The avalanche of little green men…
Meet Andy Rubin with Google. Andy heads up the Android division. Andy has a twitter account, and you can follow him here. Andy is doesn’t tweet very often. In fact, he *rarely* tweets.
But last week, he tweeted this:
300,000 Android phones are activated each day. Holy Cow. That’s an incredible number. Eric Schmidt in February said 60,000 devices shipped a day. 300k is a testimony to the Android brand and Google’s marketing prowess.
The Apple iPhone, while a terrific smartphone, has a slow release cycle because in traditional Apple fashion; it’s a black box. Only Apple makes it. Only Apple sells it (yes, you can get it from carriers like you can get a mac from Best Buy, but there is only one mac). Only Apple decides what you can put on your iPhone.
This gives the iPhone some distinct advantages over other smart phone platforms. It’s consistency helps developers maintain a great user experience.
Android, on the other hand, is on a plethora of devices. It’s based on Linux so it’s an open platform. It’s extremely inexpensive and extensible. And as a consumer, I have a lot of options to find a phone to fits my style and personality.
But these seemingly great advantages are also disadvantages. Not all phones have the same features or hardware. Their screen sizes can vary.
Either way, 300,000 phones activating a day means that if that held up and it were only in the United States. Every U.S. Citizen would have an activated Android phone in just under three years.
What are you getting for Christmas?