“Google’s IO developer conference kicked off May 28, with a keynote by Sundar Pichai, head of Android, Chrome and app development,” Mark Hibben writes for Seeking Alpha. “He led off the conference with what I consider to be an earth shaking announcement, yet early media reports appear to have missed its import. He announced that the number of Android users was over 1 billion. Why is this important? Because the number is essentially unchanged from last year… How much over a billion? Pichai was quoting user numbers in tenths of a billion, so I think it’s safe to say that it was less than 1.1 billion.”
Apple’s iPhone 6 “posted phenomenal sales numbers for the December quarter… [and] went on to break records for the March quarter as well. I’m sure it didn’t help Android’s cause that much of the iPhone’s sales strength came from China, which has been a bastion of Android growth,” Hibben writes. “To me, it feels like Google has lost the initiative. Android Pay is a reaction and attempt to catch up to Apple Pay. The announcement that Android would soon offer HBO Now came months after the announcement of the Apple version. And there was nothing like what is widely expected to be unveiled at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference: a new Apple TV with games, apps, and cable-like channel bundles.”
“So this will be the year of catch up and patch up for Android. Will that be enough to spur growth in the user base? I suspect not,” Hibben writes. “In contrast, I believe that the iOS user population has grown robustly since the introduction of iPhone 6. How much is difficult to say. According to my iOS population model, the number of iOS users, including iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch was over 800 million by the end of 2014… The problem for Google is that it appears to be losing users to Apple in more developed markets such as China as fast as they are gained in less developed markets. This isn’t a particularly good business model.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: With Google, you’re the product. You surrender your personal data in exchange for “free.” Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
With its me-too Apple Pay, er… “Android Pay” and its Photos, er… “Photos” knockoff, Google has, as with Android itself, once again proven to be a derivative, uninspired Apple imitator – and not a particularly good one at that.
SEE ALSO:
How Google aims to delve deeper into users’ lives – May 29, 2015
Google demos Apple Pay wannabe, ‘Android Pay’ – May 28, 2015
Google Photos offers unlimited photo storage for iOS, Android and Web users – May 28, 2015
Ponder where AAPL would be today had Eric T. Mole not weaseled in & fcked over Steve Jobs. That MOLE is THE reason for Apple’s current struggle against liars & thieves in tech.
How ANYBODY can trust such a morally corrupt company Is simply beyond comprehension. My best explanation…… vitriol & iHate.
Apple Haters, disingenuous “open source” junkies, customization (ad nauseum) jockeys and jailbreaking geektards need to have their fun too – hence Android.
All sane others with a life to live go iPhone & Apple.
This article is WHY AAPL still thrives today. Steve Jobs did not THINK “short term” ….
Woz KNOWS!
“Steve Jobs [had] a very futuristic forward vision, almost a bit of the science fiction, ‘Here’s what life could be,’ but Bill Gates had more of an execution ability to build the things that are needed now, to build a company now, make the profits now, in the short-term,” Wozniak explained. “I think that was the biggest difference between them.”
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And I quote: “while the tech media overall has worked hard to propagate Google’s official version of events—such as portraying China’s Xiaomi as being a grave threat to Apple—the reality is that Xiaomi’s success comes at Google’s expense. Every cheap Xiaomi phone replaces Google Play, Gmail, Google+ and Google Ads with non-Google services that Google can’t compete against.”
Yay! Looks like Google’s spending many “nights in the box.” 🙂
Erick Mole “Schidth”
Doesn’t it make sense that Google is playing catch up? Their business model is based on selling your information to advertisers but the advertisers are increasingly aware that iOS users spend more than Android users. Therefore, advertising revenue is likely stagnating for Google, resulting in less (increase) in investment in the platform.
Meanwhile, Apple increases the iOS ecosphere with the watch and expands the user base. (Someone needs to do some thought analysis on the effect of Apple getting Android switchers, since if Android users don’t spend as much, coming over to the Apple platform could reduce the per-user spending average. Alternatively, if Apple is attracting the creme of the Android crop, the average Android spending is going to take a nasty hit!)
Well, Apple is certainly well-heeled enough to offer free storage, up to at least 20 gigs, yes?
Didn’t Google also say there are around 4000 different Android models selling on 400 or 500 carriers? They also said the average developer tests their software on 2-3 devices. Google introduced a cloud-based testing platform so developers can test their apps on other devices.
Back in the day, I was involved with a small software team. Our application was Windows based (not browser based) and only tested for Windows machines. My team had two software testers that wrote automated scripts and tested items like button clicks, data, etc. Each automated test took two days to complete.
Today, software interacts with sensors like gyroscopes and connections like wifi and cell. In addition, Android manufacturers include their own software layer and/or fork Android, carriers also install software and there are many versions of Android still running in the wild. It took my team two days to test against two Microsoft operating systems. So, I think it not believable that developers will be able to properly test the millions of device combinations and configurations “in the cloud”.
There have been recent rumblings that the latest released Android build is causing issues like severe battery drain on many recently released Android phones. There are also reports that some popular games don’t work properly on some high-end Android phones. If Google or large software companies can’t get their shit working properly then how do they expect the rest of the industry to comply?
The Android ecosystem is a monsterous mess and Google is unable to put the genie back in the bottle.
Somehow in my gut this MAY work out to Apples favor. “ANDROID IMPLOSION” I will call it.
No corrupt government can claim
Apple a monopoly … With only 17$+- market share. But! LORD KNOWS THEY WILL TRY!
What a fcked up world. Right Judge COTE! SCUM!
” And there was nothing like what is widely expected to be unveiled at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference: a new Apple TV with games, apps, and cable-like channel bundles.”
This isn’t true. While the announcement was not made by Google at their I/O conference, NVidia did announce the Shield set top box. It does most, if not all, of what Apple will likely announce at Apple’s WWDC. It even supports UDHTV at 60 Hz and has up to date interfaces like HDMI 2.0. It is a bit pricey at $299 plus $49 for a non gaming controller remote and $29 for a stand (why isn’t this included?). So to get a box that might be equivalent to Apple’s possible AppleTV set top box (though Apple’s box is unlikely to support UHDTV at 60 Hz — Apple is very, very rarely that “bleeding edge”) you need to spend $377.
While Apple’s implementation may be significantly better (we’ll have to see once it’s announced), it does no one any good to ignore other products out there (or worse, claim they don’t exist).
Apple’s rarely that bleeding edge? They were years ahead of everyone else with the mouse, floppy disk, hi-res full color display, fast ethernet etc while all the Windows idiots laughed. More recently, they were first with, you know, the smartphone, and 5K display. This is but a cursory glance at a few of Apple’s advancements over the years.
China is a developed market? Um, no.
But, but Bloomberg says that Google announced a Bombshell, an Android app for its personalized Now service that provides notifications over any app. Wow!! How did Mark miss that? /s
Here’s a little tid bit about China and Android: while the tech media overall has worked hard to propagate Google’s official version of events—such as portraying China’s Xiaomi as being a grave threat to Apple—the reality is that Xiaomi’s success comes at Google’s expense. Every cheap Xiaomi phone replaces Google Play, Gmail, Google+ and Google Ads with non-Google services that Google can’t compete against.