More iPhones are ready for Chrome Mobile than Android Phones | Hacker News Reader

More iPhones are ready for Chrome Mobile than Android Phones

11 pointsRoritharr2 comments

Since Chrome for Android does only run on Android 4.0+ and its market share was at 7% in the beginning of June [1] and Android's market share is at roughly 50% [2] compared to Apples 30% we get the very weird situation that there are in total more iPhones capable of running Chrome than there are Android Phones capable of running Chrome.

To further illustrate it: The current US Smartphone Market is about 106 million devices strong[2]. That means 31,8 million iPhones and 54,06 million Android devices. The 7% that run 4.0+ are about 3,8 mio compared to the 28,62 mio iPhones which are said to be updated to atleast iOS 4 [3].

As much as i love being an Android Developer, that really is a very sad state of affairs for the Android Ecosystem.

[1]: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/android-market-share-stalls-version-4-0-sees-a-7-percent-install-base/

[2]: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2012/5/comScore_Reports_March_2012_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

[3]: http://pxldot.com/post/18754186750/ios-ebb-and-flow

I have a felling that this iOS vs Android competition might turn out like Mac vs DOS [calling it DOS to show how bad it was] from last century. Mac was winning for a decade. From early 80s to mid 90s. Latest versions of PageMaker, Photoshop and other such software were always released for Mac first. Like how now most of all good software are released for iOS first. Even best games of the time like Simcity, Prince of Persia were released for Macs with no PC version available for some time.

But then things started to catch up. And we know the rest. Question is will history repeat itself this time too? Will Android continue to improve over iOS and its high adoption rate turn it into the only mobile OS that matters, like how Windows was? I believe Apple has its strategy to prevent it from happening. That might be why it's pricing its tablets so strategically.

Ultimately everyone will get the answer, over time. But whoever can predict the future best can make the most profit out of it. Specially we, the software developers.

it really depends on who's in charge then as opposed to now. Apple in the 90's were kind of meh, and outmaneuvered by the PC ecosystem. Apple now is firing on all cylinders and google is desperately trying to reorganize. in another 10 years, who knows what will happen?

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