“I wrote a column earlier this year titled ‘2012: The Year Google Fixes Android or Loses the War,'” Ben Bajarin writes for Tech.pinions. “In that column I laid out a number of issues facing Android as well as the business reasons why many problems existed. When we think about Android we need to remember that Google is an advertising company and that is how they think. With that in mind Google’s platform decisions will be made with that agenda. This point needs to be clear, Google is an advertising company, Apple is an experience company.”
“Recently as well, ZDNet writer Jason Perlow wrote an interesting article on why he is ‘sick to death of Android,’” Bajarin writes. “In fact if you survey the media sentiment toward Android over the past six months you will see that much of the excitement is gone and it has moved to frustration. With these observations in mind it comes as no surprise that recent Nielsen data gives evidence of Android’s momentum slowdown and what I believe will be inevitable market share decline.”
Bajarin writes, “The momentum downswing of Android and the inevitable decline of inventory as more OEMs support Windows Phone as well is why I agree with my colleagues at IDC that there is a platform shift taking place. However I believe iOS for sure and potentially Windows Phone are the longer term winners, unless Google can make some market moves to convince me otherwise.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: What was that we wrote last October? Oh, yeah:
Windows Phone will be popular. Over time, it’ll eat the lunch of the increasingly fragmented, increasingly insecure, and increasingly costly Android (losing patent infringement lawsuits and dropping features/paying royalties to multiple IP owners will do that to you).
The not-iPhone world will begin to dump Android and move to Microsoft’s mobile OS offering because it will eventually cost less, work better, and come with far fewer legal issues. In the iPhone wannabe market, it’s already happening (Nokia, for example). We expect the same to happen in the iPad wannabe market, too. Google and Microsoft will long battle each other for the non-Apple markets and that’s a much better scenario for everyone than having a single ripoff artist flood the market with fragmented, insecure, beta-esque, mediocre-at-best products. Google’s attempt to be the next Microsoft is doomed.
This, of course, will also impact Google’s search business. Apple’s Siri will increasingly deliver info to users sans Google and Microsoft will, naturally, use Bing for their search. As we’ve said many times in the past: Google will rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them.
The bottom line: We’d rather see a company trying unique ideas, even if – shockingly – it’s Microsoft, than the wholesale theft of Apple innovations that we’ve been seeing for over four years now. Don’t steal IP. Even worse, don’t steal IP and “claim to be innovators.” We have no problem with any companies that attempt to compete with Apple using their own unique ideas and strategies.
Related articles:
ZDNet Senior Tech Editor: ‘I’m sick to death of Android’ – March 29, 2012
Nielsen: Apple’s U.S. iPhone market share surges as Android stalls – March 29, 2012
Apple’s thermonuclear war on Android – March 29, 2012
2011 best-selling smartphones in USA: Apple iPhone models take top 3 spots – February 23, 2012
Aftershocks from Android market share dive rumble through mobile market – January 31, 2012
Legendary judge hands Apple key patent interpretation victory against Android – January 30, 2012
ABI: Apple iPhone tops smartphone market as Android suffers its first decline in share – January 27, 2012
Apple overtakes Samsung to take world’s largest smartphone vendor crown – January 27, 2012
These charts will make the Fandroids want to puke – January 26, 2012
AT&T sold 7.6 million iPhones and fewer than 1.8 million Android phones in Q411 – January 26, 2012
Apple’s iOS passes Google’s Android to take U.S. smartphone market share crown – January 25, 2012
Analyst: Verizon’s record iPhone sales signal waning demand for Google Android phones – January 24, 2012
The iPad is also a huge factor. Android on tablets sucks — even Phandroids buy iPads — and that is frustrating device makers who see Apple taking over that market. Those makers aren’t seeing much profit in Android already, and that dissatisfaction is leading them to rethink Android. It’s a cumulative effect.
Actually Android runs quite well on tablets, it is the simple fact that there are barely any tablet apps and everything is just a phone version stretched on the screen that is the killer!
I do not see them fixing that issue anytime soon either!
That’s where fragmentation gets to you… Developers don’t want to also have to support tablet screens!
More importantly developers can’t make any money from Android so they have no incentive to write apps.
Definitely true. Spending 25% of their time developing and making it compatible with most droid devices and then only having it count for 6% of their revenue…
If they put that time into developing for iOS (like they are doing) they can churn out higher quality apps and make more cash on them 🙂
Google controls the development of Android… so hardware manufactures are unable to better Apple. Apple knew the best way was to control the software iOS and design control over the hardware.
Rim and Windows attempting to developing their own OS is the right way to challenge Apple. But most likely they both are far too late – unless they really innovate and see a bigger picture – fit other areas where Apple is not – completely radical as the iPhone was. Attempt something fresh rather than imitate and steal. Coping will not do enough good.
MS deserves to be there because for once it’s “thought different”.
Putting Microsoft and “unique ideas” in the same sentence seems a bit of a stretch. Regardless, non-iOS users will continue to search for a functional device platform until “inevitable futility” finally sets in.
In developed markets, Apple might increase its strengths, but in developing markets — not so much. This is because the price there are superstrong factor. So Android will not lose the war, or course.
@dress, So you would think… Just like it would be reasonable to think that Apple would suffer in a recession because it makes “premium” or “luxury” items. Yet the opposite was true: when money was tight, people looked for real value, and Apple was the only company to grow profitability.
It will likely prove to be the same with emerging markets… doesnt matter where people are and who they are, ultimately they will be looking for value in the long run. They have “jobs to be done” for their devices and small businesses to run, just like those in developed countries.
You can run a business on an iPhone or iPad. An iPad is the ultimate small / entry level laptop and blows netbooks away for functionality. There is a good reason that the grey market in Apple devices is strong — it’s a good investment for anyone in the world.
Google on the other hand relies on ad revenue, and that is what will suffer in developing nations — Android’s meantime has gone, it has got its profitable users, such as they are, and iOS provides more income to Google than does Android — what incentive does Google have to work at improving Android?
The ONLY thing holding the growth of Apple in developing countries back, is NOT price, it is widespread ubiquitous WIFI and connectivity. Growth is inevitable, it is only a matter of time. Because this time, in the post-PC world as opposed to PCs, Apple is the mass appeal company and is not battling a perception that it is a niche product trying to prove its value beyond certain industries like design or publishing. We are not talking about 4000 – 6000 entry level prices, we are talking about 400-600 with immediate and obvious benefits. And competitors can’t make useful or quality tablets for comparable prices.
I’d argue that Windows Phone is actually so unpopular that it won’t fill the vacuum left by Android. They’ll just both die. And their former users will either migrate to the iPhone or some new contestant that enters the fray.
Is it possible that Android will become the Linux of the handheld world?
That is already the case. I mean Android runs on Linux.
Android is Linux. A cut down version like iOS is of OS X.
I don’t think so and I think Google is considering the possibility of letting android die.
Why?
First, what is the primary purpose of Android to Google? . . . Sell or give away a system that gathers users information to sell. Google is ALL about Ads. Google considers users as the commodity not the customer and they have stated so. With all of the civilized countries putting the clamps on tracking and using personal information for one reason or another (and to sell to advertisers) – Google is losing its basic purpose for which it made the OS for phones in the first place.
I think the fundamental error Google made in Android’s infancy was to allow manufacturers and carriers to control the experience. On the one hand, Google couldn’t have expected to gain market traction by mandating that all entities use stock Android, but by ceding control, not only did they allow their product to be diluted with garish overlays like TouchWiz and Sense, but also allowed the device-spewing manufacturers to basically ignore Android’s upgrades.
I wish I could say that Apple’s defense of its intellectual property played a role in this, but the sad truth is that the courts have proven to be anything but interested in defending IP.
http://themacadvocate.com/2012/03/29/even-androids-apologists-are-sick-of-android/