Android Becomes Top Mobile OS In The US

http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Android-Becomes-Most-Popular-Commercial-Mobile-OS-in-US

by RandallDownes • 16 years ago

34 30 16 years ago

linux-magazine.com

JunkDNA• 16 years ago

Is there no end to the linkbait on this "story"?

kloncks2• 16 years ago

Best comment on this was said by MG:

"Wait, So 20 Phones On 4 Carriers Outsold 1 Phone On 1 Carrier? Shocking."

Indeed. Full article: http://tcrn.ch/ccmuFj

robin_reala• 16 years ago

Picky, but 2 phones. You can still get a 3GS from AT&T.

kloncks2• 16 years ago

Oh, that's right. Two phones, it's just that one is a lot crappier than the other.

(Also in the article :)

rbanffy2• 16 years ago

Market penetration has little relation to overall quality. Apple has always been happy with a smaller slice of a huge pie.

Macs have outsold individual PC makers since ever. In the end, though, there are so many PC makers that Macs have a small market share. The same is happening here - a dozen manufacturers agreeing on commoditizing their software and differentiating in hardware will, eventually, relegate Apple's exclusive platform to a very lucrative, but relatively small, niche.

00joe• 16 years ago

So you think Apple would outsell Android if they licensed their OS, not a chance. If Apple customer's compared features and not style they would be out of business

Terretta3• 16 years ago

Unless the customer is comparing the feature rarely listed: usability.

Check why Consumer Reports rated iPhone 4 highest among all the phones tested (despite the supposed antenna problems).

tvon• 16 years ago

A product is more than the sum of it's feature-grid checkboxes.

ergo984• 16 years ago

It's some delicious sour grapes.

Go back in time a while, and the reason that Android was absolutely doomed was that it was a fragmented collection of devices and interfaces that would only confuse and turn off the consumer, with little or no coherent branding (many consumers don't even know what Android is), whereas the iPhone is one or two simple devices that have a singler back, a very strong brand identity, you know what you'll get, etc.

MG Siegler is worse than John Gruber -- at least Gruber is seeing the writing on the wall and is starting to sing a different tune.

OrangeGuutan2• 16 years ago

"Seeing the writing on the wall..."

Really? Is this what it has come to? I bought an iPhone 3G on day one, used it until the Nexus One came out, and have recently gone back to iOS and bought an iPhone 4.

Why? Because in my opinion, the quality of the apps I use on a daily basis are simply superior on iOS as compared to Android, whether the iPhone has 1% or 99% of the smartphone market. I'll repeat that again: the quality of the iPhone and iOS4 remains the same regardless of its market share!

I love Android's openness, and I even use Google Voice as my sole telephone number (yes, even with my iPhone 4). Wasn't enough; couldn't take the glitchiness, even in Android 2.2, and other annoying features of Android.

Because I know someone will yell "provide examples," here are some superior iOS apps that have no rival on Android: Reeder for iPhone (NewsRob is okay...), Twitter (Twitter for Android is okay...), Instapaper, Simplenote (there are glitchy apps that use the Simplenote API on Android), Dropbox (can't save for local access on Android), Pastebot, Calcbot, Convertbot (all are great examples of apps that are possible on Android, but have no where near the attention to detail), BeejiveIM, Calendar (yes I know Android has a calendar app, but it's weak), Mail (for all non-Gmail accounts, Android sucks, and for Gmail accounts, I find iOS4 to be equal to Android's stock Gmail app), etc. Oh, and I forgot to include all of the games that Android lacks, but I don't really play games so I didn't miss them with my Nexus One.

Point is, not everything is zero-sum; I can enjoy my iPhone regardless of how small or large its market share is! Can't we all just get along?

patrickaljord• 16 years ago

> "Wait, So 20 Phones On 4 Carriers Outsold 1 Phone On 1 Carrier? Shocking."

But as hackers who write and sell apps for a given platform, we don't care how many devices make up a platform. We just want to write apps for the platform that has more users.

Terretta3• 16 years ago

"Top Mobile OS"?

Is the iPod Touch not "mobile"? Consumers think it is. And both versions of the iPad certainly are mobile.

If you're comparing platforms, compare platforms. If OS, compare OS. If you're comparing smartphone models, compare model to model.

Don't compare a platform to a model and pretend you wrote anything to be taken seriously.

Here's a more interesting pair of apples and oranges:

1. Verizon Wireless maintained its lead in the carrier market with 33 percent. Followed by AT&T with 25 percent.

2. RIM accounted for 28 percent of commercial smartphones activated in Q2 2010. iOS accounted for 22 percent.

That makes it seem 92% of commercial smartphones activated on AT&T are iOS, leaving 8% for the RIM, Android, PalmOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc. (You can make stats say almost anything...)

These stats make it seem as though people walk into an AT&T store with choice and walk out with an iPhone. What might happen if they could walk into other carriers with choice?

rio517• 16 years ago

This isn't quite accurate. Verzion vs. AT&T is total market share, including all subscribers on all phones. The smartphone market is smaller, and smartphones activated in any quarter is a small fraction of that.

Total market share != smartphone market share != smartphone activation share.

Terretta3• 16 years ago

Agreed. It's why I said my example was comparing apples and oranges and one can make stats say anything.

onedognight• 16 years ago

> The research did not factor in enterprise/corporate purchases.

So Android beat RIM's OS when not factoring in most of RIM's market.

theandym• 16 years ago

It's not the overall 'Top Mobile OS', it just happened to be the 'Top Selling Mobile OS Last Quarter'. Big difference.

paul92902• 16 years ago

This cool to see yet I am very interested per recent debate here who buys more apps. Android or iPhone users?

I created a poll if you too are interested please vote on this poll http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1571592 or heck create your own and get it to the front page. Im very interested in this data as a iPhone and a possible Android developer.

paul92902• 16 years ago

Thanks for voting. Just by the small sample thus far. We have 5 voted as frequent iPhone app buyers vs. 0 frequent Android app buyers, while 5 Android never bought an app before.

Overall this maybe way too small of a sampling, but maybe not? Appreciate the votes and continued votes. Would be great to get a huge sampling. thnx

elblanco2• 16 years ago

The analogy of iPhone:Android::Mac:PC really holds on this front. Everytime I use my MBP I can't help but feel I get nickle and dimed for little necessary utility apps just to get things done (want to change the acceleration curve on your mouse? That's $20!) -- things that would normally be free in Windows land are $5-$20 in Mac land.

On my Windows XP and 7 PCs I can usually get 95% of what I need at $0. The open ecosystem simply fosters a cheaper price point, which is good in some ways for consumers (but bad in other ways) -- but not so great for entrepreneurs.

gte910h• 16 years ago

Android still doesn't have the app sales volume iOS does, no where close, both from the fragmented platform (os versions mainly), and the fact that only 13 countries participate in Google checkout at all (the primary payment vendor), only 9 as sellers.

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

All of these articles are similarly flawed, and equally worthless. For all practical intents and purposes, iOS is the biggest mobile market. If you want to start a company, you just can't make an Android app and expect to make half or even a quarter of the money you will make on iOS.

Here are the facts working against Android:

1) Over 230,000 iDevices sold per day, compared to less than 100K Androids

2) Huge buyer loyalty and repeat/multi device sales among Apple consumers

4) On an Android, the first app you buy will likely require entering a credit card - there goes tons of sales

5) Multiple studies say people buy way more iPhone apps than Android apps.

6) Apple owners are on average wealthier

Don't get me wrong... I like Android, I make an Android app, and I even make a few bucks doing it. But my iPhone sales are way better, and it has everything to do with the quality of the market. I really did like getting paid fast by Google, getting my app posted same day with no review... but end of the day, Android revenues sucks.

ergo984• 16 years ago

>I like Android, I make an Android app

What app?

>Over 230,000 iDevices sold per day, compared to less than 100K Androids

Groan. Android was past 160K per day many months ago. It has only accelerated since.

>Multiple studies say people buy way more iPhone apps than Android apps.

Why does this matter?

>Apple owners are on average wealthier.

This one gives me a chuckle every time. Every burger flipper owns an iPhone -- It is not the status symbol it keeps getting ridiculously paraded as.

All smartphones have a net cost in the $2500 range, adding in requisite data plans. The iPhone is no big expense.

>but end of the day, Android revenues sucks.

Again, what is your angle? You seem to be saying "for people who make gimpy little micro apps and hope it's going to be their payday, distort all metrics to validate your worldview."

andrewljohnson2• 16 years ago

We make the "Topo Maps" app for the Android, which is similar to our outdoorsy iPhone apps.

I Googled around and concede that Android sales are at 160K per day, but that is still not close to the 230K Apple is putting out.

And I did not say iPhone owners are wealthier, I said Apple owners are, which is certainly true. People who own iPads, iPods, iPhones, Macs, and other expensive gear are wealthy. If you don't believe me: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/ipad-owner-are-selfis...

I am happy to have a successful mobile app business, and the pay day is from iOS, not Android. I think I am in a good position to council people to do iOS first if they want to bootstrap.

sticktechvideos• 16 years ago

i am thinking to buy one android

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6khBlUZ-Dp4

melling• 16 years ago

"The Year of Linux on the Desktop" may never arrive but it looks like "The Year of Linux" might be this year, or next. Mobile phones could soon make Linux the most popular OS in the world.

elblanco2• 16 years ago

"Breaking news! Android Becomes Top Mobile OS in the US!"

Apple Fan's Hasty Rebuttal, "caveat caveat caveat only if you don't consider caveat caveat caveat and you have to consider caveat caveat caveat in which case I don't even know why news about Android shows up on HN at all".

Android Becomes Top Mobile OS In The US

Related Stories