Fanzine Apple Insider appears to be having a little difficulty when it comes to the fact that Apple is slowly losing the mobile operating system wars to Android.
Faced with web analytics statistics that say that Android is kicking the Apple OS's bottom, Apple Insider elected to say the complete opposite to keep the reality distortion field going.
In this article it admitted that the Android ecosystem combined is “slightly ahead of Apple's iPhone 4”.
However, Android continues to be outpaced by Apple's iOS, largely due to the rapid growth of the iPad. What you look at when you see these figures is not market share, but the fact that Apple is leading in both mobile browsing and app sales.
In a "never mind the quality, feel the width argument" Apple Insider claims the figures refute recent reports that claim Android is displacing iOS.
And all those reports that Android platform has passed the iPhone 4 in both installed base and growth, Apple Insider reasons that Android stats are for the total platform while iOS stats are broken out into three categories, iPhone, iPad and iPod.
It says that Android has never passed the iOS on its widest field. However, then you would also have to include the Mac market in the figures, and you would not be looking at mobile figures.
Of course it has to admit that no one is buying iPods any more so it has lost market share, but then the iPad is doing better.
However, what about the StatCounter Mobile survey which indicates that Apple's iPhone has lost web browser share since the end of 2008 ? Um, says Apple Insider, if you look closer at those figures you will see that Mobile Safari has grown from third place to be second behind Opera Mini in two years.
Apple Insider smugly says that Android's browser has never come close to exceeding the iPhone browser use,even if you include iPod Touch or iPad users. There are several holes in this argument. Among other things, Android is not locked into a browser. All those Opera Mini figures could just as well be Android.
The Opera Mini runs on Macs too.
So, Apple Insider's attempt to make you think that browser share is an indication of the popularity of an OS is silly. Apple Insider insists that Job's Mob reversed its downward trend last summer, when the iPhone4 launched, and it was slowly growing with the iPad.
Again, Apple Insider has a reality problem because it has told the world that the iPhone 4 sales were really good. But it has forgotten that does not mean that Android sales weren't better. In seeing it as competition between Apple and Android, Apple followers are missing the bigger picture.
Symbian is dying and filling that void is Android. Apple could not, nor would it want, the customers who ran Symbian. Apple is a "value add" outfit. Symbian is a “getting the phone running” business. Then Apple Insider trots out the mantra that iOS must be more successful because the App Store revenue growth is eleven times greater than Android Market in 2010.
It asks you to believe that the success of an operating system is dictated by the number of iFart applications you can buy. Quantity does not mean quality, nor does it mean that any of these applications are being used. If a purge was done of Apps which had not been downloaded for a while, you would see the Apple App Store shrink dramatically. Apple also has the advantage of being on the ground longer than Android.
The rest of the article is dedicated to re-assuring followers of Apple that really they are onto a winner, but it does sound a bit like a quick rousing chorus of “Deutschland” in the Berlin Bunker.
In the face of overwhelming evidence and logic, dedicated followers of Apple need to face-up to the fact that they are not going to be the number one mobile operating system.
Instead of thinking that matters and arguing that black is white, they should be happy that they are going to have a significant market share in a much larger market. As Symbian dies the real winner will be Android and there is nothing that the tame Apple press can do to change that.
Let's also compare how much Apple made from iPhones to Googles entire quarter's gross revenues- not just from Android. We know Google makes squat from Android.
The only figure where Android is ahead of iOS is in smartphone unit sales. In all other metrics - total installed base, OS web browser share, app numbers, developer numbers, top tier game numbers, app download numbers, developer income, manufacturer income share etc, iOS beats Android. Even in quarterly unit sales of each entire platform, iOS equals Android.
As usual, Android fans like you talk in terms of platform - Android vs iOS - but only count smartphone quarterly unit sales as that is the only figure where Android is ahead of iOS. However, developers are interested in the total size of the platform, both installed base as well as current unit sales of all devices in each platform as well as actual developer income share, app download market share, web browser share etc.
You conveniently ignore the iPod touch and the iPad which together double Apple's iOS total platform size and show just how far less compelling the Android story is for developers.
*Installed base*
- "There will be an installed base of 140 million Android portable devices, including smartphones and tablets, by the end of 2011" according to IMS Research.
- iOS installed base will be at least 250 million by the end of 2011 if current iOS sales rates stay the same.
However, iOS sales rates have been doubling every year so this figure is enormously conservative. (The iOS installed base as at Dec 2010 = 160 million with the vast majority of those added in the last 2 years)
*Unit Sales Q4 2010* (source: Canalys)
- 32.7 million Android smartphones and tablets (tablets like the Galaxy tab and Dell streak were counted in these numbers because they all have cell phone hardware).
- 33 million iOS devices (16 million iPhones, 10 million iPod touches, 7 million iPads)
Note that Android numbers are inflated by inclusion of the Tapas and OMS forks of Android (which aren't fully compatible with Android or running Google apps or services) running on millions of Chinese smartphones.
However, even if Android does eventually surpass iOS in installed base sometime several years in the future, it still won't matter for developers because they make FAR more from iOS than they do from Android:
*App Store Revenue 2009 - 2010* (source: IHS):
- iOS App Store grew from $769 million to $1.782 billion = $1.013 billion increase
- Android Marketplace grew from $11 million to $102 million = $91 million increase
So annual Android developer income is a meagre 6% of iOS with an annual rate of increase only 9% as large as iOS. The gap between the two is 1,000% and getting far larger every year.
*Advertising income per user* (source: Mobclix)
Mobclix's Jan 2011 stats demonstrate that in the Advertising game, iPhone users are far more valuable than Android users.
In the Games category, the average iPhone user brought in more than double the advertising revenue per month compared to the average Android user, a third more income in the entertainment category and 30% more in the utilities category.
Even on Google's home turf - advertising - iOS beats Android.
But guess what, downloads of free Android apps as well as paid is a small fraction of iOS downloads. ABI Research reports that of the 7.9 billion mobile App downloads that took place in 2010, 5.6 billion of these (71%) went to Apple iOS devices. The current iOS app download rate is well over 30 million app downloads every day and still accelerating according to Asymco.
And yes despite your attempts at denying Apple Insider's figures, iOS does have a far greater web browser share than Android. Net Applications just released their March 2011 figures for operating system web market share and as usual iOS came in with a share over three times as large as Android, third only to Mac OS X at 5.25% and Windows on 89.58%. iOS = 1.87% Android = 0.56% (source: Net Applications)
With developers making far more money on iOS than Android, with far less piracy, freedom from malware and spamware and a vast 200 million credit-card toting iTunes user base and ecosystem, iOS maintains a enormous market advantage over Android that developers ignore at their peril.
So Nick, in the face of overwhelming evidence and logic, dedicated followers of Android need to face-up to the fact that they are not going to be the number one mobile operating system anytime soon in all the ways that actually matter.
-Mart
I'll bet you are really excited about that.
Have a nice day.
GOOD LUCK WITH ALL THAT.
Smurf the iPhone is more hacked than Android and at least you can get AV software for the Android....
If you are so happy being an Android fanboy, you shouldn't need to be so much in opposition to Apple and its products.
People with Apple products generally don't care about Android. But as an Android proponent you seem to be negatively obsessed with Apple products and the people who use them.
If you live happily in a garden, you tend to enjoy your environment. But if you live outside the garden you have the choice of either joining those inside... or throwing rocks (as you do).
Where on earth do you get the impression that users of Apple products care even one iota about this... (although you certainly are obsessed with this whole numbers game ;-)
You have chosen to use an Android device instead of an iOS device... we get it!
Why does it upset you so much that others have chosen Apple products over Samsung, Motorola, HTC, or other Android products?
Hey, I have a Samsung TV. Are you going to slam it (and me) because I don't have a Sony TV (or whatever brand) like you do?
Don't be insecure.
If you enjoy your Android device... great! But you are not everyone else, and their choices may not be yours.
And ranting certainly is not going to convince others to change their choices for your benefit, if that is your goal.
"@Martin.... I bet that in 18 months time you will regret saying that :-)"
Nick, I'm not sure what it is that you reckon I'll regret saying?
I have shown that Android is far behind iOS in a bunch of different market share metrics including installed base, app download numbers, web browser share and indicated that even if/when the size of Android's installed base pulls ahead of iOS, it won't necessarily matter as Android has so far demonstrated itself incapable of providing developers with anything like the income that iOS developers make.
Symbian and JavaME have demonstrated that simply having even vastly larger marketshare is quite useless if you don't have the app numbers, app download market share, web browsing market share, manufacturer profit share or developer income to go with it.
If you have numbers to disprove anything I've said (and please use total platform size for a useful comparison) then please go ahead and do so.
-Mart
Where I've been amused by the "Apple Followers" is watching them trot out the same arguments that Windows users used. They're happy to bring up things like the number of available apps. But when you point out that, by the same rationale, Windows must be better than Mac OS X, they tend to sputter and go, "Well, that's different!" before beating a hasty retreat.
The more recent one was the Xoom. Remember the Windows guys saying, "The cheapest Mac is $599! I can get a Dell for $250!" Now you hear, "The Xoom is $799! The iPad is only $499!" Of course, they neglect to mention that the $799 Xoom has twice the storage of the iPad as well as 3G, HDMI out, and USB. When you configure the machines as identically as possible (from a hardware standpoint), the price difference is $3 in the iPad's favor. Like the Windows guys comparing the cheap-ass Dell with an old Pentium IV (versus a Core Duo/Core 2 Duo), slow memory, etc. with the Mac mini.
Hey guess what, i am sure that there are more bycicles in China than cars but would you also like to predict, that the car market isn't the future for transportation in China? Nope, therefor it makes no sense to come up with numbers of overall installed devices!
Let's talk a little bit more about developers and revenue. Martin, i am sure you know a lot about all these regional appstores especially in Asia that are popping up. Telcos are creating a huge aftersales market overhere and they use Android for it! The momentum in China for Android is simply stunning and when we look at the growth rates for 3G in China (let me quote ABI: Chinese 3G Subscribers’ ARPU Triple that of GSM; 3G to Reach 36% of China’s Subscribers by 2016), we know what huge impact this will have on the market.
You might wanna consider looking at what's happening now and in the future and not what happened in the last 4 years.
By the way here are some pf my predictions for the tablet market:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/Android-tablets-to-overtake-iPad-Experts/articleshow/7863143.cms
Now if I could only make washing machine OSs trendy I could rule the world mwahaha.
Exactly!
Reading this intemperate article and the vehement comments it has generated from both sides, you have to wonder about how distorted some people's values have become.
It's bad enough that there is unrestrained anger and hatred between people over Christianity vs. Islam, Republican vs. Democrat, White vs. Black, etc... But to be so combative over something as trivial as choice of software that runs on phones and tablets is the height of idiocy.
Let's see, Symbian users used to boast about what amazingly high smart phone unit sales market share they had while desperately ignoring the facts that
- there were no resultant benefits from this fact as Symbian developers had pitiful revenue from apps,
- Symbian app download numbers were very low
- manufacturer income for Symbian handset manufacturers was dreadfully low
- there was no vast number of third party hardware peripherals for Symbian handsets
- most Symbian sales were to developing nations where the available income for apps and services was very low
- web browsing share for Symbian users was amazingly low
- the Symbian OS was actually fragmented over several variations and it was often impossible to get that latest firmware updates for particular phones
- Symbian users suffered from carriers putting their own spin on Symbian and mucking up any hope of a standard user interface
- Symbian apps were a dog's breakfast in term of GUI and UI
etc
Well, look at that. That list EXACTLY describes Android.
The problem is that Android boosters such as yourselves keep on trying to distort current statistics to make it seem Android is far more successful than it actually is and pushing distorted interpretations of "growth rate" in the process. In reality, iOS is actually showing far more real growth than Android as in the area of developer income where Android grew only $91 million while iOS developer income grew a real $1 billion in 2010. That is the sort of trend that Android boosters desperately try to deny.
Oh and fragmented app stores are no advantage. Devs then have to target myriads of stores and consumers have to go visit heaps of different stores and still not be guaranteed of being able to select from all available apps. What advantage is that? A one-stop shop where you're guaranteed of seeing all apps that are available is far preferable.
-Mart
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/apple-android-market-share_n_844421.html
I don't see any figures in that comment at all. Just the view that Symbian is similar to Android. The statement that Android users are cooking the statistics books because it does not agree with Apple supremacist doctrine is just rubbish. In 18 months the difference between the phones is going to be huge. But you can see where the trend is going. BTW I dont have an android or apple phone. I just use my phone for calls, sms's and waking me up in the morning. I have a netbook for when I am in the move (so I can type) and a computer for the real stuff.
I am not denying the combined number of Android smartphones and tablets unit sales is much larger than just iPhones. I am just pointing out that it doesn't matter.
Firstly, I'm highlighting that total Android market share is far from as overwhelming as Android boosters like you try to make out.
Your link to that Huffington Post article only proves my point that Android enthusiasts always compare operating systems and app platforms rather than individual phone manufacturers but refuse to count half of Apple's iOS app platform.
Huffington yet again reports Comscore's figures which counts all Android smartphones and tablets (including the Dell Streak and Galaxy tab because they include cell phone hardware) and compares them with just the iPhone. This data is useless if you are comparing platforms and ecosystems unless you include the iPod touch and the iPad which effectively double's Apple's quarterly unit sales figures and vastly increases the installed base of iOS devices.
I am also not denying that Android grew amazingly fast in 2010 with 67 million Android devices sold. But I'd also like to point out that with healthy sales of the iPod touch and spectacular sales of the iPad, approximately 82 million iOS devices (40 million iPhones, 17 million iPads and approx 25 million iPod touches) were sold in that same time frame. So the iOS installed base has actually grown more than Android over the last 12 months.
Secondly, it is indeed possible that Android will eventually have a greater installed base than iOS, but just as Symbian (and Java ME) have demonstrated, having the largest market share is absolutely useless unless it results in a rich software, peripheral and hardware ecosystem which will only happen if developers and manufacturers actually make decent revenue and if content providers have a secure system to deliver valuable content (see MLB and Netflix and the hassles they have with Android fragmentation and insecurity).
Android is frighteningly similar to Symbian in low returns to developers with only $102 million in developer profits vs iOS dev revenue of $1.7 billion in 2010.
Free apps supported by advertising is no consolation either as iOS captured 71% of all downloads of free and paid apps last year while Android only managed 24% of all downloads, not to mention iOS users being worth up to twice as much as Android users to advertisers. (See details in my earlier post)
Thanks to a standard dock connector and standard form factors, it is also iOS that continues to have the vast majority of third party hardware peripherals, cases, hifi systems, car integration, GPS amplifier docks, home automation integration etc etc.
Does this help you understand this whole-platform/ecosystem perspective?
-Mart
^_^