Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/steve-wozniak-android-will-be-the-dominant-smartphone-platform/

by citizenkeys • 16 years ago

105 107 16 years ago

DanHulton3• 16 years ago

> Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that. The biggest problem Android app developers have now is the wicked fragmentation on the platform, and that's only going to go UP as more handhelds come out.

When you target iOS, you know the capabilities of pretty much every generation are pretty similar going in, and that's all you have to worry about. With Android, you have to ask - Does this model even HAVE a keyboard?

EDIT: Okay, because I'm being modded down into hell, then why doesn't Android have Netflix? Oh that's right, device fragmentation:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/netflix-on-your-android-dev...

Netflix is on your computer, your Xbox 360, your Wii, your PS3, and on your iPhone, but NOT on Android and the Netflix devs themselves say "fragmentation" is the issue.

Sure, the keyboard was a silly example, but it's not like it's not a problem.

vetinari• 16 years ago

Do you have practical experience with that, or are you just repeating what you read on the internet?

DanHulton3• 16 years ago

What? Just last week there was a flurry of stories where Android app developers were complaining about device fragmentation. Studies done that show the breakdown of devices, features, screen sizes, etc.

You know, occasionally you can trust what you read on the internet.

blub2• 16 years ago

One does not need experience, only logic. It is logical that the more producers and devices there are, the more difficult and time consuming it is to develop for a software platform. Tricks such as auto-resizing widgets only get you so far.

Please read the testimonials from HN Android developers and you'll be convinced too.

spot• 16 years ago

otoh, iOS still doesn't have a decent notification system or multitasking. major capabilities like that might be more important than fragmentation, which effects both platforms and is only a problem for smaller devs. i have done some android work and "wicked" is an exaggeration. i am not aware of anyone who cares if there is a keyboard or not. it's completely abstracted by the OS.

DanHulton3• 16 years ago

Yeah, I'd really enjoy some better multitasking/background stuff on the iPhone, I'm sure. Then again, I'm certain that there would be apps that would abuse it and drain the heck outta my battery.

Man, it would be nice if there was a system utility that showed how much of the battery each app drained, so you could keep track of the worst offenders. Even if just a good estimate, like % of processor time * amount drained while active.

fmw2• 16 years ago

We've seen products lacking certain "major" features win from more technically advanced competitors before. Because regular consumers don't care about the same things that geeks do. Look at the iPod. Not to mention other reasons that give an edge to a product (e.g. the porn industry backing a certain media format that consequently beats its competition). In my opinion the most important feature is freedom, contrary to the locked platform you get with iOS. Android isn't perfect in that regard, but at least a step in the right direction. Sadly, most people don't care enough about freedom to let it determine their purchasing decisions (although they do like to complain after the fact when they can't port their data to another device).

Kylekramer• 16 years ago

Netflix has nothing to do with product fragmentation. It is just entirely about Netflix refusing to get in the business of creating DRM systems. Android does not have a systemwide DRM scheme. This may be a failing of Android, but it is not fragmentation.

abrahamsen• 16 years ago

Too many people gets the causality wrong in the Netflix story.

The story isn't that Netflix isn't on Android because of fragmentation. The story us that Netflix will cause fragmentation on Android phones.

XBox 360, Wii, PS3 and iPhone all have strong DRM build into the platform.

Android doesn't have strong DRM in the base version, so Netflix will (or can) not support that version.

However, individual Android phones may have Netflix because Android is Open Source, so individual manufacturers may add strong DRM to the platform.

Hence, the user experience will likely become (further) fragmented because of Netflix.

Xuzz2• 16 years ago

Except the iPhone effectively has no DRM. Load the application into gdb, dump memory, and you've broken it. This is even worse than Android, even: the developers cannot add their own DRM on top, due to both technical and App Store restrictions.

Qz• 16 years ago

If you read the actual Netflix blog post, you'll see that they describe fragmentation as the result of the lack of a DRM scheme in Android OS (aka nothing to to do with hardware), not a cause of why they can't put Netflix on Android.

cryptoz4• 16 years ago

> Netflix is on your computer

No it's not. Netflix doesn't support my computer, so I can't get it. I wish I could...in fact, I'd probably pay 10x the price they're charging for the service they offer. But since they don't support Ubuntu because of DRM issues, there is no Netflix on my computer.

Your Netflix example isn't appropriate here.

matwood• 16 years ago

10x the price huh? Buy a copy of Windows install in virtual box and you now have Netflix. See how easy that was?

The point is that NF can be made to easily run on any computer and that you are choosing not to run it. That's a different situation than what is happening with Android.

forgottenpaswrd• 16 years ago

I don't think fragmentation is the issue with Netflix.

The main issue is that Android (or any Linux) is open, so if DRM crackers could modify Windows without looking at the source, imagine how easy will it be having all the source of all the DRM lib surroundings(you could fake the DRM lib with millions of combinations).

This means anybody being able to crack Netflix without effort in seconds and Netflix loosing millions of dollars. Not going to happen.

robinwarren3• 16 years ago

I've been thinking a bit about this recently as I've seen a number of people getting android devices because they were offered them as an upgrade when they renewed their contract. They weren't interested in spending money to get an iPhone but liked the idea of a decent browsing experience etc. All of them are happy with the device they have been given. Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market.

I'm think maybe some Apple fans expect iPhone to be the thing which makes the rest of the world wake up and switch to Apple products. It's not. It was innovative and it meant a number of people who would never have bought a smart phone before did so. But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market.

davidw• 16 years ago

I think that, ultimately, this sort of equilibrium is probably better for the market anyway. Any one platform becoming too dominant may be nice in that you only have one thing to write to, but it's bad for competition and innovation. Also, having multiple platforms will encourage people to do web applications that work on mobile devices, and, hopefully, also encourage the platform guys to make stuff available to web applications.

narag• 16 years ago

Apple will become the Apple of the phone market...

Nice phrase. There's something that will help to it and to Android gaining market share: in a few years, smartphones will cost one fifth of its current price. This will have all sorts of implications. Telcos will lose the power subsidizing phones gives them now. Margins for OS will shrink, etc.

bruceboughton• 16 years ago

I'm not so sure we'll see the price of phones come down as component costs come down. The niche part of the market for mobile phones has always existed... the phones just get better.

You can see this exact trend in microcosm in the iPhone. The price has been pretty much constant but the tech available has rocketed.

johnmmix5• 16 years ago

> But Apple don't seem intent on capturing the mass market.

Absolutely - they're clearly more interested in profitability and not having to kow-tow to partners than market share. And who can blame them - would you rather be Porsche or General Motors?

Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group once told me that when companies start talking about market share, they're usually trying to hide the real story, such as lack of or decline in customers/revenues/profits. Obviously smartphones are a completely different industry, but there are multiple ways to measure business performance, and the ones which are most loudly trumpeted aren't necessarily the most important ones.

arethuza2• 16 years ago

If we say Porsche is Apple then Android is probably VW - both producing excellent products that looks pretty similar from a distance but with relatively little overlap in the markets for their core products.

[NB I mean VW branded cars - not the entire range of VW brands, which is huge]

metageek2• 16 years ago

>Market share is massively over-rated as a metric - someone in the circulation dept of a major newspaper group

Market share is much more important for platforms than for newspapers, because a high market share draws in developers, which makes your platform more useful.

lukestevens• 16 years ago

Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market.

I understand the sentiment here, but I don't think it's true. There was a recent quote from El Jobso (can't find off hand, sorry) saying that Apple actually sat on the top end of the market with the Mac (in his absence), got greedy, failed to innovate, and suffered.

Instead, look at what they did with the iPod. They didn't just remain as a high-end mp3 player, they developed products which covered nearly the spectrum of the marketplace, while still remaining the high-end brand.

I think past will be prologue, but it should be the iPod, not the Mac, that will be the best example. That said, when you're taking 50% of the profit in the market with just a 4% share, there's not a lot of reason to be particularly unhappy with your current position!

robinwarren3• 16 years ago

Fair point about their dominance of the mp3 player market, but I think the mobile phone market is a lot closer to PCs. More people have computers or expect to own one than have mp3 players. Pretty much everyone is going to get a mobile phone. Possibly we'll even see android phones start to compete with Apple as mp3 players.

I should perhaps have made it clearer I don't think Apple particularly care about the mass market or consider their position as losing. Why not be happy with what is viewed as a premium product by part of the market, charge extra and make additional revenue as a result?

mortenjorck• 16 years ago

What, honestly, is the value of market share in a case like this?

mrobvious• 16 years ago

"Apple will become the Apple of the phone market much as it was the Apple of personal computer market."

No offense, but this is probably the most banal argument imaginable.

"There is a myth, more of a meme actually, about the 'inevitability' of commoditization. It is a view of the world that sees things linearly, in terms of singularities, and the so-called "one right path."

In this realm, where commoditization is God, horizontal orientation (versus vertical integration) rules the roost. How else to define consumers, not in flesh and blood terms, not as spirits that aspire to specific outcomes, but rather, as a composite set of loosely-coupled attributes.

This mindset is compelling because it is simple and familiar, but it also leads to blind obsequiousness.

Historical edifices are held as indelible fact. "It's Microsoft v. Apple all over again." "There has to be one absolute, dominant leader." "Open will always prevail -- and should prevail -- over proprietary systems." "Market share matters above all else. Even profits."

There is one small fly in the ointment to this ethos, however, and its name is Apple."

Later:

"The following inconvenient facts must be an affront to the horizontal, commoditized, open, market share zealots. Apple has launched three major new product lines since 2001: the iPod (October, 2001); the iPhone (July, 2007); and the iPad (April, 2010).

The company’s stock is up 3,000 percent since the launch of iPod, 125 percent since the launch of iPhone, and 20 percent since the launch of iPad.

In that same time period, the major devotees of the loosely coupled model — Microsoft, Google, Intel and Dell — have been, at best, outpaced by Apple 6X (in the case of Google dating back to the launch of iPod) and at worst, either been wiped out (in the case of Dell) or treaded water (in the cases of Microsoft and Intel) in every comparison period."

From: http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/09/apple-segmentation-strategy...

siglesias2• 16 years ago

Agreed.

Additionally, this takes on a second, perhaps more significant meaning: if the Apple of the smartphone market is the same Apple of the MP3 player market, then you're looking at a very different outcome. Think about this harder guys: is designing and building a phone closer to building an iPod or a desktop?

The Mac vs. PC analogy is inadequately nuanced to be taken seriously. The mobile market doesn't resemble the PC market nearly as closely as people would like to think. I'd encourage people to think about it more deeply. The app lead and cost advantages enjoyed by clone makers does not exist in this market. Also this is a consumer driven market and not a business driven market, so factors like design and ease of use weigh in more heavily to buying decisions than they did in the PC market.

asmithmd12• 16 years ago

Woz is a great engineer but I don't know about his market prediction skills. Anyone remember his last company, Wheels of Zues? I didn't think so. It was some kind of low power wireless, mesh network, GPS something. I am sure it was fun to play with but not really a product.

axod6• 16 years ago

Maybe he just did it for fun + love rather than profit.

That doesn't make his prediction on the iPhone any less valuable.

You don't have to be a fantastic movie maker to be a good movie critic.

The thing that's going to kill iPhone/iPad at the moment IMHO is lack of flash support more than anything else.

mitjak2• 16 years ago

Flash support will "kill" the iPhone why exactly?

theandym• 16 years ago

I agree as well. While he has had a big impact on technology I don't see the domain expertise to justify his assertions. He is just another person trying to make a guess about something that no one can accurately predict.

asmithmd12• 16 years ago

I like Alan Kay's quote the best: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

I think I will get back to that

abstractbill2• 16 years ago

Wheels Of Zeus did wireless location tracking of personal possessions. Not a bad idea, but unfortunately way too early.

Anyway, I trust Woz's guess more than any "market prediction expert".

sjs• 16 years ago

At this point I think pretty much everyone agrees that Android is well on the way to gaining the lagest market share, at least over the next few years. Windows Phone 7 is the only competition and it's pretty green. iOS and webOS are tied to specific devices so they're different beasts.

johnmmix5• 16 years ago

Android won't become the dominant platform if for no other reasons than:

(a) The carriers won't let any platform become dominant, as the owner of that platform would then be able to dictate terms. The original Apple/AT&T iPhone deal was probably a one-off that only happened because (i) Apple had a markedly superior product to anyone else at the time, and (ii) AT&T wanted to increase their market share. [Happy to be corrected on that latter point - I'm not in the USA, and I'm only going off what I've read online.] The failure for Apple & Verizon to come to any sort of similar agreement is more likely to be down to Verizon not wanting to give ground, than technical issues like CDMA. The carriers actively encourage alternative platforms as a means of playing divide-and-conquer against the manufacturers - look at how AT&T is the US launch partner for Windows Mobile 7 rather than one of the other carriers; AT&T clearly don't want to be (or be seen as) locked hand-in-hand with the iPhone.

(b) Google won't want Android to be dominant either, as this would bring political threats in terms of antitrust and the risk of being broken up. It's far better for Android to "just" be market-leading or profitable, as this wouldn't attract such negative attention. And of course, if Google services also appear on other platforms such as iOS, then they're not completely losing out.

Have a look at this Asymco post for some more points against a dominant platform: http://www.asymco.com/2010/08/19/talk-of-mobile-dominance-is...

robinwarren3• 16 years ago

re (b) I don't know that Google can control that well enough. I'd think it more likely they'd control the appearance of being #1 than they'd actually be able to stop it happening.

grammaton• 16 years ago

Why is this considered an amazing insight? If you could get an iphone on more than one carrier there might actually be something to discuss here. Android is due to win simply because there are more people who can get it at any one time.

cryptoz4• 16 years ago

> Android is due to win simply because there are more people who can get it at any one time.

This is true due to cost, not carriers. The iPhone is available on most (all?) carriers in Canada. In fact, the USA is, I think, the only place in the world that has the carrier problem with iPhone. And since the USA is only ~5% of the world's population, that particular problem isn't very significant in the grand scheme of things.

More people are able to get Android phones than iPhones because there are price variations in the Android ones that allow people with little money to buy an Android phone.

ergo983• 16 years ago

Here's the discount argument.

Just to be clear, so people can sign up for $3000+ contracts, but they just can't afford that $159 for the iPhone 4? (on contract at Rogers. Or they can get the 3GS for $99)

That ridiculous argument doesn't pass the most superficial of consideration.

Further, the Galaxy S costs $179 on contract. I guess it's for the really rich. Even the miserable Dell streak is $149. The Blackberry Torch pushes in at $229.

If cost were a serious factor, Apple would have long had a iPhone 4LE or something of that sort. Right now they know it doesn't make a difference.

ergo983• 16 years ago

"Why is this considered an amazing insight? If you could get an iphone on more than one carrier there might actually be something to discuss here."

A year ago I decided to embrace Android (as a user and as a developer), a principal reason being that it was obvious that the inertia that was going to grow behind it would be huge: The iPhone was so enormously successfully against a litany of foes, that it was obvious that those foes would have to converge on some sort of counter-attack, and Android was there at the right time and place, with the right openness, ability for customization and differentiation, and technology stack.

So I paid attention to the arguments that took place. To say they were completely the opposite of what you and others are now saying is not exaggerating.

Android was doomed, we were told, for any of countless reasons. The iPhone was secure in its pending world domination.

Now of course the argument has changed, over the past quarter absolutely doing a 180. Now it's just all so obvious, right, with so many makers and so many models and so many options against just one itsy bitsy little phone (you know....like Symbian and J2ME, or even the Blackberry, but...well...ignore those because they don't fit the narrative).

The new argument you're supposed to embrace is the "iPhone is for the elite, while Android is for the poor, what with their two for one discounts and low-end phones", while filling out and eagerly consuming self-selecting surveys that comfort that ridiculous notion.

gloob• 16 years ago

It's considered an insight because a year ago HN was raging with debates over whether Android might be a viable competitor to iOS, or whether it would be stillborn. Now, "everyone knows" Android's going to win.

davidedicillo• 16 years ago

Sure, and I'm sure that it can do that with the iPhone keep increasing their sales as well. There is a huge market of dumb-phones that Android will slowly erode and make its.

jsz0• 16 years ago

I don't agree with him. I think things will remain highly segmented for many years to come. Mobile devices are far more personal than desktops and there's less chance of a one-size-fits-all solution. I don't see any killer app that is going to make one platform vastly superior to another. It's not like the old days of PCs where you needed a DOS/Windows PC to run your applications and there wasn't much choice to the end user or enterprise user. These days many enterprises are giving their employees a choice of different SmartPhone platforms exactly because there is no one-size-fits all. In the consumer space it's even more of a wild card but the same theory applies. There's simply not enough lock-in to allow one company to become dominant. You can easily jump from an iPhone, to Android, to WM7, and back to iPhone without losing any major functionality.

I would agree that Android based platforms will likely be the single biggest player but that's not exactly the same as being a dominant, homogeneous, platform in the style of Windows. We could see the Android handset market evolve (or devolve) into a Symbian-like future where the operating systems share some common DNA but are effectively different platforms. For example Sony's possible PSP phone with games incompatible with other Android phones. You can technically still call it Android but in reality it will be "baed on Android" This is something that was never really possible with Windows. I don't know if we'll be able to group all these Android based platforms together in any meaningful way in the future. The differences between Android Device A and Android Device B might be as meaningful as the difference between iOS and Android.

camiller2• 16 years ago

In 2006 MySpace was the dominate social networking site...

redrobot50508• 16 years ago

Your point? MySpace was free, and the cost of switching to another social network was fairly low.

Most phones in the US have 1 or 2 year contracts with ETFs. Outside the US, the unsubsidized phone price is quite expensive, rougly to $500-$600 USD.

What I'm saying is your comparison doesn't really apply. It's actually even worse than the "Apple vs. Microsoft 2.0" or "Open vs. Closed" debates.

camiller2• 16 years ago

The argument was not that X phone on carrier Y will be dominant but that the Android OS in general would be.

Two years is a pretty short time frame in the grand scheme of things, MySpace was dominant in 2006 but it wasn't an overnight switch to Facebook. My whole point is that things continue to change, there is no winner if the race never ends.

torme• 16 years ago

Is there an actual quote from him saying it will be the dominant platform? The article seems to be lacking that. In fact, there aren't really any quotes in here that even hint at him damning or praising one platform over the other. It'd be interesting to know what he actually said.

mattparcher• 16 years ago

Update: Woz gave Engadget clarification, saying:

"Almost every app I have is better on the iPhone.

[He expects Android] "to be a lot like Windows... it can get greater marketshare and still be crappy."

http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/18/exclusive-woz-misquoted-a...

martythemaniak3• 16 years ago

So he clarified by saying.... it'll be the dominant platform. But he likes his iPhone.

I don't really understand what the argument is here. A year ago we could have tried to guess whether Android would have taken off or not, but the fact is that Android-based phones are already massively outselling iPhones and BlackBerrys and nothing Apple or RIM have up their sleeves is likely to change that.

The reason is very simple - Apple offers a one-size-fits-all solution and one size doesn't fit all. I like large-screen phones, but Steve jobs says 3.5 is large enough. Do I force myself to like what Jobs likes, or just go and buy something I like? Examples like this are endless: Don't like iTunes? Don't like the boring icon-grid screen on the iphone? Annoyed by pop-up notifications? Think Swype is better the a conventional keyboard? Well it doesn't matter. It's Apple's way or the highway, and a lot of people are taking the highway.

redrobot50508• 16 years ago

The reason is even simpler than that. In the US, only one carrier has the iPhone. Not everyone is going to want AT&T, or can get AT&T. They have an Android phone because their cell phone vendor says "This is our version of the iPhone". Or, after looking at Nokia's OS, or Verizon's OS, and seeing Android, they're taking the obvious choice.

And just because a phone runs android doesn't mean its in the same class an iPhone. A lot of the $99-$150 Android phones that ran 1.6 (back in the days of the iPhone 3GS being top of the line) definitely did not compare.

ryanlchan• 16 years ago

I agree, but for entirely different reasons. Android will win for one reason alone: China.

There are 900 million people with cell phones in China. It is currently and will continue to be the biggest cell phone market on the planet. However, the market's fragmented to little bits; shanzai phone here, nokia there, motorola sprinkled in between. But there are two driving forces common to all of the successful phones in China.

1) Price 2) Adaptation to local needs

Shanzai (unbranded local phones) came out and took massive market share by having an almost immediate feedback loop with which to respond to customer demand. Want two sim chips? You got it. Want a phone so loud it turns into a boom box? We can do that. Can you imagine Steve Jobs making these concessions?

MediaTek is cranking out Android capable SoC that bring the price of a smartphone down to $150 - unsubsidized. This is a price level that allows Android to go Shanzai - a very scary proposition for any large handset player. What now separates these 'low end' phones from the high end? They're not perfectly designed by Jonathan Ive, they're not super intuitive, they're not 4g, but they're good enough for China. Remember how Flip came out and just decimated traditional video recorders? It was good enough. MediaTek's $150 android phones are good enough.

If you really want to put the nail in the coffin, realize that if they're good enough for China, they're probably good enough for Africa, for South America, and beyond. The iPhone might retain the high end crown, but Android will undoubtedly become the dominant global smartphone platform.

martythemaniak3• 16 years ago

Almost all arguments on HN on this topic are ridiculously US-centric. As you can see from other comments, people wonder how the iphone can be "expensive" when it's "$199" vs "$179" for the Samsung Galaxy S.

HTC sent me a free Tattoo last year - 2.8" resistive screen, 340x240 resolution, slow processor etc. Any iPhone user (including myself - I kept on using my 1st gen iphone) would have snubbed this crummy phone, except there's hundreds of millions of people in the rest of the world who'll have phones like this as their first smartphone.

ZeroGravitas3• 16 years ago

I just bought a £100 (not on contract) Android that blows away my iPhone 3G.

I wasn't really expecting it to, I bought it as a stop-gap while I waited for the Nexus S and heard it was a good developer friendly device for the price but it's surpassed my expectations greatly.

Related to the grandparent, this phone (Orange San Francisco) was made by ZTE, the Chinese telecoms giant who I've heard were originally blackballed from the Open Handset Alliance because HTC etc. were worried that they would provide too much price competition.

alanh• 16 years ago

How does Android domination in China lead to domination in American and European markets? For that is what’s needed to “win,” otherwise here there will still be a split market.

Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform

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