Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SomeCallMeTim | Hacker News Reader

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>iOS users actually buy apps, use them, and spend money in them which is extremely rare amongst android users

So do Android users. Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]

Android tablets are behind the curve still, but for the first time Android tablets are outselling iPads -- Android tablets took 62% of the market in 2013. [2]

It will take a while for that lead to actually cause Android tablet revenues to exceed iPad revenues, but it seems inevitable. So in eventually the Android tablet revenue numbers will match or exceed the iPad's as well.

>the devices themselves are (as pg wrote) just too much better designed compared to to even the best android phones

iPhones are nice, but they totally don't trump the features if that's what you care about. I have the Nexus 5 and I wouldn't give it up for an iPhone; the screen size alone makes a huge difference to me.

The Lightning connector is elegant. But I can buy a micro-USB cable for a dollar; a Lightning cable is at least $9. I can have extra cables everywhere I need one for next to nothing. And yes, getting the polarity wrong sucks, but having a standardized cable that works on ALL the devices I need to charge is even better.

It depends on what you care about.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/03/27/android...

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/03/gartner-195m-tablets-sold-i...

> "Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]"

From the Forbes article:

"A year ago, that lead shrunk to iPhone users being 50% more valuable – and right now, if the app is designed specifically for Android and some segmentation is considered, the revenue generation potential is the same."

That's a big if, and a qualifier to boot.. I don't think what that article is saying (potential for revenue can be the same in some cases) is the same as "dead even in revenues".

Often good design is what you leave out just as much as what you put in to a product. The biggest reason I resisted the iPhone at first was its late adoption of 4g. At the time I had a galaxy nexus, one of the earlier phones with 4g, but I ended up getting a 4s as well for my startup. Even without 4g, I noticed slowly moving over to the iPhone, because at the time batteries were not good enough for the 4g radio. Even if the speeds were much faster, if I wasn't diligent with charging (which I'm not) I rarely had the opportunity to use 4g (or the phone at all actually). This was by design on Apple's part, as clearly it wasn't technical inability.

I agree that screen size is crucial, but I have an iPad for reading etc. If I had to choose only one device, then screen size would be a bigger deal.

Regarding profit/revenue, what about articles like these (also from last year):

http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/31/android-in-app-downloads/

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/27/apples-ios-brings-...

I find this understanding of the numbers far more prevalent then what your article described.

iPad is still a bigger market, as I mentioned. I'm sure that's a lot of the discrepancy.

Actually that explains absolutely none of the per user, per download and per device numbers.

>> iOS users actually buy apps, use them, and spend money in them which is extremely rare amongst android users

> So do Android users. Over a year ago iOS and Android phone apps were dead even in revenues. [1]

That statement was new to me. I'm guessing it is specifically talking about revenue from ads, since the source of the quote works for an ad network. This discounts revenue from sales (which I believe is nearly nonexistent on Android), IAP (which drives major revenue for "free-to-play" games on iOS, but I don't know about Android), and subscriptions (who knows).

I also find the "Android tablets outsold iPads" interesting news. The breakdown of tablet by manufacturer shows Apple clearly winning (36%), Samsung #2 (19%), and everyone else below 6% with a large bucket of "Other" (31%). That's still a strong position for Apple at the high end of the market, and mirrors the smartphone market where Apple & Samsung make all of the profit.

I think Apple has staked out the premium devices, and will continue to be successful there. But, won't most of the growth come from global markets where their products are out of reach for most consumers? Where does that leave them, and can they afford to continue to ignore the rest of the market?

The "premium" segment is growing in the global markets.

Most of the growth in smartphone adoption will undoubtedly come from low-end devices. However, much of the growth in profit will come from people moving into the segment that buys higher end devices and pay for apps/services.

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