The Tricky Road Ahead For Android Gets Even Trickier 344
HughPickens.com writes: Farhad Manjoo writes in the NYT that with over one billion devices sold in 2014 Android is the most popular operating system in the world by far, but that doesn't mean it's a financial success for Google. Apple vacuumed up nearly 90 percent of the profits in the smartphone business which prompts a troubling question for Android and for Google: How will the search company — or anyone else, for that matter — ever make much money from Android. First the good news: The fact that Google does not charge for Android, and that few phone manufacturers are extracting much of a profit from Android devices, means that much of the globe now enjoys decent smartphones and online services for low prices. But while Google makes most of its revenue from advertising, Android has so far been an ad dud compared with Apple's iOS, whose users tend to have more money and spend a lot more time on their phones (and are, thus, more valuable to advertisers). Because Google pays billions to Apple to make its search engine the default search provider for iOS devices, the company collects much more from ads placed on Apple devices than from ads on Android devices.
The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users? In Apple's last two earnings calls, Tim Cook reported that the "majority" of those who switched to iPhone had owned a smartphone running Android. Apple has not specified the rate of switching, but a survey found that 16 percent of people who bought the latest iPhones previously owned Android devices; in China, that rate was 29 percent. For Google, this may not be terrible news in the short run. If Google already makes more from ads on iOS than Android, growth in iOS might actually be good for Google's bottom line. Still, in the long run, the rise of Android switching sets up a terrible path for Google — losing the high-end of the smartphone market to the iPhone, while the low end is under greater threat from noncooperative Android players like Cyanogen which has a chance to snag as many as 1 billion handsets. Android has always been a tricky strategy concludes Manjoo; now, after finding huge success, it seems only to be getting even trickier.
The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users? In Apple's last two earnings calls, Tim Cook reported that the "majority" of those who switched to iPhone had owned a smartphone running Android. Apple has not specified the rate of switching, but a survey found that 16 percent of people who bought the latest iPhones previously owned Android devices; in China, that rate was 29 percent. For Google, this may not be terrible news in the short run. If Google already makes more from ads on iOS than Android, growth in iOS might actually be good for Google's bottom line. Still, in the long run, the rise of Android switching sets up a terrible path for Google — losing the high-end of the smartphone market to the iPhone, while the low end is under greater threat from noncooperative Android players like Cyanogen which has a chance to snag as many as 1 billion handsets. Android has always been a tricky strategy concludes Manjoo; now, after finding huge success, it seems only to be getting even trickier.
iPhone switchers (Score:5, Insightful)
"The 'Majority' Of New iPhone Switchers Came From Android"
With Android's huge marketshare, wouldn't you expect that to be the case?
Re:iPhone switchers (Score:5, Insightful)
And with a mostly two-players market I'd bet that most people who switch to Android came from iPhone.
Either it's your first phone, then you're not counted as switch, any subsequent phone upgrade from then on won't be a OS switch either or, if it IS a switch, it will be back and forth between Android and iOS.
So this is a non-fact.
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...and then there's those of us who never switched, and have no intention to.
My house is almost an Apple Store in miniature now - my MBP, my wife's iPad, her iPhone... but then there's my Android phone. I even have a new phone on the way via FedEx (I always buy unlocked), and it runs Android. But then, I prefer to have root on every device I own, even my phone. Keeps the bloatware to a minimum.
As for TFA, meh... if Android wasn't there, something else would be there instead (anyone else remember Palm?)
On th
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Yeah, and Ubuntu 15.04 *could* potentially kill or even cripple Windows on the desktop. /sarc
Really, though? Momentum and app availability form EXTREMELY powerful negative feedback loops for the losers and positive feedback loops for the winners. Microsoft was late to the party and missed the boat, so they're stuck in a negative feedback loop: no developers, no apps, no users; rinse and repeat, goto 1, while(true). Google and Apple are in a positive feedback loop: more and more devs, more and more apps, mor
Feature phones (Score:3)
Either it's your first phone, then you're not counted as switch
Is a switch from a "feature phone" to a smartphone counted as a switch or a first time?
Power users (Score:5, Insightful)
What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users?
That would be a possibility if there were a more power-user-friendly smartphone platform. However, Android is the platform for power users.
In Apple's last two earnings calls, Tim Cook reported that the "majority" of those who switched to iPhone had owned a smartphone running Android.
That is hardly surprising, since that is true for people in general.
Still, in the long run, the rise of Android switching sets up a terrible path for Google — losing the high-end of the smartphone market to the iPhone
While the iPhone is definately in the high-end segment of the market if we look at the retail price, it is hardly competetive to high-end Android phones functionally. They serve a different market. Hence, I don't think this is a big threat for Android's market share.
Re: Power users (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, you pretty much have to be a power user to have a good Android experience, given how badly crapped-up most low - end carrier's phones are.
Most non power users have no idea how to deal with crapware, and no idea that all that junk isn't intended to be part of the Android experience.
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99.99% of either market is made of non-power users. For those of you who think you are? You're likely fooling yourself.
"Power user" is a buzzword to get people to feel important. The fact that you're relating that to a phone in the first place shows how much of a joke it is.
Re:Power users (Score:5, Insightful)
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Of course the majority will be from Android (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course the majority will be from Android (Score:4, Insightful)
I would imagine that the opposite is true to, that the majority of users switching to Android are coming from iPhones. And by switching, I'm presuming they mean going from one smart phone to another.
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I never had an iPhone, but I had an iPod Touch before I had my first smart phone, so I'm not totally clueless to the Apple experience. I still have and use that touch, but also am on my third Android phone and have multiple android tablets.
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Remember Intel's Itanium failure? AMD swept in with x64 and their Athlon 64 and owned the market place for the first time in their competitive history. Unfortunately, AMD then had a huge failure of their own (somewhere around Bulldozer) and Intel went right back to washing th
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You have a tenuous grasp of reality. Nobody will give a shit if an Apple contractor sells user secrets to China. Not that the scenario even makes sense. Who in China would be interested in whatever data Apple has on its customers? People still shop at Target or any number of other stores who have actually caused financial harm to their customers.
Nobody except for some self-righteous hipster idiot left Apple over the U2 incident. Apple is still raking in profits faster than they could possibly spend the
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And there isn't in the iOS ecosystem? Just because the tracking is hidden and locked away doesn't mean it is gone.
Come the next jailbreak (hopefully), install Firewall IP from Cydia. You will then see how many apps phone home to many, MANY different behavioral tracking sites, ad sites, link bounce sites, and so on. Your IMEI and other info gets slurped up and propagated to God knows where.
One app which was one that judged some part of the person in a photo, when you watched the traffic go by, it actually
Switching?? (Score:3)
The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users?
WTF
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WTF indeed (Score:2)
The final threat for Google's Android may be the most pernicious: What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to something else as they become power users?
WTF
That was my reaction as well. That is precisely the opposite of how it works. If you become a Power User, you go Android, because that's the only phone in the game so far where you can build the system yourself from sources. By definition, the more of a power user you are, the more you're going to be an Android user.
Maybe a definition is need here... (Score:2)
I agree with your post mostly, but what exactly constitutes a "power user"?
Yeah, I root my phone, parked Cyanogen on it, and spent time modding my UI to fit my needs and tastes, but I consider myself to be someone who tinkers with the thing (as part of an old sysadmin's habit), and not a 'power user'. I fully understand what goes on with the OS, and have tinkered with mobile OSes before even Familiar Linux came out, and even wrote (okay, adapted) a quickie printer driver once, long, long ago... but I'm not
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I agree with your post mostly, but what exactly constitutes a "power user"?
Well, we could argue about that all day, but I argue that it doesn't really matter: no matter what it means, they're more likely to use Android. If it just means they are going to want to use a broad variety of apps from disparate sources, that's Android. If it means they want to customize their phone as much as possible, even just bling-bling style, that's Android. If it means they want to tinker with the internals, obviously that is Android. If they care about security and controlling what apps can do on
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"Power user" seems to be defined in this case as "I play flappy bird a lot".
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What if a significant number of the people who adopted Android as their first smartphone move on to a platformed more refined to their now acute sense of needs and ease of use.
Thing is, this works both ways. I've puttered around with my wife's iPhone, and iPad, etc. (it's the same UI/OS/etc).
But... I'll stick with Android. Mind you, my primary personal machine is a MacBook Pro, and will continue to be so. My house is blissfully windows-free. However, for my sense of needs and ease-of-use? I don't need/want iTunes to manage or transfer my music. I want an obscene amount of storage plus the ability to expand it as desired, and don't want to pay arm+leg to get that storage (a 64GB S
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acute sense of need
Nailed it.
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What if a significant number of the people who adopted Apple as their first smartphone move on to a platformed more flexible because of their now acute sense of needs and for customization of use
FTFY
The fact is, every single iPhone looks exactly like every other iPhone. The Monoculture of "we know what's best for you" from Apple is one reason I'll never go to iPhone.
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Project Much?
Android to iDevice (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of those people bought a cheap (crap) Android device and then instead of spending money for a "superphone" decided to go the the "cult of iDevices"? I've had a number of android based devices and given the broad range of hardware out there it's easy to get suckered into buying something that's absolute crap and then wind up blaming the part you can see. I've had a few friends that made this kind of switch and when I pull out my current Android device (OnePlus) most of them kinda kick themselves.
There's statistics, and then there's useless bullshit. I'm thinking this is more the latter.
Re:Android to iDevice (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll second that one. My first Android phone was really bad. It was slow, buggy, full of crapware, and a pain to use.
I "switched" to a Samsung Galaxy Note, and never looked back. The user experience was simply great, almost as good as an iPhone, but much cheaper and with none of the iTunes crap.
I am now using a Nexus 5 and a Nexus 7, and I absolutely love them both. My next smartphone will be either the next generation of Nexus, or the next Samsung.
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Battery life test is a game called Ingress. Available on both iPhone and Android, from Google company Niantic. When actually playing the game, most iPhones can only play a couple hours without an external battery. My Android can go almost 5 hours without that need. Battery life is fine on Android.
My take on it is, that iPhone users only THINK they use their phone a lot, while Android users use their phones more than they think they do.
I have no doubt that resting (not in use) iPhones may have better battery
Re:Android to iDevice (Score:5, Insightful)
Hence the walled garden and "ecosystem" approach by apple. There are many people that don't want to figure out which phone/tablet/laptop is good and bad. They know if they buy an Apple product it will be good. They don't sell junk. Sure it's overpriced if you compare specs to Android phone/tablet or Windows laptop but you also don't need to do hours of research to see if the product you are looking to get sucks. This is the same reason people buy Honda's and Toyota's. You can get cars with more performance and accessories much cheaper. But if you buy a Honda or Toyota you pretty much know you can drive it for 200,000 miles and just pay for regular maintenance.
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Samsung has been threatening that for a while. As far as I know they only have a failed watch to show for it.
I've largely gotten fed up with Samsung in general as things go on. The increased bloat/shitware and device instability would be a reason to move to any other device. So far Apple has not given me incentive to completely abandon the android pool yet.
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...well, that's sort of one of the features of Android. It's open, and it's run-on-what-have-you, so it should hardly be surprising that a significant chunk of the install base is running on cheap, low-end devices. It's a big part of the reason Android has such a large market share compared to iOS.
If Google can't pull low-end Android users onto high-end devices instead of iDevices, well, that's partly a failure of marketing, and partly the natural challenge of living in such a diverse world of devices. If a
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If Google can't pull low-end Android users onto high-end devices instead of iDevices...
No it isn't. My current phone,($350 new) runs circles around any iDevice in that price range. Hell, it competes with the $899 version, with more ram, and storage. You can pay more for the same thing (or not as good), but that is a choice. Calling it "High end" is a marketing ploy itself.
Re:Android to iDevice (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple user: "I love my phone."
Android user: "I hate your phone!"
But crossroads ahead with the Swarm of Things; (Score:2)
Please tell me - I have no clue.
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FOSS doesn't really apply in Android's case, given the significant barriers imposed by Google's proprietary extras...
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Two options:
1) The "workaround" of installing GMS from an alternative source. (In theory, the only legal option is installing gapps backed up from your own phone, but Google appears to be willing to let the "separate gapps packages" slide...)
2) The approach Cyngn has gone, which is to go through Google's official GMS licensing scheme.
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Cyanogen is wanting to actually get more or less a complete breakup with Google. You need to read their public statements regarding how they want to wrest Android from Google. They have the following to perhaps pull it off. Either that or they will implode making boneheaded mistakes by alienating their fan base (as they did with OnePlus users).
Re: But crossroads ahead with the Swarm of Things; (Score:2)
Edit the title, please (Score:2)
"low end" (Score:4, Funny)
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This.
Waited for the Samsung Galaxy S6 to arrive before I upgraded my S3. Seriously disappointed about that the non-replaceable battery. Also, without expandable memory, this made me pick the S5 rather than the better S6.
I'm willing to purchase a decent Android phone. I'm not willing to forgo a replaceable battery. That's a deal-breaker.
I really like the S5 so far. Will the S5 be my last Samsung phone? I guess we'll see when then S7 arrives...
Re:"low end" (Score:4, Interesting)
actually, no, I'm not. Resorting to insults doesn't really prove your point. I do, indeed, know how to charge a LiOn battery.
Here's the steps outlined by iFixit:
"... eject the SIM tray, heat up the battery door, draw off the battery door with a suction cup, then separate the door with a case-opening tool, then undo 13 screws, heat up the LCD assembly, pry open the charging chip flex ribbons, pull off the front-facing camera connector, battery connector, ear speaker connector, remove the entire motherboard, then pry off the battery with a spudger tool."
That doesn't sound like "pop out the battery and drop in the replacement" to me. The S3 and the S5 -- which I have personally replace the battery on -- are truly replaceable. Indeed, I owned the S3 for 3 years and replaced the battery once. I don't consider that LiOn abuse, frankly.
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I'll be slightly less abrasive than above, but my experience with the "non replaceable" battery in every iPhone since 3GS is that battery failure has been a non-issue.
I buy a new iPhone every year, pass my old one to my wife, and her now "old" phone becomes our house phone, and the "old" house phone becomes an iPod for my son on trips.
So by the time it gets to iPod status it has been used as a daily phone with frequent charging (me), abusive charging (my wife lets hers get down to 10-20% constantly and does
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Re:"low end" (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I don't see it as in issue for anybody.
Every iPhone I buy has been used *hard* for two years by two busy professionals working as consultants, and then used continuously as a home telephone (we kept our landline number and ported it to a cell number because it was actually cheaper than the monthly taxfest that is a landline) and then used pretty hard by a 10 year old boy after that.
I may buy a new iPhone every year, but every one of those iPhones gets used for four years and by then it's not even a question of battery that's an issue, but of software and processor obsolescence for any kind of a serious tasks, and I don't think that's really all that different for Android users, either. The only hardware issue I've ever had was a volume up button on a 4S that crapped out six months in, and it was swapped out in store for a replacement phone in 10 minutes.
I really don't understand guys like you that are so angry about people who do buy a phone every year. Admittedly the biggest "feature" add on year on year is mostly CPU/RAM, although the screen size bump with the iPhone 6 Plus has been the main thing this year. It's a fucking tax writeoff for us and even if we bought 2-3 phones individually we'd be looking at upgrades every 18 months or so anyway, so one every 12-14 months doesn't seem outrageous.
I sometimes think the hostility is because you're too broke, too cheap or just flat-out jealous.
Phone Switching (Score:5, Insightful)
So 16% of iPhone purchases were made by people who previously owned Android phones. (I'm going to assume here that "owned Android devices" doesn't mean you owned a Nexus tablet and now are buying an iPhone.) This statistic is useless, though, unless you also find out how many people buying Android phones previously owned iPhones. If there's an equivalent amount of people getting Android phones to replace their iPhones, then the "16%" isn't really a loss for Android. It's just normal churn. Presenting the 16% figure on its own is misleading as it makes it seem like people are fleeing Android and nobody ever leaves Apple.
Re:Phone Switching (Score:5, Funny)
It's misleading statistics like these that will leave Apple with a 291% market share in a few years.
The swicthing rate is declining (Score:4, Informative)
Farhad Manjoo has always been an Apple fanboi (Score:2)
,.. so this is just more of the same from him. One of the most overrated people in the tech journalism echo chamber. While these blowhards are all busy singing off the same page, no one is pointing out the obvious fact that we've ended up in another huge tech bubble and we're overdue for a correction as severe as the one that took place in 2000.
It's not about platform... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google doesn't care about the platform, they want screens in front of faces.
Putting 100 android screens in front of 100 faces 1% of the time is making them money.
Putting 50 iOS screens in front of 50 faces 2% of the time, is making them money.
There is nothing tricky about this for google... They want to grow, they biggest source of income is ads, ads are all about getting people to look at things.
They have two options, they can try to compete for a bigger slice of the same sized pie, push all the other ad companies out of business...
OR they can get us to spend more time with our screens in front of our faces, the pie gets bigger and even if every one keeps the same percentage of the pie, Google makes more money than the rest of them.
Why is google working on self driving cars? They want you to use your commute time to browse the web.
Why is google working on glass? They want to be in front of your face every waking hour of the day.
Why is google running internet lines and looking into connectivity by high altitude balloons? Every hour they can one additional person connected to the internet is making them money, connectivity to places that don't have it expands their portion of the pie.
Google provides Jquery libraries, graphing software, mapping software, and DNS servers to make the internet faster and more reliable because the more people looking at more pages makes them more money...
Screens in front of faces, that is what google wants... They don't care about the platform, they gave andriod away to get cheap devices out there to put screens in front of faces.
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Google doesn't care about the platform, they want screens in front of faces.
Putting 100 android screens in front of 100 faces 1% of the time is making them money.
Putting 50 iOS screens in front of 50 faces 2% of the time, is making them money.
As Lotus had learned from Microsoft - "DOS isn't done until Lotus won't run", it is ALL ABOUT THE PLATFORM.
If your revenue stream depends on someone else's platform, then that someone can kill your revenue whenever they decide to eat your lunch too.
If iOS succeeded in taking over 90% of the phone market, then Google's revenue stream from smartphones would be held hostage by Apple.
Android IS a huge financial success. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Google pays billions to Apple to make its search engine the default search provider for iOS device
Think of how much MORE Google would have to pay if Android was not the dominate OS. . . HINT: Companies usually Open Source technologies to reduce costs, not to DIRECTLY increase revenues.
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From their perspective it'd be much worse than higher search rev shares. If Android did not exist, Google Maps would have been wiped out overnight on mobile when Apple decided to go it alone (against the wishes of their own userbase, no less). Android was never about making direct profit, it was always about ensuring Google was able to deliver their services directly to users. They were quite open about this from the start. And judged by this standard it has been an incredible, epic success.
iOS is on the wa
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Android was never about making direct profit, it was always about ensuring Google was able to profile users to generate more effective ads.
FTFM
The problem is unlike Apple, Google does not make their money on device sales, and so has no incentive to enforce quality until its lack starts to impinge on their ad revenue. Google makes their money on ads and analytics, and everything they do prioritizes it. Don't believe me? Just look at the Google services which have been discontinued.
Outside of English speaking countries and Japan it's in the minority everywhere.
Better tell China, as they didn't get the memo.
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If you're the sort of person who believes any and all business is merely a way to make profit and nobody who creates a company ever actually cares about the task they perform, then sure. Reality is more complex than that.
Re: China. iOS is in the minority in China. Even at the time of the iPhone 6 launch iOS market share was only 20%, but iOS market share always spikes around the time of a new iPhone launch, then falls back down in the other quarters. And China is a special case - Google isn't willing to pla
More android switchers than MS/BB - shocking! (Score:2, Redundant)
With blackberry and MS having a negligible portion of the smartphone market, I would be surprised if it *wasn't* android.
About 15% of smartphone users who by a Samsung (Android) handset come from iOS users. A higher percentage of iOS users are previous Android users (about 2:1 vs those switching from iOS to Android), but there are more Android users overall, so I'm not certain that there's a net loss in the Android userbase. For example: there were about 200 million iOS devices sold in 2014, and about 1 bil
Power User? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would a 'Power User' move from Android to iOS? They won't be able to do any of their 'power things' any more.
This article makes no sense at all.
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Not true, a jailbroken iOS device is essentially a small BSD box.
Oh? So you have the source code? Snicker snort.
A jailbroken Android device, on the other hand, really is a small Linux box. You can trivially install a more complete userland on most interesting phones. You can install an X server. You can get the sources to everything but the Google Play stuff, and you can use the phone without that stuff. In theory you should even be able to throw away the GUI and all the apps from Android and switch to Wayland someday, at least on relatively modern phones whose graphics
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Its' really too bad you can't understand how much more powerful this is to actual hackers.
Hahahaha more powerful than having the source code, and being able to rip out any parts of it you don't want lurking in there to begin with? Tell me another one.
Danger Will Robinson (Score:2)
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Yup. Cyngn could have been a positive thing for the Android community, but the complete lack of ethics of those involved is scary... Cyngn has been bad news since the beginning (Focal)...
The actual battle is not Android vs iOS. (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think there is really a fight between iOS and Android. iOS is Apple, Android is the rest. OK, there's Windows Phone and Blackberry but they don't really count in this market. Windows Phone is almost exclusive to Nokia; Blackberry is just Blackberry.
The battle is between Apple, Samsung, LG, Huawei, etc. Not between the OSes. Samsung is targeting the high-end market about as much as Apple, though while Apple targets only the high end, Samsung targets also other segments of the market. The other manufacturers are targeting anything from rock bottom to the top.
We should really stop this "Android vs iOS" nonsense. I've never, ever heard someone choosing a phone based on it having iOS or Android. Instead they want an Apple iPhone (which happens to come with iOS). Or they want the latest Samsung (which happens to come with Android - Samsung's Android, a version of Android bastardised to an extent that it is hardly recognisable as the same OS that runs many other phones, from manufacturers that use something close to stock Android).
Now it may very well be that Apple users are the ones that are more susceptible to advertising (which in turn could explain why they chose Apple's offering; after all Apple's marketing is second to none), and hence more valuable to advertisers. But it's not just that "Apple/iOS has the high-end market". Samsung's top end is at least as high end as Apple's iPhones and they seem to compete quite strongly, taking a good share of that market.
That Apple makes a lot more profit on their phones than Samsung and other Android makers do... that's a whole different story. Maybe it simply is the case that Apple users are those that are swayed easiest by advertising, making them pay a massive premium for their phones. And people that already have shown to be happy to buy big in an advertising ploy should be valuable for other advertisers as well.
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I recently got a Galaxy S5 for me, and my wife got a cheapish LG L90. She was telling her younger, teenage sister about her phone. She mentioned the LG L90 and her sister went "Meh." then she mentioned my phone was an S5 and her sister w
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I've never, ever heard someone choosing a phone based on it having iOS or Android.
Well then, let me introduce myself. A few months after my wife got an iPhone 4, I got one too, just so I could answer her "How do I ...." questions. It didn't take long for the iGloss to wear off for me, so as soon as I qualified for a "free" (well, heavily subsidized) phone upgrade from our carrier, I ditched the iPhone in favor of a Galaxy S4 specifically for the capabilities of Android that just aren't there with IOS. The wife is still happy with her latest iPhone, and I'm still happy with my Samsung. To
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We should really stop this "Android vs iOS" nonsense. I've never, ever heard someone choosing a phone based on it having iOS or Android.
I chose my iPhone because I have a Mac and it plays nicer with my software like iTunes & iPhoto, etc. So yeah, the OS of the phone was central to my purchase. If there was a cheaper clone that sold iOS based hardware, I might have bought one of those instead.
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I've never, ever heard someone choosing a phone based on it having iOS or Android
That's my main criteria and I am sure it is for a lot of people out there.
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There are two fights. The smartphone maker fight is one. The OS fight is another. Just like there is a fight between OS X and Windows in the PC world.
Does being a financial success really matter? (Score:2)
I have to wonder does it honestly matter for Google to be a financial success? Google has historically taken on many projects that would seem to be opposite of financial success that in the end turned out successful regardless or in some way generated a lot of goodwill for the company. I hear YouTube is not a financial success but Google keeps it anyhow because it helps make their own services more popular.
I am sure Google sort of knows what it is doing. Who knows maybe this can be used as an argument in
Advertising dihcotomy (Score:2)
It is interesting that Google is making 75% of mobile ad revenue on the Apple platform ($9 billion) vs Android ($3 billion).
I wonder if this is because advertisers are paying more for ads on the Apple platform or if its because people who have Android phones are not using the smart features as much as Apple users. It's likely a bit of both.
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power users? (Score:2)
"move on to something else as they become power users?" - huh? Isn't iPhone's thing that it's supposed to "just work" with everything, with no effort? Isn't android's thing supposed to be that it's a lot more hands-on? I don't think I've ever seen someone try to suggest that the iPhone appeals more to "power users" - hell, androids come with the debug/developer mode, not iPhone (press version info 7 times).
Also, as others have mentioned - android has 78% of the market share, iOS has 18.3%. That means 95
Understand how the companies make money! (Score:5, Interesting)
Google is an advertising company. They make money from getting the advertising targets (you) to use their services, and charge the advertisers for access to you.
They're not going to make money off Android directly, it is just a way to get people on their platform.
This is why Google still makes iOS and Windows Phone applications. They just care that you're using their platform, regardless of how.
Apple is a hardware company.They make money from selling phones, and increasingly off of their app stores, but obviously not enough to open their app store to Google.
This is why you DON'T see iTunes, Facetime, or iMessage for Android. Their goal is to sell devices.
Microsoft is a software company. They make money off selling software, so they will, like Google, try to make their software available on as many platforms as they can. They, also like Google, care less about the phone sales and more about getting you as a loyal user of their products.
Unlike Google, Microsoft users are their customers.
Whenever people compare these three companies, they need to look at the core of who these companies are.
I'm not claiming one is better than the other, and in fact I use all three daily.
They just have different motivations for playing on the same playground.
It is somewhat like 3 kids all playing baseball together, but one is playing to be a pro baseball player, another is playing to have fun, and another is playing to impress a girl.
You can't compare the 3 kids to each other and say one is doing better than another, because each is measuring their success a different way.
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Microsoft is also an operating system company
I always equate OS to software. They have had to decide which is a bigger part of their potential revenue, and they've certainly made bone-head decisions along the way.
At the same time, when I was a Windows Phone user a few years ago, I found it telling that the Photosynth app was created for iOS long before it was created for Windows Phone.
It all depends on what part of Microsoft you're talking about, but some parts seem to think that exclusives are the way to greater software sales. I think the current CE
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Indeed. Their priorities color everything, and I would carefully consider them before forming any contractual obligations.
Except for Microsoft, whose priorities I can no longer explain. They used to prioritize developers and user experience, and so our interests aligned, but something happened after Windows 7. Now they remove features and make breaking changes in their software platforms almost yearly, and run the most developer hostile app store I've ever encountered. They managed to make an excellent tabl
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They just have different motivations for playing on the same playground.
What? No. They are all motivated by profit.
The Carriers (Score:3)
My biggest issue is that I'm stuck on some ancient version of Android. OS updates are the responsibility of the carriers, yet they carry no liability when they don't offer the updates in a timely manner (or at all). I'm sure old iPhone hardware has a limit, but they are certainly guaranteed to get updates for a much larger time frame than a majority of android devices.
I can root my phone, and I have rooted some phones, but the same issue exists there as well. As soon as the phone hardware is sufficiently old you can no longer find well supported updates for the OS. These updates are also often offered by random, unknown individuals, which is obviously a big risk. The problem is even more difficult when phone manufacturers are actually successful at preventing rooting.
I'm fine with old hardware eventually not being able to run the latest OS, but I have no indication of when that will be. When I buy a new phone, I don't know if I will get updates for 5 years, or even less.
Why do I have to upgrade my entire OS just to get security updates? Why can't I have patches?
Imagine if BestBuy were tasked with making available Windows updates for that Dell you just bought from BestBuy. No, I'd much rather get my updates directly from Microsoft. I want the same thing for my phone, updates directly from the OS maintainer. If I have to buy an Apple product to get that, then they are the winners in my book.
(I own several Android devices and no Apple devices. I'm thinking of buying Apple in the future.)
Does that make sense to you? (Score:2)
Because Google pays billions to Apple to make its search engine the default search provider for iOS devices, the company collects much more from ads placed on Apple devices than from ads on Android devices.
Google pays apple to be default search engine on iOS; Google does not pay Google to be the default search engine on Android --> Google (the one that doesn't get paid by Google) must be such a looser. Once we have proven that we bravely conclude:
If Google already makes more from ads on iOS than Android, growth in iOS might actually be good for Google's bottom line.
Is this an MBA degree speaking here?
IOS not what it used to be (Score:2)
Just read the Apple IOS forums and you'll see that there are a lot of die hard Apple customers that are getting ready to jump ship because of a slew of problems in IOS ever sine version 6. The most annoying and complained about problem is the wi-fi connectivity problem; I've experienced that myself and suddenly you'll lose internet via wi-fi and cellular internet grinds slowly to a halt; the "fix" is to shut off and restart the phone (almost sounds like Windows, reboot when things aren't working right). Thi
Perspective? (Score:3)
There is certainly a place for analysis of "So, did this 'android' stuff pay off for Google? Was it roughly break-even? A strategic failure?"; but that's quite different than "How is Android doing? What are its prospects?". Conflating the two, though, is confused at best and outright nonsense at worst(especially when examining the 'running Android, possibly even developing it in some way; but not running "Android+Google Play Services"' slice of the market'.
So, is Apple the one actually making money on smartphones? Hell yeah. Has Android been tepid in terms of actually making Google any money? At best; it may well be directly losing money and only appearing to pull its weight as a strategic play. Are the margins for most Android handset manufacturers pretty unexciting compared to Apple? Also hell yeah. However(much like the PC OEMs), that may not actually affect Android: None of the Android OEMs gets the option of joining Apple in making iPhones(except the ones that happen to also have divisions that manufacture components for Apple, like Samsung). Apple has zero interest in letting them do that. So, they can either ship Android handsets with Google, ship AOSP+their own or somebody else's stuff; ship Windows Phone, attempt to build their own OS entirely, or leave the market. Shipping Android handsets with Google isn't a terribly high-margin strategy; but it is so far unclear whether any of the other options are any higher margin.
It is very likely that Google isn't getting nearly as much of what they want from Android as they would like; and Android OEMs certainly aren't earning terribly exciting margins on their devices; but that's their problem. It only becomes Android's problem if Google decides to pull the plug, or if OEMs abandon it in favor of WP or one of the assorted linux-with-stuff-on-top-but-not-android options. So far, WP has gotten fairly good reviews; but struggled for marketshare, and the not-Android Linux derivatives are all writhing around near the noise floor. This isn't obviously a good thing, Android is a pile of mediocrity in quite a few respects, even if some of Google's applications and services for it are pretty good; but it is still the case: Since nobody gets to be an iOS vendor except Apple, and Nokia is MS' special buddy, with other OEMs allowed but sharing a very small pond; 'Android' is a fight over some pretty unexciting margins; but unless a company simply wishes to stop manufacturing smartphones and tablets, it's a fight they'll probably remain in for some time to come.
Sure, I'd love the second coming of WebOS to sweep away the unbelievers and deliver us; but that doesn't appear to be in the cards.
Misses the strategic imperative for Android. (Score:2)
Google's core businesses would be seriously damaged if Apple obtained a monopoly on mobile computing. If it breaks even and prevents Apple hegemony it's as much of a success as it needs to be.
As for the supposed switching of Android users to iPhone, notice the tortured stipulations in this sentence: "the 'majority' of those who switched to iPhone had owned a smartphone running Android." It's also no doubt true that the majority of users who switched to new Android phone had owned a smartphone running And
Mmmm (Score:2)
"Because Google pays billions to Apple to make its search engine the default search provider for iOS devices, the company collects much more from ads placed on Apple devices than from ads on Android devices."
Because Google paid billions?
Because they don't have to pay themselves a single dime for being the default search provider on Android and Android being 90% market share?
I fail to see the logic here.
Profit is the goal, remember? (Score:3)
Google did not develop and release their free Android operating system to profit off the (free) OS, they wanted to lower costs to increase the user base and thereby increase their advertising market.
At over a billion devices in the market, they have expanded the user base.
If android users migrate to iOS (for whatever reason), evidence proves that iOS users are among the most profitable market segment in the mobile advertising market, so Google sees ad revenue (and profits) increase.
Android is the gateway is to the 'harder' OSes, like iOS, and that's where the real money is.
Google is getting exactly what it wants from it's free Android OS.
Personally, I think the biggest challenge Android devices have is that many users are drawn in by the exceptional bargain devices (like a $40 7" tablet) and soon learn that a) they really like the functionality of a tablet and b) you really can't make a 'good' tablet for $40. That initial exposure to lie-quality/lie-cost android devices ultimately could drive frustrated users to iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.
Make money? I thought tech didn't care about that (Score:3)
You don't get it. (Score:3)
Google doesn't care about making profit out of Android yet. They are buying market share. They want to position themselves as a dominant player in order to profit in the future, once the smartphone market will be a lot larger than what it is today. A good comparison is Microsoft with their Xbox. They lost money with the first Xbox, but they placed themselves as an important player in the gaming console market. And then they made money with the Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It's all about the long term.
Well that is refreshing (Score:3)
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Happens to the best of us, that one gets me all the time. Usually, though, I notice it...
Re:Android switcher to iPhone (Score:4, Informative)
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I'm pretty sure he was criticizing Android's security, not Apple's. iOS is just a pain in the ass to use and is very non-customizable. That's annoying to a lot of people, including me.
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I know 2 so my anecdote trumps your anecdote.
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Microsoft powered phones don't exist in the real world. I have yet to see one. They are apocryphal.
I've seen Nokia Lumia once. Still experience this nightmare from time to time - getting lost in a plain of bright colored squares, can not find my way out. Thinking about poor souls who use this thing for desktop make me shudder.
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Microsoft powered phones don't exist in the real world. I have yet to see one. They are apocryphal.
I am shocked that in the hours since you wrote this comment, no Microsofties have showed up to tell us how wonderful their Windows Phone is. I literally only ever see those comments on Slashdot, but normally they are as reliable as the sunrise.
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Unfortunately, now that BlackBerry has given up their pathetic attempts at trying to market, sell, and support their new platform, I'm worried that we won't have this option for as long as we'd like. The platform is actually good, but no one seems to know or care that it exists. (Seriously, just look at how many comments on a BB-related article here are from people who are completely ignorant of the new OS, and continue to make completely valid criticisms of the old OS,.)
These days, they seem far more focu
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I won't fall into the trap of criticizing BBOS on its merits, then. Instead, I will simply point out that its invisibility to nearly everyone on the planet might be interpreted as a sign that either (a) the company has utterly failed to make a compelling case for it, or (b) the company has utterly failed to make a compelling product. And really, it makes no difference which of those is actually the case. Their product is as good as dead, and that's not likely to change.