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Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

This article doesn't have much substance.

"Can iOS remain the leading mobile platform without being the leading platform measured by device unit sales? "

Well give us another metric! If Android triples their sales in 2011 (as forecast by HTC) by what measurement will iOS still be the leader?

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Dunno.. perceived quality? I (as an Android user) really hope that devs will focus on Android app quality. Currently, most of them feel like ports or something..

Profitability.

Yes, that's called Gruber Statistics. Here is another example, just a few hours later:

http://beust.com/weblog/2010/12/27/fragment-this/

At the end of the day, the only metric by which Apple will be ahead of the competition for a while is profit. They have already lost on all other axes that I can count on, so get ready to hear "profit" trumpeted left and right by Apple sycophants for the next five years.

Did you really just put the word 'profit' in scare quotes?

Yes, because I didn't mean you will hear profit (which makes no sense) but you will read the word 'profit' a lot.

Quotes are necessary here, apologies if they scared you.

Keeping score with "earnings" doesn't make you a sycophant.

Mobile browser usage share is another one worth looking at:

http://business2press.com/2009/03/02/apple-iphone-holds-66-p...

More recent stats, from earlier this month:

http://gs.statcounter.com/press/blackberry-overtakes-apple-i...

Key points:

* Blackberry now has more share than iPhone in the US, just behind globally.

* iPhone down 20 percentage points and Android up 15 points in the last year.

Ad sales/impressions/revenue.

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