Android and iOS battle it out
Android is gaining on iOS in terms of new smartphone sales.
Nielsen’s latest smartphone market share survey from November of 2010 shows the iPhone is still #1 when it comes to smartphone market share.
However, Android is now tied for 2nd place with RIM’s Blackberry. That’s an increase of 6% from October 2010. 6%!!!
What is more interesting to me is not the current market share report – but the trends of smartphone purchases. Android dominates.
Think about this – if you were sitting down to write software for smart phones, would you target the #1 phone today or the #1 selling phone today? Where will the market be in six months?
I guess it depends on just how big of a market share the #1 has. At the current rate of sales – how long before Android becomes the dominant smart phone platform and Apple, which their closed “walled garden” mentality, blows it again.
Is Apple destine to be the Chicago Cubs of the tech industry? Will they always break our hearts due to their greed?
Gingerbread and the Nexus S
Gingerbread (Android 2.3) is the follow up to Froyo (Android 2.2). Although a lot of phones are still waiting on Froyo updates (Sprint, are you listening?), the new Google Nexus S will have Gingerbread installed.
Gingerbread features the following (from the dev blog):
Support for VP8 and WebM video and audio effects. VP8 is Google’s video codec, support for front-facing cameras, SIP/VoIP and NFC (Near Field Communication), and new sensor types for game developers.
The Nexus S looks like a very slick phone:
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1 Ghz CPU
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16GB flash memory
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4 inch Super AMOLED that’s actually curved
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5 megapixel camera and front facing VGA camera
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?