Well, most of us knew this moment would come, with the only debate left being when this moment would come. Market analyst firm Canalys keeps track of worldwide smartphone shipments, and has concluded that in the fourth quarter of 2010, more Android smartphones were sold than Symbian phones. After a decade of supremacy, the Symbian dominance has been toppled (according to these figures, of course).
Years and years from now, people will write books analysing the meteoric rise of Google’s Android operating system. It was dismissed as niche platform at first, something that could never challenge the iPhone’s rise to fame. We’re a few years down the line now, and oh, how the times have changed.
According to Canalys, 33.3 million Android handsets were shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010 (4.7 million in Q4 2009), compared to 31 million Symbian-based smartphones (up from 23.9 million in Q4 2009). Apple sold 16.2 million iPhones (up from 8.7 million), while RIM sold 14.6 million BlackBerry devices (up from 10.7 million). Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 entered the market too late for the quarter in question to register on the scale, so Microsoft dropped considerably.
Looking at market share, we see Android rising from 8.7% in Q4 2009 to 32.9% in Q4 2010. The iPhone drops slightly from 16.3% to 16.0%, while Nokia drops considerably from 44.4% to 30.6%. RIM’s share goes from 20.0% to 14.4%. In other words, while all phone makers sold more phones, they all pale into insignificance compared to Android’s growth.
So, it would seem that Android is well on its way to become the Windows of the smartphone world. The Verizon iPhone will draw some sales in the US, but that won’t do much to stop Android’s growth worldwide.
Nokia has been to slow to react, after the great N900 their offerings have been dissapointing.
Let the record show that the n900 was not Symbian, but every other phone released since that point has been.
Symbian needs to be dropped. Its clear now that it has really distracted Nokia from developing a modern OS for its phones.
Edited 2011-01-31 23:02 UTC
I’ve started thinking the opposite. They should have focused more resources on getting Qt integrated as the application layer for Symbian instead of getting distracted with Meego.
When people bitch about Symbian, they’re invariably complaining about the interface or development, two areas that Qt will improve remarkably.
The underlying OS is probably the best embedded platform for mobile handsets. It’s pretty bulletproof and is optimized for power efficiency and mobile communication.
People rarely complain about reliability, call quality or (relative) battery life when talking about Nokia phones. It’s always about the interface, so they should just focus on optimizing Qt and creating an attractive and usable interface. They’d have the advantage of a single platform that could run across everything from low to high-end devices, combining Symbian power management and reliability with the flexibility of Qt as the primary framework.
But that’s just me. I guess I’ll wait to see what Nokia will have to offer whenever their Meego handsets start shipping. I’ve always had a soft spot for Nokia, and remember when their handsets were cutting edge, so here’s hoping they can get their house back in order.
Emphasis mine. Its pretty clear they have focused on getting QT into Symbian( as demonstrated by the number of Symbian devices they’ve released since the only Maimio/Meego device). And it took too long, and didn’t work well enough.
If the UI stinks, no consumer will buy it.
If the Development stinks, no early adopting, premium paying, app writing geek will buy it.
Its suicide for a platform to go for too long without both of those.
The other former Symbian handset makers made the right choice. They also had a deep investment in symbian dev, but switched horses to a better platform instead of trying to fix a fragmented legacy platform and are reaping the rewards.
Actually, it’s mostly third-party app UI which stinks. The “core” symbian UI is quite well-done, in my experience (save for the terrible bundled webkit browser and the messy settings panel).
As a specific example, competitors have yet to provide a home screen which provides immediate access to the phone’s features better than Symbian’s one, despite it being introduced years ago. Sole thing I know of which gets relatively close is WP7. Maybe webOS does too, never put my hands on it so I can’t tell.
Edited 2011-02-01 07:59 UTC
Problem is that developing in the so called Symbian C++ is a pain.
Any sane developer will only do it if they are paid for it. If you are developing for fun, Symbian is surely not your target platform.
Sure things are improving with QT, but there is a limited set of devices that can take QT into use, and lets not forget that you are still forced to use Symbian APIs for certain tasks.
Couldn’t agree more
Symbian is pure genius as a phone OS, but Nokia really does hate third-party developers (or did until recently at least).
Not sure about the limited scope of QT. Apparently, even my ageing and heavily keyboard-based E63 with its small screen and low amount of RAM can handle it (http://www.forum.nokia.com/Devices/Device_specifications/E63/, “General” tab), so it does sound like Nokia have managed to port it on a large number of handsets.
As for the Symbian API, I can’t tell. Didn’t manage to get Nokia’s QT SDK working properly on Linux, and my will to write an SMS spamming app is not strong enough to make me install that thing again on Windows
Edited 2011-02-01 10:55 UTC
Did you try again with Qt SDK 1.1 preview? It finally supports QML on all platforms, and you can use Remote Compiler to make a Symbian .sis file on your Linux machine.
http://www.johanpaul.com/blog/2011/01/feedback-on-nokia-qt-sdk-1-1-…
I’m currently installing this, and will tell you if the simulator does work now. But looking at the documentation about using Qt SDK for Symbian development which I’ve just found ( http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Set_up_Qt_for_Symbian_Environ… ), it seems that the other issue which I had with the 1.0 version (being unable to compile Symbian apps) is not going to be addressed.
“Windows is the only development platform for the Symbian target supported at the moment”
Edited 2011-02-01 11:57 UTC
As said, you can write the application using Desktop or Simulator, and only in the end test it on your Symbian device by creating a .sis with Remote Compiler.
The simulator now works in Qt SDK 1.1, indeed. Good point.
About remote compilation, I’m trying it using the doc at http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/How_to_install_and_use_the_No… at the moment
Issue : when I go in Tools->Options->Project->Remote Compiler, type my login, and click “Authenticate”, an error shows up. I think it could be translated in English as “Forum Nokia authentication failed
Error while creating SSL context ()”
Edited 2011-02-01 12:54 UTC
Another issue : installing QT on my phone. For some reason, the built-in browser cannot access ftp://ftp.qt.nokia.com/pub/qt/symbian/4.6.2/. If I try to transfer the fluidlauncher.sis file on my phone, it doesn’t work as expected : I get a “The ‘Qt’ component is missing, continue anyway” message. Sounds like automated dependency resolving is broken.
Then, if I try to transfer qt.sis on my phone and install it, it doesn’t work any better : “Installation of Open C LIBSSL common impossible, version 1.05… or later required”. Now trying qt_installer.sis…
EDIT : This one seems to work, and to do what fluidlauncher.sis should be doing. Now, sole issue remaining is that I can’t login for remote compilation…
Edited 2011-02-01 12:53 UTC
What distro? Please install the ssl libs and try again.
Fedora 14 x64. If I launch QtCreator from a shell, I get
“QSslSocket: cannot call unresolved function SSLv3_client_method
QSslSocket: cannot call unresolved function SSL_CTX_new
QSslSocket: cannot call unresolved function SSL_library_init
QSslSocket: cannot call unresolved function ERR_get_error
QSslSocket: cannot call unresolved function ERR_error_string”
Looking for an SSL package which wouldn’t be installed yet… Shouldn’t “openssl-1.0.0c-1.fc14.x86_64” normally be sufficient ? After all, I can access https links with firefox…
EDIT : Okay, problem solved. Just a few symlinks missing here and there (/usr/lib64/libssl.so -> /usr/lib64/libssl.so.xxx and /lib64/libcrypto.so -> /lib64/libcrypto.so.xxx)… That’s the problem with binary packages…
Edited 2011-02-01 13:23 UTC
Weird, I thought ldconfig would have createn those links for you.
Anyway, good that you got it sorted out, I’ll see that the Fedora situation gets documented somewhere.
EDIT: Nevermind, the problem is allegedly fixed in Qt SDK already. Explanation here:
http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTSDK-433
Edited 2011-02-01 13:42 UTC
You can only target the following devices:
Symbian^3: N8-00, E7-00, C7-00 and C6-01
S60 5th Edition: X6-00, C6-00, N97, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, 5235, 5233, 5230, and 5228
S60 3rd Edition: E72, E71, E66, E63, and E52
Nokia N900, with PR1.3 and later
As decribed in the following link:
http://www.forum.nokia.com/Distribute/Packaging_and_signing.xhtml
Most of them don’t have a big market share sadly.
http://wiki.forum.nokia.com/index.php/Nokia_Smart_Installer_for_Sym…
“From a pure technical perspective the solution is designed to work with all Symbian/S60 3.1 and later devices.”
That’s pretty much every phone out there right now.
Forcing to make a rare API call through legacy Symbian C++ layer is not a showstopper, you do all the application UI, networking and logic in Qt anyway.
Except where it does not work. I had quite a few models where the installation always failed right in the middle, leaving a few pieces of PIPS and QT scattered around the phone.
It is, when I am forced to use Symbian C++. Oh, what happened to that blog entry from a Nokia college saying that no one on his perfect mind would develop for Symbian?
Yes that is right I do know a bit of Symbian/Qt, being on Nokia’s pay-check for some years. Not any longer though.
In this moment of android glory, I give you a flashback to 2007:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/08/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-part-l-ballmer…
Ballmer went on to say that, “They have a press release, we have many, many millions of customers, great software, many hardware devices and they’re welcome in our world.”
Nokia should release at least some Android and Windows 7 phones and hedge their risks.
It will be a minimal investment to get this up and running since Google and Windows is doing all the software work, all they have to do is bundle it with their hardware. They could even use some of the up and coming Meego phones hardware platforms and just sell in a different jacket.
People would definitely buy it.
Windows 7 is doing worse than Symbian, and from current appearance being adopted slower than WebOS was – your suggestion would be akin to digging up the hedge and throwing it on the bonfire.
Spliting focus is the last thing they need to do right now. Nokia has a plan, Meego and Qt, they just need to implement it and that is taking more time than the analysts are willing to give. Nokia would certainly be better off if they had been able to release something cutting edge, but that haven’t. I guess its a question of whether they think they will be hurt more by a late release or a botched one. It looks like they favor getting it right even if it takes more time. Will this work for them?, I have no idea. But if thats their plan they need to stick to it. Splitting their talent, energy and money between different platforms or strategies to hedge their bets is the worst thing they can do right now.
Windows Phone 7 (which I assume you meant rather than Windows [NT] 7) was actually still outsold by it’s predecessor in launch quarter:
http://www.winrumors.com/fresh-fears-for-windows-phone-7-sales-as-w…
So I don’t hold much hope for Win Phone 7 being Nokia’s saviour. At least not yet.
I think Nokia becoming another Android phone maker would be disastrous as that makes them a direct competitor of Samsung & HTC – good luck with that. Palm tried the same approach when Palm OS was fledging by selling Windows Mobile phones, and whilst it may have kept them alive a little longer, as as strategy it didn’t work and we all know what happened after that.
Nokia and RIM are likely to be the next Palm – companies once known for innovation and strong USP that suddenly found themselves out classed in a rapidly changing world.
Nokia however has a history of survival, with the rather unique ability to *completely* change their business model when the times require it. They started business in 1865 as pulp mill and have since been involved with electricity generation, rubber, cables and others before becoming a phone company. Perhaps it’s time for Nokia to find a new, less contentious place in the world once again.
I’m reluctant to count them out so soon, If they can deliver a solid high end smartphone I’m sure they will find a market for it. They have a ton of brand loyalty in the international market (but not the US). And unlike Palm, Nokia has a world class supply chain for phones. You seem to think that Nokia has no against the asian oems if they go against each other on equal ground, but thats exactly what they did in the symbian era and they won.
Counting out Nokia is like counting out Nintendo, lots of people have done it before and lots of people have been proven wrong when they come back again stronger than ever. Could this be the time they don’t, of course, things look pretty grim right now. But I’d at least wait for meego to before getting too doom and gloom.
Since the meteoric rise of Android commenced I’ve been asking anyone I see with an Android phone why they decided to go that direction. In nearly every case the response is something like (paraphrased of course) “I told the salesperson I wanted something like an iPhone, but not an iPhone because everyone just bought them like sheep following each other. So I got this ’cause the salesperson told me these are just like an iPhone.”
So they didn’t want to join the flock of sheep buying iPhones and instead joined the bigger flock buying Android phones.
You’ve gotta love some people’s reasoning.
Also interesting that a number of people indicated that friends or relatives had bought them iTunes gift cards so they could get apps or content for their new “just like an iPhone” and they were quite miffed that they couldn’t use them. I’m sure somehow that will also be Apple’s fault…
Outsold 2:1, and you’re still presenting that silly charade?
Pathetic.
I don’t really care about what sells the most. The question for me is what will allow me to do the most? Given that iOS still has more than 3x the apps that Android has, that’s clearly still iPhone. Any random website or service, it’s still far more likely they will have an iPhone app than an Android app. My most recent example is fitday.com.
I need my phone to help me get things done, and so far the iPhone just does stuff better overall despite the odd limitation (I really don’t run into any of these).
Being an ex-linux user (convenience over ideals these days), I like the idea of Android, but as a developer it’s still nowhere close to the iOS platform in terms of being able to easily develop for. Maybe that will change, but so far there is no contest.
You mean 3x more pointless social networking clients?
People keep banding about app store figures like it’s some kind of achievement when the reality is 99% of the apps on each and every store is pointless BS and the few genuinely good apps are in both.
But do you really need an app for /every/ website? Particularly when both Android and iPhone both have very good inbuilt browsers anyway (not to mention how most professional sites have mobile versions as well)
At the end of the day (horrible saying, sorry), it’s what helps **you** get things done. However just because it does the odd specific site slightly better doesn’t mean that it does stuff better overall nor for everyone.
iOS is only easier to develop for if you already own a Mac and/or an iPhone.
However, if you do, then I agree that iOS runs circles around Android. But I’m damned if I’m spending a grand on a new notebook just to earn a few quid on app sales.
3x more of everything, and in many cases there is no Android equivalent for an iPhone app at all (like the website I just mentioned. It has an iPhone app but no Android app).
Bingo. Now lets do some basic math, shall we? If, as you say, 99% of apps are “pointless” (apparently everything you don’t use is pointless). So of the 100,000 apps for Android, there are 1000 good applications. It follows that of the 350,000 apps for iOS, there are 3500 good ones.
Doesn’t change my point at all.
No, for example, I never saw the point of most apps for news sites, when they are basically just a web view. However, if done properly, a native interface will always be easier and faster to use than a web interface because you can do network operations asynchronously, and interaction is much faster.
I never claimed that its better for everyone. I’m just saying given an arbitrary task, there is more likely to be “an app for that” on iPhone than on Android. Of course if you don’t need any of those apps, then there won’t be a difference.
That’s silly. Of course you need to actually own the device to develop for it… You’re saying I can easily develop for Android without owning an Android device?
Ease of development has little to do with whether I need a mac or a windows box.
If a few hundred dollars for a mac is the difference between you making money and not, then it’s not worth your time to develop the app.
Edited 2011-02-01 03:30 UTC
But the Android app store doesn’t have 100,000 apps, it has 235,000 apps.
That changes your maths by quite a bit.
Not really. I doubt there are still precisely 350,000 iOS apps… I suspect it’s closer to 400,000 now – possibly even more than that. I’ve no idea.
Your figures are more than a little optimistic given the app store was only at 300,000 last quarter and much of the increase from the previous quarter was attributed to the iPad – who’s apps are incompatible with the iPhone thus irrelevant to this discussion about mobile phones.
Thus if we are really comparing like for like then the actual ratio is closer to 3:2 than double or even trebble – as many of you guys guestimated.
Edited 2011-02-01 14:26 UTC
But equally there are plenty of apps that came to Android first:
* Android had sat nav before the iOS
* Android had AR before the iOS
* Android had different browser engines before the iOS
* The G1 had a digital compass before the iPhone thus Android had a digital compass apps before iOS
* Android has adult apps, which are banned on iOS’s app store
* Android has games console emulation, which are banned on iOS’s app store
* Android has skinning apps which still aren’t available on un-jailbroken iPhones
…not to mention core functionality like:
* Android had integrated copy/paste before iOS
* Android had integrated MMS before iOS
* Android had multitasking before iOS
The iPhone wasn’t and still isn’t the first to every arena, as my examples prove.
Furthermore, your argument insinuates that Android’s repository isn’t growing. As has been proven countless times in the past, apps that did feature on iOS original almost always do make their way to Android as well.
As said before already, you’re massively underestimating the size of Androids market place.
But a properly developed mobile website should work around many of these problems anyway.
It just seems madness that in a world where desktop computing is increasingly moving to “the cloud”, you’re suggesting that you’d prefer a binary frontend on your mobile handset for every site you visit.
Well yes. And the same was true for Windows Mobile. They used something called an emulator.
Plus as Android’s development tools are cross platform, you only need to buy a cheap Android handset if you want to do further testing.
It has everything to do with that. If the tools are inaccessible or overly expensive then it doesn’t matter how good the language nor SDK is, there is still an initial hassle that makes start up development far from easy.
Now you’re just buying into the hype. The reality is few developers these days would see a return on their investment. In fact there’s been articles online from disgruntled iOS developers that have said some apps don’t even see a return on the App Store submission cost, let alone their time developing or even purchased hardware.
While there are people who have made a killing from iOS development in the early days, there is now (and by your own admission) so many Apps available that homebrew apps practically have to be given away to pick up any interest. So it’s nearly impossible for a new start up to make a worthwhile return.
The real money now seems to be in games development, but considering how many smart phone games are now as detailed as their games console big brothers, I can’t see many start up bedroom-programmers getting ahead there either while the professional games developers are knocking out a stream of classics.
So yeah, a few hundred dollars for a mac is a hell of a lot when you already have a working computer and there’s only a slim chance you’d see a return on your investment. Particularly when I can use my existing hardware to develop for Android (so no start up cost) and that Android is now the #1 smart phone OS (so more potential customers).
You do understand that 1% of 100 and 1% of 300 is quite a different value, right? If there are 3 times more apps and both stores hold 99% pointless/bad apps (in your opinion) it still means that the iOS devices have “3 times” more “good” apps by your own measure.
First of all, you do realise that the ratio isn’t 3:1?
Secondly (and more importantly) you’re missing the point that once you remove the crap, the difference between useful apps on either store becomes negligible.
Lets use your own example figures:
App store 1: 1% of 100 = 1
App store 2: 1% of 300 = 3
thus the latter app store only has 2 more decent apps than app store 1. TWO(!!) apps.
So the point I made was that comparing the size of app stores is irrelevant as once you remove the crap, both stores are roughly the same compared with the overall size of their collections.
However, I will concede that it’s probably more of a logarithmic scale than a linear percentage. The ratio between good vs crap added to each app store depreciates exponentially every n apps due to unique ideas being exhausted.
What evidence do you have that the percentage of good apps is any less on iOS? If anything, the percentage of crap apps is more on Android, since there are no controls and no vetting of apps. You won’t get another fart app to the app store, but you can make a million for Android.
Uhh… Are you aware that you are missing three zeros? Anyway what’s your point? Given a phone with one useful app or three, which would you chose?
Makes sense.
Actually the Apple store has over 400,000 apps. The fact that you can run those apps on iPod touch, and run most of them on iPad is a big advantage in my books, but you’re right if we’re comparing only apps for phones then the numbers are closer. By the way, my 100k figure was from this very recent article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703554204576112723686… , I didn’t just pull it out of thin air. Turns out it appears to be out of date, or maybe just looking at one app store.
Edited 2011-02-01 18:19 UTC
WTF?! I never said the percentage of good apps is less on iOS. Where the hell did you get that impression from the bit you quoted? I mean seriously, if you’re going to make shit up then what’s the point even having a discussion?
Now you’re just being silly.
The lack of controls on the Apples App Store does just as much harm as it does good. It rejects perfectly valid apps from different browser rendering engines and emulators to adult apps, but there’s been dozens of complained from disgruntled developers who’ve had perfectly legitimate apps rejected because Apples approving body have got their knickers in a twist. Trent Reznor being one example: his Nine Inch Nails streaming app got rejected because of the odd swearing in his tracks. Which is madness as Apple might as well remove their webbrowser as it could be used to surf porn, or remove the phone function as consumers could use it to ring sex hotlines.
Actually no. You’re adding 3 zeros. May I refer you to the passage I was replying to:
If he meant 100 = 1% of 100,000 then he phrased his sentence abysmally.
I did choose the one with few apps because the apps it did have were apps that weren’t available for iOS. Plus I actually preferred Android as an OS to iOS. Massively preferred it in fact.
What you can’t grasp is not everyone uses their phone the same as yourself. For some people, Android is just as equal to (if not more so) than an iPhone.
Not according to the article you just linked to.
I can’t remember how I ended up on an OS flamewar. I’m not blind to Apple’s achievements. iOS is very sleek and the iPhones are well constructed. However I just preferred HTC Android handsets. Sorry, but not everyone has to like iPhones. Some people just don’t.
Edited 2011-02-01 20:54 UTC
Alright, try not to have a stroke.
You claim that there is no significant difference in number of useful apps between the platforms. Given that there are anywhere between ~4x to ~1.5x as many iOS apps as Android apps depending on which numbers you believe, you are implying that there are more useless apps on iOS. You can’t argue the numbers. There’s more apps, and if the ratio of useful to useless is about the same, then there are also more useful apps on iOS.
So far I’ve posted concrete examples for my own use while all you have is conjecture.
That lack of controls? Now you’re really confused.
Dozens out of over 400,000? Not really as bad as it seems. Most of those are from before the rules were published and significantly relaxed late last year.
Use some common sense. We’re talking about number of apps, and the numbers there are in the hundreds of thousands. You get a star for being pedantic though.
Great.
Never claimed otherwise. Obviously many people will prefer Android because of the variety of hardware, and many other people don’t want to spend the money for the iPhone (me included, the only reason I have one is because of work).
I have no particular attachment to Apple. If Android phones are the bees knees when it comes to replace this one, then I’ll get one of those. I don’t think they’re there yet for a whole host of reasons, but obviously they are moving fast.
Edited 2011-02-01 21:14 UTC
You seem to struggle with the term “significant”.
Nothing is exactly equal, but if there isn’t a significant difference then people wont care about the differences.
I gave numerous examples of legitimate apps that have been rejected from Apples app store yet appear in Googles.
Dozens of useful apps that don’t appear in any form on iOS’s app store. So that’s a lot of potential the iPhone fails at but yet Android excels in.
I made the point before that those figures you are now arguing about were completely nonsense, but I used them still to aid the discussion.
So i suggest you back and re-read the entire conversation as you’re now just being argumentative for the sake of it.
…and some people like to run emulation software – which you can’t do on iOS without jailbreaking. People like me in fact.
You seem to keep missing the fact that some people do actually prefer Android (not the hardware or the price, but the OS itself) to iOS / iPhone.
And that’s where we must agree to disagree as I think Android have been “there” for a long while already.
However, each to their own and all that.
Missed this bit before:
I’ve posted concrete examples of apps that aren’t available for the iPhone but are for Android and you’ve just dismissed it with conjecture.
So perhaps before you start preaching about abuse or lack of evidence, you should start following your own advice.
so much for “significantly relaxed”
http://www.osnews.com/comments/24359
I don’t mean to be rude, but thus far all you’ve contributed is highly debatable app store figures and yet I’ve given plenty of examples and evidence backing up my points. Yet so you still accuse me of being conjunctive.
I don’t hate the iPhone, I really don’t. I just hate people like yourself telling me that the iPhone is “better” then proceed to give a series of flimsy arguments and ignore all of my counter arguments.
In fact, these days it seems like the whole basis of “iOS is king” debates revolves around the size of it’s app store. Yet, as proven numerous times already, that’s a misleading headline and reflects nothing about the quality of the platforms themselves nor the variety of applications available.
But then, when was the last time people didn’t abuse statistics when engaging in cock-waving contest *rolls eyes*
(sorry for the spamming – it’s a pity you can’t edit comments that haven’t already been replied to)
but…
So, you’re saying that the numbers don’t matter..unless they’re in iPhone’s favour.
Isn’t this why we have browsers?
You and mean both. My current phone is doing an awesome job of letting me make phone calls and send text messages.
That’s why I’m an ex-Windows user. To each their own.
How exactly does it affect me how many other people own the same product? All I care about is whether it works as a product. The multitude of apps makes it the best phone for me.
Not always. See my previous response.
Oh I see. So you’re saying you have zero knowledge or interest about smartphones and yet you feel the need to argue about them. Why exactly?
Oh I see, you’re here for an argument. That’s next door.
Okay. Say you are a developer that cares somehow, in some way how many people will use an application that you are thinking about writing. How would you determine the platform you would write for, give the following choices?
Platform A: Selling more units, but has less applications ( in other words, less competition) available for it.
Platform B: Selling less units, but has more applications ( again more competition) for it.
Given your answer to the previous question, does the platform with more new applications being written for it matter more than the number currently available?
Now, you may have different answers for the preceding questions than I do. Or may place additional constraints upon them that I’ve left out. These are not actually very important questions to me. However, they would seem to answer the question you had about how the number of similar devices would matter to someone concerned about the number of apps available. I believe its very naive to suggest that they are altogether independent variables.
I would have thought that having actually suitable apps for the task at hand would be the best measurement, not the raw number of apps.
No, I just don’t need my phone to be able to play hundreds of shitty games or make fart sounds. In terms of actually useful apps I doubt the difference is substantial between Android and iPhone.
Right. And I gave a concrete example of a website I use (fitday) that has a useful iPhone app and no Android app. Could the functions of that app be delivered as just a mobile version of their site? Yes. The point is, it isn’t, and in the meantime I have a useful tool.
Another is a bug tracker we use called Unfuddle. They had an iPhone app first, and although they now also have one on Android, it is developed by a third party and not free. And of course lots of fun games that are iPhone only.
So for me, it is both quantity, and quality.
It is for me. And it is perfectly reasonable to assume that more apps means more useful apps, given that there’s no evidence that the quality of apps is different on the different platforms.
Edited 2011-02-01 18:33 UTC
How many of those apps are actually useful? I’m guessing less than 1% on either platform. So the number of apps argument is moot. Most people only need a phone that sends and receives calls. Most of the modern smart phones are too big to be practical anyway.
The iPhone has more than 3×235,000 = 705,000 apps?
http://www.androlib.com/appstats.aspx
Wow, I didn’t know that. I thought it was only about half that.
Well, myself I prefer things which pretend to do few things but do them relatively well to things which do a lot of things but fail at the basic features.
If I buy something with “phone” in its name, I want it to perform well as a phone. That’s why I’m using Symbian and will probably still be using it for a long time until another decent phone platform emerges or I have no choice but to go back to S40.
I use smartphones because they are phones with nice extras on top (PDF readers, web browsers…), but in the end I’m still buying a phone before anything else. Otherwise, why bother paying for phone calls and texts ?
I love that kind of argument. Seriously, if I’m not misunderstood, the main selling point of these touchscreen phones is that they’re good for web browsing. Yet you need to have every single website’s functionality duplicated in a native app ?
Edited 2011-02-01 07:59 UTC
That’s simply untrue, unless by “doing most” you mean play the most games. Apple’s restrictions on what you can and can’t do on their phone limits its use severely. Now they’ve even started blocking ebook apps that let you buy books from non-iTunes stores.
You have got to be joking! You are joking, right? Never has it been easy to develop for any Apple platform! It took me about 1 hour to create a usable client for an inhouse web service on Android, and about 2 hours on blackberry. iOS, ooops I had to have a Mac AND I had to pay apple. Really!! If that is your idea of easy then I’d like to know which planet are you on, cause we are clearly on two very different worlds!
Given you seem to not know the difference between ease of development and startup costs, I’m not particularly inclined to believe you.
Also, without existing experience there is no way in hell you wrote any non-trivial app for any platform in one hour. It would take you longer than that to install the toolset and read an introduction, never mind learning about the libaries available, how to build a UI, testing, and deployment issues.
When you ASSume you make an ass of yourself only. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, time mentioned in my comment does not include SDK installation nor configuration of the same. I am a software developer since 1985 and had to learn how to adopt new platforms over and over again. You seem to confuse startup costs with ease of development yourself. The most interesting part that you do not seem capable of grasping is: I do not want to be forced to purchase new hardware just to develop for a particular platform. I want to be able to use one machine to write code for whatever platform I choose.
Trust me this is not an outragous request. A lot of my fellow developers are creatures of similar habits. After all we spend a lot of time with our dev boxes and we become comfortable with them.
And as a final note … those two little apps (they are quite similar, being developed in java and all) are in daily use by our management team save for marketing exec who is set on using an iphone and therefore has to use a webpage
But Thom, you don’t understand.
When Apple sells well it’s because they make a bloody great product and where first to market. When someone else outsells Apple it’s because Apple still makes the bloody best product and the other ones are just copying Apple and riding their wave..
You know, like how iPod outsold Creatives’ Nomad and iRiver’s players. No wait, that’s the wrong example…
Song overheard at Apple headquarters
————————————–
Sheeple
Sheeple who need Sheeple
Are the Luckiest Sheeple in the World…
2:1 maybe, but how much revenue did it make Google? Really? Apple made a profit on every phone sold. And really, how was the experience for each of those consumers? (and here we really mean CONSUMERS not geeks that can hack their firmware.) Mixed with Android I’m guessing – really dependent on which handset you chose.
Pathetic is worrying about which Phone OS is better than the other. Pick one, stick with it – or change next time round. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. Walled or not, gardens are still gardens. When iPhone runs Android apps or vice versa, THEN things will become interesting. Till then, it’s just something to pad out column inches.
I love the back-pedalling of fanboys. First, it’s all about supposed quality. Then it;s about number of applications. And now it’s about profit per device. What’s next, colour?
So, what have you Apple fanboys been doing the past few years attacking Android at every possible turn? All because it’s pathetic, right?
Eh? Now, this was my first comment on this story. I love how Thom has me down as a “Fanboy” before he actually knows my position on the story?!
The story was concerning unit sales. If that many devices were sold, one has to ask how much money Google made out of it?! I know that Apple makes a profit from every sale, so they can carry on selling phones even with a small market share and “break even”. I wonder how much money Google makes?
Second point – of those phones sold, a high percentage would be bootloader locked and running Android 1.6 or 2.0. So, I wonder how the user experience was? Valid question.
Anecdote: A friend asked these questions on Facebook a while back about if he should get an Android or iPhone handset, and was inundated by Android “fanboys” making all kinds of crazy accusations about iPhone. One even tried to use Flash as a “reason to choose Android.” In my experience, it’s not the alleged Apple Fanboys that ruin the party, it’s the actual Android war pigs who fly in to reel off endless facts and figures about how Android is better than iPhone. My take? Buy a phone and enjoy it. It doesn’t matter what OS it runs – ultimately, doesn’t matter. You have to like the handset, if you don’t you are an idiot with more money than sense.
Yes. See above.
“Mauve. I think it has more RAM.” — PHB
Edited 2011-02-01 21:42 UTC
Who outsold Apple?
Anyone who focuses on the market share of respective platforms (iOS or Android fans included) is spectacularly missing the point of the iPhone.
At the iPhone’s price point, there is no way in hell Apple even thought they would dominate the smartphone market. They are not running a domination strategy. They are running a premium volume strategy. Sell 15m iPhone a quarter and make bucket loads of money. I would be surprised if their target was even 10% market share. 5% would probably be about right. That would equate to about 15% market share in the chosen markets. They are probably outperforming right now, and over time their numbers will settle.
Besides, they still outsold _any_ Android maker, but no one compares Apple to Dell + HP + Acer + Lenovo when it comes to PCs. And even if they were outsold by each manufacturer, Apple is happy as long as their brand allows them to sell a premium product at make outsize profits, which they are doing.
But have you really?
I’d get punched if I went round asking complete strangers that.
I don’t really by that. Aside the fact that your evidence is completely anecdotal, it’s also unsubstantiated with my own experiences.
Most of the people I know have chosen Android because they wanted Android. However most of my mates are geeks so admittedly not the best cross-section to examine.
Of those people I know that are not nerds, half of them said they chose Android because they wanted an iPhone but couldn’t afford one, and the other half just wanted something cheap but flash (without any preference towards Apple in the slightest).
Now I’m not about to say that you’re lying as sadly this is an argument that can’t be proved so discussing the validity is pretty futile. However I will say that your findings does not match up with my own experiences.
Given the hoopla surrounding the iPhone, it’s not really that surprising that the average consumer (someone who doesn’t read articles like this) might consider the iPhone as a top seller that sheep go for.
After all, the iPhone is advertised and talked about in the media more than every other handset put together.
Clearly that’s not Apple’s fault – in fact I’ve always said that regardless of peoples opinion of Jobs / Apple, they do know how to market a product. However assuming that your evidence is reliable (and I really don’t consider it to be), it just goes to prove that there is such thing as over-exposure.
Why would anyone blame Apple for that?
Doesn’t that clearly *make* it Apple’s fault?
Yes and no.
Apple clearly instigate it by promoting their products as a lifestyle icon. However it’s the sheeple who fall into this pseudo-religious BS that are the real problem. The sort of people who can’t go a day without telling people how amazingly enriched their lives are since letting their Lord into their lives. Granted you get these people on all platforms, but Apple fanboys seem particularly smug (which is particularly annoying when some of them are technologically inept so haven’t the slightest idea what they’re actually talking about).
It’s also the media who fuel the fire by constantly plugging Apples devices as “omg stop the press as this will literally change the world”, who further lead the sheeple on. Adverts that plug their new iPhone app despite releasing apps for Android as well or “news” articles in national publications and TV about Apple hardware – and as the general public naively think that TV technology reporters actually know the first thing about the technology they report on, you end up creating a new generation of mindless zombies.
So it would be little wonder if people rebel from all that noise thinking that Android is the underdog, and you can’t really blame Apple create a culture like this. This kind of mentality has always existed – Apple just knew how to tap it. Plus in truth, I can’t blame Apple for doing so because I probably would have done the same had I been in their position. After all, they have a company to run and products to sell.
What I can’t agree with is Apple’s aggressive attacks on sites that don’t conform to Apple’s PR image and their iron grip on their – *correction*, our purchased – hardware. If I buy one of their products, then I own it. Simple. Just as if I want to read about how to hack *my* hardware, then I damn well don’t want hacking tutorials closed down. However, that is a whole other argument and I’ve ranted on for long enough already.
Funny because all my friends said they wanted something like an iPhone but where they didn’t have to a) jail-break it to get freedom and b) pay an extra ^a‘not100-^a‘not200 for a similar product.
I bought an unlocked Star A3000 Android phone because it cost less than $200 including a 32GB memory card. An unlocked iPhone 4G 32GB costs $999 in Australia.
http://www.sciphonereviews.com/star/star-a3000-an-android-2-2-mobil…
Android phones will be available online for less than $100 within a few months.
I bought an unlocked ZTE Blade because it cost 1500 SEK (+300 for a 16GB MicroSDHC-card). An iPhone 4 costs ~7000 SEK and all other Android phones with 800×480 screen cost 3500+ SEK. The best price/performance purchase I ever did.
I bought it because right now is the worst time to buy a high end Android phone with all the Tegra 2 phones coming out in a couple of months. This is my first modern smartphone (had a crappy Sony Ericsson p990i that I hated above all things) and I love it!
1500 SEK is 234 USD, and that price includes the 25% VAT…
you can pick up a T-Mobile Pulse Mini in the UK for ^Alb59.99 including ^Alb10 airtime, taxes and delivery. 59.99 GBP = 96.15 AUD, so I’d say we are there already.
I’m talking about unlocked phones with no contract for $100.
Google 33 million shipped now last 4.7 million Ok android has had a bumper year.
Nokia 31 million shipped now last 23.9. Still growth.
Apple 16.2 million now last 8.7 million. Still growth but less than Nokias.
RIM 14.6 now last 10.7 Again less than apples.
Microsoft now 3.1 millon last 3.9. Hello big problem.
I would say Nokia if you go anyway other than your own path android. Microsoft is sinking.
Other cat 3.0 mill vs 1.8 last year. Again growth.
MS is the only one slipping backwards in number of units sold. Number of units sold is critical to having money to alter future.
It’s all about the device and the price. Few people even know what OS their device run. The OSes are pretty much identical. Surfing the web and sending emails can be done on Bada just as well as on Android. Nobody will ever install more than 10 000 apps on their phone. 10 to 50 apps are just enough. The Symbian drop in market share is because there are less manufacturers and therefore less models. The android rise is because there are more models. It’s that simple.
You might well be right.
What an inflammatory headline. Here are some equally inflammatory responses:
1) “Android” violates nearly every guiding principle of open source development except for the strictest adherence to the legal definition of availability of source code under an open license.
2) It is produced by a company intent on leveraging its near monopoly position in search to reduce the market value of software in any related vertical market it invades to zero, in this instance smartphone apps or OS development. And all in the name of getting a controlling stake in any platform that directs eyeballs to its revenue stream: ads from Google servers.
3) It freely gives away what it had to know to be an infringing OS distribution without patent indemnification to as many manufacturers as it can in the hopes that sheer numbers will doom any legal challenge. (It won’t and btw if found to infringe on these patents, I’d wager that Google has ensnared nearly all developers of Android apps into its product liability circus but IANAL)
4) Part and parcel of Android’s popularity in the US is piracy. The peer-to-peer or friend-to-friend pirating of apps on the android platform is significantly higher than on any other smartphone platform and Google doesn’t really care because they want your revenue to be driven not by sales but by their ad stream. Their response was to provide a licensing scheme that works only on a subset of handsets and only if not rooted or for apps installed only from their store. This is not an easy problem to solve and one not unique to Android user culture (obviously) and the Signed Symbian process was not perfect, but it seems clear to me at least that it will never be a high priority problem for Google to engineer and certainly one that will get nothing more more than lip service discouragement until Android market share is truly dominant (ala Microsoft and Win 3.x) because it doesn’t want to risk alienating the free PR it gets from the fanbase.
Consider:
A) Symbian is the only fully open source smartphone OS shipping in any significant numbers. Maemo (a true linux OS with a full userland and 98% open codebase as shipped on N900) the other but that development effort was abandoned by Nokia in what will turn out to be one of the dumbest decisions ever in their corporate history if they don’t ship a meego based phone in the next month.
B) Symbian development was until recently led by a non-profit foundation with no nefarious goals and an open community-driven decision process. And as a result was incompatible with Rubin’s attempt to “improve” the smartphone market and his own bottom line. It remains to be seen whether Nokia will continue to do so or treat Symbian like Google does Lindroid. So far ftp access to source and a transition of the wiki has been maintained but it seems unclear whether community input or contributions are a high priority.
C) You’re comparing the shipping numbers of the last manufacturer of Symbian phones with no real carrier presence in the US (Nokia) to the numbers of all the other manufacturers numbers both international and US combined under the Google facade, apart from Apple and RIM which actually produce a full product to sell (OS and hardware).
Finally you’re also making up a bullshit narrative which must draw from your anti-Apple leanings (which I must admit I share). No one with a brain (apart from some Apple fire-breather, wait I said with a brain; I repeat myself) would have said Android was niche or would have no chance. Many, myself included, predicted Google had no chance of selling/shipping a phone in the US because of the carrier situation. Which has turned out to be entirely true. The Nexus attempt to circumvent the system was a flat out debacle/failure no matter how you measure it. But the PR fanboi posturing that passes as technology journalism nowadays eschews any real analysis in favor of telling a good v evil duality story to sell copy/ad imprints and ensure early access, invites and paid trips to product launches.
So, sure go ahead and cheer for Android “slaying” the Symbian dragon or whatever, but take a few minutes from the fanboism and reflect on how much of a step back this is for open source development. The end of Symbian if that’s what you’re cheering for will mean the end of any commercially viable, truly open source presence in the smartphone market.
Symbian was the only open alternative to:
iOS (proprietary with perhaps a small bit of open components forked beyond recognition), Android (hegemonic, infringing open source userspace on Linux), RIM v1 (fully proprietary) RIM v2 (QNX open source/community source status always unclear, now clouded at best), WebOS (entirely proprietary userspace on Linux)
That leaves just Maemo (stillborn but 98% open), Meego which has 0% market share, and that weird hybrid Bada with nearly 0% market share.
The only interesting point in this article was the statement that Android was well on the way to becoming the Windows of the smartphone world. Which I’m betting is probably a comparison more pregnant with promise than I’m sure you intended to draw. Only time will tell.
A meego phone is coming. The rumor is that Nokia will reveal the n9 in feb. Who knows when it will ship though…
nokia should give us a choice, an open phone with the option to install whatever os we want: symbian, android, windows phone whatever. Just release the device with a free os and if you want windows just let users buy a wp7 rom
That’s the n900.
I have one and its a “dated” phone. Thick with a small screen. nokia has a recent history of piddling around too much. As much as I dislike java, google did make decisive decisions with android and have built a viable (if not slow and choppy) system.
the n900 bootloader was free to do with what you liked. I have seen it running Symbian^3, Android, and an unverified video of windowsNT.
The problem is drivers, as always. 98% of the codebase for maemo on the n900 was open source, the remaining bits were mostly all closed drivers for the radio, the 3d driver. The code for the battery management was also closed, probably for liability purposes. Don’t want someone writing malicious code that causes it to catch on fire. The other problem is that the toolchain for building for the OMAP platform from Texas Instruments is closed as well.
Before your dream of a truly free device is realized we need to have open hardware. Always been a tough cookie to crack. Aava is trying. Can buy one of their phones and it will boot Android, Maemo, Meego. Perhaps symbian^3 I don’t know.
Edited 2011-02-03 10:13 UTC