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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

The key difference at that time was that Microsoft had zero real competition and was stifling innovation in the OS and web space. Instead today Android is the only alternative to the most proprietary and richest company in the history of computing, which needs no legal remedies or special favors.

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Android has something like 85-90% marketshare - not different then Windows back in the day.

Google bundling their Search with it is just pushing their own agenda.

Yet still most people develop for iOS first and then later port to Android, if at all. It's really not a comparable situation at all.

That was true about seven to ten years ago.

Absolutely still true today. If you think otherwise you are clearly not in the business of developing mobile apps. Ten years ago native mobile apps were barely even a thing.

Take the HQ app for just one recent high profile app out of countless other examples.

Absolutely not true today and I am in that business. The number of companies which are iOS-only or even iOS-first is negligible these days. In most cases both platforms are supported, often with Android having a head start.

I’ve been developing mobile apps professionally for 8 years. Clients want and care about iOS first. Android gets kicked down the road and outsourced to a third party every time. The only thing that’s changed is that people realize they need an android version eventually, instead of just ignoring it completely.

Maybe it’s different in some other markets but this is simply irrefutable in the USA and anybody trying to argue otherwise is just being disingenuous.

Eight years ago I'd agree with you, probably even five-ish, but for the past two, three years there is virtually no difference anymore and Android is usually the priority, except for some designer firms who still live in their Apple bubble.

For the US market it might be different, as it is one of the few markets where Apple is still the clear leader.

iOS rules the USA startup market, which is still where most of the money and energy is globally. Believe me I’d prefer that this were not the case.

I am not arguing iOS'es market share in the US, I am saying it is of faaaaaaaaar less relevance outside the US.

Both of you are insisting your own experience is more correct, without any imperical evidence or empathy. Take a moment to step back and realize your perspective isn't the only one.

What?

I cant do more than provide the numbers my statements are based on. Please go and check that before you make wild allgations about lack of evidence or empathy.

> Android has something like 85-90% marketshare

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-stat...

I was surprised by this figure, but it doesn't look true based on cursory google search?

That’s for the US. Change the filter to Europe and you get 74% Android, which will go up towards 90% in some national markets.

No need to change to Europe.

Worldwide is at 77% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide/#...

Poland (#6 in the EU by population) is at 97% http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/poland/#mon...

"85-90% marketshare" by devices, not by revenue and definitely not profit.

Zero competition?

OS/2, Linux, Apple, BeOS, etc.

Stifling innovation? How? The "web space" didnt even really exist.

The only one of those platforms that even kind of mattered on the desktop at the time was Apple and even they were way more niche than they were today. The web space certainly did matter and it was clear at the time it would come to matter a lot more if Microsoft wasn’t permitted to go on strangling it with IE and ActiveX.

And yet there was competition.

It is similar to today, respectively we have even less choice, we have two platforms, out of which one is mostly a lifestyle company and has a minor market share of ~20%, whereas the second is dominating the market at ~80%

And no, the web barely mattered in the mid to late 90s. That was the time when it was still nice there ;)

That was the first dot com boom. Are you seriously trying to argue the web didn’t matter at that point? It was all about the web.

The web was just slowly emerging at that point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage#/media/F...

15% vs 80% these days. And thats the "developed world", globally it was around 2%.

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