I'm guessing Apple is trying to grab hard onto the market segment that brings in the most profit, while Google is going for the commodity, high volume, low margin option.
The good news is that both models can coexist in the same market. After all, Nintendo's strategy is a bit like Google's, while Microsoft and Sony's are more like Google's. Nintendo has been quite profitable for a very long time even when they didn't own the entire market.
Hardly. Google doesn't make phones.
They also collect licensing fees when phone makers use the Android name, Google trademarks and Google's software in the phones.
I assume their foray into mobile phones is to fragment the market and prevent any other player from gaining a dominant market share.
Is that accurate? Everything I've seen has indicated that if anything money moves the other way - Google sharing revenue on platform ads (and possibly other services) with oems and carriers. I haven't seen anyone claim that oems pay licensing fees to google for google apps and trademarks - I believe they are use granted based on platform spec compliance.
I assume their foray into mobile phones is to fragment the market and prevent any other player from gaining a dominant market share.
While undoubtedly google doesn't want another player to dominate the market, I believe the primary goals for android were to increase global pageviews, drive mobile adoption, and to avoid large upfront costs of paying for placement as the default search engine.
"With a high-quality open platform in hand, we then returned to our goal of making our services available on users’ phones. That’s why we developed Android apps for many of our services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Voice, and so on. These apps are Google’s way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals."
The phrase "pre-installed on some phones through business deals" is at least suggestive that Google is being paid for the inclusion of their apps on phones.
This is similar to many mobile softwRe arrangements in the pre-iPhone world.
I have no reason to believe otherwise, since some Android-based devices like the original Nook never use the name Android anywhere.
However, I could not find any income statement that details their revenue sources by channel/product line.
The nook if memory serves lacks a camera at least so they didn't qualify.
Compatibility Program overview: http://source.android.com/compatibility/overview.html
Note that this doesn't say you get access to all google apps like navigation - it does appear another agreement is needed for those - I just don't know if that is a pay for access by the oem or some other arrangement.
Now I see history repeating itself, only this time the handset makers have two people trying to squeeze them into commodity providers competing on price: (1) Google and (2) The Carriers.
The original usage was about states competing by offering better terms to corporations. These "better terms" were worse for the people living in the state because they got less tax income and less worker protection. But they are the vendors in that analogy, the customer/corporation was very happy with how things worked out.
Am I really supposed to shed tears over a corporation's business model being a bit more like operating in a free market?
What I will say about Android handset makers racing each other to the bottom is that what is good for you as a consumer is when entire products compete against each other. The trouble with looking at handsets is that they aren't really whole and complete products. They need an OS/Ecosystem/Theme Park and they need a carrier's service to complete them.
What is best for consumers is when there is competition for all the elements of the stack from top to bottom, either in packages (iOS on iPhone on AT&T vs. Android on Nokia on Sprint) or individually. I don't know how things will play out in the Android "space," but from what I've seen so far, the big nut to crack for consumers is the carriers, not the hardware and not the OS.
When text messages are less than a penny each, I will know that the entire stack is competing in a way that is good for consumers.
'fraid not. Here in Canada, the Oligopolistic situation seems worse (if that can be imagined) than in the US. It is possible to buy bundles with effectively unlimited text messaging, but overall the situation for Internet and wireless telephony is anything but an efficient, competitive market.
So, "Yay for Europe!"
I'm sure you've been able to pay extra for a ridiculous numbers of texts for a good while, but now they seem to have dropped to be very roughly in line with their actual cost, which I believe is indistinguishable from zero to the networks.
Unless you're an Apple shareholder why does that matter? As a developer #1 in market share is a very significant milestone.
Unless you're Android, which has significantly less apps than iOS and is getting bad press for its malware problems. Additionally, iOS runs on the iPad, so iPhone developers can universally target the #1 tablet in the world.
Google makes very little off of Android. They've been following Apple's lead design-wise (look at images of what Android was going to look like before the iPhone came out). As a free operating system that carriers can exert full control over, it's no surprise that it's #1 in marketshare compared to a single phone on two carriers, but if that doesn't actually translate into profits for Google, developers for the platform, or innovation for the industry, does it really matter? The iPhone is still directing the smartphone industry and getting the positive press, and the iPad practically has no competitors to this day.
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-revenue-2010-8 Title: Google's Android Is Making Boatloads Of Money, Says Schmidt--Way More Than It Costs To Make
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_1IECTAB2-to/TWV9IKxwQOI/A...
And here's the Samsung Galaxy Pro that was just announced:
http://www.eurodroid.com/2011/03/update-product-shot-of-the-...
It's remarkable the influence Apple has had.