any Google services, or running any third-party Android apps. This will become more common as Android becomes more popular on low-end devices, as this article predicts. If a phone doesn't run Google services, then it's not generating any more revenue for Google than a non-Android smartphone. If it's not running third-party apps, then it's not relevant for developers deciding which system to invest in.

On desktop systems, we have a clear idea of what market share means. A higher Windows market share means more revenue for Microsoft, and a better return for their investors. It also means a larger market for third party developers. The same can be said of Mac OS, and even Linux, to an extent. It doesn't work for iOS and Android. I think we need a better metric than market share when evaluating the mobile market.

It helps if you are not large enough to support both platforms. Even though yesterdays relaxation of the app store rules goes a long way towards making it possible to run the same app on both (that will never be the 'optimal' solution on either platform though).

A big question for me is what are the implications for Apple iOS given the quick diffusion of the Android OS. Will Apple iOS and the iPhone go the way of the Macintosh? A niche player in a very big market?

Seems like Apple is following the same plan as before: keep hardware closed, keep OS closed. Microsoft beat them because they provided a platform on which hardware manufacturers could compete.

Everyone says this but there was so much more going on I think it's a bit silly to pretend that "open v closed" is a safe way to summarize "Microsoft v Apple" in the 80's/90's.

Open vs. closed is perhaps misleading, but at the very least it's obvious that MS targeted high-volume sales with Windows while Apple targeted low-volume sales with the Mac / Mac OS. Apple built in a huge profit margin on its end-to-end system, putting it out of reach of much of the market. MS built in a smaller per-unit profit on its OS, but since the incremental cost of software is negligible this put them in a much better position since increased volume increases their profit margin almost without limit.

Microsoft also had a first-to-market advantage with early versions of Windows, and they also gained from almost no productivity app competiton back in the 1990s.

So what you're saying is further multiplied by all the businesses who chose Win 95 over Mac OS 8, then stuck with Windows when upgrading their equipment.

How was this first-to-market advantage???

Well, they also had 3 bad CEO, they tried to sell too many computer models, were spread too thin, had terrible stock management, almost killed themselves with the cloning program, attempted a rewrite that got them stuck in an old OS for ages without a plan B, and there was no internet at the time.

On top of that add that Microsoft was making a lot of money from their OS and Google doesn't...

I don't see why you need to see the world in terms of easy patterns. I'd say that enough variables have changed since then that any prediction based on analogies is very uncertain.

Once the iPhone is available on more networks, I can see these numbers changing DRASTICALLY.

Here in Canada, the iPhone is available on all carriers and you rarely see an Android phone. The iPhone totally dominates the market. Most smart phones are iPhones and Blackberrys.

It's pretty hard to buy an Android phone in Canada actually. I live in Montreal and I'm an iPhone 3G owner, and for the last month or so every time I walk by a phone kiosk in a mall, or a Bell or Rogers store, I ask if they sell Android phones. The answer is usually "No", but occasionally "Yes". I think Bell is the only company that actually let me look at an Android phone itself, all others have told me that I'd have to buy one without seeing it first.

It's almost like the carriers here are trying to hide the Android phones. Anyway, I am certain that low Android adoption in Canada has more to do with it being difficult to get than about consumer desire.

If a developer and nerd who knows about Android (me, for example) has a hard time buying one, think about the average consumer. There's no way an average Joe would buy an Android phone in Canada over an iPhone.

I've been trying to buy the Samsung Galaxy S for a week but they've been completely sold out in all of Montreal and Laval until today. This afternoon I finally found a FutureShop that had one.

And they refused to sell it to me.

The girl at the counter said that because it's such a popular phone they only sell it with 3 year contracts.

I bought the at&t version on ebay a few hours ago but still, it's ridiculously hard to get an Android phone whereas iPhones are everywhere and pushed hard.

Really interesting. Here in Slovenia (Europe), iphone is not even officially available for purchase (people that want it, mostly go to Italy to buy it). On the other hand, Android is everywhere. Htc desire, Samsung Galaxy S, SE experia x10, Motorola Milestone ... you name it. And people buy them a lot.

I didn't have any problems getting a Droid/Milestone from Future Shop. Runs on the Telus network.

Here in the UK the iPhone is on all carriers and 20% of the market is Android.

A minority but not a niche. Between iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones they're going to have a sizable chunk of the mobile market one way or another. The other unknowable factor is how engaged iOS device owners are in buying third party apps/content compared to Android users. If the average iOS user buys 2x the number of apps compared to the average Android user Apple's minority market share is effectively doubled for developers who want to sell their applications instead of relying on advertising support.

The first thing I find interesting is that the iPhone is pretty much the only apple product which you don't really pay a premium for (outside of AT&T's current iphone only phone and data plans). I think this makes it much more competitive in the market place, as opposed to their PCs.

Second is that the iPhone still has a slim apps edge (though its narrowing quickly, Android is very close to parity. One thing that kept many folks on MS products were the apps built for that specific to Windows (Office primarily). I don't think you're going to see the same phenomenon in the mobile app space.

So assuming you see the iphone on another carrier (and soon) I think you'll see the marketplace pretty evenly (50% +- 10) split between iPhone and Android for some time.

You don't really pay a premium for macs either. They don't bother to cater to the bottom end of the market, you don't get as many hardware configurations and options, and a machine that seems competitive at introduction will seem dated and expensive 11 months later to those who don't understand how to play the product cycles. But in the markets they bother to enter, Apple will generally produce a couple of quirky but competitive options, often surprisingly so at introduction but remaining at that level as the competition moves higher in spec and lower in price. So all in all very much like the iPhone.

Many differences here...

1) Apple had a large advantage over Microsoft too... they just wasted it. Those were the dark days of Apple: MacOS 7 was alright but less than brilliant and then they got stuck with the Copland project (the Mac version of project Longhorn). In the meantime Microsoft got Windows 95 out, and had several years to solidify its position.

2) Apple sold expensive computers back in the days. I don't mean the high end like today but actually expensive. The idea was that if there's so much demand we may as well milk the cow for all it's got. If I remember correctly Steve Jobs believed in lowering the price and going for marketshare, whereas Sculley thought better to get as much money as they could out of it. Eventually the latter one. This was another reason that made Apple lose marketshare

3) The customers for iPhones, Android phones or other smartphones are in reality the carriers. And they are very worried of losing their bargaining advantage (plenty of supply from different companies, but only few carriers to buy them). Hence I expect they'll try to avoid having anyone get a large marketshare. They may back Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM and Nokia as it is to their advantage.

Finally a last difference is that Microsoft made a ton of money from their Windows product. Google is making little money from their Android. I am not sure what the implications of this will be, but it may matter a lot.

Apple wants to be a niche player - where they can control the margins. Android's strength and weakness is that it's a commodity OS, which means phone manufacturers are falling over themselves to do their own model because it's easy and profitable. Yet many, are also continuing to work on their own high end proprietary alternatives for the long term.

It seems they are not counting iPod touches / iPads. For a developer, total ecosystem size and probability that owners will buy apps is a little more important.

On a tangent, Nintendo Wii had really good sales numbers, but I wonder if the number of games bought per console was around the same amount as the PS/3 or XBox 360? I have my doubts. I think the game console market shares is a more probably predictor of phone market share than PC sales (i.e. no highlander).

The article clearly mentioned, "mobile operating system". iOS powers iphone, ipod, ipad, etc.

On a tangent, there hasnt been much talk about how the corporate policies have evolved since the smartphone era. I bet we will see companies rolling out custom android OS deployed on stock hardware such as EVO given out to employees, with restricted permissions and access.

Well, I would dispute the numbers then. It doesn't look at all like the iPod touch is really given consideration.

I could see that if Dell was a bigger android player, but it really takes a vendor with sales / support leading the charge. HP would be a probable except for the Palm purchase.

It may have mentioned "mobile operating system", but the figures are clearly excluding something. I think there's about 100mm iOS devices sold to date, but these figures show less than 50mm for 2010

You're interested in gaming software tie ratios. Here's a reference, but basically: Wii had a strong tie ratio for the first year or so, then was overtaken by the PS3. 360 dominates both, if I recall correctly (can't see the article at work).

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/04/22/ps3s-tie-ratio-creeps-abov...

Nobody in HN pays attention when you say that Apple doesn't really matter that much, but I'll try it anyway: Apple's share in the smartphone market is too small and decreasing. Source http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20015799-94.html

The real contenders are Android and Symbian. Blackberry is small but seems stable. Windows 7 might become a surprise. Apple will not lead the pack.

Symbian is dead - or will be as soon as dumbphones die. That leaves iOS and Android and, perhaps, RIM. For WinMo 7 to be measurable, Microsoft will have to pull one heck of a miracle.

Anyone who thinks they can extrapolate mobile data 4 years into the future is either completely ignorant on the subject or deliberately trying to deceive

Given the iPhone's exclusivity with AT&T in the US, Android's US growth isn't surprising.

However, it is interesting to see Gartner worldwide projections. Does anyone have links to Android vs iPhone market-share-data for countries where they are both available on all/most carriers ?

I always get a laugh out of people who get excited about this, I think the far more interesting statistic would be stickiness factors - once you are on a phone platform, how likely are you to stay. For example, what percentage of people get an iPhone and then when their 2 year contract expires - get another iPhone because they love it (despite AT&T). It is hard to judge Android in that context right now because for all the noise it has made in the past year it is still relatively new in the scope of phone devices and carrier contracts. I think RIM has been pretty strong historically in this kind of metric and iPhone has proven well here too.

I expect all the phones will become linux but you won't know.

The underlying core OS will be a linux derivative, but the layers on top will vary so much that switching from one brand to another will be the same difference as switching between Symbian and Motorola-OS is now.

Great point. I'd also like to know how people actually use the devices. How many people download apps regularly, how many minutes they spend using the web browser daily. I bet you'd see some really differences between the platforms.

On Stickiness - It doesn't look good for RIM (this was back in March):

Some 40% of Blackberry users, according to CrowdScience, prefer the iPhone as their next smartphone purchase. Even more, some 32% of Blackberry users said that they would drop their Crackberry for the latest Android offering, the Nexus One.

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2010/03/15/blackberry-users-iph...

Unless Google gets a handle on consistency in the user experience then this wont last long. I love my EVO and left iPhone for it but the 3rd party app market is crap and I feel like I have a phone with multiple personalities.

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