Android sales "trouncing" Apple since release of iPhone 4

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/07/13/android-mops-floor-with-apple-new-sales-figures-show/

25 46 14 years ago

lotides7• 14 years ago

So, the iPhone is almost even in sales with the entire Android ecosystem consisting of thousands of models, many of them cheap or free to consumers. Am I supposed to be impressed?

ajross3• 14 years ago

To be fair, the title (both this one and the foxnews.com headline) is linkbait. But Apple is selling 2/3 as many handsets (not really "almost even") and losing market share, so the report represents real motion and is newsworthy. You're not supposed to be "impressed" per se, but if you're interested in the smartphone market it's stuff you should be reading. And if, as I suspect, you're a die hard Apple fan who hates all things Android to the core: play around with a device running ICS or JB. I think you'll be surprised at how impressive they are.

drivebyacct24• 14 years ago

>And if, as I suspect, you're a die hard Apple fan who hates all things Android to the core: play around with a device running ICS or JB. I think you'll be surprised at how impressive they are.

I understand why it's hard to get people to believe this, but it's absolutely insane how hard it is to convince people of this. I've seen more and more people floored at Jelly Bean. They watched the demo video and are amazed at how nice it looks and how slick it is. I don't have the heart to tell them that Honeycomb was 50% of the way there (Between Froyo and JB) and that ICS was... 99.9% of the way there. There are hardly any visual changes outside of the "Project Butter" between ICS and JB and yet all the people are acting like JB is this big visual refresh.

Don't get me wrong Project Butter uped the ante, but not that much. It's as smoother or smoother than the iPhone, but ICS was nearly there. The 60Hz vsync just made it that much nicer. Plus, none of that 2002-2003-esque skeuomorphism. It almost pains me to see iOS in places after Holo in ICS, it reminds me of plasticy KDE.

bane2• 14 years ago

"But Apple is selling 2/3 as many handsets (not really "almost even") and losing market share"

Actually, that's something I'm not clear on. Apple is losing percentage, but that might be in a growing market. Losing market share would imply the market is staying the same size, no?

lotides7• 14 years ago

You're right, I am an Apple fan. OS X has done amazing things for my productivity since I switched and I've done a tremendous amount of "creating" on the device people say is only for consumption (the iPad.) When my iMac had an issue, Apple paid a guy to drive 4 hours across state lines to fix it for me so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping. When my iPod died, Apple gave me a better one. Apple has earned my trust.

Google on the other hand has not. When my Gmail account was hacked I couldn't even find a contact for Google. Everything I read from 3rd parties said it was an exploit on the mobile Gmail website and yet Google wasn't going to look in to it, instead they had support docs that said it was probably my fault. Later, as an early Google+ evangelist, I had my account locked down because my wife and I were sharing the same Google account. Again, no way to contact. I've come to accept that Google doesn't give a shit about any individual customer and so I don't bother supporting them in any way.

As far as Android, I just don't care. No matter how good the Android OS gets, I care more about the 3rd party apps I'll be using. I've purchased a lot of great software from amazing developers that simply isn't available on Android. This is particularly an issue with tablet apps.

sirn• 14 years ago

I'm typing this on ICS after using iPhone exclusively for nearly three years and can say I'm rather impressed with it. It is no longer nothing like the G1 (that I got one to play around for few weeks back then) or the Nexus One. It gets a lot smoother, prettier and third party software feels a little bit more likable (UI-wise) than it used to be.

Compared to when I last looked where rooting is prohibited by manufacturers, today we have something like HTCdev that provide an official way to unlock that is kind of cool.

Judging from the one in my hand right now I'm giving it about 85% of iPhone smoothness which makes me seriously looking forward to Jelly Bean. It would become my primary mobile OS of choice if Google finally get vendor update and manufacturers crapware sorted out.

glenra2• 14 years ago

We should probably also be "impressed" at how blatantly inaccurate that color chart is at representing the actual share percentages.

copenja• 14 years ago

Actually, according to the article Android is selling 50% more handsets. Not really "almost even."

I don't think you are supposed to be impressed, it is just a bit of sales data for use at cocktail parties. It seems pretty clear that both iOS and Android are here for the long haul.

thechut3• 14 years ago

Why is this the top comment? Did you even click the link? 54.6 != 36.3. Not even almost equal...

Also, don't knock it till you try it.

lotides7• 14 years ago

I've tried a few. Nothing too exciting. The 3rd party software kind of ruins the Android experience. Google can't do too much about that.

I was far more impressed with the Windows Phone actually. I also liked webOS and I'm excited to see what they do with the Firefox OS.

ok_craig2• 14 years ago

People often say this. It seems defensive. Basically if the iPhone has higher sales or market share, you can say "Ha, this one phone is beating everything!" And if it's losing in either of those areas, you can say "But it's only one phone!" Also can't you get an iPhone 4 for $99 and a 3GS for $0?

Keep in mind the iPhone is the only phone with iOS, so if you want to get an iOS phone, the iPhone is your only choice. You're not necessarily supposed to be impressed with these Android numbers - but if you aren't, you probably shouldn't be impressed when tides temporarily turn and iPhones are winning in these numbers, either. It's not just one device vs many, it's one OS vs one other OS.

lotides7• 14 years ago

My point was if we're supposed to root for a winner (which is stupid), it hardly seems impressive to use an article like this as your argument.

The reason so many care about these numbers is they want to use them to say their OS is better than the other when it isn't relevant at all. And, the masses make a lot of dumb decisions: just watch the elections coming up!

That doesn't make my remark any less true. Walk in to a cellular store and there is one or two iPhone models on the display. The entire rest of the store is Android phones made by dozens of different companies with new models coming out every day. Of course Android should have the bigger numbers, look at what the iPhone is competing against! Not to mention, a lot of Android builders will cut corners on build quality and offer the same mostly software features as the iPhone on much cheaper hardware. Which phone is your mom gonna pick? The expensive iPhone or the plastic Android sitting next to it that claims to do the same thing—but free with a 2 year contract.

If I'm being defensive, it's because I'm annoyed. I come to hacker news to learn new things and peek in to the world of development, something I'm fascinated in as a designer. I just so fucking sick of the flamebait threads.

bookwormAT• 14 years ago

"Also can't you get an iPhone 4 for $99 and a 3GS for $0?"

Wait, you mean someone is giving me a smartphone for free, without any kind of obligations from my site? I just take the device and that's it?

eridius2• 14 years ago

This data comes from Nielsen. Where does Nielsen get information on smartphone sales? In other words, how close to the truth is their data?

bane2• 14 years ago

comScore is showing a similar trend I believe.

http://mashable.com/2012/07/13/android-51-8-market-share/

thechut3• 14 years ago

Are you serious? How desperate are you to refute this claim? Nielsen is one of the top and most respected marketing research companies in the world. They have an entire division dedicated to mobile research, called what else? Nielsen Mobile. If you take a look at their website they mention exactly how they collect data. I will copy it below to make things easier for you.

"Nielsen uses a broad range of measurement tools to help companies make the most of their investments in mobile, including:

-Monitoring network signaling in 86 U.S. markets to count mobile subscribers and determine marketshare

-Analyzing the cellphone bills of more than 65,000 mobile subscribers in the U.S.

-Conducting extensive drive tests to measure quality of service in North America

-Deploying On-Device Meters to measure smartphone activity

-Analyzing carrier server logs to understand feature phone usage behavior

-Surveying mobile consumers via telephone, in-person and online surveys"[1]

[1] http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/measurement/mobile-measurement....

sp332• 14 years ago

Easy there, eridius didn't say anything about refuting anything. Relax, and thank you for the information.

eridius2• 14 years ago

I think you're reading intent into my comment that simply wasn't there. I was asking where Nielsen gets smartphone data, since the article didn't give any information whatsoever on that. The text you copied here is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

nemik• 14 years ago

Just like the PC. Funny how they manage to do this all over again.

Apple will go bankrupt again in the 2030's until around 2039 when Jobs gets re-animated...to squander whatever the next big opportunity will be.

lotides7• 14 years ago

> Apple will go bankrupt again in the 2030's

I hope not. Apple is one of the few companies making an effort to design software and hardware together. Until other companies realize you can't have a good user experience without considering all aspects of the product, many people will continue to cheer Apple's approach to product development. This is one of the reasons why it's exciting that Microsoft is doing the Surface tablet. It seems like Microsoft took a step back and looked at how Apple has executed some great products and is taking a similar approach.

ladzoppelin• 14 years ago

As a 2010 Android user, I get angry reading how "impressive" these new releases have become while my phone is stuck with huge exploitable holes and a horrible user experience(2.3). I have a feeling the numbers will decline once other alternatives come out because I can't be the only person disgusted with the platform. Can Jelly Bean even play pro audio apps without latency? Will any real pro audio companies even make apps for Android if they actually fixed the latency?

cageface3• 14 years ago

Actually Jelly Bean is finally supposed to provide usable audio latencies for audio apps:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2012/07/android-audio-improvem...

Unfortunately, it will probably be a while until there's enough of an installed base of 4.1 to matter, but at least the fix is in.

ajross3• 14 years ago

Those are legitimate criticisms. But they aren't really related to this article. Your 2010 phone is at the end of its contract. This is a study of phones sold in the second quarter of this year (to people who, statistically, have zero demand for "pro audio" apps). There are plenty of reasons for you to prefer your iOS device; please don't pollute a discussion of market numbers with arbitrary flamage.

glenra2• 14 years ago

The color chart on that page is truly misleading - there's essentially no relationship between the size of the rectangles and the actual share numbers. The real news from the actual share numbers is that (iOS + Android) is now utterly trouncing everybody else.

Here's one attempt to fix the graphics - a more accurate look makes Apple look much more impressive relative to the market as a whole, mostly at the expense of RIM and Windows and Other but also somewhat at the expense of the largest Android competitors (Apple has roughly twice Samsung's market share):

http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/13/nielsen-needs-to-work-on-their...

Android sales "trouncing" Apple since release of iPhone 4

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