Format wars have sometimes ended up with one winner, and then there's the windows precedent.
I think a lot of the polarization comes from fear of one side or the other 'winning' - a fear that isn't entirely baseless.
I think a lot of the polarization comes from fear of one side or the other 'winning' - a fear that isn't entirely baseless.
I don't think anyone can say the world is going to be 90% Android or 90% iOS as far as handhelds are concerned. It is a market that is still opening up and there are at least three distinct pricing segments in it. Plenty of space for the top 2-3 to grow without killing anyone else.
Personally, I suspect that Apple has lots of time before Android chokes off the smartphone market, and even longer in the tablet space. But eventually, the commodity-hardware producers are going to do to those devices what Compaq et al did for PCs; Apple will have to decide between marketshare and margin, and I suspect they'll choose margin even if it makes them decreasingly relevant. But by that point maybe they can invent some new niche.